Linguistics decentered identity by showing subjects are positioned in pre-existing discourse

Evidence

The difference is that, whereas culturalism would correct the hyper-structuralism of earlier models by restoring the unified subject (collective or individual) of consciousness at the center of “the Structure,” discourse theory, by way of the Freudian concepts of the unconscious and the Lacanian concepts of how subjects are constituted in language (through the entry into the Symbolic and the Law of Culture), restores the decentered subject, the contradictory subject, as a set of positions in language and knowledge, from which culture can appear to be enunciated. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 204 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Discourse produces knowledge that shapes perceptions and enacts power — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 687; A discourse both enables and constrains how a topic can be constructed; Discourse constructs subject positions that speakers must occupy regardless of belief (+6 more)

Related

• Discourse theory restores a decentered subject while culturalism restores a unified consciousness (similarity 0.94)
• Subjects are constituted by unconscious cultural categories rather than their authors (similarity 0.86)
• Becoming a subject requires prior subjection to discourse (similarity 0.86)
• Structuralism decentered individual agency that culturalism treated as authentic (similarity 0.85)
• Culture is inherently decentered and resists direct linkage to other structures (similarity 0.84)
• Culturalism’s totality reduces to the simple unity of praxis with homologous contradictions. (similarity 0.84)
• The discursive turn requires reintroducing the subject as non-unitary and internally contradictory (similarity 0.83)
• Discourse constructs subject positions that speakers must occupy regardless of belief (similarity 0.83)
• The discursive perspective reintroduces non-unitary subjectivity that structuralism had abolished (similarity 0.82)
• Discourse theory merely relocates contradiction from structure to the unconscious. (similarity 0.81)
• Identity emerges in discourse rather than preceding it (similarity 0.80)
• Identity theories lag behind the linguistic research that has made identity central. (similarity 0.80)
• Discourse constrains what can be thought about the Other (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Discourse theory restores a decentered subject while culturalism restores a unified consciousness #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 204