Determination and agency in the work of Gunther Kress

Abstract

In this paper I show how Gunther Kress, throughout his work, struggled with the contradictory poles of intellectual attraction that lead many other thinkers to firmly anchor themselves to fixed positions and safeguard themselves from doubt. I will focus on two issues, the tension between social determination and individual agency, and the tension between ‘critique’ and ‘design’. In his early work, Kress spoke of the individual as socially determined and of linguistic competence as a product of the social structure. Later he began to emphasize individual agency (and the agency of ‘communities’) rather than the power of ideologies and institutions. But the tension between the two continued to be felt throughout his work. Secondly, though Kress was one of the originators of critical discourse analysis, he later distanced himself from it, arguing that critique looks backwards and focuses on power and convention, while design looks forward and focuses on empowerment and innovation. But here too, the issue was never finally settled, and Kress recognized that critique and design are interdependent. Finally, I will describe Kress’s ‘exploratory’ approach to semiotics in which an open attitude to data, dialogue, and the interdependence of text analysis and theory-formation play a fundamental role.