This is the first collection to bring together well-known scholars writing from feminist perspectives within critical discourse analysis. The theoretical structure of CDA is illustrated with empirical research in Eastern and Western Europe, New Zealand, Asia, South America and the US, demonstrating the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining particular gender(ed) orders. These studies deal with texts and talk in domains ranging from parliamentary settings, news and advertising media, the classroom, community (...) literacy programs and the workplace. (shrink)

This article offers a timely, critical analysis of the male gaze upon sportswomen in male Chinese fans’ consumption of sporting megaevents. We use the most popular Chinese-language sports fandom platform, Hupu, as the data repository and scrutinise the threads of male Hupu users’ postings about two elite sportswomen at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the case studies. Drawing on feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA), we elucidate the discursive strategies that male Chinese fans adopt to (...) sexualise sportswomen and trivialise their accomplishments. The research findings showcase how China’s sports fandom has evolved as a masculine terrain, where men’s visions of asymmetrical gender power relations are discursively negotiated and rationalised. (shrink)

This paper explores the gendered discourses of the – seemingly favourable – media coverage that certain Heads of State received for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at media reports published in different English-speaking outlets in the US, the UK, India, Bangladesh, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland, and using multimodal feminist critical discourse analysis, we identify and describe strategies that on the surface appear to challenge hegemonic – and largely masculine – discourses of (...) leadership. Upon closer scrutiny, these superficially complimentary reports rather reinforce and naturalise discriminatory gender ideologies, and, as we demonstrate, they do so to different degrees along a continuum of essentialising, contextualising, and problematising. We critically discuss the discursive and visual processes involved and show that complimenting these leaders on their performance compares them against a masculine norm to construct their leadership as ‘alternative’, exceptional, and hence marked. This gendered portrayal of political leadership in times of crisis illustrates how the discursive construction of identities, responsibilities, and relationships during COVID-19 largely hinges on power relations and political ideologies that systematically disadvantage and undermine women. The purportedly positive form in which this occurs makes it particularly difficult to challenge and subvert these discriminatory discourses and their underlying gendered ideologies. (shrink)

This paper proposes a methodological synthesis in order to study multimodal media discourse and argumentation in the context of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece. It follows the framework of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, integrating this with argumentation studies, with a particular emphasis on the analysis of inference. Our data come from the Greek newspapers Kathimerini and Ta Nea. We contend that the proposed methodological synergy enables scrutiny of (a) racist conceptualizations cultivated by (...) the representation of migrants and refugees in headlines and photographs in newspaper articles along with (b) the argumentative potential that is implicitly sustained in these multimodal representations. (shrink)

Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged from the availability of social semiotic frameworks describing multimodal meaning making. However, weaknesses of these frameworks have raised concerns and prompted recent methodological reflections in MCDA. Inspired by these reflections, this paper critically assesses MCDA research on advertising persuasion and identifies a lack of attention in studies to account for the social and ideological impact of advertising. This shortcoming (...) is argued to be attributable to the weak empirical grounding of social semiotic frameworks which in turn is rooted in a ‘discursive gap’ (Bateman, Citation2019, p. 300) in multimodality as a discipline. The authors then propose methodological solutions involving eye tracking experiments and higher order data analytics which can strengthen the empirical basis of theoretical assumptions made in MCDA research on advertising. Drawing on methodological guidance for empirical multimodal research, the authors discuss specific issues in realizing this proposal, focusing on a strategy addressing operationalization challenges in experimental design and the affordance of a data cluster algorithm that calculates the common viewing path of a group of viewers. (shrink)

This paper argues that the proliferation of the new term ‘baby man’ has an impact on reconstructing established gender relationships and resisting China's authoritarian political power in a highly-censored online environment. This study employs feminist critical discourse analysis to investigate how Chinese feminism adopts the discursive construction of ‘baby man’ and how they echo the complex historical and sociocultural backgrounds through a case study of 43 posts containing ‘baby man’ on Chinese social media. The finding suggests (...) that the term ‘baby man’ is employed in discursive strategies, namely, double irony, the blunt resistance against both gender and power relationships that deconstruct the heteropatriarchal gender norm through the mother – son female gaze and contempt for the nation's past and current population policy. It argues that despite perennial censorship, these three discursive strategies help reconstruct the extant gender hierarchy backed by conservative Confucianist ethics and represent a grassroots challenge to the political authoritarianism indoctrinated by the state. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Republic Act 9710, or the Magna Carta of Women (MCW), is considered the Philippine version or national law translation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Using the concept of impact translation as a framework and the Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) approach, this article examines the MCW and the minutes of committee meetings, particularly the bicameral conference committee meeting where lawmakers agreed on the finalized version of the (...) bill. It applies the concept of gender relationality in examining how legislators negotiated the provisions of the MCW, particularly those on reproductive health and the definition of gender. The analysis shows that these provisions challenged Catholic doctrines specifically on gender, childbearing, and pre-marital sexual relations. It argues that the Catholic conception of gender norms and women’s role in society shaped the law’s final version, disregarding the CEDAW Committee recommendations on abortion. Findings suggest that the legislators’ fear that the law’s ratification would serve as an opening for the legalization of abortion led to a weakened version of the law, particularly the section on women’s reproductive health. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The performance Un violador en tu camino [A rapist in your way] created by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis received global media attention during the 2019/2020 Chilean protests against inequality and human rights violations. Drawing on insights from Feminist Critical Discourse Studies, Corporeal Sociolinguistics and Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies, we analyse three video recordings of Las Tesis’ performances in three capital cities in Latin America: Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City. We (...) study how sounds, lyrics, body movements, and accessories work together to defy institutional, material, and symbolic violence against women. We also analyse how intertextual strategies in the Santiago/chilean performance and their recontextualization in Buenos Aires and Mexico City were employed to resist structural patriarchal norms. The analysis reveals that through an adaptation of the song lyrics and the performances, the following social actors are explicitly identified as the instigators of violence against women: the police and the President, judges opposed to the legalization of abortion and the Catholic Church. This study advances understanding of feminist emancipatory and resistance discourses in Latin America. (shrink)

This study addresses the issue of how religious authority is negotiated and redefined in the age of digital media, focusing on the case of Raja Zia ul Haq, a Pakistani Muslim cleric. Utilizing Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, the study posits that Zia ul Haq’s strategic semiotic choices in attire and symbolism serve as calculated maneuvers to navigate complex dialogues of power, identity, and cultural capital. The findings reveal that his appropriation of biker club symbolism disrupts traditional (...) paradigms of Islamic clerical authority in Pakistan. These choices resonate with a younger, digitally savvy audience and function as a form of religious rebranding. The study argues that Zia ul Haq’s semiotic choices challenge monolithic interpretations of Islamic authority, thereby opening new avenues for religious engagement and interpretation. The significance of this work lies in its transnational implications, offering a counter-narrative that challenges prevailing stereotypes about Islamic scholars and suggests new paradigms for understanding religious authority in a globalized world. (shrink)

This study focuses on a series of videos aimed at teacher recruitment in Singapore and how they are used as an ideological tool for persuasion. By adopting a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach to focus on affect, it examines how these videos create and promulgate the ideology of an ideal teacher as one who is caring, encouraging and supportive of students. The analysis shows how affect is not only embodied in and performed by the primary (...) protagonists in the video narratives through their action, facial expression, posture and speech. It is also evoked through various secondary meaning-making modes, such as focus, angle, lighting, background music and setting, through which the narratives unfold. More importantly, it demonstrates how affect is used not only as a means to arouse and engage viewers’ sensibilities but also as a persuasive strategy to manufacture and manage particular social and economic realities in contemporary society. (shrink)

This paper is a multimodal critical discourse study of other-representation in ISIS’s magazine, Dabiq, It focuses on both the micro-level analysis of actor and action representation, and the macro-structure of negative other-depiction in Dabiq from both textual and visual perspectives. Through in-depth examination of linguistic and non-linguistic elements, the study aimed to unfold ISIS’s ideology at the global level, which is to construct its desired reality and eventually to recruit supporters. The analysis was carried out (...) on fifteen issues of Dabiq following a conceptual and analytical framework within Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis employing Van Leeuwen’s Socio-semantic inventory. The results show a considerable number of systematic utilizations of discursive strategies by ISIS to belittle its enemies and downgrade their practices. Throughout Dabiq, the out-group participants are represented either as passive reactants who are afflicted by ISIS’s attacks or as powerless agents whose actions are trivial and carry no significant weight. Ineffectuality of ‘others’ has further been substantiated by the visual analysis. Deactivation of out-groups is closely tied to ISIS’s propaganda of self-alteration to achieve the double aim of casting fear among their adversaries and brainwashing the audience by twisting the reality, and persuading them that the enemies’ chance of winning this war is dim. (shrink)

This paper proposes the concept of digital mirroring to explore and contextualise post-Arab Spring digital feminism in the Levant within a critical discourse framework. Digital mirroring illustrates the way in which contemporary Arab feminist groups articulate their digital presence orienting toward the vertical dimension of their sociopolitical contexts and toward the horizontal dimension characterised by the digital practices of other feminist movements in the region. We observed this phenomenon through the analysis of a multimodal (...) corpus of Facebook and Instagram posts published by thirty-two institutionalised and non-institutionalised feminist groups in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria between 2011 and 2019. The analysis of the linguistic and the visual strategies of MENA feminist groups is grounded in contemporary sociolinguistic studies on Arabic diglossia and multimodality. Findings reveal the complex interplay of digital self-representation, local resistance, and transregional networking of Levantine women. We argue that a simultaneous analysis of the vertical and the horizontal contextual dimensions of digital mirroring is necessary to comprehend social media discursive strategies and their transregional breadth as a central component of contemporary Arab feminism and emancipatory discourses at large. (shrink)

Ledin and Machin's critique of the use of some current approaches to multimodality for the purposes of critical discourse studies raises some important methodological concerns that need to be addressed. However, both the particular position they develop as well as some of the key points they raise are themselves problematic. In this response, I argue that Ledin and Machin misconstrue some significant aspects of the body of theory they critique and, as a consequence, offer a potentially misleading view (...) of the relevant state of the art in multimodality. I suggest that pursuing closer alignments with theoretically more nuanced accounts of multimodality would allow the account that Ledin and Machin propose to be revised in ways better suited to the task of conducting empirically-driven multimodal critical discourse studies. (shrink)

Defining technology : technology as apparatus -- Multimodal critical discourse analysis -- Analysing multimodal discourse : a toolkit approach -- Discourses of technology as progress -- Discourses of technological determinism -- Discourses of technological fetishism : (over)valuing technologies -- Discourses of technological (dis)satisfaction : consuming technologies.

This paper examines political protest in 40 purposively sampled internet memes circulated among Nigerian WhatsApp users during the Covid-19 pandemic, with a view to exploring the thematic preoccupation, ideology, and the representation of participants and processes in the memes. The data, which were subjected to qualitative analysis, are examined from a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach. The analysis reveals that the memes are used to protest corruption, perceived government deceit, insecurity, hunger, and inadequate health facilities (...) and other social amenities. These are done in order to project and resist an anti-welfarist ideology and emphasise the negative representation of the government. (shrink)

Due to the increasing concern about gender equity in the U.S., song lyrics with political activism are receiving more attention. As reflected through lyrics and the artist’s tumultuous life events, ‘thank u, next,’ Ariana Grande’s fifth album, has been reviewed by media outlets, such as Billboard as mirroring Grande’s public persona of self-empowerment. iTunes (2019) describes the album as Grande’s embraced position of – ‘complex, independent, tenacious and flawed.’ This study investigates how these claims came about by adopting Fairclough’s (...) class='Hi'>Critical Discourse Analysis three-dimensional framework. It examines how the discourse of self-empowerment is portrayed in her lyrics, and what linguistic strategies are deployed to portray the discourse. This study hopes to add texture to existing literature by examining the production of young women’s empowerment ideology and the meanings of neoliberal feminism in relations to the use of language in song lyrics. Linguistic strategies such as the use of metaphors, overstatements and presupposition manipulation have been investigated through textual, and social analyses of the songs to demonstrate the ideological concepts of a ‘self-empowered woman’. The concepts found include independence, self-love/growth, owning of sexuality, and being needy. The concepts also revealed that Grande’s lyrics mostly support ideals of gender equity and female empowerment. (shrink)

In this article, we carry out a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of a sample from a larger corpus of Romanian news articles that covered the controversial camp evictions and repatriation of Romanian Roma migrants from France that began in 2010 and continue to the time of writing in 2017. These French government policies have been highly criticized both within France and by international political and aid organizations. However, the analysis shows how these brutal, anti-humanitarian events (...) became recontextualized in the Romanian Press to represent the French government’s actions as peaceful and consensual. In addition, the demonization of the Roma in the press serves as a strategy to continuously disassociate them from their Romanian counterparts. While there is a long history of discrimination against the Roma in Romania, these particular recontextualizations can be understood in the context of the Romanian government’s need to gloss over its failure to comply with the Schengen accession requirements and acquire full European Union membership. (shrink)

This book provides a showcase for a wide range of discourse analytical work in psychology from a feminist perspective. It constitutes a thorough critical evaluation of this approach for the feminist project of intellectual, social and political change. Leading researchers explore the benefits and contradictions of discourse analysis and consider its value for feminist psychology. The first part of the book illustrates the application of discourse analysis to four key topics of (...) feminist concern: adolescent knowledge about menstruation; sexual harassment; gendered representations of childhood; and anorexia nervosa. The second part contains five assessments of the usefulness of discourse analysis - both as theory and as method. (shrink)

In the age of neoliberalism, feminists strongly disagree on the ideal legal status of prostitution while the pro-prostitution lobby endeavours to keep their male-dominated business running smoothly. Feminist debates should be concerned with the sex buyers' belief system about women, which is likely to have practical consequences in the way they behave with women (prostituted and non-prostituted) in terms of sexuality and, therefore, for feminist purposes of equality, on a broader scale. A Critical Discourse Analysis (...) of buyer-authored online reviews of prostituted women provides the opportunity to verify whether the relationship they establish with them is based on democratic mutual equality or gendered power relations driven by domination and subordination.En la era del neoliberalismo, no hay consenso entre las feministas acerca del estatus legal que debería tener la prostitución; mientras, el lobby pro-prostitución intenta proteger tan lucrativo negocio. Los debates feministas deben abordar críticamente el sistema de creencias de los sujetos prostituyentes, en tanto que afecta a cómo actúan con las mujeres (prostituidas y no prostituidas) dentro del marco de la sexualidad y, por tanto, al potencial logro de la igualdad fáctica a nivel social. El análisis crítico del discurso online de los sujetos prostituyentes sobre las mujeres prostituidas permite comprobar si las relaciones que establecen con ellas están basadas en términos igualitarios o en la dicotomía dominación-subordinación característica de las relaciones de poder de género. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile the sonic logo for McDonald’s i’m lovin’ it campaign has been widely distributed and highly praised, little is known about the actual characteristics and meaning potentials of this pa...

Preconception expanded carrier screening (PECS) informs prospective parents about the risk of conceiving a child with a heritable genetic condition. PECS will also, for many, become an important screening test, and websites will likely play a vital role in providing information on this practice. The aim of this article is to examine rationalities in the information on PECS on Dutch websites. The method used is multimodal critical discourse analysis. This method allows an examination of norms and (...) assumptions in the descriptions, as well as of the positions that are discursively made available. The data consist of publicly available material on websites from two genetics departments in the Netherlands. In the results, we present the three main discourses and subject positions that were identified: risk and the couple as possible mediators of severe conditions; the focus on scientific facts and rational conceivers; and severity of the conditions and the responsible couple. In this study, we highlight the importance of acknowledging the interrelation between epistemology and ethics in the discourse on PECS. Finally, it is claimed that the focus on scientific facts in information on PECS risks making existential and ethical dilemmas and choices invisible. (shrink)

Mainstream western feminism is generally known as secular. Women in this movement have fought religious dogmas and paternalistic gender patterns in religious texts and traditions. However, for many women all over the world religion is also an important part of their lives. Some of them try to combine their religious beliefs and feminist ideals. For a long time, their discussions remained at the margins, but in the last few years, ‘mainstream’ feminists are forced to rethink their standpoint about religion. (...) Many have chosen a critical approach towards the relationship between religion and emancipation, but others express the need to take into account differences between women in the definition of feminism and emancipation. This article analyses a popular Dutch feminist magazine and how it defines feminism in relation to religion and culture. The article undertakes an in-depth analysis of how the notions of religion, culture and feminism are interpreted and discussed in the Dutch feminist magazine Opzij. The concepts of experience, solidarity, emancipation and difference are central in the investigation. (shrink)

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions on feminism and the analysis of discourse. In particular, I examine Celia Kitzinger’s [(2000), Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism and Psychology, 10, 163–193 and (2002) Doing feminist conversation analysis. In P. McIlvenny (Ed.), Talking gender and sexuality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.] claims to be engaged in “feminist conversation analysis.” This paper identifies susceptibilities in her arguments at both the theoretical level and the level of data (...) analysis. My argument is that Kitzinger fails to appreciate the fact that her enterprise is basically a formal analytic one and that as such it is both radically different from, and incommensurate with, ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). Indeed her attempts to supplement feminism with EM/CA are unnecessary and counterproductive from an EM/CA position insofar as they crucially undermine its integrity. (shrink)

The 9/11 attacks in the USA had profound political consequences at both domestic and international levels. Specific and controversial policy developments were pursued requiring substantial legitimation to find acceptance. A prime example was the USA PATRIOT Act, which was passed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and subsequently received considerable critique due to the sweeping nature of its redefinition of what was acceptable in the cause of ‘fighting terror’. The media, and their construal of events and policies, played a significant (...) role in the necessary process of legitimation. In this paper, we explore how one particular area of the media, the superhero comic book, was also active in this regard. By focusing specifically on the multimodal meaning construction within Marvel's Civil War comics series, we suggest how a close multimodal discourse analysis can shed further light on the mechanisms by which particular discourse contexts of public opinion are propagated. (shrink)

This study examines the dual discursive articulation in the Instagram posts of the street library community, Literasi Trotoar (LIAR), in Purwakarta, Indonesia. The study focuses on two groups of posts: those directed towards the LIAR community and the general public, and those aimed at the Indonesian government. To analyse the posts, this study adopts ‘Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA),’ which focuses on both the language and visual elements of the posts. The findings reveal the presence of (...) two integrated and inseparable types of articulation within the posts. Firstly, articulation serves as a discursive tool to persuade the public to embrace the ideology of anarchism within the context of in-group power relations. This articulation is strategically employed for positive in-group representation, in-group ideological glorification, subject interpellation, ideological legitimation, and power formation. Secondly, articulation functions as a discursive mechanism to challenge the authority of the government within the context of out-group power relations. This articulation is strategically utilized for negative out-group representation using a narrative model of populism, out-group ideological debasement, subject resistance, ideological delegitimization, and power exertion. This study proposes a model termed ‘dual discursive articulation,’ which integrates two discursive objectives: persuasion and resistance. (shrink)

Critical discourse analysis is a useful and productive qualitative methodology but has been underutilized within nursing research. In order to redress this deficiency the research presented in this article represents an exploration of the way in which critical discourse analysis may be applied to the analysis of public debates around policy for nursing practice. In this article the author discusses the history of the application of critical discourse analysis and provides (...) an example of its application to the debate around the use of nurse practitioners within the Australian healthcare system. (shrink)

In a 2018 referendum, the Irish electorate voted in favour of repealing Ireland's quasi-total legal ban on abortion. The referendum campaign saw important public discussions regarding gender roles in twenty-first century Ireland. While the constitutional ban on abortion was condemned by abortion rights advocates for marginalising women's agency, the legislation which replaced it has not escaped criticism either. Therefore, questions surrounding the conceptualisation of women's agency in the 2018 referendum are still relevant today. Adopting a multimodal critical (...) class='Hi'>discourse analysis approach, this paper analyses signage from the weeks before the vote to examine the discursive construction of women's agency in the linguistic landscape of the referendum campaign. I argue that many mainstream campaign organisations – including those arguing for liberalisation of abortion laws – were complicit in the discursive diminishment of women's agency, suggesting that the campaign did not necessarily challenge prevailing ideologies of gender and agency. (shrink)

The theoretical perspectives of intersectionality and poststructuralism have contributed meaningfully to advancing issues of social injustice within the realm of women's health research. However, the question of whether the two approaches are epistemologically commensurate has been at the heart of a polarized debate within third‐ and fourth‐wave feminist literature in recent years. In this paper, we draw on the extant literature to explore existing dilemmas within this debate and critically reflect on points of epistemological tension and congruence between the (...) two perspectives. It will be demonstrated that intersectionality and poststructuralism, especially feminist poststructuralism, represent concordant theoretical perspectives and a synthesized theoretical framework for application in qualitative research into women's health will be proposed. We argue that an intersectional feminist poststructuralist framework contributes to a deepened analysis of women's disparate healthcare experiences, and the social mechanisms, power relations, and discourses that mediate these experiences, while offering avenues for advocacy and political praxis on a multitude of levels. (shrink)

Critical discourse analysis has become an effective multidisciplinary approach to uncovering hidden ideologies and powers along with the changing times and the increasing prevalence of various discourses in society, both in the form of information written in text and distributed in the digital world. Discourse battles are commonplace in the context of life—as a form of dialectics and freedom to convey ideas. Researchers through this article discuss basic assumptions about the basic or main principles of (...) class='Hi'>critical discourse analysis developed by Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak. The basic assumptions are that critical discourse analysis focuses on social issues, power relations are discursive, discourse shapes society and culture, discourse manages ideological works, discourse is historical, the relationship between text and society is mediated (discourse), discourse analysis is interpretive and explanatory, and discourse is a form of social action. The article also discusses three models of discourse analysis: the Sociocultural (Norman Fairclough), Socio-cognitive (Teun A. van Dijk), and Historical-Discourse (Ruth Wodak) models. Fairclough’s sociocultural model interprets text not only through the way objects are described but also through the relationships between objects that are defined. Meanwhile, Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model emphasizes text, social cognition, and social context, forming a chain of analysis. Lastly, Ruth Wodak’s historical-discourse model puts historical aspects of discourse into his analysis. (shrink)

Recently, the government of Zimbabwe unveiled a newly constructed statue of the esteemed spirit medium and liberation icon who intrepidly fought against the British imperialism. The distinguished heroine is passionately known as Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana. The lexical item, ‘Mbuya’ in Shona language literally means grandmother. This study examines the ways in which the spectres of religion, historiography, gender and national politics find expression in often contested state narratives of Mbuya Nehanda and in selected Zimbabwean fictional writings. Foucault’s theorisation of (...) socio-political practices and subjectification as sites of power, together with the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework and bell hooks’ feminist thought of ‘talking back’, provide provocative insights about regimes of power that could be more edifying in the interlocking discursive terrain of the African cosmology, frequently disputed archeology of historical memory, socio-political relations, which are noticeable in discourses and gender politics. The study interrogates whether the Nehanda grand narrative is told by politicians as the revolutionary story of all citizens or not. If not, what alternative versions are proffered in selected Yvonne Vera and NoViolet Bulawayo’s literary texts? Arguably, the mythology of Nehanda in the chosen literary texts locates women as agents of revolution thereby generating semantic dissonance in the Zimbabwean context, which is largely considered as land of the Fathers. Contribution: The study situates the Nehanda narrative within contested terrains of national history, gender and religion in Zimbabwe’s transitional politics and literature. It concludes that in Vera and Bulawayo’s writings, the Nehanda narrative is deployed to interject significations of woman (hood) and nation (hood) which seek to marginalise some sections of the society. The dissonances embedded in the Nehanda narrative produce a dialoguing space that’ talks back’ and rebuts single storytelling. (shrink)

GILLETT K. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 297–307 A critical discourse analysis of British national newspaper representations of the academic level of nurse education: too clever for our own good?This critical discourse analysis examines articles about the academic level of nurse education that appeared in British national newspapers between 1999 and 2009. British newspaper journalists regularly attribute problems with recruitment into nursing and nursing care to the increasing academic nature of nurse education. It is impossible (...) to separate discourse about nurse education from the wider nursing discourse. Many journalists laud a traditional and stereotypical construct of nurse identity and suggest that increasing nurse education produces nurses who are ‘too clever to care’. This article argues that whilst nurses lack a voice in the National press, they have little input into the construction of newspaper discourse about nurse education and subsequently, limited influence on resulting public opinion, government policy and the morale of nurses. (shrink)

The United Nations ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ lays out 17 Sustainable Development Goals to address a range of global issues related to the future of the planet and human well-being. Critics, however, argue that the Agenda, a complex product of multi-stakeholder governance, in its drive to accommodate many competing voices, is overloaded with weakly defined, overlapping and contradictory issues, concepts and buzzwords. These serve to gloss over actual concrete global problems and forces, concealing an underlying (...) free-trade ideology. In this paper, using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we draw attention to the nature of the documents used to communicate the Agenda. These documents comprise an edifice of self-referential texts that rely heavily on infographics, bullet points, charts and tables. Such formats appear to helpfully simplify, distil information and break things down into workable components. But, we show, through the affordances of these formats, the the vagueness of buzzwords, contradictions and lack of clear causalities can be glossed over, presenting the Agenda as a highly technical, engaging, and above all moral process. These formats are important, therefore, for the legitimization and rhetorical power of the Agenda, necessary for its take-up by governments and organizations around the world. (shrink)

Critical discursive analyses offer possibilities for equity‐oriented research, and are a resource for addressing resistant social problems, such as child neglect and abuse (CN&A). A key challenge for discourse analysts in health disciplines is the tensions between materiality and social constructions, particularly at the site of the body. This paper describes how Donna Haraway's ideas of figuration and technobiopower can augment critical discourse analysis to address this tension. Technobiopower, an intensification of biopower in the context (...) of technoscience, is seen as underpinning the melding of material and semiotic practices. The subject is no longer a material body, but a hybrid body that exists in tropic figuration between the real and unreal. This paper uses an analysis of the figuration of The Monstrous Perpetrator from a study of nursing responses to CN&A to illustrate how Haraway's figuration aligns with and provides an analytical tool to extend critical discursive analyses. Specifically, this methodology offers new ways to identify the discursive qualities of bodies, and how material aspects of bodies are exaggerated, concealing their hegemonic ideologies and discriminatory effects. By identifying discourses within or inscribed upon the body, they can be disrupted, opening new possibilities for social change. (shrink)

This article analyses the multimodal representations of public space in Chilean broadcast news reports on the figure of the hooded rioter and its alleged connections with the student movement. We seek to identify how space is constructed as a legitimation strategy in relation to the actors involved and the actions taking place across four different news broadcast pieces in the light of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Results show that the multimodal (...) representations of space are crucial to identify and functionalize hooded rioters as belonging to the student movement. Actions are dependent on the spaces in which actors operate, restricting the occupation of certain spaces to specific actors. Thus, transgressive protest actions are to be contained to educational spaces and represented as naturalized vandalism, ignoring the students’/demonstrators’ motivations to recuperate/vindicate the public space. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Corporate Social Responsibility denotes a movement away from shareholder theories of the corporation, and refers to a set of practices designed to have an economic, environmental, and social impact. Public companies report on their CSR practices annually in the form of multimodal reports which are made available on the companies’ websites, and are typically read by investors who seek standardisation across this genre. Thus, most companies across the globe follow the Global Reporting Initiative framework for reporting, a framework (...) developed within the Global North. The dominance of the Global North in CSR practices is also evident in the academic literature – while applied linguists have gone some way in highlighting the generic, interpersonal, and ideational features of reports, such studies have predominantly focused on multinational corporations. There is, comparatively, very little literature on the CSR practices and discourses circulating in the Global South or former colonial contexts and because of this we have limited insight into how companies operating in these contexts discursively represent themselves, their employees and their suppliers within the same context. To address this shortcoming, this study draws on analytical approaches developed within Critical Discourse Analysis coupled with postcolonial theory in order to comment on the ideational features of the four most recent CSR reports of one South African company. (shrink)

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a continuously developing and problem-oriented interdisciplinary research field. It is interested in ‘analyzing hidden, opaque, and visible structures of domina...

This article presents a critical analysis of Disney's animated film and stage production of Beauty and the Beast, especially of the heroine, Belle, within a more general and brief historiography of the fairy tale. It is argued that Disney's version displaces the heroic focus from Belle to Beast, while also narrating a response to feminism that involves compressing feminist ideology into conventions of popular romance. The broader representation of femininity in Disney is also examined with reference, particularly, (...) to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and with reflections also on non-fictional characters from media with a relationship to Disney, specifically, Diana Princess of Wales, Lillian Disney and Ellen DeGeneres. Teresa de Lauretis's `elsewhere of vision' is introduced to disrupt and rewrite the domesticating effects of Disney's feminism on its heroines. (shrink)

Tara is both a Buddhist and Hindu deity. She is widely worshipped in the esoteric branch of Buddhism: Vajrayana. Even in the exile, Tibetan refugees follow the practice and rituals associated with Tara. Lamentably, she has been given an auxiliary and secondary role in comparison to male deities. Various feminist scholars have begun to look at aspects of society through the lens of gender. They have been at the forefront of studying gender roles and its psychological consequences for those (...) who try to abide by them. In religious studies, especially in Asian context, many of these discourses are difficult to perceive because they were unconsciously appropriated as truth by the people of the society in which they circulated as an inviolable aspect of the worlds or as nature. This study is an attempt to examine the representation of Goddess in various ancient texts as essential to the study of the divine feminine. This hybrid study merges traditional Indology with feminist studies, and is intended for specialists in the field, for readers with interest in Buddhist, and for scholars of Gender studies, cultural historians, and sociologists. (shrink)

Despite the invaluable role that women play in the peacebuilding process, statistics still show this as a male-dominated field. Since media narratives have the power to frame reality providing the public with preferred lenses to understand it, this study asks, How do media narratives frame the role of Afghan women in conflict resolution? To address this question, we combine Frame Theory (Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58) and Critical (...) class='Hi'>Discourse Analysis (van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 466–485). Wiley Blackwell) to explore media narratives before and after the Taliban came into power in August 2021. The samples include 32 articles published between 2018 and 2022 on different sources ranging from traditional news outlets to magazines, newsrooms, intergovernmental organizations, and think tanks. Findings show that media narratives perpetuate unfair gendered expectations, failing to effectively render the irreplaceable role of women in peacebuilding. Frames confirm the double bind of hegemonic femininity (Schneiker, A. (2021). The UN and women's marginalization in peace negotiations. International Affairs, 97(4), 1165–1182) as women are subject to different expectations – the exception presents them as courageous, yet the norm frames them as being too vulnerable and without a voice. (shrink)

Here I use aspects of Phil Graham’s discourse analytical work to examine forms of e/valuations and critically analyse the formulation of truths in the constitution of Artificial Intelligence (hereafter, AI). This paper focuses on two 2019 documents: Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI (AI HLEG, Citation2019a) and Policy and investment recommendations for trustworthy AI (AI HLEG, Citation2019b). My aim here is to provide a timely contribution to contemporary philosophical–methodological innovations in documenting the constellation of values that are prefigured in human-centric (...) constructions of AI. The analysis is informed primarily by principles from Graham’s distinctive approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA), which I take to be the philosophical study of valuation. In that approach, political economy is taken as a composite formulation of values whereby neo-liberalism is discursively entwined and progressed through a system of principles of e/valuation. This paper presents a roadmap to demonstrate the usefulness of a philosophically grounded interdisciplinary piece of linguistic research through which evaluative semantic categories can be usefully synthesised with CDA to systematically expose the assumptions which underpin current truth claims and values – in this case, about and around the ethics of AI. (shrink)

Real Language Series General Editors:Jennifer Coates, Jenny Cheshire, Euan Reid This is a sociolinguistics series about the relationships between language, society and social change. Books in the series draw on natural language data from a wide range of social contexts. The series takes a critical approach to the subject, challenging current orthodoxies, and dealing with familiar topics in new ways. Gender and Discourse offers a critical new approach to the study of language and gender studies. Women moving (...) into the public domains of power traditionally monopolised by men are creating new identities for themselves, and the language that is used by them and about them offers an insight into gender roles. Clare Walsh reviews the current dominance/difference debates, and proposes a new analytical framework which combines the insights of critical discourse and feminist perspectives on discourse to provide a new perspective on the role of women in public life. A superbly accessible book designed for students and researchers in the field, the book features: - topical case studies from the arenas of politics, religion and activism- a new analytical framework, also summarised in chart form so the reader can apply their own critical analyses of texts. - written and visual text types for the reader's own linguistic and semiotic analysis. 'This important book takes up a neglected question in the study of language and gender - what difference women make to the discourse of historically male-dominated institutions - and brings to bear on it both the insights of feminist scholarship and evidence from women's own testimony. Clare Walsh's analysis of the dilemmas women face is both subtle and incisive, taking us beyond popular 'Mars and Venus' stereotypes and posing some hard questions for fashionable theories of language, identity and performance. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing project of developing a specifically critical realist approach to discourse analysis. This is important not just because critical realist researchers n...

Dominant discourses of recovery permeate substance use research, policy, and practice recommendations around the world, exercising the power to shape the identities of people with substance use issues. Drawing on Foucauldian and intersectionality theories, this study explores power operations embedded in recovery discourses constructing a certain type of recovery for a certain type of subject. A critical discourse analysis using van Leeuwen’s social semiotic approach examines two Canadian federal recovery documents to consider the discursive representation of people (...) with substance use issues, legitimization of recovery, and interpretation of space. Findings suggest that substance use recovery discourses are entwined in a complex web of neoliberal, biomedical, and moral discourses by which stigmatized identities are (co)constructed at micro, mezzo, and macro levels. This study offers a unique and relevant opportunity to complicate the dominant recovery literature by challenging oppression, deconstructing normative identities, and facilitating the empowerment of marginalized populations. (shrink)

Conventional gender analysis of development policy does not adequately explain the slow progress towards gender equality. Our research analyses the gender discourses embedded in agricultural and rural development policies in Myanmar and Nepal. We find that both countries focus on increasing women’s participation in development activities as a core gender equality policy objective. This creates a binary categorisation of participating versus non-participating women and identifies women as responsible for improving their position. At the same time, gender (in)equality is defined (...) exclusively as a women’s concern. Such discourses, as constitutive practices, produce specific knowledge about rural women and new subjectivities that prescribe and govern them solely as subjects of development. Our research suggests that such a limited discursive practice invisiblises gendered power relations and structural and institutional issues, ultimately slowing progress towards gender equality. We demonstrate the importance of studying policy as discourse, beyond the effectiveness of policies or mainstreaming tools, and call for empirical evidence on the impact of these discourses on women’s subjectivities and lived experiences. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Critical Discourse Studies and in other linguistics oriented scholarly journals we now see more research which draws upon multimodality as part of carrying out analyses of how text...