Theory of discourse and archaeological paradigms

Abstract

A theoretical survey is presented of the current theory and methodology of discourse analysis, focusing on the political and scientific discourses. The present paper is explicitly ascribed to Ernesto Laclau’s and the Essex school’s poststructuralist ‘theory of discourse’. After a short introduction to the recent theoretical positions in Spanish archaeology, a quantitative ‘content analysis’ is made of four theoretical papers written in Spanish. The application of the Lacanian ‘nodal point’ (point de capiton) analysis to the texts shows that the more empiricist paradigms (processual and Marxist) need their signifiers to be more strongly fixed (through the nodal points ‘economy’ and ‘production’) than the structuralist and post-processual discourses, which allow for a greater thematic dispersion and flotation of meanings.