Critical Discursive Perspective Research Articles

Contested languages in the contemporary Italian press: an analysis of language ideology

ABSTRACT Based on a critical discursive perspective, this work analyses the ideology around the languages spoken in Italy, namely Italian and contested languages such as Lombard, Neapolitan or Sicilian, which are commonly referred to as ‘dialects’. The aim is to study how journalists construct, spread and justify a monolingual ideology that favours central nationalism (or macronationalism). Seventy-one articles have been examined, which were published online by the major Italian newspaper la Repubblica (www.repubblica.it) in 2011, the year of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. The analysis shows that journalists contribute to Italian macronationalism mainly through three discursive strategies: references to plurality, language hierarchisation, and suffering erasure. In the first strategy, contested languages are negatively framed as many, unintelligible and divisive. In the second, a categorisation such as ‘language/dialect’ is used which legitimises Italian and delegitimises contested languages by negating their very languageness. In the third strategy, narratives on the unification process are used that erase the suffering brought about by the eradication of contested languages.

Examining the communication of female political leaders in the Global South

Abstract This Special Issue expands on the ongoing dialogue on the decolonial project by bringing together thought-provoking papers that examine the communication of female political leaders in the Global South. It draws on data from West Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East to elucidate how female politicians deploy language (including multimodal forms) to position themselves in the political arena and utilize linguistic resources to navigate the discursive practices associated with their political roles and responsibilities. The issue offers a critical discursive perspective on the complex interplay of gender, culture and political leadership, and holds implications for how key issues such as voice, agency, solidarity and empowerment are conceptualized and enacted in specific sociocultural contexts. It also contributes to overcoming epistemicide by decentring knowledge production and underscoring the importance of valuing and engaging with different knowledge systems, especially non-Western epistemologies.

‘It’s the EU’s fault!’ strategies of blame avoidance in Andrej Babiš’s discourse on the conflict-of-interest case

ABSTRACT The article investigates strategies of blame avoidance in the discourse of the Czech Prime Minister (PM), Andrej Babiš, on the conflict-of-interest case over the misuse of European Union (EU) funds. Taking a critical discursive perspective and working with a dataset of Babiš’s public pronouncements on his conflict of interest during the period of 2019–2021, the study uncovers the particular ways of arguing, framing, denying, characterising social actors, legitimising and manipulating that Babiš exploited when trying to avoid blame in the conflict of interest case. It reveals that the conflict of interest case has provided opportunities for the Czech PM to play a multi-dimensional blame game against the EU, orchestrate a discursive battle with the EU and invoke nationalist feelings. We argue that this discursive patterning signals a departure from his hitherto pragmatic approach to the EU, with Babiš increasingly radicalizing his explicitly exclusionary construction of the EU, promulgating anti-EU sentiment and countenancing the polarization between the EU on the one hand and the Czech Republic on the other.

Common Sense, New Sense or Non‐Sense? A Critical Discursive Perspective on Power in Collective Sensemaking

AbstractDespite a growing interest in power in sensemaking, our understanding of how power is linked with language is still theoretically underdeveloped. To this end, we develop a critical discursive perspective on sensemaking comprised of a three‐part theoretical framework that elucidates the discursive underpinnings of power in organisational sensemaking. We first explain how discursive practices are used to turn cues into meaning. We then conceptualize how power operates within three layers of discursive practices: discursive strategies, genres, and discourses. This leads us to explain how the resulting sense can be conceptualized as common sense, new sense, or non‐sense. The main contribution of this paper is to help us understand how discursive practices underpin the operation of power in organisational sensemaking, thus adding a missing piece to sensemaking research. Our discursive analysis also advances understanding of the role of language in sensemaking more generally, has methodological implications for sensemaking research, and helps to move critical discourse studies forward in organisational contexts.

Populism in mediated anti-tourism discourse: a critical analysis of the documentary tourist go home!

ABSTRACT From a critical discursive perspective, this paper analyses the documentary Tourist go home! which produces a populist anti-tourism discourse, in which tourism is framed in terms of cultural and economic anxiety. Cultural anxiety is based on the construction of danger for people and places threatened by the arrival of many mobile Others and echoes anti-immigration discourse, typical of Right-wing populism; similarities can be seen also in terms of discursive strategies such as instilling fear, praising the past, opposing we-locals vs them, personalizing the Other and devices such as metaphors of danger, quantification, and exclusive deixis. Economic anxiety is based on the construction of winners and losers and resonates with a Left-wing populist discourse reclaiming wealth redistribution and popular sovereignty; similarities concern discursive strategies such as opposing we/loser/People vs them/winners/Elite; praising the People and despising the Elite; depersonalizing the Other; and devices such as metaphors, qualification, and inclusive deixis. The analysis also revealed the ideological dilemmas of this anti-tourism discourse, including the conflicting relationship with cosmopolitanism, asymmetry in the right to the city, an economic conception of tourists as resources, the horizontal (elsewhere) and vertical (above) displacement of the outgroup (Elite) to preserve the ingroup (People) homogeneity and inclusiveness.

‘It’s time we invested in stronger borders’: media representations of refugees crossing the English Channel by boat

ABSTRACT Refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats has become a common sight in the media, particularly since the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015. The number of boats crossing the English Channel between the French and UK coasts has been increasing as other migration routes have been closed down. This article reports the findings of a discourse analysis of 96 UK newspaper articles published in December 2018 when the daily crossings were referred to as a ‘major crisis’. Adopting a broadly critical discursive psychology perspective, we identify the use of three main interpretative repertoires used within the media reporting. Firstly, a ‘secure the borders’ repertoire which positions the UK’s borders as porous and easily breached, secondly, a ‘smuggling is immoral’ repertoire which works to position smugglers as to blame for the current ‘crisis’ and removes responsibility for the crisis from the Government, and finally, a ‘desperate people’ repertoire which worked to position the refugees themselves as vulnerable and in need of protection, but also as people who will engage in risky behaviours. We suggest that the use of these repertoires ultimately functions to obscure the need for safe and legal migration routes to the UK.

Culture and Green Advertising Preference: A Comparative and Critical Discursive Analysis.

As environmental concerns began to emerge, companies started to target toward the growing ‘green market’ to launch their green products. Companies’ green advertising played an important role in facilitating corporate green marketing and fuelling the desire for environmental-friendly commodities. Applying a Critical Discursive Perspective, this study focuses on corporate environmental advertising in order to illuminate their discursive strategies and the process through which corporate green advertising generates and symbolically structures the necessity of green consumption. The comparison of constructive characteristics and constructed meanings of green advertisings identified embody distinction in Western and Chinese cognitive style and process.

Parents’ discourse on English for young learners

English, the global lingua franca, enjoys a growing status worldwide. The high status of English is also linked to the increasing interest in teaching English to young learners (EYL), and is reciprocally linked to complex political, cultural and social forces. Research on the advantages of learning English at a young age is controversial and inconclusive, but despite uncertainties it seems that EYL will continue to be a growing trend. This study aimed to understand the forces that drive the EYL phenomenon and focuses on the analysis of parent’s discourse from a critical discursive sociocultural perspective. Findings illuminate the subtle, powerful ways in which parents’ discourse leads to the growing of EYL in Israel. Parents’ overenthusiasm to promote English in schools stems from their perceptions about the high value of English, global aspirations and their belief in the popular axiom ‘the younger the better’. Findings further suggest that decisions about EYL and its teaching are not necessarily based on professionals or academics but rather exist within the powers of the community, with parents being a dominant force.

Contribuições do Subprojeto "Gêneros jornalísticos impressos: historicidade, constituição e mudança em uma perspectiva crítico-discursiva" para a História do Português Paulista

Neste artigo, tendo em vista a apresentação de alguma materialidade dos resultados das pesquisas empreendidas no contexto do Subprojeto “Gêneros jornalísticos impressos: historicidade, constituição e mudança em uma perspectiva crítico-discursiva” do projeto História do Português Paulista II (PHPPII), buscamos analisar e descrever, sob a perspectiva teórica da Análise Crítica do Discurso, o noticiário publicado na grande mídia impressa paulista no decorrer dos séculos XIX, XX e XXI acerca de determinados segmentos excluídos em função de suas condições socioeconômicas. Considerando que esses veículos de comunicação sempre estiveram sob o controle das classes dominantes, encontramos, nesse noticiário, um preconceito de base, em consonância com a própria ideologia vigente nesses grupos, materializado mediante diversos procedimentos discursivos (muitas vezes camuflados) que buscam o estabelecimento de determinados consensos hegemônicos e a manutenção do status quo,

Framing secondary teachers’ perspectives on the inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder using critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACTResearch on the role of teachers in supporting students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in schools in the Republic of Ireland has largely focused on primary and special schools rather than secondary school settings. This study examined the theoretical and practical knowledge base of Irish secondary teachers regarding the inclusion of learners with ASD using an ecological critical discursive perspective. Findings revealed teachers’ strong desires to include students with ASD in their classrooms. Teachers’ discourses exposed their sense of low self-efficacy in relation to pedagogical skills required to meet the needs of learners with ASD. At a school level, teachers positioned themselves outside the dominant school discourse on special education needs. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), teachers’ narratives re-focus the spotlight on issues such as ineffective legislation and inadequate policies at national level, and identified the impact that these have at a micro-analytical level on teachers’ practices in relation to inclusion.

Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective by Ewa Glapka

Reviewed by: Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective by Ewa Glapka Miglena Sternadori Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective. Ewa Glapka. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 245 pp. $95.00 paperback. I planned my three weddings without ever flipping through the pages of a bridal magazine. Sure, I knew they existed. But for a broke first-generation immigrant, with penniless parents in a faraway country, it seemed pointless to daydream of fairytales. This means I failed to be what Ewa Glapka, author of Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective, calls a "superbride"—an agentic manager of her own commodified "big day" (p. 65). Glapka, like me, hails from Eastern Europe, where weddings are relatively cheap and mostly public, held in churches and state-owned "ritual halls," with brides and grooms in mass-produced (often rented) wedding attire entering and exiting before gawking passersby. The ensuing parties are usually small, by Western standards, but jovial and heartfelt. There are no bridesmaids in matching dresses, no color schemes, no rehearsal dinners, no wedding favors, and definitely no anxiety-ridden yearlong planning. Having this perspective as an outsider serves Glapka well as she takes on dissecting British wedding magazines. Though she never discusses her own "comparison" reading, she chafes at the idealization and fetishization of consumption as a means of self-actualization, and notes that bridal magazines' existence depends on convincing "readers that a modern woman getting married expresses herself through her transformation into a princess, in a process that necessitates a series of informed consumer choices" (p. 96). Glapka is also critical of wedding magazines' heteronormative and inherently conservative construction of gender and of their blatant promotion of individualism that "does not emanate from the inside, it is a result of externally provided inspiration" (p. 101-102) But the book goes further than critiquing the "wedding-ideological complex" (p. 55). Glapka is not exactly surprised that bridal magazines are full of gendered and traditional discourses. Rather, in a Radway-esque fashion, she is more interested in the readers' perception and interpretation of the magazines' content. The book contains an in-depth analysis of four interviews with recent or soon-to-be brides, out of a total of 11 interviews Glapka conducted. What she discovers in these conversations is that "exposing the trashiness and superficiality of the world recreated on the pages of the magazine gave the women subversive pleasure" (p. 188), but it did not make them rethink their worldview. To elicit interviewees' reactions without explicitly asking their thoughts on gender, Glapka relies on prompts: a magazine editor's letter about the importance of personalizing one's wedding; a discussion about the practice of "trashing" wedding gowns; an ad for high-heel-walking courses in a blurb highlighting women's insecurities about walking in heels; and the use of beauty "countdowns" encouraging brides to invest time and effort into looking their best when they walk down the aisle. Although the interviewed readers claim to ignore or resist the magazines' discourse of femininity, Glapka perceives that they simultaneously embrace a lot of its practices, such as expressing insecurities about their bodies and positioning themselves as the objects of the male gaze. Her conclusion is that "women remain anchored in the dominant gender paradigm in spite of their insubordination to its underlying discourse" (p. 198). A shortcoming of the book is that, like many other critical/cultural scholars, Glapka sees magazines only as media texts rather than as complex cultural artifacts at the center of their reader communities. She argues that bridal magazines manipulate readers into feeling a part of "a community of shared knowledge" (p. 77) through practices such as "simulated intimacy" (p. 108) and "synthetic personalization" (p. 109). But even though magazines' reader interaction is guided by pragmatic interests, Glapka's theoretical choices fail to fully explain or predict social realities. A cursory perusal of social media platforms suggests wedding magazines do, in fact, have reader communities that are anything but illusory. For example, on Facebook, Malaysia's Shaadi Wedding magazine has 2.7 million followers, the British Brides magazine has 2.6 million followers, and the Australian ModernWedding magazine has 1.5 million followers. Another shortcoming of...

Strategy as staged performance: A critical discursive perspective on keynote speeches as a genre of strategic communication

Research Summary: In this article, we explore how keynote speeches come into being as a staged genre of strategic communication. In our critical discursive analysis of video data on Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we demonstrate how keynote speeches are multimodally accomplished through the embodied enactment of four discursive practices: referencing, relating, demarcating, and mystifying. We show how different bodily movements, which we describe as leveling and leaping gestures, systematically contribute to constructing different conceptions of strategy through the enactment of these discursive practices as a staged genre of strategic communication. Our findings contribute to strategy‐as‐practice research by extending the nascent but growing literature on genres of strategic communication, the strategist's body in the strategy process, and the use of video‐based research methods. Managerial Summary: Firms increasingly rely on keynote speeches to communicate their strategies. As a result, managers invest more and more time and effort into preparing and rehearsing their keynote speeches. But how do managers communicate strategy in these staged performances? Based on an analysis of Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we explore the discursive and bodily patterns that characterize this genre. In doing so, we demonstrate that the coordinated use of bodily movements in keynote speeches is consequential for highlighting different aspects of the communicated strategy. This shows that keynote speeches and other types of public speeches cannot simply be scripted, but require managers to engage in bodily rehearsal and training in order to communicate strategies effectively.

‘Cyber hate’ vs. ‘cyber deliberation’

AbstractOur contribution deals with an Austrian case study on racist discourse strategies in the forums of the Austrian online newspaper derStandard.at. First, we will consider forums as a communicative form characterised by specific linguistic features as well as its technical and functional design. Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the reader’s postings from a critical-discursive perspective following the discourse-historical approach, where the readers’ comments on articles on migration and language are investigated against the background of online-specific communication. Another subject of discussion will be areas of conflict between freedom of expression, deliberation and the ‘censorship’ of the forums by the editorial staff with the help of semi-automated tools for filtering out explicit racist postings. Finally, we discuss chances and risks of the investigated forums regarding discursive and social practices within democratically constituted societies and address the question which actions can be taken to improve the quality of such forums.

“Hammered down on every side” versus “just being positive”: A critical discursive approach to health inequality

AbstractSocio‐economic and health inequality are strongly linked and are increasingly perpetuated by discourses of individual responsibility. However, little research from a critical discursive perspective has addressed how people affected themselves may account for this relationship. This research examined the ways in which people who are in debt, unemployed, or in insecure, minimum‐wage employment construct health and negotiate identities around it. Data from semistructured interviews with 6 participants were analysed and 3 main interpretative repertoires were identified: a medical repertoire of health as a lack of illness; health as adopting the “right” behaviours and attitudes; and health as being heavily influenced by external factors, such as income and life circumstances. The analysis focuses on how participants managed the tension between these latter 2 repertoires by adopting various subject positions around health: that it is “slipping” away from them; that it requires motivation; and that it is unattainable. Underpinning this is a “common‐sense” idea of health as something that is worked towards through culturally approved actions and attitudes.

O Partner, Where Art Thou? A critical discursive analysis of HR managers’ struggle for legitimacy

This study of HRM in an Australian insurance firm applies a critical discursive perspective to examine HR managers’ attempts to position themselves as Human Resources Business Partners. Analysing semi-structured interviews, we aim to provide a situated understanding of HR managers’ experiences as they sought to become accepted as co-equal partners by line management. Our findings draw attention to the gap between prescriptive accounts of HR Business Partnering and the tensions and legitimacy struggles HR managers face when adopting their new roles. We show the impact of line management’s resistance to HRM and the concomitant need for HR managers to legitimate their position in a new way. The introduction of an organizational culture survey, in particular, supplemented discursive attempts to promote the change amongst line managers and constituted a key driver in the process. Our study contributes to the study of HRM change by showing how the shift to an HRM business partnership model can be a precarious accomplishment: (1) enacted through the interweaving of discursive and socio-material practices, and (2) subject to the constraints of existing organisational power/knowledge relations.

“Attention seeker”, “drama queen”: the power of talk in constructing identities for young people with mental health difficulties

Purpose – Mental health difficulties are often stigmatised because of situated ways of talking that become taken-for-granted “truths”. Against this backdrop, identities of those affected are constructed. The purpose of this paper is to explore identities of former inpatients at an Irish Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Design/methodology/approach – Ten young people (aged 18-22) participated in discussions and their discourse was analysed using a critical discursive perspective. Findings – Three key identities emerged: a hidden identity, a misunderstood identity and the struggle for a re-claimed identity. Research limitations/implications – Findings indicate the power of discourse in creating stigma and the need for mental health professionals to draw on empowering discourses to help service-users construct positive identities. The importance of involving service-users in research is also implicated. Originality/value – This research involves service-users who are increasingly, although not traditionally, involved in research. Use of qualitative methodology allows their voices to be heard and gives meaning to their experiences.

How to diagnose a child? Atention Deficit-Hiperactivity Disorder diagnostic strategies from a critical discursive perspective

This work examines from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, the Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder diagnosis as stated by the DSM–IV and ICD-10. It considers as basis the difficulties posed by medical taxonomy of childhood as a distinct social category from adulthood, the using the sign of hyperkinesia as an evidence of the disorder, and the utilization of auxiliary instruments, external to the clinical “setting”, as the “Test of Conners”. The context of analysis refers to conditions present in Chile. Specifically, taking into consideration the diagnostic applications in the institutional space of the school. Finally, the diagnosis is analyzed from the uses and effects in regulating and self-government of individuals and bodies.

Book Review: Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective by Ewa Glapka

Book Review: <i>Reading Bridal Magazines from a Critical Discursive Perspective</i> by Ewa Glapka

Ideologías lingüísticas del español : la dimensión política del panhispanismo en los Congresos Internacionales de la Lengua Española

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role assigned to the press regarding the present and the future of Spanish in Spain and Latin America through the five International Congresses of Language (CILE) held to date. The institutional and academic nature of these events makes them a reference of the linguistic Panhispanism that at the present is experiencing one of its most expansive moments. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the ideological-linguistic imagination that is projected onto the Spanish language and how, through its presence in the CILE, the press helps to build and report it. For this purpose a critical discursive perspective is adopted as far as it allows pointing out the actors that carry out the project in terms of inclusion/exclusion. Thus, it can be shown the most recurrent themes and highlight the strength of the economic and geopolitical interests on Spanish above any other consideration.

Gendered discourses in Speech and Language Therapy

The Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) profession in the UK presents a striking example of ‘occupational sex segregation’: men make up only 2.5% of SLTs. This paper discusses parts of a research project which explored the gendered discourses that construct speech and language therapy as a gendered profession or as ‘women’s work’. Data were collected via questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with SLT graduates, Speech and Language Therapists, SLT teachers and careers advisors in London, UK. Data were analysed qualitatively using grounded theory principles, iterative thematic analysis and discourse analysis. The findings show that the gender imbalance (in terms of numbers) in this profession is shored up by a range of gendered discourses and their associated social practices: discourses of SLT as a gendered profession; gender differences discourses; discourses of women as ‘carers/ nurturers’ and as ‘superior communicators’; and discourses of gender and career progression. These discourses were sometimes taken as given and reinforced by research participants, while at other times they were contested. The research presented here constitutes a much-needed starting point in the investigation of an under-researched area, and aims to extend our understanding of the topic from a critical discursive perspective.