Analysing Identities in Discourse

218 Pages·2008·2.76 MB·English

by  Rosana Dolon (ed.)

Analysing Identities in Discourse
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society
and Culture (DAPSAC)
The editors invite contributions that investigate political, social and cultural processes
from a linguistic/discourse-analytic point of view. The aim is to publish monographs
and edited volumes which combine language-based approaches with disciplines
concerned essentially with human interaction – disciplines such as political science,
international relations, social psychology, social anthropology, sociology, economics,
and gender studies.
General Editors
Ruth Wodak and Greg Myers
University of Lancaster
Editorial address: Ruth Wodak, Bowland College, Department of Linguistics and English
Language, University of Lancaster University, LANCASTER LA1 4YT, UK
[email protected] and [email protected]
Advisory Board
Hayward Alker† Teun A. van Dijk Jacob L. Mey
University of Southern Universitat Pompeu Fabra, University of Southern
California (USC), Los Angeles Barcelona Denmark
Irène Bellier Konrad Ehlich Christina Schäffner
Maison des Sciences de Ludwig-Maximilians Aston University
l’Homme, Paris, France Universität, Munich
Ron Scollon
Michael Billig Mikhail V. Ilyin
Louis de Saussure
Loughborough University Polis, Moscow
University of Genève
Jan Blommaert Andreas H. Jucker
Tilburg University University of Zurich
Paul Chilton J.R. Martin
University of Lancaster University of Sydney
J.W. Downes Luisa Martín Rojo
University of East Anglia Universidad Autonoma de
Madrid
Volume 28
Analysing Identities in Discourse
Edited by Rosana Dolón and Júlia Todolí
Analysing Identities in Discourse
Edited by
Rosana Dolón
Júlia Todolí
Universidad de Valencia
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Analysing identities in discourse / edited by Rosana Dolón, Júlia Todolí.
p. cm. -- (Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture, ISSN 1569-9463 ; v. 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Discourse analysis--Political aspects. 2. Ethnicity. 3. Nationalism. 4. Identity
(Psychology) I. Dolón, Rosana. II. Todolí, Júlia.
P302.77.A55 2008
401'.41--dc22 2007046496
isbn 978 90 272 2719 5 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Preface vii
Rosana Dolón and Júlia Todolí
Part 1. Introduction
Identities in discourse: An integrative view 3
Héctor Grad & Luisa Martín Rojo
Part 2. Discursive construction of identity in educational contexts
Imposing and resisting ethnic categorization in multicultural classrooms 3 1
Luisa Martín Rojo
The construction of patriotic discourse in Chinese basal readers 57
Yongbing Liu
The denial of Palestinian national and territorial identity in Israeli
schoolbooks of history and geography 1996–2003 77
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Part 3. National and cultural identity
The discursive building of European identity: Diverse articulations of
compatibility between European and national identities in Spain and the UK 111
Hector Grad
9–11 Response(s): Three Arab-American groups respond discursively to
the attacks of September 11, 2001 131
Lutfi M. Hussein
 Analysing Identities in Discourse
Part 4. Identity construction and human suffering
Sexual assault trials, discursive identities and institutional change 159
Susan Ehrlich
The representation of PLWHAs and the dangerous ‘other’ 179
Lean, Mei Li & Lee, Stella Meng Hui
Index 201
Preface
Rosana Dolón and Júlia Todolí
The motivation for the conception of this monographic volume was twofold: in the
first place, we were aware of a social, cultural and anthropological need for re-
search into the discursive construction of identity that considers the individual’s
dynamic exposure and participation in the current life scenario – a need eloquent-
ly illustrated by Triandafyllidou & Wodak (2003: 208): “Today more than before,
identity is dynamic and constantly in evolution as people are more exposed to new
stimuli and challenges and perhaps more in need of an identity/a set of collective
identities that may provide important “anchors” in a world that is constantly in
flux.” The second factor was our belief that this research very clearly demands a
critical approach. When Wetherell (2001: 187) noted that identity is understood as
“a set of culturally available performances sanctioned through power relations”,
she was emphasising the fact that power and domination not only restrict the in-
dividual’s performances, but that the discursive construction of identity is often
under the control of the dominant forces and therefore it is often the result of
forms of manipulation and abuse.
This concern was apparent in the celebration of our First International Confer-
ence on CDA, held in Valencia in 2004. The conference was attended by over three
hundred academics who contributed to debates and critically engaged in discus-
sions on a variety of topics, subjecting their findings from different contexts to
their own analysis and, perhaps most importantly, to the critical lens of the other
participants. The seven articles included in this volume have been carefully se-
lected from the colloquium.
The aim of this issue is to focus on specific contexts where the discursive con-
struction of identity is circumscribed by various forms of power abuse and domi-
nation. The contextual orientation is by no means random; there were two main
criteria involved: firstly, we chose those areas that were most representative of the
conference in that they occupied most intellectual attention. Secondly, the selec-
 Analysing Identities in Discourse
tion was based on those areas of human experience that are especially in need of a
critical analysis. The introduction attempts to make this need clear and evident.
The papers presented here share the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis,
where critical means not just setting out to unravel linguistic and textual traces –
the so-called ‘proof’ of dominance and power abuse; it begins with a specific re-
search attitude which necessarily integrates the reflexive reader. Critical analysis
does not assume or take anything for granted, it unwinds or rather rewinds, gen-
erating new questions where the answers are apparently given and accepted, prob-
lematising in an endeavour to engender compromise and commitment (see the
introduction by Martín Rojo & Grad). Our objective is to encourage this reflexive
attitude in the scholar in particular, and the discourse reader in general.
We would also like this book to serve another purpose: When Habermas
(1984), Freire & Macedo (1987) put forward the concept of emancipatory dis-
course (with the meaning of what could be defined as counter-ideological repre-
sentations acting and articulating interests in transformative ways), they antici-
pated what Luke (2002) explicitly claimed to be a need: the need to go beyond
ideological critique and to develop a powerful thesis about the productive uses of
power, a thesis which would capture an affirmative character of culture, with dis-
course being used aesthetically and for emancipatory purposes. We attempt to
base ourselves on Luke’s reflection, whilst not specifically placing research in the
productive, aesthetic use of discourse, we would like the critical studies in this
volume to trigger and encourage social responses and forms of social comprehen-
sion which could eventually result in social change. This is where the commitment
of the critical analyst should lead us. We hope that this selection of articles will
encourage the consciousness of the reader to move in that direction as well.
Contents of this issue
This volume is made up of three, interlinked sections: the first deals with the dis-
cursive construction of identity in educational contexts, and includes the papers
authored by Luisa Martín Rojo, Yongbing Liu and Nurit Peled-Elhanan; the sec-
ond section presents articles by Héctor Grad and Lutfi Hussein, and considers the
construction of national and cultural identity, while the third part is devoted to
identity construction and human suffering with contributions from Susan Ehr-
lich and Mei Li Lean & Stella M.H. Lee
Martín Rojo’s study represents a critical analysis of the discursive construction
of social identities (class, national and ethnic identity). The author explores the
link between identity construction in discourse and processes of domination,
where domination is seen as enacted by the imposition of social categories, repre-
Preface 
sentations, roles and their internalisation. Though domination relationships imply
power asymmetries, these may be challenged by processes of resistance and more
specifically, the production of identitarian counter-discourses. The author focuses
on both the social implications and conflicts between imposed and conquered
identities, concentrating on the imposition of and resistance to ethnic categoriza-
tion and prejudices. Her corpus comprises ethnographic fieldwork studies in mul-
ticultural schools in Madrid.
Liu, on the other hand, has investigated discursive practice as a construction
of selected versions of China for child readers, who are positioned in terms of
loyal citizens to manipulated ideological forces. To combat what is described as “a
profound identity crisis”, the cultural elites have begun to construct a new version
of Chinese nationalism that also serves to legitimatise the status quo in an increas-
ingly divided society. Thus, instead of embodying a patriotic discourse by promot-
ing sustainable economic development or by solving social problems, the Chinese
government portrays Chinese people as living happily in a unique and beautiful
land, by means of metaphors, specific lexical choices and grammatical categories.
The corpus has been retrieved from standardised textbooks aimed at basal Chi-
nese language readers.
Peled-Elhanan, relying on the concepts of hypertext, hypotext (Genette), elite
racism (Reisigle and Wodak) and representation of social actors (vanLeeuwen and
Kress), examines the ways in which Israeli schoolbooks represent the Palestinian
citizens of Israel and the Palestinian inhabitants of the occupied territories of the
West Bank. The paper does not only examine texts but also the use of visuals and the
special function of captions to reveal that Israeli schoolbooks’ discourse responds to
all the criteria of a racist discourse, as it uses strategies of passivation, objectivation,
categorisation, assimilation and exclusion when referring to Palestinians. Her cor-
pus relies on a multimodal analysis of history and geography textbooks.
Section two opens with Grad’s analysis of the discursive construction of Euro-
pean identity and its compatibility or conflict with national identities in the UK
and Spain from the perspective of social psychology. His research reveals Carte-
sian (automatic) and subjective (non-automatic) construction mechanisms of
compatibility and contradiction between European and national identities. The
implications for classical Social Identity Theory (Brewer 1991, Tajfel 1978 and
Turner et al. 1987) are discussed, as well as the implications for identification with
the European Union as an imagined community, and identification with this so-
cial category. The corpus used by the author contains in-depth interviews with
young adults. The data were obtained from the ‘Youth and European Identity’
project, funded by the European Commission.
Hussein has studied the case of Arabs that have lived in the USA for decades
and how they negotiate their political, religious and ethnic/racial identities. As an