Discourse Analysis

Performative Acts of Autism

by Jessica Nina Lester

Co-Authored with Trena M. Paulus

Relatively little research has aimed to understand autism from an emic perspective. The majority of studies examining... more Relatively little research has aimed to understand autism from an emic perspective. The majority of studies examining the organization of the talk of individuals with autism presume that autism organizes discourse rather than examine ways in which talk itself constructs the notion of autism. This study explored the meanings of autism performed in and through the talk of the parents of children with autism and their therapists. Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, we report on findings generated from interview data with parents and therapists. Situating this study within a discursive psychology framework, we attend to the ways in which ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ are performed, drawing upon critical notions of disability, poststructural understandings of discourse, and conversation analysis. We point to the importance of situating the construction of an ‘ordered’ or ‘disordered’ body in relationship to the exclusionary practices and policies that individuals with autism and those close to them experience daily.

Páginas web institucionales de promoción turística: el uso metadiscursivo interpersonal en inglés y español

by Francisca Suau Jiménez

In: Sanmartín, J. (ed.) DISCURSO TURÍSTICO E INTERNET, Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, pp. 125-154., 2011.

Diferencias de uso metadiscursivo interpersonal en inglés y español con especial énfasis en la persuasión.... more Diferencias de uso metadiscursivo interpersonal en inglés y español con especial énfasis en la persuasión. Características del sustrato lingüistico-cultural en las dos lenguas y consecuencias en el discurso de las web institucionales turísticas de promoción. Estudio exhaustivo basado en el Corpus COMETVAL (Corpus Multilingüe de Turismo de la Universitat de València, España).
Differences of interpersonal metadiscursive use in English and Spanish with the aim of persuading the reader. Characteristics of the linguistic-cultural substratum in both languages and consequences in the discourse of institutional web sites of touristic promotion. Study based on the COMET.VAL corpus of tourism.

Geografías del terror en Colombia.

by Iñigo Errejón Galván

(2010) Reseña del libro: "Comunidades negras y espacio en el Pacífico colombiano. Hacia un giro geográfico en el estudio de los movimientos sociales" Ulrich Oslender (2008) Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 355 pp.

(Pea)nuts and bolts of visual narrative: Structure and meaning in sequential image comprehension

by Neil Cohn

Co-authored with Martin Paczynski, Ray Jackendoff, Phillip Holcomb, and Gina Kuperberg

Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension of sequential images... more Just as syntax differentiates coherent sentences from scrambled word strings, the comprehension of sequential images must also use a cognitive system to distinguish coherent narrative sequences from random strings of images. We conducted experiments analogous to two classic studies of language processing to examine the contributions of narrative structure and semantic relatedness to processing sequential images. We compared four types of comic strips: (1) Normal sequences with both structure and meaning, (2) Semantic Only sequences (in which the panels were related to a common semantic theme, but had no narrative structure), (3) Structural Only sequences (narrative structure but no semantic relatedness), and (4) Scrambled sequences of randomly-ordered panels. In Experiment 1, participants monitored for target panels in sequences presented panel-by-panel. Reaction times were slowest to panels in Scrambled sequences, intermediate in both Structural Only and Semantic Only sequences, and fastest in Normal sequences. This suggests that both semantic relatedness and narrative structure offer advantages to processing. Experiment 2 measured ERPs to all panels across the whole sequence. The N300/N400 was largest to panels in both the Scrambled and Structural Only sequences, intermediate in Semantic Only sequences and smallest in the Normal sequences. This implies that a combination of narrative structure and semantic relatedness can facilitate semantic processing of upcoming panels (as reflected by the N300/N400). Also, panels in the Scrambled sequences evoked a larger left-lateralized anterior negativity than panels in the Structural Only sequences. This localized effect was distinct from the N300/N400, and appeared despite the fact that these two sequence types were matched on local semantic relatedness between individual panels. These findings suggest that sequential image comprehension uses a narrative structure that may be independent of semantic relatedness. Altogether, we argue that the comprehension of visual narrative is guided by an interaction between structure and meaning.

Voix de femmes songhay-zarma du Niger - entre normes et transgressions

by Sandra Bornand

published in "Femmes de paroles - Voix énonciatives et pragmatique des formes de discours", "Cahiers des mondes anciens", 3 / 2012

Au moment du remariage d’un homme, on observe – chez les Songhay-Zarma du Niger – un rituel spécifique aux mariages... more Au moment du remariage d’un homme, on observe – chez les Songhay-Zarma du Niger – un rituel spécifique aux mariages polygames, le marcanda, où les femmes, divisées entre « grandes » et « petites » épouses, se lancent dans une joute verbale d’insultes, puis chantent ensemble. Au sein de ce rituel, des chanteuses d’origine captives peuvent parfois venir chanter des chants grivois. Elles y évoquent ce dont on ne parle pas dans la vie quotidienne : la sexualité. Dans cet article, j’analyserai – sur la base d’une approche énonciative et pragmatique – le dernier chant d’une performance qui en totalise trente-deux. Celui-ci est particulièrement intéressant, car il débouche sur une altercation qui nous permettra de montrer comment ces chants de captives obéissent à des normes, bien qu’ils s’inscrivent dans la transgression, et comment cet espace transgressif, s’il est délimité, est sans cesse renégocié.

“Do you understand?”: An analysis on Native and non-native EFL teachers' questioning patterns at a Taiwanese cram school.

by Shin-Mei Kao

Kao,Shin-Mei and Weng,Wan-Chi. (forthcoming).“Do you understand?”: An analysis on Native and non-native EFL teachers' questioning patterns at a Taiwanese cram school. International Journal of Asian EFL. (Indexed by Social Science Research Network; British Education Index; Asian Education Index-Ranking 5.80). To appear in December, 2012.

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Performing identity: Touristic narratives of self-change

by Chaim Noy

Text and Performance Quarterly, 24(2): 115-138. (2004)

This article explores how identity is constituted through narrative performance. It contends that in an interpersonal... more This article explores how identity is constituted through narrative performance. It contends that in an interpersonal context of narration, a profound experience of self-change is achieved intersubjectively, in-between narrators and audiences. Performatively, the narrators’ adventurous travel-narrations, which are generated by a particular type of touristic practice—namely backpacking—collapse the divides between denotation
and expression, between the narrated events and the events of their narration. A heightened experiential state is attained when performers conversationally position their audiences in a unique role, a role that subtly implicates the audience and suggests that
it too is undergoing self-change while listening to narratives. Because performances are social events, the personal sense of self-change tourists establish materializes in the social realm, where the backpackers assume a desired social identity.

Emotions Elicited by Television Violence

by Juan Carlos Revilla

The effects of TV violence have been widely studied from an experimental perspective, which, to a certain extent,... more The effects of TV violence have been widely studied from an experimental perspective, which, to a certain extent, neglects the interaction between broadcaster and recipient. This study proposes a complementary approach, which takes into account viewers’ interpretation and construction of TV messages. Social dimensions influencing emotional experiences to TV violence will be identified and analyzed, as well as the way these emotions are construed in discourse, how they are linked to attitudes, ethical dimensions and courses of action. Eight focus groups (segmented by age, gender and educational level) were the basis of a discourse analysis that reconstructed the way audiences experience TV violence. Results show the importance of a first immediate emotional mobilisation, with references to complex emotions, and a second emotional articulation of experiences regarding repetition of scenes (type, classification and assessment of broadcasts), legitimacy (or lack thereof) of violent acts, and identification (or lack thereof) with main characters. In conclusion, the double impact (immediate and deferred) of emotions generates complex narratives that lead to a single course of action characterised by responsibility and guilt, which can only be taken into account by assuming the active role of viewer.

Horsley_Model_Citizen_Conference_Paper_2011

by Nicola Horsley

Participant Reference In The Saul Narratives: 1 Samuel 9-31

by Charles Grebe

Metaphor clusters in discourse

by Juup Stelma

Co-authored with Professor Lynne J. Cameron (now Open University).

Cameron, L.J. & Stelma, J.H. (2004). Metaphor clusters in discourse. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2): 107-136.

The phenomenon of clustering, where speakers or writers suddenly produce multiple metaphors, is widespread and... more The phenomenon of clustering, where speakers or writers suddenly produce multiple metaphors, is widespread and intriguing. This paper presents an innovative visualisation methodology for identifying and exploring metaphor clusters, comparing it to existing methods that use cumulative frequency graphs and Poisson curve fitting, and addressing issues that arise from these. Identification of clusters from the visualisation is shown to be reliable and practical, while also offering in-depth exploration across a range of discourse parameters.

Conversations aimed at conciliation between a perpetrator of violence and a victim (total 160 minutes) are analysed for clusters and their discourse functions. All techniques show clusters at two distinct time scales, of around one minute and of several seconds. Clusters in conciliation talk account for about 42 per cent of the total metaphors, and cover about 30 per cent of the discourse. Discourse work carried out in clusters includes explanation of a speaker’s perspective to the Other, appropriation of metaphors originally used by the Other, and exploration of alternative, negative, scenarios that had been possible choices for the speaker but had been rejected.

The finding that metaphor clusters are sites of intensive work relating to the central discourse purpose supports cluster exploration as a heuristic tool for discourse analysis.

"Expanding Materially-Instantiated Social & Spatial Relations: Almanac of the Dead as a Reconceptualization of History & Modernity"

by Laurie Rodrigues

My study engages Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) with Thomas Edison’s short film, “Sioux Ghost... more My study engages Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) with Thomas Edison’s short film, “Sioux Ghost Dance,” from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (c.1894). I will demonstrate how Almanac re-imagines traditional social and spatial arrangements, revealing the historically-specific space of social relations and re-announcing the spatial and temporal proportions of that space. The novel’s re-mapping of the Americas constitutes an alternatively-networked politics of pure antagonism that simultaneously betrays the discord of “coherent” networks and territorially-confined forms of modernity, but also the antagonism that belies the identitarian subject him/herself. This paper elaborates Almanac’s reading of capitalist networks and other Euro-American epistemologies as configuring a logic of stasis. Aligning Edison’s film with moments from the novel, I argue that such spatializations imagine actors within a blank space outside of history, figuring them as static scenery to the progress of modernity. Highlighting the virtual and material entanglement of spatial and social relations, Silko’s Almanac of the Dead asserts that social relations (as material practices) are limited to—and thus refigured by—the spatial formations that they actualize. The novel’s materialist strategy for resistance evades multiculturalism’s politicized and territorially-confined model of identity. Encountered in this manner, I argue that Silko’s novel performs a necessary re-configuration of alternatives to existing, static nationalisms and liberal multicultural identity politics.

"Expanding Materially-Instantiated Social & Spatial Relations: Almanac of the Dead as a Reconceptualization of History & Modernity"

by Laurie Rodrigues

My study engages Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) with Thomas Edison’s short film, “Sioux Ghost... more My study engages Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) with Thomas Edison’s short film, “Sioux Ghost Dance,” from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (c.1894). I will demonstrate how Almanac re-imagines traditional social and spatial arrangements, revealing the historically-specific space of social relations and re-announcing the spatial and temporal proportions of that space. The novel’s re-mapping of the Americas constitutes an alternatively-networked politics of pure antagonism that simultaneously betrays the discord of “coherent” networks and territorially-confined forms of modernity, but also the antagonism that belies the identitarian subject him/herself. This paper elaborates Almanac’s reading of capitalist networks and other Euro-American epistemologies as configuring a logic of stasis. Aligning Edison’s film with moments from the novel, I argue that such spatializations imagine actors within a blank space outside of history, figuring them as static scenery to the progress of modernity. Highlighting the virtual and material entanglement of spatial and social relations, Silko’s Almanac of the Dead asserts that social relations (as material practices) are limited to—and thus refigured by—the spatial formations that they actualize. The novel’s materialist strategy for resistance evades multiculturalism’s politicized and territorially-confined model of identity. Encountered in this manner, I argue that Silko’s novel performs a necessary re-configuration of alternatives to existing, static nationalisms and liberal multicultural identity politics.

Segmentation Similarity and Agreement

by Chris Fournier

Proceedings of Human Language Technologies: The 2012 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL-HLT 2012), Montreal, Canada, June 2012

We propose a new segmentation evaluation metric, called segmentation similarity (S), that quantifies the similarity... more We propose a new segmentation evaluation metric, called segmentation similarity (S), that quantifies the similarity between two segmentations as the proportion of boundaries that are not transformed when comparing them using edit distance, essentially using edit distance as a penalty function and scaling penalties by segmentation size. We propose several adapted inter-annotator agreement coefficients which use S that are suitable for segmentation. We show that S is configurable enough to suit a wide variety of segmentation evaluations, and is an improvement upon the state of the art. We also propose using inter-annotator agreement coefficients to evaluate automatic segmenters in terms of human performance.

Bankers in the Dock: Moral Storytelling in Action

by Andrea Whittle

Human Relations January 2012 vol. 65 no. 1 111-139

This article draws on insights from a variety of fields, including discursive psychology, ethnomethodology, dramatism,... more This article draws on insights from a variety of fields, including discursive psychology, ethnomethodology, dramatism, rhetoric, ante-narrative analysis and conversation analysis, to examine the discursive devices employed in the storytelling surrounding the recent financial crisis. Discursive devices refer to the linguistic styles, phrases, tropes and figures of speech that, we propose, are central to the development of a compelling story. We focus our analysis on the moral stories constructed during a public hearing involving senior banking executives in the UK. The analysis suggests that two competing storylines were used by the bankers and their questioners to emplot the events preceding the financial crisis. We propose that a discursive devices approach contributes to the understanding of storytelling by highlighting the power of micro-linguistic tools in laying out the moral landscape of the story. We argue that the stories surrounding the financial crisis are important because they shaped how the crisis was made sense of and acted upon.

Beyond "Climategate": the engineering of the politics of climate change from corporate agenda to (absence of) policy

by Amrish Bucktowarsing

MA Political Communication thesis presented at the School of Social Sciences, City University of London, 2011

Starting from the hypothesis that the politics of climate change are subject to the processes of information... more Starting from the hypothesis that the politics of climate change are subject to the processes of information management which are trying to influence policy decisions, this dissertation argues that there is reasonable evidence to suggest that the conservative press across the Atlantic indulged in “engineering consent” on the road to the Copenhagen Accord. Initial retrospection on the brief history of the politics of climate change indicate that corporations involved in the energy industry have been closely linked to the development of global policy on the subject since the 1980's. Delving on the Copenhagen COP 15 climate talks, this research first identifies and isolates components that led to the Copenhagen Accord, according to the agenda-setting process. By means of a process of reverse engineering along the latter model, it is demonstrated that the Copenhagen deal was a result of the public scepticism, which in turn was the result of a comprehensive media campaign during the build-up to the COP 15 climate talks. The focus then shifts to establishing a causality relationship between the second component – the media agenda – and the hypothesis of this dissertation, a corporate agenda as first component. Using the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, the coverage of The Daily Telegraph is compared to that of The Guardian. This contrast allows the mapping out of the different voices and viewpoints and demonstrates a clear bias of The Daily Telegraph towards, not only climate sceptic views, but also towards the voice of the business. Bearing in mind the context uncovered earlier through the agenda-setting process, Herman and Chomsky's “propaganda model” is then used to make sense of the findings from the Critical Discourse Analysis. This political economic reading produces enough elements to suggest that the media agenda was the result of a corporate agenda. Although concentrated on the coverage of only one avatar of the transatlantic conservative press, the findings of this dissertation indicate that information management processes have been in motion, trying to “engineer” the global policy of climate change towards the interests of the corporations involved in the energy industry in the midst of the Copenhagen climate talks.

Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms

by Faiz Sathi Abdullah

Co-authored with Kobra Hosseini; published in GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, Volume 12(2), Special Section, May 2012, pp. 375-392.

Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical... more Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable and dialogical teacher-student partnership and to transform the oppressive conditions of the ESL/EFL classroom, the claimed potential of the approach has had only limited success in practice. Drawing upon Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis to make for a principled analysis of EFL classroom practice, this study investigated the discoursal features of unequal power relations in Iranian high school EFL classes. The data was collected via observation of two classrooms, one located in an urban area and the other in a semi-urban area of Iran. The analysis of the observation data, which included transcripts of classroom lessons as well as field notes, indicated that teachers played a disproportionately dominant role to the extent that the students were kept
apparently passive and powerless via a range of discursive strategies including maximizing teacher-controlled talking time, turn-taking, topic control, modes of meaning-construction, and elicitation strategies. The findings of this study are expected
to provide critical and emancipatory insights into ESL/EFL classroom practice and contribute to the transformation of its status quo.

Crítica genética y sociología de redes: relaciones entre producción y reconocimiento en un caso de discurso político-religioso

by Juan Eduardo Bonnin

IV Coloquio de Investigadores en Estudios del Discurso. I Jornadas Internacionales sobre Discurso e Interdisciplina, Córdoba, 16 al 18 de abril de 2009

En este trabajo presentamos algunos resultados de nuestra investigación doctoral, dedicada al análisis de los procesos... more En este trabajo presentamos algunos resultados de nuestra investigación doctoral, dedicada al análisis de los procesos de génesis, circulación y recepción del documento del episcopado católico argentino Iglesia y comunidad nacional (1981). Para ello hemos articulado los aportes de dos campos disciplinares: a) la sociología de redes: que nos permitió explorar los actores, grupos e instituciones que participaron tanto en la producción como en la recepción del texto; b) la crítica genética: que nos proveyó de herramientas para dar cuenta del proceso de redacción a partir de la evidencia textual de cinco etapas redaccionales. El problema teórico que abordamos es el de las relaciones entre génesis textual y recepción discursiva. Para ello formulamos un interrogante de tipo práctico: ¿Qué continuidades se puede establecer entre las opciones descartadas durante el proceso de redacción de Iglesia y comunidad nacional y los efectos de reconocimiento producidos en diferentes actores provenientes de redes diversas?

Los géneros discursivos en la estratégia del episcopado católico argentino: Aspectos políticos del discurso religioso entre el autoritarismo y la democrácia

by Juan Eduardo Bonnin

Revista Signos, 43 (72), 9-30, 2010.

En este trabajo nos proponemos: a) contribuir a la comprensión de los discursos religiosos institucionales a partir... more En este trabajo nos proponemos: a) contribuir a la comprensión de los discursos religiosos institucionales a partir del análisis de la producción discursiva de la Conferencia Episcopal Argentina (CEA); b) examinar sus estrategias discursivas en el proceso de transición a la democracia iniciado en diciembre de 1983. Para ello examinamos su sistema de géneros discursivos, concentrándonos en tres que registran una significativa variación cuantitativa: las cartas políticas y las declaraciones, que son los más utilizados entre 1965 y 1983, aunque desaparecen en la etapa abierta en 1984; y los comunicados, que dejan de ser un género marginal para convertirse en el más recurrente en democracia. La pregunta que nos hacemos es: ¿implica esta variación cuantitativa un cambio cualitativo en las estrategias discursivas del episcopado argentino? Para ello comparamos los tres géneros de manera sincrónica y diacrónica en ambos períodos, adoptando la perspectiva de la lingüística del texto alemana. Los resultados del análisis muestran una reorganización del sistema de géneros que responde más a motivos tácticos que estratégicos, puesto que el comunicado absorbe las propiedades clave de las cartas y las declaraciones, adaptando un mismo sistema de creencias a nuevas circunstancias comunicativas, configuradas por la democratización política del país.