This thesis provides a detailed exploration of the way that four large research-council-funded bioenergy projects have engaged with the politics of bioenergy sustainability. Given the contested nature of sustainable development and the nature of the science in question, this thesis takes a discourse analysis approach to critically examine the functioning of these projects in the context of the wider politics surrounding the issue of bioenergy sustainability. Drawing on in depth interviews and a wide-ranging analysis of the literature, this thesis presents a number of findings. While used in strategically ambiguous ways, under the dominant ecologically modernising discourse governing bioenergy, sustainability is primarily constructed as synonymous with least-cost decarbonisation. Policy support for bioenergy is built around a technologically optimistic storyline, underpinned by a number of assumptions, including a linear view of scientific policy making. This dominant discourse around bioenergy has been challenged in two main ways. The first of these has rejected the over emphasis on carbon balances and economics as the primary metrics against which bioenergy sustainability should be measured. Decarbonising our energy supply has become increasingly dislocated from its underlying (disputed) ethical and moral rationales. As such it has seemingly become an end in its own right. The second challenge is more subtle and involves a rejection of the framing of bioenergy sustainability as a scientific and technical problem. Although reproducing a more administrative type discourse, the science initiatives explored in this thesis appear to reinforce much of the dominant discourse. As well as reflecting certain practices associated with the governments focus on scientific policy making, a lack of reflexivity to the strategic aims of energy policy within science also reflects a strong positivism and shared reliance on the perceived linearity of scientific policy making. It is argued that if science is to be liberated to fully respond to the challenges of sustainability, scientists need to be more reflexive as to the (political) role of science in modern environmental controversies, questioning both what their impacts might be and whose interests they are serving.

This thesis aims to provide a close analysis of poetry slam in the United Kingdom and United States, using the tools of ethnography and discourse analysis to produce an in-depth account, which is sensitive to the discursively constructed, situated meanings of slam participants. The aim is to explore how slam is understood by its participants, producing a partial ethnography, rather than a definitive history, defence or critique of slam. The thesis is based predominantly on research conducted in four key sites (Bristol and London in the U.K. and Chicago and New York in the U.S.), and considers how slam has been reconstructed in different geographical and social contexts. In addition, this study seeks to highlight issues around: the ways in which artists understand art worlds and their positions within them; the multiple and complex power relations with which art world participants engage; the transient, enduring and virtual communities which art world participants form; the local, translocal and transnational networks which connect these communities and individuals; and the interactions between new/avant-garde and established/dominant art worlds. It is hoped that this analysis will enrich substantially the existing meagre body of research into poetry slam, providing valuable theoretical contributions to the study of art worlds and the social construction of self and relationships. Beyond this, the thesis aims to elucidate a social scientific paradigm which links micro level analyses with macro level social structures and processes, by allying work from multiple theoretical perspectives including those of interactionism, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu and discourse analysis. This paradigm is mobilised to illuminate how slam participants actively construct their identities and negotiate the complex power relations which structure their everyday interactions. In line with the poetic focus of this research, each analytic chapter of this thesis concludes with a haiku. I begin with this thought: Power relations/Are complex navigations/Through interaction.

This thesis analyses face-to-face and one-to-one supervision sessions between British academics and Chinese students in a British university. It argues that identity relations can be reproduced and transformed in discursive practices. Three levels of identity relations – interactional, institutional, and sociocultural – are identified to investigate both collective identities and individual styles in intercultural institutional discourse. Chapter 1 presents a review of the literature covering the major contributions to our understanding of the relationship between discourse and identity, and, based on these, Chapter 2 argues for a multi-modal analysis of intercultural institutional interaction, combining three complementary approaches: Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis; ethnographic analysis and discourse analysis; and qualitative and quantitative analysis. Chapter 3 introduces the specific context of the study and process of data collection, and presents the research focus on the reproductive and transformative attribute of identity relations in discursive practice. The institutional identity dyad SUPERVISOR-STUDENT is taken as a focal point around which interactional and sociocultural identity relations pivot. Taking supervisors and students as two separate but related homogeneous groups, Chapter 4 investigates their shared discursive practices to demonstrate the nature of the collective identities reproduced by the relevant social structures. Chapter 5 complements this analysis by highlighting the contrasts and differences amongst individual supervisors and students, and examining the ways in which identity relations are transformed. In order to enrich our understanding of these collective identities and personal styles, the qualitative discourse analysis is supplemented by word frequency statistics, and ethnographic accounts of participants’ orientations and routine linguistic and institutional practices. The conclusion to this thesis in Chapter 6 reinforces its contribution to the study of discourse and identity, that is, the introduction of a rich, multi-modal approach to the investigation of collective identities and personal styles. With supervision sessions taken as a specific type of institutional discourse, the routine and individual practices of British academics and Chinese students are analysed to provide insights into intercultural talk-ininteraction in the institutional context, supervision styles of local supervisors and participation styles of international students at a British university. As a result, the thesis concludes with a discussion of the implications for spoken English teaching in China and proposals for future research.

This research paper takes departure from the contradictions of understandings regarding the purpose of operation EUNAVFOR Med, which operates in the Mediterranean aiming at disrupting the business model of human smugglers. The alteration of opinions concerns the question(s) regarding, to what extent the operation should be considered a securitization, and if so, of what? Research has consequently been drawn from the Copenhagen’s School theory of securitization, looking deeper into the involvement of the main actors in the operation, the EU, the human smugglers and the migrants, in order to identify if this operation could indeed be considered a securitization act. By placing the main actors of the operation in the center of the theoretical framework this research has been able to identify how this operation can be understood from a securitization theory and also what has been securitized. The methodological approach is based upon Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, framing both the structure and the analytical apparatus of the research paper, enabling an even broader understanding of the case. The result showed that there are indeed indicators demonstrating that operation EUNAVFOR Med could be considered a successful securitization of human smugglers. Also, in line with this operation, there are several indicators that shows how the EU has managed to pull a securitization move of migration, arguing that the migrants has formed an ‘uncontrolled problem’ for the EU.

This master thesis aims to examine texts of an international tourism promotional magazine Gotland 2016 to figure out whether it will help or on the contrary hinder sustainable development. Though promoters and writers held the beliefs to sustain tourism by prolonging tourism seasons and attracting international tourists, to our bewilderment, they not only failed to stick to its point as such but also expressed the opposite thoughts and notions among the texts. During the process of the analysis, the author found out that in Gotland 2016, the images of Visby, oceans scenes, summer, nature / tourist scenes and exoticism are strengthened while the opposite of these images are inevitably weakened simultaneously, which obstruct the extension of tourism seasons as well as lowering expectations for international tourists. This, in the long run, will hinder continuous development of local area in economic, environment and social sense. Particularly in this master thesis, social sustainability is discussed with priority since it is always likely to be overlooked and seen as less important than other aspects of sustainable tourism. In consequence, it is suggested that the wellbeing of local communities is equally important as environment protection and economic growth when promoting tourism development.

Abstract The aim of this study is to illustrate how people with drug abuse problems are being depicted in drug courts, by examining the statements of the social welfare board and the individual, and the drug courts evaluation and judgement. These statements are being examined from power theories and a social constructionist perspective. Furthermore, the study aims to examine how these statements relate to each other. The study has a qualitative approach based on a discourse analytical method with following analytical tools; modality, processes, terminology, passive sense and nominalization. Based on the social constructionist perspective, the language in the verdicts is considered as both constructed and constructing. The empirical data consists of two verdicts concerning compulsory drug treatment, acquired from a drug court located in a medium-sized city in Sweden. In conclusion, the parties' statements may include varying degrees of truth and credibility, depending on structure and word choices. Further, different groups, in this case the social welfare board, the drug court (lawyers) and doctors, throughout the study is given the role of so-called privileged speakers with a special interpretative prerogative, whose expertise and opinions are often a kind of unchallenged knowledge. It is also evident how there are power differences even between these groups. I the two analyzed cases, the results show that different parties have the primary interpretative prerogative. Common to both cases is that the person with drug abuse problems are attributed to the least power, credibility and degree of truth, and thus end up at the bottom of this chain. A key finding in the study is that people with drug abuse problems are constructed in different ways in the verdicts, depending on the choice of words, sentence structure and current discourse. The language in the verdicts becomes a power tool that create, recreate and maintain beliefs about the abuser. Compulsory treatment, discourse analysis, social constructionism, power, drug abuser

The issue of the Mapuches conflict has received different reactions from stakeholders and most important, government in the countries where they exist. This issue has gained much attention in Chile, where the Mapuche form the largest ratio of the indigenous group. The issue started more than seven centuries ago when neighboring groups started to invade the mapuches land, the aggressors where mainly Inka. And the reason for invading was that the mapuche land had dense forests and were rich in minerals. The fight for the mapuches rights on these resources culminated with the entry of the Spanish. The Mapuche were involved in a war with the Spanish for about three and a half decades. When the Spanish eventually took over the territory, they divided it between Chile and Argentina to facilitate smooth governance. The Spaniards who succeeded in overcoming the Mapuche had seceded from Spain and had become permanent residents of South America under the new name “Chile”. This meant that they laid claim on the resources and territory in the mapuches land. While the Argentine Mapuche have experienced relative peace, except for the Argentine war of extermination in the 19th Century, their counterparts in Chile have had a poor relationship with most government. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relations between the Mapuche and the Chilean government over four decades. The study will examine the presidential discourse on the issue of the Mapuche conflict under six governments, during the periods between 1970 and 2010. I am interested in understanding the factors that led to the change of narrative from referring to the Mapuche as peasants/farmers entitled to resources as part of their cultural heritage to finally being labeled as terrorists by the Chilean Government. In meeting the research aims, I will examine the historical development of the Mapuche and the factors that have defined their attitude and perception of various laws, policies and government actions on them. The study will employ Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis method where I will carry out text analysis, processing analysis and eventually the social analysis of the discourse simultaneously.

This study focuses on how minorities are stigmatized in the French media. It limits itself to the case of the proposal of the denaturalization law and the consequent discourse about it. The subject is introduced through a short background on the law and its relevance to the possible racist nature of the debate, followed by some background on racism in France, an overview of the theory on new racism and how it can explain stigmatizating discourses. Critical Discourse Analysis is used as the method to uncover said discourses as it is a method related to the in-depth analysis of implicit dominant ideologies and power-structures. The study analyzes twenty articles from two French newspapers in order to determine how stigmatizing discourses are expressed. The results in the discussion show recurrent racist narratives that systematically denigrate and stereotype Muslims and immigrants. They also show a pattern of the dominant culture negating space to minorities.

This thesis seeks to understand how the restrictive immigration policies – taken by the Swedish Government in 2015 as Europe was facing a huge stream of people seeking refuge – could be justified when research demonstrates that Sweden’s national identity is based on humanitarianism and asserts that Sweden has a great commitment to human rights. The nationalistic act seemed paradoxical – however, previous research displays a disputed understanding of the relationship between the humanitarian discourse and the nationalistic discourse. The thesis uses discourse theory to trace how the Swedish Government through its representation of the decision to tighten immigration constructs and reproduces the Swedish national identity. The empirical analysis displays a shift in the focus of Swedish immigration policy from an international (humanitarian) one to a national one. Even though it is not possible to fully assert an identity change the analysis indicates an identity crisis – the analysis demonstrates how humanitarian values acquires meaning within a nationalistic discourse. The thesis also demonstrates how the Swedish Government represents immigration as a contradiction to the Swedish welfare state. The decision to tighten immigration appears as a measure taken in order to rescue the national identity and its main feature – the welfare.

In this multi-methodological (Gee, 2011; Hult & D. Johnson, 2015) study, I examine Richard Ruiz's (2014) original concept of the epiphenomenal nature of language in language policy and planning (LPP) across social scales (Hult, 2013) in Hong Kong. While research in Hong Kong has focused on interactions between schools, teachers, students, parents, business, and the government, the work on non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) remains a neglected social scale. Addressing this gap, I examine the role of a local NGO, Hong Kong Unison (Unison), as a social actor involved in the negotiation of language-in-education policies for the city's ethnic minority students. Through the collection of one decade of publically accessible documents, I created a corpus of Unison's work. Corpus linguistics approaches and a wider-angle perspective to critical discourse analysis (cf. Tian, 2006, 2008) were combined in order to highlight salient patterns and discourses within the data (cf. Baker, 2016). Corpus and discursive analyses indicate that Unison is primarily involved in transforming language policies through their active role in increasing public awareness about the social, political, and educational difficulties ethnic minority students encounter in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the NGO’s ideologies reveal the epiphenomenal nature of LPP. Epiphenomenality reflects how decisions made about language are influenced and shaped by non-linguistic phenomena. Unison's negotiation of LPP demonstrates how their decisions about language are connected to issues of equality, justice, economic opportunity, educational attainment, and social advancement. These ideologies manifest themselves in dialogue across social scales, demonstrating Unison's impact in negotiating LPP in Hong Kong. This study, while providing more insight into LPP research by examining the role of a local NGO, continues to raise questions on how to best understand how multiple scales intersect in the policymaking process, and how the epiphenomenal nature of language shapes decision-making.