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.

Mediating culture in the Italian literary field, 1940s-1950s: an introduction

This introduction lays out the scholarly and methodological context where to situate the contributions to this special issue. By combining a rigorous scrutiny of hitherto untapped archival sources with a re-examined application of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture within the field of periodical studies and publishing history in Italy (1940s-1950s), the studies illuminate the complex ways in which journals, periodical editors, and the connected publishing houses negotiate cultural practice in a literary field increasingly dominated by the polarization of political discourse.

Att leva och sälja sin dröm : Livsstilsföretagaren mellan familjeliv, marknadoch politisk retorik

Living and selling a dream: Lifestyle entrepreneurship in the intersection between family, market and political rhetoric The article focuses on lifestyle entrepreneurship, characterised by a balancing work between personal lifestyle motives and economic motives. It builds on a qualitative study of business owners who have realized a life dream of starting a countryside business in the tourism and hospitality industry in Sweden. Through the notion of ”balancing work”, the analysis focuses on the tension between a personal life sphere and a market. In particular, the analysis highlights how the notion of ”the life dream” emerges as a narrative practice of self-realization, simultaneously as it is offered as an experience product. The analysis demonstrates how the entrepreneurs balance between personal stories of togetherness and marketing practices, between images of right and wrong commodification, and between constraining working conditions and a popular image of the successful entrepreneur, reinforced by a political discourse on rural entrepreneurship. It is concluded that balancing work between personal identities and economic practices is a practice of valuation, offering new insights into working conditions and markets situated in the intersection between markets and personal life spheres.

Poetry and public speech: three traces

Poetry is routinely seen as ‘marginal’ to public culture, especially in terms of it having lost its status as a form of public speech. Such a condition is often noted in nostalgic terms, in which a golden era—bardic or journalistic—is evoked to illustrate contemporary poetry’s lack. But traces of poetry’s instrumentality, especially as a form of public speech, can be found in various extra-poetic contexts.

In this article, three examples of poetry operating in ‘extra-poetic contexts’ will illustrate the different, sometimes troubling, ways in which traces of poetry as a mode of public speech can be observed in contemporary culture: the poem-cartoons of Michael Leunig; the role of the poet Les Murray in the drafting of a proposed preamble to the Constitution of Australia; and the quotation of William Ernest Henley’s ‘Invictus’ as the final statement of Timothy McVeigh (the ‘Ohio Bomber’) prior to his execution.

These examples illustrate that poetry-as-public-speech engages with political discourse in diverse, incommensurate ways. Leunig’s occasional cartoon-poems, appearing in the metropolitan press, are examples of poetry at its most public and politically engaged state. And yet, even Leunig’s most ‘political’ work gestures towards a realm beyond politics, where the poetic, the comic, and the existential coexist as a way of making life in the political realm more bearable. Les Murray’s role as a ‘national’ poet in the failed attempt to introduce a preamble to the Australian Constitution illustrates the vestigial role that poets can play in nation building. Lastly, McVeigh’s quotation of Henley, made without any explanation, shows the unpredictable and potentially volatile condition of poetry-as-public-speech. In addition, the examples variously engage in arguments about the relationship between the individual and the state, private identity and national history.

Concessivity in scholarly prose : an intercultural study

Miscommunication has always intrigued researchers in and outside linguistics. This book takes a different perspective from what has been proposed so far and postulates a case for intercultural miscommunication as a linguistically-based phenomenon in various intercultural milieus. The contributions address cases of intercultural miscommunication in potentially confrontational contexts, like professional communities of practice, intercultural differences in various English-speaking countries, political discourse, classroom discourse, or the discourse of the past. The frameworks employed include cultural scripts, critical discourse analysis, lexicographic analysis, glosses of untranslatable terms, and diachronic pragmatics. The book shows the omnipresence of miscommunication, ranging from everyday exchanges through classroom discourse, professional encounters, to literary contexts and political debates, past and present.

Tough, tougher, toughest? A new government’s approach to sentencing laws in Victoria

When in opposition, Victoria¹s Liberal/National coalition made a number of commitments to be 'tough on crime'. After winning the 2010 state election, the Government arguably reformed sentencing laws more quickly and more substantially in its first year of office than any other area of policy, with several key initiatives delivered or in train.

The Victorian experience exemplifies fast and forceful responses to perceived risks to community safety by new Australian Governments. While some political leaders have decried the 'law and order auction' approach by political parties, it remains a real tool in political discourse.

Some of these initiatives appear inconsistent with fundamental sentencing principles, and are designed more to address public perceptions which are disconnected from the realities of criminality and incidence of offending. A more appropriate basis for criminal justice policy may require Government to prioritise addressing the causes of offending behavior, rather than penalising consequences.

The end of the Keating-Howard-Rudd-Gillard era?

Australian political discourse is dominated by ahistorical hyperbole, every election defeat is a landslide, every consecutive electoral loss indicates complete political marginalisation, every poll slump is a crisis, and every struggling leader is the worst ever. Australian Labor is not faring well but we need to distinguish between the ebbs and flows of the political cycle and the fundamentals. Australian politics may be approaching a fundamental break. The political era that began in the early 1990s may be coming to an end and with it Labor's hegemonic position in Australian politics that has endured since Gough Whitlam.

Australia’s initiatives in post-conflict nation building in Iraq

After decades of growth and development, Iraq has become amongst the worst performing states worldwide as a legacy of successive wars and sanctions despite the rich endowment with ample natural resources and capable human resources. Many observers expected that the “new” Iraq after the US “liberation” in 2003 will be a tolerant and unified nation-state that “with a degree of civil society” will grant and secure the human rights for all the Iraqi people (Gresham 2006: 27). However, due to the external military intervention lead by the US, the Iraq state collapsed after the 2003 war (Diamond 2005) as well as its economic, educational, health systems and infrastructure; and, Iraq’s development indicators are amongst the lowest globally (Hassin 2010). Australia’s controversial joining of Bush’s Coalition of Willing has been discussed by various intellectual studies from different angles. It is discussed in the socio-political discourse from an international relations perspective (Verrier 2003), social resistance to war (Hil 2008), and the implications on the Australian internal politics (McAllister and Bean 2006) and federal elections (Kelton 2008). However, there is scarce evidence about any research engaging with Australia’s roles in post-conflict nation building in Iraq. This article explores developmental roles and initiatives played and funded by Australia in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. Based on Hippler’s (Hippler 2004- 2005) multi-faceted approach to nation building this paper will study Australia’s roles in the three interlinked dimensions or “starting points” for nation building: improvement of living conditions, structural reforms and integration of the national political system.

Tribes as civil society organisations: the case of Iraq

The socio-political discourse about civil society inclines to use Western models in coneptualising civil society both in Western and non-Western societies. Iraq is one of those countries where civil society is mostly discussed the formally organised type. This paper critiques the disengagement of literature and empirical studies with exploring social structures like tribe within the civil society arena. It contends that civil society organisations should be understood based on their functions rather than forms. This paper argues that studying civil society should be comprehensive by studying other non-Western theories like 14th century Ibn Khaldun’s Muslim/Arab theories in its indigenous Arab and Muslim societies. On the premise of two factors: the Khaldunian asabiya or olidarity concept and the function of tribes in peace-building, policy formulation and democratisation, this paper uncovers how tribes in Iraq can be regarded civil society organisations.

Space, place and race: Ethics in practice for educational research in ethnically diverse rural Australia

Research in Australia’s ethnically diverse rural and regional communities requires an approach that is informed by notions of space, place and culture, and which recognises race as a relational social construct mediated by social and political discourse and context, and prone to change overtime. This critical review examines how teacher education researchers connect culturally competent research and rural ethics with the view to improving education systems, addressing rural teacher workforce issues, informing the preparation of pre-service teachers, and, most importantly, ensuring that rural students have access to educational opportunities that are engaging and meet their needs. It focuses specifically on researcher positionality on the insider-outsider continuum and how this informs ethical research in diverse rural communities, particularly those in which visible new migrants reside. Peer-reviewed journal articles that discuss how education researchers negotiate working in rural space are examined and considered in relation to discourse about ethics in practice and the insider/outsider continuum. Scholarship reflected in the literature spanned the fields of rural/research ethics, inclusive education, education research methodology and research with new migrants, minority and marginalised groups.

Creative and literary responses to Australian middle-class experiences of financial upheaval

This thesis—comprising a novel, The Company He Keeps, and exegesis—explores the near absence of literary fiction written about the Australian Middle Class and their responses to financial stress (1980 – 2008), finding that the language of global economic reform has triumphed over political discourse and, in particular, silenced women.

Leituras brasileiras sobre a nova ordem internacional (1989-1994)

O presente trabalho é resultado de pesquisa realizada a respeito das leituras brasileiras sobre a Nova Ordem Internacional. A partir da investigação em fontes históricas depositadas no Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação em História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC/FGV), como os documentos textuais do Arquivo Marcílio Marques Moreira e as entrevistas de Celso Amorim, Celso Lafer, Gelson Fonseca e Luiz Felipe Lampreia, procurouse analisar as principais ideias de três personagens históricos diretamente envolvidos com a formulação da política externa brasileira no período da Nova República, mais especificamente entre 1989 e 1994: Celso Lafer, Gelson Fonseca e Rubens Ricupero. Para tanto, buscou-se destacar as principais formas de interpretação do sistema internacional alterado pelo fim do conflito bipolar com o apoio da literatura mais recente produzida na área, como os trabalhos de Odd Westad (2005), Andrew Hurrell (2001, 2007) e John Ikenberry (2005). Os dados coletados durante o processo de feitura da pesquisa permitem-nos afirmar que, no Brasil, os temas da autonomia e do desenvolvimento são resilientes. Os debates sobre autonomia e desenvolvimento, tão caros ao discurso acadêmico e político nacionalista desenvolvido nos anos 50, além de terem permanecido como preocupação de fundo nas análises dos formuladores de política externa, demonstra que, no Brasil, o discurso modernizante retomou as ideias básicas do pensamento político nativo.

A modernidade e as massas: uma perspectiva do projeto político nazista através do Mein Kampf de Adolf Hitler

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Carta capital e Veja: a cobertura do discurso ecológico-político do Partido Verde na eleição presidencial de 2010

Pós-graduação em Comunicação - FAAC