Self-help Discourse Research Articles

Аналіз селф-хелп-бізнес-літератури в Китаї на основі книги Лі Кайфу “Будь найкращою версією себе”

The article investigates the self-help business literature in hyper-competitive social system of China. The need to succeed stimulates the wish for self-actualization and self-realization in the context of high social pressure. The self-help business books are being studied by adopting the interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice – Discourse Analysis. So, the discourse in the article is understood as the main component of sociocultural interaction. Despite its popularity, the field of self-help discourse is under-researched and undervalued. Self-help books’ main intention is to give us the source to help ourselves. In self-help books, concepts, not the human characters, are the main characters. The content of self-help discourse varies greatly. It is very rhetorical, persuasive, and manipulative. The step-like how-to format is prevailing in this genre, such books give simple steps, implementation of which would lead to achieving the big goal step-by-step along with supportive techniques to strengthen the newly gained knowledge. The book Be Your Personal Best (“做最好的自己”, 2005) written by Li Kaifu (李开复, born December 3, 1961) is a typical representative of self-help literature which responses the user’s needs, it is a part of personal growth and transformational literature which is a branch of self-help literature that covers life and self-improvement. The main aim of the book is to show the reader how to be more effective in achieving private and professional success by means of developing habits. It gives advice and instructions on improving of personal qualities and social relations by increasing one’s potential and raising personal productivity. It includes many formal characteristics of self-help books, such as: lists, application exercises and practices, visualization, metaphors, repetition of core concepts and ideas. The main intention is in the educational purpose, sharing of ideas, knowledge, life experience, concepts, it is a pragmatic advice-giving text.

냉전 시기 인도주의 구호와 ‘손상’된 주체의 탄생 - 외국 민간 원조단체의 활동과 ‘자조(self-help)’ 개념의 전유

In South Korea, “self-help” is a common phrase used in everyday life. It was imported to Korea from Japan during the Meiji era.BRAer liberation, in the 1950s and 1960s, the self-help discourse underwent a transformation under the contact with “Self-Help”, which was reected in US foreign aid during the Cold War. Initially, it was a principle that emerged in U.S. aid to underdeveloped countries. In U.S. diplomacy through the 1950s and 1960s, Self-Help came to function as a glass ceiling for citizens of underdeveloped countries under the U.S.-Soviet Cold War.BRA variation on Self-Help also occurred in South Korea in the 1960s, stemming from the Food for Work program of U.S. Public Law 480, Title II, Section 202. The South Korean government sought to appropriate this American humanitarian aid in a different way. The resulting discourse is called “self-reliance”. Aer Park Chung-hee’s coup in 1961, society’s view of the homeless shifted from the cultural to the institutional level. Citizens, who had been the objects of humanitarian relief and demands, were now seen as damaged beings who needed to prove their worth through their own labor and self-reliance, and their normalcy as citizens. is process was called “Self-Help” in the United States and self-help and self-su ciency in Korea.

‘Make masculinity great again’: politics of marriage and neoconservatism in Turkey’s Islamic-oriented self-help discourse

ABSTRACT This study looks into a rising realm within Turkey’s culture industry, namely Islamic-oriented self-help culture, and explores the marriage advice offered by Islamic self-help authors and therapists on social media. Based on a discourse analysis of social media posts and the comments by followers, the study traces the meanings and discussions produced around problems in marriages in order to understand how Islamic self-help discourse relates to the hegemonization of a neoconservative understanding of gender relations in contemporary Turkey. The findings suggest that Islamic self-help advice on marriage bears ambivalences. On the one hand, it naturalizes traditional gendered power relations in marriage, glorifies an imagined ideal masculinity, and makes women responsible for ‘healing’ the problems in marriage. On the other hand, it raises discussions on previously silenced problems in marriages and advises women to improve their self-confidence and psychological strength, even though within the confines of traditional gender roles.

“Be a better version of you!”: A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of MOOC platforms' marketing communication

This study examines the representation, reconstruction, and promotion of the 'ideal subject' of the job market in the promotional materials of the online/life-long learning platforms known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). We take a corpus-driven critical discourse analysis to investigate the marketing language in the subscription e-mails and websites of six English-medium MOOC platforms. The analysis shows that the platforms use an array of promotional persuasion strategies, including advice-giving, autonomization and responsibilization of individuals and reinforce a self-betterment discourse to create marketable employees. Through the use of a distinct blend of higher education, marketing, and self-help discourses, the skills-oriented language explicitly references job insecurity and urges the individual to (re)build oneself tirelessly to remain demandable/marketable, neglecting an intellectual advancement angle. This ideology legitimizes the neoliberal demands for the enterprising-self and employability and feeds into one's fear of failure, ranking individuals in the society based on a value-adding/detracting practice.

Resiliencia y cultura terapéutica en tiempos neoliberales: una exploración de discursos de autoayuda

Desde las ciencias sociales, y específicamente desde áreas como la Psicología Positiva, la resiliencia se entiende como una capacidad individual para resistir y re-construirse ante condiciones adversas. Situando dicho concepto en el fenómeno de la cultura terapéutica y en manifestaciones particulares de ésta, como la literatura de autoayuda, es posible interrogar los procesos de subjetivación que construyen discursivamente al sujeto en el marco de la gubernamentalidad neoliberal. En este tra-bajo se presenta un análisis del discurso de cuatro obras de autoayuda sobre resiliencia. Con la identificación de repertorios interpretativos, se encontró que la subjetividad resiliente está atravesa-da por determinismos cognitivistas, esencialismos psicológicos y biológicos, y por una lógica econo-micista vinculada con la racionalidad neoliberal. Se concluye que estos discursos incitan a una cons-tante exposición a los riesgos como parte de una gestión de la vida que aspira a un incesante poten-ciamiento de las capacidades individuales.

Dezvoltare personală și feminism: O perspectivă sociologică asupra mișcărilor pentru drepturile femeilor în România neoliberală

The article aims to analyze the ways in which personal development is used as a tool to manage social justice issues, domestic violence cases and other forms of structural inequality. In most works in the social sciences, self-help discourse has been criticized for reiterating the individualizing neoliberal discourse that leads to growing social inequalities, along with blaming the most vulnerable for their own fate. However, personal development as a practice has been used by organizations working at community level to address personal issues caused by social inequalities. The analysis aims to present the intertwining of global ideological and political plans at the individual level through non-governmental organizations, their projects and personal development courses. The research consisted in the analysis of the activities and projects of the organizations that are part of the Network for Preventing and Combating Violence against Women (VIF) and the ethnography data of personal development practices in Romania from a previous research.

A CONSTRUÇÃO DA IDENTIDADE SOCIAL DA MULHER EM OBRAS DE FINANÇAS PESSOAIS

Objetivamos analisar, por meio dos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da Análise Crítica do Discurso (ADC), a construção da identidade social da mulher em três livros de finanças pessoais voltados ao público feminino, via análise das sequências injuntivas. Além da ADC, resgatamos estudos sobre educação financeira e gênero, com o intuito de verificar como as práticas discursivas dialogam com narrativas sobre o feminino e o consumo. Concluímos que as obras pouco contribuem para o desenvolvimento da educação financeira das mulheres, aproximando-se do discurso da autoajuda. Além disso, os textos reconfiguram discursos que reproduzem visões estereotipadas do feminino e desconsideram questões econômicas e sociais mais amplas que envolvem os problemas financeiros das mulheres no Brasil.

The visible hand behind study-abroad waves: cram schools, organizational framing and the international mobility of Chinese students

This paper adds an organizational dimension to the body of literature on international student mobility. Existing studies examine push/pull factors and student motivations, neglecting that students’ motivations and demands are not necessarily spontaneous, but can be shaped by external forces. Drawing on interview, archival and observation data collected on four leading cram schools that prepare students for the TOEFL/GRE, IELTS and SAT in China, I argue that cram schools not only coach students on test preparation and “how to study abroad,” but they also adopt organizational framing to instill in students “why to study abroad.” Leading cram schools have played an integral role in promoting a certain organizational framing as the dominant approach of a niche market in a given era. During the 1990s, when the TOEFL/GRE niche market was rapidly expanding, the market leader in this niche promoted self-help and nationalism as dominant discourses. Self-help discourse frames overseas study and test preparation not as means, but as the ends of students’ lives: going beyond one’s limit and making one’s life complete. Nationalist discourse depicts overseas study as a detour to build a stronger China after learning from the West. After 2000, however, new organizational framing picked up momentum in the new niche markets of IELTS and SAT. Targeting urban middle-class consumers, market leaders in these new niches increasingly framed studying abroad as a springboard for immigration, a channel for becoming global elites and an opportunity for status improvement for the entire family. My article bridges literature on transnational higher education with studies on supplementary education.

ESTEREÓTIPOS DA MULHER NO DISCURSO DE AUTOAJUDA

Nesse trabalho, a partir dos fundamentos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa e das reflexões que a Psicologia Social desenvolve sobre a questão dos estereótipos, analisam-se as imagens de mulher presentes em obras de autoajuda destinadas a mulheres. Para tanto, consideram-se, especialmente, enunciados aforizados presentes em obras do gênero que estão circulando atualmente no mercado. A análise revela a contradição própria do discurso de autoajuda para mulheres, que propõe à mulher um padrão de comportamento mais condizente com a sua emancipação ao mesmo tempo em que colabora com a manutenção de certos estereótipos femininos associados a seus papéis tradicionais.

A Study of Career Self-Help Discourse on Employment Insecurity in the U.S.

A Study of Career Self-Help Discourse on Employment Insecurity in the U.S.

Mais razão e menos emoção: o discurso de autoajuda para mulheres

Resumo: Neste trabalho, adotando um ponto de vista interdisciplinar, no qual nos servimos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa e da Psicologia Social, analisamos o ethos de uma obra de autoajuda sobre relacionamentos dirigida a mulheres. A análise revela que, ancorado no estereótipo tradicional de mulher, o discurso de autoajuda adota um tom melodramático e especialmente um tom didático, propondo às mulheres que sejam mais racionais e menos emocionais, colaborando, de um modo não evidente, para a manutenção do sistema de desigualdades entre os gêneros.

When grief has mates: King Lear and the politics of happiness

When grief has mates: King Lear and the politics of happiness

“Será que vai aparecer um boy na sua vida?”: análise linguística do discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes

Este artigo pretende analisar o discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes sob uma perspectiva linguística. Ancorou-se em estudos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa, mais precisamente na perspectiva enunciativo-discursiva desenvolvida por Dominique Maingueneau (2008b, 2008c, 2013). Examinou-se como as manobras linguísticas desse discurso promovem efeitos de sentidos estratégicos para os sujeitos da enunciação. Para tanto, selecionaram-se aleatoriamente como corpus três edições publicadas pela revista Capricho entre janeiro e março de 2015. A análise focalizou seções cuja cenografia é claramente de autoajuda: comportamento, horóscopo, sexo, moda, beleza. Os resultados apontam que o ethos do discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes reclama efeitos de autoridade, na manifestação de certeza e verdade que caracteriza o seu domínio, e de espontaneidade, em busca de envolvimento.

By means of seduction: pickup-artists and the cultural history of erotic persuasion

ABSTRACTThis article is about the cultural heritage of a men’s movement, called PickUp, which gained momentum in the United States during the 1990s. It finds that the seduction techniques they use can be traced back to historical seducers. The discourse of seduction is reconstructed by identifying four stages in seduction culture from early modernity to the present. Thus contextualized, the article interpretatively examines three cases of three famous seducers: Don Juan, Giacomo Casanova, and Søren Kierkegaard, while highlighting their changing masculinities as connected to class position and affectual control. Providing insights into particular social constellations and emotional dynamics of seduction, the study finds a number of ‘social tropes’ that play a pivotal role in all the scenes portrayed. Moreover, they have strong structural equivalencies within the actively applied means of seduction that the PickUp-Artist’s methodology prescribes, which is outlined in several advice books that are part of the contemporary self-help discourse. The conclusion comes back to seduction’s complicated history, the theory of social tropes, and problematizes the changing faces of masculinity within them.

Self-help as a glocalised therapeutic assemblage

This article analyses how therapeutic self-help discourse, as a global form, has been domesticated in contemporary Russia. It proposes the concept of a glocalised therapeutic assemblage to capture the dynamics through which a range of transnational and historical elements are pulled together in self-help. Drawing on analysis of bestselling self-help books and interviews with their readers, the article addresses the domestication and transformation of two paradigmatic features of the self-help genre: the ‘bullet-point’ narrative form and the idea of positive thinking. The article identifies three domestication strategies. First, the bullet-point form is domesticated by articulating it with the Russian discourse of ‘culturedness’, transforming it into a multilayered intertextual narrative. The second domestication strategy places positive thinking in dialogue with Russian discourses of suffering, while the third fuses positive thinking with historical discourses of spirituality and consciousness, thus subve...

スピリチュアリティの倫理とグローバル資本主義の精神? : アメリカ由来の自己啓発言説に注目して( しあわせと宗教)

スピリチュアリティの倫理とグローバル資本主義の精神? : アメリカ由来の自己啓発言説に注目して( しあわせと宗教)

‘Por que você não confia no seu potencial? Para tudo, gata!”: análise linguística do discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes

Este artigo pretende analisar o discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes sob uma perspectiva linguística. Ancora-se em estudos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa. Selecionaram-se como corpus três edições publicadas pela revista Capricho entre janeiro e março de 2015. A análise aponta que o ethos desse discurso reclama efeitos de autoridade, certeza e espontaneidade.--- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/cadletrasuff.2017n54a345

Análise dos gêneros discursivos e da enunciação aforizante no discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes

O objetivo deste artigo é caracterizar as ocorrências de gêneros discursivos e de enunciados aforizados no discurso de autoajuda para adolescente e seus efeitos de sentido na caracterização da cenografia e do ethos discursivo na obra selecionada para análise (IACOCCA; IACOCCA, 2008). O aparato teórico-metodológico inclui as reflexões de Maingueneau (2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2010) sobre ethos, cenas de enunciação e enunciação aforizante e as de Brunelli (2011) sobre a enunciação aforizante no discurso de autoajuda. Considerou-se que a enunciação aforizante no discurso de autoajuda para adolescentes contribuiu para a atenuação do tom autoritário de enunciados de valor deôntico e para um tom mais informativo ao discurso. Tal constatação reforça a caracterização da cenografia instaurada pelo discurso, a de um almanaque juvenil, construída pelos diversos gêneros discursivos presentes na obra, em que o enunciador, embora apresente um status diferenciado de saber, não impõe ordens e orientações, mas apresenta fatos, informando seus enunciatários sem guiar-lhes diretamente em suas condutas, tal como ocorre nas revistas juvenis.

The key is the individual: Practices of the self, self-help and learning

The article analyses the boom of self-help discourses and their relationship with pedagogic discourses, with the purpose of marking the centrality of the individual in the practices of contemporaneous government. Two exercises are important in this analysis of an archaeological genealogical perspective: on the one hand, it comprehends the impact which self-help has in the life of its readers and practitioners, allowing the consolidation and broad diffusion of tools to guide one’s own life and define modes of being within the world; on the other hand, thinking that the techniques provided by self-help may proceed in a millenary tradition of practices intended for the government itself. The study of the series self-help—education—government allows some of the main elements of these discourses to be identified and shows the centrality of the notion of learning among them.

General Education and Social Imagination

This study began from the problem that universities should teach how to survive competition in the society where never-ending competition prevails and self-help discourse are dominant, and colleges specialized in nurturing technical talents should raise individuals with a strong sense of community though educating how to cooperate with each other. Universities should reflect on the current educational practices that emphasize education of supremacy, and foster sociological imagination to rebuild communities and citizenship. The sociological imagination, which connects individuals to the social structure, enables us to perceive current problems, and generates social fiction that leads us to a new vision for the society we want, contributing to new changes and practices. This study examined 〈Share Leadership〉, a course in general education provided by Ewha Womans University, and explored possibilities of the imagination to support the production of alternative value and knowledge. Courses in general education should play a role in identifying current issues through sociological imagination and examining possible solutions while continuously nurturing the value of each individual as a social being.