Older adults' experiences of primary care are shaped not only by service capacity but by the language and routines through which access and care are organised. Using a qualitative Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) approach informed by the bioethics of vulnerability, we analysed interviews and focus groups with 12 community-dwelling older adults living alone in southern Spain. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) linked micro-level talk to meso-level scripts and macro-rationales. Participants portrayed appointment systems and digital channels as gatekeeping devices that shifted agency to family 'brokers', with telephone and app-based booking often producing situational-or, after repeated failures, pathogenic-vulnerability. In consultations, haste, technical jargon and the 'doctor-patient-computer' triad curtailed understanding; age-based commonplaces (e.g., 'what do you expect at your age') legitimised truncated responses; discontinuity with physicians contrasted with nurse-led clarity and vigilance. Emotional sequelae included strategic silence and reduced help-seeking. We argue that vulnerability here is produced rather than intrinsic and can be mitigated via human-assisted booking parity, plain-language and teach-back as safety practices, continuity-by-design, and explicit de-ageing of triage and policy scripts. Communicative justice emerges as a core condition for equitable care in later life.

Since 2015 and its adoption by the United Nations (UN), the sustainable development goals (SDGs) program and its 17 SDGs have been a source of inspiration for numerous sectors, in order to reach the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In sectors as diverse as industry, human rights, ecology, or education, several institutions, organizations, and stakeholders have used the opportunity offered by the SDGs to make sustainable choices or apply specific policies. Yet it is also true that the sheer application of the SDGs have triggered grounded criticism, insofar as it offered readymade templates to reproduce inequalities or foster wrong decisions. In this sense, the 2030 agenda has raised some concern regarding a new form of colonialism it seems to rely on, its permanent links to an economy of growth and non-decent work, or the pervasive impacts on education and social inequalities. Such critical points have motivated scholars to work on a reinterpreted application of the SDGs, underline the positive evolution of the SDGs in comparison to the millenium development goals, and call for an adaptation of the SDGs regarding climate change and planetary limits. As a linguist, my approach regarding the 17 SDGs is rooted in systemic discourse analysis-an applied discourse study that simultaneously draws on critical discourse analysis, corpus studies and lexicometric analysis, which I will define later in the present chapter. My goal is to analyze every official text published in order to present and encourage the application of each of the 17 SDGs, thus building a corpus by extracting texts from official sources published on the Internet website of the UN, dedicated to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In this sense, a link is made between discourse structures, social structures, and social representations.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is widely presented as an objective psychiatric diagnosis describing emotional and relational distress. However, feminist, decolonial, neurodiversity and lived experience-led scholarship demonstrates that BPD emerged within colonial, cisheteronormative, misogynist and neuronormative epistemologies that moralise distress and regulate identity, self-expression and access to care. This paper critically examines BPD as a diagnostic construct and governance technology that produces iatrogenic harm through epistemic injustice, structural exclusion and moralised interpretations of need. It explores how the diagnosis discredits lived experience knowledge, justifies care withdrawal and obscures sensory, cultural and structural determinants of distress and considers the implications for mental health nursing practice. A critical discourse analysis was conducted across psychiatric literature, policy documents, historical diagnostic texts and lived experience scholarship, treating psychiatric language and categorisation as technologies of power shaping credibility and clinical response. The analysis shows that BPD operates less as a clinical description than as a regulatory framework maintained through gendered, colonial and cisheteronormative norms. Dominant narratives of dependence, attachment theory and emotional expression obscure trauma, sensory differences and structural violence, while legitimising coercive and exclusionary practices. Mental health nurses are positioned at the frontline of enacting these logics, often experiencing moral distress. The BPD diagnosis lacks epistemic, cultural and ethical legitimacy. Its continued use undermines therapeutic safety and trust. A harm reduction transition away from the BPD construct is required, prioritising relational safety, sensory-informed and culturally responsive care, epistemic humility and lived experience leadership.

This study Research This study analyzes the social criticism discourse presented by female comedians in the Adu Cuanda x TAYTB Women Warriors program on OCBC YouTube, placing digital media as a space for women's advocacy and empowerment. Based on Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity and Rodney H. Jones et al.'s analysis of digital discourse, this study highlights aspects of text, context, interaction, and power relations and ideology. The results show that the comedians raise issues of gender, culture, family, economics, politics, morals, and religion, including stereotypes, objectification, subordination, double burdens, socio-economic inequality, and religious and mental health stigma. These findings confirm that stand-up comedy functions as a medium for social criticism and empowerment, while YouTube serves as an inclusive digital space for the struggle for gender equality.

The revision of the 2025 TNI Law raises concerns about expanding military authority into civilian domains and weakening civilian supremacy. The Akbar Faizal Uncensored podcast serves as a discursive arena for public criticism of these developments. This study employs Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis covering text, social cognition, and social context using document study and note-taking techniques. The discourse centers on the theme “The TNI Law for Generals,” supported by diction, argumentation, and rhetorical strategies. Informants’ social cognition reflects a pro-democracy perspective, while the social context underscores the role of digital media in facilitating state critique. Findings reveal risks of strengthening OMSP, reviving ABRI’s dual function, and restricting civilian space. The analysis highlights the need for a democratic reassessment of the 2025 TNI Law. Academically, the study enriches CDA scholarship in the digital era; practically, it informs policy advocacy and democracy literacy.

ABSTRACT This study employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate Othering and Framing as linguistic strategies deployed in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 31 July 2023 State of the Nation Address. Situated in the domain of political rhetoric, the research addressed how dominant political actors discursively legitimise high-stakes policies and socially disruptive programmes by constructing an ideological scapegoat. The sociocognitive models of van Dijk and the three-dimensional approach of Fairclough are the frameworks used to examine how the regime utilised language to constitute a strict binary opposition: the virtuous, suffering Self (Government/Citizenry) versus the avaricious, anti-state Other (Smugglers/Cabals). The focus was placed on strategic lexicalisation (naming/labelling) and pronominalisation. It hypothesised that President Tinubu strategically framed the subsidy removal not as a painful structural adjustment, but as a moral and necessary crusade against a powerful, illicit elite. The findings demonstrated that this discursive tactic served to effectively divert public scrutiny from systemic economic flaws and simultaneously consolidate executive power by forging a unified nationalist alignment with the populace. This study concluded that the communicative success of this policy is inextricably tied to the potent linguistic construction of a visible enemy, reinforcing the profound ideological function of political discourse in postcolonial state.

ABSTRACT This article critically examines how the concepts of resilience and cohesion are mobilised in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) of Sweden and Italy, drafted in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we explore how these terms – prominent in EU recovery discourse – function not simply as policy objectives but as ideologically flexible signifiers that accommodate divergent national contexts while sustaining a shared European framework. In its NRRP, Italy embeds cohesion within a moral narrative of national rehabilitation, linking it to the historical North–South divide and framing resilience as dependent upon structural reform and solidarity. Sweden, by contrast, employs both terms in a technocratic manner, presenting them as instruments of governance optimisation. Yet at the ideological level, both converge in depoliticising recovery, framing inequality as a technical obstacle rather than a socio-political issue, and legitimising reform agendas aligned with EU priorities. We conclude that the power of resilience and cohesion lies in their ambiguity: they reconcile neoliberal imperatives with social rhetoric, projecting consensus while masking structural tensions in national and EU governance.

A critical discourse analysis of the problem-oriented medical record.

ABSTRACT In 2015, the Chinese government launched the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative to integrate nine mainland cities with the two Special Administrative Regions. The term ‘GBA’, however, only entered everyday discourse after the reality television show Call Me by Fire featured five Hong Kong contestants who dubbed themselves the ‘GBA brothers’. Drawing on critical discourse analysis of social-media posts, comments, and platform circulation following the programme’s broadcast, this article traces how ‘GBA’ was popularised, reinterpreted, and reworked in everyday audience discourse. I argue that the ‘GBA brothers’ exemplify a platformised mode of soft propaganda, in which state-influenced broadcasters deploy entertainment to advance political agendas while relying on media enterprises, government-affiliated ‘mouthpiece’ accounts, and ordinary users to amplify an entertaining yet ideologically charged discourse. While this strategy boosted the visibility of the term, it also backfired due to the endogenous dynamics of popular culture: television audiences interpreted the GBA brothers as representing and valorising a resilient Hong Kong identity rather than a newly minted ‘GBA identity’. By foregrounding audience reception, this article demonstrates the structural limits of entertaining soft propaganda and shows how popular culture simultaneously enables and unsettles state-led projects of regional identity formation.

ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of 10 English Language Education (ELE) policy documents published in China after 1978. Using the Text as a Critical Object (TACO) framework, the study examines how neoliberal principles are gradually embedded in ELE policies and how they contribute to the construction of students as neoliberal subjects. The analysis of the policy documents identifies two major themes. The first theme, the instrumentalisation of English, highlights the contradiction between treating English as a tool for competitiveness in the neoliberal market and the need to construct socialist collective ideas. The second theme addresses the transition from ideological education to ‘humanity’ in ELE, showing how policies strategically use the collective ideas to integrate personal development through learning English with national neoliberal goals. Based on these findings, this paper argues that ELE policies in China discursively construct students as neoliberal subjects who are expected to balance market-oriented skills with nationalist ideals. This reveals how ELE policies legitimise market-oriented objectives with nationalism, providing implications for understanding how neoliberalism governs individuals through educational policies. This study contributes to the broader debates on how neoliberalism shapes and manages individual behaviour with market-oriented values in the field of education globally.

ABSTRACT This study examines how Greek secondary school students construct the role of special education teachers (SETs) within the context of inclusive education. Fifteen students from mainstream secondary schools participated (seven assessed as having special educational needs [SEN] and receiving support, and eight peers without SEN support). Data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews, complemented by a two-year researcher journal. Analysis drew on reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) alongside Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough 2013) to explore students’ meaning-making and the institutional conditions shaping these accounts. Findings indicate that students constructed SETs as sources of care and emotional support, as agents of regulation and normalisation, as largely invisible actors within the school, and as figures on whom some students became dependent. These constructions illuminate tensions within inclusive schooling, where support may simultaneously enable participation and reproduce forms of control.

This article presents findings from a study that interrogated the experiences of social service providers who support return migrants in Kosova. Relying on a postcolonial framework and using critical discourse analysis, the study aimed to elucidate whether social workers who serve return migrants uphold their commitment to social justice. This focus responds to current literature suggesting that social workers often become part of a system that silences and marginalises return migrants. Indeed, findings corroborate existing literature, suggesting that social workers in Kosova are aware of the challenges faced by returnees, especially those who are forced to return. However, they also place the burden of repatriation on returnees themselves, ultimately blaming them for the challenges of repatriation. Challenging these discourses, the article argues that social workers need to build transnational solidarities to question current constructions of repatriation as voluntary and offer return migrants choices.

ABSTRACT This article investigates how digital feminist humor intervened in the gendered politics of the 2024 “Fat Cat” incident on Weibo. It examines how a seemingly neutral mourning ritual for a male gamer became a contested arena of platformed misogyny and feminist resistance, where sympathy, blame, and moral authority were negotiated in China’s digital sphere. Using a mixed-methods design that combines automated humor recognition and topic modeling of 5537 posts with critical discourse analysis, we trace how female users mobilized irony, parody, and satire to defamiliarize the memorial and challenge dominant manosphere framings. The findings show that humor operated as a strategic mode of platformed activism. It enabled affective solidarity and condensed structural critique into replicable meme templates that could circulate across topics and moments. By situating this case within feminist humor scholarship, the article conceptualizes digital humor as a political resource for navigating constrained media environments and for reworking gendered counterpublics online.

ABSTRACT This article examines the 1997 film Spice World as a cultural critique of tabloid journalism at the height of the celebrity press era. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyzes how the film represents journalism’s institutional power to construct, discipline, and commodify celebrity. We identify three dominant discourses: journalism as narrative control, journalism as moral authority, and journalism as spectacle-driven surveillance. The film’s fictional tabloid, The National Event, operates as an exaggerated yet ideologically accurate stand-in for the British press, dramatizing how journalists have claimed authorship over public narratives while shirking ethical responsibility. While often dismissed as pop fluff, Spice World offers a historically grounded critique of journalistic legitimacy, making visible the power dynamics, gendered framing, and affective consequences of press intrusion. In doing so, the film contributes to the public’s understanding of journalism’s cultural authority and institutional logic during the tabloid era of the late twentieth century.

ABSTRACT This article investigates how political discourse during the COVID-19 crisis discursively constructs temporalities as a means of legitimizing crisis management. Building on Critical Discourse Studies and the Discourse-Historical Approach, it explores how continuity – often overlooked in crisis research – is not only maintained but actively constructed in discourse. Drawing on 28 Belgian governmental press conferences (2020 to 2022), the study identifies six discourses of continuity that were mobilized to justify measures, manage expectations, and synchronize collective action. Continuity unfolds in six discourses of the crisis: (1) maintaining the essentials, (2) the creation of habits in crisis, (3) the permanence of effort, (4) waiting as a tool, (5) projection in and out of the crisis and (6) predicting and progressing. These six discourses contrast with a view of continuity as inertia, as the absence of action or change. Instead, they articulate continuity at times as the maintaining force of a certain order, and at others as a creative force normalizing newness. The article argues that continuity, far from being inert, becomes a response to disruption, sustaining governance and order. Thereby, it contributes to the understanding of temporality as a central vector of legitimization in contemporary crises.

This study aims to contribute to developing effective strategies for post-disaster recovery by concentrating on the voices of children impacted by the earthquakes that occurred in Türkiye and Syria on February 6, 2023. The project employed the photovoice methodology, a participatory research and empowerment technique. 23 children aged 5–10 living in 2 container camps in Türkiye were provided with cameras and photographed their everyday lives; then, in-depth interviews were conducted. The data were analyzed using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis found that children value nature, mobility, art, family, friendships, animals, play, familiar places, opportunities for agency, and self-expression.

Indonesian education faces challenges of globalization, radicalism, and the shallowing of local identity. Multicultural Islamic education offers a solution by integrating tolerance, moderation, and cultural values. This study explores how Syi’ir Ngudi Susilo, a Javanese religious poem, can serve as social capital for multicultural Islamic education through glocalization. The Research employed a qualitative design combining library Research and fieldwork. The Research used critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough’s approach, while ethnographic methods were applied to observe teaching practices in Lamongan, Gresik, and Bojonegoro. Findings reveal that Ngudi Susilo promotes moral discipline, respect for parents and teachers, and cultural pride. Its rhythmic and mnemonic style enhances student engagement and retention. Field data confirm its integration in extracurricular and religious learning, strengthening tolerance and multicultural awareness. Ngudi Susilo represents an effective glocalized educational model, fostering cultural identity while promoting moderation and inclusivity in Islamic education. Overall, this Research seeks to enhance education by exploring the theme of glocalization as a response to technological advancements, incorporating local wisdom found in Syiir Ngudi Susilo.

This research employs rhetorical critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine incel (involuntary celibate) discourse on Ekşi Sözlük, exploring how gendered grievances are constructed within a non-Anglophone digital space. Drawing on a corpus of 250 entries (40,000 words) posted between January 2023 and January 2025, the research synthesizes Aristotelian rhetorical modes (ethos, pathos, logos) with critical discourse studies. Findings reveal that users establish ethos through narratives of victimhood, evoke pathos through dehumanizing language, and utilize pseudo-scientific logos to justify misogyny. While inspired by the global manosphere, Turkish incel discourse is uniquely shaped by domestic religious, nationalist, and anti-feminist trajectories. Hate speech is further legitimized through humor, intellectualization, and social critique afforded by the platform’s anonymity. By investigating these everyday communication practices in a Turkish context, this study fills a significant gap in non-Western digital gender studies and provides a context-sensitive framework for understanding the translatability of online misogyny.

Information globalization has fundamentally transformed the structure and practice of political communication in contemporary democracies. Rapid, cross-border digital information flows mediated by global media platforms have weakened the capacity of states and political parties to control public narratives. Political communication no longer operates within centralized and hierarchical spaces, but rather within fragmented and competitive digital public spheres. This study aims to analyze how the Golkar Party, as an established political party, conducts political communication in the context of information globalization and the weakening role of the state. This research employs a qualitative approach within a constructivist paradigm using a case study design. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with local Golkar Party elites and document analysis, and analyzed using critical discourse analysis. The findings indicate that Golkar’s political communication functions as a process of mediated meaning negotiation within digital media environments. Political power is no longer derived solely from formal institutional structures, but increasingly depends on media visibility and public trust. The Golkar Party adopts a hybrid political communication strategy by combining organizational structures with adaptive digital communication practices. This study concludes that political communication of established parties in the era of information globalization should be understood as a dynamic and relational arena of mediated power, where political legitimacy is continuously negotiated within digital public spaces.

This study examines how mass media function as an ideological apparatus in representing Muslims and producing citizenship identity in Indonesia. Employing a qualitative approach within a critical paradigm and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis model, the research analyzes selected national online media coverage addressing Islamic-related socio-political issues. The findings reveal four dominant representational patterns: securitization, normative moderation, politicization of identity, and commodification of religiosity. These patterns not only shape public images of Muslims but also interpellate them into selective and conditional forms of citizenship. The media construct a symbolic standard of the “ideal” Muslim citizen moderate, stable, and compatible with market logic while positioning alternative expressions of religious identity in ambivalent or problematic terms. The study demonstrates that citizenship is not merely a legal-formal status but is discursively produced through media representation. This research contributes to media and citizenship studies by highlighting representation as a mechanism of subject formation within contemporary democracy.