Critical Discourse Analysis

"‘Speaking’ racism is the explicit use of the terms racism and anti-racism, rather than more palatable or ‘positive’ alternatives. To address racism, using the language of racism and anti-racism is critical, as it acknowledges the presence of racism and, in
doing so, overcomes denial. Dispositions to speaking racism and anti-racism are positioned within the historical context of racism and the discourse of tolerance in Australia. Interviews with individuals working in local anti-racism in two sites were the primary data source for exploring dispositions to the language of racism and anti-racism. Reticence to speak racism was prevalent, largely driven by fear of inducing defensiveness and sensitivity to the highly emotive nature of racism. A similar ambivalence around the term anti-racism was found, in line with the ‘positive turn’ in
anti-racism policy. Alongside this discomfort, some local anti-racism actors recognized the role that speaking racism could play in challenging denial."

A relação entre as religiões cristãs e a questão das sexualidades não-heterossexuais é tomada historicamente como uma relação conturbada, impressão que se aprofunda quando observamos, especialmente no contexto brasileiro, as tantas vozes fundamentalistas que investem no impedimento do avanço dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos. Num panorama como este, em que cristãos são costumeiramente vistos como os principais inimigos da população LGBT, é curioso observar a existência de pessoas e grupos que, em sentido contrário, afirmam conciliar as homossexualidades com a vivência religiosa cristã – a exemplo do grupo Diversidade Católica, que atua desde o ano de 2006 na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. A fim de visibilizar e oferecer compreensões mais aprofundadas a respeito das experiências desses sujeitos, este trabalho procura discutir, a partir de uma análise discursivo-crítica, os processos de construção e afirmação de uma identidade gay cristã, em narrativas de vida de membros do mencionado grupo. Procuramos identificar no discurso desses indivíduos os modos de reconfiguração do discurso oficial da Igreja, bem como a maneira como representam a sua vivência coletiva de fé no Diversidade Católica, a fim de elucidar questões tocantes às relações de controle, poder e hegemonia no campo do catolicismo e da sexualidade. Para atender estes objetivos, nos vinculamos aos pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos da Análise de Discurso Crítica, a partir da proposta do seu principal expoente, o linguista britânico Norman Fairclough (FAIRCLOUGH, 2001 [1992], 2003; CHOULIARAKI & FAIRCLOUGH, 1999). Consideramos também as reflexões sobre controle, disciplina, poder e sexualidade desenvolvidas pelo filósofo Michel Foucault (1988 [1976], 2011 [1975], 2011 [1980]) e aprofundadas no campo da Teoria Queer (BUTLER, 2003a [1990], 2003b; LOURO, 2001, 2009; MISKOLCI, 2007, 2009, 2012; SALIH, 2012). Com a análise, pudemos perceber que os indivíduos utilizam recursos linguísticos diversos para representar ambos os traços de sua identidade como sendo elementos inegociáveis, que não podem ser abandonados. Se, num primeiro momento, isso se articula em forma de conflito, em seguida, constitui o eixo de um processo de recontextualização de significados do campo da fé, que passam a se abrir para uma compreensão de acolhida e valorização da homossexualidade.

"The present study investigated the use of language for the representation of conflicting ideological positions of two main discourses Eslahtalaban, “the Reformists”,  and  Osulgarayan,
“the Principlists”, in Keyhan and Etemad Iranian newspapers. To this purpose, 86 headlines (43 headlines from Etemad and 43 headlines from Keyhan newspapers) were selected  from 4th
April 2009 to 13th June 2009 and analyzed based on Holliday and  Mathieson’s  transitivity (2004) model. The research findings revealed that Keyhan newspaper’s coverage of Iranian Tenth
Presidential Election tended to highlight semantic roles and processes of  Principlists  discourse while Etemad newspaper had a tendency to foreground semantic roles and processes of reformists  discourse. In other words,  critical text analyses showed that choices of the processes and participants enabled writers to manipulate the realizations of agency and power in the representation of action to produce particular meanings which were not always explicit for all readers. The research results also provided evidence to support the claim that news media did not simply reflect the social reality but made dominant ideologies in representing political events as well."

"Objectives: Despite the UK’s work-family reconciliation policy emphasising the need for working parents to be both economically active and accessible to meet their care responsibilities, there is limited research work on working parent’s everyday practices of this reconciliation.

Design: Using a social psychological lens, this current work presents an in-depth discourse analysis of policy and working parents talk about their working and caring practices.

Method: Using a convenience sample, 15 in-depth qualitative interviews were undertaken with working parents living around a large UK city. Working parents volunteered following study advertisements in local libraries and community centres where parents and toddler groups attended for a number of activities.  The data was analysed using a discursive framework in order to examine the dominant work-family reconciliation policy discourses and how parents talked about these with reference to their own caring and working practices.

Results: The findings illuminated tensions between caring and working practices and work-family reconciliation policy. Many of the working parents interviewed talked about the complexity of being both economically active and accessible to meet their caring responsibilities.  In particular, findings demonstrate that the policy constructs work-family reconciliation in much more straightforward terms than the interviewees claimed to experience in practice. 

Conclusions: Given the commitment within social policy that working parents be both economically active and accessible to meet their care responsibilities, there is a need to gain a more detailed understanding of the (dis)connect between work-family reconciliation policy and practice.  The in-depth research in this paper informs this landscape.
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""In 2012, the first national curriculum was drafted for Australian public schools. This curriculum reflected a mobilisation of Australian states and territories that traditionally produced and regulated their own curricula. Amongst the new curricula, English is one of the first to be implemented in New South Wales, beginning in 2014. With its focus on language, students’ personal enrichment and development of values and attitudes, the English curriculum is embedded with discourses that influence the ways students think about themselves and others. As a compulsory subject that sees students engaging critically and imaginatively with texts, this thesis sees English as a major proponent in developing students’ personal views on sexuality.

I employ queer theory to guide and inform a critical discourse analysis of the Australian Stage 4 English national curriculum. The analysis focuses on the construction of sexuality in English education and attempts to problematise discourse on fixed sexual identities, in effect, making “straight” strange. This thesis is an attempt to challenge heteronormative discourse that may be embedded in the curriculum; that is, the assumption and privileging of heterosexuality. I draw selectively on Foucauldian and Butlerian concepts in this thesis, seeing discourse as constitutive of subjectivities that produce the self through repetition.

The key questions considered in this thesis are threefold: how is sexuality conceptualised in the Australian Stage 4 English national curriculum? To what extent does the same curriculum maintain socially constructed identities to explore the self? In what ways can the curriculum be interpreted to challenge heteronormativity? Following a brief narrative investigating scholarly notions of identity and sexuality, I argue that sexual identities need to be considered in terms of subjectivity. Implementing a critical discourse analysis, I investigate how the curriculum conceptualises sexuality. Finally, I actively pursue spaces in the curriculum where sexual subjectivities can be valued in an attempt to help inform a queer pedagogical practice. ""