Applied Discourse Research

This working group aims at providing linguists and social scientists with a platform for exchange, networking and collaboration to address the challenges and requirements of Applied Discourse Research. Its goals are facilitating mutual learning processes between academic research and problem solution in professional practice (transdisciplinarity) as well as enabling perspectives of action (transformativity).

Applied Discourse Research includes research projects, research collaborations, research consortia etc. that support both practitioners in dealing with practical tasks and problems as well as the functioning of public discourses as a prerequisite for tackling social tasks (e.g. energy transition). Hence, Applied Discourse Research complements and supports commissioned research and scientific services by solving basic questions of theory construction and methodology, by generating exemplary case studies and much more.

Issues that may be addressed by this working group:

How can problem formulations of practitioners be translated into research questions that can be tackled by discourse research?

How can scientific and practical expertise be used simultaneously to solve discursively pre-structured problems of action and decision-making in society?

What areas of tension arise in view of different needs, interests and system logics of science, professional practice or the mediated public?

What perspectives of action are enabled by transdisciplinary discourse analysis?

How are transdisciplinary research projects organised and carried out?

How can Applied Discourse Research contribute to democratic dialog and social change? What challenges does Applied Discourse Research face in this context?

What could be the implications for Applied Discourse Research of openly available discourse data and joint research with practitioners?

How are research results from discourse analysis about solutions to socially relevant problems effectively conveyed to practice partners? What opportunities or risks may arise from visualising discursive patterns for the purpose of knowledge transfer between research and practice? What other forms of knowledge transfer and knowledge transformation could there be, and how can they be tested?