A STRATEGIC-RELATIONAL ACCOUNT OF LANGUAGE USE, DISCOURSE, AND REASON

Abstract

Recent work in the strategic-relational approach to explaining the relationship between structure and agency emphasises the significance of ideas, discourses, and the semiotic realm of symbols. However, this work does not yet offer an explanation of how discourses relate to symbols – how texts take on meaning. This article shows why this is needed. It then provides such an account of language use and learning in explicitly strategic-relational terms. That account both grounds strategic-relational concepts of discourse, and helps define them more clearly. While complementing and strengthening such notions, it also provides an insight into the way particular discourses interrelate. In particular, the model presented here suggests the importance of the constructive and critical potential of reason, in enlarging the scope for critical syntheses across discourses, and guarding against hegemony.

KEYWORDS:

• language
• discourse
• reason
• strategic-relational
• deliberation
• semiosis

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the members of the University of Birmingham Political Sociology group for discussions that informed the genesis of this paper and Will Leggett, Stephen Bates and Dave Marsh for their comments on an early version. This paper was presented in the seminar series of the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University on 14 August 2012, while the author was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance there. Thanks to participants for their comments and the Centre and especially John Dryzek for their support. Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful consideration and helpful advice.

Additional information

Andrew Knops lectures in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is an Associate of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, Australia. He has published widely on language, reasoning, democracy, and politics including in Political Theory, The Journal of Political Philosophy, and The Journal of Theoretical Politics.