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Discourse

Discourse. The three key concepts of Language and Discourse. Discourses Socially constructed knowledges about some aspect of reality Genres The communicative formats in which discourses are communicated, Communicative formats serve specific purposes and orient to specific audiences

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Discourse

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  1. Discourse

  2. The three key concepts of Language and Discourse Discourses • Socially constructed knowledges about some aspect of reality Genres • The communicative formats in which discourses are communicated, • Communicative formats serve specific purposes and orient to specific audiences Multimodality • The combination of ‘modes’ (means of expression) used in specific media such as print, video, audio. • Modes contribute in different ways to the meanings conveyed by the text or communicative events

  3. The deprived child

  4. The deprived child in an advertisement

  5. The deprived child in a news report

  6. The deprived child in a novel Then he looked me right in the eye, and he spoke as if he were a wise old man, not the pale and emaciated ten-year-old who was lying before me on the filthy mattress I had found one day next to a rubbish bin. “I’m telling you my story to stay alive”, he said. “Just as it was my life itself that was running when I fled from the bandits. Now my life is contained in the words that describe everything that happened” I realised then that Nelio knew he was going to die. Henning Mankell Chronicler of the winds, p. 58

  7. The Henson case (1) This photograph featured on the invitation to an exhibition by photographer Bill Henson in May 2008. It was subsequently confiscated by the police. But the child pornography charge was eventually dropped.

  8. “Children are innocent of all things sexual and should be protected from contact with sexuality and representations of sexuality” “Children come into the world as instinctive creatures and need to be disciplined in order to become responsible members of society” Discourses are plural

  9. Discourses are historically specific (Sir Joshua Reynolds Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons, 1773)

  10. Discourses are culturally specific

  11. Discourses serve to legitimate (or critique) social practices

  12. Summary of key points • Discourses are socially constructed knowledges about aspects of reality • Discourses are plural • Discourses are historically and culturally specific • Discourses serve to legitimate (or critique) social practices • Discourses are used by people who have an interest in the continuation of specific practices (or the opposite) • The evidence for discourses comes from studying and comparing texts and communicative events

  13. Teddy bears In the early 20th C. teddy bears began to combine the wildness of bears (snout, fur, etc) with the body proportions of babies. Thus they combined the ‘innocent’ and the ‘untamed’

  14. Teddy bears can be found in many genres (1)

  15. Teddy bears can be found in many genres (2)

  16. Naughty bears (1)

  17. Naughty bears (2)

  18. Teddy bears and childhood sexuality (1)

  19. Teddy Bears and sexuality (2)

  20. Teddy bears and childhood sexuality (3) “First and foremost it is an untenable error to deny that children have a sexual life and to suppose that sexuality only begins at puberty with the maturation of the genitals.” “A little girl looks on her mother as a person who interferes with her affectionate relation to her father and who occupies a position which she herself could very well fill . Observation shows us to what early years these go back. We refer to them as the ‘Oedipus complex” Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 243

  21. School discourse of Teddy Bears (8 year-old boy) After Jack and I got home we played together with my sisters, afterwards we read books and drew pictures with each other. Jack enjoyed tea with the family. After tea, we watched cartoons and videos. At 9.00 Jack was tired, so I decided to tuck him into bed, after reading another story from Jack’s collection. In the morning, Jack and I got dressed and had breakfast watching Jack’s favourite cartoon Pink Panther. Then Jack and I walked to school (corrected by the teacher)

  22. Home discourse of Teddy Bears (8-year-old boy) My favorite toy is my Teddy because he’s nice and soft. I go to bed with my teddy because I will be loany [lonely]. That why I go to bed with him. I have had him for seven years and he likes me a lot. My brother sometimes hurts him but I make him better.

  23. Key questions in analyzing texts about a specific area of reality such as childhood • What are the key themes that characterizes the discourses or discourses in your examples? • Who uses these discourses in what kind of genres? • What kind of social practices are legitimated (or critiqued) by these discourses and whose interests are at stake in doing so? • How do these discourses differ from other ones that might have been found in earlier periods or other cultures or other sectors of society?

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