Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
The traditional definition of party image as being distinct, fixed, and receiver-determined, has been replaced by the understanding that party image is invested with more dynamic and complex features and is dialectically constructed by discourse to influence public perceptions. By adopting Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, this study explores party images and how they are discursively constructed in CPC’s political discourse on ecological civilization. The discourse analysis reveals that five images have prominently been constructed: the goal-setter of future blueprints, lesson-taker of past development pattern, the coordinator of ecology and economy, the determined fighter against environmental disruption, and the systematic governor of ecological path. They are constructed through varying linguistic devices such as recontextualization, high-frequency repetition, and conceptual metaphors. The images and their construction are born out of the social cognition, the outcome of political system, changes of historical conditions, economic status, and cultural model, among which the emerging Chinese ideology of ‘moderate green’, and the consistent ideologies man is an integral part of nature (天人合一, tian ren he yi), Doctrine of the Mean (中庸之道, zhongyong zhidao), people-centeredness, and collectivism play a dominant role. This study helps find the fluidity of party images.
Category Archives: SAGE Publications: Discourse & Communication
News packaging during a pandemic: A computational analysis of news diffusion via Facebook
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Facebook remains the most important platform where social media editors package and try to ‘sell’ media outlets’ online news articles to audiences. In one of the first studies of its kind, we assess how this practice was effectuated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use computational analysis to determine the polarity, subjectivity and use of some linguistics features in the status messages of 140,359 Facebook posts of 17 mainstream and alternative news titles from Flanders (Belgium) between March 2020 and 2021. Among other things, we find that status messages score considerably higher than headlines in terms of polarity and subjectivity, and that they, along with the use of question and interrogation marks, peaked in the first months of the pandemic. We contextualise our findings within existing scholarship and wider trends in increasingly digitised and globalised media societies.
Facebook remains the most important platform where social media editors package and try to ‘sell’ media outlets’ online news articles to audiences. In one of the first studies of its kind, we assess how this practice was effectuated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use computational analysis to determine the polarity, subjectivity and use of some linguistics features in the status messages of 140,359 Facebook posts of 17 mainstream and alternative news titles from Flanders (Belgium) between March 2020 and 2021. Among other things, we find that status messages score considerably higher than headlines in terms of polarity and subjectivity, and that they, along with the use of question and interrogation marks, peaked in the first months of the pandemic. We contextualise our findings within existing scholarship and wider trends in increasingly digitised and globalised media societies.
#Stand with women in Afghanistan: Civic participation, symbolism, and morality in political activism on Twitter
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
At the time of writing, it had become common to find trending social media hashtags where users were expressing their feelings about current social and political issues through a range of symbolic gestures, such as striking a pose, wearing a garment, or changing their personal icon. Scholars had begun to consider such gestures in regard to whether they constitute a meaningful form of civic participation or activism. In the present paper, we seek to contribute to this literature by using multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine the contents of one Twitter hashtag where users participate in this form of activism: #StandWithWomenlnAfghanistan. Aligning with emerging scholarship on the nature of online affective publics, the analysis shows that those tweeting do not align with clear and specific issues, causalities, or solutions based on contextual understanding. On the one hand, symbolic gestures can be thought of as vernaculars that support a heterogeneous, fuzzy, and incoherent set of meanings. Yet on the other hand, across the posts using this hashtag, we find a discourse where injustice and solutions are based on notions of individual identity and freedom of expression rooted in the liberal democratic traditions of the European Enlightenment, here brought to bear on the hugely diverse and specific lives of women in Afghanistan. For many scholars, it is such ethnocentrism that underpins the very imperialist imagining of Afghanistan that led to, and legitimized, the invasion and occupation in the first place.
At the time of writing, it had become common to find trending social media hashtags where users were expressing their feelings about current social and political issues through a range of symbolic gestures, such as striking a pose, wearing a garment, or changing their personal icon. Scholars had begun to consider such gestures in regard to whether they constitute a meaningful form of civic participation or activism. In the present paper, we seek to contribute to this literature by using multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine the contents of one Twitter hashtag where users participate in this form of activism: #StandWithWomenlnAfghanistan. Aligning with emerging scholarship on the nature of online affective publics, the analysis shows that those tweeting do not align with clear and specific issues, causalities, or solutions based on contextual understanding. On the one hand, symbolic gestures can be thought of as vernaculars that support a heterogeneous, fuzzy, and incoherent set of meanings. Yet on the other hand, across the posts using this hashtag, we find a discourse where injustice and solutions are based on notions of individual identity and freedom of expression rooted in the liberal democratic traditions of the European Enlightenment, here brought to bear on the hugely diverse and specific lives of women in Afghanistan. For many scholars, it is such ethnocentrism that underpins the very imperialist imagining of Afghanistan that led to, and legitimized, the invasion and occupation in the first place.
Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014): Victims, hypocrites, and radicals
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
The article retrospectively looks at Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014) in light of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflicts. Russia’s strategic communication campaign, especially the sophisticated use of state-sponsored international broadcaster-Russia Today (RT)-has been proven to raise sympathy, distract attention and delay effective reactions from the Ukranian government and NATO. RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis not only fermented a favourable environment for Russia’s annexation of Crimea but set up the meta-narratives and operational framework for the subsequent influence operation practiced by the Russian government during the current Russo-Ukraine war. The article adopts a multimodal discourse analysis to elicit RT’s identity narratives about three main actors during the Ukraine crisis: Russia, the West, and Ukraine. By analysing RT’s YouTube audio-visual representation of the Ukraine crisis, the research finds that RT has applied a victimisation strategy to legitimise Russia’s military intervention in the Annexation of Crimea as a defencive counterattack. The West is accused of provoking a divide between Russia and Ukraine and being an unreliable partner and hypocritical norm-upholder. The Ukrainian components are dichotomously represented. While the pro-Eu protestors and the interim government are framed in line with violence, disorder, and neo-Nazism, the ejected pro-Russian Yanukovych government is legitimised as a democratically elected government, and its policy is aggressively crushed by the pro-Eu protestors. The empirical research suggests that RT’s discursive construction of the Ukraine crisis is built on a divisive script between a victimised pro-Russia club and an aggressive pro-EU camp. By reflecting upon RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis, the paper seeks to illuminate the historical continuance and variation of Russia’s strategic communication in the post-cold war era. It thus aims to make a meaningful addition to the study of Russian propaganda and shed historical insights to make sense of Russia’s ever-intensifying information campaign during the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War.
The article retrospectively looks at Russia’s strategic communication during the Ukraine crisis (2013–2014) in light of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflicts. Russia’s strategic communication campaign, especially the sophisticated use of state-sponsored international broadcaster-Russia Today (RT)-has been proven to raise sympathy, distract attention and delay effective reactions from the Ukranian government and NATO. RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis not only fermented a favourable environment for Russia’s annexation of Crimea but set up the meta-narratives and operational framework for the subsequent influence operation practiced by the Russian government during the current Russo-Ukraine war. The article adopts a multimodal discourse analysis to elicit RT’s identity narratives about three main actors during the Ukraine crisis: Russia, the West, and Ukraine. By analysing RT’s YouTube audio-visual representation of the Ukraine crisis, the research finds that RT has applied a victimisation strategy to legitimise Russia’s military intervention in the Annexation of Crimea as a defencive counterattack. The West is accused of provoking a divide between Russia and Ukraine and being an unreliable partner and hypocritical norm-upholder. The Ukrainian components are dichotomously represented. While the pro-Eu protestors and the interim government are framed in line with violence, disorder, and neo-Nazism, the ejected pro-Russian Yanukovych government is legitimised as a democratically elected government, and its policy is aggressively crushed by the pro-Eu protestors. The empirical research suggests that RT’s discursive construction of the Ukraine crisis is built on a divisive script between a victimised pro-Russia club and an aggressive pro-EU camp. By reflecting upon RT’s strategic mediatisation of the Ukraine crisis, the paper seeks to illuminate the historical continuance and variation of Russia’s strategic communication in the post-cold war era. It thus aims to make a meaningful addition to the study of Russian propaganda and shed historical insights to make sense of Russia’s ever-intensifying information campaign during the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War.
A corpus-based study on aviation English from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 630-661, October 2023.
Aviation English (AE) is a distinct register of English used by pilots and air traffic controllers. As it is one of the contributing factors to aviation safety, ICAO and its Member States’ aviation authorities require the airspace users to have the proficiency in using AE effectively. In recent years, the training and testing have gained more attention, but little work has been done to describe its linguistic features. The study set out to describe AE from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics with an aim to illustrate its linguistic features as compared to conversational English (CE). To achieve this goal, the corpora of CE and AE communications between native English speakers from the United States were respectively constructed and then scrutinized to demonstrate that AE has a significant difference from CE in functional-semantic aspects. The findings of this study reveal how distinct AE with CE in terms of speech functions. Some pedagogical implications were then proposed for enhancing AE training to cultivate the students’ competence in semantics and interaction.
Aviation English (AE) is a distinct register of English used by pilots and air traffic controllers. As it is one of the contributing factors to aviation safety, ICAO and its Member States’ aviation authorities require the airspace users to have the proficiency in using AE effectively. In recent years, the training and testing have gained more attention, but little work has been done to describe its linguistic features. The study set out to describe AE from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics with an aim to illustrate its linguistic features as compared to conversational English (CE). To achieve this goal, the corpora of CE and AE communications between native English speakers from the United States were respectively constructed and then scrutinized to demonstrate that AE has a significant difference from CE in functional-semantic aspects. The findings of this study reveal how distinct AE with CE in terms of speech functions. Some pedagogical implications were then proposed for enhancing AE training to cultivate the students’ competence in semantics and interaction.
From compensation to competition: The impact of graphicons on language use in a Chinese context
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
This study examines the impact of graphicons (emoticons, emojis, and stickers) on the use of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Chinese based on a 13-year longitudinal corpus of 941,020 comments posted on the popular Chinese social media platform Bilibili. Quantitative analysis shows that graphicon frequencies increase while SFP frequencies decrease over time, and that the correlation between these two trends is statistically significant. However, the more an SFP encodes a grammatical function or has a negative connotation, the less likely it is to be replaced by graphicons. Qualitative analysis suggests that the relationship between graphicons and SFPs is evolving from syntagmatic, where the two co-occur in the same sentence, to paradigmatic, where either can fulfill the function of expressing (positive) attitude or sentiment. This suggests that the functions of graphicons are shifting from compensation to competition with language, as an alternative to SFPs.
This study examines the impact of graphicons (emoticons, emojis, and stickers) on the use of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Chinese based on a 13-year longitudinal corpus of 941,020 comments posted on the popular Chinese social media platform Bilibili. Quantitative analysis shows that graphicon frequencies increase while SFP frequencies decrease over time, and that the correlation between these two trends is statistically significant. However, the more an SFP encodes a grammatical function or has a negative connotation, the less likely it is to be replaced by graphicons. Qualitative analysis suggests that the relationship between graphicons and SFPs is evolving from syntagmatic, where the two co-occur in the same sentence, to paradigmatic, where either can fulfill the function of expressing (positive) attitude or sentiment. This suggests that the functions of graphicons are shifting from compensation to competition with language, as an alternative to SFPs.
When feminists became ‘extremists’: A corpus-based study of representations of feminism on Weibo
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 590-612, October 2023.
This article presents an analysis of the evolving representations of feminism on Weibo, China’s foremost microblogging platform, employing a corpus-based methodology. The self-compiled corpus comprised 334,871 feminism-related posts from 2019 to 2022. Using the Sketch Engine corpus analysis tool, noun bigrams containing 女权 (feminism) were extracted, categorized, and compared to discern the portrayals and their transformations. The findings revealed a significant shift in feminism’s depiction, with an increased emphasis on its radical and aggressive aspects, and a decline in its portrayal as a quest for female privilege. During this period, the perception of feminism as an emerging social movement expanded, and the distinction between various forms of feminism and feminists based on different attributes became more prevalent, resulting in a marginally reduced representation of them as a unified entity. This research enriches the existing literature by emphasizing the dynamic portrayals of feminism on China’s social media and offering novel insights into its assessment.
This article presents an analysis of the evolving representations of feminism on Weibo, China’s foremost microblogging platform, employing a corpus-based methodology. The self-compiled corpus comprised 334,871 feminism-related posts from 2019 to 2022. Using the Sketch Engine corpus analysis tool, noun bigrams containing 女权 (feminism) were extracted, categorized, and compared to discern the portrayals and their transformations. The findings revealed a significant shift in feminism’s depiction, with an increased emphasis on its radical and aggressive aspects, and a decline in its portrayal as a quest for female privilege. During this period, the perception of feminism as an emerging social movement expanded, and the distinction between various forms of feminism and feminists based on different attributes became more prevalent, resulting in a marginally reduced representation of them as a unified entity. This research enriches the existing literature by emphasizing the dynamic portrayals of feminism on China’s social media and offering novel insights into its assessment.
Multimodal intertextuality and persuasion in advertising discourse
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 613-629, October 2023.
This paper provides an integrated social semiotic framework for analyzing intertextuality in multimodal advertising discourse. Following the distinction between manifest intertextuality and interdiscursivity, our model entails the three interrelated components of explicating what the intertextual sources are, how they are constructed with multimodal resources, and how they interact with the promotional discourse. Analysis of 30 popular video advertisements shows the fundamental role of character voices and different social semiotic activities in achieving the purpose of promoting products and services. Through intertextual devices, the advertisements construct multiple identities, including authoritative and peer ones, to evoke different reading positions. In particular, the identity of middle-class urbanites sharing their experiences and values with the audience is dominant. The intertextual devices achieve promotional, relational, and entertainment functions, and the promotional function is realized through sharing, recreating, expounding, and reporting activities, while the recommending activities only occupy a very small portion of the screen time of the advertisements. The framework of multimodal intertextuality provides a useful lens for explicating the complex meaning-making resources, their communicative functions, and hidden ideologies in advertising discourse, which can further provide new insight into the social reality.
This paper provides an integrated social semiotic framework for analyzing intertextuality in multimodal advertising discourse. Following the distinction between manifest intertextuality and interdiscursivity, our model entails the three interrelated components of explicating what the intertextual sources are, how they are constructed with multimodal resources, and how they interact with the promotional discourse. Analysis of 30 popular video advertisements shows the fundamental role of character voices and different social semiotic activities in achieving the purpose of promoting products and services. Through intertextual devices, the advertisements construct multiple identities, including authoritative and peer ones, to evoke different reading positions. In particular, the identity of middle-class urbanites sharing their experiences and values with the audience is dominant. The intertextual devices achieve promotional, relational, and entertainment functions, and the promotional function is realized through sharing, recreating, expounding, and reporting activities, while the recommending activities only occupy a very small portion of the screen time of the advertisements. The framework of multimodal intertextuality provides a useful lens for explicating the complex meaning-making resources, their communicative functions, and hidden ideologies in advertising discourse, which can further provide new insight into the social reality.
A critical discourse analysis of Al Jazeera’s online coverage of the war in Yemen before and after the 5 June 2017 Gulf crisis
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 553-589, October 2023.
In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was utilised to examine the Al Jazeera Arabic news website with respect to its reports on the social actors in the Yemen war, particularly the KSA, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain coalition and the opposing Houthis, both before and after the Gulf crisis that occurred on 5 June 2017. The analysed data included a total of 32 news articles related to the war in Yemen, with 16 articles covering the period prior to the Crisis, from 2015 to 2017, and 16 covering the period following the onset of the crisis, from 2017 to 2019. The overall aim was to uncover the ideological implications of various linguistic elements, such as lexical choices, news headline creation, and de-legitimisation strategies, and the results revealed identifiable, distinct, and non-random changes in tone and angle of representation relating to the various social actors and their actions. Before the crisis, the coalition was represented positively while Houthis was presented negatively, while after the crisis, the tone towards these social actors was completely reversed. The various discursive strategies used in the articles across both periods thus show that the coverage of the Yemen crisis was intended to ideologically and politically guide readers’ understanding of the crisis.
In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was utilised to examine the Al Jazeera Arabic news website with respect to its reports on the social actors in the Yemen war, particularly the KSA, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain coalition and the opposing Houthis, both before and after the Gulf crisis that occurred on 5 June 2017. The analysed data included a total of 32 news articles related to the war in Yemen, with 16 articles covering the period prior to the Crisis, from 2015 to 2017, and 16 covering the period following the onset of the crisis, from 2017 to 2019. The overall aim was to uncover the ideological implications of various linguistic elements, such as lexical choices, news headline creation, and de-legitimisation strategies, and the results revealed identifiable, distinct, and non-random changes in tone and angle of representation relating to the various social actors and their actions. Before the crisis, the coalition was represented positively while Houthis was presented negatively, while after the crisis, the tone towards these social actors was completely reversed. The various discursive strategies used in the articles across both periods thus show that the coverage of the Yemen crisis was intended to ideologically and politically guide readers’ understanding of the crisis.
‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies
Discourse &Communication, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 662-684, October 2023.
Versailles literature is a newly emerged phenomenon on Chinese social networking sites. It is in essence an indirect form of self-praise. Despite its popularity on social media, there is little research on this phenomenon. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies for performing VL on WeChat Moments. The results showed that Versailles literature often includes strategies such as implicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise, and self-praise through comments and replies, among which the tactics that have not been observed before, such as bragging in a foreign language, creating false ‘question–answer’ or ‘compliment–response’ interactions and commenting to the adverts. These strategies are implemented in various ways by virtue of the technological affordance of WeChat Moments, in order to balance the disclosure and the dissimulation of the object of praise. The study also discusses the distinctive features of VL and explains the absence of some frequent strategies of self-praising in Versailles literature.
Versailles literature is a newly emerged phenomenon on Chinese social networking sites. It is in essence an indirect form of self-praise. Despite its popularity on social media, there is little research on this phenomenon. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies for performing VL on WeChat Moments. The results showed that Versailles literature often includes strategies such as implicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise, and self-praise through comments and replies, among which the tactics that have not been observed before, such as bragging in a foreign language, creating false ‘question–answer’ or ‘compliment–response’ interactions and commenting to the adverts. These strategies are implemented in various ways by virtue of the technological affordance of WeChat Moments, in order to balance the disclosure and the dissimulation of the object of praise. The study also discusses the distinctive features of VL and explains the absence of some frequent strategies of self-praising in Versailles literature.