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

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.