Discourse-historical Approach Research Articles

A flood of illegal immigrants or a humanitarian crisis provoked by the government – A comparative mixed-methods analysis of framing strategies of Poland's two leading media outlets

The present paper aims at reconstructing, analyzing, and explaining the framing of the situation at the Polish-Belarusian border in 2021 and early 2022 by Poland’s two most influential television stations: the state-controlled right-wing TVP and the commercial left-liberal TVN. The main analytical approach used in this study was Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). It is a branch of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) that pays special attention to the sociopolitical contexts, allowing the researcher to go beyond purely linguistic analyses and focus on (both micro and meso) sociological implications. Therefore, the study analyzed the discourses through the lenses of securitization and embedding the findings into a broader discussion about migration in Poland. The paper demonstrates that the coverage of the events by both stations was radically different: the state television largely reproduced the discourse of the then ruling party, whereas the liberal TVN focused on the delegitimization of the then government and the border guard, accusing them of violating international law.

The newsworthiness of Gu Ailing: a comparative critical discourse analysis of Chinese and American media reports

Integrating discursive news values analysis and the discourse historical approach, this study compares the discursive construction of newsworthiness in the Chinese and American media’s reportage of the controversial US-born athlete Gu Ailing (or Eileen Gu), who chose to compete for China in the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games. It is found that the Chinese media associated Gu with grand narratives of the attraction of Chinese culture, the national image of supporting talents’ self-realization, and the propagation of a diversified youth culture. The American media, by contrast, mainly focused on representing Gu’s affinity with China as serving a country with different political systems and values. The present study demonstrates how a synthesis of discursive news values analysis and the discourse historical approach can enable discourse analysts to delineate news-value construing praxis through a critical ideological lens.

»My Wallet, My Choice« – Mimicry of Marginality In an Online Community of Male Separatists

Backlash and hostility towards feminism are on the rise, as demonstrated by the growth of the ›manosphere‹: a loose network of men’s social media communities who argue that men are the real victims of sexism and feminists conceal these facts (Ging 2019). One manosphere group, »Men Going Their Own Way« (MGTOW), argue that heterosexual relationships are oppressive to men and consequently should be avoided. In this paper, I take a discourse-historical approach to critical discourse studies (Reisigl/Wodak 2016) to examine how MGTOW construct themselves as marginalised or oppressed. I identify four salient discursive strategies: appropriation of feminist discourse; role reversal; statistics; and self-presentation as unpopular.

Discursive struggles around constitutional reform: language and social change in Tunisia

ABSTRACT Using narrative (genre) analysis, part of the discourse historical approach (DHA) to critical discourse studies (CDS), this paper analyses discursive struggles in the Tunisian context of constitutional reform debates held in 2022. This methodological approach and political focus are then tied to the distinctly Tunisian concept of ‘asabiyya, a notion expressing forms of social solidarity/cohesion as devised by Tunisian philosopher of history Ibn Khaldūn (d.1406). The in-depth narrative genre analysis reveals the prevalence of the ironic-tragic modes of emplotment deployed by reform advocates aiming to subvert the totalizing discourses of the heroic romantic narratives, which are preferred by constitutional conservatives. The paper concludes by discussing the possible reasons for the prevalence of the nation-state as the master narrative in these disputes and the failure of ironic-tragic narratives to mobilize influential forms of ‘asabiyya during the constitutional struggles. The paper empirically contributes to understanding the processes of facilitated or blocked social change in post-Arab Spring societies.

Delving deeper into OpIndia.com’s representation of Hindus and Muslims

The paper examines 54,580 articles published from 12 December 2014 to 15 May 2023 on the right-wing news and current affairs website www.opindia.com through a corpus-assisted discourse-historical approach in three stages. First, it looks at the entire dataset using corpus-based keyword analysis to gauge the relative prominence of four node words Hindu(s) and Muslim(s) in OpIndia’s content. Second, it analyses a down-sampled set of 696 articles and identifies 42 prominent themes shaping the discourse surrounding the nodes. Finally, examining a set of 36 articles further down-sampled and analysing the discursive strategies through the discourse-historical approach demonstrates that OpIndia perpetuates a perniciously polarising discourse demonising Muslims. Also, it reaffirms that the formative rift on which the discourse thrives is – the Hindu nationalist versus secular imaginations of the nation.

Alignment, negation, and androcentricity: representation of bride price by Chinese state media

ABSTRACT Bride price in China, the groom-to-bride monetary transfer, generally falls into realms of sociology and cultural studies, with the media perspective less explored, particularly when it concerns the state media which steers China's media system. In light of this, this study collected state media Weibo posts and made a content analysis of the representation of bride price with Wodak's discourse-historical approach. The social underpinnings and implications of such representation are also examined. Results reveal a general negation of the practice. It is linked to crimes and categorized as an outmoded custom that burdens men, and low/no bride price is advocated. These representations, although in alignment with Beijing's anti-high-bride-price agenda, remain androcentric. The study helps unravel the interplay among state power, gender ideology, and media representation in contemporary China, and offers insights on how patriarchy is perpetuated in official discourse. It also illuminates how government agendas are legitimized and strengthened in everyday texts on social media in the Chinese sociopolitical matrix.

Discriminatory discourses against Morocco and Moroccan immigrants in the Spanish context. A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of ‘Jovenlandia/jovenlandés’ (Youthland/Youthlandian) on X

Media discourse has provided a breeding ground for the advent of new patterns of discrimination with the power of influencing the public narrative. This goal of this study is to analyze how the recently-created terms ‘Jovenlandia’ (Youthland) and ‘jovenlandés’ (Youthlandian) are employed mockingly on X in response to the use of generic ‘joven’ (youth, youngster) in news articles. With the use of these terms, X users imply a supposed cancel culture in mass media that withholds data of Muslim immigrant criminals. The theoretical approach adopted combines corpus tools with Critical Discourse Analysis to examine 3856 posts on X during the 2023 Spanish general election campaign (from May 29th to July 23rd 2023). The analysis is based on Wodak’s discourse-historical approach and examines referential and predication strategies to unveil the linguistic expressions to represent immigrants. The results show that the words serve to construct a racist discursive representation of Moroccan migrant identities on the platform X in Spain. Immigrants are portrayed as violent, criminals, and rapists, whereas Morocco is depicted as a land of criminals with homophobic and sexist traditions. The discursive strategies against migrants were commonly grounded in the Muslims’ perceived failure to assimilate into the Spanish culture. In this sense, pork meat is used as a symbolic cultural criterion for evaluating authentic Spanish adherence. Spaniards are self-portrayed as victims of the left-wing government decisions and X users appeal to the extreme-right wing party Vox to solve the problem.

Unveiling ‘Eyi Çocukluk’ (Ideal Childhood) in Late Ottoman Turkish Children’s Literature: A Discourse Analysis of Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün (The Messenger for Children)

Numerous studies have been conducted on Turkish children’s magazines during the late Ottoman period, covering a wide range of disciplines such as history, language, literature, sociology, and education. However, a majority of these studies have focused on magazines written in Arabic script, with limited attention paid to those written in other scripts. Despite their significance in Turkish children’s literature and culture, periodicals written in non-Arabic scripts have received relatively little scholarly attention to date. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on Angeliaforos Çocuklar İçün (AÇİ), a children’s magazine published in Istanbul in 1872 in Turkish using the Greek alphabet by the American Board Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Using a discourse-historical approach, the study employs critical discourse analysis to reveal the qualities of the idealized child presented in AÇİ. The results indicate that AÇİ, which was published as a part of the missionaries’ inculturation efforts, portrays an ideal child as virtuous, well-educated, white, European, and devoutly Christian to its readers. The article contends that AÇİ can be regarded as a unique and historical instance of “inculturation” that instructs the Karamanli children, who are Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians, on what constitutes an ideal child.

The portrayal of Rohingya refugees in Indonesian news media: A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis

This research investigated the representation of Rohingya refugees stranded in Aceh province in the Indonesian news media during the four-year crisis between 2020 and 2023. The study aimed to examine how Rohingya refugees were represented in the media during the crisis using the Critical Discourse Analysis and the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA). The research employed a mixed method analysis to analyse the corpus data of 46,769 words extracted from 62 news articles published in two mainstream Indonesian publications, namely the regional Serambi Indonesia and the national Jakarta Post, between June 24, 2020, and March 27, 2023. Using corpus linguistics and Van Dijk’s CDA, the research uncovered four prominent argumentation strategies used in the media to portray the refugee crisis. Serambi Indonesia and the Jakarta Post utilised the Humanitarianism and Administration argumentation the most, concentrating on precarious conditions and efforts to handle the influx of refugees. Nevertheless, the local daily Serambi Indonesia used some Threat/Danger argumentation, portraying refugees as dangers and threats to local safety. The study further reveals how the media’s alignment with the government agenda is decisive for the press to construct public narratives. The narrative is expected to influence people’s attitudes and behaviours toward refugees in the province of Aceh.

Streetscapes and memories of real socialist anti-fascism in south-eastern Europe: between dystopianism and utopianism

Abstract Historical revisionism towards the Yugoslavian experience of real socialism is gaining ground in Croatia and Slovenia, as exemplified, for example, by the 2017 renaming of Zagreb’s Marshal Tito Square and similar cases in Šibenik or Karlovac, as well as parallel developments in Ljubljana. However, the spaces that once represented the Yugoslavian workers’ movement and the anti-fascist struggle can be also subject to nostalgic practices termed Titostalgia. This study employs an analysis inspired by a discourse-historical approach to scrutinize the arguments used in naming controversies in nine Croatian and Slovenian localities from 2011 to 2022. The investigation of semiotic landscapes draws from extensive fieldwork, including photographic documentation consisting of 1,658 images. Dystopian interpretations of Yugoslavia’s past turn out to be propagated through top–down discourses, circulating in media outlets and endorsed by local authorities through infrastructural signage. These discourses are typically initiated by civil society actors aligned with right and far right politics. Besides mild media opposition, which mainly invokes anti-fascist values, smaller urban centres exhibit passive resistance or inertia towards the renaming, observable in grassroots signage. Conversely, capital cities emerge as hubs of intense expressive and predominantly progressive ideological semiotic practices within the renamed spaces.

The Linguistic Construction of Political Identity: the Case of Catalonia

In the last decades much research has been carried out on discourse as a form of social practice from the Critical Discourse Analysis perspective. The Vienna school of CDA led by Wodak and her associates has developed a discourse-historical approach to discourse which investigates the linguistic construction of national identities through a method of description and analysis which posits three categories –topics, strategies and linguistic devices– employed in the construction, perpetuation, transformation and dismantling of nations and national identities. Following this approach, the present paper aims to analyse the linguistic construction of Catalonia’s present and political future in a corpus of public discourse fragments produced by Catalan pro-independence leaders and activists during the so-called Catalan crisis. The analysis reveals that the linguistic construction of the Catalan present and political future relies on constructive, justification and dismantling strategies that seek to support self-determination and construe Catalonia as an independent Republic.

Factors contributing to gender differences in language use during Bukusu marriage ceremonies in Bungoma County

This study sought to examine the factors contributing to gender differences in language use during Bukusu marriage ceremonies in Bungoma County. Discursive practices provide context through which language is used. Some of the cultural practices, such as Bukusu customary marriages, which provide context for language use, more often than not perpetuate gender differences in language. Purposive sampling was used to select 40 respondents in four marriage ceremonies. Data was collected from all four key stages of a Bukusu marriage ceremony on a cross-sectional basis. Data was collected through direct observations during marriage ceremonies, in-depth interviews with respondents, and focus group discussions. The study was informed by Ruth Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). The data was translated, transcribed and analysed to identify the factors behind gender differences in language use. The findings indicate that gender differences in language use during Bukusu customary marriage ceremonies in the Kimilili sub-county are shaped by societal expectations, cultural heritage, traditional gender roles, socialisation and gendered power dynamics. The study is important as it explores gendered language in Bukusu marriage ceremonies, shedding light on how language reinforces gender norms. It will fill a research gap and contribute to promoting gender equality by informing strategies for inclusive language use in various settings.

Social Media Hegemony: A Critical Analysis of Ellie “The Monkey Boy”

This paper discusses how social media dramatically impacted the story of Rwanda's "Ellie, the Monkey Boy." Afrimax documented Ellie's life in a documentary on his tour, showcasing her unique physical behavior and unusual illness. This study illustrates how social media alters people's perspectives and how exposure to certain phenomena in the media and societal movements piques Ellie's interest in helping him become well-known. Theoretical frameworks that function as a guidebook for research problems, such as the Discourse Historical Approach, framing theory, critical discourse analysis, and social identity theory, offer foundations for the study. This study provides insight into how social media spreads news, creates communities, and modifies social behavior. This research focuses on a critical analysis of social media in contemporary society via the lens of activism in Rwanda and Monkey Boy's identity building.

Interest groups and EU-Turkey relations: a focused analysis on TÜSİAD and MÜSİAD

ABSTRACT This study conducts a critical discourse analysis on Turkey’s European Union (EU) accession, focusing on the narratives of TÜSİAD and MÜSİAD. Employing the Discourse-Historical Approach within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the research explores how economic, political, and social factors shape these groups’ stances on EU accession. The findings reveal TÜSİAD’s advocacy for economic integration and democratic reforms, in contrast with MÜSİAD’s emphasis on economic sovereignty and pragmatic EU engagement. These perspectives reflect the interplay of interests within Turkish society and broader EU policy trends, highlighting these groups’ roles in shaping Turkey’s EU accession discourse.

A SYNOPSIS OF THE THREE MOST INFLUENTIAL APPROACHES OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The objective of this paper is to investigate and summarize the primary and most influential methods used in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The paper provides an overview of CDA and its core principles then delves into the three major approaches devised by the three prominent practitioners in the field: Fairclough, Wodak, and Van Dijk. The critical approach by Fairclough, the discourse-historical approach by Wodak, and the socio-cognitive approach by Van Dijk are discussed in a sequential manner. The study also explores the strengths and limitations of each approach and proposes the contexts in which their methodologies might be applied. In conclusion, the paper suggests that a combination of these three approaches is valuable for conducting critical analysis of texts.

“China’s Foreign Aid” and “China’s National Image” in the Eyes of Foreign Media: A Corpus-Based Discourse-Historical Analysis

China’s foreign aid implements the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind and promotes the common progress of China and developing countries. News about China’s foreign aid released by foreign media is quite significant for overseas audiences to perceive China’s image. This study adopts Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach and corpus-based method to interpret foreign news reports on China’s foreign aid. The macro-level news themes, meso-level discourse strategies and national images, as well as micro-level discourse features are explained with examples. Research shows that news themes reveal the objects, fields and methods of China’s foreign aid. Foreign media widely adopt discourse strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation, intensification and mitigation to shape China as a friendly international donor. A few characteristics of news discourse indicate that several media misunderstand or smear China’s foreign aid, which has a negative impact on China’s international public opinion environment. Therefore, building an effective external voice platform to convey China’s international responsibilities and contributions is necessary, which helps establish a favorable international public opinion environment for China’s development and call on other countries to make efforts to reduce human poverty.

Lexicalisation of discourse strategies in the national anthems of selected African states

ABSTRACT A national anthem is an official song of a nation. Extant studies have examined national anthems from philosophical, thematic, and historical points of view with insufficient attention paid to the lexicalisation of discourse strategies in the anthems of African states. This study, therefore, investigates how lexical choices and discourse strategies are deployed in the construction of national identities and ideologies. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics and Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach were adopted as framework. Data were purposively selected from ideology-laden anthems, four from each of the five African sub-regions namely: Central (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea); East (Djibouti, Eritrea, Rwanda, and Uganda); North (Egypt, Libya, Sudan, and Tunisia); Southern (Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe); and West (Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Gambia). The study discovers that lexicalisation of discourse strategies of construction, transformation, perpetuation, and representation reflects socio-cultural, political, and cultural experiences of African states.

An intersectional and discursive approach to identity in multicultural education: the case of the Haitian community in Chile

ABSTRACT This study analyses how Haitian students’ identities (i.e. gender, class, and race) are constructed, negotiated, and resignified by their parents and EFL teachers to unveil their attitudes and perceptions of their learning processes and linguistic development in multicultural contexts. To this end, five schools across the Chilean Metropolitan region were recruited, which concentrated the largest number of fifth-grade Haitian students in their own cities. Particularly, five EFL teachers and ten Haitian parents were interviewed to explore how they construct, negotiate, and resignify their discourses in terms of the identity attributed to these students, based on their own understanding and perceptions of their life experiences. Following Reisigl and Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach (2016; Wodak et al. 2009), the study examines how issues of gender, race, and class play a crucial role in how these actors understand the experience of these students at school and in the country more generally. Results evidence that, along with a tendency towards cultural and linguistic assimilation, both parents and teachers legitimize their own misconceptions about these students through perspectivization and legitimation strategies .

Representation of Victim and Perpetrator in Adelina Lisao’s Abuse Case in Malaysian Online News Articles

This research analyses the representation of victim and perpetrator as social actors and its argumentation strategies from Malaysian online news articles surrounding the tragic case of Adelina Lisao, an Indonesian domestic worker who lost her life in Malaysia due to abuse by her employer. Employing a qualitative research approach, the data is systematically collected with keywords to identify relevant news articles pertinent to the case: "Adelina Lisao” and “Ambika Shan”. This research utilises the Social Actor’s Network (SAN) and the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework, specifically the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), to examine 39 online news articles about the case from the most popular Malaysian news website in 2023, Malaysiakini. The findings revealed that Adelina Lisao was mostly represented as a passive receiver of the abuse, while Ambika Shan’s role as a perpetrator was mostly backgrounded. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how social actors are portrayed on online websites and the argumentation strategies within the context of domestic worker abuse cases in Malaysia. Thus, it acknowledges the importance of language in online news discourse in shaping public perceptions, particularly regarding domestic workers in Malaysia as evidenced by the representation of victim-perpetrator dynamics in such cases.

The Images of The Feudal Societies in Vietnamese Literary Works: A Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis

Purpose: This study aims to apply critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA) to examine representations of feudalism in Vietnamese literary works. The discourse-historical approach (Wodak, 2009) and socio-cognitive framework (Van Dijk, 1993) guide an analysis of how linguistic strategies construct feudal portrayals and situate them within Vietnam's sociohistorical context. Methods: A corpus of five short stories (1930-1945) thematically depicting feudalism is compiled. Detailed textual analysis identifies metaphors, lexical choices, connotations and symbolic spaces that construct vivid feudal imagery portraying oppression and injustice. Results: Findings show the discourse utilizes techniques like animal metaphors, derogatory nouns, and graphic violence to dramatize the dehumanization and brutality endured by peasants under feudalism. This study demonstrates usefulness of CDA for elucidating the complex, nuanced ways literary discourse reproduces and contests dominant power structures and ideologies. Discussion: Findings provide deeper insight into linguistic strategies that critique yet inadvertently reinforce aspects of feudalism. The adoption of CDA can enrich Vietnamese literary scholarship by enabling a more critical examination of discursive constructions of identity, inequality and power relations.