Conference Essay: Interiors and Exteriors in Discourse Analysis and the Sociology of Science

Abstract

The following report summarizes the discussions and a number of the central substantive points put forward by the participants of the Franco-German workshop—held in Paris during the summer of 2005—on recent developments and future perspectives of discourse related research in France and Germany. Discourse analysis in France can be traced back to structuralist theorizing as it has developed inside linguistics since SAUSSURE and further elaborated by theorists such as FOUCAULT, DERRIDA, ALTHUSSER and LACAN. Currently, the field is characterized by well established linguistic research networks and methodologies. Discourse analysis in Germany, in contrast, gained academic status only in the 1990s, and this was the case mainly in social science disciplines. Against this background, the workshop not only shed light on the respective underlying assumptions of German qualitative social science and the "French School" of discourse analysis, it also theoretically located and methodologically systematized the existed "pool of tools." The workshop thereby helped to clarify the contours of the field of discourse analysis from the perspectives of the respective target groups on both sides of the Rhine. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0701222