Michel Foucault, Social Practice, Education And Speech

Michel Foucault, Social Practice, Education and Speech

Introduction

The theory of social action, from sociology, tries to understand collective human action and specifically the ways in which it occurs, that is, it is not concerned about the things that humans do, but about the way in which They do anything.

Carlos Allones (2005) conceives Simmel, Weber, Durkheim and Mead as four greats of social action theories, whose common interest was to define the structure of social action. George Simmel (1965) conceived that sociology should abstract the general forms or ways of human interaction, since these were the distinctive object of study of sociology. Max Weber (1922), who takes up Simmel’s theory, understood that the understandable of human action is possible by the intentionality of the actors to make it a means or an end. He conceives social action as the elementary form of sociability that allows an individual to relate and be related to others. The being-in-society and being accepted by society have constantly renewed and verified reference point, the adaptation of individual actions with the invisible but real prescriptions of the group. For his part, Durkheim (1973) claimed that "all human associations are formed taking into account particular ends" (Allones, P. 63)

All these positions are complementary in the understanding of a theory of social action, and share the need to understand the intervention of the word in the construction of collective human action, and therefore the need to interrogate a theory of language that helps To answer social questions:

This is actually the basic conclusion to which Herbert Mead’s social behavior had reached: that words are not served, they have never served anything other than showing the adult human animal what the group (which stars in common action in the one who is participating) waiting for him. Therefore, to the extent that they are used unconsciously, automatically, always point out the things that the group imposes collectively (and not all others). (Allons, P. 61)

A social perspective of language responds to this need since language is seen as a social practice, that is, as an action that fulfills purposes that respond to social interests, so that they allow social interaction.

Another important figure whose ideas are close to what has been said, is Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, interested in language, because he speaks to us in the order of discourse, published in 1970, about how action and speech keep a close relationship. The discourse beyond being a word enunciated is action and ideology that occurs in human interaction, where knowledge, knowledge acts in a certain way and is built and determined by certain groups.

This relationship that keeps action and discourse inspires this essay, which aims Social practice of discourse. To do this, first it is exposed what is understood by social practice from the social perspectives of the speech and from the view of Foucault. Subsequently, it develops, how the discourse is found within education and what possibilities of searching for veiled ideologies are based on what the critical studies of speech and Michael Foucaulta point. And finally, it reflects on the actions that can be taken from the teaching action to doubt, investigate and discover what is behind the speeches.

Social practice and speech

Both the theory of action and the social perspective of language conceive that there is no possible social action free of conditioning. In that sense, from the social perspective of language it is understood that the practice of a community will determine the specific ways of using language and in that sense that practice will be concretized in the discourses that the community produces. Gee (2005), for example, recognizes that language cannot be understood outside speeches, since these will determine the forms of interaction of a community in such a way that an adequate study of the relationships between discourse and society, such as Meersohn (2005) affirms, it must assume that “the speech is located in society as a form of social practice or interaction of a social group” (P. 291) and therefore to understand social action, the study of this concrete forms must be carried out where the action of social groups is materialized.

For his part, Michel Foucault (1992) acknowledges that this location of discourse in society has a historical origin and explains it through what he calls as "" Speeches of speeches "whose mission is to keep or produce speeches, but for Make them circular in a closed space, distributing them nothing more than according to strict rules and without the holders being dispossessed of the distribution function.”(P. 24), where the requirements to be part of a certain community are determined and therefore “the rejection mechanisms that come into play when the subject who speaks has formulated one or several unassimilable statements […] Incumbers for these societies].”(Foucault, 1992, P.26)

With this, it is understood that language is a social construction since it responds to the different social actions that a certain group practices and that then responds to the different ways in the social interaction and this one, not being homogeneous, is understand that practices are diverse; there will be as many social practices as practical contexts and practical communities. In addition, it should be remembered that these are the historical result of the interactions accumulated by all members of the community. For his part, Gee (2005, 141) states that they are:

ways to exhibit (through words, actions, values ​​and beliefs) belonging to a certain social group or network, people who are associated with a common set of interests, goals and activities.”A speech, therefore, is composed of ways of speaking, listening, acting, interacting, believing, valuing and using tools in certain environments and at specific times, so that certain social identity is manifested

This is how we understand that a community of practice is a group of people who share purposes in a certain context, “interact with each other with some commitment and develop communicative routines and a repertoire of discursive genres with which he builds his identity” (Cassany , 2008, P. 44) These routines and genres is what gives identity to disciplines and in this context Foucault addresses disciplines stating that “discipline is a principle of control of discourse production. She sets her limits for the game of an identity that has the form of a permanent retdication of the rules.”(Foucault, 1992, P.22).

Some examples of these may be the existence of disciplinary genres to the extent that there is a diversity of disciplines, since it is understood that each community develops its own discursive practices, its particular rhetoric. In that sense, discursive genres can be understood as those relatively stable, routine and conventionalized forms of activities of a practice community to represent identities:

Each discipline recognizes true and false propositions; But he rejects, on the other side of his margins, every teratology of knowledge […] must meet complex and serious demands to be able to belong to the whole of a discipline; Before being able to be called true or false […] (Foucault, 1992, p.twenty)

At this point, the ritual that Michael Foucault speaks explains these conventional forms as ritualized forms, since “the ritual defines the qualification that individuals who speak […] define the gestures, behaviors, circumstances, and the entire set of signs that must accompany the speech ”(Foucault, 1992, p. 24) Giving identity to community members.

As is understood, these genres are appealed by each discipline from its rules and if not complied It is not, input, qualified to do so.”(P.23)

Speech, practice and education

The new studies of literacy focus on literacy as a "social practice" in which writing, reading and different forms of activity and social interaction, that is, a new look to understand reading and writing as social practices, where these are not merely mechanical or only cognitive processes, but are practices that occur within a context and in a certain use. Undoubtedly, this perspective should impact the ways in which teachers guide our pedagogical interventions for teaching literacy.

Given this, what is school doing, what speeches, ideologies are moving inside her, these questions that Gee suggests in the article the new studies on literacy. Sociocultural approaches (2008) seem to find a response in colonizing processes, that is, the school has unfortunate to live. And in that sense obey what the elite wants to read and write. This issue is also widely addressed by Michael Foucault by exposing that in education there is also a control mechanism that allows, but also prevents, because “every education system is a political way of maintaining or modifying the adaptation of speeches, with The knowledge and powers that imply ”(Foucault, 1992, p.27)

Given this, the invitation to think about the role of the school and as teachers is the great commitment to make students how the speeches work that, although it is true, many occasions marginalize, “as a violence is. that we do to things, in any case as a practice that we impose ”(Foucault, 1992, p.33), they can also be a means of liberation.

Critical discourse analysis (ACD) is a theoretical perspective that addresses language and significance processes. It is about theoretically connecting discourse with the study of social structure, as Teun Van Dijk (2002) states:

The critical analysis of discourse (ACD) presupposes those relationships between speech and society that I just summarized, but goes beyond a sociology or social psychology of discourse. In ACD the approach is on power relations, or rather about the abuse of power or domination between social groups. The ACD has the same roots as critical social psychology: a movement against methods, theories, analysis of decontextualized science of its social and political and political consequences and consequences. In ACD we are interested how social domination is (re) produces (p. 19)

But also within the ACD there are different perspectives. In this regard, Van Dijk (P. 20) states that Norman Fairclough is more interested in the global structures of power, as in globalization. Ruth Wodak adds a historical dimension, for example, in her work on anti -Semitism, institutions and gender. Luisa Martín Rojo in Madrid works on racism, gender and other topics in a Foucauldian perspective and distinguishes his by the integration of the sociocognitive dimension in the study of the reproduction of domination

Studying Foucault offers us possibilities to doubt what is behind the speech, what is your power, what makes us as we are and think how we think. Ask us how this discourse is ordered within institutions: family, school, religion.

As can be seen, the studies of the league from social practice, the critical studies of the discourse and the look of Foucault are not contradictory, the positions totally coincide by undertaking a search that is born of the doubt, of asking what is behind those speeches that they circulate socially and define ways of being and thinking.

This type of analysis has great importance and implications within national educational context, in principle because as teachers it allows us accompany the speeches. And, on the other hand, as teachers it is important Explain how such presuppositions affect discourse structures (Van Dijk, 1993 in Meersohn, 2005, p. 292) since Foucault (1992) states:

In every society the production of the speech is both controlled, selected and redistributed by a certain number of procedures that are to conjure the powers and dangers, dominate the random event and dodge its heavy and fearsome materiality. (p. 5)

In this sense, make students understand that the text is the materialization of discourse and that, through doubting and investigating, you can discover those hidden meanings that often end up being perverse ideologies hidden.

Finally, from a personal perspective, it is a commitment as teachers to find explanations and propose actions from our trenches called classrooms that lead to improving society generating agents of change, our students, providing them with a broader, critical and alert view of the speeches that They surround them.

conclusion

Through this essay, a relationship between the conceptions of social action and discourse could be established, reflecting and relating the position of Michael Foucault with the social gaze of discourse studies, thus understanding that discourse and practice They are inseparable, because not the speech does not consist only of "saying", but that involves all the actions of the communities, their conventions, their ideologies and interests:

Speech rituals, speeches societies, doctrinal groups and social adjustments […] some are linked to others and constitute species of large buildings that ensure the distribution of subjects that speak in different types of speeches and the adaptation of Speeches to certain categories of subjects. (Foucault, 1992, P.27).

In addition, there was talk of school, which many times, is a control mechanism and speeches, where a power group decides about what should be taught, how to teach; what must be learned and how to learn and finally, these approaches in the teaching work were reached. In this way, the objective of this essay is fulfilled, although other elements of Michael Foucault’s proposal are left, in the order of discourse, which leave the possibility to future reflections, essays and investigations.

Bibliographic references

• Allons, Carlos. (2005). Social Action Theory: Proposal for a method. Spain: University of Santiago de Compostela. Recovered from: https: // www.Redalyc.org/pdf/380/38040204.PDF
• Cassany, Daniel. (2008). Contemporary lawyer practices. Mexico: Ríos de Tinta
• Foucault, m. (1992). The order of discourse. Buenos Aires: Tusquets Editores.
• Gee, James Paul. (2005). The ideology in speeches, social linguistics and literacy (2a. ed., P. Manzano, trad.). Spain: Paideia Galiza Foundation.
• Meersohn, c. (2005). Introduction to Teun Van Dijk: discourse analysis. Chile: Moebio recovered from: https: // www.Moebio.Uchile.CL/24/MEERSOHN.HTML
• Van dijk, t. A. (2002) The critical analysis of discourse and social thinking. Digital Athenea. Recovered from: https: // atheneadigital.net/article/view/n1-van
• Weber, Max. (1964). Economy and society. FCE: Mexico. Recovered from: https: // sociologia1unpsjb.Files.WordPress.com/2008/03/Weber-Economia-Y-Society.PDF