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Description:
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Meaning, Discourse and Society investigates the construction of reality
within discourse. When people talk about things such as language, the mind,
globalisation or weeds, they are less discussing the outside world than
objects they have created collaboratively by talking about them. Wolfgang
Teubert shows that meaning cannot be found in mental concepts or neural
activity, as implied by the cognitive sciences. He argues instead that
meaning is negotiated and knowledge is created by symbolic interaction,
thus taking language as a social, rather than a mental, phenomenon.
Discourses, Teubert contends, can be viewed as collective minds, enabling
the members of discourse communities to make sense of themselves and of the
world around them. By taking an active stance in constructing the reality
they share, people thus can take part in moulding the world in accordance
with their perceived needs.
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