Thread: But neither distinction is parsimonious

But neither distinction is parsimonious

Hello dear ladies and genteleman. I was wondering whether you could give me a hand with a sentence I found in a specific context, and which I am having problems to translate into Spanish. the word appears in the chapter four "The Politics of Text" of the book "Critical Applied Linguistics", by Alastair Pennycook (p. 89). Below there are both texts in English and Spanish, with the sentence in bold. I hope you could help me out with the sense or a possible translation of it, because I am afraid I am not really getting it. Here it goes:

In borrowing Foucault's concept of orders of discourse (by which Foucault meant ways in which institutions guard against the threat of discoursesby modes of exclusion) and using it to refer to discourse in the linguistic sense, Fairclough (1995) is watering down the power of Foucault's notion. He has tried at times to use both, suggesting that discourse as an abstract noun refers to "language use conceived as social practice" and that discourse as a count noun refers to "ways of signifying experience from a particualr perspective" (p. 135). Gee (1996) has attempted a similar distinctionbetween small d discourse and big D Discourse, the first akin to Fairclough's abstract noun discourse–language as social practice-and the second (big D) akin to Fairclough's count noun discourse (a particular worldview). But neither distinction is parsimonious.

And here's the translation of this fragment, with which I feel satisfied, except for that very last part:

Al tomar prestado el concepto de Foucault de los órdenes del discurso (con el cual Foucault se refería a las formas en que las instituciones se protegen de la amenaza de los discursos, a través de la exclusión) y utilizarlo para referirse al discurso en su sentido lingüístico, Fairclough (1995) disminuye la fuerza de la noción de Foucault. A veces ha tratado de usar ambas, proponiendo que discurso como un sustantivo abstracto se refiere al “uso de la lengua concebido como una práctica social” y que discurso como un sustantivo contable se refiere a “las formas de significar la experiencia desde una perspectiva particular” (pág. 135). Gee (1996) ha pretendido una distinción similar entre el discurso con d minúscula y el Discurso con D mayúscula, distinción en la que el primero es similar al sustantivo abstracto discurso de Fairclough (lengua como práctica social) y el segundo es similar al sustantivo contable discurso de Fairclough (una visión particular del mundo). Pero ninguna distinción es parsimoniosa / Pero esta distinción también cubre bastante / Pero ni la distinción es discreta.


I'm trying to figure out what exactly Pennycook meant here, but so far I consider he is trying to express the large field both Fairclough's and Gee's dual concepts of discourse aim to cover. Am I right? Please, help me out. Thanks a lot, and merry christmas.