On discourse and its analysis: reflections about limits and possibilities in Administration Science

Abstract

Considering that both enterprise discourse and scientific discourse (dominant paradigm) constitutes, nowadays, a direct vehicle of manifestation/legitimacy of the current ideology, either to convince, impose, or establish agreements on the individual, in this paper we discuss the characteristics, uses, and possibilities of discourse analysis as a theoretical and methodological proposal that, besides uncovering the belief in a single direction, a single truth, provides resources that allow both promoting theories and practices distant from the hegemonic model and, especially, (re)construct meanings and practices, in all aspects of the human life involved, which are, in a certain way, free from pressures and the current discourse and ideology. To implement this proposal, first, we introduce the general notions of discourse and discourse analysis, then, we discuss the characteristics of two discourse analysis schools, the French school and the English school – whose evolution culminated in the critical discourse analysis –, and, finally, we bring forth some considerations about the possibilities of use and the way how this proposal may help breaking with some research practices traditionally elitist and exclusionary within Administration Science.