Search results for "Discourse"

Coercive metaphors in news headlines :a cognitive-pragmatic approach

2014

This article explores the application of metaphors in news headlines with a view to interrogating their potential for coercion. Coercion in news discourse is understood as a strategic deployment of pragma-linguistic devices, including metaphors, to foreground the representations of socio-political reality that are compatible with the interests of the news outlet rather than those that inform public debate. It is argued that coercion can be exposed through systematic discourse analysis. Methodologically, the study aims to integrate the cognitive and pragmatic approaches to metaphor in regarding it as both a conceptual building block of news representations and a strategic framing device in n…

‘La verdad (es que)’: Significado nuclear y atenuante

2017

The aims of this research are to define the attenuating function in the uses of la verdad (es que) and to evaluate the counter expectation value in the awakening of this pragmatic function. La verdad (es que) has been generally defined as a reinforcement discourse marker (Portoles, 1998; Fuentes 2009, 2012), even if some recent studies have shown that it is mostly used as an attenuating device (Gonzalez & Maldonado, 2007; Soler, 2015a). Based on this assumption, the research analyses the attenuating uses of this construction in a corpus of synchronic oral and written texts in peninsular Spanish, which cover different genres and registers, in order to explain which discourse circumstances ca…

Estrategias persuasivas en los anuncios de televenta

2013

Teleshopping spots represent a paradigmatic example of argumentative and perlocutionary discourse. In them, the creative adopts different strategies in order that the target feels irresistibly attracted by the object he advertises. In this paper we analyze all the elements that, because of their individual discoursive nature, but especially due to their mutual interaction, convert an apparently informative speech into an efficient tool of seduction. Los anuncios de televenta representan un ejemplo paradigmático de discurso argumentativo y perlocutivo. En ellos, el creativo adopta estrategias diferentes con el objetivo de que el interlocutor se sienta irresistiblemente atraído por el bien pu…

Do discourse markers exist? On the treatment of discourse markers in Relevance Theory

2008

Abstract This paper critically reviews three Relevance Theory (RT) ideas on connectives: the distinction between conceptual and procedural meaning, connectives as strictly procedural elements, and monosemy as the best explanation of multifunctional connectives. These three ideas underlie the description of connectives and related sets of markers within RT. Data from colloquial conversations, however, provide evidence which calls these ideas into question. Therefore, it is argued that conceptual and procedural features can coexist within a single marker, that the concept of apposition markers should be reconsidered, that conceptual expressions can connect two utterances, and that polysemy pr…

The race to educational reform in the USA: the race to the top

2011

From the cognitive perspective of embodiment and relying mostly on the powerful and revealing tool of metaphor, we approach the issue of education in the Obama administration's discourse trying to unveil the ideological preferences hidden behind the use of the different metaphors. It is assumed that this body of metaphors will contribute to the political and cultural understanding of such strategic issue to a nation. The analysis of speeches on education by leading figures plus the media reflection of educational problems (Washington Post) will let us see from a close distance how education is talked about. After the analysis of the four metaphors, it will be seen that traditional values su…

Letters to the editor: Still vigorous after all these years?

2006

Abstract This paper investigates Letters to the Editor, a section in biomedical journals used by scientists since the early 19th century to question already validated research. The aim of this study is to highlight some of the discursive strategies and to bring to the fore the linguistic characteristics of this particular genre, to analyze its goal, role and use within a community of French researchers. It is based on a corpus of 200 letters selected from two scientific journals in the fields of biology and medicine: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and The Lancet published between 1999 and 2002. The strategy of questioning is analyzed as an explicit and implicit mode of criticism…

Epistemic Search Sequences in Peer Interaction in a Content-based Language Classroom

2013

Epistemics in interaction refers to how participants display, manage, and orient to their own and others’ states of knowledge. This article applies recent conversation analytical work on epistemics to classrooms where language and content instruction are combined. It focuses on Epistemic Search Sequences (ESSs) through which students in peer interaction collectively resolve emerging knowledge gaps while working on pedagogic tasks. ESSs are initiated when a speaker displays an ‘unknowing’ epistemic stance by making an information request about some aspect of language or the content being worked on. We examine three different types of ESS: those in which a ‘knowing’ response is accepted by th…

Positive self-evaluation versus negative other-evaluation in the political genre of pre-election debates.

2014

The present study explores the language of evaluation in a sub-genre of political discourse, pre-electoral debates, and its potential persuasive function for gaining voters via a contraposition of positive self-evaluation and negative evaluation of the other candidate. A further aim of this research is to check whether the candidate’s ideology has a bearing on the entities that get evaluated. After a brief examination of the characteristics of the sub-genre at hand, specifically in the Spanish context, we present the results of an evaluation analysis carried out in a corpus of 19,849 words, which is the extension of the most recent pre-electoral debate held in Spain between the candidates …

Discourse Analysis by Brian Paltridge

2008

“Nature needs you”: discursive constructions of legitimacy and identification in environmental charity appeals

2022

Abstract This study traces how discursive constructions of legitimacy and identification are enacted textually and visually with respect to environment-oriented causes, such as landscape or species restoration. Such conservation projects actually clash with human economic priorities typical of the Anthropocene. Drawing on models of social trust and assuming the discursive nature of legitimacy and identification, we explore how environmental charity organizations represent their conservation efforts, reproduce sustainability discourses and advocate self-regulatory practices. We use a sample of mission statements and donation appeals by six prominent environmental charities from the UK. Throu…