A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Value of Multicultural Awareness Represented in an EFL Textbook

Author(s):  
Ali Alsaawi

Learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in contexts with limited multinational and transcultural backgrounds, such as Saudi Arabia, should be able to communicate with people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Students’ awareness should be enriched with an understanding of the diversity among people around the world. EFL textbooks are one of the platforms for raising students’ awareness of cultural and linguistic differences. This study aimed to explore the cultural content of an EFL textbook taught at an international primary school in Saudi Arabia via the adoption of critical discourse analysis as a methodological approach. It focused on the multicultural values represented in the EFL textbook geared toward teaching senior primary school students. The study identified a number of values, including fostering positive perspectives concerning old tribes and people, appreciating the lives of other people, respecting the hard efforts made by some nations and understanding different cultural values in different parts of the world. There is found a lack of consideration of the cultural values of some countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. Therefore, this study implicates stakeholders in Saudi Arabia to demand their cultural values be depicted in teaching and educational material.

To legitimize US invasion of Iraq, Bush fabricated fake intelligence reports, and depended solely on propaganda; he manipulated language in a well-calculated manner; most particularly, the metaphors chosen and devised for his speeches were such that convinced the US citizens about the legitimacy of the invasion, elicited financial support of the European allies and moral support of the majority of the world community. This research work used discourse analysis to study the metaphors that were used by George Bush in the speeches he made on 8 different occasions, and the theoretical framework used in it is the combination of critical discourse analysis CDA with postcolonial theory concept of orientalism.It utilized both qualitative and quantitative data collection tools.It found that most of the task was accomplished through the linguistic manipulation in the shape of metaphor used to dehumanize the enemy, which first made the US citizens feel as victims to the jealousy of rogue Muslim states for intending to completely annihilate them; then, it made appeal to their sense of justice, sense of security, and right to self-defense. By grouping the world citizens into Us and Them groups, the innocent, peace-loving and the war-mongers, the angels and the devils, and then by placing themselves and the rest of the world among the first group and placing the powerfulMuslims states among the second group, the US exploited the feelings and thoughts of all. Despite the UN and the rest of the world having come to know the sheer lies of the US now, the US still has managed to flog a dead horse and blind-fold majority of the world through this linguistic manipulation in the form of using dehumanizing metaphors


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-166
Author(s):  
Elvi Susanti

Abstract This research is linked with Twitter, as one of social media services on the Internet that are extremely popular in the world, including in Indonesia. This research is important because Twitter is effective in quickly and accurately delivering messages. In fact, everyone can act as a 'reporter' and form quick opinions through this social media. This research is aimed to investigate the emergence of the roots of hegemony based on text analysis that is linked with representation, relation, identity, and transformation of national issues that become trending topics on Twitter. Moreover, the research is to discuss the social media's discourse practice that influences media workers in producing news, and to see how it implicates the research on the study of discourse analysis. By using the Fairclough theory, especially on text analysis that is linked with representation, relation, and identity, the researcher attempts to explore how the roots of hegemony emerge in the national issues that become trending topics on Twitter. The researcher also offers a new function to complete the approach of Fairclough in text analysis on social media: transformation – which is an attempt to see the change in roles of news participants and amateur readers as 'reporters' and participate in forming opinions. Abstrak Penelitian ini berhubungan dengan twitter, sebagai salah satu media sosial di internet yang sangat populer di dunia, termasuk di indonesia. Penelitian ini penting karena twitter efektif dalam menyampaikan pesan dengan cepat dan akurat. Faktanya, semua orang dapat bertindak sebagai "reporter" dan membuat opini yang cepat melalui sosial media tersebut. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki kemunculan dari akar hagemoni berdasarkan analisis teks yang berhubungan dengan representasi, hubungan, identitas, dan transformasi isu-isu nasional yang menjadi topik yang sedang tren di twitter. Selain itu, penelitian ini juga untuk mendiskusikan praktik wacana media sosial  yang mempengaruhi pekerja media dalam membuat berita, dan untuk melihat bagaimana hal tersebut melibatkan penelitian dalam studi analisis wacana. Dengan menggunakan teori Fairclough, khususnya pada analisis teks yang berhubungan dengan penafsiran, hubungan, identitas, peneliti berupaya untuk menyelidiki bagaimana akar hegemoni muncul yang menjadi topik tren di twitter. Peneliti juga menawarkan sebuah fungsi baru untuk melengkapi pendekatan Fairlclough dalam analisis teks pada sosial media: transformasi - yang merupakan usaha untuk melihat perubahan peran pembuat berita dan pembaca awam sebagai 'reporter' dan berpartisipasi dalam membentuk opini. How to Cite : Susanti, E. (2015). Hegemony of The Social Media Twitter About National Issues in Indonesia and Its Implications to the Discourse Analysis Subject in Colleges. TARBIYA: Journal Of Education In Muslim Society, 2(2), 153-166. doi:10.15408/tjems.v2i2.3180. Permalink/DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15408/tjems.v2i2.3180


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisreen Naji Al-Khawaldeh ◽  
Imad Khawaldeh ◽  
Baker Bani-Khair ◽  
Amal Al-Khawaldeh

Graffiti have received a great attention from scholars as they have been considered a vital cultural phenomenon for many years (Trahan, 2011; Divsalar & Nemati, 2012; Zakareviciute, 2014; Farnia, 2014; El-Nashar & Nayef; 2016). Although there are extensive contemporary researches on graffiti in many disciplines, such as linguistics, cultural studies, politics, art, and communication (Pietrosanti, 2010;  Farnia, 2014; Oganda, 2015), there are few studies exploring graffiti on classrooms’ walls in higher education milieus (Farnia, 2014). To the best knowledge of the researchers, very few studies were done on the Jordanian context (e.g. Al-Haj Eid, 2008; Abu-Jaber, et al., 2012) and none was done on the Jordanian universities. Therefore, this study aims at analysing the content and communicative features of writings found on universities’ classrooms’ walls, corridors, and washrooms and their relation to the socio-cultural values of the society in order to explore how universities help students voice their attitudes and thoughts. The linguistic features that characterise these writings were also examined. Graffiti-writings, which were collected from the University of Jordan and the Hashemite University, were coded and analysed using the thematic content analysis technique (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995). The analysis of the data has shown that graffiti serve different communicative language functions related to personal, social, national, religious, political, and taboo matters. The most salient linguistic features of these graffiti are simplicity and variation. It can be concluded that graffiti are distinctive and silent ways of communication, particularly in students’ society. The study will be of great importance to linguists, sociologists, educators, administrators, teachers and parents. It is enrichment to the available literature on linguistic studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-519
Author(s):  
Rajaa Hamid Salih

The incorporation of conceptual metaphor study and assessment in the broader process of critical discourse analysis represents a relatively recent development. At one level, this process can be viewed as an outcome that derives from the broader purpose and scope of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The main objective of this article is to understand how metaphors may unconsciously shape people's perception of the world. It is understood that metaphors may play a prominent role in shaping public perception of important topics especially in politics, journals or media discourses. People are exposed to many more metaphors than they may even realize on a daily basis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1086296X2110522
Author(s):  
Katie Sciurba

In response to anti-Black policing in 2020 that led to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Black children and teens turned to poetry as a means to channel their self-described terror, rage, pain, horror, tiredness, and need for change. Reminiscent of the poetry of the Black Arts Movement and works published in The Black Panther newspaper, these poems, many of which call for a “revolution,” are reflective of young people’s critical engagements with the world and the word. With critical literacy as a framework, I engage in critical discourse analysis to determine how the young poets reimagine literacy as they protest anti-Black policing and racism. By focusing on young people’s own grassroots literacy initiatives, which call for the reimagination of blackness and whiteness, and demand truth, justice, and reimagined futures, I demonstrate how educators can reimagine literacy practices to center students’ criticalities and prioritize racial justice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nartey

Abstract This paper presents a discourse-mythological analysis of the rhetoric of a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, drawing on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis. The thesis of the paper is that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the emancipation and unification of Africa, can be characterized as mythic, a discursive exhortation of Africa to demonstrate to the world that it can better govern itself than the colonizers. In this vein, the paper analyzes four discursive strategies employed by Nkrumah in the creation and projection of his mythology: the introduction or creation of new discourse events, presupposition and implication, involvement (the use of indexicals) and lexical structuring and reiteration. This study is, therefore, presented as a case study of mythic discourse within the domain of politics.


Author(s):  
Cheryl Brown

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a cross-disciplinary methodological and theoretical approach. At its core CDA explores the intersections between discourse, critique, power, and ideology which hold particular values for those teaching in developing contexts. CDA has emerged as a valuable methodological approach in cultural and media studies and has increased in prominence since the 2010s in education research where it is drawn on to explore educational policy, literacy education, and identity. This research has intersected with the field of information systems which has explored the dominant discourses and discursive practice of how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are viewed in policy and the contradictions between rhetoric and reality. It has also been drawn on in research in developing contexts to critique the role of ICTs in education. A brief historical background to CDA and overview of the key components of the approach will be provided. How CDA has been drawn on in educational studies will be examined and research on CDA will be highlighted to explore discursive practices of students and the influence of students’ digital identities on their engagement with and experience of online learning. By focusing on four key constructs of CDA—namely meaning, context, identity, and power—the potential of CDA to critically investigate how students’ are constructing their technological identity in an increasingly digital world will be demonstrated, particularly as examples of research emanating from developing contexts will be drawn.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiia-Lotta Pekkanen ◽  
Visa Penttilä

PurposeThe study examines the responsibilisation of an ethnocentric consumer in commercial, meta-organisational discourses. In addition to nationalistic and patriotic discourses, the focus is on wider conceptualisations of consumer responsibility.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological approach to conduct an empirical case study on the texts of two producer-driven labelling campaigns.FindingsThe campaign texts create possibilities for ethnocentric consumption with positioning, argumentative and classificatory discourses. Patriotic responsibilisation is emphasised, together with rationales to take action on environmental concerns.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the responsibility of marketers over their corporate responsibility communication, suggesting that ethnocentric promotions may have the power to alter how consumers take action on various responsibility concerns.Social implicationsThe study surfaces the tensions that responsible consumption can entail for consumers. Indeed, nationalistic and patriotic discourses may alter our understanding of responsibility issues that may seem completely separate from the concepts of nationalism and patriotism.Originality/valueThe paper shows how different organisational texts are deployed to bring about the idea of ethnocentric consumption and how this relates to responsibility discourses, nationalism and patriotism.


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaul R. Shenhav ◽  
Gideon Rahat ◽  
Tamir Sheafer

Abstract. The growing interest in the relation between language and politics brings new assumptions and theoretical frameworks to the study of politics. This study presents a simple empirical test of a major assumption of the critical discourse analysis school: that power is a major factor in political discourse. It examines whether the discourse of Israeli members of parliament (Knesset) represents a view of the world through the prism of power or whether parliament members refer to the experience of similar democracies. We demonstrate that power is a strong and significant factor in Israeli legislative discourse through time and across issues while relevance plays no role.Résumé. L'intérêt grandissant que suscite le lien entre langage et politique, génère de nouvelles hypothèses et de nouvelles théories de l'étude du politique. Cette étude propose de tester l'une des principales hypothèses de l'analyse critique de discours, à savoir que le pouvoir serait un facteur essentiel du discours politique. Le discours des membres du parlement israélien (la Knesset) est analysé afin de déterminer s'il reflète une vision du monde à travers le prisme du pouvoir, ou si au contraire les membres du parlements se réfèrent plutôt à l'expérience d'autres démocraties sous différents angles, en particulier celui de la similaritê de leur travail parlementaire. Cette étude démontre que le pouvoir constitue un facteur important et significatif du discours législatif israélien, à la fois sur la longue durée et concernant une variété de sujets, alors que le facteur de la pertinence ne joue aucun rôle.


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