1. Language is performative and action-orientated.
2. Accounts are constructed to achieve particular social goals rather than representing facts.

Comparison of metaphors of language

1. Realist discourse: language is the mirror of nature. In realist discourse, where language is the mirror of nature, categorization is understood as a rather banal naming process; the right word is assigned to the thing that has the appropriate properties."
2. Wittengenstein: Conversation as a game: "In a conversation: one person throws a ball; the other does not know whether he is supposed to throw it back, or throw it to a third person, or leave it on the ground, or pick it up and put it in his pocket, etc." from Culture and Value (Hoenisch)
3. Potter: discourse as construction site

Discourse, rhetoric and social construction: key questions

1. "How are descriptions produced so that they will be treated as factual?" (Potter Representing reality)
2. "How are these factual descriptions put together in ways that allow them to perform particular actions?" (Potter Representing reality)

Discourse, power and ideology

Theoretical framework of Michel Foucault

Discourse analysis in the broader context of social analysis and social changes (Fairclough)

Discourse Analysis and the study of political and ideological change

Chronology

Discourse analysis as site of resistance to social inequalities

1. Process: uncovering, unveiling and describing the strategies for effective communication vs exploitative, manipulative discourse.
2. Heighten awareness of language of flexibility as detrimental to social justice issues.
3. Make strategies available in accessible forms (plain language, oral communications, etc) to general public (ordinary people) Smith
4. Counteract and prevent misuse of discourse by those politicians, demagogues, bureaucrats, profiteers, and advertisers who coopt discourse for their own gains.
5. Teaching people to argue (Fairclough)