Critical Realism

This chapter chronicles a shift from the author’s earlier work on language identity, which was guided by post-structuralist thinking, to his more recent research informed by Marxist political economy, which has been guided by a version of critical realism based on Roy Bhaskar’s early, foundational publications. The chapter then examines how language and semiosis, key constructs in the author’s research, fit into Bhaskar’s three domains of reality – the real, the actual and the empirical – before moving to a language- and semiosis-based analysis of an excerpt from a podcast by the American, far-right social media figure, Nick Fuentes, the day after the 2024 presidential elections in the United States. This part of the chapter begins with a framing of Fuentes’s discourse as misogynist in nature. This is followed by a discussion of the excerpt as a communicative event, which leads into an explanation of how and why Fuentes says what he says in terms of deeper-level structuring mechanisms, focusing in particular on patriarchy and misogyny. The chapter ends with a brief conclusion which takes stock of all that has preceded it.