Image Schemas in Diasporic Visual Discourse: Peripheral Voices in the Selected Photographs of Afghan Migrants Living in Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (II) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Khan ◽  
Nadia Anwar
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Afghan Refugees ◽  
Visual Discourse ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
The Face ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

This study explores the socio-cognitive dynamics of the photographic representation of Afghan Refugees residing in Pakistan. It aims to reveal counter discursivity present in the images of Afghan refugees and accentuate the visual nature of this counter discourse. Data sets taken for analysis consist of five photographs of Afghan refugees retrieved from the album collection of an international photographer Muhammad Muheisen. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective based on three schools, i.e. Critical Discourse Studies, Social Semiotics and Cognitive Linguistics, the study proposed a Cognitive Grammar approach to traditional Transitivity Analysis. Cognitive transitivity analysis explored the discursive strategy of Structural Configuration by highlighting the cognitive systems such as image schemas, narrative structures and processes in both visual representations and textual taglines assigned to the images by the photographer. The findings of the study revealed the employment of CONTAINER, FORCE, SPACE, and SOURCE- PATH Schemas and dominant presence of agentive and transactional roles of Afghan refugees. The taglines of photographs revealed material processes dominating the discourse, thus, coinciding with agentive representation of Afghan refugees. The findings revealed that image schemas, narrative structures and processes, being embodied sources, preconceptual and mimetic structures, project Afghan photographic discourse as marginalized in the face of Pakistan’s Refugee Policies.

Conceptual blending and (im)politeness in political cartooning

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdel-Raheem
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Cartoons ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Political Cartooning ◽  
Context Models

Abstract This paper is meant to give an account of multimodal (im)politeness in political cartoons, drawing primarily on critical discourse studies (CDS) (in particular, Teun van Dijk’s notion of “context models” and Paul Chilton’s concept of “critical discourse moments”), blending theory (Fauconnier and Turner 2002), and speech act theory (especially Geoffrey Leech’s most recent revisions of Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s notions of negative and positive face). There is of course an abundant literature on blending theory, but the potential of this theory for analysing face-enhancing or face-threatening multimodal discourse has not been fully realised. It is shown that political cartoons can exemplify not only face attack but also face enhancement, and that blending theory can contribute to the comprehending and critique of sociopolitical action or linguistic and nonlinguistic forms of control that may operate in the world. The article thus demonstrates the value that results from merging critical cognitive linguistics and sociopragmatics.

Foreign metaphors and Arabic translation

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samia Bazzi
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
News Event ◽  
Event Based ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This paper attempts to bridge translation studies on metaphor with perspectives from cognitive and critical discourse studies. It provides a new contribution to the study of the interplay between language and politics by investigating the ideological motivations behind choices made by Arab journalists/translators in translating metaphors in reports of world events, in the Middle East in particular. The analytic approach adopted for the purpose of this study draws inspiration from cognitive linguistics, critical discourse studies, and descriptive translation studies. Through a comparative study of a corpus of news representations in Western and Middle Eastern sources, the study scrutinizes the role of metaphor in our perception of reality and interpretation of a news event. Based on an examination of the processing of metaphor in professional translations, the study concludes that metaphors can be classified into two main types in terms of media translation: the cultural type and the ideological type and that each of these is approached differently by translators. The generalized findings concerning these two types of translational patterns are supported by input from Arabic-speaking university-level students of translation studies, in the form of parallel translations by the students and notes on their subsequent classroom discussion.

How Language Use “Translates” Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-85
Author(s):  
Roxana Ciolăneanu
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Implicit Stereotyping ◽  
The Way

The chapter focuses on how language use mirrors the way people think and act. An interdisciplinary perspective will be used in the attempt to cross-fertilize insights form critical discourse approach and cognitive linguistics that will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of how the language employed conveys stereotyped ideas and metaphors that pervade (many times unconsciously) people's way of talking. Proverbs, taken as language samples potentially revelatory of some cognitive bases of the way people have been thinking and talking about women throughout time, will be analyzed. The idea that gender is socially and discursively constructed will be thus reinforced. Implicit stereotyping, a concept borrowed from social psychology, will be employed to demonstrate that unconscious exposure to stereotyped knowledge influences people's judgements and relations with other social categories. It will be equated to what is called cognitive metaphor in cognitive linguistics and ideology in critical discourse studies.

Argumentative dynamics in representations of migrants and refugees: Evidence from the Italian press during the ‘refugee crisis’

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 559-581
Author(s):  
Dimitris Serafis ◽  
Carlo Raimondo ◽  
Stavros Assimakopoulos ◽  
Sara Greco ◽  
Andrea Rocci
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Discursive Representations ◽  
The Way

The present paper analyses discursive representations and standpoint-arguments pairs, realized in articles of four mainstream Italian newspapers that report on migrants’ and refugees’ mobilization at the perceived peak of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ (2015–2017). We draw on the scholarly agenda of Critical Discourse Studies, employing tools from corpus linguistic perspectives, which allow us to generalize over the way in which the relevant minorities are represented in our corpus. Then, focusing on a smaller sample of negative representations, we outline a methodological synthesis in order to scrutinize instances of representational meaning in newspapers articles and trace what is argumentatively inferred in discursive representations. To that end we exploit tools from systemic functional and cognitive linguistics as well as the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) for the analysis of inference. In this sense, we demonstrate how discriminatory representations do not only portray migrants and refugees in a negative light but also justify discrimination through the argumentative dynamic they develop.

scholarly journals European spaces and the Roma: Denaturalizing the naturalized in online reader comments

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Catalano ◽  
Grace E Fielder
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Third Space ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Reader Comments

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union (EU), a ‘third’ space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated ‘inside’ the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this ‘third space’ in the resultant ‘moral panic’ about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on the Bulgarian/Romanian immigration issue which we then connect to anti-Roma discourse. Results reveal a view of the United Kingdom as contaminated by Roma and underscore the need for novel metaphors to be countered before they become entrenched and used as tools for political propaganda.

The grammar of temporal motion: A Cognitive Grammar account of motion metaphors of time

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Huumo
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Metaphorical Meaning ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Temporal Function ◽  
Motion Verb ◽  
Metaphorical Expression

AbstractRecent groundbreaking work in cognitive linguistics has revealed the semantic complexity of motion metaphors of time and of temporal frames of reference. In most approaches the focus has been on the clause-level metaphorical meaning of expressions, such as Moving Ego (We are approaching the end of the year) and Moving Time (both Ego-centered, as in The end of the year is approaching and field-based, as in Boxing Day follows Christmas Day). The detailed grammatical structure of these metaphorical expressions, on the other hand, has received less attention. Such details include both elements that contribute to the metaphorical meaning and those that have a non-metaphorical temporal function, e. g., tense and (central features of) aspect. I propose a model for the analysis of metaphorical expressions, building on earlier work in Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the framework of Cognitive Grammar (CG). I approach the grammatical structure of metaphorical expressions by analyzing the interplay between veridical and metaphorical systems of expressing temporal relations. I argue that these systems relate to two relevant conceptualizations of time. Veridical time (VT) is the non-metaphorical conceptualization of time, where the processual profile of the clause-level metaphorical expression resides. A metaphorical path (MP) is the metaphorical conceptualization of time as a path occupied by the metaphorical motion. A motion metaphor of time tracks the mover’s changing position on the MP against VT. I show how metaphorical expressions based on a motion verb differ from those based on a prepositional construction in grammatical and semantic terms, and how tense and aspect contribute to the conceptualization of the motion scenario. I argue that tense grounds the metaphorical motion event with respect to the speech event. All the participants in the motion event, as well as the metaphorical path itself, are present in each subsequent configuration tracked against VT by the conceptualizer. Thus tense has a wide scope over the motion scenario with Ego’s ‘now’ as a reference point, while Ego’s ‘now’ cannot serve for grounding of tense. This is why expressions such as *The meeting is difficult ahead of us are not acceptable.

scholarly journals The Politics of Voice in the Stereotypical Representation of the Pashtuns: A Critical Study of Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

2018 ◽  
Vol III (II) ◽  
pp. 385-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rab Nawaz Khan ◽  
Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

The current study is an attempt to critically analyze the role and politics of voice in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in terms of categorical and stereotypical representation of the Pashtuns. It is a critical discourse study (Norman Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of the selected data. Moreover, the data is viewed from the perspective of critical discourse studies. The novels under study are polyphonic in nature, and the characters belong to various Afghan ethnic backgrounds, like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The study concludes that the novelist's choice of the characters with their respective voices and the roles assigned to them are political, ideological and somewhat biased. The Pashtuns have been stereotypically represented by categorizing them as the social, well-educated and more or less liberal Pashtuns, the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns, extremist and fundamentalist Pashtuns, like Taliban. Misrepresentation of the tribal and fundamentalist Pashtuns as racists, ethnic nationalists, ideologists, sexists, exclusionists, traditionalists and power-abusers is indicative of the novelist's biasedness and exaggeration.

scholarly journals Trump, memes and the Alt-right: Emotive and affective criticism and praise

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 789-809
Author(s):  
Lyndon C.S. Way
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Authority Figures ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
The Ideal

Internet memes are the most pervasive and malleable form of digital popular culture (Wiggins 2019: vii). They are a way a society expresses and thinks of itself (Denisova 2019: 2) used for the purpose of satire, parody, critique to posit an argument (Wiggins 2019, see also Ponton 2021, this issue). The acts of viewing, creating, sharing and commenting on memes that criticise or troll authority figures have become central to our political processes becom[ing] one of the most important forms of political participation and activism today (Merrin 2019: 201). However, memes do not communicate to us in logical arguments, but emotionally and affectively through short quips and images that entertain. Memes are part of a new politics of affectivity, identification, emotion and humour (Merrin 2019: 222). In this paper, we examine not only what politics memes communicate to us, but how this is done. We analyse memes, some in mainstream social media circulation, that praise and criticise the authoritarian tendencies of former US President Donald Trump, taken from 4Chan, a home of many alt-right ideas. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies approach, we demonstrate how images and lexical choices in memes do not communicate to us in logical, well-structured arguments, but lean on affective and emotional discourses of racism, nationalism and power. As such, though memes have the potential to emotionally engage with their intended audiences, this is done at the expense of communicating nuanced and detailed information on political players and issues. This works against the ideal of a public sphere where debate and discussion inform political decisions in a population, essential pillars of a democratic society (Habermas 1991).

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