Critical Discourse Analysis

"I pull my copy of Metrophage out of its battered pink paper folder. It is suitably badly printed, and the black and white stripes of the dysfunctional roller have left interference patterns running from the right to the left that distract the eye and make discernment of the faint courier words difficult and time consuming. I randomly separate the pages and start reading:

He stood and Nimble Virtue tossed a packet of Mad Love at his feet. It came to rest by the toe of his boot, where the water was icing up over a flaking patch of dried blood. Welding marks, like narrow scars of slag. The slaughterhouse had been grafted together from a stack of old Sea Train cargo containers. A cryogenic pump hummed at the far end of the place, like a beating heart, pushing liquid oxygen through the network of pipes that criss-crossed the walls and floor. From the ceiling, dull steel hooks held shapeless slabs of discoloured meat. Jonny looked at the slunk merchant.""

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

"In Europa hat populäre lateinamerikanische Musik ein Image voll von Leichtigkeit, Lebensfreude und südländischem Feuer, sicher aufgrund der mitreißenden Rhythmen und sinnlichen Tänze. Der Inhalt der Texte wird selten beachtet. Dabei sind Songtexte, vor allem wenn der Song erfolgreich ist, ein Diskurselement, das über Stimmungen, Einstellungen und Ereignisse in einer Gesellschaft informieren kann.
Das meistbesungene Thema in der Musik ist die Liebe mit allen ihren Facetten: Liebesglück, Liebesleid, Verführung und Erotik. Innerhalb dieses großen Themas geht es auch immer darum, die Rollen der Beteiligten, meist also zwischen Mann und Frau, auszuhandeln und ihre jeweilige Position in der eigenen Welt der Gefühle festzustellen. In der lateinamerikanischen Musik finden sich unterschiedliche Muster für diese Rollenverhandlungen: vom ergebenen Liebenden, der sehnsüchtig seiner Angebeteten huldigt, über den leidenden Verstoßenen und den auf Rache sinnenden Betrogenen bis hin zum Macho, der die Frau zum Objekt seiner Begierde degradiert.
Bis heute ist die Musikszene im gesamten hispanoamerikanischen Raum weitgehend männerdominiert, die meisten Songtexte erzählen daher ihre Geschichten aus Männerperspektive. In diesem Vortrag soll untersucht werden, welche Rollen der Frau in den Texten zugeschrieben werden, welche Muster und Typen es gibt, und letztlich auch, ob sich Beispiele für das Stereotyp des lateinamerikanischen Machoverhaltens finden lassen und sich die „Tradition der Misogynie in lateinamerikanischer Popmusik“, von der Aparicio spricht, auch heute noch bestätigen lässt."

The article presents a discourse analysis of media coverage of an unsuccessful foreign investor, the case of LG.Philips Displays Holding v. the Czech state. We analyze media coverage of the case from 2000 when the investor decided to start production in the Czech Republic until 2006 when the investor went bankrupt. Our method of analysis is based on Foucault’s understanding of dis- course and his theoretical conceptualization of discourse analysis. It emphasizes the structural rather than the linguistic level of discourse and also draws on Gerbner’s message system analysis and de Gruyter’s method of tracking discourse. We analyzed almost 700 articles published in two Czech print dailies and two weeklies and found a significant bias in the Czech print media since a very strong politicization of the case was typical of its media coverage. The discourse of party politics emerged in connection with the government’s investment incentive policy. The arrival of Philips was presented as a result of successful government policy while other important factors were underestimated. Moreover, media uncritically replicated the government’s official discour- se. This applies particularly to the first years when party political themes and an uncritical view of the investor forced out the economic/analytical discourse. The media rarely took into account risks associated with foreign investment or the decline of the traditional (CRT) TV screen mar- ket. In addition, the media stereotypically labelled actors involved in disputes with LG.Philips Displays.

The transition from neutrality to post-neutrality has been debated by constructivists and rationalists alike as a seemingly logical and unproblematic move: the end of the Cold War and the widening of the security agenda in a globalizing world have meant that a state-centric approach to security is no longer viable or desirable. The former neutrals are subsequently reconfiguring their security policies to reflect this development and contributing to European and NATO security initiatives, and at the same time contributing their own unique ‘soft security’ experiences and practices. This article aims to problematize this seemingly smooth move from neutrality to postneutrality by examining the discourses deployed to facilitate this change. Arguing that there is a politics of post-neutrality at work, it draws attention to how identity is being reconstituted in the process of European integration and identity-formation, and how discourses on changing forms of security cooperation are facilitating the discursive dissemination of an inevitable logic that neutrality in any form will eventually be abandoned.

This is a study of police interviewing using an integrated approach, drawing on conversation analysis (CA), critical discourse analysis (CDA) and pragmatics. The study focuses on the balance of power and control, finding that in particular the institutional status of the participants, the discursive roles assigned to them by the context, and their relative knowledge, are significant factors affecting the dynamics of the discourse. Four discursive features are identified as particularly significant, and a detailed analysis of the complex interplay of these features shows that power and control are constantly under negotiation, and are always open to challenge and resistance. Further it is shown that discursive dominance is not necessarily advantageous to participants, due to the specific goals and purposes of the police interview context. A wider consideration of the context illustrates the contribution that linguistics can make to the use of police interview data as evidence in the UK criminal justice system.

The current wolf deregulation debate taking place in the American West is crafted through gender. Masculinity in particular becomes the voice of the historic American West. Wolf supporters, federal government agencies, environmentalists, urban easterners, and scientists act as a feminized opposition to the honorable, pragmatic cowboy steward of the Western territory. Western cowboy identity uses masculinity as a source of cultural stability. This essay tracks the spring 2007 media debate over wolf delisting, focusing on identity work being done through the news media and associated blogs to create and re-create the Western cowboy ideal, recognizing the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity as it is constructed and re-constructed through the media. Nostalgia for the Western male who can protect and manage the wild, his ranch, and his community emerges as a necessary and vital part of the dialogue. Wolf delisting becomes a repository for the enactment of the mythic American Cowboy.

"As human beings we marvel at a dance performance, a musical
recording, a novel, a film. For instance, take pieces of metal that come together to form a free-standing sculpture. Metal, as in music, dance or film, is a free-flow matter (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). As it stands there, what does metal do? It takes on expressiveness. Similarly, multiple literacies that involve reading the world, word and self take on expressiveness. Words on paper, musical notes on a staff take on sense, expressiveness."

This was a paper given at the PSA annual conference in Belfast 2012. It is an attempt to work through the beginnings of analysis of my focus group research, and the best way to disseminate this information, in relation to research already carried out for the thesis.