Multimodal Cultural Text (9)

COMM 111

Discourse

A way of looking at texts as part of broader systems of knowledge that enable/constrain certain ways of thinking and doing

Discourse Analysis

• Production, distribution, and consumption of multimodal cultural texts

• Formal properties of texts, lexicogrammatical choices and their function, the transmission and cognition of ideas

Discourse analysis entails

• Describing the features of texts within a discourse — what?

• Interpreting the effects of texts within a discourse — why?

• Explaining the underlying conditions of texts within a discourse — how?

The Formal Approach - Zellig Harris

• Focuses on discourse viewed as language beyond the boundaries of isolated sentences, or in other words, above the level of the clause

• Popularised the idea of looking at how sentences

• Focuses on two main features

  • Cohesion

  • Coherence

  • Cohesion + Coherence = Texture

Cohesion - The Formal Approach - Zellig Harris

• The formal features of texts. The grammatical and lexical devices that connect

• About the connecting devices we use to conne

Coherence - The Formal Approach - Zellig Harris

• The extent to which the formal features of texts are logically organised, such that the reader/listener is able to infer intended meanings

Functional Approach - Michael Halliday

Approach focuses on discourse viewed as language used to achieve things in specific contexts

Lexicogrammar denotes a way of looking at the interdependence of lexical (vocabulary) and grammatical structures in texts

Discourse, from this view, cannot be fully understood without context

When we say/write things, we’re doing things such as

• Apologising, promising, persuading, threatening

This logic can be extended to all communicative modes involved in the process of semiosis (meaning-making)

Systems Functional Linguistics - Michael Halliday

• Leads us to understand that language performs three broad metafunctions

  • Experiential (capturing experiences of reality)

  • Interpersonal (establishing participant relations)

  • Textual (cohesion, coherence, and textuality)

• The production of texts involves multiple metafunctional choices, choices reflect ideologies and have societal consequences

The Social Approach - Michel Foucault

• The transmission and cognition of ideas

• This approach focuses on discourse viewed as a communications that are part of a larger system, through which identities and realities are constructed

• According to this approach, knowledge is constructed through discourse, that means that all discourse is in inherently ideological

• Access to discourse is disproportionate. Certain groups have preferential access to certain channels of communications and discourse, and therefore wield greater power over knowledge

• Dominance is thus seen as key to understanding how dominance is sustained/resisted

• Discourse can be manipulated to advance certain versions of reality and naturalise certain societal conditions

• Because discourse is always ideological, it always has an agenda. Disproportionate access to discourse means that dominant discourses tend to prioritise certain interests over others

Multimodal Discourse Analysis

• Considers many semiotic modes and how they interact together to construct meaning in texts and discourses

• Rooted in Hallidayan SFL (systemic functional linguistics). As such, images are seen to follow the same (functional) principles as language. Images are thus seen as choices that:

  • Convey certain versions of reality (Experiential Metafunction)

  • Construct relationships between participants (Interpersonal Metafunction)

  • Create visual cohesion and coherence (Textual Metafunction)

Experiential Metafunction - Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Image choices construct representational meaning by depicting objective realities in subjective ways

Interpersonal Metafunction - Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Image choices construct interactive meaning by establishing image/viewer relationships

Textual Metafunction - Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Image choices construct compositional meaning through information valuing, framing, and saliency

Metaphors - Conceptual Metaphor Theory

• Suggests that one thing is another thing or symbolically equate two different things for rhetorical effect

• Commonly deployed in media texts as semiotic devices

• Conceptual (mental) operations reflected in human language that enable speakers to structure and construe abstract areas of knowledge and experience in more concrete experiential terms

• Commonly used in political communication, media journalism, and other discursive arenas to manipulate audiences and promote certain agendas

• Useful semiotic device that can be used to:

  • De/emphasise certain features

  • De/legitimise certain arguments

  • Un/favourably equate distinct concepts

  • Distort societal realities

Conceptuality - Assumptions - Conceptual Metaphor Theory

• Metaphors are not only linguistics, they also reflect how concepts are organised in our minds, enabling us to understand one things in terms of another

• Metaphor is not just a linguistic phenomenon. Rather, linguistic metaphors reflect how concepts are organised in our minds. Hence, conceptual.

Conventionality - Assumptions - Conceptual Metaphor Theory

• Metaphors are conventional; they are not the exclusive conserve of creative writing but rather pervasively deployed in everyday languages

• The regularity with which difference languages employ similar conceptual metaphoric combinations suggests that Source/Target domains of experience correspond to neural mappings in the brain

Correspondence - Assumptions - Conceptual Metaphor Theory

• Metaphors involve corresponding abstract (target) and concrete (source) domains; abstract (target) domains are understood in terms of concrete (source) domains that are grounded in experience

Conceptual metaphor is a way of

THINKING

Life = a journey

(we think of life in terms of a journey)

Linguistic metaphor is a way of

EXPRESSING

I’m at a crossroads in life

(we speak of life in terms of a journey)

Categories of Metaphor

• Oriental

• Ontological

• Structural

Oriental - Categories of Metaphor

These structures concepts linearly, orienting them to respect with nonmetaphorical linear orientations

Ontological - Categories of Metaphor

• These involve the protection of entity or substance status on something that does not have that status inherently

• Associate immaterial concepts (target)

Structure - Categories of Metaphors

• These involve the structuring of one kind of experience or terms of another kind of experience or activity

• Associate abstract experiences (target) with simplified experiences (Source)

  • LIFE (Target) = GAME (Source)

  • The odds were stacked against them

Critical Linguistics

• Paved the ways for Critical Discourse Studies by thinking about discourses in terms of:

  • Sites of struggle (where ideas compete for dominance)

  • Systems of choices (lexical/grammatical/visual/gestural)

  • Social practices (discourse shapes society, society shapes discourse)

Critical Discourse Analysis - Ruth Wodak, Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk

Explicitly rooted in the major tenets of Critical Theory

• Marxism + Empirical Interdisciplinary Research = Social Theory

• Critique = Emancipatory — critique tends to side with the worker, the oppressed, the discriminated against

• Seeks to unearth hidden structures of power and ideology

An integrative approach to Discourse Analysis that considers 

• The linguistic properties of language (Formal) 

• Language choices and purposes (Functional) 

• How language represents and constructs reality (Social) 

Characteristics of Critical Discourse Analysis

• Interdisciplinary 

  • Draws from a range of disciplines (whatever theories best suit the data) 

• Eclectic 

  • Draws from a range of theories and methods 

• Problem-oriented 

  • Focuses on social problems with semiotic features 

• Action-oriented 

  • Seeks solutions to societal inequalities 

• Social Constructionist 

  • Views norms as socially and discursively constructed 

Critical Discourse Analysis scholars tend to pursue three interrelated objectives

• Describe the strategies used to promote “naturalised” ideologies

• Interpret how choices related to sociopolitical contexts and processes

• Explain how uncovered features constitute, and are constituted by, reality

Three-Dimensional Model

• Text Practice – the micro-level, description – what are the formal properties of the text – what's going on? What language/grammar/colour/image is used 

• Discourse Practice – meso-level, interpretation – what are the effects of the text – so what? How might these speeches/images be interpreted by audiences? 

• Social Practice – macro-level, explanation – what are the underlying conditions of the text – what are the underlying conditions that produced the effects during the interpretative stage 

Text Practice - THINGS TO CONSIDER FOR THE TEST

• Inclusion/Exclusion 

  • Who and what is/is not included? 

• Naming Strategies 

  • Who is/is not named? Is there ideological squaring? 

• Transitivity - lexicogrammar 

  • Who does what to whom? Is there activation/passivation? 

• Appraisement 

  • Are there any notable lexical choices with positive/negative valence? 

• Multimodality 

  • Are there multiple semiotic modes? How are they integrated 

• Metaphor 

  • Are there any metaphoric expressions? What are the effects 

• Modality 

  • How is 'the truth' represented and qualified lexically?