ABSTRACT
The analysis of discourse has become a substantial contribution to the soci ology of knowledge, with studies spread broadly across many areas, and per haps it is partly because o f this methodological shift in approach that it has been easier to see the programme for the content o f the sociology of knowledge as being concerned with ‘culture’ generally. What Knorr-Cetina referred to as the ‘linguistic turn’ in sociology of science derives from twentieth-century develop ments in analytic philosophy majorly influenced by Wittgenstein, whose notion of ‘language gam es’ was mentioned earlier. Disagreement about the extent to which linguistic analysis may be applied to knowledge in general is broad, and one can consider writings from, say, Gellner’s Words and Things (1968) through to the wide range o f reactions to Sokal’s hoax1 (1996). M y starting point here is from more work in the sociology of science.
