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Discourse and Migration
Teun A. van Dijk
Teun Adrianus van Dijk, is a scholar in the fields of text linguistics, discourse analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Focusing on the Chapter 13, Van Dijk introduces some “discourse analytical methods” for the study of migration.
First of all we have to stress that Discourse Analysis is not a method, but a multidisciplinary field of study of
the humanities and social sciences, so we can call it “ Discourse Studies ”.
This field has emerged initially in anthropology, (socio)linguistics, literature, semiotics, cognitive
psychology and sociology, and later in history, law and communication.
In this field many methods are used, such as:
Qualitative methods : analysis of context, gestures, sound, syntax, meaning, rhetoric, speech acts,
interaction, conversation, narrative, argumentation or genres such as news reports or parliamentary debates.
Quantitative methods : corpus linguistic methods to study vast text corpora, experimental methods in the
psychology of discourse processing or ethnographies for the study of discourse in its social and cultural context. N.B This chapter will be limited to only some methods of qualitative discourse analysis.
If we ask someone “ What is Discourse ?” the answer could be misleading ( fuorviante ).
The definition of “discourse” is implicity provided by all “ theories of the field ” ( teorie sul campo ), studying the many properties of discourse. Discourse is… o A form and unit of language use o An ordered sequence of words, sequence or turns o These sequences express coherent sequence of local and global meanings o A form of communication o A multimodal message ( spoken, written, images, sounds, music ) o A cultural phenomenon o An economic resource ( it may be bought or sold e.g newspapers ) Discourse may… o Create a social relation, such as power, domination or resistance o Be a political action, such as speech in parliament There are many genres of discourse, such as informal conversation, news reports in the press or on TV, parliamentary debates, advertisement, Twitter of Facebook messages and so on. For example, sociology does not provide a definition of “society” but only describe a myriad of properties of societies. A summary of these different properties of discourse may be taken as a complex “definition”.
As discourse can be defined in as many ways as shown above, Discourse studies as a field is tipically multidisciplinary and not limited to more “linguistic” approaches. Critical Discourse Analysis focuses on the study of the discursive abuse of power ( as in racist discourse ) or the resistance against such domination The notion of “ Discourse ” is sometimes also used in a vague and abstract way. Philosophical approaches for example, usually deal more with ideas than with the detailed structures of text. In this regard we can mention the systematic approach of Focault , who focused on the study of the knowledge-power relationship by identifying in the "discourse" a way to impose power.
The term is also used in a more generic sense: for ex. “political discorse” refers to parliamentary debates or
party propaganda. The complexity of discourse as a linguistic, social, political and cultural object also characterises “ Migration Discourse ”, which represents a vast class or different discourse genres. We have to define “ class ” as a “ reference ”. In fact, we can talk about migration like a social or political phenomenon. Among the many discourse genres that may be about migration ( in general ) we can find news reports, editorials, parliamentary debates, laws or everyday conversations. Moreover, we can talk about the related phenomena such as integration, xenophobia, discrimination, racism and so on. Migration discourse is a constituent part of migration as a phenomenon, just think about the stories of migrants. ---- let us now proceed with a more systematic method for the study of migration discourse.
1. The first thing to do when studying discourse is to establish what genre of discourse one is analysing. Among the genres of migration discourse we can mention: Media discourse : news reports, editorials, interviews Political discourse : bills, parliamentary debates Legal discorse : international agreements, trials Educational discourse : teacher-student interaction Administrative discourse Social movement discouse : meeting protests, slogans Internet discourse Artistic discourse : novel, poetry Personal discourse : everyday face-to-face conversation, chats In this chapter our examples will be limited to only a few genres, such as laws, parliamentary debates, news reports and textbooks.
3. Third step, we have to focus on the “ overall meaning ” of discourse, so the topic and the themes. We can define “topic” as a way to summarize a paragraph in the form of a few simple sentences. Such topics are typically expressed in the headline of a news reports or the title and abstract of a scholary paper. Topics are fundamental because they are the information that is generally best remembered by the recipients. We may forget the details of a news report, but we have better memory for the overall topics. ( e.g if a new report is about an immigration event, “ many refugees drowning when crossing the Mediterreanen ” we may later forget the detail, but we can’t forget the information at the top of the mental model we construe of the event by interpreting the news report ) MACROSTRUCTURES OF DISCOURSE = MACROSTRUCTURES OF MENTAL MODELS Topics also allow a “ short-cut ” method when one wants to analyse a large number of discourses about migration. We may study the topic of each one by summarising these discorses in a few sentencews. Such summaries do not provide all details, but they provide a global idea of the meaning of a larger corpus of text. Here are a few examples of topics* as expressed in titles, headlines and summaries of migration discourse:
- This summary condenses a bill of 236 pages into a summary of 66 words with such very general concepts as “ access to services, facilities and work .. Later, have been introduced some “ key changes ” (cambiamenti chiave ):
- N.B crucial is that such summaries, rather than detailed text, generally are best remembered by the readers.
Themes and Topics
Schematic Superstructures See also the following headline of a news report in the Guardian:
- The headline uses the more general notion of “ record levels ”. The first sentence and the rest of the news reports focus on numbers. Using number to express a phenomenon have a rhetorical function, a rhetorical ploy ( stratagemma ) called the “Number Game” See also the following editorial published by the Sun
- We first see the strong valuation word “shocking”, and we notice that we have no control of our borders, so we must say “ what the government must do …”
4. Discourses also have an “overall superstructure”, a schematic form ( or “format” ). Some of categories that constitue such superstructures are the Title, Abstract or Conclusion. They define the overall organisation of text or talk, because even informal conversation may have some more or less conventional schematic categories, such as Opening ( e.g by Greetings: “Hi” ) or Closing ( e.g by leave-taking “Bye!” )
For example, all MPs in parliamentarty debate make use of argumentation structures, including ( fallacies –
“sofismi” ) Thus, superstructures may make their global meaning ( topics ) more or less salient. For this reason is not only important to establish overall meanings, but also their order to position in discourse.
Moreover, implications may play a role in many forms of manipulation , especially when not all reipients are
aware ( consapevoli ) of all implications of a discourse. See the beginning of the speech of UK Home Secretary Teresa May presenting the immigration Bill in Parliament: o On superficial reading, it could seem a discourse expressing positive opinions and attitudes about immigration ( “ immigration enriches the country ” ( typical forms of positive self-presentation ) o BUT, an expression such as “ people who come here legitimately ” implies that illegal immigrants don’t contribute to our society ( and the law will take place to punish them ) o The metaphor “ who play by the rules” represents immigration as a GAME between government, citiziens and immigrants o “ when properly maneged, immigration enriches this country ” implies that if not properly managed, immigration DOES NOT enrich the country. Althought the first sentence is a positive self-presentation, the following “ BUT ” introduce all the negative aspects of badly managed immigration, using euphemism such as “ pressure on schools, hospitals …”
8. Presuppositions represent the knowledge shared by speakers and recipients ( often called Common Ground ), which is relevant for the production and the interpretation of a discourse. Linguistic presuppositions are those propositions that are “ triggered ” ( innescate ) by specific discourse structures, such as: Factive verbs ( to realize , to discover , to regret , to stop or to continue ) Adverbs ( even or also ) Presuppositions
Also presuppositions may be used to manipulate the interpretations of the recipients, typically in media or in political discourse, which may refer to the “criminality” of migrants, thus presupponsing that migrants are criminal.
9. Analyzing the Discourse, it is necessary to observe how the actors and their actions are described. A systematic analysis of the way actors are described in immigration discourse provides attitudes about immigrants. e.g : when a news report use to describe immigrants as “ scroungers ” who abuse of welfare provisions… In addiction, we can show how and how often a word occurs with other words in the same text or “Corpus Linguistic” This way is called “ Content Analysis ”. Let’s try to apply this method on the Immigration Bill , consisting of 4.000 different words: The most frequent word to describe any actor ( but especially the immigrants ) is the generic word “ people ” and the pronoun “ they ” and “ their ” The most frequent adjective is “ illegal ” We’ve studied only a few properties of discourse. Depending on the aims of a research there are many other aspects of meaning that may be studied. For example, a study of metaphors such as “ waves of refugees ” may tell us something about the mental models of migrant discourse. such metaphors of water reinforce the belief that immigrants are a threat since water is, as a liquid substance, difficult to both stop and contain. Moreover, the image of water can lead us to the thousand pictures of boats full of migrants. It is also important to study Ideologies , which can influence the way a speech is expressed.
Ideologies are socially shared mental representations of social groups: racist, anti-racists, pacifists, militarists,
faminists, sexists..
They are typically organised by “POLARIZATION” – good ( in-group ) VS. bad ( out-group ) – us vs. them
Actor and Action descriptions
