Discourse Strategies Research Articles

Female Empowerment on International Women's Day 2023 Ads: Critical Discourse Analysis of Mercedes-Benz “Be One of Many”

Female representation in the media had been drastically changed as the women empowerment was put into the spotlight in international society, including the Western countries. The feminism movement had stimulated various creative content, including in the emotional advertisements where brands were trying to build a closer relation with their customers instead of the usual hard-selling ads. Femvertising was one of the products of women empowerment in the creative industry; in short, it referred to advertisements made with messages to support girls and women. This study was aimed to find out the discourse strategies of current femveritising in conveying female empowerment message. this article conducted a qualitative study of video ads by Mercedes-Benz titled “Be One of Many” and the findings were presented in descriptive format. The data analysis was conducted by using Sara Mills’ model of Critical Discourse Analysis. The findings showed that the 2023’s International Women’s Day femvertising put women as their main subjects and also conveyed a specific “women support women”. In conclusion, current femvertising’s aim went beyond empowering oneself to be better than others or to be either the first or only woman in a profession or field, instead women should empower each other so that more women would achieve their dream and success even in the fields that are still dominated by men.

Identity, politeness and discursive practices in a changing world

This special issue continues the discussion of the impact of culture on identity, communication, politeness, and discourse strategies (see Russian Journal of Linguistics 22 (4) 2018, 23 (4) 2019, 24 (2) 2020). The topic has become particularly relevant in the context of two multidirectional processes, i.e., globalization resulting from current geopolitical trends and technological advancements, which have encouraged the intensification of contacts between people, languages, and cultures; and deglobalization focused on the preservation of national cultures and development of a multipolar and multicultural world. In our introductory article, we attempt to trace the impact of communication technologies, language, and culture contacts on digital, face-to-face, and public communication in different settings and discourses and outline its influence on communication, language variation, and change. In this introductory article we present a summary of the contributions of our authors to the issue, which showed that the implications of globalization and language contact are multifaceted, they can have both positive and negative effects on language use, maintenance, and change, as well as on cultural identity and diversity. Pursuing these latter factors contributes to developing trends of deglobalization. Our authors invite the reader to reflect on these processes. In conclusion, we sum up their major findings and suggest a brief avenue for further research.

Using Persuasive Discourse Strategies to Strengthen Arguments in School Parliamentary - Style Debates

Purpose - This research investigates the use of persuasive discourse strategies to strengthen arguments in parliamentary-style school debates. The research focuses specifically on the use of the three persuasive discourse strategies (quasilogical, presentational and analogical) proposed by Barbara Johnstone (2012). Methodology - The research design employed is action research that is qualitative in nature utilizing discourse analysis as the method for data analysis. Findings - The victory of the winning team can be attributed to the effective use of these three strategies during the debates. The persuasive strategies consisted of repetition, questions, appeals, using logical reasoning, giving examples and storytelling method. The study shows that persuasive discourse strategies, if effectively used to develop the argument structure, will prove to be an effective method to win debates. Significance - The findings of the study are useful for school debaters and teachers, trainers or coachers of school debating teams.

The analysis of critical discourse of Bakhtiar Ali's "The last pomegranate of the world" on the basis of the levels of Furlough’s

This paper is a survey on the novel, “the last pomegranate of the world” by Bakhtiar Ali, based on Critical Discourse Strategies according to Furlough’s the three-layered schema. CDA researchers, do not only focus on formal and semantic aspects of the text but also pay attention to cultural, social and political points, affecting it. Thus, this methodology matches more with surveys on novels the focus of which are social, political cultural, and historical issues. Norman Furlough’s theoretical background is a huge contribution to this field that analyzes texts in three levels of description, interpretation, and explanation. In this paper, “the last pomegranate of the world”, the historical-political novel by Bakhtiar Ali based on this approach has been analyzed in order to shed a light on the writer’s point of view to the creation of the novel’s story and its elements. Moreover, the relationship between the story and the discourse on which the story has been based is analyzed. The three-layered Furlough’s schema focuses on the text, discourse acts, and social acts. So, it has been chosen for this survey. The methodology of the survey would be descriptive-analytical and uses corpus data which is the novel, “the last pomegranate of the world” by Bakhtiar Ali. Finally, the most important theme of the story is opposition to war and a criticism to power, which is affected by special discourse in which text is formed.

Discourse Strategies and Portrayal of Women in the Choice of Cosmetic Products in Lagos Nigeria

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of discourse strategies and portrayal of women in the choice of cosmetic products in Lagos Nigeria.
 Methodology: A mixed method design was adopted for this study using purposive sampling because this study was only to investigate cosmetic product advertisements for women. The data were collected from company websites, YouTube and outdoor ads of popularly used cosmetic products ads which were transcribed for the qualitative analysis and analyzed based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) while for the quantitative aspect data was collected using a questionnaire based on Likert-type scale questions to capture the different variables. They were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
 Findings: The study findings show that there is a statistically significant relationship between discourse strategies and portrayal of women in choice of cosmetic products in Lagos. It noted that advertisers utilise strategies such as Informing strategy, Skin Inadequacies, scientific evidences and Celebrities to influence people to choose their products. Findings affirm the direct positive of discourse strategies as R2=0.935 depicts that the model explains 93.5% of the variance thereby supporting the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between the discourse strategies and portrayal of women in the choice of cosmetic products as the ideology of a woman wanting to look better is preyed upon by advertisers.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was guided by CDA and theory of Imitative Desire. It reveals that there is a statistically significant relationship between discourse strategies and portrayal of women and using CDA - a kind of social practice it notes that advertisers influence the view of beauty by creating a new beauty ideology and standard derived from the Ads. Therefore, women bodies should engage in campaigns for women to value themselves, reject manipulation and advocate that adverts only reflect socially acceptable portrayals.

Analysis of Public Opinion Crisis Control by Mainstream Media During COVID-19

The sudden outbreak of new pneumonia has had a profound impact on the global world and all walks of life. At the same time, it also creates a torrent of public opinion under the mud of information and accelerates the fermentation and loss of control of the Internet public opinion field. Tuchman, a famous scholar, claimed in Doing the News that news is the constructed reality, and the mainstream media controls the trend of public opinion when disseminating news. In this paper, public opinion at each stage of the epidemic was analyzed based on the crisis phase analysis theory proposed by Steven Fink. In the face of the epidemic crisis, the mapping of the media plays an important role. Mainstream media should control the public opinion crisis through different discourse strategies and social effects caused by communication methods.

The Language of Manipulation and Control: Operational Methods of the Securitate in A. Belc’s Film Metronom

The objective of the present study is to analyze the operational methods employed by the secret police agency (Securitate) in exerting influence and control over individuals within the Romanian communist society, as depicted in the film Metronom directed by Alexandru Belc. Through an analysis of the dialogue between the protagonist and a Securitate officer, this research explores the tactics used by the Romanian secret police to manipulate and deceive citizens, preserve power, and maintain social control. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and theories of power, this study reveals the subtle and insidious ways in which the Securitate operated within the Romanian society to silence opposition, spread propaganda, and maintain a stranglehold on society. In this line of work, a set of elements has been delineated, aimed at evaluating the manipulative nature of communist discourse strategies. The findings provide insights into the cinematic portrayal of the Securitate in Romanian communist society, highlighting the use of language and discourse as tools for controlling and manipulating both the population and individuals.

A critical discourse analysis of some selected 2019 Nigerian presidential election campaign advertisements on social media

Political campaign advertisements are one of the mediums where the electorates hope to get the right information to help them make a choice before an election. The study explored the lexico-syntactic patterns, discourse strategies and how they were used to create ideologies in the 2019 Presidential campaign advertisements. The study adopts the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Van Dijk called socio-cognitive model and his (2000) model on principles that express ideological stances. Five campaign advertisements were purposively selected for analysis from the following social media platforms: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and also the following media outlets punch.com, nairaland.com, to mention but a few. The campaign advertisements chosen featured the two major candidates, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and Muhamadu Buhari of the APC (All Progressives Congress) in the 2019 Presidential elections. The study revealed that the campaign advertisements chosen used discourse markers that emphasized ideologies like; APC is a haven for corrupt Nigerians, Atiku is a thief, Buhari and Atiku do not care about the poor, Buhari is incorruptible, are among other ideologies that the campaign advertisements tried to portray. The study submits that discourse was negative especially in the presentation of the ‘out group’ (the political opponents) and that the ideology of the text creators was a very strong force in all the texts analyzed. Therefore, the electorates need to be more critical in reading these presidential campaign advertisements before forming their opinions and taking actions, in order to deepen our democracy.

Political framing of Covid-19

Abstract The present study is a corpus-based discourse analysis of the metaphorical framing of Covid-19 in American political discourse. Drawing on data from a corpus of the White House briefings and statements, the study investigates the corpus profile of war and virus and illustrates how the Coronavirus is primarily represented as an enemy to go to war with, rather than a public health crisis to control and mitigate. The study further situates the militaristic framing of Covid-19 within the theoretical framework of moral panic and examines the discursive features that ultimately bridge the metaphorical representation of the pandemic and the construction of moral panic. The study points to nuanced discourse strategies used in the White House press briefings that reconstruct the enemy and regroup the Coronavirus with other so-called enemies of the United States, such as the Communists, as well as the Islamic radicals and the Latin gangs and cartels.

The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana: exploring the discourse strategies in president Nana Addo’s speeches

Communication during a crisis can affect crisis management and health outcomes. Only a few studies in Africa have examined political leaders’ speeches on Covid-19 pandemic preventive and restrictive lockdown measures. The purpose of this study is to examine the discourse strategies employed in President Nana Addo’s speeches delivered to Ghanaians on the measures taken to combat the coronavirus. The first ten speeches of Nana Addo since the inception of Covid-19 were selected, coded, and examined using content thematic analysis. The analysis of these speeches identified five main themes to capture the discourse strategies which President Nana Addo used. The strategies captured in the thematic analysis included framing Covid-19 as a war, encouraging nationalism and patriotism, showing appreciation and gratitude, threatening sanctions, and using religious values. These strategies were reinforced by using religious, moralizing, and national identity legitimation discourses to justify measures the government had put in place to minimize the impact of Covid-19 and improve healthcare response. Also, the historical, social, and political contexts of Ghana and elsewhere were invoked in Nana Addo’s speeches to legitimize the government’s response to Covid-19. In conclusion, we highlight the implications of these strategies on crisis communication and management.

The power of paranoia: Politics, the Bible, and conspiracy theories

In the current US political climate, paranoia, pervasive and widespread, can serve as a politician’s greatest ally, a relationship exemplified by its continual display in Donald Trump and his followers. Indeed, stoking fear, conjuring crisis, and incorporating familiar biblical “bogeymen” tropes into the paranoid political conversation are textbook strategies in the current US political discourse, becoming increasingly influential, especially among its followers. This article explores the phenomenon of paranoia in the US political sphere vis-à-vis the Bible. Specifically, it examines the historical development of the Satan figure, which evolved from the general Hebrew term śāṭān to becoming the prince of darkness pulling the demonic strings of the world. In today’s US political landscape, extreme groups weaponize this concept, demonizing opponents to gain political advantage, a tactic predominantly employed by right-wing figures such as Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This article aims to shed light on how these individuals manipulate biblical narratives for political gain, urging attention to this perspective often overlooked in political analysis.

Специфика конструирования этнической идентичности в межкультурном дискурсе (к вопросу о лингвокультурной адаптации средневекового автора «Хожения за три моря Афанасия Никитина»)

The article is devoted to the consideration of a previously unexplored aspect: the monument of medieval culture “Walking across the Three Seas of Afanasy Nikitin” will be considered in the focus of text-creation strategies of autobiographical discourse, the events of which represent the ethnic identity of the author. This article describes the text-generating strategies of the ethnic identity of a medieval author who lived in the East for several years and partially mastered the language of a “foreign” culture for him from the standpoint of the anthropological approach in linguistics, methods of semiotics and discourse analysis. The study includes such research parameters, as well as characteristics of the phenomenon of ethnic identity, as the linguistic picture of the world, the author’s discursive strategies, his self-consciousness in the context of acculturation (secondary socialization) and inculturation (symbolization of “foreign” culture). The study confirmed the model of ethno-cultural hybridization of cultures, dating back to the concept of M. Bakhtin. Based on the analysis of the specifics of the linguistic portrait in the autobiographical narrative of merchant Afanasy Nikitin and the description of cultural associations, archetypal images and meanings in the linguistic picture of the medieval author of the XV century. The theoretical significance of this study lies in the proposal of the concept of linguistic and cultural adaptation, which makes it possible to identify the conditions for successful socialization of the individual and productive as a strategy for the study of the phenomenon of identity.

#EndSARS Protests and the Search for Social Justice in Nigeria: Examining Activist Discourses on Police Brutality, Politics and Human Security

Abstract On October 3, 2020, members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (sars) of the Nigerian Police Force arrested a young man at Wetland Hotel, Ughelli in Delta State, and later shot and killed him, and threw him out of a moving police van. In addition to eye witnesses of what happened, the video of this incident was also trending on social media. Again, on October 5, another video went viral of sars officers’ killing a young musician popularly known as “Sleek,” in unjustifiable circumstances. This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. What initially began as spontaneous peaceful protests soon turned bloody and by October 8, the protests had spread to almost all Nigerian cities demanding the disbandment of sars. This empirical study examines the operational structure of sars, the formation of the EndSARS movement and its first main protests in 2020 in the search for social justice. Methods in qualitative discourse analysis and multimodality, are used to analyze representational strategies in the protest discourse of the #EndSARS protesters. Other issues bordering on police brutality, injustice, corruption and state failure, which form the main narratives of the protests are analyzed.

Agonal concepts and communicative strategies in European and Ukrainian media discourses after February, 24

The article is devoted to the issue of agonal concepts and strategic communications as a result of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. Considering the ongoing war, it is considered necessary to investigate the Ukrainian and European media discourse and strategic communications as a system consisting of invariant and variable components that can be projected in mass media messages, as well as the transformation of such a system. The purpose of the research is to carry out a comprehensive analysis of agonal concepts and communication strategies in European and Ukrainian media discourse after February 2022. The research methodology is the following methods: content analysis method, discourse analysis method, critical discourse analysis method, historical analysis method, cross-method - cultural comparative analysis, and sociological method. This thematic study examines the agonal concepts and strategies of communication in European and Ukrainian media discourses after February 2022. It is investigated which strategies prevail in the Ukrainian and European media fields. The study shows how political leaders and the media use different levels of engagement, commentary, and content to demonstrate strength, unity, and stability during times of significant international tension. Attention was also drawn to how messages from the Russian Federation affect the international agenda. It is concluded that the strategic use of communication can become a powerful tool in the conditions of international crises.

Šeimų kalbų politika: latvių kalbos kaip paveldėtosios išlaikymas diasporoje

This article explores the concept of family language policy in relation to child agency and parents’ discourse strategies in the context of the Latvian diaspora. Research is based on four interviews with parents from three countries: the United Kingdom, Norway and Greece. Respondents were recruited through Saturday/Sunday schools in the diaspora, addressing Latvian speakers who work there or whose children attend these schools. Both parents of all four families analysed in this study use Latvian at home. Data were collected using the Zoom platform during spring 2023 and are part of a larger study about family language policies in the diaspora. Currently, data are also gathered using methods such as audio recordings of interactions between parents and children and online classroom observations in Latvian (Saturday) schools. The main research questions for this article are: which language ideologies underlie language practices (language choices) at home involving parents and children, and which parental discourse strategies are used in families with regard to the multilingual language practices of their children.

Verbal Strategies for Maintaining Power in Public Discourse of the Spanish Monarchy

Politicians and public figures seek to actively use verbal strategies and tactics in order to influence the views and values of the audience and, if necessary, transform its worldview. That is why, the impact of discourse always remains a relevant topic and is a promising and actively developing field in modern linguistics. It is widely known that the ways we think and talk about a subject or a fact influence and reflect the ways we act in relation to that subject. The discourse of power can have both a direct impact through direct speech acts (laws, orders, instructions), and an indirect one, i.e. it can convince the audience through arguments, examples and other rhetorical means that increase the possibility of speech impact. At present, state leaders, in their maintaining power, mostly appeal to public consciousness, in which case factual information loses its significance and content conceptual information becomes more important, revealing the speaker’s attitude towards realities of socio-economic and political life of the country. Within the framework of this paper, we have analyzed communicative strategies in public discourse of the Spanish monarch Felipe VI (from 2014 to 2022) aimed at his maintaining power. As a result of the analysis, we have revealed that, firstly, the interpretation strategy is a conventional resource in the King’s public discourse because of the need of the Spanish Crown to influence the way the internal and external audiences interpret events and facts. Secondly, the strategy of evoking an emotional mood is fundamental in the current context as it helps the monarch unite the Spanish society on common values and awaken their patriotic feelings. Thirdly, nowadays, due to the problems of modern Spain in general and the Crown in particular, the King’s speeches are more emotionally charged in order to demonstrate his empathy and desire to share his feelings and emotional experiences, which contributes to building a trusting relationship with the nation and creating a situation of mutual understanding.

Motivational discourse and campaign-style mobilisation: A positive discourse analysis of language poverty alleviation discourse in China.

Many studies have investigated language poverty related to aspects of economic assistance, water scarcity, gender inequality, climate change, etc. However, a focus on language policy discourse has been lacking. Language policy discourse is vital because it can be deemed as preliminary to language poverty alleviation action, influencing the success of its implementation. To fill this gap, this study employed positive discourse analysis to investigate discursive strategies used in the discourse of language poverty alleviation in Chinese language policies. The finding shows that through four main discursive strategies-nomination, argumentation, perspectivisation, and predication-official documents concerning language poverty alleviation constructed motivational discourse and applied campaign-style mobilisation to encourage people to follow the implementation of language poverty alleviation. This study sheds light on the official purpose of using certain discursive strategies in language poverty alleviation discourse and some ideological implications behind it and sets an example of the popularisation of official languages to tackle poverty alleviation from a linguistic perspective for other countries/regions.

The use of cultural conceptualisations as a translation strategy for culture-specific jokes and humorous discourse: A remedy for a malady?

Translating humour across languages and cultures is a complex task that requires more than just linguistic competency. It requires understanding the cultural background and social context of both the source and target languages. This study examines the applicability of cultural conceptualisations in translating Persian jokes into English. The study adopts Cultural Linguistics as an investigative framework (Sharifian, 2017) to analyse five Persian jokes and offer a strategy for translators to follow when translating jokes containing cultural conceptualisations. The study argues that cultural conceptualisations, such as cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural metaphors, play a crucial role in translating humour. By identifying and using cultural conceptualisations in the translation process, translators can ensure that the humour of the original joke is retained in the target language. This framework involves three stages: identifying the source language cultural conceptualisation, finding the equivalent cultural conceptualisation in the target language, and translating the joke to ensure laughability in the target language. The study also shows that humour is closely tied to cultural knowledge and assumptions and that what may be considered funny in one culture may not necessarily be funny in another. Therefore, cultural conceptualisations can serve as a bridge between different cultures and can help translators translate humour across cultural and linguistic boundaries effectively. The findings of this study offer important implications for translators and cultural communicators who aim to efficiently communicate humour and other forms of cultural content across languages and cultures.

The Century of Türkiye as a Strategic Discourse

The ‘Century of Türkiye’ has been introduced as the new discourse of strategy in Turkish foreign policy with the centennial of the Republic of Türkiye. In this respect, this article explores which factors determined the emergence of the discourse, how the agency has perceived the shifts in structure, how Türkiye has positioned itself concerning shifts in the international political system, global economy, and geography, the perils and promises of determined strategy, and what the discourse entails. It is argued that the new strategy is articulated as a vision-oriented strategy and constitutes a continuity in the preceding century in the country’s quest for greater autonomy. The article points out factors that could cause incongruence between what is intended with the articulated strategy, what is spoken through discourse, and what is actualized at the end.

The ways of representing hidden meanings in English-language fiction discourse

The article attempts to justify the expediency of linguistic research’ direction that reveals the pragmatic qualities and cognitive basis of different types of implicit speech in English-language fiction discourse. Latent meanings in fiction text/discourse have repeatedly been the subject of research. The totality of implicit speech’ types and researched on the means that actualize it is identified. Referring the methods of cognitive linguistics, the pragmatic potential of speech means for the expression of the hidden meaning is illustrated by the prose English-language texts. The aim of this article was to identify the totality of the types of implicit speech and research on the means that actualize it in English-language fiction discourse. In this researching work, we analyzed such speech means of expressing implicit meanings as: a specific use of idioms, i.e., hints, additional nuances of meaning. Observing how innuendo is used can provide some insight into the speaker's goal when he or she chooses that discourse strategy. In conclusion, it is noticed that the hidden meaning, e.g., in the presence of an additional metaphorical transfer, may require a great deal of cognitive effort from the reader. We proved that the hint is characterized by a wealth of implicit potential.