57 research outputs found
Religion in the discourse of abortion
No full textThe language around abortion is often viewed through a religious lens. Although there is no one unified definitive ‘religious position’, religious institutions tend to have certain stances on abortion. In jurisdictions where religion and religious institutions are strongly intertwined with those of political parties and national governments, religious positions on abortion drive and define the law, and broad social and cultural views, on abortion and reproductive healthcare. In Ireland, the interests of Church and State have been intimately and problematically interconnected. This chapter offers a Critical Discourse Analysis of religious language in the 1980s campaign to adopt the Eighth Amendment, the clause which gave the foetus constitutional status equal to that of women who were pregnant, and the less forceful focus on religion in the language of the campaign to retain the amendment in 2018. This language is then compared to that of the successful campaign for repeal of the Eighth Amendment. The case study focuses on a particular geographical and cultural context, but can be situated within a broader global struggle for bodily autonomy, which has been brought into sharper focus since the repeal of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in the United States
The learning of sacred languages
No full textThe learning of sacred language has been understudied, although millions learn at least the rudiments of a sacred language, and sacred language learning is deeply meaningful for many. A sacred language is one the learner or user believes to have a special religious or spiritual value and learns and uses exclusively for religious or spiritual purposes. Examples include Biblical Hebrew and Pali. Empirical research on sacred language learning is scarce, scattered, and dominated by sociolinguistic approaches. Evidence shows that sacred language learning differs from non-sacred languages: Comprehension is often not required, the aim is not interpersonal communication, and there are differences in identity, attitudes, emotion and motivation, among others. The chapter reports a comparison of the learning of sounds and spoken forms in learners of Quranic Arabic and Sanskrit. Three themes are discussed: the importance of language sounds, the importance of accurate pronunciation, and the emotionality of the language sounds. Within each theme, commonalities and differences between the two languages, and differences with second language phonology research are discussed. It is argued that including sacred languages can extend and diversify theories and evidence in L2 research
Ireland's hidden diaspora: multimodal stylistic constructions of journey and landscape on the Irish abortion trail
No full textThe Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which restricted access to abortion in Ireland, was repealed as a result of a referendum in May 2018. The campaign to secure reproductive rights for women in Ireland was spearheaded by the group Together for Yes, which utilised a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade voters to support repeal. As part of ongoing work into the linguistic strategies of Together for Yes, this paper will analyse campaign videos that were disseminated through mainstream and social media. In particular we analyse visual and aural uses of the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; 1989) and assess how pro-repeal narratives constructed connections between people, country and landscape through image and song (lyrics). This paper will assess how these campaign videos construct journey and landscape to subvert traditional constructions of the highly emotive notion of the Irish diaspora and how they interact with dominant Together for Yes strategies identified in previous research (Statham and Ringrow, 2022)
Ireland's hidden diaspora: multimodal stylistic constructions of journey and landscape on the Irish abortion trail
No full textThe Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which restricted access to abortion in Ireland, was repealed as a result of a referendum in May 2018. The campaign to secure reproductive rights for women in Ireland was spearheaded by the group Together for Yes, which utilised a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade voters to support repeal. As part of ongoing work into the linguistic strategies of Together for Yes, this paper will analyse campaign videos that were disseminated through mainstream and social media. In particular we analyse visual and aural uses of the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; 1989) and assess how pro-repeal narratives constructed connections between people, country and landscape through image and song (lyrics). This paper will assess how these campaign videos construct journey and landscape to subvert traditional constructions of the highly emotive notion of the Irish diaspora and how they interact with dominant Together for Yes strategies identified in previous research (Statham and Ringrow, 2022)
'Girls like me go to England, don't they': Multimodal stylistic analysis of fictional representations of abortion in Ireland
No full textAbortion was restricted in both jurisdictions in Ireland until 2018, when the notorious Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution was repealed. Although legalised by the British government in 2019, provision for abortion in the north of Ireland remains restricted in practice. Part of a broader project on the linguistic construction of abortion in Ireland and on the linguistic strategies through which the status quo was challenged and eventually overcome (Statham and Ringrow, forthcoming), this paper comprises a multimodal stylistic analysis of fictional representations of abortion in Ireland, concentrating on Three Families, a 2021 BBC drama series produced after the liberalisation of abortion law in the north of Ireland. Verbal and visual stylistic analysis of key scenes (following work from Bousfield and McIntyre 2010; Harrison 2020) considers how multimodal elements on screen create empathy. The paper also explores how fictional themes map onto non-fictional issues related to abortion, such as journeys required to access healthcare and the legal battle for change
“Ireland’s hidden diaspora’: multimodal stylistic constructions of journey and landscape on the Irish abortion trail’
No full textThe Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which restricted access to abortion in Ireland, was repealed as a result of a referendum in May 2018. The campaign to secure reproductive rights for women in Ireland was spearheaded by the group Together for Yes, which utilised a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade voters to support repeal. As part of ongoing work into the linguistic strategies of Together for Yes, this paper will analyse campaign videos that were disseminated through mainstream and social media. In particular we analyse visual and aural uses of the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; 1989) and assess how pro-repeal narratives constructed connections between people, country and landscape through image and song (lyrics). This paper will assess how these campaign videos construct journey and landscape to subvert traditional constructions of the highly emotive notion of the Irish diaspora and how they interact with dominant Together for Yes strategies identified in previous research (Statham and Ringrow, 2022)
“Ireland’s hidden diaspora’: multimodal stylistic constructions of journey and landscape on the Irish abortion trail’
No full textThe Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which restricted access to abortion in Ireland, was repealed as a result of a referendum in May 2018. The campaign to secure reproductive rights for women in Ireland was spearheaded by the group Together for Yes, which utilised a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade voters to support repeal. As part of ongoing work into the linguistic strategies of Together for Yes, this paper will analyse campaign videos that were disseminated through mainstream and social media. In particular we analyse visual and aural uses of the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; 1989) and assess how pro-repeal narratives constructed connections between people, country and landscape through image and song (lyrics). This paper will assess how these campaign videos construct journey and landscape to subvert traditional constructions of the highly emotive notion of the Irish diaspora and how they interact with dominant Together for Yes strategies identified in previous research (Statham and Ringrow, 2022)
‘Ireland’s hidden diaspora’: multimodal stylistic constructions of journey and landscape on the Irish abortion trail.
No full textThe Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which restricted access to abortion in Ireland, was repealed as a result of a referendum in May 2018. The campaigns to secure reproductive rights for women in Ireland, conducted by organisations at home and abroad like Together for Yes and the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, utilised a wide range of semiotic resources to persuade voters to support repeal. As part of ongoing work into the linguistic strategies of Together for Yes and other groups (Statham & Ringrow, in press), this article analyses campaign videos that were disseminated through the social media platform YouTube. In particular we analyse textual and visual representations of travel, including uses of the JOURNEY metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), and apply a critical framework for visual analysis (Ledin & Machin, 2018) to assess how pro-repeal narratives constructed connections between people, country and landscape through image and song lyrics. This article assesses how these campaign videos construct journey and landscape to subvert traditional constructions of the highly emotive concept of the Irish diaspora and how they interact with dominant strategies of the repeal campaign
The Language of Cosmetics Advertising [electronic resource] /
No full textThis book offers a cross-cultural comparison of French and British cosmetics advertisements and explores how the discourse of beauty advertising represents ideas about femininity in French and English language contexts. As the global beauty industry expands and consumers become more critical of the claims made, the topic of cosmetics advertising discourse is examined using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. One common theme underlying most cosmetics advertising discourse is that the female body always requires ‘work’ to fix its ‘problems’: flat skin, dry hair, and so on. The author uses themes of language and gender, media and identity, and advertising across cultures to expose exactly what is going on in the language of cosmetics advertising and to offer a first step towards challenging these ideas and thinking about alternatives. Helen Ringrow is Lecturer in Communication Studies and Applied Linguistics at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Prior to this, she completed her PhD in Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she also contributed to undergraduate teaching on language and power.- Chapter 1: Beauty advertising in a cross-cultural context -- Chapter 2: Language, gender, and advertising -- Chapter 3: Problems and Solutions: Pursuing the youthful, ideal body -- Chapter 4: Femininity as a sensual identity -- Chapter 5: Scientised beauty advertising discourse: with peptides or paraben-free? -- Chapter 6: The case for Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis.This book offers a cross-cultural comparison of French and British cosmetics advertisements and explores how the discourse of beauty advertising represents ideas about femininity in French and English language contexts. As the global beauty industry expands and consumers become more critical of the claims made, the topic of cosmetics advertising discourse is examined using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. One common theme underlying most cosmetics advertising discourse is that the female body always requires ‘work’ to fix its ‘problems’: flat skin, dry hair, and so on. The author uses themes of language and gender, media and identity, and advertising across cultures to expose exactly what is going on in the language of cosmetics advertising and to offer a first step towards challenging these ideas and thinking about alternatives. Helen Ringrow is Lecturer in Communication Studies and Applied Linguistics at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Prior to this, she completed her PhD in Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she also contributed to undergraduate teaching on language and power
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