Discursive Construction Of Identity Research Articles

Autopoiesis, czyli nowoczesna histeria

Contrary to the prevailing methodological consensus, this article defines autopoiesis as a synonym of autocreation, or, more precisely, discursive identity construction. The latter refers to a literary ‘existential project’ which assumes that the sense of the self, or sameness, is the product of multiple, mostly discursive, interactions. They are the tex-ture of complex cultural processes which result in the determination by an individual of what he/she would like to be or what he/she would like be perceived. This construction of the self is in a state of ongoing contextualization within two distinct identity dis-courses, the discourse of individual uniqueness (founded on the sense of one’s body) and the discourse of collective participation (as defined by politics). The article argues that the two-dimensional contextualization is essentially historical and defines a broadly understood modernity. By examining the work of Gustave Flaubert the article shows how the oscillation between these two poles shapes the image of the modern writer created by Flaubert himself.

The Constructions of Ndebele Identity in Skyz Metro FM: An Audience Reception Study

Discourses on the negotiation and construction of ethnic identities in Zimbabwe have preoccupied scholars across disciplines, ranging from history, sociology, anthropology, and most recently media and communication studies. This study proceeds against the background that in Zimbabwe, literature on the relationship between identity formation and the media is little and far between, while available studies are limited to textual and discourse analysis. This inquiry takes a reception study approach to find out how audiences physically interact with radio content and negotiate different identity categories through qualitative in-depth interviews. This study extends this scope to the examination of how the advent of Skyz Metro FM has aided representation to extend discursive construction of identities. The study shows how a sense of belonging to Ndebele identity has been shaped by various changing power dynamics of internal and external factors in ways that allows one to understand how the production of national identity impact on the expression of belonging to Ndebele ethnic identity. The analysis is framed on the premise that like most collective identities, Ndebele identity has been flexible, fluid, negotiable, complex, shifting and contested but it centrally argues that Ndebele identity gels around key markers such as language. The relationship between broadcasting and ethnic nationalism found clear expression in Skyz Metro’s deliberate adoption of the slogan Esabantu (for the people) and maintains the station’s signature which is deployed throughout its programming.

Transformation of Bulgarian 1990s Print Media Cultures: Technology, Cultural Representations, Piracy, and Identity Formation on a Crossroad between the East and the West

The article investigates the transformation of Bulgaria’s print media culture in the 1990s, a period of profound political, economic, social, and cultural change in Eastern Europe. The paper’s contribution is two-fold. Firstly, it focuses on the convergence of selected Bulgarian newspapers with established and emerging media formats alongside Bulgaria’s position between the East and the West. Secondly, the representations of and discourses about technology during the transition period are analysed and their link with identity formation is explored. I compare two tabloids (Trud and 24 Chassa) with two business-focused broadsheets (Cash and Capital) issued in 1997. Adopting a non-Western perspective by focusing on a case of transitional Eastern Europe, the article offers a snapshot and a reflection on the cultural representations of technologies, discursive identity construction, and media practices of the 1990s. The emergence of the free market and the influx of electronics in Bulgaria affected identity formation as technologies related to notions of modernity, Europeanness, globalisation, entertainment, power, gender, and social status.

Discursive construction of identities for older people in news: A critical discourse analysis of Malaysian newspapers

This article examines how Malaysian journalists discursively construct identities for older people through the manipulation of language, reporting styles and the prioritization of certain news actors and their voices over others. Based on a critical discourse analysis of newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2021, this study reveals the social, cultural, journalistic and economic forces that affect how the media construct ‘older’ people. We demonstrate that newspapers in Malaysia construct identities through familial discourses, which indicates that the dependence of older people on family plays a significant role in the way they are perceived and constructed by the media. Journalists construct and propagate narratives that place the responsibility for caring for elderly Malaysians on family members. These narratives appear to absolve the government of responsibility for this role.

Visual Analysis of Discursive Construction of Identity from the Perspective of Interactive Sociolinguistics

Using CNKI as the database, this paper uses CiteSpace 5.8.R3, a bibliometric tool, to make a visual analysis of journals related to the topic of identity discourse construction in Chinese language and literature, aiming to clarify the development context and observe the new development of identity discourse construction from the perspective of interactive sociolinguistics. This paper mainly analyzes the issues such as circulation over the years, topic attention, research hotspots and research frontiers. The visualization results show that the number of papers on the topic of “identity discourse construction” shows an increasing trend in general, and the growth has been particularly significant in recent years; The topic discussion mainly focused on “identity”, “discourse analysis”, “pragmatics” and so on. Future research can be further combined with new theories such as interactive sociolinguistics to make changes and increase the degree of discussion on other topics.

Semiotic and Cognitive Landscapes: Construction of Young Inmates

The paper is humanities’ based art-based research, and was used to highlight aspects of the landscapes that contribute to the young offenders’ discursive construction of identity, which is an important variable in the rehabilitation of incarcerated youth. The results show that semiotic and cognitive landscapes contribute to the success or failure of rehabilitation through their role in the discursive construction of identity by young offenders.

Exploring the Discursive Construction of National Identity Through the Building of the New Curriculum for Wales

Wales is currently undergoing its largest ever educational reform in way of a new curriculum, within this reform multiple themes of identity and nationality are raised and used. This article uses Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore the discursive construction of identity in the building of the new curriculum. Through locating and exploring the subjectification of learners’ identity, this paper discusses the potential for learners’ subject position for identities and belonging within the new curriculum. It locates identity as diverse, fluid, spatial and strategic and explores the potential outcomes for these discursive constructions in regards to the subject positions of learners. It found these discourses to be interacting and in relation with one another, but also with the potential for conflict and contradiction. It notes many complexities and nuances in themes of identities and belonging within the curriculum. The work found potential for belonging as well as barriers such, as alienation and exclusion for learners. Finally, it offers some caution for ensuring these barriers can be overcome for all learners in the implementation of the new curriculum.

Frame, Family Discourse, and Hui Muslim Identity

ABSTRACT This study adopts Goffman’s Frame Analysis theory to examine the discursive identity construction of Chinese Hui Muslims. Excerpts from a conversation within a Chinese Muslim family were qualitatively analyzed, and two examples were presented to represent the ways that the participants use linguistic and discursive resources to construct a unique identity for Hui Muslims living in Han-dominated context of China. Four frames emerged in Hui Muslim family discourse, that is, the frame of parenting children, of strengthening parental authority and family hierarchy, of confirming Hui Muslim Identity, and of Islam education. These frames were laminated naturally and frequently by reframing and blending. They illustrated the ambitions and attempts of Chinese Hui Muslims to construct and maintain their ethnic and religious identity, which differentiated them from other non-Hui Muslims and non-Muslim Chinese people. Hui dialect, a communicative variety of Mandarin followed by Chinese Hui-Muslim families, plays an irreplaceable role of contextualization cues in the process of frame-shifting.

(De)constructing Nationalism: Understanding Irony in Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (1912), Unordnung und frühes Leid (1925), and Mario und der Zauberer (1929)

ABSTRACT In the background of the European era of nationalism, Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (1912), Unordnung und frühes Leid (1925), and Mario und der Zauberer (1929) reveal the authority of narrative in the discursive construction of identity. By analysing the interrelation of Mann’s characteristic irony and productions of discourses of racialization, this essay draws attention to the constructed nature of German national identity. This identity is revealed to be underpinned by colonial tropes of difference which simultaneously structure internal European hierarchies. Yet, far from simply affirming a naturalistic or fixed hierarchy of cultural authority, irony at a narrative level elucidates how norms are both socially and textually constructed, and, by extension, unstable. In this way, troubling the distinction between cultural truths and social fictions, this essay explores the way in which the works problematize to what extent norms are, in fact, normative.

Review of Piazza (2021): The Discursive Construction of Identity and Space Among Mobile People

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An ‘attractive alternative way of wielding power’? Revealing hidden gender ideologies in the portrayal of women Heads of State during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper explores the gendered discourses of the – seemingly favourable – media coverage that certain Heads of State received for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at media reports published in different English-speaking outlets in the US, the UK, India, Bangladesh, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland, and using multimodal feminist critical discourse analysis, we identify and describe strategies that on the surface appear to challenge hegemonic – and largely masculine – discourses of leadership. Upon closer scrutiny, these superficially complimentary reports rather reinforce and naturalise discriminatory gender ideologies, and, as we demonstrate, they do so to different degrees along a continuum of essentialising, contextualising, and problematising. We critically discuss the discursive and visual processes involved and show that complimenting these leaders on their performance compares them against a masculine norm to construct their leadership as ‘alternative’, exceptional, and hence marked. This gendered portrayal of political leadership in times of crisis illustrates how the discursive construction of identities, responsibilities, and relationships during COVID-19 largely hinges on power relations and political ideologies that systematically disadvantage and undermine women. The purportedly positive form in which this occurs makes it particularly difficult to challenge and subvert these discriminatory discourses and their underlying gendered ideologies.

“Newspeak” as a Way of Discursive Identity Construction

“Newspeak” as a Way of Discursive Identity Construction

“Victims of Democracy” or “Enemies at the Gates”? Russian Discourses on the European “Refugee Crisis”

Abstract With over one million people arriving in Europe as refugees, the UN Refugee Agency declared 2015 “the year of Europe’s refugee crisis.” This article explores the meaning-making process surrounding the “refugee crisis” in a Russian context, using discourse theory to analyze representations of refugees, Russia, and the West in opinion pieces and interview articles in three major Russian newspapers. In addition to the humanitarian and security discourses presented in existing studies, I identify a geopolitical discourse that represents refugees as victims of interventionism and democratization processes that the West has promoted in the Middle East and North Africa. More generally, this study adds to the literature on discursive construction of identity and difference.

A corpus analysis of disciplinary identity in evaluative journal articles: A Systemic Functional Linguistics approach

This study investigates the discursive construction of identity in the largely neglected register of evaluative journal articles (e.g., critiques, rebuttals). The study looks at how disciplinary identity is constructed in this register through the use of the subjective first-person pronoun I from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective. This is done through the analysis of: (1) the variation of I in evaluative journal articles across six disciplines (i.e., Applied Linguistics, Biology, History, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science) and (2) the process types (e.g., material, mental) that authors use with I to construct a particular disciplinary identity. Findings show that social science and humanities authors use I much more frequently than hard science authors, but also that the frequency of I in the hard sciences is not negligible when compared to previous research. Another important finding is that disciplinary differences are reflected in both the frequency and use of process types. The findings are highly relevant for teaching graduate students discipline-appropriate ways of identity construction in evaluative registers, such as critiques.

Impoliteness strategies in Croatian and Serbian user comments on online news articles

This study examines readers’ perceptions of impoliteness in user comments on online news articles in two daily newspapers: Croatia’s Jutarnji list and Serbia’s Večernje novosti. The study considers judgments by four younger study participants that did not participate in the online discussions as posters. These readers evaluated impoliteness from their own point of view, identifying impolite utterances in 668 user comments. Participants’ judgments are categorized and analyzed drawing on Culpeper’s (2011a) taxonomy of impoliteness formulae and triggers. This study focuses on utterances and language means judged impolite by the majority — that is, three or four participants — with the aim of identifying frequent impoliteness formulae and language means that are judged to be impolite. Among the phenomena judged impolite by three or four readers, predominant are conventionalized impoliteness formulae with terms from the domains of sexual activities and mental health, and referential terms with a historical burden. Cursing was regularly judged impolite, as well as expressions with words from the semantic domain of scatology, words evoking animal metaphors, and name modifications (blends) resulting in taboo or derogatory terms. There seems to be a strong correlation between the phenomena judged impolite and discursive identity construction — that is, establishing the border between “us” and “them” — which in the data often involved negative, and even stigmatizing, descriptions of those considered to belong to another national group.

Gender, religion and identity: discursive constructions of ‘non-veiling’ among non-veiled Malaysian Muslim women

ABSTRACT This paper examines the link between language, identity, religion, and gender through a study of discursive identity construction among non-veiled Muslim women in Malaysia. Informed by Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA), this paper further explores the ways through which these women attempt to negotiate and/or subvert their positions of powerful and powerless within interrelated religious and gendered Discourses, which are collectively grouped under the ‘Discourses of non-veiling’. As the veil is regarded as an important signifier of a Muslim woman’s identity, the discussions revolving around this symbolic piece of clothing and the identity of the wearer elicits responses that showcase a diversity of perspectives. By utilising a discursive and linguistic lens, this study therefore seeks to contribute to the emerging body of work on language, religion, and identity.

Translanguaging spaces and multilingual public writing in Zambia: tracing change in the linguistic landscape of Ndola on the Copperbelt

ABSTRACT Zambia is home to a complex set of language practices, which involve languages being used in different ways across social contexts. Historically written communication has typically been associated with English with African languages mainly associated with used spoken contexts. Recently, however, there has been a shift in this pattern with African languages being used more frequently in and across the linguistic landscape of Zambia in public writing [Banda, F., and H. Jimaima. 2017. “Linguistic Landscapes and the Sociolinguistics of Language Vitality in Multilingual Contexts of Zambia.” Multilingua 36 (5): 595–625; Simungala, G. 2020. “The Linguistic Landscape of the University of Zambia: A Social Semiotic Perspective.” Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Zambia; Simungala, G., and H. Jimaima. 2020. “Multilingual Realities of Language Contact at the University of Zambia.” Journal of African and Asian Studies, 1–14]. In this paper, we add to the growing body of work within linguistic landscape research that draws on a translanguaging perspective to understand the ways in which language is used as a resource for meaning making in the social world [Wei, Li. 2011. "Moment Analysis and Translanguaging Space: Discursive Construction of Identities by Multilingual Chinese Youth in Britain." Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5): 1222–1235; Wei, Li. 2018. “Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language.” Applied Linguistics 39 (1): 9–30; García, O., and T. Kleyn. 2016. Translanguaging with Multilingual Students: Learning from Classroom Moments. Routledge; MacSwan, J. 2017. “A Multilingual Perspective on Translanguaging.” American Educational Research Journal 54 (1): 167–201; Jaspers, J. 2018. “The Transformative Limits of Translanguaging.” Language & Communication 58: 1–10]. More specifically, we adopt the concept of translanguaging spaces [Wei, Li. 2011. "Moment Analysis and Translanguaging Space: Discursive Construction of Identities by Multilingual Chinese Youth in Britain." Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5): 1222–1235; Wei, Li. 2018. “Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language.” Applied Linguistics 39 (1): 9–30; Reilly, C. 2021. 3 Malawian Universities as Translanguaging Spaces. In English-Medium Instruction and Translanguaging, 29–42. Multilingual Matters] to explore the ways in which language is used in billboards and advertising spaces and propose that important shifts in language uses are observable. We discuss the changing status and uses of local African languages and why this is important in understanding language use in post-colonial contexts such as Zambia.

Catalan Identity through the Lens of Multilingual News

This paper compares how lexical units created in Catalan discourse, and related to the aspirations of independence, are reproduced by Euronews in Spanish, English, German and French and how their function as linguistic tools of discursive identity construction changes after translation (transediting). Based on the discourse-historical approach, we could detect three main strategies of discursive identity construction (autonomisation, legitimation, and unification) in the 37 selected articles between 2015-2021, which are often due to the discrepancies in terminology and different background knowledge in a particular target culture, together with the need to comply with media format and journalistic register.

American graphic Novel: Multimodality and Identity

The graphic novel is considered as a multimodal text — a complex of verbal and visual components. The differences between comics and graphic novels are explained. The definition of the concept of “multimodality” is given, and the main approaches to the study of a multimodal text are described. Attention is paid to the issue of identity in a multicultural aspect. On the example of a specific autobiographical graphic novel, the discursive construction of identity by visual and linguistic means is analyzed. The expediency of using critical discourse analysis to understand verbal and non-verbal connections, visual images and communications, as well as text and context is substantiated. To study the linguistic modality of the graphic novel, the methods of linguo-stylistic, lexico-semantic and contextual analysis of the literary text were used, while the iconic components were considered using the methods of observation, interpretation and comparison with the text. The sociocultural dominants of food and appearance were revealed in the novel, which contributed to the convergence of stylistic and iconic means of expressing meaning. Examples of combining linguistic, metalinguistic and visual aspects of expressing aspects of identity in the space of the American graphic novel as a multimodal text are given. The novelty of the study is seen in the demonstration of identity markers in a multimodal text.

Language ideology, representation, and nationalism: the discursive construction of identity in postcolonial Angola

This article explores and problematises the role of language in the construction of Angolan national identity. Drawing on cultural studies and insights from linguistic anthropology, it is argued that in the Angolan postcolonial context, the symbolic power of language has been recruited to perpetuate marginalisation, linguistic stratification and social hierarchisation through linguistic ideologies of differentiation. To collect the data the study utilised virtual ethnography, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The results of this study revealed that the circulating discourses about the nation and identity perpetuate disparate social representations, social hierarchy and marginalisation. The findings also demonstrated how social actors resist dominant discourses and ideologies about the relationship between language and identity in the Angolan postcolonial context. The findings suggest that linguistic heterogeneity creates discursive and ideological tensions that have implications for the construction of a unified national identity.