Welfare restrictions and ‘benefit tourists’: Representations and evaluations of EU migrants in the UK

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanna Demetriou

Abstract This article investigates online representations and evaluations of EU migrants, focusing on the notion of ‘benefit tourism’ and discursive strategies used in the (de)legitimization of new welfare restrictions in the UK. Through the examination of online newspapers and corresponding public comment threads, this article adopts theoretical and methodological premises from Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), drawing upon the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to provide both a politically motivated as well as reflexive account. Although new participatory structures allow for resistance to emerge, the openness, scalability and anonymity of the internet also allows for the spread of discrimination through the construction of EU migrants (in particular Bulgarians and Romanians) as the ‘Other’.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 568-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia G Stamou

The field of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) needs to extend its analytical scope and cross-fertilize with interactional accounts of identity. One the one hand, there is a constant and reflexive re-crafting of identities in late modernity. On the other hand, interaction is considered to be the major lens through which such identities in flux are studied. To this aim, I propose an analytical framework based on a synthesis of well-established CDS analytical tools with interaction-oriented ones, which results in the formation of ‘discursive strategies of identity construction in interaction’. I put the proposed synthesis under a ‘multiperspectival’ research agenda, which involves the compilation of a ‘package’ based on different approaches, on the condition that the theoretical and epistemological assumptions of each approach are taken into account. By way of illustration, I briefly discuss fictional interactions from two Greek TV commercials for the representation of age identities. It is shown that fictional data, which involve represented identities in talk by institutional agents, could become one possible ‘meeting point’ of CDS with interaction-oriented discourse analytical strands.


Author(s):  
Guofeng Wang

Abstract Since Hong Kong’s handover to China, British newspapers still play an active role in constructing Britain’s connections with its former colony. This study elaborates a schema for protests to help better understand protests in general. Based on this schema, the study examined representations of the 2019–20 protests in British newspapers using the approach of corpus-assisted critical discourse studies. The analysis shows that they mainly used the predicational strategy, and emphasized the Chinese government’s control of Hong Kong – including the inabilities of the Hong Kong government and police violence – in contrast with the protestors’ demands for universal suffrage. They suggested that Britain act as a mediator to shoulder a moral responsibility over Hong Kong. Their attitudes are interpreted with regard to Britain’s foreign policies and the dominant ideology cultivated in its historical, socio-political contexts and suggest that the UK journalistic practice regarding Hong Kong issues is political-driven to a great extent.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wodak

This article discusses different theoretical and methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences which strive to analyse and understand, interpret and explain texts and discourses in systematic, qualitative ways. After reviewing some of the salient theories in the social sciences (such as objective hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics), I argue that critical discourse studies require a ‘trichotomy’ consisting of explanation, interpretation and critique. Other approaches such as Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutic arc’ seem to neglect important structural and material dimensions of context as well as critical self-reflection. Moreover, I argue that much intuitive and non-transparent speculation in Hermeneutics might be transcended if more historical, cultural, linguistic and philological knowledges would be systematically and explicitly integrated into the analysis of text and discourse, in a retroductable manner. The latter possibility is illustrated by applying an interdisciplinary framework to some brief examples (e.g. intercultural and historical translation studies; the discourse-historical approach in critical discourse studies).


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Kalliandra Quevedo Conrad ◽  
Natália Martins Flores ◽  
Maria Ivete Trevisan Fossá

We analyze the production of meanings on the Brazilian political crisis in Rede Globo’s television program Profissão Repórter. Based on the Critical Discourse Studies and Social Theory of Discourse, Fairclough (2016), we focus on the discursive strategies used by the program in its Political Crisis edition (04/06/2016). The use of categories of vocabulary analysis, interactive control and intertextuality allowed us to locate regionalizations of meanings that form a Workers Party (PT) subject position, a worker subject position and a protester subject position. The Workers Party subject establishes an antagonistic relation with the protester subject and marks itself by conflict, tension and fear meanings. The protester subject is built by respect, education, defense of the motherland and fight against corruption meanings. The worker subject appears in an intermediate region, not linked to the protests. The discourse silences the meanings of "impeachment" and "coup", and, therefore, avoids addressing the complexity of the Brazilian political crisis. Analisamos a produção de sentidos sobre a crise política brasileira no programa Profissão Repórter, da Rede Globo. A partir dos Estudos Críticos do Discurso e da Teoria Social do Discurso, de Fairclough (2016), nos focamos nas estratégias discursivas utilizadas pelo programa na edição Crise Política (6/04/2016). O uso das categorias de análise de vocabulário, controle interacional e intertextualidade permitiu localizarmos regionalizações de sentido nas posições de sujeito petista, sujeito trabalhador e sujeito manifestante. O sujeito petista estabelece uma relação antagônica com o sujeito manifestante e é marcado pelos sentidos de conflito, tensão e medo. O sujeito manifestante é construído pelos sentidos de respeito, educação, defesa da pátria e luta contra a corrupção. O sujeito trabalhador aparece numa região intermediária, não sendo vinculado aos protestos. O discurso silencia os significados de “impeachment” e “golpe”, eximindo-se de abordar a complexidade da crise política brasileira.Analizamos la producción de sentidos sobre la crisis política brasileña en el programa Profissão Repórter, da Rede Globo de Televisión. A partir de los Estudios Críticos del Discurso y de la Teoría Social del Discurso, de Fairclough (2016), nos centramos en las estrategias discursivas utilizadas por el programa en la edición de Crisis Política (06/04/2016). El uso de las categorías de análisis de vocabulario, control interactivo e intertextualidad nos ha permitido localizar regionalizacións de significado en torno de posiciones de sujetos de sujeto PT, sujeto trabajador y sujeto manifestante. El sujeto PT establece una relación antagónica con el sujeto manifestante y está marcado por significados de conflicto, tensión y miedo. El sujeto manifestante se construye a partir de sentidos de respeto, educación, defensa nacional y lucha contra la corrupción. El sujeto trabajador aparece en una región intermedia, al no estar relacionado con las protestas. El discurso silencia los significados de "impeachment" y "golpe", eximiendo se a abordar la complejidad de la crisis política brasileña.


Author(s):  
Salomi Boukala

This article advances research on the normalisation of far-right rhetoric on the “migration issue” by analysing statements from the current Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the ruling political party New Democracy political figures. Having presented the discourse-historical approach (DHA) from critical discourse studies (CDS) as a suitable theory and method of analysis of political discourses, I use an argumentative-based DHA approach and add the argumentative schemes of Aristotelian topoi and fallacies to explore how the leadership of the conservative New Democracy government adopted far-right rhetoric on the refugee issue to justify its tough political agenda on security, law, and order. In particular, I focus on the representation of migration as a threat to national security and public health, the politics of hate, and theories of securitisation via an in-depth analysis of the current and former prime ministers’ discourses, the former government spokesman’s statement on the refugee issue and a popular journalist and New Democracy’s MP television interview, and intend to illustrate how extreme right rhetoric could serve the conservative New Democracy’s political strategies.


Paramasastra ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajeng Dianing Kartika

Islamophobic and Antisemitism have nowadays become trending topics in Germany. The rise of muslims population in Germany during migration crisis that cause pro and contra in the society can be the main cause of the Islamophobic in the country lead by Angela Merkel. In the other side there is another phenomenon called antisemtism that historically has occurred since the Nazi’s era. Currently this phenomenon suddenly rise up during migration crisis and it has been strongly discussed after the controversy created by duo rappers Kollegah (Felix Blume) and Farid Bang (Farid El Abdellaoui) who took home the prize for their anti-semitism songs in album Jung, Brutal, Gutaussehend 3. Pro and contra appears and it becomes trending topic in German online newspaper beside the islamophobia that’s still debatable. Even though these two phenomenon has a similiarity, namely ‘anxiety feeling or extreme fear of something’, there is different strategies used by the Press in Germany. Crictical analysis is needed to reveal specific strategies applied and the impact of the kind of strategies on the representation of Muslims and Jews in Germany. Based on critical discourse studies, it can be concluded that the German online newspaper define Islam as out group who create islamophobic. But, Jews are represented differently as a victim of anti-Semitism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 706-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini

Abstract This article explores legitimacy-building in United States President’s 2013 Address to the Nation on Syria. Based on a slightly modified version of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) model of the discursive construction of legitimation and with a view of the war in Syria as the super-macro context of the Address, the investigation illustrates how the speech attempts to legitimate the prospect of a direct American military engagement in Syria on the one hand, and to justify avoiding another war that may prove too costly, on the other. Through the illustration of such double-legitimation discursive practices, the study portrays how critical discourse studies can provide the ground for awareness of a delicate aspect of the discourse of politics and the rhetoric of politicians in shaping public consent and projecting an always-legitimate image of even contradictory political positions, decisions, and actions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 498-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramona Kreis

In this study, I examine the online discourse of the European refugee crisis on the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. Specifically, I analyze 100 tweets that include #refugeesnotwelcome, and explore how this hashtag is used to express negative feelings, beliefs and ideologies toward refugees and (im)migrants in Europe. Guided by critical discourse studies, I focus on Twitter users’ discursive strategies as well as form and function of semiotic resources and multimodality. Twitter users who include this particular hashtag use a rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion to depict refugees as unwanted, criminal outsiders. These tendencies align with current trends in Europe where nationalist-conservative and xenophobic right-wing groups gain power and establish a socially accepted discourse of racism.


2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wodak ◽  
Michał Krzyżanowski ◽  
Bernhard Forchtner

AbstractThis article analyzes multilingual practices in interactions inside European Union (EU) institutions. On the basis of our fieldwork conducted in EU organizational spaces throughout 2009, we explore different types of communication in order to illustrate how Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and officials at the European Commission practice and perform multilingualism in their everyday work. In our theoretical and methodological framework, we draw on existent sociolinguistic ethnographical research into organizations and interactions, and integrate a multilevel (macro) contextual and sequential (micro) analysis of manifold data (observations, field notes, recordings of official and semi-official meetings, interviews, etc.). In this way, a continuum of context-dependent multilingual practices becomes apparent, which are characterized by different patterns of language choice and which serve a range of both manifest and latent functions. By applying the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), the intricacies of the increasingly complex phenomenon of multilingualism in transnational-organizational spaces, which are frequently characterized by diverse power-related and other asymmetries of communication, can be adequately coped with. (Code-switching, multilingualism, power, institutional spaces, European Union, ethnography, discourse-historical approach, critical discourse studies)*


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-34
Author(s):  
Adriana Bolívar

In this article we give attention to text interpretation from the perspectives of discourse analysis and hermeneutics because these disciplines provide theoretical and methodological bases for texts analysis in a wide variety of projects both in the humanities and social sciences. As in both cases we are faced with interdisciplinarity, we examine some tensions that arise when attempts are made by one discipline to dominate over the other. The objective is to offer some guidance to young researchers about what following either of these traditions means. The position of some critical discourse analysts related to the claim that hermeneutics today needs to look at linguistics and discourse analysis to renew itself is examined, to which we add the need to give more attention to dialogue analysis in critical discourse studies. Closer collaboration between researchers in both disciplines is suggested.


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