Race and discourse analysis: Building a dialogue in health service research and health care settings

Using a framework for discourse analysis developed by Van Dijk, the investigator will pinpoint the pathological forms of discourse on race, defined as 'race talk' in three professional domains: health services research, public health provider organizations, and literature on multiculturalism. Attention will then turn to developing an analytical strategy for building more meaningful dialogue on race. The retrieval of potential resources for dialogue will be drawn from the third domain. Analysis will focus on enhancing the prospects of converting 'race talk' into dialogue. This will be accomplished by characterizing the normative preconditions as formal procedural requirements for dialogue and then supplementing these conditions with others related specifically to race. From here, the practical implications of combining procedural requirements and resources in each of the domains will be considered. Finally, the author will attempt to determine how these selected resources might be employed to transform 'race talk' in practice and lay the groundwork for a dialogue of understanding. ^

Institutional Processes and Discursive Strategies: Rhetoric and Vocabulary Analysis of CSR and Sustainability

The candidate tackled an important issue in contemporary management: the role of CSR and Sustainability. The research proposal focused on a longitudinal and inductive research, directed to specify the evolution of CSR and contribute to the new institutional theory, in particular institutional work framework, and to the relation between institutions and discourse analysis. The documental analysis covers all the evolution of CSR, focusing also on a number of important networks and associations. Some of the methodologies employed in the thesis have been employed as a consequence of data analysis, in a truly inductive research process. The thesis is composed by two section. The first section mainly describes the research process and the analyses results. The candidates employed several research methods: a longitudinal content analysis of documents, a vocabulary research with statistical metrics as cluster analysis and factor analysis, a rhetorical analysis of justifications. The second section puts in relation the analysis results with theoretical frameworks and contributions. The candidate confronted with several frameworks: Actor-Network-Theory, Institutional work and Boundary Work, Institutional Logic. Chapters are focused on different issues: a historical reconstruction of CSR; a reflection about symbolic adoption of recurrent labels; two case studies of Italian networks, in order to confront institutional and boundary works; a theoretical model of institutional change based on contradiction and institutional complexity; the application of the model to CSR and Sustainability, proposing Sustainability as a possible institutional logic.

A ÉTICA CONTEMPORÂNEA NO DISCURSO DA PUBLICIDADE PARA A MULHER

Esta pesquisa reflete sobre questões da ética contemporânea na publicidade dirigida ao público feminino. A discussão de tais questões debruça sobre a vertente deontológica (convicção). O objetivo do estudo é investigar como os anúncios publicados nas revistas Claudia e Nova articulam questões de tal ética. Assim, buscou-se verificar, por meio da análise de conteúdo, se os anúncios seguiam os princípios contidos no Código Brasileiro de Auto-Regulamentação Publicitária. Em uma segunda etapa, pretendeu-se investigar, por meio da análise de discurso, como se deu a construção dos anúncios sob o enfoque da ética e da mulher na sociedade dos dias de hoje. Concluiu-se que as representações da ética deontológica na publicidade feminina ocorrem de maneira não linear e fragmentada. A não linearidade se refere ao não cumprimento dos princípios éticos por parte de alguns anúncios analisados. Já a fragmentação diz respeito ao modo como a mulher é retratada e como os produtos são divulgados nos anúncios, a partir de diferentes padrões de conduta (princípios) e baseados em valores diversificados. Ora os anúncios apresentam os produtos de maneira verdadeira ou não, ora as mulheres aparecem sob um enfoque baseado em valores contemporâneos ou em valores tradicionais de modo diferenciado.(AU)

A ÉTICA CONTEMPORÂNEA NO DISCURSO DA PUBLICIDADE PARA A MULHER

Esta pesquisa reflete sobre questões da ética contemporânea na publicidade dirigida ao público feminino. A discussão de tais questões debruça sobre a vertente deontológica (convicção). O objetivo do estudo é investigar como os anúncios publicados nas revistas Claudia e Nova articulam questões de tal ética. Assim, buscou-se verificar, por meio da análise de conteúdo, se os anúncios seguiam os princípios contidos no Código Brasileiro de Auto-Regulamentação Publicitária. Em uma segunda etapa, pretendeu-se investigar, por meio da análise de discurso, como se deu a construção dos anúncios sob o enfoque da ética e da mulher na sociedade dos dias de hoje. Concluiu-se que as representações da ética deontológica na publicidade feminina ocorrem de maneira não linear e fragmentada. A não linearidade se refere ao não cumprimento dos princípios éticos por parte de alguns anúncios analisados. Já a fragmentação diz respeito ao modo como a mulher é retratada e como os produtos são divulgados nos anúncios, a partir de diferentes padrões de conduta (princípios) e baseados em valores diversificados. Ora os anúncios apresentam os produtos de maneira verdadeira ou não, ora as mulheres aparecem sob um enfoque baseado em valores contemporâneos ou em valores tradicionais de modo diferenciado.(AU)

A ÉTICA CONTEMPORÂNEA NO DISCURSO DA PUBLICIDADE PARA A MULHER

Esta pesquisa reflete sobre questões da ética contemporânea na publicidade dirigida ao público feminino. A discussão de tais questões debruça sobre a vertente deontológica (convicção). O objetivo do estudo é investigar como os anúncios publicados nas revistas Claudia e Nova articulam questões de tal ética. Assim, buscou-se verificar, por meio da análise de conteúdo, se os anúncios seguiam os princípios contidos no Código Brasileiro de Auto-Regulamentação Publicitária. Em uma segunda etapa, pretendeu-se investigar, por meio da análise de discurso, como se deu a construção dos anúncios sob o enfoque da ética e da mulher na sociedade dos dias de hoje. Concluiu-se que as representações da ética deontológica na publicidade feminina ocorrem de maneira não linear e fragmentada. A não linearidade se refere ao não cumprimento dos princípios éticos por parte de alguns anúncios analisados. Já a fragmentação diz respeito ao modo como a mulher é retratada e como os produtos são divulgados nos anúncios, a partir de diferentes padrões de conduta (princípios) e baseados em valores diversificados. Ora os anúncios apresentam os produtos de maneira verdadeira ou não, ora as mulheres aparecem sob um enfoque baseado em valores contemporâneos ou em valores tradicionais de modo diferenciado.(AU)

Immigration, security and the public debate on US language policy : a critical discourse analysis of language attitudes in the United States of America

The narrative of the United States is of a "nation of immigrants" in which the language shift patterns of earlier ethnolinguistic groups have tended towards linguistic assimilation through English. In recent years, however, changes in the demographic landscape and language maintenance by non-English speaking immigrants, particularly Hispanics, have been perceived as threats and have led to calls for an official English language policy.This thesis aims to contribute to the study of language policy making from a societal security perspective as expressed in attitudes regarding language and identity originating in the daily interaction between language groups. The focus is on the role of language and American identity in relation to immigration. The study takes an interdisciplinary approach combining language policy studies, security theory, and critical discourse analysis. The material consists of articles collected from four newspapers, namely USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle between April 2006 and December 2007.Two discourse types are evident from the analysis namely Loyalty and Efficiency. The former is mainly marked by concerns of national identity and contains speech acts of security related to language shift, choice and English for unity. Immigrants are represented as dehumanised, and harmful. Immigration is given as sovereignty-related, racial, and as war. The discourse type of Efficiency is mainly instrumental and contains speech acts of security related to cost, provision of services, health and safety, and social mobility. Immigrants are further represented as a labour resource. These discourse types reflect how the construction of the linguistic 'we' is expected to be maintained. Loyalty is triggered by arguments that the collective identity is threatened and is itself used in reproducing the collective 'we' through hegemonic expressions of monolingualism in the public space and semi-public space. The denigration of immigrants is used as a tool for enhancing societal security through solidarity and as a possible justification for the denial of minority rights. Also, although language acquisition patterns still follow the historical trend of language shift, factors indicating cultural separateness such as the appearance of speech communities or the use of minority languages in the public space and semi-public space have led to manifestations of intolerance. Examples of discrimination and prejudice towards minority groups indicate that the perception of worth of a shared language differs from the actual worth of dominant language acquisition for integration purposes. The study further indicates that the efficient working of the free market by using minority languages to sell services or buy labour is perceived as conflicting with nation-building notions since it may create separately functioning sub-communities with a new cultural capital recognised as legitimate competence. The discourse types mainly represent securitising moves constructing existential threats. The perception of threat and ideas of national belonging are primarily based on a zero-sum notion favouring monolingualism. Further, the identity of the immigrant individual is seen as dynamic and adaptable to assimilationist measures whereas the identity of the state and its members are perceived as static. Also, the study shows that debates concerning language status are linked to extra-linguistic matters. To conclude, policy makers in the US need to consider the relationship between four factors, namely societal security based on collective identity, individual/human security, human rights, and a changing linguistic demography, for proposed language intervention measures to be successful.

Negotiating multiple identities between school and the outside world : A critical discourse analysis

This article examines interview talk of three students in an Australian high school to show how they negotiate their young adult identities between school and the outside world. It draws on Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia to argue that identities are linguistically and corporeally constituted. A critical discourse analysis of segments of transcribed interviews and student-related public documents finds a mismatch between a social justice curriculum at school and its transfer into students’ accounts of outside school lived realities. The article concludes that a productive social justice pedagogy must use its key principles of (con)textual interrogation to engage students in reflexive practice about their positioning within and against discourses of social justice in their student and civic lives. An impending national curriculum must decide whether or not it negotiates the discursive divide any better.

The product of text and 'Other' statements : discourse analysis and the critical use of Foucault

Much has been written on Michel Foucault’s reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher, & McWilliam 2000; Tamboukou 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, “I take care not to dictate how things should be” and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that “all those who speak for others or to others” no longer know what to do. It is doubtful, however, that Foucault ever intended for researchers to be stricken by that malaise to the point of being unwilling to make an intellectual commitment to methodological possibilities. Taking criticism of “Foucauldian” discourse analysis as a convenient point of departure to discuss the objectives of poststructural analyses of language, this paper develops what might be called a discursive analytic; a methodological plan to approach the analysis of discourses through the location of statements that function with constitutive effects.

The product of text and “Other” statements : discourse analysis and the critical use of Foucault

Much has been written on Michel Foucault’s reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher, & McWilliam 2000; Tamboukou 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, “I take care not to dictate how things should be” and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that “all those who speak for others or to others” no longer know what to do. It is doubtful, however, that Foucault ever intended for researchers to be stricken by that malaise to the point of being unwilling to make an intellectual commitment to methodological possibilities. Taking criticism of “Foucauldian” discourse analysis as a convenient point of departure to discuss the objectives of poststructural analyses of language, this paper develops what might be called a discursive analytic; a methodological plan to approach the analysis of discourses through the location of statements that function with constitutive effects.

Personalising Crime and Crime-fighting in Factual Television:an Analysis of Social Actors and Transitivity in Language and Images

This article addresses the lack of work on media and crime in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), using an example of a factual television crime report. The existing research in media studies and criminology points to the way that the media misrepresents crime by distorting public understandings and backgrounding structural issues, such as poverty, which are related to crime thereby legitimising a criminal justice system that serves the interests of the powerful in society. Using social actor and transitivity analysis, this article shows how multimodal CDA can make an important contribution as it reveals the more subtle linguistic strategies and visual representations by which this process is accomplished, showing how each plays a part in the recontextualisation of social practice. This programme backgrounds which crimes are committed but foregrounds mental states and the neutrality of policing.

Manipulation in Newspaper Articles : A Political Discourse Analysis of Lexical Choice and Manipulation in Japanese Newspaper Crisis Reporting in the case of North Korea

This paper analyzes some forms of linguistic manipulation in Japanese in newspapers when reporting on North Korea and its nuclear tests. The focus lies on lexical ambiguity in headlines and journalist’s voices in the body of the articles, that results in manipulation of the minds of the readers. The study is based on a corpus of nine articles from two of Japan’s largest newspapers Yomiuri Online and Asahi Shimbun Digital. The linguistic phenomenon that contribute to create manipulation are divided into Short Term Memory impact or Long Term Memory impact and examples will be discussed under each of the categories.The main results of the study are that headlines in Japanese newspapers do not make use of an ambiguous, double grounded structure. However, the articles are filled with explicit and implied attitudes as well as attributed material from people of a high social status, which suggests that manipulation of the long term memory is a tool used in Japanese media.