Humanities & Social Sciences
May 2022
Discourse and Power
Introduction to critical narrative theory
by Peter V. Zima
The book is an introduction into discourse analysis and an application of the concept of discourse to the exercise of power. In part one, the concept is demarcated vis à vis related notions such as “text” and “narrative”. At the same time, discourse is considered as an instrument of domination. In part two, sociology of the text as a reformulation of structural semiotics (Greimas) is applied to psychiatric, legal, political and scientific discourses as instruments of power.
