Social reality is preceded by practice and linguistics. The performance of the 1AC is directly involved in the construction of it.

Discourses play a significant role in this process of construction of meaning: “The world is not objectively accessible, but instead is imparted through language through discursive processes and symbolic interpretations” (Uther 2014: 60).2 This means that much of the meaning-construction of social reality, which the brand of social constructivism espoused here relies upon, is done through what many authors call discourse. The frames that are studied in this analysis are considered as elements in discourse. Discourse, here, is understood, following Maarten Hajer, as “an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is produced and reproduced through an identifiable set of practices” (Hajer 2006: 67). This captures the simultaneous constructedness and constructiveness of the social meaning of material objects: Through language and practice humans both capture the meaning material objects have, and change or reproduce this meaning. Similarly, Dryzek defines discourse as “a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language, it enables those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts” (Dryzek 2005: 9). This means that meaning is constructed in discourses in “supra-individual and rather unconscious” ways (Methmann et al. 2013a: 6). At the same time, human actors, in this study, will not be considered as entities subordinate to a super-human structural power of discourse. Actors, according to Uther’s discussion, are both constructed and constructing (see Uther 2014: 55). Following her approach, actors are considered to be the central active agents in any meaning-making situation, and thus not helpless pawns in the flow of discourse: “The actor is not passively subdued to the discourse, as, for example, the subject of Foucault, but it actively participates in shaping the discourse through its own interpretive achievements” (Uther 2014: 66).3 This two-fold characterization of actors as both constructed and constructing is captured by practice theory. The terms ‘practice’ and ‘discourse’ are considered to not be antithetical to each other: Practices are “meaningful patterns of action, which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and around the material world” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 4). Thus, (non-linguistic) practices are understood to interact with (linguistic) discourses and in this interaction construct or deconstruct meanings. Other authors reconcile linguistic and non-linguistic elements of meaning-construction by subsuming both under the term ‘discourse’(see Anshelm and Hultman 2015: 11; Methmann et al. 2013a: 6) As Dryzek (2006: 3) argues, “discourses are a matter of practice as well as words, for actions in the social realm are always accompanied by language that establishes the meaning of action” (see also Adler 2008: 198). I assume, in line with these authors, that meaningful action—or practice—and meaningful talk—or discourse—construct or deconstruct the ideational meaning of an object. Further, I assume that practice is meaningful action which acts out certain meanings about the world, thus making it causally relevant.