Showing papers on "Critical discourse analysis published in 2011"
21 Apr 2011
TL;DR: The authors introduce key concepts and issues in critical discourse analysis and situate these within the field of educational research, and invite readers to consider the theories and methods of three major traditions of critical discourse studies through the empirical work of leading scholars in the field.
Abstract: Accessible yet theoretically rich, this landmark text introduces key concepts and issues in critical discourse analysis and situates these within the field of educational research. The book invites readers to consider the theories and methods of three major traditions in critical discourse studies � discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis -- through the empirical work of leading scholars in the field.
856 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, Van Dijk discusses the study of Discourse, Grammar and Interaction in the context of the analysis of social interaction and gender and power in Discourse.
Abstract: Introduction: The Study of Discourse - Teun A Van Dijk Discourse, Grammar and Interaction - Susanna Cumming, Tsuyoshi Ono and Ritva Laury Discourse Semantics - Russell S. Tomlin, Linda Forrest, Ming Ming Pu and Myung Hee Kim Narrative in Everyday Life - Elinor Ochs Argumentation - Frans H. van Eemeren, Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs Discourse Semiotics - Theo van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress Discourse and Cognition - Arthur C. Graesser and Keith Millis Discourse Pragmatics - Shoshana Blum-Kulka and Michal Hamo Conversation Analysis: An Approach to the Analysis of Social Interaction - Anita Pomerantz and B.J. Fehr Dialogue in Institutional Interactions - Paul Drew and Marja-Leena Sorjonen Gender and Power in Discourse - Michelle M. Lazar and Cheris Kramarae Discourse, Ethnicity and Racism - Yasmin Jiwani and John E. Richardson Discourse and Identity - Anna De Fina Organizational Discourse - Dennis K. Mumby and Jennifer Mease Discourse and Politics - Paul Chilton and Christina Schaffner Discourse and Culture - Elizabeth Keating and Alessandro Duranti Critical Discourse Analysis - Norman Fairclough, Jane Mulderrig and Ruth Wodak Discourse and Ideology - Teun A. Van Dijk
597 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis as mentioned in this paper covers the major approaches to discourse analysis from critical discourse analysis to multi-modal discourse analysis and their applications in key educational and institutional settings.
Abstract: The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis covers the major approaches to Discourse Analysis from Critical Discourse Analysis to Multimodal Discourse Analysis and their applications in key educational and institutional settings. The handbook is divided into six sections: Approaches to Discourse Analysis, Approaches to Spoken Discourse, Genres and Practices, Educational Applications, Institutional Applications, and Identity, Culture and Discourse. The chapters are written by a wide range of contributors from around the world, each a leading researcher in their respective field. All chapters have been closely edited by James Paul Gee and Michael Handford. With a focus on the application of Discourse Analysis to real-life problems, the contributors introduce the reader to a topic, and analyse authentic data. The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis is vital reading for linguistics students as well as students of communication and cultural studies, social psychology and anthropology.
398 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explain specific linguistic ways in which language represents an instrument of control and manifests symbolic power in discourse and society, and propose some key strategies of legitimization employed by social actors to justify courses of action.
Abstract: From an interdisciplinary framework anchored theoretically in Critical Discourse Analysis and using analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article accounts for a crucial use of language in society: the process of legitimization. This article explains specific linguistic ways in which language represents an instrument of control (Hodge and Kress, 1993: 6) and manifests symbolic power (Bourdieu, 2001) in discourse and society. Taking into account previous studies on legitimization (i.e. Martin Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997; Van Dijk, 2005; Van Leeuwen, 1996, 2007, 2008; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999), this particular work develops and proposes some key strategies of legitimization employed by social actors to justify courses of action. The strategies of legitimization can be used individually or in combination with others, and justify social practices through: (1) emotions (particularly fear), (2) a hypothetical future, (3) rationality, (4) voices of expertise and (5) altruism. This article exp...
269 citations
16 Jun 2011
259 citations
TL;DR: The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD) as mentioned in this paper is a widely used framework among social scientists in discourse research in the German-speaking area, which links arguments from the social constructionist tradition, following Berger and Luckmann, with assumptions based in symbolic interactionism, hermeneutic sociology, and the concepts of Michel Foucault, and argues thereby for a consistent theoretical and methodological grounding of a genuine social sciences perspective on discourse interested in the social production, circulation and transformation of knowledge.
Abstract: The article presents the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD). SKAD, which has been in the process of development since the middle of the 1990s, is now a widely used framework among social scientists in discourse research in the German-speaking area. It links arguments from the social constructionist tradition, following Berger and Luckmann, with assumptions based in symbolic interactionism, hermeneutic sociology of knowledge, and the concepts of Michel Foucault. It argues thereby for a consistent theoretical and methodological grounding of a genuine social sciences perspective on discourse interested in the social production, circulation and transformation of knowledge, that is in social relations and politics of knowledge in the so-called ‘knowledge societies’. Distancing itself from Critical Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, Ethnomethodology inspired discourse analysis and the Analysis of Hegemonies, following Laclau and Mouffe, SKAD’s framework has been built up around research questions and concerns located in the social sciences, referring to public discourse and arenas as well as to more specific fields of (scientific, religious, etc.) discursive struggles and controversies around “problematizations” (Foucault).
245 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: The authors discuss discursive approaches emerging over the last 50 years that in one way or another have contributed to identity studies, focusing on how they have emerged as productive tools for theorizing the construction of identity and for doing empirical work.
Abstract: We describe and discuss discursive approaches emerging over the last 50 years that in one way or another have contributed to identity studies. Approaching identities as constructed in and through discourse, we start by differentiating between two competing views of construction: one that moves progressively from existing “capital-D” social discourses to the domain of identity and sense of self and the other working its way up from “small-d” discursive practices to identities and sense of self as emerging in interaction. We take this tension as our point of departure for a discussion of different theoretical and analytical lenses, focusing on how they have emerged as productive tools for theorizing the construction of identity and for doing empirical work. Three dimensions of identity construction are distinguished and highlighted as dilemmatic but deserving prominence in the discursive construction of identity: (a) the navigation of agency in terms of a person-to-world versus a world-to-person directionality; (b) the differentiation between self and other as a way to navigate between uniqueness and a communal sense of belonging and being the same as others; and (c) the navigation of sameness and change across one’s biography or parts thereof. The navigation of these three identity dilemmas is exemplified in the analysis of a stretch of conversational data, in which we bring together different analytic lenses (such as narrative, performative, conversation analytic, and positioning analysis), before concluding this chapter with a brief discussion of some of the merits and potential shortcomings of discursive approaches to identity construction.
227 citations
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the rise of Critical Discourse Analysis and teases out a detailed analysis of the various critiques that have been levelled at CDA and its practitioners over the last twenty years, both by scholars working within the critical paradigm and by other critics.
Abstract: This article briefly reviews the rise of Critical Discourse Analysis and teases out a detailed analysis of the various critiques that have been levelled at CDA and its practitioners over the last twenty years, both by scholars working within the “critical” paradigm and by other critics. A range of criticisms are discussed which target the underlying premises, the analytical methodology and the disputed areas of reader response and the integration of contextual factors. Controversial issues such as the predominantly negative focus of much CDA scholarship, and the status of CDA as an emergent “intellectual orthodoxy”, are also reviewed. The conclusions offer a summary of the principal criticisms that emerge from this overview, and suggest some ways in which these problems could be attenuated.
213 citations
01 Apr 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education on 6 April 2011, available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203836149.
Abstract: This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education on 6 April 2011, available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203836149.
174 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) origins, what it has meant to the academic world as a whole, how it encapsulates various trends with different theoretical backgrounds and methodological approaches, what are its limitations and its new developments.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to see what Critical Discourse Analysis is. This implies scrutinising its origins, what it has meant to the academic world as a whole, how it encapsulates various trends with different theoretical backgrounds and methodological approaches, what are its limitations and its new developments. A simple practical example will show its potential.
164 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine the dominance and sacralisation of the discourse of the student experience and question its positioning as a means of discriminating between the value of different experiences of education, arguing that it homogenises students and deprives them of agency at the same time as apparently giving them "voice".
Abstract: Speaking about ‘the student experience’ has become common-place in higher education and the phrase has acquired the aura of a sacred utterance in UK higher education policy over the last decade. A critical discourse analysis of selected higher education policy texts reveals what ‘the student experience’ has come to signify, and how it structures relations between students and academics, institutions and academics, and higher education institutions and government. ‘The student experience’ homogenises students and deprives them of agency at the same time as apparently giving them ‘voice’. This paper examines the dominance and sacralisation of the discourse of ‘the student experience’ and questions its positioning as a means of discriminating between the value of different experiences of education.
TL;DR: This article explored the compatibility of ethnography and critical discourse analysis (CDA) for the study of language policy and proposed that the combination of CDA and ethnography is particularly useful for revealing the connections between the multiple layers of policy activity.
Abstract: This article explores the compatibility of ethnography and critical discourse analysis (CDA) for the study of language policy. A perennial challenge facing the field of language policy is how to make connections between the macro and micro, and between macro-level policy texts and discourses and micro-level language use. Hornberger and Johnson [(2007). Slicing the onion ethnographically: Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509–532] propose the ethnography of language policy as a method for examining the language policy processes within and across the multiple layers of policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation. This paper further explores how CDA can be integrated into ethnographic studies of language policy and proposes that the combination of CDA and ethnography is particularly useful for revealing the connections between the multiple layers of policy activity. Based on a 3-year ethnographic study of bilingual education policy and pr...
TL;DR: This paper applied Fairclough's (2003, 2006) Dialectic-Relational approach to the analysis of a chairman's statement of a UK defence firm and found that impersonalization and evaluation are used strategically to guide organisational audiences' interpretations of financial performance and to legitimise and normalise violence and destruction by depicting it in an abstract and sanitised manner.
Abstract: We introduce Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), an interdisciplinary approach to analysing written and spoken texts, which provides accounting researchers with a range of resources to analyze corporate narrative documents more systematically and in more detail from a linguistic perspective. CDA addresses how the content and the linguistic features of texts influence, and are in turn influenced, by the contexts of text production, distribution, reception and adaptation, and by the wider socio-economic context in which texts are embedded. We apply Fairclough’s (2003, 2006) Dialectic-Relational approach to the analysis of a chairman’s statement of a UK defence firm. The focus of analysis is on the grammatical devices used to represent organisational activities and outcomes in ways which obfuscate social agency (impersonalisation), and to evaluate social actors, entities, and social events (evaluation). We find that impersonalisation and evaluation are used strategically to guide organisational audiences’ interpretations of financial performance and to legitimise and normalise violence and destruction by depicting it in an abstract and sanitised manner.
TL;DR: In this article, a discourse analysis perspective is needed in disability studies, both in terms of theoretical development and in furthering its goals of social change, which is in line with the academic principles and political priorities of critical discourse analysis.
Abstract: Disability is an underexplored topic in discourse analysis. A stronger emphasis on disability issues would be in keeping with the academic principles and political priorities of critical discourse analysis. Simultaneously, a discourse analysis perspective is needed in disability studies. Although that field has produced a considerable amount of discourse-oriented research, it is structured around theoretical models that appear adversarial and incompatible. In practice, many of the incompatibilities dissolve into divisions between different areas of discourse production. A greater awareness of discourse analysis will aid disability studies, both in terms of theoretical development and in furthering its goals of social change.
TL;DR: The increasing significance of "managerialism" in contemporary forms of governance has been widely observed and as discussed by the authors demonstrates how this operates at the level of language, where a new sociosemantic category of "Managing Actions" is proposed, encoding varying degrees of coerciveness.
Abstract: The increasing significance of ‘managerialism’ in contemporary forms of governance has been widely observed. This article demonstrates how this operates at the level of language. Specifically, the analysis postulates a new sociosemantic category of ‘Managing Actions’, encoding varying degrees of coerciveness. The paper discusses their salient role in texturing the ‘soft power’ of contemporary governance, constructing a form of ‘managed autonomy’ for the governed subject and helping to manage the complex networks of dispersed power through an indirect form of agency. The analysis combines a corpus-based approach to critical discourse analysis with a political economic theory of transformations in the capitalist state. Drawing evidence from a corpus of UK education policy discourse, the analysis illustrates the managerialist form that governance takes under New Labour, while at the same time highlighting the subtle hegemony underlying this new ‘enabling’ technique of governance, which works by assuming, rat...
TL;DR: This paper proposed a discursive analytic approach to the analysis of discourses through the location of statements that function with constitutive effects, taking criticism of Foucauldian discourse analysis as a convenient point of departure to discuss the objectives of poststructural analyses of language.
Abstract: Much has been written on Michel Foucault's reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood, 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher & McWilliam, 2000; Tamboukou, 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, ‘I take care not to dictate how things should be’ and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that ‘all those who speak for others or to others’ no longer know what to do. It is doubtful, however, that Foucault ever intended for researchers to be stricken by that malaise to the point of being unwilling to make an intellectual commitment to methodological possibilities. Taking criticism of ‘Foucauldian’ discourse analysis as a convenient point of departure to discuss the objectives of poststructural analyses of language, this paper develops what might be called a discursive analytic; a methodological plan to approach the analysis of discourses through the location of statements that function with constitutive effects.
TL;DR: This article present a discourse-based framework for the analysis of professional change, drawing on Chouliaraki and Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA), and their adaptations of the work of Laclau and Mouffe, and Bhabha.
Abstract: The conceptualization of professions and professionalization is once again a significant theme in the social sciences. The position of professions seems increasingly complex as relations with other occupational groups develop in ways that seem uncertain, ambiguous and complex. We present a discourse-based framework for the analysis of professional change, drawing on Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA), and their adaptations of the work of Laclau and Mouffe, and Bhabha. The model focuses on the articulation process within conjunctures of social practice, and in particular how social actors endeavour to make advantageous articulations which achieve a degree of permanence in an inherently changeable world. It also considers how discourses are articulated together to create hybrid forms of professional discourse. We apply the framework to recent changes in the role and autonomy of general medical practitioners in the United Kingdom following the implementation of the clinical govern...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify some of the indicators of, and demonstrate the ideological qualities of, force-dynamic conceptualizations in immigration discourse and propose that Talmy's theory of Force-Dynamics in particular represents a further useful framework for the Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA.
Abstract: In the last few years, a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside critical discourse analysis. So far, however, this space has been reserved almost exclusively for critical metaphor studies where Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory has provided the lens through which otherwise naturalized or opaque ideological patterns in text and conceptualization can be detected. Yet Cognitive Linguistics consists of much more than Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Its efficacy for critical discourse analysis (CDA) may therefore extend beyond critical metaphor studies. In this article, I propose that Talmy’s (1988, 2000) theory of Force-Dynamics in particular represents a further, useful framework for the Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA. Using this analytical framework, then, I identify some of the indicators of, and demonstrate the ideological qualities of, force-dynamic conceptualizations in immigration discourse.
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of the Frankfurt School in the discourse-historical approach (DHA) is explored, and references to the Frankfurt school can be found in the DHA's canon.
Abstract: Critical discourse analysis (CDA) stands on the shoulder of giants – different giants – in order to answer how its critique, its ethico-moral stance, is theoretically grounded and justified. Concerning this question, this article explores the role of the Frankfurt School in the discourse–historical approach (DHA). Although references to the Frankfurt School can regularly be found in the DHA's canon, I argue that an even more comprehensive discussion would help in combating accusations of the DHA being unprincipled and politically biased, and further enrich the DHA's toolkit for empirical analysis. After reviewing existing references to the Frankfurt School, I discuss this intellectual tradition – from Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno's The dialectic of enlightenment to Jurgen Habermas's language-philosophy – showing to what extent it can(not) ground the DHA's emancipatory and socially transformative aims. Thereby, I illustrate how the DHA's critical standard is not simply based on a coincidental, thou...
TL;DR: The authors argue that New Labour's distinctive mode of self-representation is an important element in its hegemonic project, textually manufacturing consent over its policy decisions, and helping to articulate its self-styled 'enabling' model of governance.
Abstract: This paper presents selected findings from a historical analysis of change in the discursive construction of social identity in UK education policy discourse from 1972–2005. My chief argument is that through its linguistic forms of self‐identification the government construes educational roles, relations and responsibilities not only for itself, but also for other educational actors and wider society. More specifically, I argue that New Labour's distinctive mode of self‐representation is an important element in its hegemonic project, textually manufacturing consent over its policy decisions, and helping to articulate its self‐styled ‘enabling’ model of governance. As evidence for these claims I discuss two prominent trends in New Labour's education policy rhetoric, which I characterise as ‘personalisation’ and ‘managerialisation’. Respectively, these relate to the discursive representation of social identity and social action.
TL;DR: In this article, cultural approaches to discourse analysis and communication that critique Western-biased theories and methods are covered including Jan Blommaert's Critical Discourse Analysis, Shi-xu's Cultural Approach to Discourse, and Asian communication theories.
Abstract: This essay opens a conversation in the Journal of Multicultural Discourses on cultural approaches to discourse analysis. Culturally-inclusive approaches to discourse analysis and communication that critique Western-biased theories and methods are covered including Jan Blommaert's Critical Discourse Analysis, Shi-xu's Cultural Approach to Discourse, and Asian communication theories. An extensive review of the historical development of Donal Carbaugh's Cultural Discourse Theory and Analysis is given as well as an explanation of its current practice today. All four approaches are compared and contrasted in terms of their definitions, objectives, methods of data collection and analysis, and the role of critique. It is hoped that the essay will invite future extended discussions of culturally-inclusive approaches to discourse analysis in the journal.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for a better integration of argumentation theory with critical discourse analysis (CDA) in political discourse and argue for the use of CDA in the analysis of political discourse.
Abstract: This article focuses on practical reasoning in political discourse and argues for a better integration of argumentation theory with critical discourse analysis (CDA). Political discourse and its sp...
TL;DR: Drawing on the analysis of a short video advertisement, it is demonstrated how the interactive (multimodal) digital environment is one in which the discourse analyst can effectively draw upon different traditions of analysis, including ‘mainstream’ and social semiotic traditions, to interpret dynamic audiovisual media texts in a critically self-reflexive manner.
Abstract: Critical discourse analysts are increasingly required to account for multimodal phenomena constructed through language and other resources (e.g. images, sound and music) and to relate high-level critical insights on the social motivations of these texts to their realizations in low-level expressive phenomena, and vice versa. In this paper, we use interactive software resources for critical multimodal discourse analysis (O'Halloran, K.L. (2011b). Multimodal analysis and digital technology. In A. Baldry & E. Montagna (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to multimodality: Theory and practice. Readings in intersemiosis and multimedia (pp. 21–34). Campobasso: Palladino; O'Halloran, K. L., Tan, S., Smith, B. A., & Podlasov, A. (2010). Challenges in designing digital interfaces for the study of multimodal phenomena. Information Design Journal, 18(1), 2–12; Smith, B. A., Tan, S., Podlasov, A., & O'Halloran, K.L. (in press). Analyzing multimodality in an interactive digital environment: Software as metasemiotic to...
Book•
03 Mar 2011
TL;DR: This companion offers a comprehensive and accessible reference resource to research in contemporary discourse studies, in 21 chapters written by leading figures in the field, that provides readers with an authoritative overview of key terms, methods and current research topics and directions.
Abstract: Introduction by the editors Part I: Methods of Analysis in Discourse Research 1. Data Collection and Transcription in Discourse Analysis, Rodney Jones 2. Conversation Analysis, Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger 3. Critical Discourse Analysis, Ruth Wodak 4. Genre Analysis, Christine M. Tardy 5. Narrative Analysis, Mike Baynham 6. Discourse Analysis and Ethnography, Dwight Atkinson, Hanako Okada, and Steven Talmy 7. Systemic Functional Linguistics, J R. Martin 8. Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Kay L. O'Halloran. 9. Corpus Approaches to the Analysis of Discourse, Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber Part II: Research Areas and New Directions in Discourse Research 10. Spoken Discourse, Joan Cutting 11. Academic Discourse, Ken Hyland 12. Discourse in the Workplace, Janet Holmes 13. Discourse and gender Paul Baker 14. News Discourse, Martin Montgomery 15. Discourse and Computer Mediated Communication, Julia Davies 16. Forensic Discourse Analysis: a work in progress, John Olsson 17. Discourse and Identity, Tope Omoniyi 18. Discourse and Race, Angel Lin and Ryuko Kubota 19. Classroom Discourse, Jennifer Hammond 20. Discourse and Intercultural Communication, John Corbett 21. Medical Discourse, Timothy Halkowski Index.
TL;DR: In this paper, the diversity of combinations between ethnography and critical discourse analysis (CDA) in problem-oriented and context-sensitive research on language, discourse and society is explored.
Abstract: This volume embraces the diversity of combinations between ethnography and critical discourse analysis (CDA) in problem-oriented and context-sensitive research on language, discourse and society. W...
06 Oct 2011
TL;DR: This article used Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the language on the institutional websites of 12 colleges and universities across a number of characteristics (e.g., control, type, geographic region, admissions selectivity) in the United States.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to understand how colleges and universities use language to represent themselves on their institutional websites (official websites of higher education institutions). Organizations, like colleges and universities, seek to create and maintain a distinctive identity in an effort to build legitimacy (i.e., status) and attract students (i.e., tuition dollars). Institutional websites are increasingly important to the admissions and marketing practices of colleges and universities due to their ability to rapidly communicate a significant amount of content to a vast audience. Colleges and universities use language, whether textual (i.e., written) or visual (i.e., images), to position and differentiate themselves from other institutions and promote their efforts. This study utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the language on the institutional websites of 12 colleges and universities across a number of characteristics (e.g., control, type, geographic region, admissions selectivity) in the United States. Theoretically, CDA provides the means to examine everyday language in an effort to raise awareness about issues of inequality, such as access to education. Methodologically, Fairclough’s approach to CDA has three dimensions of analysis. The first dimension is descriptive analysis where the intent is to describe the properties of the textual and visual elements. The second dimension involves interpretive analysis where the goal is to examine the contents of language and its functional parts to understand and interpret the connections between the role of language and the greater social structures it reflects and supports. Societal analysis, the third dimension, focuses on explanations of larger cultural, historical, and social discourses surrounding interpretations of the data. The analyses from this study suggest that colleges and universities utilize a common promotional discourse en masse to market rather systematic representations of “higher education” despite the fact that they vary widely by a number of institutional characteristics. Specifically, analyses reveal that institutions use language to repeatedly establish prestige and relevancy by touting the accomplishments of their institutional
TL;DR: This paper examined how three white pre-service teachers participated in book club discussions of children's literature and found that their discourses illustrate that racial literacy involves what teachers say and also a willingness to stand in the space of indeterminacy, which may create space for new social positions.
Abstract: Set in the context of a teacher education program, this study examined how three White pre-service teachers participate in book club discussions of children’s literature. We asked: When White pre-service teachers are in a context that enables talk about race, racism and anti-racism, what do they talk about? What conceptual and discursive tools do they use? We were guided by these questions, along with theoretical perspectives of racial literacy, multicultural discourses and a form of critical discourse analysis referred to as ‘positive discourse analysis’ or ‘reconstructive discourse analysis’. Our analysis illustrates that the participants held two questions, what constitutes racism and what makes a person a White ally, without firm resolution in the form and function of their talk. Their discourses illustrate that racial literacy involves what teachers say and also a willingness to stand in the space of indeterminacy, which may create space for new social positions. We argue for a continued theorization...
16 Nov 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define media discourse as "interaction that takes place through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-present reader, listener or viewer".
Abstract: Media discourse refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-present reader, listener or viewer. Though the discourse is oriented towards these recipients, they very often cannot make instantaneous responses to the producer(s) of the discourse, though increasingly this is changing with the advent of new media technology, as we shall explore. Crucially, the written or spoken discourse itself is oriented to the readership or listening/viewing audience, respectively. In other words, media discourse is a public, manufactured, on-record, form of interaction. It is not ad hoc or spontaneous (in the same way as casual speaking or writing is); it is neither private nor off the record. Obvious as these basic characteristics may sound, they are crucial to the investigation, description and understanding of media discourse. Because media discourse is manufactured, we need to consider how this has been done – both in a literal sense of what goes into its making and at an ideological level. One important strand of research into media discourse is preoccupied with taking a critical stance to media discourse, namely critical discourse analysis (CDA). It is important that we continually appraise the messages that we consume from our manufactured mass media. The fact that media discourse is public means that it also falls under the scrutiny of many conversation analysts who are interested in it as a form of institutional talk, which can be compared with other forms of talk, both mundane and institutional. The fact that media discourse is on record makes it attractive for discourse analysts and increasingly so because of the online availability of newspapers, radio stations, television programmes and so on. Advances in technology have greatly offset the ephemerality factor that used to relate to media discourse, especially radio and television (where it used to be the case that, if you wanted to record something, it had to be done in real time). It is a time of great change in media discourse, and this chapter aims to capture this moment, especially in the final section, where traditional notions of media discourse are challenged, in this time of opening up of the medium through Web 2 technologies.
18 Jan 2011
TL;DR: An introductory overview of the historical foundations, practical precedents of current 'critical' approaches to English as a Second Language teaching - with specific reference to 'critical pedagogy' and 'text analytic' work.
Abstract: An introductory overview of the historical foundations, practical precedents of current 'critical' approaches to English as a Second Language teaching - with specific reference to 'critical pedagogy' and 'text analytic' work.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a methodological synergy of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA) for exploring how clashing ideologies have been actualized at collocation level across opposing discourses on Wahhabi-Saudi Islam/Wahhabism since 9/11.
Abstract: This study proposes what is termed a 'methodological synergy' (Baker et al., 2008) of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA) for exploring how clashing ideologies have been actualized at collocation level across opposing discourses on Wahhabi-Saudi Islam/Wahhabism since 9/11. The discursive competition over Wahhabi-Saudi Islam reached a new extreme in the USA, when the 9/11 attacks called attention to 'Islamic puritanical movements known as Wahhabism and Salafiyya' (Blanchard, 2007). In this article, I argue that such discursive competition has linguistically crystallized via the biased collocations that permeate antagonistic texts, which recontextualize the same discourse topic of Wahhabi-Saudi Islam. This has eventually led to the emergence of 'meaningful antagonism' (Macdonell, 1986)1 between anti-Wahhabi and pro-Wahhabi discourses since 9/11. One striking instance of these collocation-based representations can be clearly found in two polemical books, the first of which was published immediately after 9/11: Stephen Schwartz's (2002) The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. The second came out as a reaction to the attacks against Wahhabi Islam and Saudi Arabia: Natana DeLong-Bas's (2004) Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad. Thus, the article attempts to answer the following overarching question: how has Wahhabi-Saudi Islam been ideologically recontextualized across post-9/11 opposing discourses via collocation? There are two methodological procedures towards answering this question. First, employing a corpus method, I have statistically extracted the key words of the two texts under analysis, so that the different textual foci in each can be recognized; and then computed the collocates of the relevant key words (WAHHABI, WAHHAB'S and SAUDI). Second, using CDA tools, I have examined the contrastive lexico-semantic relations holding between the collocates of these key words in and/ or across the two texts, in terms of 'textual synonymy' (Fairclough, 2001) on the one hand, and oppositional paradigms (e.g. euphemism vs. dysphemism) on the other. Regarding the findings of the present study, combing corpus methods and CDA has opened up new horizons of the critical study of collocations at theoretical and methodological levels. First, collocational relations can ideologically contribute to the recontexualization of one discourse topic across clashing texts. Second, statistically significant collocations can precisely reveal opposing discursive voices or textual tones towards the same or similar topics. Last, there has become an ever-growing need for CDA people to build qualitatively on more reliably quantified textual features, especially when it comes to collocations.