scholarly journals Politeness as normative, evaluative and discriminatory: the case of verbal hygiene discourses on correct honorifics use in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucien Brown
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Inanimate Object ◽  
Sales Personnel ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
Recursive Evaluation

Abstract This paper uses the concept of “verbal hygiene” (Cameron, Deborah. 1995. Verbal hygiene. Abingdon, UK: Routledge) to analyze metadiscourses in South Korea regarding a recent innovation in the use of subject honorific markers in the service industry. This innovation, commonly referred to as samwul contay ‘inanimate object respect’ involves using honorifics when the grammatical subject of the sentence is an inanimate object, typically the products or services being offered to the customer. Critical discourse analysis was conducted of materials produced by language authorities and mainstream media, as well as layperson-produced blogs and reader comments. The analysis shows that the materials mobilized discourses of ungrammaticality and immorality to delegitimize samwul contay, and stigmatize the sales personnel who used it. By applying the concept of “verbal hygiene” to politeness-related metadiscourses, the current paper advances the perspective that politeness is occasioned through the recursive evaluation of linguistic behavior. Rather than being idiosyncratic, these evaluations appeal to established language norms and moral orders. The way that verbal hygiene discourses promote the language usage of the powerful while stigmatizing the powerless demonstrates that politeness relies inherently on socio-historically imbedded discriminatory practices of placing value on the language usage of certain groups, while delegitimizing that of others.

scholarly journals Claiming Credibility in Online Comments: Popular Debate Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Ruth Breeze
Keyword(s):  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
Sources Of Authority ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Public Demand

At times of crisis, access to information takes on special importance, and in the Internet age of constant connectedness, this is truer than ever. Over the course of the pandemic, the huge public demand for constantly updated health information has been met with a massive response from official and scientific sources, as well as from the mainstream media. However, it has also generated a vast stream of user-generated digital postings. Such phenomena are often regarded as unhelpful or even dangerous since they unwittingly spread misinformation or make it easier for potentially harmful disinformation to circulate. However, little is known about the dynamics of such forums or how scientific issues are represented there. To address this knowledge gap, this chapter uses a corpus-assisted discourse approach to examine how “expert” knowledge and other sources of authority are represented and contested in a corpus of 10,880 reader comments responding to Mail Online articles on the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in February–July 2020. The results show how “expert” knowledge is increasingly problematized and politicized, while other strategies are used to claim authority. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of sociological theories, and some tentative solutions are proposed.

Violence by any other name: constructing immigration crises, the threat of the sick refugee and rationalising immigration detention through moral panic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah A. Adjekum ◽  
Ameil J. Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Health It ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Health Aid ◽  
Political Conditions

This article is concerned with the employment of pathologising discourses of mental health and trauma by the mainstream media as they pertain to the treatment of migrants in detention in Canada. Using critical discourse analysis, this research contrasts mainstream media coverage of four major publications on immigration detention. It explores the media’s role in the (re)creation of refugee discourse, and as a purveyor of racial ideology, which problematises people of colour and demands state intervention in the form of mental health aid. The resulting discourse pathologises the refugee identity and simultaneously obscures the socio-political conditions and violence that necessitates their departure from their home countries. As refugee discourse is infused with biomedical understandings of mental health, it also legitimises the nation state’s practice of coercive social control for these populations through detention.

Witnessing in the echo chamber: From counter-discourses in print media to counter-memories of Argentina’s state terrorism

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1036-1057
Author(s):  
Muireann Prendergast
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
State Terrorism ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Relationship

While the importance of journalism in memory studies has often been overlooked in academic scholarship, media discourses can be considered ‘memory’s precondition’ on both active and passive levels. First, journalists record events as they happen building on narratives and testimonies. Second, sometimes decades later, these can be invoked in legal and social post-dictatorship processes. Applying the theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis to memory studies, this research explores the relationship between counter-journalism and counter-memories as a response to and rejection of the ‘echo chamber’ of authoritarian discourse which dominated the mainstream media and promoted official memory during Argentina’s last dictatorship. The methodological approach of the study is mixed, combining qualitative synchronic-diachronic text analysis with a corpus analysis of concordance lines to trace strategies of counter-discourse in two newspapers which opposed the dictatorship. The motivations of their editor-journalists for challenging official discourse and institutional memory in the climate of state terrorism are framed in the context of Margalit’s ‘moral witnessing’.

scholarly journals Language choice among rural Mari families and their motives

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (64) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Vedernikova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Language Choice ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Language Practice ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
Individual Speaker

Language choice is a core value of language policy that consists of three elements: management, or direct efforts to manipulate a language situation: practice, a sum of sound, word and grammatical choices that an individual speaker makes; and ideology, a set of beliefs about appropriate language practice (Spolsky 2004). Motives are related to the last component. As stated by researchers, language usage within a family can be determined by even one of these factors. This article presents the results of an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected during my fieldwork in Mari El (Russia). Comparative analysis of the survey data confirmed the process of weakening of intergenerational language transmission among rural Maris and the fact that the linguistic behavior of family members varies by generation. Usage of Russian or Mari within a family is mainly the result of different values attached to each language and their social roles among certain sectors of society.

scholarly journals Critical analysis of the discourse on Judith Butler´s visit to the country in the most popular online news portals

MEDIACIONES ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (23) ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Katia Maria Belisario ◽  
Kaitlynn Menders
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Online News ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Media Reports

In November 2017, feminist theorist Judith Butler travelled to Brazil to participate in an international conference. During the event, protesters gathered, carrying signs, chanting slogans, and burning an effigy of her while shouting, “Burn the witch!” According to media reports, these protesters wanted to preserve notions of the traditional nuclear family within Brazil and protect children against Butler’s “diabolical gender ideology”, which includes her theory that gender is a social construct and a cultural interpretation that overlaps with biological determinism. The protest attracted mainstream media attention. This article aims to identify the key discourses used by anti- and pro-Butler activists commenting in the most popular news portals in the country, UOL and G1. The questions guiding this study are: 1) How is feminism represented in Brazil? 2) How do protesters and counter-protesters understand and argue about “gender ideology”? The methodology used is the critical discourse analysis of online comments of readers of both portals.

President Duterte’s bicephalous leadership: Populist at home – pragmatic abroad

2020 ◽  
pp. 205789112091200
Author(s):  
Christine B Tenorio ◽  
Patrik K Meyer ◽  
Achmad Nurmandi
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Domestic Policies ◽  
At Home

Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippines’ 2016 presidential elections thanks to a well-orchestrated campaign and his populist appeal among Filipinos. Soon after he assumed the presidency, he surprised and upset most of his domestic and western international audiences by pragmatically rejecting the pro-Western approach followed by the previous Aquino administration and adopting a China-friendly one. Adopting Critical Discourse Analysis, this research reveals President Duterte’s bicephalous leadership: populist in domestic policies, and pragmatic but unpopular in foreign relations. To qualitatively describe the dichotomy between the populist and pragmatic nature of Duterte’s leadership, this article surveys the Philippines’ mainstream media from 2016 to 2019. Furthermore, this analysis shows that Duterte is using a defensive neorealist approach in building Philippines-China relations and that Filipinos are willing to consider China as a constructive partner for their country.

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