Multimodal narratives in SIA's “Singapore Girl” TV advertisements – from branding with femininity to branding with provenance and authenticity?

This paper analyses the multimodal narratives in Singapore Airlines (SIA)’s TV advertisements. Adapting the concept of the foreground–background continuum in multimodal interaction analysis, the first section of this paper analyses the narratives in 10 TV commercials available online from 1970s to 2013. Following the comparative analysis, a close investigation from a social semiotic perspective is conducted on SIA's latest TV advertisement in 2013. Through the analysis, this study shows how gendered representations of the Singapore Girl are manipulated in SIA's advertisements. It also reveals how these gendered representations adopted by SIA are married with contemporary branding philosophies, which also work to cloak them in relation to the use of increasingly well-rounded narrative structure. This study hopes to shed light on the understanding of how gender and sexist ideologies and representations are discursively embodied in contemporary branding strategies used by large-scale advertisements and campaigns spanning a long period.     

Discourse Ethics and the Normative Justification of Tolerance

Abstract

The following paper considers the extent to which discourse ethics can adequately respond to Habermas' own call for normative justification for the expectation of tolerance. It concludes that discourse ethics is able to lend its services to the flagging fortunes of the idea of toleration, not by seeking to underscore this idea with rationally compelling argumentation, but by offering insights into the possibilities opened up to a life which accepts this principle.     

Unstable Antistatism: The Left, the Right, and The Outlaw Josey Wales

This essay is an examination of the diverse origins of modern conservative antistatism in the United States through an analysis of the 1976 film The Outlaw Josey Wales, and the book on which it was based. The consolidation of a conservative politics in the 1970s was achieved in part by the Right's appropriation of New Left antistatism via older forms of racial discourse. This emphasis on New Left influence helps explain the rise of the New Right in a way that is missed in conventional accounts, while demonstrating more generally that political discourse is always contingent and unstable, and open to unintended articulations.     

THE (DE)CONSTRUCTION OF CONFLICT IN DIVORCE LITIGATION: A DISCURSIVE CRITIQUE OF “PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME” AND “THE ALIENATED CHILD”

In high‐conflict divorce litigation involving custody and access, mental‐health professionals are often used to assess the case and make recommendations. Using Foucauldian theories of discourse, this article suggests that these assessments, which are intended to resolve the conflict or offer profitable information, often participate in the conflict by constructing assessments and diagnoses that fit with legal discourse, and thus with the outcomes of adversarial‐styled rulings and ideologically driven interests. This article suggests that so long as such professionals are driven by the privileged discourse of law and psychology/psychiatry, the best interests of those at the center of the conflict can have their experience co‐opted by the iatrogenic features of these discourses.     

The rise of a hesitant EU host? Examining the Greek migrant integration policy and its transformation during the crisis

Greece lately, as a result of the crisis, has been transformed from a migrant receiving (host) country to a simultaneously migrant sending and receiving one. At the same time, processes of migrant de-integration from the economy and society have been manifesting too. This paper attempts to draw light on Greek migrant integration policy, which through the years has been characterized by a contradiction between policy narratives and concrete actions on the ground. More specifically, this paper brings to the fore a policy change that occurred during the period 2012–2015 and possibly continues up to now. According to this policy shift, special emphasis was put on the acquisition of the European long-term resident status from the part of already settled migrants as a passport to their intra-European mobility. Politically speaking, such developments were heralded as a win–win situation for both migrants, but also, Greece as a host country. Nevertheless, this rise of a hesitant EU host, who turned its integration policy into a managing migration endeavour, might be indicative of broader tendencies and trends within an expanded EU migratory landscape that includes both migration, but lately most importantly, asylum too.     

浅论海岩公安题材小说的叙事特征

海岩一系列的公安题材小说在当代小说大众通俗文学创作中占有举足轻重的地位,他用＂案件＋爱情＂、＂冷艳＂复加突破公安题材小说制造英雄呼唤崇高的原有模式,成功制造了一大批英雄民警和爱情英雄,用独特的公安文学视觉用执着的崇高审美开创出＂因冷艳显得更浪漫、遇到热辣即回归理智＂的题材叙事模式,成为当代文学大众文化中＂最不雷同＂的成功作家之一。     

公寓广告中意识形态渗透手段的多模态批评性话语分析

多模态话语普遍存在于广告语篇中，因此，对广告进行多模态话语分析显得十分必要。论文以ChinaDaily上的一则英文公寓广告为语料，对广告中的图片采用视觉语法的分析方法，对广告中的文字说明则以批评性话语分析的三维模式为出发点进行意识形态分析。该研究揭示了语篇生产者如何在特定的社会文化语境下运用各种符号对消费者进行情感、态度、观念上的控制，旨在增强受众对不同层面意识形态渗透手段的认识，提高受众批判性视觉阅读能力与语言阅读能力。     

牢牢把握党的生命线——学习习近平同志关于群众工作的重要论述

党的十八大以来,习近平同志对群众工作提出了一系列新思想、新论断、新要求,深刻论述了群众工作的重大意义、指导思想、目标任务、方式方法等重大理论问题,精辟阐述了坚持群众路线、树立群众观点、坚定群众立场、增进群众感情等重大实践问题,是我们做好新形势下群众工作的科学指南和重要遵循。     

The Discourse of the Extreme Right and Its Ideological Implications: The Case of the Alleanza nazionale on Immigration

Against the background of research on Italian parliamentary debates on immigration, ter Wal looks at the ideological positions of the extreme-right Alleanza nazionale (AN) concerning both immigration and integration policy. In order to unravel the ideological implications she focuses on examples of various rhetorical strategies enacted in speeches by several of the party's MPs: including stategies of self- and other-presentation, and of justification and causal explanation. This analysis shows how the AN manages to propagate an ideology of ethnic nationalism that eschews the egalitarian norms and cultural pluralism necessary for full participation by migrants. The AN's transformation and re-interpretation of the meaning of the key values of equality andsolidarietàfunction as a justification for the restriction of migrants' rights. Speakers shift the perspective from immigrants' problems to the socio-economic problems of Italians in order to recommend a policy of 'the own people first'. While the AN's discourse thus continues to build on traditional extreme-right beliefs and claims, on the other hand it also espouses New Right ideologies of cultural relativism. Moreover, unlike that of radical-right parties, the AN's discourse does not express blatant forms of ethnic prejudice in the form of stereotypical beliefs and negative representations of immigrants' personal characteristics, nor does it blame immigrants, who are rather represented, and sympathized with, as victims. The moderation of and internal contradictions in its discourse makes the AN difficult     

浅论女性话语

女性话语是女性意识的反映,标志着女性对男性传统话语霸权的反抗与反拨,而女性意识是女性对自身、对自身作为一个相对于男性的群体、对自身所应享有的社会地位和角色定位的认识.如果性别不会消失,性别或社会性别差异就会永远存在.强调女性主体性,不仅要改变女性对于男性的从属关系,而且要改变女性对于国家的从属关系.女性话语标志着女性对自我精神力量与价值的探寻.