The "boomerang" effect of the radicalism in discourse analysis

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)
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