Convergence

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-147
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
To Come ◽  
Insight Into

Actor network theory as the “sociology of translation,” is used as a lens to examine the chronology of the development of the MOU Agreement, which provides insight into the mechanics of its formation and network of relations. Translation uncovered dimensions of the network's development: why associations between the actors were created, the factors that mobilized these heterogeneous parties to come together. Further, it also uncovered how their functions were ascribed and how stability or “black box” status was achieved. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is positioned as a moment in ANT facilitating the analyses of the network linkages of the MOU actor network assist to identify the interactions at various levels of the MOU social partnership actor network. The two worldviews complement each other within an interpretivist framework revealing the potential to analyse network interactions through the lens of discourse.

Actor Network Theory (ANT)

2019 ◽  
pp. 100-120
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
The Status ◽  
Partnership Agreement ◽  
Relational Interactions

Actor network theory (ANT) or the “sociology of translation,” is introduced, being a systematic way to explain the mechanics and dynamics of relational interactions, within networks. The unique ontology of ANT equates human and non-human systems thereby conferring the MOU social partnership agreement with the status of an actor. The text within the MOU Agreement as an intermediary becomes the inscription, enabling the agreement to obtain having a discourse of its own and the capacity to attain a “black box” status within the network of relations that it creates for itself. ANT's strengths and weaknesses, critiques and value are highlighted as well as its suitability to be used to analyse network relations partnering with critical discourse analysis methodology.

scholarly journals Competing and Contested Discourses of Citizenship and Civic Praxis

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Jill Koyama
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
Civics Education ◽  
Actor Network

In this paper, I utilize complementary features of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to trace and investigate issues of power, materiality, and reproduction embedded within notions of citizenship and civic engagement. I interrogate the often narrow and conservative political and public discourses in Arizona, as well as the xenophobic-driven civics education policy. To these, I juxtapose the enactment of citizenship by youth who use, produce, and share language materials and counter authoritative citizenship and civic discourses, especially, but not exclusively, in online contexts.  I explore the questions: In what ways are discourses of civic engagement and citizenship assembled, interpreted, understood, enacted, and contested in Arizona? What are the relationships between the civics education policy, discursive enactments of citizenship, and the youth of Mexican descent’s online civic practices? I draw on a mixture of textual (language materials) and discursive (events, acts, and practices) data collected in Arizona to argue that youth are doing critical, yet unrecognized and undervalued, forms of civic engagement online, which could be incorporated in the formal civics education curriculum.

Beyond Actor Network Theory to the Marriage of Moments

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol A Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
Partnership Agreement

In 2004, the Government of Jamaica and the Confederation of Trade Unions signed a social partnership agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which maintained the size of the public sector and wage expenditure, in exchange for no redundancies. The implementation of the Agreement unearthed unanticipated implications for the practice of power within the partnership. The ontology of Actor Network Theory, conceptualizes the MoU as an actor which, through the mechanics of translation, creates its own actor network that it seeks to inscribe with its own discourse to attain a ‘black box' status. The inclusion of discourse as a moment and use of Critical Discourse Analysis provides for the penetration of the impenetrable black box of network interaction and analytical possibilities. The paper argues for the recognition of discourse as a moment in ANT which strengthens it and affords a mode of analysis to deconstruct or explore inner distributions of power.

The Legitimating Power of Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Mustafa Menshawy
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Media Texts ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Culturally Embedded

Abstract In this article, I examine a corpus of texts that address the 1973 war; these texts cover the period from 1981 to 2011, marking the beginning and end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how Mubarak’s regime employed the war to legitimize its power and defend its policies by deploying longstanding culturally-embedded ‘macro themes’. These macro themes refer to the war as an overwhelming and undisputed ‘Egyptian victory’ and, more significantly, they portray Mubarak himself as ‘war personified/war personalized’. The analysis of linguistic and extra-linguistic features in al-Ahram newspaper (the mouthpiece of the state), among other media texts on the war, show how the discursive construction was made consistent, coherent and resonant in a managed context that characterized the political and media landscapes. Depending on unique access to those who produced, edited and even censored the texts under analysis, this method unravels a complex set of cultural messages and conventions about the war, and fills a lacuna in the literature by offering insight into the deliberate and well-coordinated process of shaping and reshaping a specific discourse for a specific purpose.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Adjectives Used with the Word Multiculturalism in British Print Media

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Sadok Abcha
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Key Word ◽  
Critical Insight ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Right ◽  
Insight Into

The present paper critically analyses the ideological uses of the adjectives used to describe multiculturalism in opinion articles published by two British quality newspapers, The Telegraph and The Times, which politically lean to The Right. Methodologically, the sample on which this study is based has been retrieved from the websites of the two dailies by means of the Key Word In Context (KWIC) technique, which has been used to look for comment articles published between July 2005 and December 2015, and in which the search word, multiculturalism used with an adjective featured. Using Fairclough’s theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study pinpoints the ideological underpinnings of the adjectives used with the word multiculturalism in the editorials. The study found out that all the adjectives are used in a derogative way to describe multiculturalism as being unreasonable, harmful and unsuccessful. Significantly, this paper provides critical insight into the peculiar uses of derogative adjectives in comment articles dealing with multiculturalism and avers that negative adjectives are not simply linguistic elements, but most importantly, ideological tools.

scholarly journals Settlers, Sell-outs and Sons of the Soil: The Creation of Aliens in Zimbabwe and the Challenge for Higher Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Munyaradzi Hwami
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Great Zimbabwe ◽  
To Come

The contemporary colonial world is witnessing struggles for domination and existence that have led to exclusion of some groups on the basis of parameters defined by the powerful. This contribution observes practices and policies of belonging and exclusion developing in Zimbabwe and argues that higher education should take the lead in discussing and proposing citizenship education that would produce cosmopolitan patriots, responsible and tolerant citizens. The discussion is a critical discourse analysis of dominant colonial forces of authoritarian nationalism and neoliberalism supplemented by personal experience and engagement with students and faculty at the Great Zimbabwe University. What has been observed is the failure of civil society and state led programmes in this endeavour and the honours rests with higher education institutions to develop citizenship education rooted in ideals that critique hegemonic discourses. This demands a change in perspectival foci and this study advances the adoption of anti-colonial liberationist perspectives as one of the options if an end to classification of citizens as aliens and patriots is to come to an end.

scholarly journals What Do You Mean Your Staff Is Like Family?

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerome Cranston
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Analysis Approach ◽  
Teacher Behaviour ◽  
Adult Relationships ◽  
Staff Relations ◽  
Insight Into

This article explores the potential for critical discourse analysis to provide insight into the language principals use to describe the adult relationships within schools. Unpacking the discourses of leadership may shed some light on how language strategically shapes the thoughts and actions of principals. In particular, the invoking of “family” to conceptualize staff relations is analyzed from a critical discourse analysis approach. Drawing on this analysis, the author offers cautions regarding how such poignant metaphors can serve as control strategies for sanctioning teacher behaviour.

Applications of Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Markus Spöhrer
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
International Research ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
The One

The chapter offers an international research overview of the possibilities and problems of applying Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies and media related research. On the one hand the chapter provides a summary of the central aspects and terminologies of Bruno Latour's, Michel Callon's and John Law's corpus of texts. On the other hand, it summarizes both theoretical and methodological implications of the combination of Actor-Network Theory and strands of Media Studies research such as discourse analysis, Production Studies and media theory.

scholarly journals Functional-Stylistic Analysis of Pre –Election Campaign Discourse

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-20
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Political Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Usa ◽  
To Come

The paper examines expressive means in D. Trump’s and H. Clinton’s pre-election discourse, which is considered in syntactic level, the field of the pre-election campaign 2016. Pre-election discourse is a topical direction of modern linguistics as in the period of holding of election campaigns the activity of political figures who use multiple linguistic means aimed at making electors’ to come to a necessary decision increases considerably. The analysis is conducted on official websites of both politicians, opened for the elections held in 2016 in the USA. It focuses on the expressive means in the texts of politicians in the first, second and third debates. The study is based on the theory of critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2009), political discourse analysis and the theory of expressive analysis. The structural analysis shows the most wide-spread expressive means functioned in the texts of both politicians. А content analysis is viewed as expressive means (ellipse, reduplication, parceling) of the pre-election discourse to compare the number of expressive means used in both politicians’ discourse. The research gives a description and analysis of the expressive means in pre-election discourse.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document