Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis

From emails relating to adoption over the Internet to discussions in the airline cockpit, the spoken or written texts we produce can have significant social consequences. The area of Mediated Discourse Analysis considers texts in their social and cultural contexts to explore the actions individuals take with texts - and the consequences of those actions. Discourse in Action: brings together leading scholars from around the world in the area of Mediated Discourse Analysis reveals ways in which its theory and methodology can be used in research into contemporary social situations explores real situations and draws on real data in each chapter shows how analysis of texts in their social contexts broadens our understanding of the real world. Taken together, the chapters provide a comprehensive overview to the field and present a range of current studies that address some of the most important questions facing students and researchers in linguistics, education, communication studies and other fields.

Innovation in facilities management: from trajectories to ownership

Purpose – Innovation in facilities management (FM) is a complex process as FM is a diverse discipline. This paper aims to use innovation trajectories to explore this complex process through the introduction of a technology innovation in two FM services of security and workspace management. It also aims to consider the discourse of individuals within their trajectory to understand their positions toward the innovation. Design/methodology/approach – A two-year case study was conducted and it was based in an in-house FM department that was part of a financial institution. The specific methods used for the paper were semi-structured interviews with key participants of the project. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine the data. Findings – Individuals who were involved in introducing the technology to the FM department were both internal and external to FM as innovation in FM does not happen in isolation to the organisation. Innovation trajectories were often intertwined or occurred simultaneously during the process of a project which sometimes resulted in conflict. Tensions within the discourse of ownership of the project were particularly apparent as this discourse had a power dimension in driving the project through to implementation. Research limitations/implications – The research is limited by being a single case study so it is not possible to generalise findings but the findings may have resonances with other organisations. Originality/value – The paper presents an original idea about how to understand innovation processes in FM services.

An examination of actors that impact technology introduction to FM

Developing and implementing a technology for Facilities Management (FM) can be a complex process. This is particularly the case when a technology impacts on an organisation as a whole. There are often a number of relevant actors, internal and external to FM, who should be engaged. This engagement is guided by the strategy of the organisation which is led by top management decisions. Indeed, it is top management who have the final decision to implement a technology. Actors of top management and other relevant actors will have their own discourses toward the implementation of the technology based on how they foresee the technology befittingly benefitting the organisation. This paper examines actors who play a relevant and necessary part in supporting and implementing a technology to FM. It examines how an actor’s discourse toward the project inhibits or speeds up the implementation of a technology. The methods used for this paper are based on a two year case study in a FM department where a technology development was observed and interviews with key participants were conducted. Critical discourse analysis is used to analyse the data. Prominent discourses that emerge from the data are emphasised during the process of introducing the technology. This research moves beyond focusing purely on project successes but examines the difficulties and the hurdles that must be overcome to reach a successful technology implementation.

The representation of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the Chinese media

In the early 2000s the threat of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza captured the attention of the world's media. While China is often considered the epicentre of the panzootic, few studies have explored coverage of this variant of avian flu in China. To address this issue, the authors examined the portrayal of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza across four Chinese newspapers at the local and national level. A textual analysis was performed on 160 articles across an eight-year period from 2001–2008. The study approach drew from Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Representation Theory. The headline analysis showed the extent that risk of the disease was subverted by the depiction of a strong and efficient ‘China’ that was a global leader in the fight against the disease. Ideological referents were called upon to stress teamwork in confronting the crisis. The diachronic analysis illustrated how the relationship between commercial interests, science and public health risks played out within the Chinese media.

Messages about antibiotic resistance in different newspaper genres

Poorer people are more likely to use antibiotics; inappropriate antibiotic use causes resistance, and health campaigns attempt to change behaviour through education. However, fuelled by the media, the public think antibiotic resistance is outside their control. Differences in the attribution of blame for antibiotic resistance in two genres of UK newspapers, targeting distinct socioeconomic groups, were examined using a mixed methods approach. Firstly, depiction of blame was categorised as either external to the lay public (outside their control) or internal (lay person accountable) and subjected to a chi-square test. Secondly, using critical discourse analysis, we examined the portrayal of the main agents through newspaper language. Data from 597 articles (307 broadsheets) analysed revealed a significant association between newspaper genre and attribution of blame for antibiotic resistance. While both newspaper types blamed antibiotic resistance predominantly on factors external to the lay public, broadsheets were more likely to acknowledge internal factors than tabloids. Tabloids provided a more skewed representation, exposing readers to inaccurate explanations about antibiotic resistance. They highlighted ineptitude in health professionals, victimising patients and blaming others, while broadsheets used less emotive language. Pharmacists should take special care to communicate the importance of appropriate antibiotic use against this backdrop of distortion.

Planning for development or decline? Education policy for Chinese language in Singapore

This article examines how political discourse, language ideologies, recent Chinese curriculum reforms, and their representations in the media are inextricably related. Using the Speak Mandarin Campaign as background for the inquiry, I focus on textual features of the various media sources, TV advertisements, campaign slogans, official speeches, and newspaper excerpts to illuminate the status and changing role of the Chinese language in Singapore’s sociocultural, economic, and political development. Using critical discourse analysis as an analytical framework, I examine the contradictory ideologies that underpin the government’s language policies and planning activities. On the one hand, the government emphasizes the cultural and economic values of the Chinese language; on the other hand, government schools teach Chinese as a subject. In particular, the recent reforms in Chinese language curriculum have arguably further diluted the content of teaching. In addition I point out how conflicting ideologies behind language policies can lead to cultural confusion and educational uncertainty. These mixed messages make it difficult for schools to offer a consistent language education curriculum that will help students appreciate the value, be it economic, cultural or educational, of the Chinese language.

80,000,000 hooligans. Discourses of resistance to racism and xenophobia in German punk lyrics 1991-1994

The late eighties and early nineties in Germany were not only marked by the fall of the Wall and German unification, but also by the dramatization of the political issue of asylum, resulting in outbreaks of xenophobic violence. In the context of the asylum debate of the early nineties, a number of punk bands produced songs between 1991 and 1994 which criticise the xenophobic climate created by the asylum debate and undermine an exculpatory official discourse about the violent attacks. The lyrics of these songs will be analysed as instances of counter-discourse emerging from a subcultural sphere that nurtures a critical distance towards hegemonic public and political discourse, arguing that Critical Discourse Analysis should pay more attention to defiance of hegemonic discourse.

”Potato seeking rice”: language, culture, and identity in gay personal ads in Hong Kong

This paper examines the relationship between language, culture, and identity in a corpus of gay personal ads collected from two publications in Hong Kong in the three years before the 1997 transition of sovereignty. Gay personal ads are seen äs an "island of discourse," whose marginal nature is reflected in the use of language and in turn reflects issues of marginalization in the larger social context. Using Fairclough's (1992, 1993) three- dimensional model for critical discourse analysis, an attempt is made to uncover the relationship between text structure and issues ofpower/ideology in the society that produces the texts. On the level of text, it was found that structural components, particularly the degree of grammatical elaboration, differ according to the stated race or cultural background of the authors and their targets. On the level of discourse practice, authors were found to appropriate a variety of "voices"from the larger culture arena, the use of which amplifies or limits the participation of particular classes of individuals. Finally, on the level of social practice, the ads were found to reflect and re-create both the racial stereotypes and heterosexist ideology found in the dominant culture.

The neoliberal way of war: a critical analysis of contemporary British security in policy and practice.

Dominant paradigms of causal explanation for why and how Western liberal-democracies go to war in the post-Cold War era remain versions of the 'liberal peace' or 'democratic peace' thesis. Yet such explanations have been shown to rest upon deeply problematic epistemological and methodological assumptions. Of equal importance, however, is the failure of these dominant paradigms to account for the 'neoliberal revolution' that has gripped Western liberal-democracies since the 1970s. The transition from liberalism to neoliberalism remains neglected in analyses of the contemporary Western security constellation. Arguing that neoliberalism can be understood simultaneously through the Marxian concept of ideology and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality – that is, as a complementary set of 'ways of seeing' and 'ways of being' – the thesis goes on to analyse British security in policy and practice, considering it as an instantiation of a wider neoliberal way of war. In so doing, the thesis draws upon, but also challenges and develops, established critical discourse analytic methods, incorporating within its purview not only the textual data that is usually considered by discourse analysts, but also material practices of security. This analysis finds that contemporary British security policy is predicated on a neoliberal social ontology, morphology and morality – an ideology or 'way of seeing' – focused on the notion of a globalised 'network-market', and is aimed at rendering circulations through this network-market amenable to neoliberal techniques of government. It is further argued that security practices shaped by this ideology imperfectly and unevenly achieve the realisation of neoliberal 'ways of being' – especially modes of governing self and other or the 'conduct of conduct' – and the re-articulation of subjectivities in line with neoliberal principles of individualism, risk, responsibility and flexibility. The policy and practice of contemporary British 'security' is thus recontextualised as a component of a broader 'neoliberal way of war'.

Advances in Discourse Studies

Methods of approaching the study of discourse have developed rapidly in the last ten years, influenced by a growing interdisciplinary spirit among linguistics and anthropology, sociology, cognitive and cultural psychology and cultural studies, as well as among established sub-fields within linguistics itself. Among the more recent developments are an increasing ‘critical’ turn in discourse analysis, a growing interest in historical, ethnographic and corpus-based approaches to discourse, more concern with the social contexts in which discourse occurs, the social actions that it is used to take and the identities that are constructed through it, as well as a revaluation of what counts as ‘discourse’ to include multi-modal texts and interaction. Advances in Discourse Studies brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field, investigating the historical and theoretical relationships between new advances in discourse studies and pointing towards new directions for the future of the discipline. Featuring discussion questions, classroom projects and recommended readings at the end of each section, as well as case studies illustrating each approach discussed, this is an invaluable resource for students of interdisciplinary discourse analysis.