Critical Discourse Perspective Research Articles

Prejudice in selected American and Iranian newspaper articles on Gaza crisis: A critical discourse study

Prejudice discourse is considered as one of the most important language uses usually invested in different social situations, particularly by in-group speech communities. This highlights the need to investigate this language phenomenon according to some interdisciplinary perspectives. So, this paper compares and contrasts from critical discourse perspective the prejudiced content used in the news coverage of American and Iranian newspapers' discourse as part of the discursive portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the 7th Oct. 2023 attack. Two articles were gathered from two opposing international newspapers, one is American (New York Post) and another is Iranian (Tehran Times). This paper aims at discovering prejudice's components and function, identifying the discursive strategies to determine the ideologies that allow a journalist to write a prejudice content. So, this helps the researcher to expos the differences and similarities in the selected data. To get a thorough critical comprehend of the nature of prejudice in the selected data, the researcher adopted a model for critical discourse analysis and applies qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The researcher finds that the cognitive, affected and behavioral components which are a reflection of an attitude in the function of publishing prejudiced content in the selected articles include semantic-strategies of lexicalization and aggregation and rhetorical-strategies of topo and contrast. The polarization of positive in-group self-representation and negative out-group representation in a racist and discriminatory way are the most prevalent ideologies that drive the creation of prejudiced content in the selected data. The articles differ in the sense that while the news coverage in Iranian was prejudiced "pro-Palestinians," American newspapers published prejudiced "pro-Israeli" articles. Although these two newspapers have adopted similar linguistic methods, they convey the news coverage of that event in some prejudiced way based on the newspaper's ideological perspective.

Talking existential risk into being: a Habermasian critical discourse perspective to AI hype

AbstractRecent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have resulted in a hype around both opportunities and risks of these technologies. In this discussion, one argument in particular has gained increasing visibility and influence in various forums and positions of power, ranging from public to private sector organisations. It suggests that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human intelligence is possible, if not inevitable, and which can—if not controlled—lead to human extinction (Existential Threat Argument, ETA). Using Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action and the validity claims of truth, truthfulness and rightness therein, we inspect the validity of this argument and its following ethical and societal implications. Our analysis shows that the ETA is problematic in terms of scientific validity, truthfulness, as well as normative validity. This risks directing AI development towards a strategic game driven by economic interests of the few rather than ethical AI that is good for all.

Personal Pronouns in Biden’s Inaugural Speech: A Critical Discourse Perspective

Personal Pronouns in Biden’s Inaugural Speech: A Critical Discourse Perspective

Critical Discourse Analysis: Social Inequality in the Film Turah by Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo

This article aims to describe the linguistic space of discourse on social phenomena through the audio-visual media of the film Turah regarding social inequality that still applies today (modern) from a critical discourse perspective. The analysis used is Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis which focuses on the "irregularity" of social phenomena in the film Turah. The critical discourse process observes subjects, objects and social issues regarding social inequality. The research results are the conclusion of the analysis that has been carried out, that the film Turah contains aspects that build the phenomenon of social inequality in terms of dialogue and social practices in the real world. The results of the analysis also take the form of indirect criticism of social interaction actors from the lowest to the highest layers. Collaboration to build good community relations is one step that can create a balanced view of social status.

Women’s Empowerment and Confidence in Pop Music: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Little Mix’s Lyric Song “Change Your Life”

Empowering women in home, the workplace, the market and the community require building self-confidence which is a challenging matter. It is not easy to inspire people to have a better sense of self-worth and endeavor better personal, social and economical life. Pop music nowadays, can inspire people and basically women to change and have better life. This paper intends to investigate women’s empowerment and confidence in Little Mix’s pop lyric song “change your life” through the feminist critical discourse analysis approach. This paper aims to identify the linguistic concepts of women’s empowerment and their ideological perspectives. The problem under investigation implies that women’s issues are still of interest to study in different disciplines but instead of focusing only on how women are portrayed and represented in different genres such as reports, essays, movies, network and music; the direction has changed to identify the linguistic concepts that empower women. Therefore, different transitivity processes are intended to address women’s mentality and emotional appeal which reflect in turn different social ideologies. The data involve the analysis of Little Mix’s band lyric song “change your life”. The paper is conducted through the qualitative research approach based on an eclectic model including Lazar’s (2005) “Feminist Critical Discourse Perspective”, Fairclough’s (2003) Three-Dimensional Model and Halliday and Hasan’s (1985) Systematic Functional Linguistics model. The study concludes that Pop music depends on using three types of transitivity processes including material, mental and relational in order to improve women’s mentality, confidence and desire to create change in their life.

An Investigation on the Enactment of Native-Speakerism on Social Media in China: A Critical Discourse Perspective

From a critical discourse perspective, this article explored how native-speakerism, the dominating ideology in the ELT community were enacted on the social media platforms of mainland China. ELT-related videos on two flourishing online video-sharing platforms, namely Douyin and Bilibili.com, were investigated with the use of language and the dynamics of power being focused. Findings from the study demonstrated the systematic influence of native-speakerism in the ELF community as well as the overwhelming power of native-speakers in terms of the issues regarding the authenticity and ownership of English.

Towards a descontruction of symbolic violence in a sample of advertising discourse. A critical discourse perspective

This article examines the representation of women in the advertisements used by Dolce & Gabbana, in order to observe the examples of symbolic violence associated with women. The main objectives of this study are: 1) to deconstruct the main visual strategies used by Dolce & Gabbana to represent women in its newsletter; and 2) to characterize the main types of symbolic violence in the texts analysed. Data were collected from the newsletter used by Dolce & Gabbana to advertise their products through the internet from January to December 2016–19. The data are analysed based on the critical discourse analysis model of social actors proposed by van Leeuwen (2008) and Kress & van Leeuwen’s (2006) models of visual grammar.

Young generation and accessibility to health dissemination

Social media interactions represent an accessible way for young people to get health information and provide a form of public discourse about health. It is against this backdrop that experts and other health professionals have turned to digital platforms (e.g., TikTok) to share educational content about timely or touchy topics, and to spread awareness, specifically among younger users. This paper aims to explore these digital platforms where professionals provide health information that is specifically tailored for a young audience and attempts to explore the discursive negotiation of healthcare and health accessibility in digital social settings. In light of a social media critical discourse perspective, this study explores the creative shifts in the process of accommodating a product to a target audience and questions what meanings, in terms of accessibility and/or discrimination, these products carry for their audience.

Aligning SDG 13 with South Africa's development agenda: Adaptation policies and institutional frameworks.

The alignment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with national development agendas has gained traction since the ratification of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. This article investigates how South Africa has aligned the climate action SDG (SDG 13) with its national development agenda, with an emphasis on adaptation policies and institutional framework. This comes against a background where the country has been accused of bias towards mitigation policies that were trigged by the Long-Term Mitigation Scenarios in 2007, which could have quickened mitigation responses to SDG 13. The data were generated through the use of three key methods, namely key informant interviews (n = 21), an online survey uploaded on an online platform called QuestionPro and a realised sample of 103 completed surveys. Furthermore, relevant policy documents were analysed from a critical discourse perspective. It emerged that South Africa has policies and strategies in place to respond to climate change adaptation within the context of SDG 13. However, while policies are in place, they have not translated to real change on the ground and therefore have not enabled the country to have adequate climate change resilience. The policies have not been translated into concrete actions; there are knowledge gaps in adaptation, poor leadership and lack of clear vision for adaptation and poor coordination. Institutions are scattered, with uneven capacity across sectors and different spheres of government; and weakest at the local government level. It also emerged that mitigation was prioritised for a while over adaptation, with a lack of funding and general awareness. The study recommends that adaptation measures should not be undertaken in isolation, instead, it should be addressed within the context of other programmes such as disaster risk management and sustainable development.

Capitalizing on nature: a critical discourse study of nature policy concerning the Murchison Falls Conservation Area of Uganda

ABSTRACT This article explores discursive struggles between ideologies of nature development and nature conservation discourses in the context of the Murchison Falls Conservation Area (MFCA) in Uganda. Based on the concepts of critical discourse moments and discourse coalitions, the article offers a nuanced perspective on nature policy in a specific, though not unique, context. The purpose of studying tensions between different positions in nature policy from a critical discourse perspective is to increase the awareness of the role of discourse coalitions in the struggles. Thus, the study aims at enhancing the understanding of different interests by creating awareness about the conflict potential regarding the MFCA.

Gender stereotyping and retro-sexism in advertising discourse from a postfeminist perspective

Negative female stereotypes and the portrayal of women in traditional and non-agentive social roles prevail in advertising. Advertisers believe that it is an effective advertising strategy to misuse postfeminist standpoints, stressing liberated womanhood and constructing a universe where women have gained it all and men have to reconquer their lost ground. This article analyses the appropriation of postfeminist discourse with the aim of showing how negative and even demeaning female stereotypes and clichés are represented, and by doing so, how a retro-sexist imagery is constructed within the advertising discourse. Undertaking a case study analysis of an advertising campaign of the brand IWC, a luxury brand for watches, and applying a feminist critical discourse perspective (Lazar, 2005, 2007), which shows the gender asymmetries in discourse, it is argued that advertising perpetuates misbeliefs about women’s roles in society and reinforces demeaning female stereotypes in the collective imaginary about the understanding of gender equality.

Trapped within ideological wars: Femininities in a Muslim society and the contest of women as leaders

AbstractThis paper analyzes the discursive contestation among online news media about women in leadership roles within a Muslim majority society, Indonesia. Indonesian women have established a substantial leadership role in which the “ideal” modern woman has been the image of “wanita karir,” a commingling of various Indonesian feminist discourses and Western (post)feminist discursive formations. Despite the progress, women's leadership in Indonesia has recently been challenged by reactionary Islamist forces. Using a critical poststructural discourse perspective, we identify a range of four forms of femininity and female leadership in Indonesian online media that reside at the intersections of competing discourses. This paper offers two areas of contributions. First, we identify the leadership challenges faced by women in a South‐East Asian context, in particular within a democratic Muslim society like Indonesia. Second, we contribute to the theorization of women's leadership challenges from the perspective of femininity construction. In particular, we want to emphasize the notion of the multiplicity of discourses in shaping femininities. In doing so, we demonstrate the permutability, transformability, and adaptability of gender discrimination in our identified forms of femininity, and the limitations of the virtuous burden imposed by apparently supportive discourse.

Metaphoric Conceptualization of Social Reality in the Language of News Media

Today, social reality can hardly be viewed as the one-state-one-nationone language ideological framework (Bauman and Briggs, 2003). The modern multilingual and multicultural communities are inclined to examine social reality in a multiple variety of socio-economic and political manifestations and forms. To understand how social reality can be explored through examining certain socio-political processes in a country, the present paper aims at analysing the role of conceptual metaphor in cases when political scandals, involving corruption charges of high-ranking officials in Latvia are considered. For this purpose, the present study has focused on the analysis of selected commentaries that deal with corruption charges which were revealed in December 2019 issues of the magazine IR. The Latvian-origin weekly magazine IR was selected deliberately because; on the one hand, it has an enormous influence on how social reality is constructed and perceived by Latvian citizens. On the other hand, it was important to reveal that the evidence-based theoretical premises on the relationship between metaphor and society in the English language are applicable and work cross-linguistically in Latvian. The research presents a case study type. With the focus on the conceptualization of corruption-related social problems, selected discursive practices that dealt with the corruption cases being revealed by the news medium IR were considered. The results demonstrated that the journalists of the commentaries tend to take a critical discourse perspective on the representation of corruption-related issues and political events, which can be represented at the levels of abstraction. Conceptual metaphors contributed to mental representations of political issues and communication of social reality by conveying additional negative evaluation of such an inherently derogatory concept as corruption. The metaphors CORRUPTION IS DIRT, CORRUPTION IS GARBAGE, CORRUPTION IS NUCLEAR DISASTER, CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE also fulfil a cognitive function, helping to understand the concept of corruption in terms of another more concrete concept. The use of metaphors in the commentaries may have causal effects such as bringing about changes in the readers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes.

The spatial, networked and embodied agency of social media: a critical discourse perspective on Banksy’s political expression

ABSTRACT This article asks how social media changes and challenges critical agency through spatial, networked and embodied discourses? It argues that CDS has the potential to explore relations and contexts that go beyond the deliberative participatory, affective and exploitative conditions of social media. Employing a critical discursive reading of street artist Banksy’s mural of a Les Misérables-poster on the public wall across from the French embassy in London in 2016, we argue that social media is neither purely deliberative, affective, nor exploitative. The illustrative case allows us to trace the intricate digital intertextual and interdiscursive relations between social media, public spaces and embodied politics offered in counter-discourse. Further, the case brings new light to the ability of CDS in combination with political discourse theory to underscore the political agency in social contexts. While critiques of the affective and exploitative conditions of social media have merit as critiques of hegemonic discourses, an affirmative response that emphasises the political agency in counter-discourses highlights the nuances of social media. This article argues that intersecting CDS with social media presents an opportunity to gain a complex understanding of how the political is played out in changing publics consisting of different mediated spaces, digital as well as non-digital.

Perpetuating and/or resisting the “leftover” myth? The use of (de)legitimation strategies in the Chinese English-language news media

ABSTRACT In China, single women over 27 are deemed to be “leftover.” While the majority of studies suggest that the Chinese-language media have perpetuated the patriarchal discourse surrounding the leftover myth, few studies have investigated the English-language news media in China which claims to be more liberal with a critical approach. To fill this niche, this study investigates the dominant gendered discourses surrounding the leftover myth and how the myth is (de)legitimised in 30 English-language news articles produced in China by employing van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic approach from a feminist critical discourse perspective. The findings show that both patriarchal and resistant discourses co-exist. While both sets of legitimation and delegitimation strategies are found in the patriarchal and resistant discourses, the delegitimation strategies occur more frequently to challenge the leftover myth than the legitimation strategies to perpetuate it. This study sheds light on the hybridised discourses surrounding the leftover myth in relation to the wider discursive and sociocultural contexts in postsocialist China.

The reconstruction of physical education teachers: A critical discourse analysis of regulative texts

In 2008, the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training implemented a new circular with directives for water activities in schools and with a call for testing teachers’ water competence. This circular seems to align with international school safety policies, where additional regulations and safety guidelines are put into practice in school programs such as physical education. Despite this, studies that have applied a critical discourse perspective on regulative texts in physical education seem scarce. The purpose of this article is to examine how teachers’ risk and safety management in physical education is constructed in five regulative documents governing primary and secondary schools in Norway. Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse methodology has been applied to conduct a linguistic and contextual analysis of language. The analysis seems to reveal a discourse that challenge teachers’ autonomy and position. Because the discourse can appear to be neutral and imperative, it might be taken for granted in the field. The entrancement of a controller in examining teachers’ water competence seems to reflect ideals of revision and central control. This article therefore contributes to the understanding of regulative discourses and their power, in education and physical education.

Co-constructing or Deconstructing Gender Identity? A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Bongo Flava- Song Video Niambie

Music like any other media provides a kind of discourse through which social aspects like gender identity of a particular related society can be co-constructed or deconstructed depending on the ideological perspective of the speaker/writer. This paper analyses Bongo Flava-song video ‘Niambie’ using multimodal critical discourse perspective so as to examine if the song involves co-construction or deconstruction of gender identity. Results show that gender identity in the song video is co-constructed in the sense that male gender is dominant over female gender alluding from patriarchal ideology through which men are supposed to dominate women in all life aspects.

Language and Liberty in Ghanaian Political Communication: A Critical Discourse Perspective

The object of this study was to illustrate the entwining between language and liberty in Ghanaian political discourse. Using three letters written by Dr. J. B. Danquah (two addressed to President Nkrumah and one to the Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament) and working within the framework of language and liberty (Obeng, in press), I demonstrate that even though by being candid, Ghanaian political actors in opposition risked personal danger, such actors had communicative ways for pursuing and defending their negative liberty and positive liberty and for challenging powerful political actors’ oppressive and illegitimate actions. The discursive features employed to pursue liberty include: deferential mode of address, candour, inferencing, glittering generalities, emotional valence, politeness and intertextuality. The syntactic features used included conditional sentences, pronouns, physical verbs, lexical collocation and uppercase letters. The study concludes by submitting that liberty relies on language to become actuality and that political actors’ views on liberty and the historical, legal, political and cultural contexts of the discourse ecology in which they operate all impact their discourse performance in their fight for liberty.

A ghost in the machine: Tracing the role of ‘the digital’ in discursive processes of cybervictimisation

The study of discursive understandings of cybervictimisation draws on a dataset of crime news reporting and asks the question of if and how cybervictimisation is construed in ways that differ from other types of (non-digital) victimisation. Building on a critical discourse perspective employing corpus-based text analysis methods, the composition of news discourses about cybervictimisation are analysed, alongside the relationship between such representations and news media discourse on crime victimisation generally. The aim is to see what effect the presence of a digital dimension has for how the notion of victimisation is socially and culturally understood. The study shows, first, that news reporting on cybervictimisation has a strong bias towards crimes that fit well with the notion of ‘the ideal victim’ (such as sexual victimisation and bullying) while excluding other types like hacking and identity theft. The question is raised whether ‘victim’ discourse is able to account for the latter types or if new understandings and concepts will emerge. Second, the study shows that discourses promoting understandings of technology as contributing to amplifying danger, and that represent technology as potentially undermining social order, are strong in cybervictimisation news reports. These discourses are consequential for who is seen as a legitimate victim and not. Just as it can be very difficult to identify and apprehend perpetrators of cybercrime, so is also the identification and definition of cybervictims ambiguous and demands to be further researched.

Legitimization in Phishing: A CDA Perspective

This paper mainly aims at analyzing how various discursive strategies legitimizing different requests and assertions in phishing emails are exploited to exercise the social power abuse and influence cognitive knowledge of the users. This study attempts to interlock Van Leeuwen and Wodak’s (1999) four legitimization strategies and Van Dijk’s (1998, 2001, 2006) ‘triangulation approach’ of discourse-society-cognition cycle in order to analyze the legitimization strategies in phishing from a critical discourse perspective. The discursive approach includes the discursive strategies in legitimation, the social approach shows the social power abuse engaged in legitimization, and the cognitive approach presents the manipulation of the user’s beliefs influencing their actions. In order to conduct this study, qualitative method is applied in randomly selected 25 phishing emails as textual data.