1,721,100 research outputs found
The Human Face of the European Institutions: a critical study
No full textThe Human Face of the European Institutions: A Critical Study
Recent studies on the informative material made available to the general public by the European Union (Caliendo, forthcoming; Magistro 2007 and forthcoming) have shown that the community institutions notably draw from a variety of different genres and discursive practices to appeal to their audience. More specifically, the European Union (EU) benefits from orders of discourse that are generally found in communication in the commodity sector. The spread of consumer culture has affected the way public entities present and manage themselves, leading to a more commercial approach in terms of the objects they deal with (i.e. public products), the beneficiaries of these objects (i.e. customers), and the way public entities represent these objects and address such beneficiaries (i.e. the adoption of a promotional style). Hence, the public sector has lately been experiencing a process of commodification of social life, bringing along elements of marketization of public and institutional discourse (Fairclough, 1993; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
Albeit critical research focusing specifically on EU informative documents is still at its early stage, the above-mentioned trends have been documented under many respects, looking at revealing instances of lexicon and grammar, as well as larger-scale discursive and visual elements. This paper intends to broaden investigations on the strategies and genres adopted by the EU to win consensus and promote its institutional structure. Attention is called to alternative tools supplementing the (ever-growing) array of discursive devices and structures employed in EU brochures of comparable nature. In particular, focus will be placed on the “humanization” of the European Union, achieved by means of the incorporation of EU employees’ profiles in the Union’ informative material. The attribution of precise names, faces, roles and objectives to activities carried out at the European Union will be examined and the social impact of such attribution discussed within the framework of critical discourse analysis.
References
Caliendo, Giuditta, Forthcoming, Language and Citizenship: Variation in Institutional Discourse. Paper presented at the international conference “Political Linguistics 2007”. University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, 13-15 September 2007.
Fairclough, Norman & Wodak, Ruth (1997), Critical discourse analysis. In Teun A. Van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction – Volume 2. London: SAGE, 258-284.
Fairclough, Norman (1993), Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. In Discourse and Society, 4/2. London: SAGE. 133-168.
Magistro, Elena (2007), “Promoting the European Identity: Politeness Strategies in the Discourse of the European Union”. In CADAAD Journal, 2007, 1/1: 51-73. Available at: http://www.cadaad.org/ejournal/2007/1/magistro
Magistro, Elena, Forthcoming, The Marketization of Institutional Discourse: The Case of the European Union. Paper presented at the international conference “Political Linguistics 2007”. University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, 13-15 September 2007
Constructing the Identity of Naples Crime Syndicate: the Role of Translation
No full textThe paper sets out to investigate the English translation of the Italian bestseller ‘Gomorrah’, written in 2006 by young Neapolitan author Roberto Saviano. The significance and the impact that ‘Gomorrah’ had on a global scale can be inferred by the synoptic introduction to its UK edition:
[...] Roberto Saviano compiled the most thorough account to date of the Camorra and its chilling significant role in the global economy. [...] the Camorra has an international reach and large stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs and toxic-waste disposal. It exerts a malign grip on cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast and is the deciding factor in why Campania has the highest murder rate in all of Europe and why cancer levels there have skyrocketed in recent years.
The fact that Saviano’s impassionate nonfiction fascinated and shocked readers in more than fifty countries across the globe inevitably raises questions about the cultural transfer of elements pertaining to Naples’ criminal culture that cannot easily be extricated from their local socio-economic context and which are mostly alien to the target reader.
Interestingly enough, such transfer also occurs in the source text itself: some of the references contained in ‘Gomorrah’ may be regarded by many Italian readers as locally-bound i.e., ‘embedded’ in a less familiar Southern cultural framework populated by social and human depravities. Indeed, Saviano recently mentioned on a TV show that most of the Camorra news stays local, mainly because most crimes, killings and unlawful acts taking place in Campania are not sufficiently reported by national channels and therefore remain largely unknown to most Italians. As a response to this problem, ‘Gomorrah’ was conceived by its author as a wake-up call to break through the indifference that generally greets Camorra stories. So, in a way (although on a different scale), both the source text and the target text work in the same direction: they aim to raise public awareness about these lesser-know mobsters and warn against the dangers of a hidden though deadly machine constantly at work. One of Saviano’s aims is, in fact, not only to make it clear that the Mafia and the Camorra are two separate criminal organizations, but also that the Camorra now dwarfs both the Sicilian Mafia and southern Italy’s other crime organizations, in numbers, in economic power and in ruthless violence.
Upon closer examination however, the English version appears tentative in giving the Camorra an autonomous cultural representation for the target audience. Despite the Camorra’s power and considerable scale, as well as its distinctive symbols, practices and well-defined hierarchies, the English version frequently relies on references to Sicilian Mafia and on Mafia-related classifications to ‘filter’ images and identities that pertain to the scenario of the Camorra. This clashes with the awareness-raising intent of the author and prevents the Camorra from gaining full representation as a criminal phenomenon whose repercussions are global and can no longer be overlooked
Tropes in institutional discourse. An introduction
No full textThis paper introduces Antonio Piga’s monographic volume “Towards a New
Communication Policy. Sottotitolo: The Evolution of Communicative Strategies in the EU”. In his book Antonio Piga explores the evolution of communication strategies implemented by the European Union in response to the legitimacy crisis and to the 2005 ‘referendum fiasco’ and focuses on the privileged role played by discourse in the construction of a sense of European identity. Discursive practices are, as maintained by critical discourse analysts, “socially constitutive” (Fairclough 1992, 2003; Wodak et al. 1999; Wodak 2007; Chouliaraky/ Fairclough 2001; Fairclough/Wodak 1997), in the sense that they contribute to processes of social change in which the social identities or ‘selves’ associated with specific institutions are redefined and reconstituted (Fairclough 1992: 137).
Changes in the way the EU represents itself discursively are analyzed in relation to the potential of new information and communication technologies, with particular reference to the Europa website, the EU’s main communication channel as well as the leading communicative tool for the promotion of aggregation between citizens of Europe (Balirano/Caliendo 2008). Recent studies on participatory democracy (Weber et al. 2003; Chadwick/May 2003; Dahlberg 2001) have concentrated on the potential of new modes of information and communication to enhance public endorsement (Caporaso/Wittenbrinck 2006; Chadwick 2006). According to Howard (2006), the so-called ‘new media’ have engendered a global communication revolution that is leading to the construction of new political, cultural and identity-related domains.
The discourse analysis conducted by Antonio Piga takes on a longitudinal slant as it is based on a corpus of informative and popularizing texts made available by the EU to the general public between 2001 and 2009 via the EUROPA website. The analysis mainly aims to track down significant changes in the “interactional routine” (Fairclough 1989: 98) between citizens and institutions during the time span under investigation. For the purpose of his analysis, the author identifies the new discursive patterns that are being adopted by the institutions in more recent informative publications (especially after the 2005 clamorous referendum failure) in order to fuel democratic participation and confer upon the EU the legitimacy and the acceptability required for citizens to identify with it
“Language and the Law in the European Union: an Analysis of EU Secondary Legislation”
No full textSeminario interdipartimentale destinato a docenti universitari e organizzato dal consorzio accademico DIO (Discourse in Organizations) e costituito dalle seguenti università: Università di Anversa (Dipartimento di International Business Communication); Università di Ghent (Dipartimento di Lingue straniere e Studi della Comunicazione); Lessius University College di Anversa (Dipartimento di Linguistica Applicata)
Corpus linguistics: l’uso di Wordsmith Tools per la didattica e la ricerca
No full textSeminario rivolto ai dottorandi in Lingua Inglese per Scopi Speciali e incentrato sull'utilizzo del software di interrogazione di corpora elettronici 'WordSmith Tools' (Scott)
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