Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This article examines how U.S. news reports sustain or overcome distance between domestic audiences and the victims of U.S. drone strikes overseas. More specifically, we explain how language is used to construe distance in two different news stories about the same drone strike, enacting different political and affective relationships between Americans and the Pakistani victims of U.S. war. Drawing on theories of cognitive linguistics, we analyze how distance is negotiated in three overlapping areas of conceptualization: specificity, time, and narrative perspective. We show how lexical and grammatical choices can make victims of drone strikes appear remote, indistinct, and uninteresting – or indeed how they can make victims and their suffering appear close, clear, and dramatic. Simultaneously, we show that minimalist reporting on distant suffering is not natural or inevitable. Despite the obstacles they face, it is possible for journalists to convey what actually happens to the distant victims of U.S. violence.
Category Archives: SAGE Publications Ltd: Discourse & Society
Thinking different as an act of resistance: Reconceptualizing the German protests in the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergent counter-knowledge order
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Massive anti-government protests erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. The crisis activated a potential for resistance that has been simmering under the impositions of late-modern knowledge society. Made salient by the pandemic conditions of sudden extreme reliance on scientific (non) knowledge, the corona protestors activated this potential for resistance and constructed their own counter-knowledge order bound by shared resentment of and distrust in the established order and facilitated by digital platforms. Utilising social network analysis and structural topic modeling for digital critical discourse analysis, in this paper I explore how the corona protest counter-knowledge order is constructed with a particular focus on its contexts, roles, and hierarchies. I find that far-right and conspiracy imaginations are used to level out hierarchies and detach epistemic roles from their contexts to reinstate a superior self into interpretative power. The counter-knowledge order’s inherent construction of unwarranted omnipotence points to a more fundamental resistance to the established normative orders of our society that should be addressed more effectively if we want to be prepared for future crises and not lose common ground for making sense of them.
Massive anti-government protests erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. The crisis activated a potential for resistance that has been simmering under the impositions of late-modern knowledge society. Made salient by the pandemic conditions of sudden extreme reliance on scientific (non) knowledge, the corona protestors activated this potential for resistance and constructed their own counter-knowledge order bound by shared resentment of and distrust in the established order and facilitated by digital platforms. Utilising social network analysis and structural topic modeling for digital critical discourse analysis, in this paper I explore how the corona protest counter-knowledge order is constructed with a particular focus on its contexts, roles, and hierarchies. I find that far-right and conspiracy imaginations are used to level out hierarchies and detach epistemic roles from their contexts to reinstate a superior self into interpretative power. The counter-knowledge order’s inherent construction of unwarranted omnipotence points to a more fundamental resistance to the established normative orders of our society that should be addressed more effectively if we want to be prepared for future crises and not lose common ground for making sense of them.
Book review: William Simpson, Capital, Commodity, and English Language Teaching
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Levelling, differentiation and structure of feeling: Address and interlocutor reference in Indonesian political interviews
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This article discusses the ways in which participants in Indonesian political interviews address and refer to each other. Drawing on Raymond Williams’s concept ‘structures of feeling’, it proposes levelling and differentiation as mechanisms by which interview participants orient to a common feeling. Levelling and differentiation form a dialectical process characterised by tension that emerges through positioning of the self and the addressee relative to social categories and social orders. Such positioning involves exploiting the semantic contrast between kin terms, which denote relationality, and pronouns, which individuate, in addition to mobilising other linguistic resources including names and titles. The article suggests that the differentiation made between how those in the highest office and politicians below them are addressed and referred to is indexical of a shared consciousness about the relevance of rank.
This article discusses the ways in which participants in Indonesian political interviews address and refer to each other. Drawing on Raymond Williams’s concept ‘structures of feeling’, it proposes levelling and differentiation as mechanisms by which interview participants orient to a common feeling. Levelling and differentiation form a dialectical process characterised by tension that emerges through positioning of the self and the addressee relative to social categories and social orders. Such positioning involves exploiting the semantic contrast between kin terms, which denote relationality, and pronouns, which individuate, in addition to mobilising other linguistic resources including names and titles. The article suggests that the differentiation made between how those in the highest office and politicians below them are addressed and referred to is indexical of a shared consciousness about the relevance of rank.
‘Never have they had any chance to spread their wings’: The construction of agency and socio-gender identity of Iranian women
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This paper intends to study how the agency and social-gender identity of Iranian women are constructed through social-cultural-political structures. To this end, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian citizens, both men and women in the context of the Zan-Zendegi-Azadi (Women-Life-Freedom) movement in Iran. This study is grounded upon the main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), seeking to give voice to the oppressed and minorities and reverberate the alternatives to make the world a better place. Findings suggest that certain suppressive social-political-cultural structures in the course of history have largely confined women’s agency in practising their fundamental civil rights and have given them a subordinate position in society, thereby preventing them from constructing independent social-gender identity and status both at social and familial terrains. Analyses also indicated that such structures are constructed and naturalised in the course of history with political systems buttressing domination over women.
This paper intends to study how the agency and social-gender identity of Iranian women are constructed through social-cultural-political structures. To this end, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian citizens, both men and women in the context of the Zan-Zendegi-Azadi (Women-Life-Freedom) movement in Iran. This study is grounded upon the main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), seeking to give voice to the oppressed and minorities and reverberate the alternatives to make the world a better place. Findings suggest that certain suppressive social-political-cultural structures in the course of history have largely confined women’s agency in practising their fundamental civil rights and have given them a subordinate position in society, thereby preventing them from constructing independent social-gender identity and status both at social and familial terrains. Analyses also indicated that such structures are constructed and naturalised in the course of history with political systems buttressing domination over women.
Book review: Joseph Comer, Discourses of Global Queer Mobility and the Mediatization of Equality
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Book review: Robert Poole, Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Speech act of flaming: A pragmatic analysis of Twitter trolling in Pakistan
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This study analyzed twitter trolling as a speech act of flaming. Trolling are deliberate disruptive practices of individuals or of particular group to sensationalize, commoditize, or intensify the reaction in online communication. Twitter API account was used to collect the tweets generated in Pakistan in English. The tweets were manually annotated with the help of a framework proposed by the Nitin, et al., 2011. and Lingam in UAM corpus tool. The finding revealed that tweets are trolled to flame by criticizing, name-calling, speculating, defaming, and degrading. The direct or intentional flaming showed derogatory behavior based on assumptions and aimed at inciting degenerative polarized responses. Moreover, this study also implies that there are serious moral and social implications of Twitter trolling.
This study analyzed twitter trolling as a speech act of flaming. Trolling are deliberate disruptive practices of individuals or of particular group to sensationalize, commoditize, or intensify the reaction in online communication. Twitter API account was used to collect the tweets generated in Pakistan in English. The tweets were manually annotated with the help of a framework proposed by the Nitin, et al., 2011. and Lingam in UAM corpus tool. The finding revealed that tweets are trolled to flame by criticizing, name-calling, speculating, defaming, and degrading. The direct or intentional flaming showed derogatory behavior based on assumptions and aimed at inciting degenerative polarized responses. Moreover, this study also implies that there are serious moral and social implications of Twitter trolling.
To share vulnerability is to show strength: A discursive study of self-disclosure by Chinese cancer patients on short-form video platforms
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
The widely-used social media have offered Chinese cancer patients online sites for self-disclosure. Collecting self-disclosing discourses from 200 Chinese cancer patients on TikTok and SnackVideo, this study systematically analyzes the discursive strategies employed by Chinese cancer patients and their emotions expressed during self-disclosure, with the help of NVivo 12 and LIWC 2015. As a result, it is found that: (1) Chinese cancer patients display self-disclosure oriented toward facts, relationships, desires, and experiences discursively; (2) Chinese cancer patients showed a higher proportion of positive emotions than negative emotions, with female patients being more conservative and stable than their male counterparts when disclosing positive emotions. To some extent, the findings above would shed insights into the provision of psychologically inclusive support for the cancer patients in Chinese culture and beyond.
The widely-used social media have offered Chinese cancer patients online sites for self-disclosure. Collecting self-disclosing discourses from 200 Chinese cancer patients on TikTok and SnackVideo, this study systematically analyzes the discursive strategies employed by Chinese cancer patients and their emotions expressed during self-disclosure, with the help of NVivo 12 and LIWC 2015. As a result, it is found that: (1) Chinese cancer patients display self-disclosure oriented toward facts, relationships, desires, and experiences discursively; (2) Chinese cancer patients showed a higher proportion of positive emotions than negative emotions, with female patients being more conservative and stable than their male counterparts when disclosing positive emotions. To some extent, the findings above would shed insights into the provision of psychologically inclusive support for the cancer patients in Chinese culture and beyond.
Book review: Raili Marling and Marko Pajević, Care, Control and COVID-19. Health and Biopolitics in Philosophy and Literature
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.