Examples Of Discourse Analysis

Discourse has many definitions and can be interpreted several ways. The one that got to me the most was when Gee says, “To enact identities people people have to talk the right talk, walk the right walk, behave as if they believe and value the right things, and wear the right things at the right time and right place. Identity is a performance” (Gee 102) This explanation brought discourse to life. It shows how people constantly must put in the effort to maintain a certain identity, but once they have it they will be subjected to other people assuming details about them that are usually present in other individuals with the same identity. “Discourses is in their hands for the time and place and as they act it out, they can change it, as can any

The reappropriation of the housewife in popular culture is not only prevalent through fictional media but has also become popular in reality television. Over the last ten years Bravo’s The Real Housewives Of franchise has grown into somewhat of a phenomenon. This began in 2006 with the release of The Real Housewives of Orange County which followed the lives of a group of affluent women living in Southern California as they went about their daily life. Following the world wide success of the original show six follow up series have since been created, all following the same premise but set in different cities across America. These series follow the lives of women who live in gated communities and creates drama in discovering what is hidden behind said gates. The very title of the show itself is interesting as taking into consideration the women in which the series revolve around, The Real Housewives appears to be a somewhat paradoxical name. Although some of the women in the show are married and live within the domestic sphere, the majority of women have successful careers out with the home and a significant number of them are no longer married or have never been so. This raises the question, why are women who are not housewives represented as being so? What does this say about the portrayal of married and indeed of single women within popular culture? The Real Housewives franchise positions women as being independent, powerful and successful regardless of being either with

Gunther Kress states in “Multimodal Discourse Analysis” that the goal of multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA) is to understand the actual meaning and relationship of how meaning is created (175). Discourse analysis is very broad and in order to understand MMDA, Kress divides the chapter up into subsections with questions for titles. In the first subsection Kress states how the most common issues are partiality of language, logics and affordances of modes, rhetoric, selection and design, and recognition of semiotic work (177). Kress gives an example about how people understood an exhibition in a museum. Gunther finds that an eighteen year old girl and an eleven year old boy have very different exhibits that they admired. This simulation makes

Discourse acts as walls that constrain actions and speeches which can take the form of power (Raby, 2002, pg 430). The

The characters ought to be predictable with the ladies picture, in actuality, so as to suit their changing part in the public arena. No one understands the picture of housewife can and has been adjusted to present day ladies like Lynette or Gabrielle in Edgy Housewives. The investigation of female's sex part ought not be secluded from ladies in genuine lives. In any case, the gathering of people do have a tendency to favor those demonstrates that look and appear as practical as could reasonably be

Fairclough’s theoretical concepts regarding Critical Discourse Analysis involve both a linguistic and sociological approach to achieve a thorough understanding of a text. Fairclough conceptualised critical discourse analysis as a three-dimensional concept. By using the term ‘discourse’ to refer to the whole process of social interaction, “he identified a discursive event as simultaneously a piece of text, an instance of discursive practice and an instance of social practice.” (Henderson, 2005 p.6).

(2000) developed a model in which discourse is used as a means to make strategic changes. Their premise is that the discourse creates the social reality through the production of concepts, objects and subject positions which shape the way in which people perceive reality and react on it. Concepts are categories, relations and theories through which people understand the world and relate to one another. By using concepts the material world can be made meaningful and objects are created. Objects only make sense in terms of the concepts that are applied to them

Fairclough developed a three-dimensional framework for studying discourse, where the aim is to map three separate forms of analysis onto one another: analysis of (spoken or written) language texts, analysis of discourse practice (processes of text production, distribution and

For instance, the idea of discourse can be seen with the whole idea of 9/11. Before September 11th, 2001 the numbers “9” and “11” had no apparent meaning, but after the whole incident simply saying the numbers “9” and “11” have a whole significant meaning around the globe. The event

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach, which has been further developed on the basis of Discourse Analysis (DA) since 1970s. The insights have been expanded into a broader range of social, cultural, psychological and political practices. It is regarded as the textual study aiming to elucidate the abuses of power residing in the texts by analyzing linguistic/semiotic remarks in accordance with the existing (social, political, cultural, etc.) contexts in which those texts circulate (Wodak: 2001, 1-2; Fairclough: 1995; Huckin, Andrus, and Clary-Lemon: 2012, 107; Rashidi and Souzandehfar: 2010, 56; Economou: 2009, 42). As many linguists and scholars’ engagement with the study of CDA, there already has been several schools or genres with their representative figures. Although the history and development of CDA study is still a bit premature and there is no distinct framework of wide-recogonition, according to van Dijk (2007), there are mainly four approaches to it: 1) the Critical Linguistics (CL) developed by Fowler et al. (1979; 1991; 1996), Kress (1985); sociocultural/socio-semiotic approach proposed by Fairclough (1985; 1988; 1989; 1992; 1995; 2003; 2006); discourse-historical created by Wodak (1996, 2001) and Wodak et al. (1999); and sociocognitive approach introduced by van Dijk (1998, 2001, 2002) (Rashidi, Souzandehfar: 2010, 56-57; Economou: 42).

Discourse analysis is another method that can be used to analyze topics regarding international relations. This theory uses multiple approaches to analyze any written or oral piece of communication to look for semiotics within. Usually the particularly communication being analyzed is of speeches, communiqués, and press releases which are produced by world leaders and politicians. This analysis looks to find the meaning and significance behind the words being used. What is being said directly? What is actually meant? What tone is being used? Which words are being stressed? These are all important questions for a discourse analyst in undertaking a particular piece of communication. A discourse analyst will search for comparisons, themes,

This research will attempt to quantify the opinion and responses of women in response to gender representation of women in cinema films. This will be done through operationalising the

Van Dijk, T.A. (1993): ”Principles of critical discourse analysis“. In: Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249-283.

“The linguistic, cognitive and social processes whereby meanings are expressed and intentions interpreted in human interaction” (Jaworski, 1999)

Critical discourse analysis as defined by Van Dijk ( 1993) is not a paradigm, or school, but at most a shared perspective on doing linguistics, semiotic or discourse analysis.