Lynch1990
| Lynch1990 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Lynch1990 |
| Author(s) | Michael Lynch, David Bogen |
| Title | Social critique and the logic of description: A response to McHoul |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Research Methods, Ethnomethodology |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 1990 |
| Language | |
| City | |
| Month | |
| Journal | Journal of Pragmatics |
| Volume | 14 |
| Number | 3 |
| Pages | 505–521 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1016/0378-2166(90)90109-Q |
| ISBN | |
| Organization | |
| Institution | |
| School | |
| Type | |
| Edition | |
| Series | |
| Howpublished | |
| Book title | |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
This paper considers a recent proposal by Alec McHoul that ‘Wittgenstein-inspired ethnomethodology’ might be put to use in the service of critical studies of discourse. Although agreeing substantially with ethno,ethodological and conversation analytic approaches to discourse and practical reasoning, McHoul argues against their descriptivist aims. Drawing upon Foucault, he claims that discourses are inseparable from historically-specific power relations, and hence, that discursive transactions between differently situated agents are not simply locales where generic conversational moves are enacted, but rather, that they are sites of discursive struggle and ‘conceptual contestation’. McHoul advocates a mode of analysis that identifies conversational strategies that would enable subordinated subjects to transgress against the operations of disciplinary power.
While we acknowledge the appeal of his critical approach, we are not convinced by his argument. Against McHoul, we point out that Wittgenstein's ‘descriptivism’ and Garfinkel's policy of ‘ethnomethodological indifference’ are not to be confused with programs of ‘value-free’ analysis. To the contrary, ethnomethodology disavows transcendental analysis, and in so doing, it refuses to assume the epistemic posture that fosters claims of ‘value freedom’. We also question the emancipatory potential of McHoul's proposal to build a ‘counter-archive’ of conversationally transgressive moves. Since discourse is articulated in the midst of heterogeneous activities, and these activities give rise to the discursive practices that eleborate them, McHoul's call to build an inventory of conversational strategems misleadingly implies that specific ‘moves’ in conversation can displace established deployments of bodies, agents, and institutions.
Notes
