Discourse Analysis of Magazine Article

Written text annotation Text from Maushart (2010) Line Organis-ational structure Linguistic features Notes for CDA and Gricean Maxims 1 T1 R1 I WASN'T surprised to read in The Australian Women’s Weekly I – first person deixis The Australian Women’s Weekly – homophoric reference requires cultural intertextuality 2 T2, R2 that Julia Gillard is "wistful" about the decision not to have children. Julia Gillard –homophoric reference requires knowledge that JG is the prime minister and is beyond childbearing age the decision- bridging reference, reader needs to know she is a woman who has no children and is unlikely to have children “wistful” How is childbearing positioned in society? ‘decision’ presents as choice. Is there really a choice? 3 T3 (linear progression from R2 children>mother), R3 (reiterates R2) As a mother of three, I sometimes feel exactly the same way. the same way – discourse deixis/substitution – reader needs to identify ”wistful” as a feeling Observes maxim of quality when face-saving would lead to flouting maxim > positive politeness strategy of modesty minimises implicature of approbation in the following sentence 4 T4 (plural of T1 and relates to the honesty of the writer in R3), R4 If we’re honest – a quality as rare in playgroup as it is in politics – we’re – first person plural deixis a quality – bridging reference (honesty is a quality) a quality as rare in playgroup as it is in politics – unlikely juxtaposition, need to know what playgroup is ‘we’ common ground > positive politeness strategy of agreement Hyperbole – flouts maxim of quality ‘Honesty’ is seen as positive but rare value in our society – and this is honesty about feelings. Flouts maxim of manner 5 T5 (parallel to T1), R5, (reiterates rhemes R2 and R3) I think most women feel the occasional twinge of ambivalence I – first person deixis the occasional twinge – bridging reference feel a twinge - collocation Flouts maxim of manner (length) Flouts quality of quality (truth not known to writer) 6 around their reproductive choices. their –anaphoric reference reproductive choices - collocation Childbearing as choice (c.f. line 2) 7 T6 (parallel to T2), R6 (develops idea of ambivalence in R2, R3, R5) Now and then, Julia no doubt caves to the fantasy of Now and then – time deixis Julia c.f. Gillard – relational social deixis pointing to a personal relationship (‘Julia as fellow mother’) caves – intensifier, high transitivity Flouts maxim of manner (length/ambiguity) Flouts quality of quality (truth not known to writer) Julia – first name c.f. Gillard 8 coming home to a brood of ranga- dorable little ones, a brood of ranga- dorable – bridging reference, reader needs to know that Julia is a redhead little ones – substitution, reader needs to know that this is a term for young children 9 (connected to R4 “a quality as rare in playgroup as it is in politics”) as sweet-smelling and dolled-up as a newborn parental leave scheme, sweet-smelling and dolled-up – collocations a newborn parental leave scheme –unusual collocation >flouts expectancy relations, bridging reference Flouts maxims of manner (length), quality (simile) 10 T7 (parallel to T1), R7 just as I sometimes do the fantasy of coming home to a bowl of waxed fruit. just as – comparative conjunction I – first person deixis do the fantasy – do – intensifier, higher transitivity, Flouts expectancy relations waxed fruit – collocation a bowl of waxed fruit – bridging reference to the fact that JG was photographed with an empty fruit bowl Flouts maxims of manner (ambiguity), quality (metaphor) What does waxed fruit represent? A life that looks attractive if somewhat artificial 11 T8 (parallel to T2), R9 As Gillard has accurately observed, Gillard c.f. Julia –substitution/ relational social deixis (distancing, formal citation) 12 T9 (marked theme, relationship to irony in R6 &7), the “exquisite irony” the “exquisite irony” – cataphoric reference, collocation 13 R9 is that while a woman with children is still seen as a dodgy political proposition, while –comparative conjunction a dodgy political proposition -bridging reference, collocation 14 a woman without them makes us nervous too. Them – anaphoric reference us – first person plural Flouts maxim of quality (truth claim) don’t impose, give options, who is ‘us’? 15 T10 (ambiguous - relates to T2 parallel progression or R9 linear progression?) R11 Her commitment to the job may not be called into question, Her –anaphoric reference– woman or Gillard? the job – bridging reference commitment to the job – collocation called into question - collocation 16 T11 (relates to T2 or R10?) R11 but her femininity, her sexuality – indeed her humanity – may be. but - comparative conjunction her – anaphoric reference may be - ellipsis 17 T12 (marked theme – interrupted linear progression from R9), R12 Whether childlocked or kid-free, it seems women in Australian Childlocked – humour relies on bridging reference to ‘child locks’ and upsetting of expectancy relations with the usual collocations (e.g. gridlocked, landlocked) kid-free - collocation Flouts maxim of manner (ambiguity, length) 18 politics inevitably suffer stretchmarks and tearing.  suffer (intensifier, high transitivity) stretchmarks and tearing – see twinge – plays on expectancy relations Flouts maxims of manner (ambiguity, length) and quality (truth claim) 19 T13 (parallel with T1), R14 (linked co- hyponymically to R13) I didn’t really get my tubes in a twist tubes (woman’s parts) get my ----in a twist – plays on expectancy relations Flouts maxims of manner (ambiguity, length), quality (metaphor) 20 T14 (parallel to T 1), R14 until I read what Gillard’s biographer, Jacqueline Kent, told the AWW. until –time deixis, temporal conjunction AWW- exophoric reference (anaphora)/bridging reference – need to know that titles can be abbreviated to their acronyms 21 T15 (linear progression from R14), R15, T16 (parallel to T15) , Kent is quoted as saying she she – 3rd person deixis /bridging reference – need knowledge that Jacqueline is a woman’s name 22 R16 believed the PM made the decision to forego a family the PM – homophoric reference (anaphora)/bridging reference/ relational social deixis that points to the connection between the decision and her social function the decision – anaphoric reference Family entails children 23 “once she got into things she liked and was good at, like law and politics”. once –time deixis she – 3rd person deixis like 24 T17 (linear from R16), R17, At that point, Kent went on, At that point – anaphoric reference 25 T18 (linear from R16), R18 (relates to R16) Gillard “realised the two things were mutually exclusive the two things - anaphoric reference/bridging reference could be confused as substitution for law and politics – helped by understanding that law and politics are not mutually exclusive which relies on cultural understanding mutually exclusive - collocation 26 which I think they are”. I – first person deixis but refers back to Kent, therefore needs understanding of direct quotation they - anaphoric reference to ‘the two things’ 27 T19 (linear from R18), T20 Mutually exclusive? Whoa, mama. mutually exclusive - repetition whoa,mama – plays on expectancy relation Whoa, mama - Flouts maxim of quantity 28 T21 Fair suck of the nitrous oxide! the nitrous oxide – bridging reference Extended birth reference Fair suck of – plays on expectancy relations through collocation Flouts maxims of manner (ambiguity), quantity 29 T22 (marked theme) Mother of five and grandmother of eight Nancy Pelosi Exophoric reference: Nancy Pelosi Flouts maxim of manner (length) 30 R22 will have a canary when she hears. will have a canary when – temporal conjunction she – 3rd person deixis when she hears - ellipsis Flout maxims of manner (ambiguity), quality (metaphor) 31 T23 (parallel theme with T24) As speaker of the US House of Representatives, speaker of the US House of Representatives – homophoric reference Flouts maxim of manner (length) 32 R23 second in line to the presidency second in line - collocation the presidency – homophoric reference 33 and the highest-ranking woman ever in American politics, the highest-ranking woman ever in American politics –bridging reference highest-ranking - collocation 34 T24 (linear connects to R22), T24 how awful for her to find out so late in the piece about her - anaphoric reference so late in the piece – time deixis/ bridging reference late in the piece - collocation Flouts maxim of manner (length) 35 the logical fallacy at the core of her seemingly brilliant career. the logical fallacy – bridging reference to ‘mutually exclusive’ (things) the core – bridging reference her - anaphoric reference brilliant career - collocation Flouts maxim of manner (length/ambiguity) 36 T25 (relates to T1), R25 My maternal heart goes out too to maternal my heart goes out to -collocation Flouts maxim of manner (ambiguity), quality (figure of speech) 37 Kristina Keneally, Anna Bligh, Quentin Bryce, Sarah Palin and The Queen Exophoric references – require cultural knowledge The Queen – homophoric reference 38 T26 (marked theme –focuses attention on R25),T27 (linked lexically with T25) , R27 – what? after three deliveries, I have a really elongated heart OK? – What? elongated heart /uterus - heart is repeated for lexical cohesions and not anaphorically referenced because of the confusion it could lead to Requires intertextual knowledge that these people are not typically considered as deserving of empathy Flouts maxims of quality (metaphor), manner (length/ambiguity) 39 T28 (interrupted linear progression from R25) reigning oxymorons all. Reify oxymoron – plays on expectancy relations oxy(moron) – pun requiring lexical knowledge Flouts maxims of quality, manner 40 T29 (marked theme referenced to R25), R29 And speaking of the Sage of Wasilla, it’s not only the mothers of grown-up children And - additive conjunction The Sage of Wasilla –bridging reference requiring cultural intertextuality Flouts maxims of quality, manner who have proved their mettle as political players. their mettle - anaphoric reference prove one’s mettle – collocation political players - collocation 41 T30 (linear from R29) Across the globe a whole new crop of much younger mums Across the globe – homophoric reference a whole new crop – bridging reference Flouts maxims of quality, manner 42 R30 is growing like corn in the night. is growing like corn in the night – descriptive clause Violates maxims of quality, manner 43 T31 (parallel development from T30) Women such as Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, who aged 38 Exophoric reference 44 R30 became the youngest woman ever elected to the US Senate the US Senate – homophoric reference 45 – when her twin sons were 12 months old. her - anaphoric reference 46 T32, T33, (marked theme – first use of 2nd person) R33 Waaa! And you thought the boys’ club of Australian politics was scary. you- 2nd person deixis the boy’s club – homophoric reference requiring cultural knowledge Abrupt change to 2nd person deixis Flout quality of quality, manner  Text analysis This text analysis will draw on a number of analytical tools from the broad field of Discourse Analysis to examine reasons that this text may be problematic for someone linguistically and culturally outside of the discourse community for which the text was written (herein referred to as ‘an L2 user’). The analysis will begin with an overview of the discourse structure of the text, and then move to examine the methods by which textural cohesion is achieved. The humorous argumentation of the text will then be analysed through the application of the Gricean Maxims, before concluding with a Critical Discourse Analysis of the underlying assumptions in the text. In this way, it is intended to show not only a variety of often interconnected ways that language is used to generate meanings beyond the face value of its words and structures, but also to identify the means by which the L2 user may fail to understand such meanings, or the pragmatic intentions, of the text.. In looking at the discourse structure of the text, it can firstly be noted that it is a genre that may not be familiar to L2 users. It a weekly column from a weekend newspaper magazine that seeks to appeal to a middle-class, middle-aged, educated audience looking to be both informed and entertained. The author of the column is herself a middle-aged, heterosexual, female professional who writes on social issues through the frame of her own subjectivities, using self-deprecation and humour to advance an underlying argumentation. This mixture of humour and argumentation may not only make it difficult for an L2 English reader to identify the author’s points of view, but may also be at odds with a cultural belief that humour and argumentation are incompatible, leading to dismissal of either the humour or the underlying argument, or both. Examining the discursive structure from the point of view of thematic progression also reveals potential difficulties for the L2 user. In the first three paragraphs, the author uses two main themes, based around I and Julia Gillard, thus juxtaposing a woman with children with a woman without. The limited number of themes allows the reader to attend to the rheme in each sentence, where the author reiterates her argument that the decision to have children is often surrounded by unexpressed ambivalence. This argument culminates in the thematic foregrounding of the “delicious irony” that a woman (or specifically Julia Gillard, if the heretofore parallel nature of thematic progression is maintained) must sacrifice either her “commitment to the job” or ‘her femininity”, and an intermediary conclusion that a woman in politics is in an unwillable position whether “childlocked or kid-free”. The themes then revert to the juxtaposition of I and Julia Gillard (and her biographer) until the punchy rejection of the idea of children and a career in politics being ‘mutually exclusive” in the rhemeless themes 19-21. The final paragraph is arguably the most difficult to follow in terms of thematic progression, with a mixture of parallel and linear progression, the latter being made even more difficult to follow because of bracketed interruptions (i.e. T 28, 29). Theme systems create a "texture", and guide the reader’s point of view as to how we are meant to perceive and interpret the flow of information in the discourse. “Unity of texture” (Hasan, 1989, cited in Paltridge, 2006, p. 130) is also achieved through the use of patterns of cohesion that not only ties meanings together within the text itself, but also connects the text to the social context in which it occurs (Paltridge, 2006, p.130). In this text, cohesion is achieved mainly through the methods of reference (of words to other words within and outside of the text), lexical cohesion (relationships between lexical items) and collocation (words that commonly occur together) (Paltridge, 2006). Anaphora, whereby a word or phrase refers back to another word or phrase in the text, is often problematic for L2 users (Grabe, 2009). Homophoric and bridging references also create difficulty for L2 users, since they are often unable to bring the presumed shared cultural knowledge of the outside world into their reading of the text. In this text, the reader is presumed to know such things as the identity of Julia Gillard, her age, her hair colour, the criticisms that have been made of her for her childlessness, her opposition to a parental leave system, and even the fact that she was photographed in her kitchen with an empty fruit bowl. Without such ability to reach beyond the text itself, textual cohesion is lost, thematic progression obscured (e.g. Sarah Palin/And speaking of the Sage of Wasilla,...), and the building of humour and argumentation missed. This is also evidenced in the assumed knowledge needed to understand the lexical chains and taxonomies in the text. For example, there is wordplay around terms connected to pregnancy and labour (e.g. twinge, stretchmarks and tearing, tubes, nitrous oxide, deliveries, elongated (heart) that make visceral the difficulties that women face in building a career . These co-hyponyms of the superordinate items, ‘pregnancy and labour’ can themselves be subsumed as hyponyms of motherhood (brood, little ones, newborn, parental leave scheme, childlocked, family, mama, mother, grandmother, maternal, mums, twin, sons), which in turn is subordinate to the broader term ‘womanhood’ which is represented in the text by such words as femininity, sexuality, reproductive choices, political player and by specific women. Such lexical taxonomies “can become very complicated with many layers of organisation built into them” (Halliday, 1990, p. 19 cited in Paltridge, 2006, p. 136), and it can be impossible for someone without pre-existing knowledge of the relationships between items, to work them out from the text alone. For example, Fair suck of the nitrous oxide would lack textual cohesion, even for an L2 user familiar with the Australian idiomatic expression ‘fair suck of the sav’, if the L2 user was not aware that nitrous oxide is commonly used as pain relief during labour in Australia. Much of the humour of the text relies on this interplay between collocational expectancy and sociopragmatic knowledge (e.g. as sweet-smelling and dolled-up as a newborn parental leave scheme, ranga-dorable little ones, tubes in a twist). The role of incongruity of expectations in establishing the humorous nature of the text can also be analysed in terms of the flouting of the Gricean Maxims (Grice, 1975, pp. 45-6). In the text, it is mainly the Maxims of quality (be truthful, do not say that for which you lack evidence) and manner (avoid obscurity, ambiguity, prolixity) that are exploited. The Maxim of quality is flouted through the use of irony (e.g. the Sage of Wasilla), metaphor (e.g. women in Australian politics inevitably suffer stretchmarks and tearing), and unhedged statements that lack evidence (e.g. a quality as rare in playgroup as it is in politics). The Maxim of manner is exploited through ambiguity (e.g. do the fantasy of coming home to a bowl of waxed fruit) and failure to be brief and succinct (e.g. lines 7-9). These flouts act as signals to the reader to look beyond the surface meanings of the words, allowing for the retrieval of the sociopragmatic meanings that form the basis of both the humour and the argument. Interestingly, it is possible not only to see the Maxims as being exploited in the breach, but also in the observance. For example, the author’s response in line 3 observes the Maxim of quality whereas usual face-saving behaviour would lead to flouting the Maxim. This in turn can be analysed as a positive politeness strategy of self-deprecation that in turn minimises the potentially confrontational argument in lines 4-6. Such implicatures from Maxim flouting and observance may well be missed by L2 readers, since different languages and cultures have different ways of observing Grice’s maxims (Paltridge, 2006). Differences in the sociocultural backgrounds of writer and reader can also be highlighted through a Critical Discourse Analysis of the text. Examinations of the themes and the lexical cohesion of the piece have already revealed the framing of the piece as juxtaposing women with children with women without. Underlying this is the cultural presupposition that motherhood is a conscious choice, and that it is normal for a woman to continue a career after motherhood, albeit that the choice is not unproblematic, as shown by the large number of rhemes in the text centred around this idea of ambivalence (e.g. R2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 33). However, the author still adopts the traditional cultural assumption that ‘family’ entails children (line 22). While she acknowledges how childlessness brings other aspects of a woman’s identity into question (lines14 -16), her main concern is to resist the idea that motherhood and a career in politics or law are mutually exclusive, which she does strongly in the punchy delivery of three successive rhemeless themes (T19, 20, 21). The topicalisation in the text foregrounds a number of women as active agents, all of whom belong to the class the concerns of which the text can be seen as privileging: wealthy, educated, Western, heterosexual, professional women. This underlying ideology may be unfamiliar or conflict with that of an L2 reader, thus negatively impacting the schema that s/he brings to the understanding of the text. In conclusion, this analysis has applied several methods of discourse analysis to reveal likely problems for an L2 reader in understanding the text at the pragmatic level, namely analyses of the discourse structure, patterns of cohesion, the application of the Gricean Maxims, and CDA perspectives. In so doing, it becomes obvious that, in order to understand a text, an L2 user needs to develop competencies that extend well beyond that of knowledge of decontextualised vocabulary items or sentence level grammar; rather they are called upon to recognise and understand the deep sociocultural embedding of language at many varied and interconnected levels.  References Brown, P., & Levinson, P. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983) Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E.(1976). Replies and responses. Language in society, Vol.5, Iss.3: pp. 254-313. Grabe, W. (2009). 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