Legitimation in Discourse and Communication

The article sets out a framework for analyzing the way discourses construct legitimation for social practices in public communication as well as everyday interaction. Four key categories are recognized: (a) authorization, legitimation by reference to the authority of tradition, custom and law, and of persons in whom institutional authority is vested, (2) moral evaluation, legitimation by reference to discourses of value, (3) rationalization, legitimation by reference to the goals and uses of institutionalized social action and to the social knowledges that endow them with cognitive validity, and (4) mythopoesis, legitimation conveyed through narratives whose outcomes reward legitimate actions and punish non-legitimate actions