Discourse: A map in constant redrawing

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss how the notion of discourse has become an entry point to the study of language in society in our own research, anchored in different geographical and sociopolitical spaces (Europe and South America), and approaching distinct sociolinguistic phenomena in multilingual societies (language policy, job interviews, and doctor–patient communication). We aim to show how Monica Heller’s work influenced our scholarship and helped us reshape our approaches or even part ways with our previous engagements with different forms of discourse analysis. Adopting a self-reflexive and auto-ethnographic stance that embraces our own geographical and epistemological standpoints as well as academic trajectories, we ground the discussion about how the concept of discourse emerged and was developed in the broad field of discourse analysis in empirical and methodological examples from our own research.