This article deals with YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines – the content rules dedicated to defining what YouTube deems advertiser (un)friendly and that YouTube creators seeking to ...monetise their content through advertising have to follow. Specifically, this study addresses the textual composition of YouTube’s regulations with a focus on occurrences of vagueness. Regarding methods of data analysis, I take a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach to YouTube’s texts on advertiser-friendliness. That is, I take a wide-angle view on all concordance lines of ‘content’ and identify occurrences of different forms of vagueness. Findings suggest that at least 26% of the lines of ‘content’ detailing YouTube’s ad-friendly content guidelines exhibit at least one of eight forms of vagueness. Consequently, content creators – left unsure about the monetisability of particular content – may choose not to push any boundaries but to produce noncontroversial content, which, in turn, may impede content plurality on YouTube.
This book presents a new approach to comparative politico-linguistic discourse analysis. It takes a transdisciplinary stance and combines analytical tools from linguistic discourse analysis.
In the last few years, a highly productive space has been created for Cognitive Linguistics inside critical discourse analysis. So far, however, this space has been reserved almost exclusively for ...critical metaphor studies where Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory has provided the lens through which otherwise naturalized or opaque ideological patterns in text and conceptualization can be detected. Yet Cognitive Linguistics consists of much more than Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Its efficacy for critical discourse analysis (CDA) may therefore extend beyond critical metaphor studies. In this article, I propose that Talmy's (1988, 2000) theory of Force-Dynamics in particular represents a further, useful framework for the Cognitive Linguistic approach to CDA. Using this analytical framework, then, I identify some of the indicators of, and demonstrate the ideological qualities of, force-dynamic conceptualizations in immigration discourse.
Discourse in a Material World Hardy, Cynthia; Thomas, Robyn
Journal of management studies,
July 2015, Volume:
52, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We challenge recent assertions that discourse studies cannot de facto address materiality. We demonstrate how a Foucauldian theorization of discourse provides a way to analyse the co‐constitutive ...nature of discursive and material processes, as well as explore the power relations implicated in these relationships. To illustrate our argument, we identify exemplary studies that have effectively combined a study of discourse and different aspects of materiality – bodies, objects, spaces, and practices. In doing so, we show how discourse scholars are able to study both materiality and power relations.
Cette communication s’inscrit dans le cadre théorique de l’analyse de discours et s’appuie en particulier sur les travaux de Michel Foucault qui considère que le discours n’est pas le reflet d’une ...réalité indépendante de lui, mais qu’il construit et configure les pratiques sociales. Le travail de l’analyste du discours est de mettre en perspective les formes discursives propres à ces configurations pour « dénaturaliser » ce qui s’impose souvent comme l’évi- dence. C’est pourquoi il parait nécessaire de développer une analyse de discours diachronique permettant justement cette mise en perspective. Cette communica- tion propose une application aux comptes rendus de débats parlementaires entre la Révolution et l’époque actuelle. Il s’agit ici d’étudier en particulier les chan- gements dans l’usage et le fonctionnement discursif des parenthèses. Nous fai- sons l’hypothèse que la relation que l’institution parlementaire entend nouer avec le citoyen se construit en partie dans ce genre de l’institution qu’est le compte rendu, qu’il se lit dans les formes employées et en particulier dans l’usage des parenthèses.
For a diachronic discourse analysis: the evolution of the functio- ning of parentheses in parliamentary accounts between the Revolution and the present time.
This paper falls within the theoretical framework of discourse analysis and is based in particular on the work of Foucault, who considers that discourse is not the reflection of a reality independent of it, but that it constructs and configures social practices. The work of the discourse analyst is to put into perspective the discursive forms specific to these configurations in order to "denaturalize" what is often self-evident. This is why it seems necessary to develop a diachronic discourse analysis that allows precisely this putting into perspective. This paper proposes an application to the accounts of parliamentary debates between the Revolution and the present time. It is a question here of studying in particular the changes in the use and the discursive functioning of parentheses. We make the hypothesis that the relationship that the parliamentary institution intends to establish with the citizen is partly constructed in the kind of institution that is the record, that it can be read in the forms used and in parti- cular in the use of parentheses.
Workplace Discourse provides an overview of the rapidly developing field of spoken and written workplace interaction, taking a fresh perspective on research methods and key issues in the field.. It ...examines discourse in a wide variety of workplace contexts using both genre analysis and a corpus-driven approach. The book draws on Koester's previous research, but examines the current state of workplace discourse more widely. It provides a descriptive account of the linguistic characteristics of workplace discourse within their social and organizational contexts, with illustrative extracts from real texts and naturally occurring spoken interactions. It showcases specific issues at the forefront of current research and practice in this area: the use of English as a lingua franca, the importance of relationship building and the teaching applications of research.
This article examines the discriminatory discursive strategies adopted in the online interactions between different power groups from Mainland China and Hong Kong in their response to two YouTube ...videos about the Hong Kong Umbrella, or Occupy Central, Movement. A corpus of 4329 comments made by 2157 posters from Mainland China and Hong Kong was coded regarding commenters’ place of residence and their perceptions of the Umbrella Movement and then tagged based on Flowerdew et al.’s previous taxonomy of discriminatory discursive strategies. The results show that a wide range of discriminatory discursive strategies, used by two power groups from Hong Kong and one from the Mainland, were found in the majority of the comments, including four sub-strategies not identified by Flowerdew et al. While studies to date on the Umbrella Movement have mainly focused on Hong Kong data, our study contributes to the literature by adding the perspective from Mainland China. The findings of this study provide insights into the increasing social and political tensions between Hong Kong and its mother country as well as the current situation in the divided city.
Abstract
Mega discourses, as discourses recognised and espoused at the broader societal level, enact the taken-for-granted premises governing an organisational sector. The dominant power can ...designate the value, norm and moral duty of an organisational sector through manipulating such mega discourses. Conceptualised within critical discourse studies and Chinese discourse studies, this article assesses the official discourse of China’s third sector circulating in the policy documents, political speeches, and news media, illustrating how China’s authoritarian state utilises discursive strategies to articulate a new order of discourse of the third sector. It argues that such an alternative discursive ordering is significantly different from its western counterpart. The authoritarian state has strategically appropriated historical and cultural resources to legitimise such a “de-SMOisation” process, intending to insulate nongovernmental organisations from social movements. This study concludes with a discussion on the significance and implications of this third sector discourse.
European civic integration programmes claim to provide newcomers with necessary tools for successful participation. Simultaneously, these programmes have been criticised for being restrictive, ...market-driven and for working towards an implicit goal of limiting migration. Authors have questioned how these programmes discursively construct an offensive image of the Other and how colonial histories are reproduced in the constructions seen today. The Dutch civic integration programme is considered a leading example of a restrictive programme within Europe. Research has critically questioned the discourses within its policies, yet limited research has moved beyond policy to focus on discourse in texts in practice. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of texts used in the civic integration programme and demonstrates that they participate in multiple discursive constructions: the construction of the Dutch nation-state and its citizens as inherently modern, the construction of the Other as Unmodern and thus a threat, and the construction of the hierarchical relationship between the two. The civic integration programme has been left out of discussions on decolonisation to date, contributing to it remaining a core practice of othering. This study applies post-colonial theories to understand the impacts of current discourse, and forwards possibilities for consideration of decolonised alternatives.
This article focuses on the global phenomenon of the marketization of higher education and how it has shaped the discourses of China’s top universities. By analyzing the university presidents’ ...messages published in the websites of 36 top-ranked universities in China, the aim is to ascertain the extent to which this institutionalized genre imbricates a marketizing role with other ideological imperatives. Informed by the theoretical principles of Critical Discourse Analysis and adopting a genre analysis methodological approach, we first examined the macro-level rhetorical structure followed by a micro-level analysis of the discursive strategies used in the presidents’ messages. The findings reveal a dynamic interweaving of three distinct discursive strands – bureaucratic, conversational and advertising – constructed in and around the move structure of the presidents’ messages. This interdiscursive analysis reveals competing imperatives and contestations that reflect the dual role of the presidents’ messages to project a globalized, international outlook while maintaining an allegiance to political ideologies and national interests that top-ranked universities in China have to simultaneously negotiate.
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