Discourse as an Interdisciplinary Concept and its Psychological Dimensions

Abstract

«Discourse» is analyzed in the article as an important interdisciplinary category of the postnonclassical modern science and as a systemic formative concept of the discursive psychology. The etymology of discourse, having its derivation roots and traditions in Latin and later in the French language environment, is considered. Basic theoretical and methodological contexts of interpretation (linguistic, sociological and semiotic) are outlined. «The first and the second waves of the linguistic turn» in the humanities and social sciences, as well as the «discursive turn» («the second cognitive revolution»), being the background for active imple­mentation of «discourse» in science, are mentioned in the article. Two main discursive approaches in foreign psycholinguistics, i.e. «ethnomethological-inspired approach» (J. Potter, D. Edwards, M. Wetherell) and «Foucault theory» approach (J. Parker); well-known Ukrainian scientific institutes, examining various types of genres and discourses – Volyn institute for psycholinguistics (L. Zasyekina, S. Zasyekin) and Kyiv institute for psychological hermeneutics (N. Chepeleva, M. Smulson, etc.) are singled out. Despite some significant achievements and revitalization in using the term «discourse» by Ukrainian psychologists during recent years, there is still some tendency to refer within appropriate interpretation to the definition of «discourse» in related branches of knowledge. It is accented that the psychological dimensions of the same notion are still not completely revealed. The peculiarities of the aforementioned category, when compared to «intercourse», «communication», «speech», are outlined. This provides not only a detailed analysis of semantic or stylistic features of a particular message, but also «who said something to whom, how and for what purpose» with the help of both speech and extralinguistic means. Studying the psychological aspects of different types and genres of socially important discourses, especially the religious discourse, being the essential component of anthropomorphic space of a person in society, is revealed as the prospects for further research.