Cultural Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Neoliberalism or postmodernism? Decolonizing Soviet Estonia, 1987–1991

ABSTRACT This comparative analysis of sociopolitical and cultural discourses in the Estonian SSR from 1987–1991 concentrates on the tension between postmodernism as a cultural logic of late socialism and neoliberalism as a then-emergent modern ideology. Postmodernist and neoliberal ideas both emerged from decolonial reactions to Soviet rule, albeit from different aspects of it. Postmodernism reacted to the sense that the stagnation-era Soviet regime was ‘stuck in presentness’ and to the Soviet grand narrative of building communism. Neoliberal aspirations developed in reaction to the way Soviet rule obstructed local economic initiative and local participation in the global market, finding support in Gorbachev’s call for enterprise-level economic autonomy.

Gender in revelations: Unraveling gendered struggles and revisiting the construction of cultural identity paradigms in Badriyah Al-Bishr's Hend Wa alʿaskar (2006)

This article attempts to explore the intricate workings of gender dynamics in Badriyah Al-Bishr's Hend wa alʿaskar (2006). It investigates how the author challenges traditional gender norms through the representation of female characters who strive for liberation. Al-Bishr lays bare the complexities of gender roles within the Saudi Arabian context. Viewed from the lens of narrative perspective, her text reveals the silenced tales of women on the quest for agency and identity. Through vivid storytelling and rich character narrativization that builds on the stream of consciousness, flashback, anticipation, and disruptive temporality, Al-Bishr crafts a compelling narrative of women's revelations within a patriarchal setting. Drawing on cultural discourse analysis, and feminist social epistemology, the reading of Hend wa alʿaskar attempts to offer a nuanced exploration of how gender, power, and resistance intersect and coalesce together to produce a thought-provoking narrative about the contemporary Saudi Arabian context. The complexities of women's tales intricately weave an ambivalent knot of discourses within the narrative, enriching its depth and challenging conventional interpretations.

Tourism and Discourses of Peace About the UAE in the Israeli Media

By focusing on the recently established diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE in the aftermath of the 2020 Abraham Peace Accords, this paper critically assesses the emerging narratives of peace and tolerance underpinning the tourism promotional material circulating in the Israeli media between September 2020 (in the aftermath of the Abraham Accords) and August 2023 (before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023). The study employs a variant of critical discourse analysis known as Cultural Critical Discourse Analysis (CCDA) to unravel the cultural nuances embedded within this discourse. Based on this analysis, a dynamic model is presented to highlight two discourse strategies—cosmopolitanism and softening—underpinning the emerging discourse. Overall, this article represents a significant contribution in this specific moment of crisis as it aims to propel peace discourses through tourism in a region characterised by political instability.

Communicating and managing aspirational talk-action tensions: An integrated approach of CSR discourse analysis

Inspired by propositions founded on the Communication as Constitutive of Organization literature, this paper employed a mixed method combining Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA) with Corpus Linguistics to investigate how companies manage aspirational talk-action tensions in corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourses for social license to operate. Ten sustainability reports of five companies in Singapore and Hong Kong were accessed to examine the emergence of CuDA discursive hubs (identity, relation, emotion, action, and dwelling), the articulation of linguistic elements via concordance analysis, and the adoption of socio-cultural dimensions in addressing tension mechanisms. Findings revealed intricate communication dynamics resulting in four strategies that companies undertook to address and manage discrepancies, thereby enabling the construction of effective narrative CSR communication. These strategies provide valuable insights for public relations practitioners who engage in sustainability reporting and seek to adequately handle aspirational talk-action tensions that can possibly cause negative impacts.

Toward the Formation of the Public in a Marginalized Communicative Culture: Analyzing The Long Road of Woman's Memory

Abstract This study analyzes Jane Addams’ contribution to an enduring topic: how marginalized people join the public from beyond political, socioeconomic, cultural, and gendered barriers. I study Addams’ book, The Long Road of Woman's Memory (1916), which discusses the seemingly irrational devil baby case in Chicago. Using the concept of public and hidden transcripts and the method of cultural discourse analysis, I contextualize the book within the theorizing around the concept of the public by Addams’ contemporaries, Gabriel Tarde and Robert E. Park. The analysis shows that Addams’ discussion aligns with three conceptual aspects of the formation of the public. First, Addams describes the awakening of consciousness about a collectively relevant concern, and second, the emergence of interaction about the topic. Third, Addams constructs a conceptual distinction between two functions of memory, highlighting independent critical judgment as the divider between the two, which is the decisive factor that Park argues distinguishes the public from the crowd. Addams’ writing contains an unusual perspective in that she discusses development toward the formation of something like the public in a marginalized communicative culture. Instead of focusing on performative and dramatic public debate, Addams addresses discreet genres of communication and illustrates their public relevance.

Communicating LGBTQ-supportive CSR for corporate legitimacy: a cultural discourse analysis in Hong Kong

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards the notions of diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I) draws a lot of attention in modern, pluralist society. The organizations’ communicative approach in conveying LGBTQ advocacy to manage tensions and avoid conflicts with various stakeholders is largely underexplored in the Asian context. This study adopts Carbaugh’s cultural discourse analysis (CuDA) to examine the socio-cultural meanings of LGBTQ-supportive CSR discourse for building corporate legitimacy in Hong Kong. CSR materials from leading corporations (2016–2022) and Facebook comments from the public were selected. We analyzed the CSR discourse using the five discursive hubs of CuDA (i.e. identity, emotions, actions, relations, and dwelling) and Suchman’s legitimacy theory (i.e. pragmatic, cognitive, and moral). Our findings revealed three different stages of corporate legitimacy: namely, symbolic, institutional, and contextualized LGBTQ advocacy. The CSR materials intertwining in the five discursive hubs also demonstrated how the organizations attempted to build corporate legitimacy by fostering social change and avoiding conflicts through positive and implicit message-framing of LGBTQ advocacy. Discourse reflected in these CSR strategies illuminated the importance of glocalizing CSR messages to facilitate stakeholder engagement and corporate legitimization in support of this controversially progressive value.

Advancing interreligious education through the principles of SeMoshoeshoe

In this theoretical article, I have expressed sympathy for the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Lesotho over their worries about the marginalisation and prejudice of the Islamic faith in public settings. The article also takes into account the fact that the worry highlighted in respect to Islam religion comes at a time when demands for inclusive social, political, cultural and educational systems are being considered on a global scale. Education, which is considered a public enterprise, is rife with religious exclusionary practices in Lesotho. Only Christian education is taught in public schools; other religious traditions are not, most notably Basotho traditional religion. I employed cultural approach discourse (CAD) analysis and philosophical theory of pluriversality to argue that discrimination, particularly in education and religion, is against Basotho culture as enshrined in the SeMoshoeshoe values. I advocated utilising ‘sekoele’ – or returning to SeMoshoeshoe – principles of religious border pedagogy and religious public pedagogy to counteract the teaching of religion that is biased and marginalises other religious traditions.Contribution: The general contribution of this article is to advocate for interreligious education, which plays a crucial role in creating a tolerant, empathetic and inclusive society. It emphasises the significance of people from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds living and collaborating harmoniously. The article encourages empowerment to participate in constructive dialogues, embrace diversity and actively contribute to a more peaceful and unified global community.

Tracking the transmission of culture: a cultural discourse analysis of narratives of circulation in the US undergraduate public speaking course

ABSTRACT Ethnography of communication studies conducted by communication scholars, including those informed by cultural discourse theory, typically approach the cultural transmission of discursive resources using a narrow conception of language socialization. In this conception, expert speakers instruct or otherwise compel novice speakers to speak in locally recognized, normative ways and thereby achieve or affirm membership in the collective. I perform the cultural discourse analysis of narratives of circulation to extend this approach. In particular, I study narratives representing the movements of the Anglo-American speech genre known as public speaking in a US undergraduate course and a series of focus groups. Speakers narrated movement along four paths: from beyond the classroom into the classroom; inside the classroom (with the class acting as primary agent of dissemination); inside the classroom (with student speakers acting as secondary agents of dissemination); and from the classroom beyond the classroom. The analysis suggests three extensions of the existing approach to cultural transmission and, thereby, of cultural discourse theory: accounting for cultural ideologies (or metacultures) of transmission; producing more comprehensive accounts of transmission’s participation structure; and accounting for the local meanings of mobile resources both in context and in motion.

Enchronic cultural discourse analysis: a semio-cultural study of national identity discourse of Saudi Founding Day

ABSTRACT Calendrical events can conflate the political with the popular, for example, merging national identity with that of a political community, reflecting characteristics of glocalism. This article seeks to probe into Saudi national identity as emerging in the socio-political context of the calendrical event of Saudi Founding Day. Theoretically grounded in Shi-xu’s cultural approach to discourse (CAD), it adopts a methodological approach called Enchronic Cultural Discourse Analysis (ECDA) that is interfaced with insights from Enfield’s perspective of ‘enchrony’. Photos, with titles and comments, taken by 14 Saudi male students of Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University during the event, are used as data. Informed by ECDA, semio-cultural manifestations of Saudi national identity as well as its glocal claims are examined. The analysis reveals four semio-cultural configurations that can be said to have constructed Saudi national identity: (1) Tropic temporalization: Saudi Women, the Saudi maglis, and the Saudi horse (2) situated contiguity of colour, architectural artefacts, and national flag; (3) royal cultural participation and its symbolic-historical associations; (4) café-located spatio-cultural object arrangements; and (5) personal narrative and cultural memory.

Linguistic Means of Constructing the Image of Japan in Pedagogical Discourse

The current globalization means that countries have to use different channels in order to build a positive national image. This article describes linguistic means that shape the image of Japan in the corpus of academic and methodological texts for learners of the Japanese language. It focuses on the impact of pedagogical discourse and foreign language textbooks as a channel for linguistic construction of a positive national image. The analysis involved such methods as linguo-imagological analysis, content analysis, lexico-semantic and morpho-semantic analyses. The study owes its scientific novelty to the fact that the Japanese textbooks for foreigners were described for the first time not from the perspective of cultural studies or Japanese language teaching methodology, but as a key genre of pedagogical discourse that transmits knowledge and attitudes reflecting the interests of the most influential social groups and institutions. The textbooks demonstrated a variety of linguistic means of Japan’s image at different linguistic levels. The directions of country image-making are set by texts related to linguistic and cultural studies. Intertextual inclusions, visuals, and grammatical constructions have an ancillary character in this process. Japan’s image has a complex nature, which includes positive and negative aspects. Lexical units with negative connotations are used to "ground" the image, presenting Japan as a country which has problems that should be corrected. The conclusions and observations on the process of country image formation obtained in the study are of practical significance for teaching such university courses as Cultural Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Discourse Analysis. The research will be useful for specialists in the Japanese language, linguistic imagology, and pedagogical linguistics.

LA ORALIDAD ESCRITA. ESTILOS DE REPRESENTACIÓN FIGURATIVA EN LA POESÍA AFRODESCENDIENTE DE NICOMEDES SANTA CRUZ

The poetry of Nicomedes Santa Cruz is one of the most widely disseminated in the country. However, there are few publications on his work linked to the figurative and aesthetic universe. For this reason, the objective of this work is to investigate, from cultural rhetoric and discourse analysis, the marks of orality represented in the poems: “El café”, “¡Oiga usté, señor dotor!” and “Palmero sube a la palma”. From our perspective, the metaphorical representation that comes from orality has made it possible to configure two types of memory in poems: cultural and communicative. One, it fulfills a social storage function and; the other, performs the function of a memory of every day located in everyday life. Finally, we will observe how the linguistic imagination is configured based on multiple traces of it linked to the representation of language.

The Dissemination of the Concept of A Community with a Shared Future for Mankind in Major BRICS Countries: A Cultural Discourse Analysis (2013-2023)

The Dissemination of the Concept of A Community with a Shared Future for Mankind in Major BRICS Countries: A Cultural Discourse Analysis (2013-2023)

DOSSIER: RESISTANCE STUDIES IN THE FRONT OF CATASTROPHE AND THE STATE OF EXCEPTION

The production of a dossier entitled Studies of resistance in the face of catastrophe and the state of exception arises from the need to strengthen research on forms of resistance in different lines of action that assert themselves in the field of literary studies. In this sense, we seek to bring together texts by researchers who collaborate with the qualification and development of scientific and intellectual dissemination in dialogical processes between the areas of History, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Cinema, Visual Arts and Literature. This is affirmed due to the significant reflections on ways contrary to totalitarianism, authoritarianism and other forms of oppression. The categories Resistance and Testimony are present in studies such as those by Alfredo Bosi, Augusto Sarmento-Pantoja, Bárbara Harlow, Giorgio Agamben, Jaime Ginzburg, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Michel Foucault, Paul Ricœur, Tânia Sarmento-Pantoja, Sigmund Freud, Stuart Hall, Theodor Adorno, Tzvetan Todorov, Walter Benjamin, among others, who have shown a broad theoretical-critical insertion in investigations related to Cultural Studies, Sociological Criticism, Historical Materialism and Discourse Analysis. This mobility through different theoretical-methodological approaches is a consequence of the principles and reasons that govern the Resistance and Testimony categories: the need to oppose forces that try at all costs and in the most varied ways to domesticate, subdue, submit, massacre, destroy. The struggles for freedom, for fundamental human and civil rights, for justice and dignity are imperatives that make up the speculative core of Resistance, as the category offers many possibilities for reflection on authoritarianism related to States of Exception, as is the case of Dictatorships. The production of a Dossier that discusses the topic at hand is, finally, an effort to consolidate, disseminate and interconnect scientific knowledge with regard to research guided by social commitment. This is strengthened even more when we find that, at the present time, extremist groups occupy the streets of our country in defense of the values and practices of the civil-military dictatorship, idealizing them to simultaneously obstruct the critical knowledge pertinent to that period and also silence its reverberations in the cultural, educational, social and political spheres. Thinking about alternatives contrary to such actions and strategies of oppression, like the dossier Studies of resistance in the face of catastrophe and the state of exception, becomes an indispensable act for contemporary scientific thought.KEYWORDS: Resistance. A testimony. Catastrophe. State of Exception.

Ideologized Identities in the Romanian e-News. A Cultural Sociolinguistic Query of Converged Media Texts on the 2022 Russia-Ukraine Conflict

"Ideologized Identities in the Romanian e-News. A Cultural Sociolinguistic Query of Converged Media Texts on the 2022 Russia-Ukraine Conflict. The design for this paper is to provide a qualitative analysis of how positioning towards the two parties directly involved in the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict has been the catalyst of the textual morphing of two ideologized identities in some of the Romanian e-Press. The focus was on the locus of convergence of two types of mediated texts: the production of professional press editors and journalists, and of Social Networked Sites users and prosumers. With this intent, the Romanian HotNews.ro website was scrutinized, and a number of e-news items were singled out thematically and structurally. The presumption is that the mediation process has been conducive to foregrounding two ballpark antithetic identities as underpinned by correspondent ideologies. An interdisciplinary perspective was opted for, one that joins Cultural Sociolinguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis (Agha 2007; Androutsopoulous 2006; Blommaert 2017; Herring 2013; Silverstein 2004; Thurlow 2017; Wodak 2022) with the Ethnography of Netspeak (Kozinets 2010; Markham 2016, 2020; Zappavigna 2011) and focuses on collective identities in order to diagnose how the mediated text, as part of the semiotic architecture of the said e-Press inputs, pairs up antithetic ideology-determined identities in times of crisis. Keywords: Cultural Sociolinguistics, Ethnography of Netspeak, ideologized identity, digital cultural practices, textual interpretation, e-Press, Social Networked Sites "

Cross-comparing the Concept of “United in Diversity” as Expressed by European Capitals of Culture

ABSTRACT This paper examines the conceptualization and expression of cultural diversity and unity within the European Capitals of Culture (ECOC) initiative using a case study approach. Previous case studies have examined the impacts of the programmes from a single-city perspective and used quantitative and economic-focused approaches to evaluate impact. However, the ECOC initiative was intended to showcase the diverse cultures in Europe rather than focus on economic outcomes. A cultural discourse analysis was applied to eight winning cities between 2015 and 2019 (proceeding the onset of COVID-19) to answer the question: are ECOC focusing on expressing their national or regional diversity and identities or are they communicating a more generalized European perspective? The results showed that in the past five-year ECOCs have chosen to engage in more diverse and localized forms of cultural expression in their events, but not in their visual communications. Based on the analysis, a series of recommendations for future programme development are made (also published as a separate policy brief) to enhance ECOC’s ability to balance the communication of their diversity with their connection to Europe.

THE DECONSTRUCTION OF JEJER GANDRUNG STAGE IN THE VERSE OF GANDRUNG TEROB SONG BANYUWANGI

The interactive cultural discourse in the Gandrung Terob song verses can provide a new indication. The song verse applied in the Gandrung Terob are an oral presentation and surely have their own purpose and meaning in it. The verse of the song contains a presentation of the original language of the City of Banyuwangi,, namely: Osing language used by indigenous people in Kemiren village. This study examines the use of the Gandrung Terob song verses in the first stage of Jejer Gandrung. The purpose of this study is to describe how the function of the Gandrung Terob song verse in the City of Banyuwangi. This study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type of research. The data in this study are in the form of song verse speech used during the Jejer Gandrung staging in the Gandrung Terob performance. The scalpel used by researchers uses analysis in terms of cultural discourse. Meanwhile, on the data of the reading the verses of the Gandrung Terob song, the researcher transcribed the verses of the song using heuristic and hermeneutic reading techniques as reference. In addition, the main data analysis technique reference, the researcher using John W. Creswell's data analysis technique. Thus, the data obtained will be more valid and clear. The source of the data in the study was obtained from the speech contained in the Jejer Gandrung stage of the Gandrung Terob song verses in the City of Banyuwangi. The results of this study found 329 data consisting of three sub-focuses contained in the formulation of the problem. Hopefully this research can be used as an additional reference in the study of cultural discourse analysis.

Indonesian Cultural Perspective Critical Discourse Analysis in Junior High School Level English Textbooks

Language is a tool for people to communicate with structured words and sentence patterns. However, when there is a language there is also a culture that bonds together with language. One of the language that the world use is English. English has a very high demand in every sectors including education sectors. In education sector, English serves as the main subject in EFL countries, one of the EFL countries is Indonesia, and the teaching and learning English activity in Indonesia is still relying on textbook. Textbooks in Indonesia is rarely showing a cultural content which cultural contents in the textbook can be one of the appreciation of preserving a traditional culture. In this research, the author will analyze the discourse that found in a Junior High School level textbook, English on Sky 2 whether there is any Indonesian Cultural Perspective that included within the textbook. This research method will be using a qualitative method with descriptive analysis as the approach of research design.

Public speaking goes to China: cultural discourses of circulation

AbstractCultural discourse theory’s (CDT) strength is accounting for cultural differences between historically transmitted expressive systems. In its current form, the theory is not set up to account for the mobility of particular communication practices across cultural boundaries. Relying on CDT’s conception of communication practices as discursive resources for social interaction, we extend the theory’s explanatory power by investigating how speakers constitute the value and movements of a particular resource: the speech genre of public speaking. We performed a cultural discourse analysis (CuDA) of public speaking’s circulation between the United States and China to show that value ascriptions constituted divergent cultural discourses of circulation together with key symbols (such as “localization” and suzhi) and explicit metacultural commentary. These cultural discourses have an accelerative function on the dissemination side of circulation, and an integrative function on the replication side. Thus, cultural discourses of circulation communicatively constitute the mobility of particular discursive resources.

The Political Potential of Ya Hef in Contemporary Syrian Politics

Abstract Slogans and songs are fundamental components of the revolutionary experience. In its linguistic and musical form, the phrase ya hef (‘what a shame’) became a slogan of the 2011 Syrian revolution and served as a force for instigating a socio-political change in contemporary Syria. This paper investigates ya hef and its political potential in contemporary Syrian politics from a discourse-analytical perspective. After borrowing theories from cultural studies, discourse analysis and political studies, the article analyses the strong revolutionary connotations of the slogan and song within the discursive repertoire of massacre politics, focusing on both the general and specific functions. Through a close analysis of the song’s text, the study maps out three main arguments associated with the expression: 1) ya hef as a moral protest against state-sanctioned injustice and oppression; 2) ya hef as a response to the sentiment of brotherly betrayal among Syrians; and 3) ya hef as a cathartic mechanism for national reconciliation and nation-building. This article concludes that the expression ya hef is not only politically engaged in taking a stand against al-Assad’s brutality; it also fulfils a dialogical function between the oppressor and the oppressed, the ruler and the ruled and al-Assad and the Syrian citizens. This research adds to a growing body of literature on the uses and functions of language in revolutions in general and the Arab Spring protests in particular.

What Does It Mean to Be a “Polytechnic” University? Cultural Discourse Analysis of Organizational Identity

This study explicates discourse surrounding organizational identity negotiation among different stakeholders during organizational change in a polytechnic university. We bridge organizational identity approach and Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA) and demonstrate how an organizational identity is negotiated through cultural communicative practices active among student leaders, faculty, administrators, and staff. Five themes emerged from our analysis of 24 interviews with university stakeholders: 1) polytechnic as “STEM”; 2) polytechnic prioritizes certain disciplines over others; 3) polytechnic as “learn-by-doing”; 4) polytechnic as many arts; and 5) polytechnic as symbolic of tension among colleges.