Towards a rearticulation of linguistic pragmatics and poststructuralist thought on identity, context and structure

This paper examines the ways in which the conceptual frameworks of poststructuralist authors such as Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe can be articulated with an approach to linguistic pragmatics as defined by Jef Verschueren. The concepts of ‘identity’, ‘context’ and ‘structure’ perform important functions in all of these theories and in a great number of analyses which emerge from them. However, despite this potential common ground for a systematic dialogue between both approaches, the number of studies which articulate both positions explicitly, is staggeringly low. This problem is even more salient in empirical ideology research. I aim to counter this situation by (1) a theoretical discussion of linguistic pragmatic and poststructuralist uses of ‘identity’, ‘context’ and ‘structure’, (2) a rearticulation of these concepts which sets the stage for (3) their usage in a Phd study on evolving political identifications of Moroccan minorities in the region of Antwerp, Belgium. The hypothesis that linguistic pragmatic and poststructuralist frameworks can be articulated into a coherent approach suited for empirical analysis, will be supported by illustrations derived from analyses which have been performed in this research context. The data consist of excerpts derived from 50 interviews with people of Moroccan descent which engage themselves publicly for a variety of civil society organisations, state apparatuses, and political parties in the Antwerp region. All of these interviews were held between October 2006 and July 2009.