Editing Discourse (section)

===Modernism===
[[Modernism|Modernist theorists]] focused on achieving progress and believed in natural and social laws that could be used universally to develop knowledge and, thus, a better understanding of society.<ref name=":1">Larrain, Jorge. 1994. ''Ideology and Cultural Identity: Modernity and the Third World Presence''. Cambridge: [[Polity Press]]. {{ISBN|9780745613154}}. Retrieved via [https://books.google.com/books?id=p3C1tAEACAAJ Google Books].</ref> Such theorists would be preoccupied with obtaining the "truth" and "reality", seeking to develop theories which contained certainty and predictability.<ref name="Best & Kellner, 1991">{{Cite book|author=Best|first1=Steven|title=The Postmodern Turn|last2=Kellner|first2=Douglas|publisher=[[The Guilford Press]]|year=1997|isbn=978-1-57230-221-1|location=New York City|author-link=Steven Best|author-link2=Douglas Kellner}}</ref> Modernist theorists therefore understood discourse to be functional.<ref name="Strega, 2005">Strega, Susan. 2005. "The View from the Poststructural Margins: Epistemology and Methodology Reconsidered." Pp. 199–235 in ''Research as Resistance'', edited by L. Brown, & S. Strega. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.</ref> Discourse and language transformations are ascribed to progress or the need to develop new or more "accurate" words to describe discoveries, understandings, or areas of interest.<ref name="Strega, 2005"/> In modernist theory, language and discourse are dissociated from power and ideology and instead conceptualized as "natural" products of common sense usage or progress.<ref name="Strega, 2005"/> [[Modernism]] further gave rise to the liberal discourses of rights, equality, freedom, and justice; however, this rhetoric masked substantive inequality and failed to account for differences, according to Regnier.<ref>Regnier, 2005</ref><!-- inexact reference -->