Review Article: The Things We Do with Words – Contemporary Approaches to the Analysis of Ideology

Abstract

“The making of society is the finding of common meanings and directions.” (Raymond Williams)

“Here I believe one’s point of reference should not be to the great model of language (langue) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power, not relations of meaning.” (Michel Foucault)

It is frequently asserted that we live in a post-metaphysical world, a world devoid of intrinsic meaning. This view of the world as disenchanted, as expressed in the works of Weber, has been deepened and extended over the past century.