The "boomerang" effect of the radicalism in discourse analysis

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→ Is a social representation purely linguistic? Can the study of social representations be reduced to an analysis of linguistic data (both oral and textual) or should it be extended to other representational channels and referential codes (e.g. visual-figurative, ritualisticbehavioural, etc.)? → If, by definition, a Social Representation lies at the interface between the “iconic” and the “symbolic”, is it possible to study both aspects without destroying one in order to study the other? And finally, what is the relation between communication, social representations and the media? → How are communication, social representations and the media articulated, in relation for example to a paradigm that claims that “the medium is the message”? → Are media per se simply neutral cultural or technological artefacts? Or do they imply specific systems for shaping the communication-representations binonium depending on their features (degree of interactive nature, degree of virtuality, global-local cultural scenario, etc.)? → Are the “new” media crucial in changing the relationship between communication, social representations and the media? Do the new media precede the message? According to SRT we need to work out the inter-relationships between representations, communication and the media if we are to deal with more than isolated cognition. “The question is not to wonder whether one acts upon the other, but what is acting upon one and the other. The famous circularity or mutual selection existing between media and their audiences offers no other sense: people do not chose media that choose them, but the relation between them comes from determinations which are deeper and appear also in other fields.” (Rouquette, 1996, p.226) By Jodelet’s definition, Social Representations are: “forms of social thinking used to communicate, understand and master the social, material, and intellectual environment. As such, they are analysed as products and processes of mental activity that are socially marked. This social marking refers to conditions and contexts where representations emerge, to communication by which they circulate, and to the functions they serve. This form of knowledge is constructed in the course of social interaction and communication. It bears the mark of the subjectís social insertion. Collectively shared, it contributes to the construction of a vision or version of reality that is common and specific to a social or cultural entity. This form of knowledge has practical aims and social functions. It operates as a system of interpretation of reality, serving as a guideline in our relation to the surrounding world. Thus it orients and organises our behaviour and communication.” (Jodelet, 1993, p.184) The mutual interdependence of social representation and communication emerges from this comprehensive definition which recognises the fundamental role of communication in the genesis, transmission and circulation of social representations. “Any consideration of social representations also means a consideration of communication; social representations originate in communication, they are manifested in it and they influence it.” (Sommer, 1998, p. 186) If, on the other hand, we adopt a definition of communication as something more than “transmitting information” from a source to a receiver, which includes an exchange of meanings, it becomes “a process of symbolic interaction, in which the possibility of 26
transferring messages occurs on the basis of signs, according to culturally and socially shared rules, i.e. according to codes conventionally defined on the basis of the use or criteria previously selected” (Crespi, 1996, p. 209). In this light both the linear-reflecting (C ⇒ S.R.; C ⇐ S.R.) and tautological models (C ≡ S.R.) of communication are epistemologically incompatible with the theory of Social Representations, which calls for a circular-dialogical model of communicationrepresentation (C ⇔ S.R.) – as we have tried to show elsewhere on the basis of an empirical investigation (de Rosa, in press c). If the SRT stress the importance of adopting a “circular-dialogic model” based on the mutuality of the relation between communication and social representation, in the RDA all these questions are simply nonsense. The RDA adopts, at the end, a “monological model” centred on the discourse and a “tautological model” where the power of the discourse builts the reality and the subject itself, with the consequence of destroying the thinking subject as well, by reducing it to an unstable and contextually determined “position in discourse” (Burr, 1995; Jovchelovitch, 1996). Focusing attention on the context and performative role of the language, the RDA refutes that which it defines 'the metaphor of communication'. It seems quite a paradox that this radicalism occurs at the time also some of the cognitive theorists, traditionally limited by an individualistic perspective which focuses on processes (the “how” and “why” of knowledge), acknowledge that the S.R.T. adopts a more genuine social perspective grounded on the social interactionism, which links social knowledge to communication. This latter approach links processes to (i) contents, (ii) contexts, (iii) communicative media and (iv) social functions (the “what” representation, “of what”, “of whom”, “by whom”, “with whom”, “where”, “when” and “for what purpose”). If , according to the cognitive theorists, the preferred metaphors for the subject was a “naive scientist” or a “cognitive miser”; according to the representational theorists it was a “social actor” who constructs and re-presents his/her knowledge (and thus his/her social identity) during the exchanges of everyday life through multiple systems, channels and contexts of communication (inter-individual, institutional and mass-media). Social Representations order the material and social world - historically and symbolically significant - and provide individuals with a code for communicating with other individuals and groups. Several researchers within the mainstream of social cognition have recognised the individualistic, atomistic and de-contextualised approach to the study of social knowledge as nothing more than “cognitive psychology applied to social objects”. In 1983 Forgas (1983, p. 131) argued that “... recent social cognition turned out to be even more individualistic than its predecessors”. After ten years in 1993 still others complain that: “The rise of blackboard models and connectionist theories (Rummerlhart et al 1986) has provided new and enriching metaphors, such as the “society of mind” (Minsky, 1986), but the focus has remained on the individual as a solitary and, for the most part, purely intellective being.” (Levine, Resnick and Higgins, 1993, p.586) 27
Page 1 and 2: EAESP SMALL GROUP MEETING Theory an
Page 3 and 4: A scientific dialogue or monologue?
Page 5 and 6: potential for contributing to a soc
Page 7 and 8: identified with the discursive prac
Page 9 and 10: The misunderstanding of the Moscovi
Page 11 and 12: “monologue”, nor “dialogue st
Page 13 and 14: The auto-confutation of radical rel
Page 15 and 16: Sherrard, 1991; Marks, 1993, Figuer
Page 17 and 18: It is undeniable that the articulat
Page 19 and 20: The subject's role in a radical "co
Page 21 and 22: of any structure intra-individual h
Page 23 and 24: The "totalising" and "reifying" rol
Page 25: No Communication without Representa
Page 29 and 30: The refusal of the communication co
Page 31 and 32: Pol-lu-tion, s. Effect of defilemen
Page 33 and 34: "Monological" versus "dialogical" p
Page 35 and 36: Although the role of the action and
Page 37 and 38: RDA, and even more the conversation
Page 39 and 40: And even before in Arguing and Thin
Page 41 and 42: Conclusion 41
Page 43 and 44: Augoustionos, M. , Innes, J.M. (199
Page 45 and 46: Jodelet, D. (1991) “L’idéologi
Page 47: Wagner, W. (1998) Social representa

The "boomerang" effect of the radicalism in discourse analysis

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