Interdiscursivity: Conventions, Gaps, and Renegades

Abstract

This review argues for renewed attention to interdiscursivity—processes through which linguistic or other semiotic elements taken from one context are integrated into another, forging links among texts, contexts, and people. We examine historical and institutional structures that guide processes of interdiscursivity to focus on three interconnected interdiscursive processes. First, conventional interdiscursivity (re)produces power structures, such that people deem certain interdiscursive connections as appropriate, proper, or otherwise normalized. Next, attention to interdiscursive gaps—socially structured spaces of silence and elision—reveals complex, power-laden logics of selection and erasure underpinning the (re)production of authoritative interdiscursive configurations. Finally, renegade interdiscursivity is how people refuse conventional links and forge novel connections with the marginalized, silenced, and left out. Throughout, we conceptualize material linguistic forms as evidence and manifestations of power and authority to show that attending to and remaking interdiscursive patterns can be a way to contest and remake structures of power and authority.

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