Centre for Discourse Studies

Welcome to the home page of the former Centre for Discourse Studies. The Centre was founded in March 2002 and was superseded in 2011 by the Centre for Discourses in Transition.

Who are we?

The Centre for Discourse Studies was based in the Department of Languages, Culture & Aesthetics in the Faculty of Humanities and supports locally the interdisciplinary research of scholars and students of discourse studies.

The broad umbrella term 'discourse studies' includes many approaches to the study of discourse and discursive phenomena. Although there are many traditions originating in different disciplinary as well as national and regional contexts, these approaches are increasingly interdisciplinary, crossing national boundaries. Applied linguists, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, linguistic anthropologists, communication scholars, and feminists, for example, all find that the concept of discourse and the predominantly qualitative methodologies that have been developed to investigate discourse are powerful tools. They have entered into a productive dialogue in order to investigate phenomena in new ways that encourage interdisciplinarity.

One fundamental assumption is that language is constitutive of social life. Many approaches have an abiding critical concern with issues of power, inequality and ideology as they are naturalised, negotiated and resisted in discursive practices. Thus, the study of discourse is a crucial element of a democratic society: it can stimulate a critical awareness of language use in a variety of contexts.

Topics of interest to the members of the Centre for Discourse Studies include: advertising and promotional literature, mass media discourse, racism and (hetero)sexism, intercultural discourse, environmental discourse, digital discourse and the Internet, discourses of immigration and assimilation, language and neo-liberalism, discourse in professional or institutional settings, political discourse, biotechnology discourse, literary discourse.

Goals

	To develop a local network of scholars working in the broad field of discourse studies.
	To enhance and promote cooperation between researchers and students across the Humanities Faculty who are interested in discourse studies.
	To search for funding, internal and external, to finance research projects and seminars in the field of discourse studies.
	To support basic research of a high standard in the interdisciplinary study of discourse, both theoretically and empirically.
	To provide a support network for Masters and PhD students working in the field of discourse studies.
	To plan 'tailor-made' seminars and workshops for Master and PhD students on theory, methodology and practical research.
	To hold monthly or bi-weekly meetings of the research group to present scholarly work in progress, to discuss readings, to discuss with visiting scholars, and to participate in 'data sessions'.
	To cooperate with other Danish, Nordic and international networks, centres and other research forums for discourse studies.