Discourse analysis and related fields in Mexico, with some notes on Latin-America: A sketch (1999-2009)

Authors

  • Teresa Carbó Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v4i2.469

Keywords:

inequality, power, social semiotics, ethnicity, gender, law, politics of language, culture

Abstract

This article presents a panorama of the practices of discourse analysis evidenced in publications in Mexico during the past decade (1999-2009). It is only an outline, an informal sketch of bibliographic instantiations of discourse analysis. The term ‘discourse analysis’ is employed here in a broad sense, as an ensemble of topics of semiotic interest as well as ways of observing them (from points of view that are anthropological and social, or political, or other). The methodologies used and topics addressed in the publications here reviewed are varied: from a core including verbal discourse analyses, with themes of gender or ethnicity, to analyses of sociolinguistic situations with regard to questions of discrimination, racism, citizen rights and more. This bibliographic review is framed by a reflection (just briefly touched on) about the character of the articles in this special issue when read from Latin America: a process of apprehension whose body, space and time do not coincide with those of the authors and editors. The review is also sustained and infused by an interest in issues of power and power asymmetry, both as experience and as research topic. In that light, some observations are made about the manifest dominance of English in a global empire, the commercial value of some social and linguistic groups and the threatened condition of others.

Author Biography

  • Teresa Carbó, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS).
    Teresa Carbó is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. She has worked extensively in political discourse analysis (presidential and parliamentary), with special emphasis on the syntactic form of verbal discursive products within a framework of historical interpretations. She is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, a founding associate of ALED (Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios del Discurso), Latin American Association of Discourse Studies, and a member of IPRA's Consultation Board. Her present research interests lie in visual discourse, and she is working on political press photographs. She has recently edited a monographic issue of Estudios de Lingüística Aplicada (ELA 46) entitled Corpora. Conceptos y Métodos en Análisis de Discurso (CELE, 2007).

Published

2011-01-16

How to Cite

Carbó, T. (2011). Discourse analysis and related fields in Mexico, with some notes on Latin-America: A sketch (1999-2009). Sociolinguistic Studies, 4(2), 469-504. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v4i2.469