Transgressive sporting bodies - A theoretical and critical dicourse analysis of the representation of Caster Semenya in Swiss print media

A debate about Caster Semenya's female sex began shortly after the South African runner won gold in the women’s 800m final at the 2009 Athletic World Championships held in Berlin. Her victory was disputed through questions about her right to compete as a ‘woman’, with the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) announcing she would be required to undergo a gender verification test before her victory could be confirmed. Using the theoretical frame of social constructionism (Berger & Luckmann), poststructuralism (Foucault), gender- and postcolonial theories (Butler; Hall; Spivak) and the methodology of critical discourse analysis (Jaeger), the paper explores the way the possible intersexuality of Caster Semenya was contextualised in mainstream Swiss German-language print media. The analyses will firstly look at the way in which Caster Semenya was constructed as a ʻfallen hero’ and stigmatised as a double-dealer and unacceptable deviant body. The rumours amongst athletes and commentators became news in the media, which focused on descriptions of her habitus, her muscular body and her deep voice. Through theoretical discussion the paper argues that the media response to Caster Semenya exemplifies Butler’s claim that the discursive framework of gender constructs and naturalises sex. A key question is therefore whether the designation of deviant bodies to a ʻfield of deformation’ (Butler) works to pluralise the field of gender, or rather, as Butler suggests, it tends that those bodies might call into questions. The final part of the paper discusses how gender, ethnicity and sexuality combine to constitute the black female sporting body as a spectacle of otherness. It is evident that this otherness is made manifest through the function of those bodies as a site of transgression, as the boundary between male and female, and often as the boundary between culture and nature (Hall). Using the example of the controversy surrounding Caster Semenya, this paper aims to demonstrate how the post/colonial white female body is reproduced by western norms of gender, sexuality, beauty and sporting behaviour, in the sense of a feminine sporting genderperformance. The media controversy will be also read through the lens of the globalisation of certain ideas of normative bodies, sex, ethnicity and gender and the challenge of changing stereotypes through transgression. Keywords: gender- and postcolonial theories, discourse analysis, print media, Caster Semen-ya, deviant body, ethnicity, intersexuality

Placing Strategy Discourse in Context : Sociomateriality, Sensemaking, and Power

There has been increasing interest in the discursive aspects of strategy over the last two decades. In this editorial we review the existing literature, focusing on six major bodies of discursive scholarship: post-structural, critical discourse analysis, narrative, rhetoric, conversation analysis and metaphor. Our review reveals the significant contributions of research on strategy and discourse, but also the potential to advance research in this area by bringing together research on discursive practices and research on other practices we know to be important in strategy work. We explore the potential of discursive scholarship in integrating between significant theoretical domains (sensemaking, power and sociomateriality), and realms of analysis (institutional, organizational and the episodic), relevant to strategy scholarship. This allows us to place the papers published in the special issue Strategy as Discourse: Its Significance, Challenges and Future Directions among the body of knowledge accumulated thus far, and to suggest a way forward for future scholarship.

International conference paper presentations: A multimodal analysis to determine effectiveness

International conference presentations represent one of the biggest challenges for academics using English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). This paper aims to initiate exploration into the multimodal academic discourse of oral presentations, including the verbal, written, non-verbal material (NVM) and body language modes. It offers a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) and multimodal framework of presentations to enhance mixed-disciplinary ELF academics' awareness of what needs to be taken into account to communicate effectively at conferences. The model is also used to establish evaluation criteria for the presenters' talks and to carry out a multimodal discourse analysis of four well-rated 20-min talks, two from the technical sciences and two from the social sciences in a workshop scenario. The findings from the analysis and interviews indicate that: (a) a greater awareness of the mode affordances and their combinations can lead to improved performances; (b) higher reliance on the visual modes can compensate for verbal deficiencies; and (c) effective speakers tend to use a variety of modes that often overlap but work together to convey specific meanings. However, firm conclusions cannot be drawn on the basis of workshop presentations, and further studies on the multimodal analysis of ‘real conferences’ within specific disciplines are encouraged.

Multimodal analysis of a sample of political posters in Ireland during and after the Celtic Tiger

The aim of this research paper is to analyse the key political posters made for the campaigns of Irish political party Fianna Fáil framed in the Celtic Tiger (1997-2008) and post-Celtic Tiger years (2009-2012). I will then focus on the four posters of the candidate in the elections that took place in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2011 with the intention of observing first how the leader is represented, and later on pinpointing the similarities and possible differences between each. This is important in order to observe the main linguistic and visual strategies used to persuade the audience to vote that party and to highlight the power of the politician. Critical discourse analysis tools will be helpful to identify the main discursive strategies employed to persuade the Irish population to vote in a certain direction. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor theory will facilitate the understanding of how participants are represented in the corpus under analysis. Finally, the main tools of Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar (2006) will be applied for the analysis of the images. The study reveals that politicians are represented in a consistently positive way, with status and formal appearance so that people are persuaded to vote for the party they represent because they trust them as political leaders. The study, thus, points out that the poster is a powerful tool used in election campaigns to highlight the power of political parties.

Plain speaking : a theory and grammar of spontaneous discourse /

Mode of access: Internet.

The discourse of climate change: a corpus-based approach

Based on Goffman’s definition that frames are general ‘schemata of interpretation’ that people use to ‘locate, perceive, identify, and label’, other scholars have used the concept in a more specific way to analyze media coverage. Frames are used in the sense of organizing devices that allow journalists to select and emphasise topics, to decide ‘what matters’ (Gitlin 1980). Gamson and Modigliani (1989) consider frames as being embedded within ‘media packages’ that can be seen as ‘giving meaning’ to an issue. According to Entman (1993), framing comprises a combination of different activities such as: problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. Previous research has analysed climate change with the purpose of testing Downs’s model of the issue attention cycle (Trumbo 1996), to uncover media biases in the US press (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004), to highlight differences between nations (Brossard et al. 2004; Grundmann 2007) or to analyze cultural reconstructions of scientific knowledge (Carvalho and Burgess 2005). In this paper we shall present data from a corpus linguistics-based approach. We will be drawing on results of a pilot study conducted in Spring 2008 based on the Nexis news media archive. Based on comparative data from the US, the UK, France and Germany, we aim to show how the climate change issue has been framed differently in these countries and how this framing indicates differences in national climate change policies.

Discourse-analytic approaches to text and talk

This chapter explores the different ways in which discourse-analytic approaches reveal the ‘meaningfulness’ of text and talk. It reviews four diverse approaches to discourse analysis of particular value for current research in linguistics: Conversation Analysis (CA), Discourse Analysis (DA), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Feminist Post-structuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA). Each approach is examined in terms of its background, motivation, key features, and possible strengths and limitations in relation to the field of linguistics. A key way to schematize discourse-analytic methodology is in terms of its relationship between microanalytical approaches, which examine the finer detail of linguistic interactions in transcripts, and macroanalytical approaches, which consider how broader social processes work through language (Heller, 2001). This chapter assesses whether there is a strength in a discourse-analytic approach that aligns itself exclusively with either a micro- or macrostrategy, or whether, as Heller suggests, the field needs to fi nd a way of ‘undoing’ the micro–macro dichotomy in order to produce richer, more complex insights within linguistic research.

Relationship status and identity construction in heterosexual women:A discourse analytic and personal construct study

This thesis reports the findings of three studies examining relationship status and identity construction in the talk of heterosexual women, from a feminist and social constructionist perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 women in study 1 and 13 women for study 2, between the ages of twenty and eighty-seven, discussing their experiences of relationships. All interviews were transcribed and analysed using discourse analysis, by hand and using the Nudist 6 program. The resulting themes create distinct age-related marital status expectations. Unmarried women were aware they had to marry by a ‘certain age’ or face a ‘lonely spinsterhood’. Through marriage women gained a socially accepted position associated with responsibility for others, self-sacrifice, a home-focused lifestyle and relational identification. Divorce was constructed as the consequence of personal faults and poor relationship care, reassuring the married of their own control over their status. Older unmarried women were constructed as deviant and pitiable, occupying social purgatory as a result of transgressing these valued conventions. Study 3 used repertory grid tasks, with 33 women, analysing transcripts and notes alongside numerical data using Web Grid II internet analysis tool, to produce principle components maps demonstrating the relationships between relationship terms and statuses. This study illuminated the consistency with which women of different ages and status saw marriage as their ideal living situation and outlined the domestic responsibilities associated. Spinsters and single-again women were defined primarily by their lack of marriage and by loneliness. This highlighted the devalued position of older unmarried women. The results of these studies indicated a consistent set of age-related expectations of relationship status, acknowledged by women and reinforced by their families and friends, which render many unmarried women deviant and fail to acknowledge the potential variety of women’s ways of living.

The psychology of news influence and development of Media Framing Analysis

HowHow precisely do media influence their readers, listeners and viewers? In this paper, we argue that any serious study of the psychology of media influence must incorporate a systematic analysis of media material. However, psychology presently lacks a methodology for doing this that is sensitive to context, relying on generalised methods like content or discourse analysis. In this paper, we develop an argument to support our development of a technique that we have called Media Framing Analysis (MFA), a formal procedure for conducting analyses of (primarily news) media texts. MFA draws on elements of existing framing research from communication and other social scientific research while at the same time incorporating features of particular relevance to psychology, such as narrative and characterisation.

The development of discourse in a discourse of development:a case study of a group constructing a new discourse.

This thesis is a qualitative case study drawing on discourse analysis and ethnographic traditions. The aim of the study is to provide a description of the discourse consciously constructed by a group of six TESOL professionals in the interests of their own development. Once a week, the group met for one hour and took turns to act as 'Speaker'. The other five individuals acted as Understanders. The extra space given to the Speaker allowed a fuller articulation of a problem or focus than would normally be possible in other professional talk. The Understanders contributed moves to support this articulation. The description covers a two-year period (1998-2000) of this constructed discourse. Data, collected during this period, are drawn from several different sources: recordings, interviews, diaries and critical incident journals. The main recordings are of the actual Group Development Meetings (GDMs). Discussion of six transcribed GDMs demonstrates which discourse choices and decisions were important. In particular, the study looks at the key role played by 'Reflection' in this process. It is argued that Reflection is the key element in supporting the Speaker. The analysis of Reflection, which is considered from four perspectives (values, purpose, form and outcomes) draws on data from the featured cases. Issues relating to the transfer to other groups of this discourse-based approach to professional development are considered.

Metaphors in Hugo Chávez's political discourse:conceptualizing nation, revolution and opposition

This dissertation examines Hugo Chávez's choice of metaphors in his efforts to construct and legitimize his Bolivarian Revolution. It focuses on metaphors drawn from three of the most frequent target domains present in his discourse: the nation, his revolution, and the opposition. The study argues that behind an official discourse of inclusion, Chávez's choice of metaphors contributes to the construction of a polarizing discourse of exclusion in which his political opponents are represented as enemies of the nation.The study shows that Chávez constructs this polarizing discourse of exclusion by combining metaphors that conceptualize: (a) the nation as a person who has been resurrected by his government, as a person ready to fight for his revolution, or as Chávez himself; (b) the revolution as war; and (c) members of the opposition as war combatants or criminals. At the same time, the study shows that by making explicit references in his discourse about the revolution as the continuation of Bolívar's wars of independence, Chávez contributes to represent opponents as enemies of the nation, given that in the Venezuelan collective imaginary Simón Bolívar is the symbol of the nation's emancipation.This research, which covers a period of nine years (from Chávez's first year in office in 1999 through 2007), is part of the discipline of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA). It is anchored both in the theoretical framework provided by the cognitive linguistic metaphor theory developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson described in their book Metaphors We Live By, and in Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) as defined by Jonathan Charteris-Black in his book Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis.The study provides the first comprehensive analysis of metaphors used by Chávez in his political discourse. It builds upon the findings of previous studies on political discourse analysis in Venezuela by showing that Chávez's discourse not only polarizes the country and represents opponents as detractors of national symbols such as Bolívar or his wars of independence (which have been clearly established in previous studies), but also represents political opponents as enemies of the nation.