Discourse and facts
As we know from Working with Texts (238, 291–2), the term ‘discourse’ refers to the system of rules for language use that evolve in a community, whether by conscious choice or through cultural and other forces. ‘Discourse’ also refers to the patterns of language that can be identified as bound to a particular community and context. We can talk of ‘scientific discourse’ as the general language of science, the patterns of rule-governed language used among scientists.
All language is rule-governed. That is, when we speak or write, we must follow rules guiding pronunciation, word order and idiom as well as more specialized rules ...
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