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Reading identities: a case study of grade 8 learners' interactions in a reading clubScheckle, Eileen Margaret Agnes January 2015 (has links)
This study offers an account of reading clubs as a literacy intervention in a grade 8 English class at a former ‘Coloured’ high school in South Africa. Using Margaret Archer’s social realist methodology, it examines different practices of ‘reading’ used by learners in talking and writing about text. Archer’s analytical dualism and morphogenetic model provided an explanatory framework for this study. Analytical dualism allows for the separation of the parts (structural and cultural elements) from the people (the grade 8 learners) so as to analyse the interplay between structure and culture. The morphogenetic model recognises that antecedent structures predate this, and any study but that through the exercise of agency, morphogenesis, in the form of structural elaboration or morphostasis in the form of continuity, may occur. This study used a New Literacies perspective based on an ideological model of literacy which recognises many different literacies, in addition to dominant school literacies. Learners’ talk about books as well as personal journal writing provided an insight into what cultural mechanisms and powers children bring to the reading of novels. Understandings of discourses as well as of Gee’s (1990; 2008) construct of Discourse provided a framework for examining learners’ identities and shifts as readers. The data in this study, which is presented through a series of vignettes, found that grade 8 learners use many different experiences and draw on different discourses when making sense of texts. Through the separation of the structural and cultural components, this research could explore how reading clubs as structures enabled learners to access different discourses from the domain of culture. Through the process and engagement in the reading clubs, following Gee (2000b), learners were attributed affinity, discoursal and institutional identities as readers. It was found, in the course of the study, that providing a safe space, scaffolding, multiple opportunities to practice and a variety of reading material, helped learners to access and appropriate dominant literacies. In addition, learners need a repertoire of literacy practices to draw from as successful reading needs flexibility and adaptability. Reading and writing inform each other and through gradual induction into literary writing, learners began to appropriate and approximate dominant literacy practices. Following others who have contributed to the field of New Literacy Studies (Heath, 1983; Street, 1984; Gee 1990; Prinsloo & Breier, 1996), this study would suggest that literacies of traditionally underserved communities should not be considered in deficit terms. Instead these need to be understood as resources for negotiating meaning making and as tools or mechanisms to access dominant discourse practices. In addition the resilience and competition from Discourses of popular culture need to be recognised and developed as tools to access school literacies.
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Abortion as disruption: discourses surrounding abortion in the talk of menHansjee, Jateen January 2011 (has links)
This research examines men’s talk around abortion using critical discourse analysis. Current literature indicates a dearth of studies addressing the topic of men and abortion in various domains. An understanding of men’s relationship to abortion, however, is crucial to understanding abortion as a social phenomenon. This study utilises the work of Foucault around discourse and power, as well as Butler’s work on gender to create a theoretical framework to approach data. Data were collected in the form of interview groups made up of men, as well as newspaper articles and on-line forum discussions that featured men as the author. What emerged from theses texts was a ‘Familial Discourse’ which posits the nuclear, heterosexual family as a long term relationship between a mother and father, which forms the ideal site to raise children. Discourses that support the family are a discourse of ‘Equal Partnership’ which establishes the man and the woman as being in a heterosexual relationship where each partner is seen to have equal power, and a discourse of ‘Foetal Personhood’ which constructs the foetus as a child in need of a family. Related to the heterosexual matrix, the formation of a family unit comes to be constructed as ‘natural’. Abortion acts as a disruptor to these discourses. By disrupting the formation of the family unit, abortion negatively affects the individuals involved. A relationship where a formation of a family unit was disrupted cannot survive. If the female partner has an abortion without her partner, it is seen as disrupting the equal partnership between the man and the woman. Men in this case see themselves as ‘powerless’ compared to women. From this point a ‘New Man’ discourse emerges, where men position themselves as loving and responsible in the context of a nuclear, heterosexual family unit. Abortion disrupts ‘Foetal Personhood’ and is constructed as murder. In the case of rape the ‘Familial Discourse’ can be invoked either to justify abortion or resist abortion, based on whether or not a family unit can be formed. These discourses reproduce patriarchy.
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Men and meanings of murder: discourses and power in narratives of male homicide in South AfricaStevens, Garth Raymond 08 1900 (has links)
The extant South African literature base on male homicide is relatively small and reveals a
paucity of qualitative studies. This study aimed to elicit discourses embedded within the
narratives of men involved in homicidal encounters, and to analyse them from a social
constructionist perspective. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 30
male prisoners who were convicted of murder. An analysis of narrative forms, followed by a
critical discourse analysis of the narrative contents, was conducted and aimed to assess the
social and ideological significance, functions and effects of these discourses. Participants'
talk included masculine performances that allowed for positive self-presentation and ways of
constructing meaning of their actions for themselves, the interviewer and an `invisible
audience'. Narrative forms of stability/continuity, decline, and transformation/growth that
relied on normalising, reifying, tipping point, propitiatory and rehabilitatory lexical registers
were deployed as a means to position participants as reasonable, normal, rehabilitated, and as
`successful' men. Within the narrative contents, participants constructed homicide through
exculpatory and justificatory discourses to rationalise and minimise their agency, and drew
on essentialist, moral and deterministic notions of male violence. Discourses of spectacular
and instrumental violence were also evident. References to male honour, status and power; a
defence against emasculation; the assertion of control over commodified female partners; the
maintenance of referent familist and ageist discourses; and the normalisation of male
violence as a utilitarian tool to access resources in unequal social contexts, underpinned these
discourses. The homicidal acts thus represented adapted performances of hegemonic
masculinity in a noxious context where this dominant form of masculinity is often
unattainable. While participants' talk reproduced hegemonic constructions of masculinity
within broader social contexts, it also contested hegemonic orders of moral discourses that
govern the legitimacy or illegitimacy of violence. The findings reveal how contexts of
discoursal production have a contradictory response to violence - denouncing it, but also
simultaneously acting as a pernicious incubatory environment for male homicide. It
concludes that the prevention of male homicide must involve the de-linking of masculinities
and violence at material, structural and institutional levels, but also within systems of
signification, if non-violent masculinities are to gain ascendancy. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil.(Psychology)
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Responsible watchdogs? : normative theories of the press in post-apartheid South Africa : a discourse analysis of 102 newspaper articles 1996-99.Skjerdal, Terje Steinulfsson. January 2001 (has links)
This treatise is a study of media-related articles in the South African press February 1996 to April 1999. Through a discourse analysis approach, the treatise identifies two main discourses relating to normative press models: the watchdog discourse and the nation-building discourse. It is argued that the watchdog discourse largely resembles classical libertarian press ideals, while the nation-building discourse resembles social responsibility ideals. The analysis contains numerous examples of the tensions between the government and the newspaper industry in terms of normative press
models. Finally, the treatise challenges the assumed tensions that exist between nation-building and watchdog discourses, and suggests communitarianism as an ideology which upholds the crucial interests of both the press and the government. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.
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Men and meanings of murder: discourses and power in narratives of male homicide in South AfricaStevens, Garth Raymond 08 1900 (has links)
The extant South African literature base on male homicide is relatively small and reveals a
paucity of qualitative studies. This study aimed to elicit discourses embedded within the
narratives of men involved in homicidal encounters, and to analyse them from a social
constructionist perspective. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 30
male prisoners who were convicted of murder. An analysis of narrative forms, followed by a
critical discourse analysis of the narrative contents, was conducted and aimed to assess the
social and ideological significance, functions and effects of these discourses. Participants'
talk included masculine performances that allowed for positive self-presentation and ways of
constructing meaning of their actions for themselves, the interviewer and an `invisible
audience'. Narrative forms of stability/continuity, decline, and transformation/growth that
relied on normalising, reifying, tipping point, propitiatory and rehabilitatory lexical registers
were deployed as a means to position participants as reasonable, normal, rehabilitated, and as
`successful' men. Within the narrative contents, participants constructed homicide through
exculpatory and justificatory discourses to rationalise and minimise their agency, and drew
on essentialist, moral and deterministic notions of male violence. Discourses of spectacular
and instrumental violence were also evident. References to male honour, status and power; a
defence against emasculation; the assertion of control over commodified female partners; the
maintenance of referent familist and ageist discourses; and the normalisation of male
violence as a utilitarian tool to access resources in unequal social contexts, underpinned these
discourses. The homicidal acts thus represented adapted performances of hegemonic
masculinity in a noxious context where this dominant form of masculinity is often
unattainable. While participants' talk reproduced hegemonic constructions of masculinity
within broader social contexts, it also contested hegemonic orders of moral discourses that
govern the legitimacy or illegitimacy of violence. The findings reveal how contexts of
discoursal production have a contradictory response to violence - denouncing it, but also
simultaneously acting as a pernicious incubatory environment for male homicide. It
concludes that the prevention of male homicide must involve the de-linking of masculinities
and violence at material, structural and institutional levels, but also within systems of
signification, if non-violent masculinities are to gain ascendancy. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil.(Psychology)
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The best a man can get? : an analysis of the representation of men within group situations in the advertising copy of Men’s Health and FHM from December 2006 through May 2007Scott, Robert James January 2014 (has links)
This study examines the production of masculinity in the advertisements of South Africa’s two most popular men’s lifestyle magazines, FHM and Men’s Health. I specifically focus on advertisements, as I argue that they play a crucial role in the re‐production of prominent discursive formations. Informed by a poststructuralist framework this study adopts Foucault’s notions of discourse, power and the constitution of the subject. Gender is conceived of within power relations, with a hierarchical relationship between masculinities and femininities. The gendered subject is also viewed as being constantly in process and being constructed performatively through material forms of practice. Focusing on group representations to establish gender hierarchies, I argue that these representations of people are performative acts, hailing the subjects who view them and producing reality through discourse. Hegemonic masculinity, which is argued to be prominent in advertising, is located at the highest point in the gender hierarchy. However, there is not one universal hegemonic masculinity, for it can vary across three discrete political contexts: the local, which is constructed in the immediate face‐to‐face interactions of families, organisations and social structures; the regional, which is constructed at the level of culture or the nation state; and the global, which is constructed in supra‐national locations. In the advertisements of FHM and Men’s Health there is interplay between the latter two as global and regional brands both advertise in these magazines. To investigate the portrayal of masculinities in these publications, this study first undertakes a content analysis to survey the “general landscape” of representation in the advertisements and then performs a critical discourse analysis to uncover “thick description” of the production of masculinity. The content analysis, finds that the advertisements in the sample validate both white and heterosexual forms of masculinity. The sample is comprised mostly of white males, white females and black males, generally proposing forms of hegemonic masculinity, emphasised femininity and complicit masculinity respectively. The representation of white males and black males is different both in terms of the frequency of representations and in the types of representations. I argued that a certain tension inhabits the resulting representations, which try to be inclusive of a multi‐racial South Africa, yet do so within a clearly hierarchical structure. An in‐depth analysis of eight texts, informed by Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis and Kress & van Leeuwen’s framework for visual analysis, finds similar results to the content analysis while providing insight into how various discourses produced the representations, particularly within non‐narrative advertisements.
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Post-feminism in Cosmopolitan and For Him magazine (FHM) : a critical analysisLegge, Janet Helen 02 July 2013 (has links)
Cosmopolitan and For Him Magazine (FHM) are, at present, both the most widely read and, therefore, the most popular "white" consumer magazines in South Africa. They both appeal to young audiences of between 18 and 34 years of age, approximately, and target middle-class, educated groups of readers. My interest in Cosmopolitan and FHM lies in their ability to influence and shape their readers' actions, values, identities and relationships, in particular with the other gender. My analysis is focused on the cover pages and the Editor's letters of six copies of each magazine, ranging from April to September 2003, providing me with a corpus of 12 cover pages and 12 Editor's letters. I adopt a critical perspective through the use of Fairclough's (1989) Critical Discourse Analysis, supported by Mills (1995) Feminist Stylistics, McLoughlin's (2000) textual analysis of cover pages and Kress & van Leeuwen's (1996) visual analysis tools. By combining these different methodologies my research falls into what is newly termed Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Lazar 2005). The cover page analyses used primarily McLoughlin and Kress & van Leeuwen and provides an element of pure genre analysis, while the analysis of the Editor's letters were subject to Fairclough's three inter-related stages of analysis, namely: a Description of the formal textual elements of the letters, an Interpretation which analyses the processes of text production and interpretation, and lastly an Explanation of the socio-historical context. Through an analysis of these magazines, whose interests are being served and how the readers are shaped and positioned by the magazines can be identified. My analyses revealed conflicting discourses within each magazine, however it was Cosmopolitan that revealed more tension and conflict in terms of identifying and representing women, while FHM subscribed, for the most part, uniformly to the "new lad" ideology. However, while Cosmopolitan attempted to show a forward-thinking and emancipatory view of the roles of men and women in society, both magazines covertly sustain patriarchal dominance and hegemonic masculinity. In conclusion, I reveal the need for consumers of the mass media to become more critically aware of the ideologies that are promoted through the differing tools of the media and that only through this critical awareness can any further movement towards equal relations between men and women be made. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in
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Tongue tied : the politics of language, subjectivity and social psychology in South AfricaPainter, Desmond William 03 1900 (has links)
This thesis consists of a series of analytically independent, but conceptually interrelated studies of language ideologies across a number of different discursive terrains. The overarching objective of these interventions is to illuminate the relationship between language, politics and subjectivity from a number of different historical, philosophical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. This, in turn, is pursued with the aim to critically interrogate the ways in which social psychology has traditionally conceptualised and approached language (and language related phenomena), and to explore some of the conceptual, metatheoretical and theoretical requirements for a reconfigured, critical social psychology of language. Towards this end, the following specific themes are explored: (1) the political role language has historically played in South Africa, especially with regards to the articulation and political embodiment of various ethnically, racially and nationally mediated forms of subjectivity (Chapter 3); the politically productive role language has played in the emergence of nationalism, nation-state societies and the modern political order more broadly (and, vice versa, the role nationalism and the modern nation-state has played in delineating language as an ontologically, epistemologically and politically consistent object of state, academic and popular interest) (Chapter 4); (3) the way in which nationally mediated and state-oriented conceptions of language, politics and political subjectivity have been assumed, naturalised and reproduced by traditional social psychology throughout the twentieth century (Chapter 5); and (4) the way in which ordinary discussions about language in an everyday South African setting contribute (by invoking liberal and nationalist discourses, amongst others) to the continued racialisation of language and public space in this country, and to the further legitimisation of linguistically mediated forms of inequality and marginalisation (Chapter 6). In each instance the focus is on language as both constructed and constructive in relation to the emergence of particular social and political orders and their associated subjectivities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limits of discourse and ideology as frameworks for the study of language, politics and subjectivity, and develops a number of tentative ideas about language as a corporeal component of embodied and affective subjectivities (Chapter 7). / Thesis (Ph. D.) (Psychology)
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Academic discourse socialisation : a discursive analysis of student identityHagen, Sean Noel 07 1900 (has links)
This study set out to investigate how students construct their identities. Throughout their
socialisation into academia, students are confronted with the paradox of learning as they negotiate
the opposing discourses of enslavement and mastery that construct higher education. Utilising a
critical discursive psychology approach this research aimed to examine the implications this
paradox holds for the development of students’ identities. In-depth interviews with five master’s
degree students allowed for an examination of the linguistic resources available for students to draw
on in constructing their accounts of student-hood. Analysis of the interpretive repertoires and
ideological dilemmas in the text revealed the uptake of contradictory subject positions in
participants’ navigation of academic discourse. In order to address the inconsistencies associated with these conflicting ways of being a student, participants ‘worked’ a face in their interactions
with academic discourse. Their face-work served to address the paradox by integrating the
contradictory positions evident in their accounts. It is in the agency displayed in the integration of
these disparate positions that the emancipating student is revealed. / Psychology / M.A. (Research Consultation)
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Tongue tied : the politics of language, subjectivity and social psychology in South AfricaPainter, Desmond William 03 1900 (has links)
This thesis consists of a series of analytically independent, but conceptually interrelated studies of language ideologies across a number of different discursive terrains. The overarching objective of these interventions is to illuminate the relationship between language, politics and subjectivity from a number of different historical, philosophical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. This, in turn, is pursued with the aim to critically interrogate the ways in which social psychology has traditionally conceptualised and approached language (and language related phenomena), and to explore some of the conceptual, metatheoretical and theoretical requirements for a reconfigured, critical social psychology of language. Towards this end, the following specific themes are explored: (1) the political role language has historically played in South Africa, especially with regards to the articulation and political embodiment of various ethnically, racially and nationally mediated forms of subjectivity (Chapter 3); the politically productive role language has played in the emergence of nationalism, nation-state societies and the modern political order more broadly (and, vice versa, the role nationalism and the modern nation-state has played in delineating language as an ontologically, epistemologically and politically consistent object of state, academic and popular interest) (Chapter 4); (3) the way in which nationally mediated and state-oriented conceptions of language, politics and political subjectivity have been assumed, naturalised and reproduced by traditional social psychology throughout the twentieth century (Chapter 5); and (4) the way in which ordinary discussions about language in an everyday South African setting contribute (by invoking liberal and nationalist discourses, amongst others) to the continued racialisation of language and public space in this country, and to the further legitimisation of linguistically mediated forms of inequality and marginalisation (Chapter 6). In each instance the focus is on language as both constructed and constructive in relation to the emergence of particular social and political orders and their associated subjectivities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limits of discourse and ideology as frameworks for the study of language, politics and subjectivity, and develops a number of tentative ideas about language as a corporeal component of embodied and affective subjectivities (Chapter 7). / Thesis (Ph. D.) (Psychology)
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