Conducting Discourse Analysis Research Articles

UNESCO, mining heritage and the scalar sustainability of tourism geographies at industrial World Heritage Sites

PurposeIndustrial heritage works within a world of contradictions, contentions and scalar liminality. Archaeologists and historians focus upon oral histories and discourses of tangible and intangible memory and heritage while planners and economists see industrial World Heritage, in particular, as a marketing ploy to redevelop deindustrialized spaces. Within this liminality, we explore the potential for geographical perspectives to solder such contradictions into transdisciplinary heritage assessments and tourism contexts. How might the spatial tools of landscape and scalar analyses expose alternative and sustainable futures within broader patterns of industrial heritage management and consumption?Design/methodology/approachUsing three comparative cases, interview and landscape methods and conducting discourse analysis within a spatial and scalar framework, we explore the increasing presence of industrial World Heritage.FindingsWe present both an institutional reflection upon the complexities of heritage discourse across complex spatial configurations and the intersectional historical, cultural, political, environmental and economic geographies that guide and emerge out of World Heritage Designations. Framed scalarly and spatially, we highlight common interpretation, tourism and heritage management styles and concerns found across industrial World Heritage. We point out trans-scalar considerations for future municipalities and regions looking to utilize their industrial landscapes and narratives.Originality/valueWe believe that more theoretical groundings in space and scale may lead to both the flexibility and the applicability needed to assess and, in turn, manage trans-scalar and trans-spatial complex heritage sites. These perspectives may be uniquely poised to assess the complex geographies of industrial, particularly mining, World Heritage Sites.

Envisioning of smart cycling in seven cities: Discourse analysis of official city documents

This article investigates how and why smart cycling is implemented in cities. First, we develop a conceptual framework based on the literature that addresses sustainable transportation in cities,with a focus on cycling. Afterwards, we use this framework to explore how cycling is mentioned in the official discourse of cities by examining published official city documents using discourse analysis. Thus, we investigate the narratives published around smart cycling in seven cities: Helsinki, Montreal, Moscow, Tokyo, Dublin, Boston, and Vancouver. Conducting discourse analysis helps contextualize the implementation of smart cycling in cities, allowing us to grasp whether and how the narratives of smart cycling in the cities’ discourse are aligned towards a more technical or social recipe. This research shows that smart cycling narratives in cities emphasize both its social and technical aspects, reflecting the socio-technical aspects and nature of smart cycling and its discourse. This comprehensive understanding of smart cycling indicates that it can play different roles in different cities, based on a city’s goals and vision. Hence, smart cycling is a versatile tool for addressing urban challenges and building smarter, more sustainable cities, both technically and socially.

“Pochas sin identidad”: Raciolinguistic ideologies in the construction of mexicanidad in online spaces

ABSTRACT This study examines how ideas of Mexicanness are constructed on social media via raciolinguistic indexicals observed in the language practices of racialized individuals. I conducted discourse analysis on data collected from comments posted in four Olympic athletes’ tweets that emphasize different characteristics of Mexican identity. Findings suggest that the practices of alluding to language proficiency, whiteness, and cultural sentiment lead to a “double stigmatization” that racialized the players as “inherently linguistically deficient”. These criticisms, paired with misogynistic language, offended the players’ languages, bodies, sexualities, and intellect. The result of these harmful judgments exposes the raciolinguistic ideologies in the construction of a Mexican identity that perpetuates the myth of a desirable, better Mexican (i.e. Mexican national) and an undesirable, lesser Mexican (i.e. foreign born). This can result in the exclusion and erasure of transnational identities and perpetuate deficit perspectives of marginalized groups in both countries. Recognizing and challenging these raciolinguistic ideologies can help recognize the complexity of multicultural identities.

Expanding Frameworks: Conducting Discourse Analysis in Counseling Research

Discourse analysis encompasses a variety of disciplinary approaches that broadly aim to understand how individuals and groups use language to construct and maintain their psychological and social realities. A central concept in discourse analysis is we all use discourse to accomplish our communication goals despite being unaware of most discourses we evoke. While discourse studies could help counseling professionals to better understand how they deploy discourses to maintain identities, inequalities, and status quo, the method is not well-represented in counseling research in the United States. This methodological guide presents an introduction to discourse analysis and an overview of the analytic framework, highlighting discourse studies conducted germane to counseling research and practice.

Озеро Светлояр в современном сакральном дискурсе

The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the sacred discourse of Lake Svetloyar. The material of the analysis is the texts of interviews taken from residents of the village of Vladimirsky and guests who visited this place, video content posted on the YouTube social network, publications in the media dedicated to the lake. The conducted discourse analysis reveals the peculiarity of the sacred discourse of Lake Svetloyar today as a complex and conflicting combination of Orthodox discourse, the discourse of neo-pagans, representatives of new age, individual religiosity, as well as the excursion activities of employees of the Museum and Tourist Complex “Grad Kitezh” in the village of Vladimirskoye. The article concludes that for all of them Lake Svetloyar is a natural sacred space, one of those in Russia in which either the Russian national and cultural identity, or the spiritual uniqueness of all mankind, or the source of individual “cultivation of the spirit” is most strongly manifested. The results of the study confirm that Lake Svetloyar, as one of the most important sacred spaces in Russia with a corpus of various narratives revealing its special nature and status, with a complex of ritual practices formed around it, remains significant and actively functioning in the modern socio-cultural space.

The role of national identities in China’s decision for war in the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict

ABSTRACT By conducting discourse analysis on Chinese textual materials around 1962, this paper tries to inductively explore the national identities of Chinese people during the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict. It finds that China perceived itself as a persistent and resilient nation in the ongoing fight against invasion and oppression. The predominant social discourse around 1962 showed a strong enmity and resistance toward the imperialism which was then imposed on India. These national identities have formed a natural response as maintaining a tough stance toward incursion and repression, and have contributed to China’s resolution to defense its territory with resorting to military force, even though it might not be beneficial in terms of diplomatic relations and economic interests.

Unveiling the formation of conspiracy theory on social media: A discourse analysis

Social media technology not only affords opportunities for digital activism and global liberation, but it also poses threats to the freewheeling of democracy. The emergence and prevalence of conspiracy theories on social media stem from communal processes of online political debate or social movements that degenerate into conspiracy beliefs. This study views the online formation of conspiracy theories as a socially emergent process. Subscribing to a social constructionist lens and synthesizing extant literature on social movements and social media affordances, we conducted discourse analysis on discursive data collected from Twitter for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory. Through the analysis, we delineate the formation of conspiracy theory into four stages and characterize each stage according to its mobilizing structure, participants, mode of interaction, content created, and discernible collective action. We also identify social media affordances facilitating the formation of conspiracy theories within and across stages. Findings of this study advance contemporary knowledge on conspiracy theories by not only extending our understanding of the role of social media in conspiracy theory formation, but they also aid practitioners in comprehending the formation process of conspiracy theory formation, the latter of which constitutes the foundation for devising appropriate prevention and mitigation strategies.

Meaning in EFL textbooks delivered to Chilean public schools: knowledge construction from a Systemic Functional approach

This study examines the knowledge built through the 1st and 2nd-grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks used in Chilean public schools. From a linguistic perspective, knowledge is addressed as meaning, developed through the selection of linguistic resources that a given language offers. Textbooks are fundamental in teaching and learning a foreign language, because they provide a great part of these resources; consequently, it is essential to understand how meaning begins to be built and develops through the curriculum. With that aim, with a mixed-method approach and from a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective, we examined the lexical resources employed in textbooks that contribute to the construction of meaning. We conducted discourse analysis to identify the relations among lexical items and the kind of knowledge they build. Corpus analysis was used to estimate how lexical complexity increases from one level to the next. We found that the two books build commonsense knowledge, corresponding to what children know about the world in their mother tongue. We also found that lexical complexity increases from one book to the other, thus enlarging learners’ repertoire of words in English.

Old Wine in New Bottles: Discourse Articulation and China’s Ideological Adaptation in the Time of Transition

ABSTRACT This article describes the ideological adaptation that occurred in China during the 1990s, when the reform of state-owned enterprises rearticulated the state-labor relationship. The market-oriented reform produced a series of meaning dislocations within the discursive field, departing from the traditional ideology of the party-state. By conducting discourse analysis on media reports published in the People’s Daily, this article argues that the party-state deployed various discourse articulation practices to realize its ideological adaptation and maintain internal ideological consistency. Specifically, the party-state employed four types of ‘interpretive packages’ to reconcile the market reform’s rationale with its own orthodox ideology, rearticulating the quadrilateral relationship among the workers, state enterprises, the party, and the government, as well as their roles within this ideological tradition. Discourse articulation has contributed greatly to the construction of a hegemony that constrains and fixes the new meanings stemming from the reform. However, it has also generated unintended consequences, such as conflicts among various discourse practices. The findings provide us with a pathway to understand how authoritarian states stabilize their ideology during periods of accelerated change and allow us to rethink the role of ideology in states’ transformation, a topic that could be explored in future studies.

Discourse Analysis Approach and Its Use In The Investigation Of Social Injustice in Text Representation

Discourse analysis is one of the methods of conducting research in social sciences, especially communication science. This paper describes approaches to conducting discourse analysis. The author collects data by conducting a literature review of publications or works of scholars in the field of discourse studies, especially Dijk, Halliday, and Fairclough. The author describes six approaches: The disposition Analysis Approach, Sociocognitive Approach, Discourse-History Approach, Dialectic-Relational Approach, Language Corpus Approach, and Social Actor Approach. Uses of Critical Discourse Analysis. The discourse analysis approach dismantles the practice of power in communication activities through the media. We illustrates that there are challenges for researchers and scholars related to the presence of new technologies, whether the presence of these new media provides an opportunity to create a counter-discourse or a small narrative or not. The new communication media provides breadth for the audience to produce many channels in producing and distributing discourse so that certain groups do not dominate the discourse. Traditional media has so far created a dominant discourse because of the accessibility of the media to the media structure so that the discourse supports the interests of the media. The presence of digital communication platforms enables small narratives, facilitating a culture of participation in media content

From Propaganda to Memes: Resignification of Political Discourse Through Memes on the Chinese Internet

With increasing integration of culture and politics in the digital age, memes tend to be politicized in academic research. Moving beyond the perspective of politicization, this study examines the depoliticizing potential of meme usage. Drawing on sassy socialist memes on the Chinese internet repackaging propaganda posters and slogans for online conversations, we conducted discourse analysis of these memes and interviews with meme users. We find that memes reappropriating political discourse are not necessarily used for political implications. Rather, their meanings vary in usage contexts that are mostly non-political daily conversations—political discourse in China has been gradually resignified to incorporate diverse non-political meanings in the memetic process of cultural reappropriation. Furthermore, the depoliticizing potential of memes is precisely built upon the politicization of propaganda discourse for mass persuasion. The discursive construction of propaganda and its indoctrination in Chinese society are potentially leading to its own deconstruction in the digital age.

The Reception of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in China: A Historical Review

This article reveals the changes that have taken place in the under-researched Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) discourse in China over the past three decades and presents new findings. The authors conducted discourse analysis to examine the changes of ESD discourse in official policy documents and compared them with the concept of ESD as it appears in the UNESCO framework. Findings suggest that ESD in China has been redefined by domestic discourse and interests. The concept of ‘Ecological Civilisation’ replaces the identity and function of ESD as it appears in China’s education policies, while ESD primarily targets the environmental sector. This redefining of ESD weakens the interconnection between ESD and sustainable development (SD) that exists within the UNESCO framework and presents an unstable approach to ESD in China. This research contributes to ESD development in China and updates its potential education challenges considering China’s 2030 Agenda.

AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSITIVITY IN THE RECOUNT TEXT WRITTEN BY THE TENTH GRADERS OF SMA MUHAMMADIYAH 1 KOTA MAGELANG IN THE SCHOOL YEAR OF 2018/2019

In writing, the students need to understand the role of grammar include the ideational meaning. However, the tenth graders of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Kota Magelang in the school year 2018/2019 still got difficulties in writing recount text. Besides, the students should acquire the part of ideational meaning in writing their recount text especially transitivity.The objectives of this research are to describe the types of process, participant, circumstance that are used by the tenth graders of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Kota Magelang in the school year of 2018/2019 in writing recount texts.The writer conducted discourse analysis. The subject of this research is X IPA 1 involving 10 males and 14 females. The unit of analysis of this study was clauses of the students’ writing recount text. The writer selected the students’ texts which were appropriate with the component of recount text, identified the types of component of transitivity, and calculated the percentage. The results of this research show that there are 328 clauses with 6 types of process, 15 types of participant, and 6 types of circumstance. The writer infers the most dominant aspects of transitivity components are material process, participant of actor, and circumstance of place.

‘Foreigners in Our Schools’: Cultural Diversity, Othering, and the Desire for Justice in Schools

This study explored ‘cultural diversity’ in urban schools in Portugal by conducting discourse analysis on interviews with school practitioners. Findings show that ‘cultural diversity’ was dominantly anchored in Othering ‘foreigners’ that mainly associated ‘non-native speakers’ to difficulties in integration, participation and teachers’pedagogical work. However, contradicting discourses somewhat resisted Othering by highlighting meaningful differences, all students’ rights, and calling for pedagogical changes. By showing the ambivalences in how students, teachers and pedagogical relationships are viewed, we both alert for an exclusionary conceptualization of ‘cultural diversity’, and question Othering as a fundamentalizing discourse to fully govern ‘cultural diversity’ in schools.

Navigating conflict between research ethics and online platform terms and conditions: a reflective account

Internet users’ comments in online spaces have attracted researchers’ attention in recent years. Although this data is typically publicly available, its use requires careful consideration so as to not cause harm to the users, while complying with the terms and conditions (Ts & Cs) of the online spaces. However, the Ts & Cs and researchers’ ethical considerations may sometimes be in conflict. I faced such a conflict when I conducted discourse analysis of online discussions that were sourced from a public online learning platform owned by a private company. In this article, I reflect on how I navigated the Ts & Cs and copyright law, taking users’ likely expectations into consideration when deciding whether to seek informed consent and anonymize content. I employed an ‘attribution with anonymization’ method to acknowledge users for their comments while safeguarding their confidentiality. Given the variety of online spaces and research methods, ethical decision-making must be a contextualized process that requires researchers to consider the nature of the online platform and the potential experience of the users, rather than simply following guidelines or Ts & Cs.

“For God, for Tsar and for the Nation: Authenticity in the Russian Imperial Movement’s Propaganda”

This paper will examine how extremist organizations manage to present themselves as credible actors in the eyes of potential supporters on social media. This paper will address this question by exploring the role of authenticity in strategic narratives, which is believed to help these groups achieve this purpose. Apart from introducing this new theoretical concept, the paper will also apply it to a new case study of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) – the first far-right organization to be designated as terrorist by the U.S. and Canada. By conducting discourse analysis of the group’s social media propaganda on the Russian network VKontakte, the paper will show how the RIM makes its strategic narratives authentic and, as a consequence, creates an image of a credible and trustworthy actor and thus manages to reach out to its target audience.

Discussion in Diverse Middle School Social Studies Classrooms: Promoting All Students’ Participation in the Disciplinary Work of Inquiry

Background/Context: Although calls for rich discussion and argumentation about disciplinary texts and content are frequent, research indicates that in classrooms such discussions are rare. When discussions do happen, few students tend to participate. Purpose/Focus of Study: We look to exemplar teachers’ classrooms where a range of ethnically, racially, linguistically, and academically diverse students participated substantively in discussions throughout social studies inquiries to understand what those teachers do to support broad and substantive student participation in discussion, knowing that discussion promotes student learning. Research Design: Using video recordings of class sessions, we conducted discourse analysis and used case study methods to examine classroom discourse over 20 days of inquiry across an academic year within the context of a larger, design-based research project. Findings: We identify how two teachers build toward and facilitate three types of disciplinary, whole-class, text-based discussions: Sensemaking, Argumentative, and Culminating Argumentative. We analyze the instructional work involved in preparing students for discussions, in situating discussions within a larger context of inquiry, and in facilitating discussions in the moment, focusing on the intellectual work being done when students take extended turns of talk that build on what has been said before. Conclusions/Recommendations: This work contributes a broader understanding of how students’ full participation in disciplinary discussion and argumentation can be supported in the context of inquiry. We draw implications for enabling all students to participate in inquiry, with particular attention to students learning English or needing support for reading complex sources.

Söylem Analizi ve Söylem Analizi İçin Bazı Araçlar

Discourse analysis is a pivotal aspect of linguistic studies to understand the discourse that is examined and to understand the function of language which is used in the discourse. Also, while conducting discourse analysis, many researchers use some devices to analyze the discourse better, so they are important aspects of discourse analysis. Since discourse analysis is crucial process for linguistics, there is much information about discourse analysis and its devices on the internet, and this might make understanding of those elements complicated; therefore, making these elements clearer and more understandable to researchers or readers and mentioning the important ideas of different experts about discourse analysis and devices for discourse analysis collectively and clearly are the main aims of this paper, and the term discourse, discourse analysis, and devices for conducting discourse analysis more fruitfully are this paper’s main topics that were analyzed and explained by using document analysis technique. As a result of this document analysis, it was understood that discourse analysis is an analysis process which covers a wide area, includes analysis of language in conversation and text, interactions, and people’s ability to understand the language in text and conversation, and to make these more successfully and frankly, cohesion, coherence, speech events, and background knowledge are effective devices for discourse analysis.

Who’s responsible for climate change? Untangling threads of media discussions in India, Nigeria, Australia, and the USA

Media representations of climate change play a critical role in shaping public perceptions and knowledge of climate change. Public understanding of climate change and the responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions are especially important, as these shape social problem definition, in turn influencing policy responses. In this study, we aimed to understand print media discourses on the existence and responsibility for climate change. We contrasted two Global North countries—the USA and Australia—and two Global South countries—India and Nigeria. We examined 600 newspaper articles, randomly selecting 50 articles each from three newspapers in each country. We conducted discourse analysis to examine narratives on climate change existence and who bears responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. We found media from all four countries agreed that climate change was real. Narratives of responsibility, however, varied between countries. In Australia, the primary narrative stated that India and China were responsible for the majority of emissions, while abdicating Australia from responsibility. In contrast in the USA, the primary narrative focused on the country’s own responsibility. In India, the primary responsibility was assigned to the Global North, while in Nigeria, all countries were considered equally responsible for global emissions. We demonstrated that media narratives for climate change responsibility were primarily driven by political discourse. As the majority of the public depends on media for information on climate change, it is essential that narratives of responsibility incorporate scientific evidence and not follow purely political expedient discourses to assign responsibility for action.

The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: ‘Come on in the water’s fine’

In 2019, the authors led a workshop at King’s College London examining how to study 4chan and assess their association with the Alt-Right. Unbeknownst to the authors, a participant was a 4chan user and started a mid-workshop thread on its notorious /pol/ (politically incorrect) board. It gained significant attention. Reviewing it later, the authors realised that this parallel thread illustrates perfectly the challenges researching 4chan – and similar – communities. We conducted discourse analysis on this unique dataset, providing an alternative perspective to predominant anthropological and informatic approaches. Our analysis enhances understanding of ‘free-extremist’ communities such as 4chan in several ways. It assesses how the /pol/ community responds to observation and provides new insights into roles influencers might have in radicalising others. It illustrates the value of discourse analysis in evaluating users’ associations with the Alt-Right. Finally, it proposes ways researchers can overcome the challenges faced when analysing such communities.