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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

196341

New historicism and discourse analysis

Oliver Scheiding

pp. 204-208

Abstract

New historicism and discourse analysis are cross-disciplinary practices of critical inquiry that study literary texts and their socio-cultural functions. Both explain the circulation and production of meaning in specific historical moments, and share a micro-analytic mode of interpretation. They distrust holistic and monological explanations applied by historicism and intellectual history. New historicism and discourse analysis stress the reciprocity and the mutual constitution of the linguistic and the social: "On the one hand, the social is understood to be discursively constructed; and on the other, language-use is understood to be always and necessarily dialogical, to be socially and materially determined and constrained" (Montrose 15). New historicism and discourse analysis oppose the transparency of linguistic signs (cf. entry II.4) and deny the assumption of an underlying truth in texts of the past. Their interpretative procedures start from a position within history, society, institutions, politics, class, and gender conditions. They reinforce text analysis that investigates "both the social presence to the world of the literary text and the social presence of the world in the literary text" (Greenblatt, Renaissance 5).

Publication details

Published in:

Middeke Martin, Müller Timo, Wald Christina, Zapf Hubert (2012) English and American studies: theory and practice. Stuttgart, Metzler.

Pages: 204-208

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-476-00406-2_9

Full citation:

Scheiding Oliver (2012) „New historicism and discourse analysis“, In: M. Middeke, T. Müller, C. Wald & H. Zapf (eds.), English and American studies, Stuttgart, Metzler, 204–208.