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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Some assumptions…
- Discourse analysis is the analysis of texts in context.
- Discourse is language in use;
- Discourse is necessarily situated in a context;
- No practice detached from a social context, and no social context is ever wholly
neutral;
- Constituted (verb) / Constructive (adj.): “language simultaneously reflects reality
(‘the way things are’) and constructs (or construes) it to be a certain way” (Gee,
1999: 28).
It reflects necessarily everything which surround this and by reflecting everything
which surround this that language also reflects the society, that is actually made by
that society which has produced that language. At the same time when we use that
specific language, within that specific or given context things are constructed or as
the same in linguistics constructs by language within a given system in a certain
way.
WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS?
Discourse analysis studies the ways sentences (written) and utterance1 (speech) go
together to make texts and interactions and how those texts and interactions fit into
our social world.
What does discourse study basically?
How those texts and interactions fit to our social world?
- the way people talk, the way people interact and communicate in some language
by means of language, interacting by studying texts, in speaking the study of
utterances and so the study of interaction.

Many people would define discourse analysis as a sub-field of linguistics, which is

the scientific study of language. Many of these sub-fields, each of which looks at a
different aspect of language. Phonology is the study of the sounds of languages
and how people put them together to form words. Grammar is the of how words
are put together to form sentences and utterances. So discourse analysis is the
study of the ways of sentences and utterances are put together [...].2
Not just the study of language, but a way of looking at language as well.
1 ENUNCIATO
2 vd。libro..
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It is not the way you study a language, is the way you look at language, the way
you understand a language. It is very important because this is what you usually
do, for ex. People like Obama, he doesn’t write its political speeches, it is written
by spin doctors3, they got their job understanding discourse which means to go
beyond the sentence level, to go beyond the text level and see the connection
among different texts.

This way at looking language is based on four main assumptions:

1. Language is ambiguous. What things mean is never absolutely clear.
Language is not/cannot be clear. Otherwise, it could be difficult to
communicate. All communication involves interpreting what other people
mean and what they are trying to do.
2. Language is always been ‘in the world’, and the way it actually works it’s
because of the community of speakers adhere to it. There were some
experiments with this some years ago with special given language made, that
is called Esperanto. Why? Because that language was not in the world, that
language lack what? The community of speakers representing that specific
type of cultures and believes.
That is language means is always a matter of where and when it is used and
what it is used to do.
3. Language and social identity it is the connection between the way I use
language by representing myself. By gestures in order to attract many people
attention, by the way you are close to people in order to express myself.. It
changes by going in other countries. Gesture is mentally connected to place,
it has got to do with the identity produced by that people, we look at
language as producer of a given identity.
Language and social identity the way we use language is inseparable from
who we are and the different social groups we belong to.
The way we use language is inseparable from who we are and the different
social groups to which we belong. We use language to display different
kinds of social identities and to show that we belong to different groups.
4. Language is never used all by itself. It is always combined with other things/
‘modalities’ such as out tone of voice, facial expressions and gestures when
we speak, and the fonts, layout and graphics we use in written texts.
3 pierre addetto alla difesa di provvedimenti impopolari con interviste, interventi in TV ecc
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Definitions of discourse
Structural or textual definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular unit of language (above the sentence level). Analysing
texts from a pragmatic point and also from a specific point.
Functional definition of discourse: Discourse is a particular focus of language use.
Like a given community of speakers where of course that type of language is
actually spoken because that would vehiculate a message.
Thinking in Jamaica, the rasta music which most of time it is in English, but what
type of English?!
Recent Approaches to DA: Discourse as social practice
M.A.K. Halliday, a linguist, that would define language as social practice.
According to Halliday language makes sense only if it connects with social
practice that it enacts. Language transform society.
In 1911, two philosophers/linguists, Sapir and Whorf , became important in the
Nazi period, in Germany. Their theory states that the structure of a language
determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic
of the culture in which it is spoken.

Discourses of food Social Practice

“Healthy Food” “Healthy lifestyle”

Influences on discourse analysis

Sociolinguistic, the way you use language in the society, the way we analyse
language in the context.
Psycholinguistics
Other non-linguistic disciplines, ex. Genres studies, culture studies, geography
Other linguistic disciplines, within the same field;
Pragmatics, has got to do with the way language changes result we gain from there
Computational linguistic

The scope of DA
For this reason D.A. examines spoken and written texts from all sorts of different
areas (medical, legal, advertising) and from all sorts of perspectives (race, gender,
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power);
D.A. has a number of practical applications - for ex. in analysing communication
problems in medicine, psychotherapy, education, in analysing written style etc.

The analysis of spoken and written language as it is used to enact social and
cultural perspectives and identities. (Gee)4
It is not only written and spoken it might be also multimodal, vehiculated within a
film, a video, a gesture etc.

Text and discourse

Text refers to a stretch ,or an extract or complete piece of writing or speech.
It refers to any communicative event.
Ex: ‘good morning’ it’s a phrase (sintagma), that might be a text
There are many perspectives to look a text

Discourse is a much wider term.

It is a collection of different texts, it has got to do with so many texts produced
within a given community. All these texts are actually produced discourse and this
discourse could represent the community speakers producing that.
It refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in context, to language
in action.

When we speak or write we always take a particular perspective on what the

‘world’ is like. This involves in taking perspectives on what is ‘normal’ and not;
what is ‘acceptable’ and not; what is right and not;

Grammar does not allow us to speak or write from perspective. (language is not
neutral).
‘Truth’ is a matter of taking, negotiating, and contesting perspectives created in and
trough language within social activities.

Language has meaning only in and through practices.

4 Migliore definizione che riassume tutto

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D/discourse analysis: an analysis of language as it is fully integrated with all the

other elements that go into social practices, e.g. ways of thinking or feeling.

The magical property of language

When we speak or write we craft what we have to say to fit the situation.
But, at the same time, we speak or write creates that very situation.
Which comes first? (chicken and egg’ question)
Language and institutions ‘bootstrap’ each other into existence in a reciprocal
process through time.

Reciprocity/Reflexivity
Language simultaneously reflects reality and constructs (construes) it to be a
certain way.
When you speak or write anything, you use the resources in English to project
yourself as a certain kind of person, different in different circumstances. If I have
no idea who you are and what are you doing, then I cannot make sense of what you
have said, written or done.
An utterance5 has meaning only if and when it communicates a who (a socially-
situated identity, e.g. the kind of person one is seeking to be) and a what (a
socially-situated activity).
Whos and whats are not really separable. You are who you are partly through what
are you doing and what are you doing is partly recognised for what it is by who is
doing it.

Situated Identities
The multiple identities we take on in different contexts.

Making visible who we are and what we are doing involves more than ‘just
language’. It involves acting/interacting/talking in the ‘appropriate’ way with the
‘appropriate’ props at ‘appropriate’ times places.
(Discourses).

- discourse = language in use

5 enunciato
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- Discourse = language plus other stuff

Differences:
❏ discourse
❏ Discourse
-> being a teacher/student/doctor is a Discourse.

Discourse - written and spoken

Different cultural models

Discourse models
different socially situated

Identies - core identity

various situations

(professional, daily life)

The four main assumptions:

- Language is ambiguous. What things mean is never absolutely clear.
- Language is always been ‘in the world’, that is language means is always a
matter of where and when it is used and what it is used to do.
- Language and social identity the way we use language is inseparable from
who we are and the different social groups we belong to.
- Language is never used all by itself. It is always combined with other things/
‘modalities’ such as out tone of voice, facial expressions and gestures when
we speak, and the fonts, layout and graphics we use in written texts.

Language is ambiguous
People do not always say what they mean, and people do not always mean what
they say!
- Language is an imperfect tool for the precise expression of many things we
think and feel;
- Whenever we communicate we always mean to communicate more than just
one thing:
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“Do you have a pen?”

figuring out process of interpretation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfN_gcjGoJo

Ambiguity occurs when a word, phrase or sentence conveys more than one
meaning at the same time, thus a word or a sentence can be understood by being
interpreted in more than one ways.

Ambiguity falls into three categories:

1. Phonetic ambiguity
2. Grammatical ambiguity
3. Lexical ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity arises when a word is polysemous, or when two or more words
are homonyms/homophones.
1) Polysemy: a word has more than one meaning. For example, the word man
is interpreted differently in man and woman (a fully-grown human male)
and the employer and his man (an employee of low rank)
2) Homonyms / Homophones: two or more words sound the same but have
different meaning. For ex., the word ‘ball’ in ‘throw a ball’ and the other
‘ball’ in ‘go to the ball’. Compared with polysemy, though the two balls
happen to be in the same form, they are originated differently, and they don’t
share the same core meaning. Another ex. is flower and flour which share
the same pronunciation as /flaʊə(r)/ though they own different forms and
meaning.

Let’s analyze the many alternate meaning of:

I saw a man on a hill with a telescope.

1. There's a man on a hill, and I’m watching him with my telescope.
2. There's a man on a hill, who I’m seeing, and he has a telescope.
3. There's a man on a hill, and he’s on a hill that also has a telescope on it.
4. I’m on a hill, and I saw a man using a telescope.
5. There's a man on a hill, and i’m sawing him with a telescope.
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We saw her duck

1. We looked at a duck that belonged to her
2. We looked at her quickly squat down to avoid something.
3. We use a saw to cut her duck.
He fed her cat food.
1. He fed a woman’s cat some food,
2. He fed a woman some food that was intended for cats.
3. He somehow encouraged some cat food to eat something.
Look at the dog with one eye.
1. Look at the dog using only one of your eyes
2. Look at the dog that only has one eye
3. (Alice, 7 歳): perhaps the dog has found an eye
somewhere, and we’re looking at the dog.

Homophone
Two or more words that share the same or similar pronunciation but different
writing forms and meanings. (vd. Bussmann 2002:284)

Ex. of homograph
A foreign student who has just begun with Chinese learning
once wrote an article with the title “A letter to my
mother”, and his first sentences was “Dear 女马女马 (nü ma nü
ma)...”

妈妈 / 女马女马
Mama / female horse female horse.

Another Ex.
● BS, MS, PhD: Bull Shit, More of the Same, Piled Higher and Deeper.
(see Nilsen & Nilsen 2000:175)
● BMW: Bavarian Must Wander
● Bayerischer Müll Wagen (Bavarian dust car).

Polyseme
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A word or phrase with different meanings (in different contexts) which share the
same meaning core. (vd. Bussmann 2002:524)

Ex. the first thing which strikes a stranger in New York is a big car.
(Esar, 1952:77, Raskin 1985:26)

Syntactic ambiguity
● A property of sentences which have more than one syntactic derivation, i.e.,
a sentence which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way.
(see Deemter & Peters 1996:XV).

Ex. - in the Frank and Ernest comic strip, Frank says to a real estate agent, “sure,
we’d like to see a model home.. What time does she get off work?” (Nilsen &
Nilsen 2000:26)

- Diner Sign: “Wanted: Man to scrub floor and two waitresses.” (N.
Stageberg)

LANGUAGE IS ALWAYS ‘IN THE WORLD’

Discourse is Language that is in some way situated.
Language is always situated in at least four ways:
1) Language is situated within the material world, and where we encounter it, whether it be
on a shop sign or in a textbook or on a particular website will contribute to the way we
interpret it.
2) Language is situated within relationships, one of the main ways we understand what
people mean when they speak or write is by referring to who they are, how well we know
them, and whether or not they have some kind of power over us.
3) Language is situated in history, that is, in relation to what happened before and what we
expect to happen afterwards.
4) Language is situated in relation to other language: utterances and texts always respond
to or refer to other utterances and texts; that is, everything that we say or write is
situated in a kind of network of discourse.

LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY (VIDEO?)

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LANGUAGE AND OTHER MODES

For linguists, MDA is concerned with accounting for the communication of
meaning within texts, issues arising from the consideration of semiotic resources
other than language, in interaction with each other and with language:
-gesture; - gaze; - proximics; - visual and aural art; - image-text relation; -page-
layout; . cinematographic and sound design and production resources;

Discourse An. is not the study of how we use language. It is also indirectly the
study of romance, friendship, psychology, politics, power, and a whole lot of other
things.

There are 3 different ways of looking at DISCOURSE:

Language beyond the clause

Language in use DISCOURSE
Language as social practice and ideology

Texts &
Interactions in
society

Language beyond the clause

Language in use DISCOURSE
Language as social practice and ideology

1. What makes this text or a conversation a text or conversation rather than just
a random collection of sentences or utterances? What holds it together so
that people can make sense of it?
2. What are people trying to do with this and how do we know?
3. What kinds of people are the authors of this text or the participants in this
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conversation trying to show themselves to be, and what kinds of beliefs or

values are they promoting?

Formal features of the text

1. Grammatical features:
- The pronoun ‘us’ in the 2nd sentence refers to Starbucks in the first,
linking the two sentences together;
- The sentence in the 2nd section and the 1st sentence, in the 3rd section
are incomplete.
2. Expectations:
- Position within the text, top and bottom, right and left.
What are people trying to do with this text and do we know?
1. Informing us (in the first sentence)
2. Telling us to do something through an imperative sentence (in second
sentence) while also indirectly implying to help Starbucks to make more
money by buying more coffee.
3. By giving the patent number of the sleeve, starbucks is not just informing
us, but is also warning us that the design for this sleeve belongs to them and
we cannot use it.
4. Their URL is not just informing us, but also inviting us to visit their
website.
Promoted beliefs/values/identities
1. Discourse of Environmentalism’
2. Discourse of Science
3. Discourse of Law

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
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Figure 2: D.A.
Sourc Experien
sour ce Knowled
e
ce ge
Shaping
Producer: Encoding belief Consum
conte Newspape Tex er:Read
conte
xt
xt
r Conventio t er
ns of Reading/
genre Decoding
consonan
Professi
purpos ce
collecti on
on e

NEWSPAPER
BROADSHEET VS TABLOID - Main features
(foglio ampio vs a colori)

● Broadsheets: newspaper printed in a large format (pages 37x58cm)

● Traditionally more serious in content than tabloids.
● (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Straits Times, The Washington Post)
● Tabloids: newspaper with pages half as large as broadsheets, usually more
highly illustrated and traditionally less serious.
● (The New Paper, The Sun, The Mirror, The Enquirer, The New York Daily
News)

Main features of a Broadsheet

● A much higher news content
● More factual and formally written
● Cost more and have a lower circulation figures than the Tabloids
● The Times is the oldest, founded in 1788
● The Daily Telegraph sells the most and as a result charges high prices to its
advertisers
● The Independent is the newest, founded in 1986. It generally has more
colour photos than the others.
● The Financial Times is the only national to be printed on pink paper. It deals
with mainly business and economic news, although it does have other news,
including a sports section.
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Main features of a Tabloid

● The Sun, The Mirror and The Daily Star are all called REDTOPS.
● This is because they have red MASTHEADS
● A masthead is the title of the newspaper which appears in the large type at
the top of the front page

Typical Tabloid Stories

● International news and politics but generally include more gossip and
sensationalised stories with hyperbole
● The stories are written simply and are quite short
● More pictures than other newspaper

Middle Market Dailies

● The Daily Mail and The Daily Express are also Tabloids but are referred to
as ‘Middle Market Dailies’
● Their readership is somewhere in between the Tabloids and the Broadsheets
● Plenty of news and features for people but less gossip
● Less gossip serious

Target Readership
● The CONTENT and the LAYOUT of each page will reflect its TARGET
READERSHIP
● This means the ‘typical’ reader targeted by a newspaper's choice of stories
and political viewpoint e.g. In Britain the three parties - Conservative,
Labour and Liberals
● ‘Hard’ news: ‘reports of accidents, conflicts, crimes, announcements,
discoveries and other events’ (Bell, 1991:14)
● ‘Soft’ news: often longer, provide background history more thoroughly,
sometimes coloured by the writer’s personal opinions and bylined6 (Bell)

Text Analyses
● VOCABULARY
- Are there words which are ideologically contested (sexist, racist, politically

6 Articoli firmati dai propri autori (di solito non firmano)

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incorrect..)?
- What type of cohesion does the text display?
Check reiteration and repetition:
synonyms/antonyms
- Are there formal or informal words, or a mixture?
- What expressive values do the words have? How are evaluative words used?
- What metaphors/idioms are used?

● Grammar
- What types of verbs are used? (activity, states, emotions, …)
- Is agency un/clear?
- Are nominalizations used?
- Are sentences active or passive?
- Are there important features of modality? (e.g.: hedging)
- Are the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ used and if so, how?

Compare:
1. Eu enlargement’ brings HIV peril 7on to the doorstep of the UK
2. Aids epidemic threatens West EU warns UN
How differ from one another?

1) It creates a emotive word

- Negative connotation

Overlixicalization
● A pragmatic strategy for encoding ideology

Noun & Nominalization

7 Premodificatore di HIV
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*infection è superpremodificata da terrifying rate of increase

Theme/ Rheme position

Metaphors/Idioms
● An extended metaphor can achieve ideological ends
● Metaphors lower the tone into formal in order to provide solidarity
- ‘Disease metaphors’ are used to enhance social problems
- Territorially invasive:

● Pronouns
- Inclusive “we” ₋ in-groups and out-groups
- Ambiguous ‘’you’’

● Stative verbs
- ‘To have’ and ‘to be’ representing reality
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● Action verbs

Discourse Practice
● News texts are the result of routine practices, not just the author’s
viewpoints
- Techniques of intertextuality:
- reported speech
- informal language
● What are the effect on society?

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

● A few introductory notes for talking in English about … (i.e. with some
English metalinguistic terminology):
● Features of human languages
● The cultural ‘iceberg’, ethnocentrism and intercultural stereotypes
● The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and cultural relativism
● The way language use, even vocabulary choices can shape our way of seeing
things (colour terms - to some degree; the question of sexism and in general
the non-neutrality of language, and the question of ‘politically incorrect
usage’)
● The centrality of context in determining meaning

What is language?
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Language expresses cultural identity

People share a stock of knowledge about the world and the words they utter refer
to common experience.
Language embodies cultural identity
The way in which people use the spoken written, visual medium itself (tone of
voice, gestures, accent and facial expressions) creates meaning.
Language symbolizes cultural identity
People view their language as symbol of their social identity. The prohibition of its
use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their
culture.

B.L. WHORF
[T]he background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each
language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is
itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual’s mental
activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in
trade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the
old sense, but it is part of a particular grammars, and differs, from slightly to
greatly, between different grammars.
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages.
The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not
find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world
is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by
our minds and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.
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[T]he background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of

each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing
ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide
for the individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions,
for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade.
Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational
in the old sense, but it is part of a particular grammars, and differs,
from slightly to greatly, between different grammars.
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages.
The categories and types that we isolate from the world of
phenomena we do not find there because they stare every
observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a
kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our
Weminds and this
cut nature up, means
organizelargely by the linguistic
it into concepts, systems
and ascribe in our as we do,
significances
minds.
largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way-an
agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the
patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one,
but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing
to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees… .
From this fact what I have called the ‘linguistic relativity principle’, which means,
in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their
grammars toward different types of observations, and different evaluations of
externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observes, but
must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.

Features of Human Language

1. Productivity
- Ability to produce and understand a virtually infinite set of messages.
- This includes messages that have never produced or heard before. In
all other animal communication systems, the number of messages is
fixed. (i.e. is finite).
2. Displacement
Is the ability to communicate about things that are not present in space and
time (in a sense, to talk abstractly).
3. Multi-dimensionality
Human language consists of several levels or dimensions of knowledge.
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(phonological, phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic…)

4. Discreteness
A message in human language can be broken down into discrete units
5. Cultural Transmission
Humans, although genetically predisposed to acquire languages, must
acquire a particular language by being exposed to it.
6. Arbitrariness: in nearly all words in all languages (written and signed) there
is an arbitrary relationship between form and meaning.
● “Arbitrary” here means that the relationship is unpredictable or
random: you can’t guess the meaning without learning the word.
● “Iconic” is the opposite of arbitrary, it means that there is a direct
relationship between form and meaning.
● All language have a few words that are iconic. In spoken languages a
word that imitates the sound of the object or action is called an
“onomatopoeia” (or onomatopoeic word)
● Even onomatopoeic words have some degree of arbitrariness.

Linguistic nationism is the association of one language variety with the

membership of one national community (a, immy)
But what’s there in (b) and (c)?

…………….
Ethnocentrism
……………
Stereotypes
…………….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u37t0u-4BTI
Ethnocentrism
As individuals we are ethnocentric and prone to defend our culture.
Even if we are not willing to admit to our self-righteousness, many of us feel
slightly superior, more civilized or simply’ a bit better’ than others.
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Ethnocentrism is the implicit assumption that one’s own mode of understanding is

superior because it is invariantly true.

Stereotypes
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their
lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905.

The word stereotype initially referred to a printing stamp which was used to make
multiple copies from a single model or mold.

The journalist and commentator Walter Lippmann adopted the term in his 1922
book Public Opinion as a means of describing the way society set about
categorizing people, “stamping” human beings with a set of characteristic as well.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare
(Romeo & Giulietta, ACT II)

● Language determines thought

● Without the words or structures with which to articulate a concept, that
concept will not occur.

Ex. if a language has no word for what in English is called “snow’, then a person
brought up in that language cannot think of ‘snow’ as it is meant in English.
English speakers conceive of time as a linear sequence of events:
Past - present - future
The Hopi conceive of time as intensity and duration
They stayed ten days
BECOMES
They stayed until the eleventh day
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Linguistic Determinism
● Language determines consciousness of the world and determines behaviour.
● Each language structures a reality that is somewhat different from every
other language.
● At its most extreme, linguistic determinism says that it is impossible to fully
speak another language or understand its world
● Language affects our perception of reality but does not totally direct and
limit our thought and perception.
● We can perceive things that we cannot necessarily name easily or with one
single word.
● Different languages sometimes categorize colours (and other things)
differently, so we must be aware of this, e.g. in translation and everyday
interaction.
● We all (languages/cultures) use different labels according to the degree of
specificity needed/relevant in a given CONTEXT. We can all perceive ad
name specific things if we need to- but human language use is economical
(cf. Law of Least Effort), so we adapt to needs of each context-

The interesting thing is that

● Different languages do it differently-spread among the different levels of
language
e.g. morphology, syntax, or are explicit or leave more to context (implicit),
● Or for cultural/historical interests focus more in their lexicon or some
aspects rather on others…

If a language is rich in terms of certain things or ideas, then the people speaking
that language can conceive of, and talk about, those things or ideas more
conveniently:
German Weltschmerz: weariness of life, pessimistic outlook, romantic discontent
German Weltanschauung: philosophy of life, world outlook, ideology

Sapir-Whorf nowadays
The work of Sapir and Whorf has led to two important insights:
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Relates to culture as semantically encoded in the language itself

There is nowadays a recognition that language, as code, reflects

cultural preoccupations and constrains the way people think
More than in Whorf’s day, however, we recognize how important
context is in complementing the meanings encoded in the
language.

Concerns culture as expressed through the actual use of

language

Language is important in portraying and shaping perceptions and

attitudes and it is not neutral or value free
Unless it is our intention to demean or belittle, we should avoid words
that perpetuate or reinforce negative stereotypes

Some examples:

The office supervisors had all the conflict resolution skills of a bunch of girls at a
school dance.
Here the intention is to describe a poor management performance. This description
is demeaning to girls. It assumes that girls are not capable of developing or
implementing conflict resolution skills.

A politically correct solution: if we want to emphasise a poor performance (in

whatever field), then we should focus on what characteristics are relevant for
satisfactory performance in that field.

Rachel rhymer, the country’s leading poetess, donated her recent publication to the
 23

local library.
The use of the word ‘poetess’ diminishes R. Rhymer’s status as a poet. The use of
diminutives such as ‘-ess’ or ‘-ette’ to describe women poets, authors, actors
ushers, stewards, and so on trivialises those women.
It also indicates, in a linguistic form, that women are, or should be, dependent upon
men.
PC: if it is necessary to draw attention to the sex of poet then the phrases
‘female poet’ or ‘women poet’ might be considered.

Language culture

More freedom for women

Some changes in the language

Avoiding linguistic stereotyping

Let’s remember that an extreme version of determinism is no longer held:

i.e. we cannot think outside our language categories at all!
But… there are many indicators that language and culture are not independent, and
that not only our categorizations (grammatical, lexical, etc) to some degree
influence the way we see things, but also that cultural context gives much of the
meaning to what we say…
Moderate Whorfianism differs from extreme Whorfianism in these
ways:
● The emphasis is on the potential for thinking to be ‘influenced’ rather than
unavoidably ‘determined’ by language;
● It is a two-way process, so that ‘the kind of language we use’ is also
influenced by ‘the way we see the world’;
● Any influence is ascribed not to ‘Language ‘ as such or to one language
compared with another, but to the use within a language of one variety
rather than another (typically a sociolect - the language used primarily by
members of a particular social group);
● Emphasis is given to the social context of language use rather than to purely
 24

linguistic considerations, such as the social pressure in particular contexts to

use language in one way rather than another.

SFLinguistics
SYSTEMIC-FUNCTIONAL, theory has its origin in the main intellectual tradition
of European linguistics that developed following the work of Saussure.
Like other such theories, both those from the mid-20th century (e.g. Prague school,
French functionalism), it is functional and semantic rather than formal and
syntactic in orientation, takes the text rather than the sentence as its object, and
defines its scope by reference to usage rather than grammaticality.
The name “systemic” derives from the term SYSTEM in its technical sense as
defined by Firth (1957); system is the theoretical representation of paradigmatic
relations, contrasted with STRUCTURE for syntagmatic relations.
SANG

C
PARADIGMATI
BOY DIED

THE MAN CRIED

SYNTAGMATIC AXIS
In systematic theory the system takes priority; syntagmatic organization is
interpreted as the REALIZATION of paradigmatic features.

The Theory
Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language centred around the
notion of language function. While SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of
language, it places the function of language as central (what language does, and
how it does it), in preference to more structural approaches, which place the
elements of language and their combinations as central. SFL starts at social
context, and look at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by, this social
context.
SFL investigates “language as purposeful”.
 25

According to the Hallidayan perspective, SFL investigates language as a form of

behaviour and the way it is expressed in a functional variety of texts (or register,
or text-type). Of course language is only one of a number of ways of meaning,
which build a culture or social system. (Forms of art, of dress, family and other
institutional structures etc., are all forms of cultural behaviour as well).
Culture, in itself, can be defined as a system of interrelated meanings, or as a set of
semiotic (i.e. meanings) systems.
Thus language is one among a number of these networks, or semiotic systems
of meaning that - together . make up human culture, or the social system.
(Halliday & Hasan, 1985-9)
CULTURE is also known as a belief and value system.
We may also refer to this system as a word a worldview or ideology - which can be
broadly defined as the common sense, taken-for-granted assumptions, interests,
values, and biases that groups give to or have towards their world.

This is why SFL is interested in language in terms of the texts it produces = there
is the firm conviction that a text is a fragment of the culture produced by language.
‘Circulatory’ process: how cultural worldview is constructed in and by texts.

Text Construction:
Constructed ‘in’

Social belief and value

systems, world views, TEXTS
ideologies, or cultural
paradigms

Constructing
Ideologies are constructed through texts to create a dominant cultural paradigm.
This is because language is as it is because of the purposes it serves.

● Firth: language comes into life only when it functions in some

environment. Language never works in isolation, but always in relation to a
‘scenario’: a “context of situation”
● Halliday: “language as social semiotics”: a language is a system for making
 26

meaning. Discourse constitutes beliefs, social relations and social identity.

If and when the ideological purposes undergo change, so the language that serves
those purposes will change accordingly.

The context of situation

(Malinowski 1923; Firth 1957)
Since linguistics is the study of meaning in context, when we study texts, we
also need to examine the total environment in which the text unfolds (its con-
text).

Context of Situation: the immediate social and situational environment in which a

text is being realized.

Context of Culture: the ‘outer’, more external, or ‘higher-order’ context

surrounding both the text and its specific Context of Situation.

Context of Culture
(extra-linguistic level)

Context of Situation
(extra-linguistic level)

TEXT
(linguistic level)

According to the SFL view, the best way to understand the functions of language in
context is to study texts.
 27

One of the basic definitions of a text given by SFL is that it is “language that is
functional”: “language that is doing some job in some context”.
(Halliday & Hasan, 1985-9)

TEXT
● The word TEXT is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or
written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole.
● A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause
or a sentence; and it is not defined by its size.
● A text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning.
Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by REALIZATION,
the coding of one symbolic system in another. A text does not CONSIST OF
sentence; it is REALIZED BY, or encoded in, sentences.
● The concept of texture is entirely appropriate to express the property of
‘being a text’. A text has texture, and this is what distinguishes it from
something that is not a text. It derives this texture from the fact that it
functions as a unity with respect to its environment.
● A tie refers to a single instance of cohesion, a term a pair of cohesively
related items. (Halliday & Hasan, 1976/2001:1-2)
● The verbal record of a communicative event. (Brown and Yule, 1983: 6)

Moreover, a text must be considered both as a product (an output) and as a

process (the meaning potential that generates a semantic process).

A text is both an object (a product of its environment, of its Context of

Situation/Culture), and an instance of social meaning in a specific situation
(Halliday & Hasan)
The relation between text and context is a dynamic one:
1. A text is the result of the context in which it is being realized (and where
language is being shaped to function purposefully)
2. A context is realized in turn by the text.
 28

Constructed in/by

CONTEXT TEXT

Constructing

THE CONTEXT OF SITUATION

● The context of situation of a text has been theorised in terms of the variables
of Field, Tenor and Mode.
- Field of discourse: topics and content
- Tenor of discourse: participants and their relationship (levels of
in/formality/degree of emotional charge in it…)
- Mode of discourse (the adopted channeò of communication: spoken,
written, etc.)
● The context of situation:
- Field Ideational Function
- Tenor Interpersonal function
- Mode Textual function

- Ideational (representing the world around and inside us)

- Interpersonal (enacting social relations)
- Textual (the way in which representations of the world and
communicative acts cohere into a meaningful whole called ‘text’)

How are these functions expressed in language?

- Ideational (representing the world around and inside us)

REPRESENTATION (Transitivity structures that are realised

lexicogrammatically; logic-semantic relations)

- Interpersonal (enacting social relations)

 29

EXCHANGE (Mood structures, modality, expression of attitude)

Modal verbs (possibility, obligation, volition, permission)
Hedges, attitudinal adverbs (‘certainly’, ‘admittedly’, ‘surely’, probably’)

- Textual (the way in which representations of the world and communicative

acts cohere into a meaningful whole called ‘text’)

MESSAGE (how the text is structured as a message, e.g., theme-structure,

given/new, rhetorical structure)

In other words, field, tenor and mode are invariably encapsulated in the lexico-
grammar of a text by means of the simultaneous encoding of ideation,
interpersonal and textual meanings.
PROCESS OF TEXT CREATION
activates Realized in + by
 30

Context of situation Semantics (meaning) Clause as

Lexico-grammar
(wordings) Representation
Ideational
Field Speaker as
“What’s going Transitivity
Observer
on?” structure
Experiential meanings
Clause Interdependency
(taxis)
Logical meanings Logico-semantic
II. Tenor relations
“Who is taking
part?”
Clause as
Exchange
Interpersonal Mood, modality,
Speaker as appraisal systems
Participant/Intruder
III. Mode Clause as
“How are the Message
Thematic + info
meanings being Textual structure, grammatical
exchanged?” Speaker as Text- parallelism/non-structural
Maker cohesive
devices/discourse
The context of structure
situation:

Ideational

Interpersonal

Textual Field
Tenor REGISTER: the
variety “according
Mode to the use” (what a
person is speaking,
according to what
she/he is doing at
REGISTER: variety according to the the time)
use
The choices that speakers make from the total meaning potential that a language
puts at their disposal for making their meanings.
The kinds of wordings that are available to us as speakers depend on what it is that
 31

are available to us speakers depend on what it is that we want to do with them, on

the meanings we want to make.
Speakers choose meanings and the wordings to realize these meanings on the
basis of the situation of context in which they are operating.

As Thompson puts it, we know “what things are typically - or obligatorily - said in
certain contexts”. And we know how these things are typically - or obligatorily -
said.
Speaker’s choice: there are typical conglomerations of linguistic resources that are
made use of in a text and that is a result of certain types of contexts. The choice of
register is related to Field, Tenor and Mode.

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG)

Systemic Functional Grammar was first proposed in the work of the British
linguist J.R, Firth. Australian linguist M.A.K. Halliday made great
contribution to the theory.

M.A.K. Halliday
● Systemic Functional Grammar
- “Systemic” = language as “a network of systems, or interrelated sets
of options for making meaning”
- “Functional” = the approach is concerned with the contextualized
practical uses to which language isput, as opposed to formal grammar,
which focuses on compositional semantics, syntax and word classes
such as nouns and verbs.

(1)The boy kicked the post

The process kicked is described as a material one ----------
“doing verbs” -- run, dress, climb
Actor - the boy
Goal - the post
Even though the sentence is transformed into passive voiced one, it remains
true.
(2) The man liked the new house
 32

● The predicator has to do with feeling and thinking, any action is internal
rather - hate, love, know, think, understand
● Sensor - the man
● Phenomenon - the new house

Mental verbs are different from material ones semantically

1. The verbs of this kind do not form the present continuous ì, such as “the man
is liking the house”;
2. The verbs of this kind are sometimes referred to as stative verbs in that they
describe a state or condition as opposed to material verbs which are
dynamic.

(3) child is homeless

● The process is relational in that its main purpose is to relate the two
participants together ---- be, become, appear
● Attribute -- homeless
● Carrier -- child --- the person who is in that condition
● The relational process does not allow its verbs to form the passive:
Homeless was being the child.
(4) the girl laughed
● The predicator is behavioural --- cough, yawn, smile
● Behavioural verbs have some similarity to material verbs in that they
describe physical actions but they are different in that the action is not
performed on anything ---* “a girl laughed boy” is meaningless.
● Behaver -- the girl
● Behavioural verb -- laughed
(5) The visitor said “hello”
● The process belongs to a large category called verbal - say, report, claim,
question, explain
● Sayer - the visitor
● Target - hello - the object of the saying
(6) There is a girl over there
● It consists in clauses in which there acts as grammatical subjects
● Halliday terms this process existential
 33

● Existent --- a girl

(II) Interpersonal function

● Language serves to set up and maintain social and personal relations,
including communication roles such as questioner and respondent, and to
express the language user’s own attitudes and comments on the content of an
utterance. This is the interpersonal function of language.
(III) Textual function
● Langage makes links with itself and with features of the situation in which it
is used. This is what enables the speaker or writer to construct a text, and
enables the listener or reader to distinguish a text from a set of sentences.
This is the textual function of language.

Communication in High Context and Low Context Cultures

● In low context cultures (germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and North
America), where personal and business relationships are more separated,
communication media have to be more explicit.
● Feelings and thoughts are expressed in words, and information is more
readily available.
● Instead of saying no, the high context Thais tend to change the subject and
Nigerians and others in order to be polite will not say no to a party invitation
but will simply not show up.

LANGUAGE
 34

HIGH CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT

Circular use of language, subtleties. Linear, mean what they say.
Indirect and more comprehensive Direct and linear thinking
thought. process
Use of intuitive and inner knowledge. Others orientation
More emphasis on inner orientation.

LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR
● In cross-cultural communication, it is important to use an efficient cross-
cultural translator.
● Dual translation in cross-cultural translation involves using an interpreter in
one country to translate the message into another country’s language, and
before the message is sent, having an interpreter in the receiving country
translate the message back into sender’s language.
● Employing a mediator in communication involves using someone to send
message for you to a third party.

Nonverbal Communication
● In France and Belgium, this means “you are a zero, nothing”.
● Similarly, the gesture in which the index finger points to a person’s temple
when the other fingers are curved indicates in the US that a person is
intelligent.
● In Europe, however, this gesture indicates that the person is stupid.
● However, the verbal context determines how this gesture is interpreted,
positively or negatively.
● Using think-pair-share, identify gestures having different meanings in
different places.
● What is a positive gesture in one nation may be a negative gesture
elsewhere.
● Question? In America, what meaning is attached to the thumb-and-
forefinger-in-a-circle gesture?
● You see this gesture as friendly, indicating that you are “OK”
 35

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkpcuqFCMZI

AGREEMENTS
HIGH CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT
Emphasis on someone’s word. Emphasis on written contract
Indirectness is considerate and Directness is honesty
honest Laws are rigid and universal
Laws are flexible and situational Contracts are binding
Contracts are symbolic of a
relationship

Nonverbal/verbal
HIGH CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT
Greater use of nonverbal cues Mostly verbal
Hands and face expressions Hands support speech
Silence could be Low tolerance for silence
communication

TIME
HIGH-CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT
Polychronic Monochronic
Involved with many things Do one thing at a time, concentrate
at once. on the task.
Easily interrupted and allow Take deadlines and schedules
distractions. seriously,
Priority for people and Accustomed to short-term
relationships relationships
SPACE
 36

HIGH CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT

Greater group emphasis The individual space
Smaller physical distance Large physical distance

CONTEXT
HIGH CONTEXT LOW CONTEXT
The meaning lies in the The meaning is explicit
environment of the context, and often written down
relationship status and protocol. Nonverbal supports
Nonverbal cues are important verbal expression
“Yes” may be ambiguous No ambiguity

● Chinese, whose phrase “Méiguānxì” 没关系 literally translates as “it doesn’t

matter”, but its underlying meaning is “no relationship”, something that is
fundamental to the Chinese or when Jamaicans who sometimes say “no
problem” when they are really expressing some concerns.
● Even the length of silence may convey a high-context message, and it is for
this reason that the Japanese say the silence is communication.
● Different cultures have different ways of saying no. For ex., low context
Americans frequently do not hide their feelings and just say no as soon as
their minds are made up.
● However, the high-context Japanese tend to say “maybe” or “that would be
difficult” meaning the American ‘no’.
● A low context communication emphasizes the use of written and form of
written and oral form of expression:
● If it is not spelled out clearly, in written and/or oral form, it is not low
context.
● Conversely, high context messages rely on both subtle body movements and
subtle use of language so that one statement really mean something else in
order to save face or embarrassment.
● In high context cultures such as in the Middle-East, information spreads
rapidly and freely because of the constant close contact and the implicit ties
 37

among people and organizations.

● In low-context cultures such as Germany or the US states, information is
controlled and focused, and thus it does not flow so freely.
● For ex., Americans find talkative people more attractive, whereas Koreans,
high-context people perceive less verbal people as more attractive.
● It is useful to know how where and how information originates and speed at
which it flows, both internally and externally.
● Those from low context cultures perceive high context people as non
disclosing, sneaky8 and mysterious.
● People in H-C (high-context) cultures expect others to understand
unarticulated moods, subtle gestures, and environmental clues that people
from Low-C cultures perceive those from L-C cultures as too talkative too
obvious and redundant.
● In cross-cultural communication between H&L -C. People, a lack of
understanding may preclude reaching a solution, and conflict may arise.
● Germans, for ex. will expect considerable detailed information before
making a business decision, whereas Arabs will base their decision more on
knowledge of people involved.
● The key information is embedded in the context rather than made explicit.
● People make assumptions about what the message means through their
knowledge of the person or the surroundings.
● In these cultures, most communication takes place within a context of
extensive information networks resulting from close personal relationships.
● Cultures are known to be H or L -C. Cultures, with a relative range in
between.
● The context in which the communication takes place affects the meaning and
interpretation of the interaction.
Variables linked to channel of Communication
In addition to the variables related to the sender and the receiver of a message, the
variables linked to the channel itself and the context of the message must be taken
into consideration.

These variables include H- & L- C. cultures, fast or slow messages and information

8 subdolo, infido
 38

flows, an different types of media.

- In communication, a sign is a signal that is recognized, structured into a

category and assigned meaning.

Generative grammar
● Noam Chomsky
● “I will consider a language to be a set (finite or non-finite) of sentences”
● Sentences are made up of individual groups of words which form patterns
with other groups of words.
● The basic grammatical pattern provides a structural frame within and across
which there are changing partnerships of words.

Verb functions and classes

● Main verb VS auxiliary verbs
- Valency pattern
Ex. I went into the house

Lexical verbs VS primary verbs VS modal verbs

● Lexical verbs or full verbs > main verbs
● Primary verbs > aux and main verbs
● Modal verbs > aux verbs

COPULA
● Verb to be as a main verb
● Aux verbs: aspect, voice, modality

Single-word lexical verbs

● Activity verbs
Volitional activity > agent or ‘doer’
Ex. then you should move any obstacles
The most common ones are: bring, buy, come, follow, get, give, go, leave, move,
pay, play, put, run, should, take, try, use, make, meet, show
 39

● Communication verbs
● Mental verbs
- Dynamic
- Stative
Believe, consider, expect, feel,find, hear, know, like, listen, love, mean, need, read,
remember, see, suppose, think, understand, want, wonder
● Causative verbs
Followed by a complement clause:
Ex. this information enables the formulation of precise questions.
“What caused you to be ill?”
Allow, help, let, require
● Verbs of occurrence
No actor
Ex. the lights changed
Resistant organisms may develop in the alimentary tract
Become, change, develop, die, grow, happen, occur
● Verbs of existence or relationship
- Copular verbs: seem, appear
- State of existence
- Relationship
Appear, contain, exist, include, involve, live, look, seem, stay, stand, apparent
● Verbs of aspect
Begin, continue, keep, start, stop

Transitive VS Intransitive
● Transitive: direct object
Well give it to the dogs, they’ll eat it
● Intransitive: without object
Go to the hospital

Phrases, clauses and sentences are units of structure, since they can be described
in linguistic terms and operate according to rules stated by the grammar of the
sentence.
Other units, paragraphs and texts, to be described require reference to meaning;
also they operate according to an across-sentence or a textual-grammar.
 40

A paragraph
● A paragraph is often made of several sentences, kept together by rules
operating across (not only inside) sentences.
● It is characterised by a definable communicative intent.
● It is a unit, but it is not only partially independent, because it is linked to the
other paragraphs forming the same text.
A Text
A text is a completely independent unit, which can be made of one word only (the
road sign STOP, or the cry HELP!) or of many volumes.
There are no restrictions to its length since it is a unit of meaning, not of structure.
A text longer than one sentence is controlled by textual rules, which aim at
building its continuity of meaning, its coherence, so it can be interpreted as a text
and not as a group of jumbled elements.
Continuity of meaning can be signalled through the use of explicit linguistic links,
i.e. cohesion.
Coherence and cohesion are essential in the description of written texts.

Across and Inside paragraphs and texts

Let’s reflect on the the links existing inside and across paragraphs:
INSIDE: to develop the central idea, paragraphs need a logical organisation of the
sentences they contain.
ACROSS: to develop the central idea of a text paragraph require logical
connections with one another. These connections can be made explicit by the use
of linguistic links (as a consequence, in addition, to sum up etc).

Paragraphs functions
The sentences in most well-written paragraphs are not in random order, but are
arranged according to the four functions they perform:
1. Paragraph introducers: establish the controlling idea of the paragraph as a
whole.
2. Paragraph developers: expand the idea presented by the paragraph
introducer, giving example or adding details.
3. Viewpoint or context modulators: provide (when necessary) smooth
 41

transitions between different sets of ideas.

4. Paragraph terminators: conclude the ideas discussed in the paragraph in a
logical and psychologically satisfying manner.
Not all pieces of writing correspond to this analysis, however, most
successful paragraphs usually contain some combination of these four
sentence types.

Key (topic) sentences and key words

Paragraph Introducers have a special function:
The introducer is like a key to to the understanding of the paragraph; thus it gives
you an overall understanding of the central idea of the paragraph before you read
all the other sentences.
If paragraph have key (or topic) sentences, sentences have key words which are
particularly important in expressing their central ideas.

You only need to pay attention to specific words:

Content words (e.g. work), that carry lexical meanings and are in contrast to
function words (e.g. my), whose main role is to express grammatical
relationships.

To find the key words of sentence, you should rely on nouns, verbs, adjs, rather
than articles, prepositions,auxiliaries and in this way you will realise how little
grammar is actually necessary for overall understanding of texts.

Paragraph structure and thought patterns

To sum up, smaller units combine into bigger ones, creating composite meanings,
giving texts stability and continuity, making you feel that a text hang together: it
has coherence.
The logical relationship across sentences and paragraphs can be made explicit by
the use of linguistic connectors of a different nature, creating the cohesion of a
text.

COHERENCE
Key of interpretation: language users
 42

Extra-linguistic cues

● Related to the interlocutors’ experience of the world

● (associated to a number of general principles of interpretation shared by the
language users of the community)
● Signaling continuity of senses or stability in meaning.
● Giving the feeling that a text hangs together, that it is not a jumble of
sentences.

COHESION
Key of interpretation: language
Linguistic cues
● Related to the interlocutors’ knowledge of the linguistic code (lexicon,
grammar rules, punctuation, writing conventions, etc.)
● Shared by the language users of the same speech community
● Activating knowledge of the language system

COHESIVE LINKS/TIES
1. Reference: (using a pronoun to refer to another word)
- Exophoric (understood through the extra-linguistic context: “look
at him!”)
- Endophoric (to the linguistic context: cataphoric which points out
forwards to something later on in the text: “it’s rising quickly, the
sun!”, VS anaphoric which points backwards to something earlier
in the text: “look at the sun. it’s rising quickly!” ‘it’ is anaphoric
because it refers back to the noun ‘sun’.
- Personal (he, they, mine, him, yours)
- Comparative (such, better)
2. Substitution: (substituting one word or phrase for another word or phrase)
- Nominal (one, ones; the same)
- Verbal (do)
- Clausal (so, not)
3. Ellipsis: (leaving something out) the emission of a N, Phrase or Verb
- Nominal (“what did Kim’s sister tell you?” “Ø Didn’t speak”)
 43

- Verbal (“where r u going?” “Ø To town”)

- Clausal (“what happened after they split?” “they continued to meet”)
4. Conjunction: (using ‘connecting words)
- additive (and, or, besides, furthermore, moreover)
- Adversative (however, but, on the other hand, nevertheless)
- Causal (so, consequently, it follows, from this, as a result)
- Temporal (meanwhile, then, two hours later, finally, after that)
5. Lexical cohesion:
- Reiteration (same word, synonym; general word/hyponym:
dog/Dalmatian)
- Collocation (“the habitual company words keep”: book=library, page,
title, to read)

COHERENCE AND COHESION

Anaphoric chains;
Ellipsis;
Lexical cohesion: reiteration ‘Brighton’ (hyponym) - the town - that place,
general words and collocations: town = streets, promenade, square
Substitution, clausal;
Conjunction, additive;

Ex. ‘It renders the computer useless and in some respect more destructive because
the Witty worm is different’
‘The Witty worm is different and in some respect more destructive because it
renders the computer useless.’
 44

These are not texts!

COHESION
● THE CONCEPT OF COHESION IS A SEMANTIC ONE;
IT REFERS TO RELATIONS OF MEANING THAT EXIST WITHIN THE
TEXT, AND THAT DEFINE IT AS A TEXT.

TEXT AND COHESION (Halliday)

A text does not consist of sentences; it is realized by sentences.
Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the text/discourse is
dependent on that of another.
Cohesion is a semantic relation. But, like all components of the semantic system, it
is realized through the lexico-grammatical system.
Cohesive texts - that is sequences of sentences which seem to ‘hang together’ -
contain what are called text-forming devices.
These are words and phrases which enable the writer or speaker to establish
relationships across sentence or utterance boundaries, and which help to tie the
sentences in a text together.

A: Time flies.
B: you can’t. They fly too quickly. > change the semantic meaning
⬇
Speech act not recognised

COHERENCE
A paragraph is coherent when its sentences are logically and clearly related to one
another.
Coherence is achieved through:
- Logical and clear order so that the reader can easily follow
- Cohesion
COHERENCE BEGINS IN THE HEAD!
 45

COHESION
● Cohesion deals with devices that give a text texture
● Cohesive devices include the lexical devices of repetition,
● The semantic relations of equivalence and semblance and
● The grammatical devices of reference, substitution and ellipsis.

LEXICAL COHESION
● REITERATION
- Repetition
- Synonym
- More general/specific word
● COLLOCATION
(items in a text that are semantically related)
● SUBSTITUTION
A grammatical relation, where one linguistic item substitutes for a longer one
- Nominal
Jane bought the red roses. I prefer the yellow ones.
- Verbal
“Do you ever water the lawn? We do if it doesn’t rain”
- Clausal
Should learner errors be corrected? If so, ...
● ELLIPSIS (substitution by zero)
- Nominal
He likes brown floor tiles. While I prefer white ones.
- Verbal
 46

Who runs faster than Bill? John does.

- Clausal
Will you visit us next summer? Maybe so.
● CONJUNCTION
It signals relationships that can be fully understood through reference to the other
parts of the text
- Temporality (first, then…)
- Causality (because, since, as… so, thus, therefore)
- Addition (and, moreover, also)
- Adversity (but, however, on the other hand..)

Reference words
Words which don’t have a full meaning in their own right. To work out what they
mean on any particular occasion, we have to refer to something else.
They include:
● Personal pronouns/possessives
● demonstratives/adverbs
● Comparative constructions

REFERENC
E

Exophoric Endophoric
(situational) (textual)

Anaphoric Cataphoric
● REFERENCE (to preceding text) (to following text)
Semantic relation that ensures the continuity of meaning in a text
- Personal
 47

I am looking for John. He owes me 10€

- Demonstrative
He always arrives late. I don’t like this
- Comparative
Would you like these seats? No, as a matter of fact I’d like the other seats.

COMPARATIVE REFERENCE
The same, more, fewer, less, another, all adjs with -er/-est
When two or more things are compared in a text, this can contribute to cohesion
 48

ex.
REFERENCE AND SUBSTITUTION
It is important to grasp the difference between reference and substitution
Reference is a relation between the meaning of a word and its environment where
the environment can be text or the real world.
Substitution is the relation between words. A substitution such as one replaces
another word or phrase.
Reference words are words looking for meaning, substitutes are words looking for
partners.

Super-ordinates and Hyponyms

● Brazil, with her two-crop economy, was even more severely hit by the
Depression than other Latin Am states and the country was on the verge of
collapse.
Living organism > plant, animal,bacteria...
Animal > reptile, mammal, amphibian…
Mammal > primate, ruminant, sea mammal…

COHESION IN ENGLISH
 49

Personal
REFERENCE
Demonstrative
comparative
SUBSTITUTION Nominal
& ELLIPSIS Verbal
Clausal
Adversative

CONJUNCTIONS Additive

Temporal

Causal
Reiteration
LEXICAL
COHESION
Identify and classify the highlighted cohesive Collocation
devices:

Exophoric reference; personal pronoun (it,he,him); substitution;

demonstrative reference

[+testi dei Papa in comparazione]

LANGUAGE & GENDER

● Different questions concerning language, gender and power:
- Men and women use language differently
- Sexism is a conveyed through language
● Different questions concerning language, gender and power
 50

-
Men and women use language differently
-
Sexism in conveyed through language
-
Sexist language affects attitudes and beliefs
-
Representations of men and women in the media construct the
understanding of both sexes.
● ‘Sex’ VS ‘Gender’
- Sex: biological and psychological category referring to anatomical
differences
- Gender: social construction woman/man

“One is not born a woman, one becomes one”

Cit. Simone de Beauvoir
The same axiom can be extended to the social determination of men.
● Distinction ‘sex’ - ‘gender’

● Political implications

● Socially constructed differences between men and women have been given
biological explanations to justify practices of discrimination

● Women’s ‘natural’ roles > mothers, nurturers9, carers

● Men’s ‘natural’ roles > breadwinners, providers10

● Stereotypical family and gender roles cemented by gender ideologies

● Biological determinism perpetuates gender stereotypes about men and

women’s behaviour, including their linguistic behaviour
● Differences between men and women depend on socially prescribed gender
roles rather than any biological difference
● Sexiest language
● Sexism: discrimination within a social system on the basis of sexual
membership (Wodak 1997:7)
- It indicates a historically hierarchical system of inequality
9 nutrice/educatrice
10 la persona che mantiene la famiglia, chi provvede alla famiglia;
 51

● Language: a powerful resource for reflecting but also shaping the way we
see the world
● Sexist language: where gender bias becomes apparent
● Some areas in which gender can be identified in language:
- Sex specification: gendered terms like ‘actress’, the use of ‘she’ to
refer to cars, ships, countries (also think of ‘man’ as a neutral term for
‘humanity’, ‘people’)
- Gratuitous modifiers: draw attention to sex as difference, like ‘lady
driver’, ‘woman doctor’, ‘male nurse’
- Lexical gaps and under-lexicalization: inequalities between gendered
(derogatory) terms, like ‘pussy whipped’11, ‘rent boy’12, ‘henpecked’13
- Semantic derogation: has changed over time from neutral to negative
in connotation (e.g.: ‘mistress’, ‘queen’, ‘harlot’) - also compare
‘bachelor’ (scapolo) & ‘spinster’ (zitella)
- Asymmetrically gendered language items |
- Connotation of language |

● There are more terms denoting the sexual behaviour of women than men
(also think about the asymmetry in terms like ‘Mrs’ and ‘Mr’, ‘master’ and
‘mistress’, ‘governor’ and ‘governess’).
● Negative connotation (e.g. ‘single mother’, ‘working mother’)
● Many words in English contain presuppositions about gender and taken-for-
granted attitudes about men and women.
● Linguistic items reflect societal assumptions about gender and gender roles
(e.g. women’s potential availability to men).
● Newspaper - especially the popular press - feature a lot of examples of
wordings portraying women and men in stereotypical ways.
● Women
- Are defined in terms of their social roles (‘mother of two’)
- Are judged more harshly (divorcée, career woman)
- Are represented on the basis of their appearance more than men (even
in their professional settings)

11 (slang, vulgar, of a man) Submissive to or dominated by one's wife or other female partner, frequently
with the connotation that this submissive behavior is for the prospect of sex.
12 Giovane prostituto
13 picchiato/tormentato
 52

● The British press

● ‘Sexist stereotypes dominate front pages of British Newspaper’
(Guardian, 14/10/2012)

● Study revealed 78% of front page articles were written by men, and 84% of
those quoted or mentioned are male.
● Activity
- Read https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20554942 ‘Five things
about women in the press’.
● Gender-based discrimination is not only against women…
● ‘No room for gays’ (Daily Star, 8/7/10)
The idea is bound to be abused. Every illegal desperate to get into Britain will try
claiming they’re gay to ensure they stay here.
Some people will do whatever it takes if it means a cushy life in Britain.
This cannot be allowed to happen. The Supreme Court doesn’t want to send back
anyone who fears they may suffer in their home country because they’re gay.
That’s admirable ideology. But it’s not practical in the real world.
Their ruling means millions more people will now be eligible to stay in Britain.
And the resulting flood of numbers could push our creaking infrastructure over the
edge.
We simply cannot afford to keep taking the world’s outcasts.
Britain is struggling with record debt and millions out of work.
We must look after our own first.
This decision must be overturned.
We cannot solve the world’s problems on our own.
 53

Homophobic and racist attack in

response to a successful
asylum claim by two gay men
originally from Cameroon and
Iran (8/10)

The Judge said: “to compel a

homosexual person to pretend
that his sexuality does not exist
or suppress the behaviour by
which to manifest itself is to
deny him, the fundamental right
to be who he is”.
● Gender representation in the media
➢ “Fiend rapes woman in a big Mac bar” (Sun, 27/11/86)
- The agency is very clear
(fiend: actor, woman > goal)

- The article leaves no doubt as to who is to blame for the crime

➢ “Girl, 7, murdered while Mum drank at the pub” (Sun, 20/12/86)
- The agency is not explicit (the attacker involved is invisible,
completely omitted)
- Someone else is blamed for the crime
- Implicitly: the mother is not blameless in the girl’s death > judgement
on the mother’s irresponsible behaviour (rather than on the murderer)
● Linguistic studies on gender:
- Deficit: whether women’s language was weak, lacking and deficient
Women’s weak language reflected and perpetuated their subordinate
status in society (Lakoff, 1975)
➢ Women’s language typically featuring:
- Empty adjs (divine, sweet, gorgeous)
- Hedges (sort of, you know, well
- Intensifiers (very, so)
 54

- Overly polite forms (oh dear, sugar)

- A lot of tag questions (isn’t it, don’t I) > sign of
insecurity/uncertainty
- Dominance: whether differences in speech styles between men and
women are a result of gender inequality and male dominance over
women
➢ Dominance of men over women through their linguistic
behaviour (West and Zimmerman 1983)
- Exposing gender bias in English - esp. In grammatical
forms rendering women invisible > generic ‘he’, ‘man’
- Lexical terms representing women in stereotypical ways
> ‘blonde’, ‘redhead’, or openly derogatory terms ‘bitch’,
‘slapper’
- We live in a patriarchal system, so meaning is defined by
men and men’s language is seen as the norm (Spender,
1980)
- Difference: whether these differences were due to men and women
being socialized into different gender roles, with frequent
miscommunication.
➢ Difference in conversational behaviour are related to sexes
- Girls and boys are socialized from an early age into
different gender roles
- Men and women’s speech/style is different(women are
more co-operative and sensitive to the face wants of
others because pressed by socialization to be nice - while
boys tend to be competitive)
● The dominance and difference frameworks were for offering too simplistic a
model of gender differences in language

● Focus on how women and men are constructed through language and
discourse > third wave/poststructuralist feminism.
● Multiplicity of gendered identities and associated linguistic behaviours
● Gender > reconceptualized as a performance (Butler’s notion of
performativity, 1999), not a fixed or a unitary phenomenon, not something
that we are but what men and women perform
 55

● Gender > a process of negotiation, often contested.

“An identity has constantly to be reaffirmed and publicly displayed by repeatedly

performing acts in accordance with the social norm” (Cameron 1997:47)

➢ Women and men constantly negotiate their gender roles, masculinity and
femininity are constructs.
➢ Emphasis on the shifting relationship between gender and other aspects of
identity. (essentialism vs social constructionism)

● Gender > constructed in discourse, in the ways we talk about things

● Derogatory language VS reclaiming
- “Dyke is [...] a reclaimed epithet, a term of derision that has been to
some extent rescued as an expression of pride. [...] the issue for all
such lexical items is: for which speakers, in which contexts, and for
which purposes has the word been reclaimed?” (Zwicky, 1997:22)
● Gender > a communicative process that is constructed and enacted through
language
- ‘Both language and gender are fundamentally embedded in social
practice, deriving their meaning from the human activities in which
they figure’. (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2003:5)
 56

WHAT IS “CORPUS’’?
“A collection of pieces of language selected and ordered according to explicit
linguistic criteria in order to be used as a sample of the language”
(Sinclair, 1996)
“It is an object designed for the purpose of linguistic analysis, rather than an
object defined by accidents of authorship or history”
(Aston & Burnard, 1998)

WHAT IS CORPUS LINGUISTICS?

● An empirical methodology
● The “study”of language using corpora”
● A useful means of exploring
- Synchronic and diachronic variation
- Syntax, semantics, pragmatics
- Lexicography
- Dialects
- Minority languages, ..etc.
● Corpus Linguistics is an empirical methodology which:
 57

- Implements the analysis of ‘real’ language use in natural texts (but the
analysis of other types of texts, e.g. literary texts - is also possible)
- Uses a ‘principled collection’ of natural texts, i.e. a ‘corpus’ for
analysis
- Makes extensive use of computers, utilising both automatic and
interactive techniques
- Depends on both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques

How large?
● Brown/LOB ・Birmingham corpus
1960s 1980
1 million 10 million
● British National Corpus (BNC) ・ Collins Bank of English
1990s Cambridge international Corpus
100 million Oxford English Corpus
● Web 2006
Present day 600 million - 1 billion
? billion

TEXT ANALYSIS SOFTWARE

WordSmith Tools (+ ex)
Microconcord
TextSTAT
ConcApp concordancing programs
Concordance
WordExpert
Monoconc
Paraconc
Multiconcord
PWA
LEXA
DBT
TactWEB

(WordSmith Tools)
 58

CONCORD

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)
Form of concordance where the hit is shown with a certain amount of context,
often presented with the hit in the centre of the page.

Collocations
● Collocation: a relationship between words that tend to occur together in texts
- Words that tend to occur near word X are the collocates of word X
- Based on frequency (how frequent separate VS how frequent together)
● The company a word keeps: implicit associations or assumptions
- Bachelor: eligible, flat, life, days
- Spinster: elderly, widows, sisters, parish
 59

Having a particular habit or way of life

Elected and not likely to change

Eligible Confirmed

BACHELO
R
Incurable Fierce

Convinced

Completely sure about something

 60

Lousy
Mean Foul
TRICK
Guilty
Unclean
Filthy

Reciprocal
Ordinary
Jointed
FRIEND
Common
Shared Mutual
 61

PROS CONS

In experimenting with learning English by using concordances

1. Choosing a corpus is not easy;
2. Theory and practical experience are needed to analyze a corpus;
 62

3. Students lack native speaker intuition and experience;

4. Concordancers do not offer explanations
(differently from dictionaries, grammars, textbooks…);
5. Concordancers do not offer complete sequences and contexts;
6. Concordancers require a kind of ‘vertical’ reading;
7. Sequences are what they happen to be
(they are not selected beforehand by experts).
BUT
1. Sequences are not lists from books, but they are real instances of the
language.
2. They encourage research and discovery

https://www.edict.com/hk/vlc/ ??
https://www.edict.com/hk/concordance/WWWAssocWords.htm ??

https://www.lextutor.ca/conc/eng/
 63

Lonely Heart Ads: Examples of more information corpora and concordancers can
give you on language use
 64

In these kind of contexts:

Two adjs having similar meaning are used differently:
‘Pretty’ appears in initial position preceded by intensifying adverbs, followed
by adjs describing physical and emotional features: (slim 8a, slender 7a,
passionate 6a ecc), used only for women;
‘Attractive’ is used without intensifying adverbs, in collocation with adjs
referring to social skills (professional, intelligent, successful, classy ..), used for
both men and women.
‘Tall’ tends to precede other adjs even when it is an opposition.

https://auth.sketchengine.eu/#login
http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/ > http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/BNCweb/

● Map of Screen Translation [ST] modalities in EU;

● State of the art in research;
● Proposal for practical research that is of use to industry and end
users;
(ST research at Forlì)

Media: tv, phones, dvd, youtube, consoles, etc

DEFINITIONS:
● Multimedia translation
● Audiovisual translation
● Screen translation
● Film \\
● Dialogue \\

What’s the difference? “UMBRELLA TERMS”

“...the interlingual transfer of verbal language when it is transmitted and accessed
both visually and acoustically, usually, but not necessarily, through some kind of
electronic device.”

Multimedia translation
 65

● Multimedia products are both produced and consumed by means of several

media. In other words, typical multimedia products such as a films and
hypertexts, will be created through the implementation of diverse
technological equipment (i.e. cameras, computers, software programs etc.)
and subsequently consumed by end-users via some sort of electronic device
such as a television; a computer screen or a console.
Audiovisual translation
● “[a] semiotic construct comprising several signifying codes that operate
simultaneously in the production of meaning.” (Chaume 2004:16)
● Films, plays, opera, video-games and hypertexts are examples of
audiovisual products that are intended to be both seen and heard at the
same time by end users.
Screen Translation
● Strictu sensu - translations for any electronic appliance with a screen (i.e.
TV; cinema; video-game console; GPS navigator; mobile phones etc.)
● Film translation
● Dialogue translation

The polysemiotic nature of audiovisual products

Most ST common modalities
● Dubbing - uses the acoustic channel for translational purposes,
● Subtitling - visual and involves a written translation that is superimposed
 66

onto the screen

● Voice-over - a less common acoustic form of screen translation
Products for the screen
● Big screen (cinema);
● TV;
● Video;
● DVD;
● The entire spectrum of tv products, (i.e. series, serials, sitcoms,
documentaries, news programmes, advertisements etc.) many of which are
also available in home video and DVD formats
Dubbing versus subtitling
● The so-called European ST ‘blocks’ - myth or reality?
● Quality? Does anyone care?
● Total Quality Management [TMQ] - an impossible dream?
A dirty word?
● Dubbing has a bad reputation;
● Condemned for spoiling soundtrack;
● Denies audiences the opportunity of hearing the voices of the hearing the
voices of the original actors;

● Less textual reduction

● Time consuming and expensive

Dubbing VS subtitling
 67

DUBBING SUBTITLING

Spoils the original voices; You can hear original voices;

Spoils the original film; Cheap;
Un-artistic; Quick;
Expensive;
Complicated; Helps children with reading;
Long process; Helps learn foreign
Connected with right-wing languages;
regimes;
Connected with protectionist
linguistic policy.

Dubbing Subtitles
Voice over
translation
Degree of semio-

Interpreting

Visibility Visibility

Global advertising

TV formats
News reports

Perspectives for empirical research

● Analyses of product i.e. case studies;
● Field work regarding dubbing professionals’ perception of dubbed produce;
● Field work regarding end users’ perception of dubbed produce
 68

Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation

● 350 hours of dubbed tv products collected across all genres, viewing times,
target audience and Source Languages across a 4 month period (Spring,
2002)
 69

Time spans and target audiences

● Morning:
soaps/telenovelas > housewives
● Afternoon:
soaps/cartoons/series/sitcom > housewives/teenagers/young adults
● Evening / prime time:
telenovelas/serials/series/sitcom > genera 1 audience

Source languages
● English > US, UK, CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN
● German
● Portuguese > BRAZILIAN
● Spanish > CHILEAN, ARGENTINIAN

Lingua-cultural drops in (translational) voltage

 70

Translation as electricity
● Lingua-cultural energy conducted adequately;
● Lingua-cultural drops in voltage;
● Lingua-cultural short circuits;
● Lingua-cultural power cuts
Operational strategies:
1. Culture-specific references (e.g. place names, references to sports and
festivities, famous people, monetary systems, institutions etc.);
2. Lingua-specific turbulence (translating terms of address, taboo language,
written language etc.);
3. Areas of overlap between language and culture (songs, rhymes, jokes
etc);
4. Visuals (culture specific examples void of language).

The perception of humour based on Non-specific VEH

XD
Results
● Raw data elaborated via factor analyses
Might Italian end-users be “linguistically bi-polar”?
Translating theory into practice - Aegisub for subtitlers
Every film is a foreign film, foreign to some audience somewhere – and not simply
 71

in terms of language
(Egoyan and Balfour, 2004:21)

“On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” (R. Jakobson, 1959)

TRANSLATION

INTERSEMIOTIC
INTERLINGUAL
INTRALINGUAL

Terminology
● 1980s and early 1990s: “constrained translation”
● 1998: Audiovisual translation (AVT)
○ Film translation
○ Cinema translation
○ Screen translation
○ Multimedia translation

Audiovisual Translation (AVT)

● an exciting new field in translation
● a growing professional demand
● 4 main types of AVTs:
○ dubbing
○ voice-over (half-dubbing)
○ surtitling
○ Subtitling

“[a] semiotic construct comprising several signifying codes that operate

simultaneously in the production of meaning.” (Chaume 2004:16)

Films, plays, opera, video-games and hypertexts are examples of

 72

audiovisual products that are intended to be both seen and heard at the same
time by end users.

Surtitles, supertitles, supratitles

● Live performances:
○ Opera, concerts, musicals
○ Theatre
○ conferences

Surtitles (sopratitoli, in Francia)

Subtitling
"messy, with doubts and hesitations, flashes of insight and blind spots, as the
translator searches for the equivalences which will fit the constraints of each
given situation”
Fawcett (1996:72)

“a vision of translation that violently appropriates the source text, and

in the process of converting speech into writing within the time and space
limits of the subtitle they conform the original to the rules, regulations,
idioms, and frame of reference of the target language and its culture.”
 73

Nornes (1999:13)
A cross-medium activity
● Change of code
(intersemiotic change: from oral to written)
★ It is a way of transcoding a written-to-be-spoken into a written-
to-be-read text

● Both oral and written messages are received simultaneously

INTRALINGUAL
 74

Subtitling
- the original dialogues of the speakers;
- the discursive elements that appear in the image (letters, graffiti,
placards, etc.)
- the info contained in the soundtrack (songs, voices off).
The interaction of
● the spoken word,
● the image, and
● the subtitles
● the viewer’s ability to read the images and the the written text at a certain
speed determine the basic features of the audiovisual medium.
Attention is due to:
- synchrony (time and space ) with image+sound+dialogue;
- semantically adequate account of SL dialogue;
- remain on screen long enough for viewers to read them.

2.5 words per second

In six seconds an average viewer can comfortably read the text written on two full
subtitle lines, when each line contains a maximum of some 37 characters, i.e. a
total of 74 characters.
 75

This calculation implies a rather low reading speed of some 145 words per minute
(about 2.5 words per second).

Practice
Classification of subtitles according to 5 criteria:
● Language
● Time
● Technical
● Methods of projection
● Distribution format

Stages in subtitling process

● Viewing
● Spotting (timing/cueing)
● Translating
● Editing

Constraints
● Limited space
- This requires that the subtitler reduces the length of the verbal dialogue in
order to make them fit on screen.
● Reading speed of the viewers
- This aspect determines how long the subtitles have to be displayed in order
for the viewers to be able to read them before they disappear. This requires a
certain degree of reduction if the verbal dialogue is very long or the pace of
speech is fast.
● Picture layout
- This affects where the subtitles can be placed on screen. For the most part,
the subtitles can effectively be placed at the bottom of the screen, but
sometimes important information from the picture is seen here as well. In
these cases, the subtitler will have to find a more suitable place for the
subtitles.

Operational strategies
 76

1. Culture-specific references (e.g. place names, references to sports and

festivities, famous people, monetary systems, institutions etc.);
2. Lingua-specific turbulence (translating terms of address, taboo language,
written language, etc.);
3. Areas of overlap between language and culture (songs, rhymes, jokes etc.);
4. Visuals (culture specific examples void of language).

General Problems
● Cultural references
○ E.g.: references to celebrities, government leaders, historical events,
etc.
★ See: Lincoln
● Made up words in science fiction/fantasy
○ wookie, ewok, tauntaun, stargate, mind meld, tribble, muggles,
Ravenclaw, etc.
★ See: The Big Bang Theory
● Music
○ Bollywood films sometimes translate lyrics, sometimes not and
sometimes only translates half a song
○ This song is dedicated to Phoenix: Shava Shava
● Dialects and accents
○ An accent/dialect may entail stereotypes, misconceptions, origin
● Humour
○ physical comedy is universal, but puns and word play are not and are
difficult to subtitle

Subtitling Strategies
● Gottlieb H. (1992)
● Pedersen J. (2005)
 77

Priorities in subtitling
● Synthesis (condensation/concision; elemination/suppression)
● Readability (accuracy, fluency, credibility)
● Orality (written subtitles should sound like spoken language)

Aegisub
● Simple and intuitive interface for editing subtitles, it was originally created
as a tool to make typesetting in anime fansubs
● It is a fully fledged, highly customisable subtitle editor featuring a lot of
convenient tools to help subtitlers with timing, typesetting, editing,
translating subtitles, etc.

Some references (slide prof)

 78

LANGUAGE AND RACE

● ‘Race’ - ‘Racial’ > races do not exist biologically, they are social
constructions based on the common-sense perceptions of superficial
differences of appearance.
(Van Dijk et al. 1997:146)
● Racialization
- ‘Race’ as real
- The reproduction of race thinking
● Racism
- Real
- A social system of ‘ethnic’ or ‘racial’ inequality, just like sexism, or
inequality based on class”
(van Dijk 2000: 35)
● Racism has a social and a cognitive dimension
- It is a social practice > everyday and institutional discriminatory
actions
- It has a cognitive and ideologies people have
● Racism and racist discourses are not necessarily about skin colour nor are
they confined to minorities

● Racism and racist discourses of ethnic differences are mobilized by states

and the media
● Can you think of any media representations linked to sports (football,
basket, baseball, etc), featuring racialized ideas?
https://www.mic.com/articles/22454/5-most-racist-moments-in-sports-history
● Globalization and the restructuring of national and international boundaries
> contributing factors in the flow of economic migrants (‘new immigrants’)
and asylum seekers
● ‘Othering’: the recognizing of ethnic difference
● 4 theoretical perspectives on why othering is a compelling issue in
representation. (S. Hall 1997:234-8)
1. 1st perspective
Saussure > difference as essential to meaning (people know what
‘black’ is because they compare it to ‘white’)
2. 2nd: Bakhtin > meaning can only be constructed through a dialogue
 79

with the ‘Other’ (meaning is established through difference)

- meaning can never be fixed. It is always open to interpretation and
contestation (what it means to be ‘British’ is always negotiated)
3. Anthropological perspective:
- difference is the basis of the symbolic order of what people call
‘culture’
- things and people are ordered and organized into systems of
classification that erect symbolic boundaries
4. Psychoanalytical perspective
- Freud > the ‘Other’ is fundamental to the constitution of the self
(people can develop a sense of self and subjectivity through the
relations formed with an ‘Other’ that is outside)
● Typical in the representation of racial difference is the practice of
‘naturalizing difference’ (Hall 1997:245)
- Naturalization works as a “representational strategy designed to fix
difference, and thus secure it for ever”
- The linguistic structure of text often works ‘silently’ or ‘invisibly’ to
reproduce relationships of power and dominance
● On the linguistic level, othering is achieved identifying ‘we’ and ‘they’
groups

● Pronouns interpersonally represent in- and out-group status (Fowler & Kress
1979; Reisigl & Wodak 2001)
● Whiteness is also constructed in the media through
○ Exnomination > whiteness being taken for granted
○ Universalization > values that are white European or American are
assumed to be held by all
● Contemporary forms of racism are characterized as cultural racism or new
racism (Barker 1981, ‘84)

● The superiority of one’s own culture and nation is not emphasized and racist
practices are legitimized on the basis of principal otherness.

It is part of our biology and our instincts to defend our way of life, traditions and
customs against outsiders - not because these outsiders are inferior, but because
 80

they belong to other cultures. (Barker 1981:78)

● Elites (government, media, etc.) play a special role in the production of

‘new’ or ‘symbolic’ racism
○ Immigrants and ethnic minorities are addressed as cultural outsiders.
(Van Dijk, 1993)
● Elite racism is typically enacted in many forms of subtle and indirect
discrimination in both action and discourse.
Some strategies:
○ Negative other-presentation
○ Positive self-presentation
● Ex. of denial of racism > news coverage of the murder of Stephen Lawrence
“Murderers: The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong let them
sue us” (Daily Mail, Feb, 1997)

The media downplayed

allegations of racist
treatment
ANDfocused on the
inability of the legal system
to deliver justice to the
Lawrence family

No political considerations
of racism and racial
inequality

● British press > negative representations of ethnic minorities, often in

connection with crime violence, and social welfare
● Identifying social actors > van Leeuwen’s categories for ‘social actors
analysis’ (1996)
● People can be categorized by
○ Functionalization
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- social actors are categorized in terms of what they do

(occupation, social activity, e.g. ‘community leader’)
○ Identification
- social actors are defined in terms of what they, more or less
permanently or unavoidably, are
- classification > age, gender, provenance, class religion, ‘race’
(e.g. ‘the 28-year-old Sikh’)
- relational identification > the social actors’ personal
relationships (e.g. ‘aunt’, mother of four’)
- physical identification > the social actors’ physical
characteristics (e.g. ‘blonde’, redhead’)
○ Nomination
- proper nouns, which can be formal (e.g. ‘Mr/Dr. S. Hill),
semi-formal (e.g. ‘Steve Hill), or informal (‘Steve’)
● As well as being included, social actors can be excluded from texts
● Newspapers employ inclusion/exclusion to suit their interests and
purposes in relation to their potential readers
● The Leicester Mercury and multiculturalism
● 3 articles under investigation:
1. there is a great deal of mixing in Leicester, but we ..
2. “would I go to the Highfields?” Laughs one of the snooker
team ‘only in a tank’
3. “the people have changed. There’s no such thing as a black
and white table in here now”
-dopo lettura primo testo:-
● 2 groups of social actors:
○ officials> nominated and functionalized
Mr. Phillips, Chairman for Racial Equality
○ Ordinary people > generic group (no details personalize them,
physical appearance/gestures)
-dopo lettura secondo testo-
● The social actors are quoted drawing on a number of familiar racist
discourses
○ Minorities taking over society and being dangerous
○ Ethnic minorities are ‘othered’, depicted as outsiders by the
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social actors in the article

○ Social actors remain distant (e.g. ‘one of the snooker team’)
○ some are old (e.g. ‘the 82-year old’)
-dopo lettura terzo testo-
● The social actors are more individualized and humanized > positive
evaluation achieved through nomination, physical identification (e,g.
The landlady ‘with a welcoming smile’)
● Some are classified as members of specific groups (e.g. ‘Black’,
‘White’, ‘Indian’, ‘West Indian’, ‘kids’)
● Some are functionalized (e.g. Keshwala ‘owner of the neighbouring
Nisa Today’s store’)

● The newspaper does include a broader range of voices, although these

are carefully selected
BUT
● Real issues of multicultural cohesion, for ex. How to include the
alienated into society, are left out
● Issues of unemployment, housing, single faith schools are not
discussed

Syntactic features
Due to most of the SD ('Specialized Discourse') texts’ communicative purpose.
● Present indicative tense seems the most widespread especially in scientific
texts where, though, the use of other tenses is regulated by the degree of
generality of what is being reported whereas
● Imperatives are typical of technical handbooks
● Considerable use of passives in English SD (although not common in all
specialized text types) assures a high degree of depersonalisation of the
discourse, which allows the foregrounding of facts, events, results and
experiments in spite of the author.
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These, and other features of SD syntax, can be easily observed by the reader who is
always provided with examples and schemes.

Textual features
● Anaphor, one of the most common devices to establish textual cohesion. It
is totally replaced by lexical repetition, a preference that stems from the need
to avoid any ambiguity, particularly in legal writing, where the excess of
repetition is at times unjustified and too redundant.
(Non ci si potrebbe mai aspettare una cataphora in un testo specialistico,
perché troppo poetico non avrebbe nulla a che fare con un testo
specializzato.
● Juxtaposition of conjunctions, plus their longer and more pragmatically
transparent paraphrase is a textual feature of SD that violates the often called
for criterion of conciseness in favour of total transparency.
● Textual features in SD directly on the text genre, which establishes word
order and Theme Rheme patterns: the argumentative models, the distribution
of information within the text: the textual organization of oral interactions.
● Use of doubles and triplets. There is a curious historical tendency in legal
English to string together two or three words to convey what is usually a
single legal concept. Examples of this include null and void, fit and proper,
perform and discharge, dispute , controversy or claim, and promise, agree
and covenant. Such construction must be treated with caution, since
sometimes the words used mean for practical purposes, exactly the same
thing (null and void), and sometimes they do not quite do so (dispute,
controversy or claim).
● Unusual word order. At times, the word order in legal documents appears
distinctly strange. Ex. the provisions for termination hereinafter appearing
or will at the cost of the borrower forthwith comply with the same.
There is no single clear reason explaining this phenomenon although the
influence of French grammatical structures is certainly a contributing factor.
● Here, there- and where- words. Words like hereof, thereof and whereof and
further derivatives, including at, in, after, before, with, by, above, on, upon
etc. are not used in ordinary English. They are used in legal English
primarily as a way of avoiding the repetition of names of things in the
document very often, the document itself. Ex. the parties hereto instead of
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the parties to this contract.

● -er, -or and -ee name endings. Legal english contains a large number of
names and titles, such as employer and employee, or lessor and lessee, in
which the reciprocal and opposite nature of the relationship is indicated by
the use of alternative endings. This practice derives from Latin.
● Phrasal verb, which play a large role in legal English; often used in a quasi
technical sense. For example, parties enter into contracts, put down
deposits, serve [documents] upon other parties, write off debts, and so on.