Investigating Texts about Environmental Degradation Using Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistic Techniques

Abstract Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) investigates the relationship between language, power, and society. Corpus linguistics (CL) is the study of language based on examples of real life language use. Over the last two decades, various scholars have combined some approaches and notions of CDA with the analytical framework of CL to examine the representation of several phenomena in relatively large texts. This study follows a corpus-assisted (critical) discourse analysis approach to investigate a 2.5 million word corpus of Arabic news articles by Jordan’s News Agency (PETRA). It demonstrates how some researchers following this approach may make some decisions, at some stages of their analysis, which are likely to affect their findings. These potential decisions may include selecting what statistical measures to use, what threshold to consider, what terms from the frequency, cluster, and collocation results to further investigate, which concordance lines to include in their study, and some others. In this study, I argue that some of these decisions can be made to suit the researchers’ preconceived assumptions and pre-existing hypotheses. The study concludes that using corpus linguistic techniques to discursively analyze large data reduces but not completely removes researchers’ bias.

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Counter-discourse corpora, ethical subjectivity and critique of argument

Journal of Language and Politics ◽

10.1075/jlp.13.1.09oha ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 781-813 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kieran O’Halloran

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Political Change ◽

The Other ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Web Based ◽

Content Type ◽

Argument Evaluation ◽

Corpus Linguistic ◽

Ethical Subjectivity

In the article, I model an alternative critical discourse analysis (CDA) pedagogy which is based on an ethical subjectivity instead of a political subjectivity. Aimed at undergraduates, it facilitates critical purchase on arguments which attack the standpoint of relatively powerless groups/organizations (who seek political change). Via corpus linguistic analysis of appropriate web-based data, I show how the analyst can rigorously find out at scale the recurrent key concerns of a relatively powerless Other with whom they were previously unfamiliar. They use this counter-discourse information as a lens on an argument which criticises the relatively powerless group, ascertaining whether or not the argument has distorted the group’s key concerns. Should this be the case, I highlight how the analyst can go on to explore whether any mischaracterisation has implications for the argument’s credibility because it loses coherence relative to the outlook of the Other. The approach is grounded in Jacques Derrida’s ‘ethics of hospitality to the Other’. It is in being hospitable to the outlook of a relatively powerless Other, and adopting it for purposes of argument evaluation, that the analyst effectively creates an ethical subjectivity. That said, the ethical and political are, in principle, relatable with this method as I indicate.

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“Learn to blend in!”

Equality Diversity and Inclusion An International Journal ◽

10.1108/edi-12-2017-0270 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 37 (7) ◽

pp. 698-712 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Cathrine Norberg ◽

Ylva Fältholm

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Content Type ◽

Corpus Linguistic ◽

Linguistic Methods ◽

Industry Needs ◽

Masculine Culture ◽

Point Of Departure ◽

Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute with increased knowledge about gender in mining by exploring how women are discursively represented in texts produced by actors in the international mining arena. Design/methodology/approach The study combines corpus linguistic methods and discourse analysis. It implies a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, where the former is used as the point of departure for the latter, and where the material analysed is chosen on the basis of certain selected search phrases. The source for the study is the web, and the search engine used for the retrieval of data is WebCorp Live, a tool tailored for linguistic analysis of web material. Findings The analysis reveals that although the overarching theme in the women-in mining discourse is that women are needed in the industry, the underlying message is that women-in-mining are perceived as problematic. Practical implications The study shows that if mining is to change into a modern industry, the inherent hyper-masculine culture and its effects on the whole industry needs to be problematised and made evident. To increase the mere number of women, with women still heavily underrepresented, is not enough to break gender-biased discrimination. Originality/value The research contributes with new knowledge about gender in mining by using a method, which so far has had limited usage in (critical) discourse analysis.

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Fundamentalist and tolerant islamic discourse in john updike’s terrorist and jonathan wright’s translation the televangelist: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of semantic prosody

International Journal of Linguistics Literature and Culture ◽

10.21744/ijllc.v5n6.747 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (6) ◽

Author(s):

Ahlam Ahmed Mohamed Othman

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Corpus Linguistics ◽

Linguistic Analysis ◽

The Other ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Data Selection ◽

Corpus Linguistic ◽

Other Hand ◽

Semantic Prosody

Corpus-based critical discourse analysis studies have gained momentum in the last decade. Corpus Linguistics allowed critical discourse analysts to avoid bias in data selection and enlarge their samples for more representative findings. Critical Discourse Analysis, on the other hand, gave depth to corpus linguistic analysis by contextualizing it. The present study combines the two approaches to analyze the semantic prosody of Islamic keywords common to John Updike's Terrorist published in 2006 and Jonathan Wright’s translation The Televangelist published in 2016. The results of the corpus-based analysis show that while the semantic prosody of Islamic keywords is negative in Updike’s novel, it is highly positive in the translated novel. The conclusion is that Van Dijk’s proposition of the polarized representation of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ holds for Updike’s fundamentalist Islamic discourse which negatively represents Islam and Muslims. However, Van Dijk’s proposition holds only partially for Wright's tolerant Islamic discourse which positively represents Islam and Muslims without misrepresenting the other.

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What They Do Not Talk about When They Talk about Radicalism: (A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis on Islamic News Portals in Indonesia)

MediaTor (Jurnal Komunikasi) ◽

10.29313/mediator.v13i2.5859 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 178-190

Author(s):

Oemar Madri Bafadhal ◽

Nurly Meilinda ◽

Krisna Murti ◽

Anang Dwi Santoso

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Clear Definition ◽

Information Function ◽

Corpus Linguistic ◽

The Media ◽

Definition Of

The lack of a clear definition of radicalism leads Islamic organisations to feel entitled to interpret it. It results in contention for the meaning of radicalism and forms a different reality for each reader. By taking a case study on two spectra of Islamic organisations, moderate Islamic organisation (NU Online) and Islamic extremist organisation (Portal Islam), this study aims to understand the construction of radicalism in two Islamic news portals. We utilised a dataset of news about radicalism from September 2018-2019 and analysed it using a combination of corpus linguistic (CL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA). While CL helped to reveal emerging discourses, CDA intended to observe the patterns and relate them into socio-political contexts critically. The results indicate that each site was blurring the information function of news portals into a propaganda function. They also generate fragmented knowledge, which leads to a misrepresentation of paradigm towards radicalism. This leads to discriminatory actions against other groups. The meaning of radicalism in the media may encourage group dichotomy, which is counterproductive to countering terrorism in Indonesia. This study contributes to a comprehension of the terrorism phenomenon by providing a closer view of how moderate and extreme Islamic organisations interpret radicalism.

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A critical discourse analysis to explain the failure of BoP strategies

Critical Perspectives on International Business ◽

10.1108/cpoib-08-2018-0066 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Nancy E. Landrum

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Environmental Degradation ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Base Of The Pyramid ◽

Convenience Sample ◽

Content Type ◽

Strength Based ◽

Subsistence Markets

Purpose This paper aims to highlight differences between business and non-business literature regarding base of the pyramid (BoP) and subsistence contexts and reveal discourse’s powerful role in influencing goals, solutions and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses critical discourse analysis to review a convenience sample of business versus non-business literature on the BoP and subsistence contexts. Findings Discourse used in business literature on the BoP is oriented toward hegemonic Western capitalist approaches that result in the depletion of resources, resource inequalities, poverty and increased consumption, dependence and environmental degradation and, therefore, cannot alleviate poverty. Research limitations/implications There are two primary limitations: the study relied on a convenience sample that was not random and comparatively, the business BoP literature is not as mature as the non-business subsistence literature and, therefore, the BoP field of study is not yet fully developed. Practical implications Discourse has a powerful role in revealing assumptions and guiding actions. A change in BoP discourse toward a strength-based approach can serve as a model of sustainability and can help powerful entities enact structural and systemic change. Originality/value This paper reveals the role of discourse in business BoP literature and how it perpetuates and even exacerbates the problems they were designed to alleviate: depletion of resources, resource inequalities, poverty and increased consumption, dependence and environmental degradation. The paper challenges researchers, economists and powerful guiding entities to reorient their discourse of the BoP to be more aligned with those of non-business researchers of subsistence markets.

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Electronic deconstruction

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics ◽

10.1075/ijcl.17.1.04oha ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 91-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Kieran O'Halloran

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Jacques Derrida ◽

Point Of View ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Critical Approach ◽

Corpus Linguistic ◽

Interpretative Bias

This article introduces a corpus-based procedure for revealing tensions in a text which seeks to persuade an audience into a particular point of view on a particular topic, tensions which may otherwise be difficult to see; the text is thus deconstructed and loses credibility. I refer to this corpus-based, critical approach to revealing tensions in such texts as Electronic Deconstruction. In drawing on corpus linguistic method for this end, as well to help reduce interpretative bias, the article bears resemblance to Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis. However, in two crucial respects it is different. This is because: i) its corpus-based, deconstructive focus is cohesion in a text which seeks to persuade an audience into a particular point of view and ii) it takes its theoretical stimulus from the work of Jacques Derrida.

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