Discourse & Society recent issues

Discourse and striving for power: an analysis of Barisan Nasional's 2004 Malaysian general election manifesto

Aman, I. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

This study analyses the political party of Barisan Nasional's victory in the llth Malaysian general election 2004, looking at the way it manipulated and utilized language or discourse in order to retain and gain political power. Using a critical discourse analysis framework, this article holds that discourse is able to portray social practices, such as the striving for political power. This study also holds that political-power striving is a part of the organization's discourse management. The discourse chosen for this study is the Barisan Nasional's 2004 general election manifesto. The finding shows that the striving for political power by Barisan Nasional is manifested through textual features and discursive properties of discourse. The discursive properties are shown by certain processes in the production, distribution, consumption, force of utterances, and semiotic aspect of the discourse. The textual aspects of the discourse, on the other hand, are shown by certain features of grammar, vocabulary, and the generic structure tenet of the discourse.

Defending whiteness indirectly: a synthetic approach to race discourse analysis

Foster, J. D. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

This article examines the discursive method utilized by a sample of white college students in the United States when engaging in racetalk. Findings reveal myriad contradictions within their responses. It is suggested that these contradictions are not coincidental; rather, they serve two important functions for the speakers: first, they aid the interlocutors in their impression management (i.e. their image of a non racist); and second, the rationalization of the racial order. Utilizing an integrative approach, it is argued that this form of racetalk, whether intentionally or unintentionally, defends the white racial frame. This racetalk allows respondents to (1) project blame onto nonwhite Americans for race problems in US society, and (2) acknowledge racial difference only in contexts in which it favors whites.

'Excusing the inexcusable': justifying injustice in Nelson's Sorry speech

Hastie, B. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

Political discourses reflect and shape public constructions of past and present events, and social ‘problems’. This article examines how Australia’s Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, worked to undermine the attempted reconstruction of the past by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, through a political apology designed to recognize injustice and reframe the ‘problem’ of Indigenous Australians. This is achieved through two strategies: (1) mitigating blame of those involved in removal of children; and (2) ascribing blame for the current circumstances of some Indigenous peoples to recent events. A number of discursive strategies are drawn upon to accomplish this, allowing Nelson to be seen to apologize, while at the same time justifying the injustices experienced by Indigenous peoples in the past and the present. This research adds to our knowledge of the ways in which resistance to redefinitions of the past are accomplished, by denying Indigenous peoples’ sovereignty and excluding explanations for current disadvantage grounded in the ongoing colonial project.

Argumentation, metadiscourse and social cognition: organizing knowledge in political communication

Martinez Guillem, S. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

The present article attempts to contribute to a multidisciplinary approach to communication phenomena that emphasizes the interplay among cognition, discourse and society. I propose an examination of the role that these three elements play in argumentation and meta-discourse as a useful starting point for understanding, first, how arguments are formed and second, the role that meta-discursive devices play in this process. In the first two sections I conduct a brief review of literature on the concepts of argumentation and meta-discourse to show how a socio-cognitive approach can enlighten our understanding of both. This model is then applied in the analysis section to look at a plenary session at the European Parliament. I conduct a socio-cognitive discourse analysis, based on which I identify different relevant paths followed by speakers when constructing arguments: (re)framings, (re)definitions, quotations and references to previous events. The findings demonstrate how the different levels of meta-discourse — intra-textual, inter-textual and contextual — are equally relevant for argumentative communication. Through meta-discourse, speakers invoke knowledge about both the ongoing interaction and other past or future communicative events. These other discourses, however, are not only constituted by the actual words uttered, but they encompass the context and situation models (Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983) that allow participants to make sense of them.

Language and ideology: gender stereotypes of female and male artists in Taiwanese tabloids

Wang, H.-C. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

This study adopts the Critical Discourse Analysis approach in order to examine gender stereotypes in Taiwanese tabloid culture. Focusing on a gossip-filled entertainment column in a tabloid, this study collected 111 news reports released in May 2008. All news entries were probed to discern pervading gender stereotypes held regarding female and male artists. A subsequent online survey investigated any stereotypical depictions that had been identified. Administered to 120 respondents, this survey attempted to evaluate how representative views held throughout society were pervading gender stereotypes in media discourse. Results showed that female artists, as portrayed in the tabloids, were commonly associated with belligerence, money worship, and social pressures with respect to marriage and sexuality. By contrast, portrayals of male artists focused on personal defects in physical appearance and love affairs, and invariably involved manipulation of how the private lives of these artists were viewed. Most stereotypical depictions were further shown to be highly defined beliefs shared among the survey respondents. This article concludes with a discussion on the close-knit nature of tabloid culture and social ideology.

Book review: LOUISE MULLANY, Gendered Discourse in the Professional Workplace. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xii+236pp. CECILIA E. FORD, Women Speaking Up: Getting and Using Turns in Workplace Meetings. Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xi + 202 pp

de Silva Joyce, H. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

Book Review: RUTH WODAK and MICHAL KRZYZANOWSKI (eds), Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xi+216pp

Lischinsky, A. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

Book Review: ANNELIES VERDOOLAEGE, Reconciliation Discourse: The Case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. x ii + 192 pp

Leonard, D. J. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:36:26 PDT

Gender, innovation and ambiguity: speech prohibitions as a resource for 'space to move'

Beck, R. M. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

This article is based on the observation that in African women’s interactional practices, there is a space ‘between speech and silence’ (Gal, 1991), an ambiguous space between norm and sanction (Jaworski et al., 2005: 4), which allows for the negotiation of socially and culturally adequate gendered behaviour. As it is a space of negotiation, it is also one of social change. Notions of gender, ambiguity and risk, which are characteristic for this kind of space, are thus transferred also to social change, or in more general terms, innovation. I take two widely diverging examples from the Swahili (in eastern Africa) and Herero (in south-western Africa) societies to demonstrate this hypothesis, which aims at bringing together two threads of widely discussed topics: that of gender and social change (or development); and that of gender and language. Methodologically, this article is based on a micro-analysis and contextualized reconstruction of interactional practices, which provides a privileged path into understanding local processes of social change.

Police interviews with suspected paedophiles: a discourse analysis

Benneworth, K. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

A review of the literature suggests that the principles of investigative interviewing in the UK do not translate well to the interviewing of suspects (Clarke and Milne, 2001). In fact, studies have revealed that rather than encourage uninterrupted ordinary narratives from suspects, police officers seek institutionally preferred versions of events (Auburn et al., 1995) and adopt legal discourse which is excessively precise (Gibbons, 2003) and, in interviews with suspected paedophiles, sexually explicit (Benneworth, 2006). This article will explore how an interviewing officer manages this conflict in an interaction with a suspected paedophile. An investigative interview with a 54-year-old male suspected of sexually assaulting a female between the ages of 8 to 12 years was transcribed and examined using a discourse analytic framework. The analysis identifies interactional difficulties faced by the interviewer and considers the implications for the progression of the investigative interview. The findings suggest how interviewers might manage these challenges to maximize information acquisition, highlighting the importance of encouraging uninterrupted narratives from suspected paedophiles. This article considers the wider application of discourse analysis to the criminal investigation.

Racism and xenophobia in immigrants' discourse: the case of Argentines in Spain

Del-Teso-Craviotto, M. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

This study examines how racist and xenophobic discourses of Spanish elite groups are appropriated and contested in an Internet forum for Argentines in Spain. Specifically, I examine the discursive strategies involved in the identification of the in-group and the out-group (Spanish citizens vs immigrants), the descriptions of the social actors, and the stances adopted by the participants in the forum, three dimensions that have been found to be key in the production of xeno-racist discourses. The results show that this group of forum participants aligns with the racist and anti-racist ideologies articulated in political debates and the mass media in Spain, thus providing evidence of racist and xenophobic discourses working in a top—down fashion. At the same time, however, the analysis offers an example of how the discourses of dominant social groups can be challenged and reformulated to serve the purposes of the subordinate social groups.

Press self-censorship in China: a case study in the transformation of discourse

Tong, J. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

This article examines the way in which newspaper discourse gets changed. Original reports of three social problem events that journalists sent to two different newsrooms and reports that were published are compared using critical discourse analysis. It is argued that the practice of self-censorship helps newsrooms bypass political 'minefields', and at the same time increase the possibilities of the publication of reports on highly politically sensitive topics. In this sense, in the Chinese authoritarian media system, self-censorship has potentially become a force that increases media freedom instead of a threat to media freedom. This special function of self-censorship fits what Gramsci describes as a 'war of position' for Chinese journalism.

When are persons 'white'?: on some practical asymmetries of racial reference in talk-in-interaction

Whitehead, K. A., Lerner, G. H. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

This report contributes to the study of racial discourse by examining some of the practical asymmetries that obtain between different categories of racial membership as they are actually employed in talk-in-interaction. In particular, we identify three interactional environments in which the ordinarily ‘invisible’ racial category ‘white’ is employed overtly, and we describe the mechanisms through which this can occur. These mechanisms include: (1) ‘white’ surfacing ‘just in time’ as an account for action; (2) the occurrence of referential ambiguities with respect to race occasioning repairs that result in overt references to ‘white’; and (3) the operation of a recipient design consideration that we term ‘descriptive adequacy’. These findings demonstrate some ways in which the mundane invisibility of whiteness — or indeed, other locally invisible racial categories — can be both exposed and disturbed as a result of ordinary interactional processes, revealing the importance of the generic machinery of talk-in-interaction for understanding both the reproduction of and resistance to the racial dynamics of everyday life.

Ron Scollon -- 1939--2009

Fairclough, N. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

Book review: KATE HARRINGTON, LIA LITOSSELITI, HELEN SAUNTSON and JANE SUNDERLAND (eds), Gender and Language Research Methodologies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xii + 332 pp

King, B. W. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

Book Review: ADRIAN HOLLIDAY , Doing and Writing Qualitative Research (2nd edn). London: Sage, 2007. 214 pp

Sajjadi, S. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

Book Review: DOREEN D. WU (ed.), Discourses of Cultural China in the Globalization Age. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008. 262 pp. (pbk)

Zhang, J. — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:15:15 PDT

Outside in-group and out-group identities? Constructing male solidarity and female exclusion in UK builders' talk

Baxter, J., Wallace, K. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

This article examines the spoken interactions of a group of British construction workers to discover whether it is possible to identify a distinctive `builders' discourse'. Given that builders work for a mostly all-male profession (Curjao, 2006), we ask whether the ways in which male builders converse with each other while `on the job' can be held in any way responsible for the under-representation of women within this major occupational sector in the UK. This article reports on a case study of the conversations of three white, working-class, male builders, which took place while travelling in a truck between different building sites. This forms part of a larger ethnographic study of builders' discourse in different work locations. The analysis shows that male builders are highly collaborative in constructing narratives of in-group and out-group identities (Duszak, 2002; Tajfel, 1978). Various other male groups are demonized in these conversations: Polish immigrant builders, rude clients and rival builders. However, there is almost no reference to women. The article concludes that women are viewed as so unthreatening to male ascendancy in the building industry that they do not even feature within the `out-group'.

Occidentalism and accountability: constructing culture and cultural difference in majority Greek talk about the minority in Western Thrace

Bozatzis, N. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Drawing upon the notion of occidentalism, developed within cultural theory and critical ethnography, this article explores ways in which explicit and/or implicit assumptions about the West and Western self are implicated, in their conversational mobilization, to accountability management. The data analysed come from a study in Western Thrace (Greece), which included interviews and focus group with majority Greek educators about the Muslim minority historically residing in the region. The analysis presented employs tools from critical discursive social psychology. Building upon discourse analytic treatments within social psychology on the mobilization of national categories and accountability management in talk, it is argued that the banal indexicalization of national categories in talk opens the space for a critical interrogation of the banal indexicalization of an occidentalist cultural imagery that posits a hierarchical distinction between cultures of the West and the Rest.

Civilization and civilized in post-9/11 US presidential speeches

Collet, T. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

The aim of this article is to show, by means of an analysis of the occurrences of civilization and civilized in a corpus of US presidential speeches that spans three years (2001—4), that despite claims to the contrary, the New World Order discourse contains a `clash of civilizations' frame, at least since the terrorist attacks of 2001. We have analysed the occurrences of civilization and civilized using a three-fold approach: (a) a Narrative Conceptualization Analysis of civilization; (b) a Membership Categorization Analysis of the collocation civilized world; and, to a lesser extent, (c) an analysis of the rhetorical strategies in which civilization and civilized participate.

The representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in British newspapers during the Balkan conflict (1999) and the British general election (2005)

KhosraviNik, M. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

This article is a CDA investigation into the representation of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants during two major events: the Balkan conflict in 1999 and the British general election in 2005 as reflected in British newspapers. The article is part of a larger project on the representation of these groups of people between 1996 and 2006 in British newspapers. The study shows that while there are major similarities in the micro-linguistic categories used in representations of these groups in these two periods, e.g. the metaphors, the overall communicated messages are not similar and the macro-structural contexts behind the processes of interpretation of these discourses play a determining role in transferring certain `meanings'. The research also shows that while newspapers have different strategies in their representations due to their political standpoints, in some important ways they all contribute to a similar construction of these people.

`ADHD patient' or `illicit drug user'? Managing medico-moral membership categories in drug dependence services

Schubert, S. J., Hansen, S., Dyer, K. R., Rapley, M. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Amphetamine-dependent patients seeking treatment are diagnosed with ADHD at a significantly higher rate than members of the general population. To study this relationship as it is constructed in everyday life, we draw on membership categorization analysis to examine how individuals account for their candidate memberships in two social categories — `illicit amphetamine user' and `ADHD patient'. We analyse interviews with four drug-dependent individuals, diagnosed with adult ADHD, undergoing detoxification treatment in Perth, Western Australia. Participants formulated their problematic behaviour via membership in the morally neutral category `ADHD patient' and methodically constructed symptoms as predicates of this category, despite the availability of the equally valid alternative category `illicit amphetamine user'. The category `ADHD patient' is shown to be functional: it absolves drug users from responsibility for troublesome conduct, and provides continued access to amphetamines as `medication'. In such cases, the diagnosis of ADHD arguably affords the conditions of possibility for an iatrogenic disorder in that the prescription of ATS medication provides for a morally and legally sanctioned form of drug dependence.

Book review: IAN HUTCHBY, The Discourse of Child Counselling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. xii + 144 pp. $44.95 (pbk)

Oenbring, R. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Book review: LARISA FIALKOVA and MARIA YELENEVSKAYA, Ex-Soviets in Israel: From Personal Narratives to a Group Portrait. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. xiii + 373 pp. (hbk)

Pavlenko, A. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Book review: VINITI VAISH, Biliteracy and Globalization: English Language Education in India . Clevedon, OH: Multilingual Matters, 2008. ix + 126 pp. $44.95 (pbk)

de Oliveira, J. M. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Book review: PAUL DU GAY, Organizing Identity: Persons and Organizations `After Theory'. London: SAGE, 2007. x + 193 pp. {pound}22.19 (pbk)

O'Rourke, B. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Book review: HANNES HEER, WALTER MANOSCHEK, ALEXANDER POLLAK and RUTH WODAK (eds), The Discursive Construction of History: Remembering the Wehrmacht's War of Annihilation . Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xvi + 331 pp. (hbk)

Downing, J. D.H. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:17 PDT

Talking different heterosexualities: the permissive, the normative and the moralistic perspective -- evidence from Greek youth storytelling

Archakis, A., Lampropoulou, S. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

The aim of this article is to investigate the construction of heterosexual identities in Greek youth talk. More specifically, we explore how Greek adolescents construct themselves as heterosexuals through storytelling. In terms of theoretical framework, our article follows a dynamic approach to identity construction. Our analysis focuses upon naturally occurring narratives produced by female and male informants. These narratives deal with incidents of the adolescents' everyday lives and are related to their perceptions towards sexual affairs. We consider storytelling as one of the forms of verbal behaviour that has proved to be significant for identity work, as it forms the means through which narrators display aspects of their identities. Taking into account the way our narrators construct their stories, in relation to the ethnographic observations we have collected concerning our informants, we propose a pattern of narrativization showing how they display their positioning towards the ethics of heteronormativity.

Religious and political discourse in Argentina: the case of reconciliation

Bonnin, J. E. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

This article analyzes the nominalization 'reconciliation' as a grammar metaphor that allows for the understanding of the historical relationships between religious and political discourse in Argentina. In order to do this, we will analyze the case of the publication of the Final Document of the Military Junta on the Fight against Terrorism and Subversion, in 1983, and its subsequent interpretations made by political and religious actors in terms of its adequacy or inadequacy to the Catholic proposal of reconciliation, which would later become a legal argument in the penal trials sustained against human rights violators. We will observe two relevant features: (a) a struggle about the experiential meaning concealed by the nominalization that legitimates or, on the contrary, de-legitimates the repressive action of the Military Junta; (b) an implicit consensus that attributes to Catholic discourse the power to dictate the rules of political life, which has severely restrained the autonomy of political democratic actors.

Membership categorization, culture and norms in action

Housley, W., Fitzgerald, R. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

In this article, we examine the extent to which membership categorization analysis (MCA) can inform an understanding of reasoning within the public domain where morality, policy and cultural politics are visible (Smith and Tatalovich, 2003). Through the examination of three examples, we demonstrate how specific types of category device(s) are a ubiquitous feature of accountable practice in the public domain where morality matters and public policy intersect. Furthermore, we argue that MCA provides a method for analysing the mundane mechanics associated with everyday cultural politics and democratic accountability assembled and presented within news media and broadcast settings.

`It's not a matter of inhumanity': a critical discourse analysis of an apartment building circular on `homeless people'

De Melo Resende, V. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

Based upon Critical Discourse Analysis (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 2003), this study analyses a report of a meeting, distributed as a circular to residents of a middle-class apartment building in Asa Sul, Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. The circular is the outcome of a meeting held between the apartment building's representative, local business people and Federal District Government authorities concerning `homeless people' in the environs of the apartment building and local business establishments. The discursive analysis of the text indicates that it serves in a sense to camouflage the street situation as a social issue. At the same time, it nullifies `homeless people' (Thompson, 1990) by legitimating social apartheid in Brazilian society (Buarque, 2003). The analysis seeks therefore to discuss the naturalization of misery in contemporary societies through the internalization of hegemonic discourses that serve to blank out basic social rights.

Talking the talk: policy, popular and media responses to the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade using the `Abolition Discourse'

Waterton, E., Wilson, R. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

The issue of slavery has received wide public and media attention in response to the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. In this context, admissions of guilt and apology are potent and confronting as they threaten to disrupt the collective self-understanding of Britain and the Empire. As such, the silenced narrative of minority groups found little place within the British cultural semantics for remembering Abolition. This article will examine the rhetorical resources drawn upon in policy, media and public discourses to understand and soothe the traumatic history of the exploitation of African people, and uses critical discourse analysis to do so. The result, it will be argued, is a way of talking about the transatlantic slave trade which we have labelled the `abolition discourse'. The data used emerges from formal institutional talk (parliamentary debates and political speeches), media reporting and everyday talk (observed through a range of computer-mediated communication forums).

Book review: ALEXANDRA GEORGAKOPOULOU, Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. xi + 185 pp. MICHAEL BAMBERG, ANNA DE FINA and DEBORAH SCHIFFRIN (eds), Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. x + 355 pp

Babaii, E. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT

Book review: MARKUS KORNPROBST, VINCENT POULIOT, NISHA SHAH and RUBEN ZAIOTTI (eds), Metaphors of Globalization: Mirrors, Magicians and Mutinies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xi + 291 pp

Musolff, A. — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:29:07 PDT