Discourse and

Ideology

Discourse and Pragmatics

 Discourse

• Discourse as language above the sentence

• Discourse as language in use

• Discourse as social practice

 Discourse

• Discourse as language above the sentence

• Discourse as language in use

• Discourse as social practice

 What do I mean by ‘social
practice’
• How discourse controls our daily ‘practices’

• How we practice different identities

• E.g. ‘he’s a practicing doctor’

• The practice of power

• Strategies
How discourse controls our daily ‘practices’

• How discourse creates reality

• Processes and participants

• ‘Whos doing whats’

• Representing social actors

• Representing social actions

 Word meanings
• Based on a system of inclusion and exclusion

• What is ‘dim sum’ ?

IS THE POPE A BACHELOR?
 Cultural Models

• Language encapsulates many ‘frozen theories’ about the world

• Frozen?

• Theories?

• ‘Cultural Models’

• MARRIED OR SINGLE?

• Are you filling out the form?

• Or is the form filling out you?

 Whos doing Whats

• Clauses
• Verbs + participants
• What participants are included or excluded
• How are they named?
• What are they doing to each other?
• The Army pacified the demonstrators
• The Army shot the demonstrators.
• The Army shot the agitators.
 Whos doing Whats

• The workers demanded more money.

• The workers threatened to strike.

• Management offered a 2 percent increase.

• Management appealed to the workers to return to work.

 Whos doing Whats

• Management demanded that workers work for less

money.
• Management threatened to fire the workers.
• Workers offered to accept a 5 percent increase.
• Workers appealed to management to treat them more
fairly.
 Process Types

• Action (Material) Processes

• She kissed me

• Mental Processes
• I dreamed about her kissing me

• Verbal Processes
• She told me she wouldn’t kiss me if I were the last man on earth

• Relational Processes
• She’s a great kisser
Whos doing whats to whom?

• Agency
• Who’s doing what to whom
• ‘I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus’
• John kissed Mary
• Mary Kissed John
• ‘You may now kiss the bride’
 Lips Inc.

• Ask any clever advertiser how to suggest femininity

with a product, and he'll probably tell you ‘a kissprint’.
Lipstick on a collar, a glass, his cheek – they all
suggest that a woman was there. When men think of
makeup, they think of lipstick.
 Questions

• What types of verbs are being used? (Process Types)

• What participants are included and excluded? (Participants)

• How are participants named?

• How would other ways of formulating the clauses lead to the

inclusion or exclusion of different participants?
 Presuppositions

• The assumptions upon which the meaning of clauses

depend.
• Aspects of that are portrayed as “given” or “taken for
granted. ”
• “Did you bring your girlfriend to the party?

• Assumptions
• 1) he attended a party
• 2) he has a girlfriend.
 Presuppositions

• He regretted arriving late.”

• “Are you aware of the impact this will have on the

environment?”
• “The government should stop giving handouts to lazy
people”
 Metaphors and Presupposition
Find the metaphors in this passage
 Metaphors
• Society is a building
• What does it mean?

• America is a beacon/light
• What does is mean?

• Stirring up emotions and conjuring

up images
 Watch This

• Airport
 Presuppositions

• What are the presuppositions in the following lines about:

•  1) The relationship between the speaker and the person being
spoken to.

•  2) The nature of romantic love.

• Walk hand in hand with me

• Through all eternity

• Have faith

• Believe in me

• Give me your hand

• Love is a symphony

• Of perfect harmony

• When lovers such as we

• Walk hand in hand

 Presuppositions

• What are the presuppositions in the commercial about

• 1) the proper ‘McDonald’s behavior’ for lovers.

• 2) the “value’ of French fries

• 3) the relationship between McDonalds and love

 Modality

• How we express probability and obligation

• Modal verbs (could, may, might, should)

• Adverbs (maybe, probably, certainly)

• Other structures (It is certain that… I’m sure that…)

 Global Warming:
Scientists’ Version
• Warming will also cause reductions in mountain
glaciers and advance the timing of the melt of
mountain snow packs in polar regions. In turn runoff
rates will change and flood potential will be altered in
ways that are currently not well understood. There will
be significant shifts in the seasonality of runoff that
will have serious impacts on native populations that
rely on fishing and hunting for their livelihood. These
changes will be further complicated by shifts in
precipitation regimes and possible intensification and
increased frequency of extreme hydrologic events.
 Global Warming:
Government’s Version

• Warming would also cause reductions in

mountain glaciers and advance the timing of
the melt of mountain snow packs in polar
regions. In turn runoff rates would change and
flood potential would be altered in ways that
are currently not well understood.
• Warming could also lead to changes in the
water cycle in polar regions.
How we practice different identities

• Discourse as an ‘identity kit’

• Genres

• Social languages

• Cultural models
 Whenever we speak or write we
must make clear
• Who we are
• We are different whos in different contexts

• Who we think the people we are talking (or writing) to

are
• What we are doing
 Social Languages

• Well, when I thought about it, I don't know, it seemed to

me that Gregory should be the most offensive. He
showed no understanding for Abigail, when she told him
what she was forced to do. He was callous. He was
hypocritical, in the sense that he professed to love her,
then acted like that.
• What an ass that guy was, you know, her boyfriend. I
should hope, if I ever did that to see you, you would
shoot the guy. He uses her and he says he loves her.
Roger never lies, you know what I mean?
Reading Positions
 Heteroglossia

• Different social language mixed into the same text

 The practice of power

• Texts are produced by "socially situated” speakers and writers

• Linguistic features come about as a result of social processes,
which are never arbitrary
• Discourse (the words and language we use) helps shape and
constrain our identities, relationships, and systems of
knowledge and beliefs
• Language, "can never appear by itself-it always appears as the
representative of a system of linguistic terms, which
themselves realize discursive and ideological systems.”
(Kress)
 Hegemony

• ‘excess influence or authority of one nation

over another’
• the existence of dominance of one social group over another,
such that the ruling group -- referred to as a hegemon --
acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as
opposed to dominance purely by force. The processes by which
a dominant culture maintains its dominant position: for example,
the use of institutions to formalize power; the employment of a
bureaucracy to make power seem abstract (and, therefore, not
attached to any one individual); the inculcation of the populace
in the ideals of the hegomonic group through education,
advertising, publication, etc.; the mobilization of a police force as
well as military personnel to subdue opposition.
Example