Discursive Strategies Research Articles

Decommodifying Spanish-English bilingualism: aggrieved whiteness and the discursive contestation of language as human capital

AbstractOver the past few decades in the United States, a powerful consensus has emerged around the value of bi-/multilingualism as human capital, including as an advantage for individuals on the labor market. In this article, I consider how the advantage that Spanish-English bilingualism affords some Latinxs on the labor market might be contested, especially by whites who feel disadvantaged by employers’ preferences for bilingual workers. I explore data from an online petition opposing the use of bilingualism in hiring decisions. Drawing on insights from critical discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and the sociology of race, I analyze the discursive strategies that petition signers use to contest the economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism. I show that signatories draw on a set of strategies that includes reproducing a naturalized one nation, one language ideology; constructing English as equal opportunity language; decommodifying Spanish; and racializing Spanish and its speakers. My analysis suggests that the apparent economic advantages afforded by Spanish-English bilingualism are a salient target for white racial resentment. Thus, I argue that discussions centering around bi-/multilingualism as human capital should consider how neoliberalism and aggrieved whiteness both, in different ways, undermine the labor market advantages bilingualism offers some Latinxs.

‘A land made fit for tourists’: Thomas Cook, tourism promotion, and colonial development in Iraq, 1920–1932

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the British travel firm Thomas Cook & Son's operations in Iraq, threading together the histories of antiquities-focused tourism and development from the country's establishment as a League of Nations Mandate in 1920 through its independence in 1932. It situates the firm's rhetoric within two principles undergirding mandate-era colonial development: development of the land, achieved through the modernisation of transportation infrastructure, and the development of the Iraqi people ‘along native lines’. Journalists, tourism promoters, politicians and travel writers lauded investments in Iraq's railways, automobile transportation and civil aviation infrastructure. They presented visions of Iraq's development as inextricable from its place within regional and global transportation networks. In the same period, a fascination with antiquities resulted in an outpouring of media about ancient Iraqi civilisations. Thomas Cook's cohesive publishing output – from guidebooks and travelogues to ephemeral written and visual sources, including pamphlets, magazines and advertisements – reveals how the company presented Iraq as both a country boasting the latest in modern transportation and hospitality facilities as well as an exotic land of perpetual antiquity. Thomas Cook not only replicated colonial discursive strategies, but also made them legible within the cultural (and seemingly ‘apolitical’) register of leisure travel.

Multimodal discursive strategies for building social, intellectual, and symbolic capital for women empowerment

Abstract The purpose of this article is to show how to identify and clarify the roles of distinctive discourses in empowering and advocacy communication meant to create bridging and bonding social capital through building new intellectual and symbolic capital. More precisely, the purpose is to explain the roles of multimodal discursive strategies employed when issues of gender equity and empowerment are communicated in corporate context, viz. in employee magazines, by world-acclaimed women professional athletes and corporate employees. For accomplishing this purpose, a series of multimodal interviews appearing in the Puma’s online employee magazines, Puma Catch Up, are systematically examined. Overall, the study suggests that especially legitimations used by successful professional women are key discursive resources for empowering women across various kinds of borders and for creating a corporate symbolic capital. By outlining how legitimations constitute empowering and advocacy discursive resources, this research work contributes with a multimodal perspective to the field of social change communication.

The Limitations of Hashtag Feminist Activism on South African Twitter: A Case Study of #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash

Social media has become a central arena for debates around feminism and gender in South Africa. One recent example can be found in the hashtag #MenAreTrash, which has been a trending topic multiple times on South African Twitter. However, despite the prevalence of gender-based violence in the country, these conversations have also come under strong criticism, especially from men. Existing literature on social media expressions of misogyny and anti-feminism has primarily focused on North American and European case studies. This article expands existing literature by analyzing men’s reactions to the #MenAreTrash hashtag and highlighting the role and backlash against feminism in South Africa. Based on a thematic analysis of 600 tweets, this article explores the discursive strategies employed by South African cisgender men on Twitter in response to the #MenAreTrash hashtag. Beyond some marginal yet relevant examples of reflexibility and allyship, the overwhelmingly negative response from men online, as found by the study, reflected a lack of self-reflection about their masculinity. The article provides additional insights into the role of digital feminist activism in shaping networked masculinities in the South African context.

The “Greening” of Empire: The European Green Deal as the EU first agenda

The recent past has seen the proposal of multiple ‘Green New Deals’ across geographies as a means to fight against the climate crisis and ecological breakdown. Of these, the European Green Deal- EGD represents the world's first public commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Because the EGD plans to “transform the EU,” in this paper we examine how it fits within a historical continuum of colonial and neo-colonial relations. We argue that the EGD is the latest discursive strategy for the ‘greening' of empire through four registers: (1) turning ecological crises into profitable opportunities; (2) portraying the EU as a ‘moral’ intervener; (3) building on a ‘green' “will to improve”; and (4) securitizing and consolidating the empire. We find how the EU acts in key policy arenas of diplomacy, trade and investment leading to the ‘greening' of the empire that ensures its continued economic and political leadership while fundamentally maintaining a status quo. We conclude with some reflections on the role of the EU to cede place to other possibilities of building anti-colonial ecologies.

Organizational resistance through organizing principles: the case of gender equality in the military

PurposePrevious studies show that the implementation of gender equality encounters resistance in military organizations, but it is often invisible or seen as confined to anonymous structures or troubled individuals. This paper aims to show how the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) use organizational principles to resist implementing gender equality measures.Design/methodology/approachThe study is a qualitative analysis of discursive strategies in the SAF’s 2013–2018 annual reports to government.FindingsThe organizing principles of instrumentality and distance, while existing in parallel with gender equality efforts, actually pursue logics that prevents the SAF from implementing gender equality. The principle of instrumentality in this context means that gender equality in the SAF is of secondary interest to organizational members. The principle of distancing from the problem includes strategies that alienate female from male officers.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is the finding that the use of organizing principles represents conscious organizational resistance to gender equality efforts. This kind of use needs to be revealed and criticized to change military organizations.

“Managing” Inaction and Public Disengagement with Climate Change: (Re)considering the Role of Climate Change Discourse in Compulsory Education

Discourse constitutes knowledge about something and the processes by which we come to know it. This is true in formal education and everyday life. In this way, both what students know about climate change and how they engage with publics about climate change are intertwined. Implementing teaching and learning about discourse in compulsory education is an opportunity to prepare young people to critically engage in public life by focusing on how to recognise and counter strategies that seek inaction as an appropriate response. In other words, by focusing on the strategies, impacts and effects of discourse in education about climate change, the ill effects of inaction associated with climate anxiety and climate fatigue can be “managed” in a long-term (re)imagination of an engaged public capable of working towards a sustainable, shared future. We contend that education about climate change discourse in global compulsory education curricula can provide young people opportunities to learn not only about climate change science, but about how to (re)consider discursive strategies used by others that otherwise promote and resist calls for action. This can produce a new generation of citizens capable, motivated and prepared to actively engage climate change discourse in public life.

Revisiting memoricide: The everyday killing of memory

Memoricide, it seems, is memory made rubble and ash. Its emblematic imagery is of scenes many would find familiar: burning ash-snow from Sarajevo’s Vijecnica; satellite images of Palmyra’s missing structures; the exploding Bamiyan Buddhas. Physically altering space is understandably a highly visible tactic. However, when explicitly built into definitions, the emphasis on physical destruction has been on specific forms targeted: archival institutions, monuments, memorials and heritage sites. This article revisits memoricide as a range of converging physical, social and discursive strategies. It introduces ‘everyday’ memoricide – the normalisation of memory erasure as mundane practices – which ordinarily masks its intelligibility as memoricide through ‘common sense’ or ‘greater good’ discursive frames. The sacred Djab Wurrung trees, threatened by the Victorian State Government’s Western Highway project, and a felled Directions Tree in particular, provide a still unfolding case study within the broader history of Australian memoricide.

Property investment and the making of the ambivalent elective Polish diaspora in Israel

AbstractThe article explores investment decisions made by Israelis who purchased or intended to purchase a residential property in Poland. Specifically, it focuses on their set of motivations to invest there and the extent to which their ethno‐national or other types of affinity with the country played a role in their decision. Drawing on interviews with (Jewish) Israeli citizens, we argue that their Choice to invest in Poland was not only financial but influenced also by strong emotional connections to the country, a combination we term ‘sentrumental’ (instrumental and sentimental). We contend that the decision of Israeli Jews to buy property in Poland, against the historical backdrop of the traumatic experience of Jews there, is highly contentious. Analyzing the discursive strategies they use to explain, indeed justify, their unorthodox decision, we show how their emotional ties to Poland often conflict with its controversial history and their own personal identities. It is this conflict, we conclude, that makes Israeli Jews with various biographical ties to Poland an inherently ambivalent elective diaspora.

From the Mountains to the Élysée: The Precarious International Legitimacy of the Syrian Kurdish YPG and PYD

This article examines the international legitimacy of the main Kurdish militia in northern Syria, the People's Defense Units (YPG), and its affiliated political party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Despite their origins in the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization in many countries, the YPG and PYD were anointed as partners of the Global Coalition against Daesh/ISIS and have been celebrated in Western capitals and press ever since. To understand this unusual trajectory, this article argues that, although defeating ISIS opened a "possibility space" for this alliance to emerge, the YPG and PYD's discursive and practical legitimation strategies have contributed to their remarkable international diplomatic standing. This position nevertheless remains perilous, largely due to an insurmountable barrier: Turkey.

SALAFI-INFLUENCERS: ANALYTICAL STUDY OF OF THE DISCOURSE OF NEO-SALAFI PREACHERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

This discourse analytical study tackles the rise of 
 Neo-Salafism in the digital age. It constitutes an exploration of the discursive technics, strategies and practices employed by the new generation of Salafī preachers on social media. It strives to unveil the various discursive methods of indoctrination pursued by Salafi-influencers and the ends such strategies tend to serve. It involves an exploration of linguistic and contextual activities and seeks to identify explicit and implicit messages incorporated into the discourse of those young preachers. The main hypothesis upon which this study rests is that young preachers of Neo-Salafism resort to modified discursive technics that correspond to the age of digitalization and social media activism for the sake of ensuring a resounding impact among their addressees. These recipients represent a social incubator to the extremist Salafī ideology and a potential pool for a new wave of radicalization among the Muslim youth worldwide. A multi-dimensional methodological framework is employed to tackle the topic raised by this study. The data analyzed within the framework of this study consist of speeches and instructional communications by young Salafī preachers published through different social media platforms. Salafi-influencers seem to have developed a discourse characterized by certain manipulative strategies to communicate particular ideological messages and to indoctrinate recipients.

A Critical Discourse Study of Shakespeare’s Theological Conceptions in Acts IV and V of Richard II: The ‘Divine Mandate’ of Richard Kingship Falls Apart

This article studies the rebellious Shakespeare’s politico-religious discourse in the Renaissance England. An appropriated interdisciplinary blend of Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) is employed to lay bare the discursive strategies appropriated by William Shakespeare to safely express his pragmatic philosophy of politics and religiosity in Acts 4 and 5 of Richard II. This study attempts to bring together linguistic, sociocognitive, and critical metaphorical aspects in one single CDA framework. Serving methods and tools of analysis from various well-known CDA approaches such as Fairclough (1989 and 1995), Van Dijk (1993 and 2001), and the Critical Metaphor Analysis (henceforth CMA) model (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) are selected to fulfil the aims of analysis. The horrendous fate of King Richard II is an exemplar that evidently embodies Shakespeare’s preach of political pragmatism against a deep-rooted holistic system of politico-religious justified by alleged divine regencies.

Pro-Syrian Regime Versus Anti Regime Outlets: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis

The Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 became a global crisis and attracted the international social media attention, leading to the engagement of international superpowers. Based on the assumption that social media discourse is not neutral and impacted by social, political, and economic contexts [1], this paper employs van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to investigate the role of social media discourse in protracting the Syrian conflict. It analyzes two main local, anti-, and pro-regime, social media outlets’ posts, and tweets to expose their discursive strategies and embedded ideologies. This article exposes the manipulation practices on the discoursal and linguistic level. It conducts a complex analysis to uncover hidden messages and manipulation techniques that has been delivered and utilized by conflicting parties in Syria, influencing people’s minds, increasing their polarity, altering the Syrian revolution’s conception, and protracting the tragedy. The findings indicate that social media discourse vis-à-vis the Syrian context is biased. Syrian conflicting parties, especially pro-regimes outlets, manipulate discourse with the aim of influencing people’s understandings and beliefs and hence actions. Anti-government actors are always stereotyped as foreign backed, extremists, and terrorists. International outlets, impacted by the local outlets, have contributed to altering the perception of the Syrian conflict, from a popular social movement to a violent civil war.

IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICT IN EDITORIALS ON TERRORISM: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PAKISTANI AND INDIAN ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS

Dicourses produced in the print media generally carry implicit ideologies to shape the cognitive make up of its readership. English newspapers in Pakistan and India also use such discourse strategies to adance their own countries’ ideological agenda. This research study, therefore, aimed to explore the discursive strategies that two leading English dailies of the two countries employed to portray ideological conflict in relation to the Indian-claimed surgical strikes (2016) against terrorist hideouts in Pakistani territory. To achieve this aim, editorials from English newspapers of both the countries were purposively selected and analyzed using Ideological Square Model proposed by van Dijk (1996,1998). The results of the study show that discourses of the newspaper editorials of both the countries carry discursive strategies that display the ideological conflict of the two countries in relation to terrorism. Using strategies such as passivisation, positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation, passivisation, personalization, and metonymy, the Indian editorial considers these strikes valid and successful, while Pakistani editorial vehemently denies this, thereby accentuating the Us and Them dicotomy. The findings of the study has implications for general readership as well as political elite of the two countries. Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Ideological Conflict, Media Discourse, Surgical Strikes, Ideological Square.

Du translingue comme post-monolinguisme. Subvertir le maternali(ngui)sme dominant pour légitimer la minorité spanglish

About Translingual as Post-Monolingualism. Subverting the Dominating Mothertongue to Legitimize the Spanglish Minority
 The puertorican cultural identity was forged between American colonialism and the previous secular Spanish rule, but now Puerto Rico is a free state associated to the United States. The circular migratory flows between the two territories allowed the consolidation of a consistent Hispanic community in the surroundings of New York, the newyorican one, living at the crossroad between two ethnic groups, two languages. Thus, the prolonged contact of English and Spanish led to the development of a new linguistic code: Spanglish. This transcends the phenomena of bilingualism, diglossia and code-switching, placing the speakers in a linguistic continuum and eluding the notions of mother tongue and foreign language, dominant and minor language. Starting from the subversion of the concept of mother tongue, this essay explores the discursive and linguistic strategies by which the Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi in her "Yo-Yo Boing"! legitimates Spanglish. If mother tongue shapes the ontological identity from birth, language fluid contributes to the deconstruction of language as identity belonging. Language is a liquid object: polyphonic, dialogic and conative because it addresses to recipient, its arbitrariness makes it polyhedral and it is a representation of the multiple facets of identity. Our research, dealing with the geopolitical frictional context of the borderland between United States and Latin America, problematizes the location of a non-canonised literature employing linguistic hybridity as a marker of dominant identity. In fact, in-between linguistic politics is not bilingual, but translingual; it posits a post-national and post-conflictual ideology and transculture's linguistic porosity makes monolingualism obsolete, affirming translingualism as post-monolingualism. Post-monolingual being is the one who has freed himself from dependence on the "langue" making the "parole" the means of expression of his logos. Hybridity allows to make the dominant the dominated, that is why Giannina Braschi writes in her foreign language and not in her mother tongue, she writes in minor language in order to promote it, dominant language becomes the dominated one.

Therapeutic Discourse of Psychologists in the Context of Crisis: Normalization of Non-Action

This study examines therapeutic discourse, which is presented in the texts of psychologists in the context of crisis conditions associated with the Russian and world news and event agenda of the period end of February — April 2022. The purpose of the study was to reveal and describe the content of therapeutic discourse, to identify which methods (strategies) to normalize crisis conditions it refers to resorting, and whether the opposite happen — when the crucial events taking place are sharpened as a problem. The analysis of the material of blogs (Russian—language texts of psychologists posted on social networks for the period end of February — beginning of March) and interviews with practicing psychologists (11 interviews, collected in March— April 2022). Critical discourse analysis allowed to identify and describe the specifics, characteristic vocabulary and ideological guidelines of therapeutic discourse in crisis conditions, detect its interdiscursivity. A separate emphasis was placed on the description of therapeutic discourse in relation to socio-political, ethical-moral and other neighboring discourses, the following strategies of normalization of the crisis situation inherent in therapeutic discourse were identified — “sealing”, “re-description”, “attention switching”, the opposite discursive strategy — problematization was also outlined. In addition, the recommendations of psychologists (the so-called “techniques”) are considered in relation to how the texts interpreted the events occurring after February 24, 2022 from the point of view of their normalization.

Interdisciplinary Approach to Identify and Characterize COVID-19 Misinformation on Twitter: Mixed Methods Study.

Studying COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter presents methodological challenges. A computational approach can analyze large data sets, but it is limited when interpreting context. A qualitative approach allows for a deeper analysis of content, but it is labor-intensive and feasible only for smaller data sets. We aimed to identify and characterize tweets containing COVID-19 misinformation. Tweets geolocated to the Philippines (January 1 to March 21, 2020) containing the words coronavirus, covid, and ncov were mined using the GetOldTweets3 Python library. This primary corpus (N=12,631) was subjected to biterm topic modeling. Key informant interviews were conducted to elicit examples of COVID-19 misinformation and determine keywords. Using NVivo (QSR International) and a combination of word frequency and text search using key informant interview keywords, subcorpus A (n=5881) was constituted and manually coded to identify misinformation. Constant comparative, iterative, and consensual analyses were used to further characterize these tweets. Tweets containing key informant interview keywords were extracted from the primary corpus and processed to constitute subcorpus B (n=4634), of which 506 tweets were manually labeled as misinformation. This training set was subjected to natural language processing to identify tweets with misinformation in the primary corpus. These tweets were further manually coded to confirm labeling. Biterm topic modeling of the primary corpus revealed the following topics: uncertainty, lawmaker's response, safety measures, testing, loved ones, health standards, panic buying, tragedies other than COVID-19, economy, COVID-19 statistics, precautions, health measures, international issues, adherence to guidelines, and frontliners. These were categorized into 4 major topics: nature of COVID-19, contexts and consequences, people and agents of COVID-19, and COVID-19 prevention and management. Manual coding of subcorpus A identified 398 tweets with misinformation in the following formats: misleading content (n=179), satire and/or parody (n=77), false connection (n=53), conspiracy (n=47), and false context (n=42). The discursive strategies identified were humor (n=109), fear mongering (n=67), anger and disgust (n=59), political commentary (n=59), performing credibility (n=45), overpositivity (n=32), and marketing (n=27). Natural language processing identified 165 tweets with misinformation. However, a manual review showed that 69.7% (115/165) of tweets did not contain misinformation. An interdisciplinary approach was used to identify tweets with COVID-19 misinformation. Natural language processing mislabeled tweets, likely due to tweets written in Filipino or a combination of the Filipino and English languages. Identifying the formats and discursive strategies of tweets with misinformation required iterative, manual, and emergent coding by human coders with experiential and cultural knowledge of Twitter. An interdisciplinary team composed of experts in health, health informatics, social science, and computer science combined computational and qualitative methods to gain a better understanding of COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter.

The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Case in News Media: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This article presents a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case in news media. The aim of the current research is to allow for an in-depth analysis of how a range of news media outlets used discourse to frame intimate partner violence (IPV) in modern news media. A synthesis of previous literature revealed methodological limitations and a potential research bias in the existing body of research addressing news media discourse regarding IPV. The current study utilized a sample of 12 articles from three news media outlets of distinct political orientations that were analyzed following guidelines on maintaining quality in CDA. Two discursive strategies are presented in this article: (a) predication and argumentation; (b) the construction of ingroups and outgroups. This article argues that these strategies were used to discredit the experience of Depp and create perceived ingroups and outgroups throughout the discourse. It is also noted that this sample of articles only highlighted instances of physical violence. Future research should investigate the effect this representation of IPV may have on consumers of news media, as societal expectations may inform help seeking.

Public health messages during a global emergency through an online community: a discourse and sentiment analysis.

The growing popularity of social media and its ubiquitous presence in our lives brings associated risks such as the spread of mis- and disinformation, particularly when these may be unregulated in times of global crises. Online communities are able to provide support by enabling connection with others and also provide great potential for dynamic interaction and timely dissemination of information compared with more traditional methods. This study evaluates interactions within the Essex Coronavirus Action/Support Facebook private group, which set out to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection by informing Essex residents of guidance and helping vulnerable individuals. At the outset, 18 community administrators oversaw the group, which attracted approximately 37,900 members. Longitudinal Facebook group interactions across five periods spanning the UK lockdowns 2020-2021 were analysed using psychological discourse analysis and supplementary computed-mediated analysis to further explore sentiment and linguistic features. The findings endorsed that the group provided a protected space for residents to express their feelings in times of crises and an opportunity to address confusion and concern. The effective communication of public health messages was facilitated by promoting desired interaction and the construction of group identities. Administrators worked with group members to achieve a shared understanding of others' perspectives and the COVID-19 evidence base, which led to a mobilisation of the provision of support in the community. This was accomplished through the application of rhetorical and interactional devices. This study demonstrates how online groups can employ discursive strategies to engage audiences, build cohesion, provide support, and encourage health protective behaviours. This has implications for public health teams in terms of designing, implementing, or evaluating such interventions.

Enacting teacher evaluation in Norwegian compulsory education: teachers’ perceptions of possibilities and constraints

This article reports from a case study investigating enactment of teacher evaluation (TE) policies in two lower secondary schools in a large Norwegian municipality. The aim of the study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of TE, and to unpack how new policy initiatives were shaped by translations, mediations, and negotiations in a national context characterised by relatively low-stakes accountability. The analysis was informed by municipal and local school documents, in situ observations, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven teachers, focusing on the interplay between material, interpretative, and discursive elements. Findings indicate that TE practices reflect traditional approaches to teachers’ professional development based on classroom observations (COs) and peer counselling, marked by symmetrical relationships, reflexive collaboration, and collective knowledge-sharing. However, a non-hierarchical collective-oriented culture seems to be disrupted by result management and standards that define ‘the good teacher’ or ‘the good lesson’ combined with individual COs. Teachers raise concerns that market discourses which treat pupils as ‘customers’ and teachers as ‘providers of results’ may encourage strategic behaviours to comply with expectations and preserve one’s good reputation. Implications for policy and practice are discussed with regard to how TE as a discursive strategy contributes to the ‘making’ of particular teacher subjectivities.