The aim of the paper is to explore the discourse strategies of the Party of Labor of Albania to eliminate its enemies in the early years of establishing communism in the country. The contention is that PLA and its leaders made possible the elimination of thousands of people by normalizing the process. The enemies of the party were declared enemies of the people and as such, they had to disappear in one way or another, so that the integrity of (...) the body politics could be preserved. The class enemy was considered a parasite that should be eliminated in the name of social prophylaxis. By using discourse analyses the paper will investigate the discursive strategies followed by the communist party and its leader when addressing the class enemy. Speeches of Enver Hoxha in Party Congresses, Plenums, and gatherings with people will be analyzed. Only by normalizing the process of elimination of everyone who was depicted as an enemy, did the communist party make possible the elimination of thousands of people. Normalization is understood as the standardization of the procedure so that everyone knew in advance what would happen if someone had to be declared an enemy of the people. The paper will analyze the vocabulary used to portray the class enemy and his/her destiny in specific cases. The study has analyzed the speeches given to justify the elimination of Patër Anton Harapi, Lef Nosi, Maliq Bej Bushat, dom Lazër Shantoja, dom Ndre Zadeja, and the sabotage group of the Maliqi swamp. The analysis covers the period immediately after the end of the IIWW when communists seized the power. (shrink)

Discourse analysis is a relatively recent form of inquiry without a strict step‐by‐step method. The methodology of discourse analysis has a longer history in Continental Europe than in other countries.1 The complex theoretical assumptions, the goals and the target (discourse) have been explicated, but the methodology may be applied in different ways. This paper will describe discourse analysis and give examples of some of the possible variations. It is the claim of this paper (...) that discourse analysis deserves consideration as a methodology for nursing inquiry. (shrink)

Critical discourse analysis is a useful and productive qualitative methodology but has been underutilized within nursing research. In order to redress this deficiency the research presented in this article represents an exploration of the way in which critical discourse analysis may be applied to the analysis of public debates around policy for nursing practice. In this article the author discusses the history of the application of critical discourse analysis and provides an example of (...) its application to the debate around the use of nurse practitioners within the Australian healthcare system. (shrink)

Discourse analysis has been introduced into nursing research as an approach which has the potential to offer new perspectives and to pose new questions to taken‐for‐granted assumptions. However, critique has arisen that when applied to nursing studies, the epistemological foundation of the discourse analysis is often overlooked. It is furthermore claimed that the methodological inspiration does not lead to any new insights and that these studies can hardly be differentiated from more traditional studies. This study supports (...) this critique, arguing that the challenges of implementing discourse analysis in nursing research reflect a dominant pattern of thought in the discourse of the nursing profession that have held sway throughout the last century. We argue that this pattern of thought stems from the Western philosophy of consciousness and the conception of the sovereign subject. By applying a discourse analytical perspective to the discourse of the nursing profession itself, this study elucidates the challenges of applying discourse analysis in nursing research. (shrink)

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and other forms of discourse analysis are regularly used to study identity, but rarely do researchers systematically compare and contrast them with other theories to identify exactly what a discursive approach contributes. In this paper, we take the example of a particular identity – the older worker – and systematically compare the contribution of CDA with other approaches, including economics, labour market research, gerontology and cultural studies. In so doing, we show the (...) kinds of research questions that CDA can address, which other theories grappling with identity cannot. In this way, we hope to delineate more clearly what CDA is, to identify specifically how it contributes to the study of identity, and to show what it can do, compared to other theories. (shrink)

This article attempts to study the way the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar (Burma) is represented or framed in the press. The researcher selects four newspapers for this study. They are namely, Myanmar Times, Arab News, The Guardian, and Global Times. The reason behind choosing these newspapers is that it is important to illustrate how the Rohingya Muslims are framed from a Burmese newspaper, foreign newspaper, Saudi newspaper, and Chinese newspaper. Some selected news stories are analyzed from the selected newspapers. The (...) stories concern the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Pan and Kosicki (Political Communication:55?75, 1993 [ 1 ]) framework is chosen to illustrate the way the Rohingya are represented or framed in the selected newspapers. The framing analysis of the Rohingya news stories shows that each newspaper uses the discourse of the positive selves and negative others representation ideologically in the crisis. (shrink)

This paper delineates a postmodern discourse analysis that is positioned within a semiotic theory of language. This theory of language foregrounds the performative aspects of language usage and provides the theoretical space from which to theorize the interrelationship between social organizations or structure and social agents or individuals. Our version of discourse analysis contends that social structure is enacted (production and reproduction) through the employment of various vocabularies: social structure is not something outside of, behind, or (...) underneath these performances, and we argue that social organization is not produced by external structures operating upon or causing people to adopt certain behaviours. Rather, social structure is an effect of taking up practices and reproducing and modifying them. From this perspective, individuals are constituted by being recruited into and reproducing discursive practices. Hence, by looking at the actual employment of language – its tactical, practice dimensions – one can avoid the usual binary of seeing the person as either the autonomous origin of his or her experience or the ideological pawn of social determination. This methodology calls into question how the narratives or stories that individuals recount are imbricated within relational plays of power, and concomitantly, how subjects reauthorize their own positions. We assert that the methodological challenges of research addressing social injustice cannot be reduced to either: (i) interpersonal relationships between researcher and participants, or (ii) relegated to ‘social structures’ acting upon or outside of individuals. (shrink)

Despite the invaluable role that women play in the peacebuilding process, statistics still show this as a male-dominated field. Since media narratives have the power to frame reality providing the public with preferred lenses to understand it, this study asks, How do media narratives frame the role of Afghan women in conflict resolution? To address this question, we combine Frame Theory (Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58) and Critical Discourse (...) Analysis (van Dijk, T. A. (2015). Critical discourse analysis. In D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, & D. Schiffrin (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 466–485). Wiley Blackwell) to explore media narratives before and after the Taliban came into power in August 2021. The samples include 32 articles published between 2018 and 2022 on different sources ranging from traditional news outlets to magazines, newsrooms, intergovernmental organizations, and think tanks. Findings show that media narratives perpetuate unfair gendered expectations, failing to effectively render the irreplaceable role of women in peacebuilding. Frames confirm the double bind of hegemonic femininity (Schneiker, A. (2021). The UN and women's marginalization in peace negotiations. International Affairs, 97(4), 1165–1182) as women are subject to different expectations – the exception presents them as courageous, yet the norm frames them as being too vulnerable and without a voice. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze a seven-page speech delivered by Sukarno, first president of Indonesia, at the opening of the First Asia-Africa Conference where he advocated Afro-Asian unity/ solidarity as the panacea for colonialism, imperialism, and neocolonialism. Our aim, by focusing on a single text, is to demonstrate the role of an intensive analysis of ‘outstanding’ singular texts within the broad field of discourse analysis. The analysis is rooted within a positive discourse analysis (PDA) (...) framework, with special focus on lexical choices and variation, modality, intertextuality/interdiscursivity, metaphorical representations, ideological use of pronouns, indexical meaning, and strategies of argumentation. Through these rhetorical techniques, we illustrate how an independence leader constructs an emancipatory discourse aimed at reconciling the ideas and beliefs of the leaders of two continents that have a common history of colonialism. The study sheds light on the role of key speeches and political leaders in promoting an emancipatory discourse, and exemplifies how (presidential) rhetoric can be construed as offering a message of hope, strength, and inspiration while playing the role of a unifier, thereby highlighting the major underlying assumption of PDA: a commitment to a discourse of social change. (shrink)

First published in 1988, this book focuses on diversity and discourse, and collects contemporaneous research across a wide range of topics including: description, polemic, narrative analysis, DJ talk, philosophical history, conversation, children's books and nuclear deterrence. The essays demonstrate analyses of discourse in the service of stylistic inquiry, exploring relationships of text and context. This reflects the overall argument that discourse analyses aiming to represent diversity of social context will necessarily approach the task selectively, since all (...) dimensions are of potential relevance to any and every communicative manifestation. Some of contextual dimensions that are addressed include: interpersonal, socio-structural, modal, ideological, and pragmatic. (shrink)

This article presents a critical qualitative study of two opinion articles, written by two eminent scholars (Jürgen Habermas and Timothy Snyder), on the German government’s hesitant arms supply for Ukraine during the first phase of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. The main aim of the article is the uncovering of the discursive practices of critique performed by two major public intellectuals. This case study thus allows insights into the simplistic representation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in German elite media (...) discourse. The analysis focuses on actor representations and topic limitations and manipulations in the two op-eds. It is shown that both Habermas and Snyder use characteristic ways of social actor representations in their texts which exhibit their allegiances. Furthermore, both of them limit and change topics at the meso- and macro-levels of their texts in order to make their arguments sound. In closing, the critical potential of linguistic discourse analysis is shortly addressed by arguing that the context sensitive application of the categories for analyzing discourse can uncover the internal norms to which authors orient which makes them open for a critical analysis. (shrink)

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a continuously developing and problem-oriented interdisciplinary research field. It is interested in ‘analyzing hidden, opaque, and visible structures of domina...

This case study examines whether an academic listserv functions primarily as a medium for progressive discourse in which enacted power relations are collaborative or primarily as a medium for discourse in which norms are unilaterally established and off‐line hierarchical power relations are re‐enacted. A few instances of progressive norm setting and other indicators of collaborative power relations were found. However, findings overall suggest that the hierarchical power relations of the college context were re‐enacted in the listserv as revealed (...) by the manner in which the discourse was patterned by gender, rank, and role. (shrink)

This article proposes that Discourse Analysis (DA) be methodologically characterized as an analytical technique for the social sciences. To do this, it must first be situated in relation to two other methodological tools used for the study of discourse: hermeneutics and Content Analysis. Subsequently, the article will define DA, focusing on one aspect in particular: its compatibility with both qualitative and quantitative research strategies. It will then examine the usefulness of this technique in the process of (...) data construction and finally propose an assessment of this issue. En este artículo nos proponemos caracterizar metodológicamente al Análisis del Discurso (AD) en tanto técnica de análisis de las ciencias sociales. Para ello, primero, lo ubicaremos en relación con otras dos herramientas metodológicas utilizadas para estudiar el discurso: la hermenéutica y el análisis de contenido. Posteriormente, haremos una caracterización del AD, centrándonos en un aspecto en particular: su compatibilidad tanto con estrategias cualitativas como con estrategias cuantitativas de investigación. Estudiaremos la utilidad de esta técnica en el proceso de construcción de los datos. Finalmente, propondremos un balance de la cuestión. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore how metaphor is mobilized to frame and describe the lived experience of dementia in a corpus of illness narratives compiled from 10 blogs initiated and maintained by individuals diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The article is set against the background of contemporary healthcare practices and discourse around chronic illness and focuses on the metaphors that patients use to communicate about their dementia experience in relation to three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and (...) relatedness, which are essential for human well-being and are heavily challenged in complex medical situations. Results are discussed in terms of the framing metaphors provide of the emotional, psychological impact of dementia and their implications for patient-centered care. This study expands prior work by researching metaphors used for a condition that has been scarcely explored from this point of view and by focusing on the patient’s perspective exclusively. (shrink)

As a discourse genre, statements of purpose are characterized by their occluded status in the academy and by their hybrid nature. Statements of purpose are required in applications for a place in a postgraduate course, and they are requested to obtain information about the academic and professional background and skills of each applicant. A study of the genre’s linguistic and textual features is needed in Spanish to discover and understand writers’ and readers’ perception of this genre. A corpus of (...) 50 motivation letters in Spanish is analyzed here. We study the distinguishing macro- and microtextual features of this particular genre and co-occurrences between both kinds of features. At the macrotextual level, statements of purpose display prototypical rhetorical moves, which can be classified as writers’ moves and readers’ moves. On the microtextual level, modalization resources and discourse markers are discussed. This multiple perspectives analysis of the corpus shows evidence of significant co-occurrences among modalization, discourse markers, and rhetorical moves. Writers’ ideal representations of this discourse genre, which spans the academic and professional fields, can also be deduced. (shrink)

This article aims to show how discourse analysis can help identify and reinterpret the communicative practices of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, presenting them as co-constructed by the neurotypical interlocutor. The data described in the article come from three interviews with autistic adolescents. The participants completed two tasks: picture description and narrative production. The interviews were further analysed with the use of discourse analysis. The study demonstrates how the participants oriented to the interviewer’s utterances and what (...) communicative strategies they used throughout the interview. Discourse analysis is presented as an approach to the study of autistic communication, which can substantially contribute to the current state of knowledge about autism spectrum disorder, and be an invaluable help for practitioners. (shrink)

This article echoes concerns recently formulated regarding CDA’s lack of attention to cognitive science. From a cognitive pragmatic viewpoint, I argue that discourse analysis should undergo an epistemological change in order to seriously take into account what cognitive approaches have to offer, in particular as regards the automatic processing of utterances and the subsequent non-conscious evaluation of contents vis-a-vis previously held beliefs. I regard the epistemological tension in CDA as stemming from a wider tension of the same sort (...) affecting social science in general. Considering discourse as a process of interpretation and evaluation, I address briefly the influence of evidentiality as a pragmatic category in persuasive discourse and conclude that the uptake of new beliefs on the basis of discourse is oriented towards the maximization of relevance in the sense of Sperber and Wilson. (shrink)

Artificial general intelligence is a greatly anticipated technology with non-trivial existential risks, defined as machine intelligence with competence as great/greater than humans. To date, social scientists have dedicated little effort to the ethics of AGI or AGI researchers. This paper employs inductive discourse analysis of the academic literature of two intellectual groups writing on the ethics of AGI—applied and/or ‘basic’ scientific disciplines henceforth referred to as technicians (e.g., computer science, electrical engineering, physics), and philosophy-adjacent disciplines henceforth referred to (...) as PADs (e.g., philosophy, theology, anthropology). These groups agree that AGI ethics is fundamentally about mitigating existential risk. They highlight our moral obligation to future generations, demonstrate the ethical importance of better understanding consciousness, and endorse a hybrid of deontological/utilitarian normative ethics. Technicians favor technocratic AGI governance, embrace the project of ‘solving’ moral realism, and are more deontologically inclined than PADs. PADs support a democratic approach to AGI governance, are more skeptical of deontology, consider current AGI predictions as fundamentally imprecise, and are wary of using AGI for moral fact-finding. (shrink)

Previous studies have revealed the importance of studying spoken professional–client/outsider interaction, especially the Q&A session, in various professional settings. However, most of the studies are located in non-religious professional settings. This article presents research in a particular religious professional setting, daee/propagator of Islam–client/outsider interaction. The research aims to study the daees’ spoken discourse when interacting face to face with their clients/the outsiders. This particular article focuses on the analysis and discussion of the daees/propagators of Islam’s spoken discourse (...) strategies when interacting with non-Muslim individuals/potential converts who seek conversion to Islam in a communicative event called the Conversion to Islam Ceremony at a da’wah/islamic propagation center in Malaysia. Ethnographic discourse analysis is employed to examine the daees/propagators of Islam’s spoken discourse strategies in managing and maintaining involvement when interacting with their client during the Q&A session of the event. The analysis reveals that the daees, in order to propagate Islam, engage politeness strategies, topic management strategies, code-switching and humor. (shrink)

Digital technologies have changed nearly every aspect of our lives over the last two decades. As Warschauer, Zheng, and Park (2013, p. 825) put it, ‘there is little serious writing that is not done...

Dominant discourses of recovery permeate substance use research, policy, and practice recommendations around the world, exercising the power to shape the identities of people with substance use issues. Drawing on Foucauldian and intersectionality theories, this study explores power operations embedded in recovery discourses constructing a certain type of recovery for a certain type of subject. A critical discourse analysis using van Leeuwen’s social semiotic approach examines two Canadian federal recovery documents to consider the discursive representation of people with (...) substance use issues, legitimization of recovery, and interpretation of space. Findings suggest that substance use recovery discourses are entwined in a complex web of neoliberal, biomedical, and moral discourses by which stigmatized identities are (co)constructed at micro, mezzo, and macro levels. This study offers a unique and relevant opportunity to complicate the dominant recovery literature by challenging oppression, deconstructing normative identities, and facilitating the empowerment of marginalized populations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper provides a case example of interventionist discourse analysis as a tool to provoke organizational change. I focus on one ‘nexus of practice’ [Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (2004). Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. Routledge] – the Educating for Change Curriculum Conference – across 11 years to illustrate how the analysis was used to contribute to racial justice efforts. The paper contributes to a methodological and theoretical trajectory in the field of (...) Critical Discourse Studies focused on how discourse analysis can contribute to justice-oriented efforts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper provides a case example of interventionist discourse analysis as a tool to provoke organizational change. I focus on one ‘nexus of practice’ [Scollon, R., & Scollon, S.. Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. Routledge] – the Educating for Change Curriculum Conference – across 11 years to illustrate how the analysis was used to contribute to racial justice efforts. The paper contributes to a methodological and theoretical trajectory in the field of Critical (...) Discourse Studies focused on how discourse analysis can contribute to justice-oriented efforts. (shrink)

This article explores the comedic construction of national identity in Nigerian stand-up comedy. By national identity, I mean collective perspectives on the sociopolitical and cultural realities of postcolonial Nigeria. While critical discourse analysis provided the framework for interpretation, data was derived from purposively sampled recorded videos of Nigerian stand-up comedians. Such collective perspectives are constructed when a comedian indexes cultural/political events and situations in a monologue. The investigation reveals four identity mapping strategies: performing theatrical identities, using the comedy (...) voice to indicate multiple identities, constructing a trickster identity and constructing a resilient spirit identity. These strategies entail foregrounding assumptions about the Nigerian state and using language in a strategic way to indicate sociopolitical and cultural realities. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing project of developing a specifically critical realist approach to discourse analysis. This is important not just because critical realist researchers n...

This paper aims to provide insights into the Malaysian newspaper reports on apostasy cases in the country. Being a Muslim country with multi-religions, apostasy is highly sensitive hence any issues related to apostasy need to be carefully managed. Four keywords were used to identify newspaper reports for the analysis. Two newspaper reports met the selection criteria and were analysed using a discourse analysis approach focusing on Grammatical Analysis, Macrostructures, and Rhetorical Structures. The analysis reveals that (...) the report in New Straits Times, which is the right-wing newspaper, carries the voice of anti-apostate and disapproves the act of renouncing Islam. On the other hand, the report in The Malay Mail, which is the left-wing newspaper, carries the voice of pro-apostate. By deconstructing the newspaper reports, this paper contributes to the understanding of the agendas that have been subtly set in the news. This paper concludes that the two reports have been strategically constructed to serve the interests and promote the ideology of the two competing groups in the country, thus creating a balance in the multi-religious context. (shrink)

In disability studies, social and medical explanatory models are seen as being conflicting or mutually exclusive, and as mystifying respectively bodily impairment and the agency of social and environmental factors. This article uses critical discourse analysis to discuss the relationship between such models in policy documents produced by The Norwegian Federation of Organizations of Disabled People. Analysis of key topoi in the policy documents shows that they display elements of both social and medical discourse, and that (...) the consequences of medically defined impairments are used as justifications for policy interventions in a framework of social justice. While a strict version of the social model is adopted in general programmatic documents, arguments about specific policy fields conceptualize disability as a property of individuals — traditionally, a medical model framing. Analysis of topoi is shown to be a useful tool when CDA is applied to policy texts. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to the significance of incorporating decolonial methodologies in analyzing political discourse in a postcolonial world, particularly in Africa. The decolonial approach to...

Spatial planning policies are fundamental blocks for the implementation of sustainable development goals. Still, despite the growing adoption of environmental proxies, as it is nature-based solutions, the study of their institutionalization in policy and spatial planning is in the early stages. Simultaneously, the use of discursive and interpretative methods to unfold the social structures related to environmental issues is growing, nonetheless, their application is more common to supranational narratives. This article proposes a conceptual and methodological approach to using critical (...) class='Hi'>discourse analysis for studying the institutionalization and conceptualization of nature-related issues in policy and spatial planning at national and local levels. This is done by discussing the ontological relations between the discursive institutionalist theory and critical discourse analysis as a methodology. It contains four main stages: clarifying the analytical focus; mapping policy and planning documents; analyzing macro discourse, which includes critical textual analysis, text-type analysis, and intertextuality analysis, and, at last, the fourth phase, interpretation within the institutional context. It provides a tool for researchers less familiar with linguistics but interested in performing discourse analysis to understand the integration of environmental narratives within policy and spatial planning. (shrink)

Analysing language data systematically and looking closely at how people formulate their thoughts can reveal astonishing insights about the human mind. Without presupposing specific subject knowledge, this book gently introduces its readers to theoretical insights as well as practical principles for systematic linguistic analysis from a cognitive perspective. Drawing on Thora Tenbrink's twenty years' experience in both linguistics and cognitive science, this book offers theoretical guidance and practical advice for doing cognitive discourse analysis. It covers areas of (...) analysis as diverse as attention, perspective, granularity, certainty, inference, transformation, communication, and cognitive strategies, using inspiring examples from many different projects. Simple techniques and tools are used to allow readers new to the subject easy ways to apply the methods, without the need for complex technologies, whilst the cross-disciplinary approach can be applied to a diverse range of research purposes and contexts in which language and thought play a role. (shrink)

This is the first collection to bring together well-known scholars writing from feminist perspectives within critical discourse analysis. The theoretical structure of CDA is illustrated with empirical research in Eastern and Western Europe, New Zealand, Asia, South America and the US, demonstrating the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining particular gender(ed) orders. These studies deal with texts and talk in domains ranging from parliamentary settings, news and advertising media, the classroom, community literacy programs (...) and the workplace. (shrink)

GILLETT K. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 297–307 A critical discourse analysis of British national newspaper representations of the academic level of nurse education: too clever for our own good?This critical discourse analysis examines articles about the academic level of nurse education that appeared in British national newspapers between 1999 and 2009. British newspaper journalists regularly attribute problems with recruitment into nursing and nursing care to the increasing academic nature of nurse education. It is impossible to separate (...) discourse about nurse education from the wider nursing discourse. Many journalists laud a traditional and stereotypical construct of nurse identity and suggest that increasing nurse education produces nurses who are ‘too clever to care’. This article argues that whilst nurses lack a voice in the National press, they have little input into the construction of newspaper discourse about nurse education and subsequently, limited influence on resulting public opinion, government policy and the morale of nurses. (shrink)

Topoi in Critical Discourse Analysis Topos is one of the most widely-used concepts from classical argumentation theory. It found its way not only in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics; it found its way in everyday life and everyday conversation as well.In this article, I will examine the role that topoi play in Critical Discourse Analysis. Starting with definitions from Aristotle and Cicero, contrasting them with new conceptualisations by Perelman and Toulmin, and examining the superficial use of (...) topoi in everyday conversation, I will try to show that Critical Discourse Analysis relies mostly on simplified, unreflected use of topoi as found in everyday use, thus neglecting much more productive, theoretical elaborations of the concept. (shrink)

Prisoners signify: a political discourse analysis of mental illness in a prison control unitIncreasingly, US prisoners diagnosed with mental illness are housed in control units, the most restrictive form of confinement in the US prison system. This situation has led to intense debate over the legal, ethical and clinical status of mental illness. This is a semiotic struggle with profound effects, yet most related work treats mental illness as a neutral, individual variable. Few analyses locate mental illness within (...) a larger sociopolitical context. Fewer still focus on discursive practice. None critically analyze the accounts of control unit prisoners, who talk about extreme marginality and risk for victimization. This paper has two aims: (i) to develop a systematic method of analysis that accounts for signification as discourse‐in‐action; and (ii) to show how prisoners’ signification of mental illness articulates agency through and against marginalizing discourse. Political discourse analysis demonstrates how control unit prisoners with psychiatric diagnoses signify mental illness, and articulate safer identifications in the process. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 551-565.