Discourse & Society

In order to extend knowledge about the communicative aspects of intimate partner violence (IPV), we ask how those who talk about IPV frame the relationship between gender and power. How does their framing account for the role of gender in IPV perpetration? A critical discourse analysis of conversations from focus groups and interviews reveals that when participants talk about IPV, they rely on ideological dilemmas in available understandings of the relationship between gender and power. As participants use disclaimers, competing interpretive repertoires, and extreme case arguments to navigate these dilemmas, their talk closes space for a critique of gender and power that considers systemic factors and benevolent sexism. Instead, participants focus more on individual pathology and the most overt forms of sexism. The tensions that produce this closure may also reveal contradictions that provide opportunities for reshaping public conversations about IPV and its relationship to gender and power.

Racism has taken on subtle forms that are hard to notice unless given careful attention. In the era of globalization, interpreting racism becomes more complicated in that globalization intensifies both racist and anti-racist reactions. This article examines how racism in the global age has evolved into a subtler form. Using both frame analysis and critical discourse analysis, I examine the Korean media’s discourse around migrants in the past two decades (1990–2009). Findings show that the dominant attitude taken by the Korean media toward migrants has been positive, which is counter-intuitive considering Korea’s notorious ethnocentrism. However, a critical discursive approach reveals that these positive discourses have a variety of effects: they ironically ‘victimize’ and ‘objectify’ migrants, overlook the question of how to empower migrants, and reveal misunderstandings over what it means to embrace diversity. I conclude that in Korea, where the tension between globalization and nationalism is intense, racial prejudice becomes more disguised under the cliché of political correctness, such as the rhetoric of multiculturalism and diversity.

The current article addresses person deixis in the last three speeches of the ousted president of Tunisia (OPT) from the perspectives of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and cognitive-pragmatics. It takes deixis to be individuated in the ‘indexical field’ by the deictic center, who fills them from within the social field at his/her discretion with ‘social roles’. The way the filling takes place is a function of social proximity to or distance from the deictic center, which manipulates the constructed categories either closer to the CENTER or to the PERIPHERY of the image schema. In particular, it is argued that the OPT as a deictic center has constructed in the first two speeches two deictic categories, which would be called ‘wandering WE’ after and a peripheral THEY, through which he tried to maintain the political status quo and blame responsibility for the events on others. However, in the last speech, the OPT constructed two indexical dyads, namely I-YOU and WE-THEY. This shift is explained as an effort on the part of OPT to reproduce social power abuse, dominance, and inequality by way of making political concessions. Despite this, the shift is not felt to have created communality and closeness with the addressees since the policy of exclusion, authority, and domination precluded these concessions from being persuasive enough for the ‘Jasmine Revolt’ in Tunisia not to resist this power and go for regime change.

This article presents findings from a critical historical analysis of UK education policy discourse from 1972 onwards. It argues that the pronoun we was introduced as an important rhetorical tool by which New Labour was able to legitimate its policy decisions through the idea of a neoliberal ‘consensus’ on the context of education, while at the same time articulating a ‘politics of inclusion’. The study combined a corpus-aided approach to critical discourse analysis with political economic theory in order to interpret the data in relation to its historical context of a profound rethink of the relationship between education, the state and the economy. The analysis reveals how the flexible semantics of person deixis are exploited in a highly systematic way so as to claim consensus over politically contestable claims.

The present research aimed at spotting any possible biased coverage a typical Western newspaper such as The Economist gives to the issue of Iran’s nuclear power program at large and specifically to the way in which the main actors involved in the controversy are portrayed and the actions thereof – most notably, the act of delegitimating Iran’s nuclear program – are represented. To this end, a critical discourse analytic approach centered around Wodak’s ‘discursive strategies’ and Van Leeuwen’s representational resources was applied to 23 argumentative articles of The Economist, all dealing exclusively with Iran’s nuclear contention. The results showed that the differential treatment the Western paper gave to the issue at hand, in terms of scope and complexity, was in line with the advocated policy of the aforementioned paper, that is imposing more sanctions on the country.

What are the preferred styles of women’s talk among young Chinese, who, at least in urban China, spend much time interacting online? Using controversial episodes from a popular matchmaking show in China as the basis of discussion, we invited college students to participate in three synchronous online focus groups to discuss issues related to women’s talk in contemporary China. We identified five major themes associated with their observations and notions about women’s talk in everyday life: sharp talk, humor, lady talk, baby talk, and cursing. We observed that changing ideologies and internal tensions and inconsistencies among governments, media, and citizens mean that expectations for women’s talk are not a constant, but are always tied to historical changes and challenges. At a methodological level, we suggest that the creative use of new communication technologies can provide a more familiar and practical way of asking and answering questions about language and gender.