Literature as Discourse

Introduction
A structuralist approach to media studies has the advantage of opening up many new areas t
analysis and criticism. However, questions about structuralist assumptions and methods remain,
and we are seriously lacking in satisfactory answers, many of which remain beyond I scope of
this investigation. But if we persist in the conviction that audiences should be granted t role of
subject, that is, a role of ”active agent” in television production, one capable of const! meanings
from the language of the media, then it is also necessary to continue under assum^Hnn that
language and meaning are in some way social constructs. Although much of the^ methodology
and research goals used in the study of language have resisted this trend, today ”society” and
”criticism” have become key words in various new approaches to language study and j its
application to the analysis of media as discourse. Ruth Wodak, writing in Language, Power and \
Ideology, defines her field, which she calls ”critical linguistics,” as ”an interdisciplinary approach
to ’ language study with a critical point of view” for the purpose of studying ”language behavior
in natural speech situations of social relevance.” Wodak also stresses the importance of ”diverse ,
theoretical and methodological concepts” and suggests that these can also be used for ”analyzing
issues of social relevance,” while attempting to expose ”inequality and injustice.” Wodak
underscores and encourages ”the use of multiple methods” in language research while
emphasizing the importance of recognizing the ”historical and social aspects.”

Language Structure and Ideology

Emphasis on both the structure and the social context of media texts can provide a solution which
enables the media critic to ”denaturalize,” or expose the ”taken-for-grantedness” of ideological
messages as they appear in isolated speech and, when combined with newer ethnographic studies
and newer methods of discourse analysis, create a broader common ground between structuralists
and and those who see the media as manipulators. The critical use of discourse analysis (CDA) in
applied linguistics is leading to the development of a different approach to understanding media
messages. Robert Kaplan expressed some of these new concepts when he wrote: ”The text,
whether written or oral, is a multidimensional structure,” and ”any text is layered, Like a sheet of
thick plywood consisting of many thin sheets lying at different angles to each other.” The basics
of a text consist of syntax and lexicon; its grammar, morphology, phonology, and semantics.
However, ”The understanding... of grammar and lexicon does not constitute the
understanding...of text.” ”Rhetoric intent...,” says Kaplan, ”coherence and the world view that
author and receptor bring to the text are essential.” The comprehension of meaning ...lies not in
the text itself, but in the complex interaction between the author’s intent and his/her performative
ability to encode that intent, and the receptor’s intent and his/her performative ability not only to
decode the author’s intent but to mesh his/her own intent with the author’s.

Critical discourse analysis has made the study of language into an interdisciplinary tool and can
be used by scholars with various backgrounds, including media criticism. Most significantly, it
offers the opportunity to adopt a social perspective in the cross-cultural study of media texts. As
Gunter Kress points out, CDA has an ”overtly political agenda,” which ”serves to set CDA
off...from

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other kinds of discourse analysis” and text linguistics, ”as well as pragmatics and
sociolinguistics.” While most forms of discourse analysis ”aim to provide a better understanding
of socio-cultural aspects of texts,” CDA ”aims to provide accounts of the production, internal
structure, and overall organization of texts.” One crucial difference is that CDA ”aims to provide
a critical dimension in its theoretical and descriptive accounts of texts.”

More specifically, according to Kress’s definition, CDA treats language as a type of social
practice among many used for representation and signification (including visual images, music,
gestures, etc.). Texts are produced by ”socially situated speakers and writers.” The relations of
participants in producing texts are not always equal: there will be a range from complete
solidarity to complete inequality. Meaning & < o:ae about though interaction between readers
and receivers and linguistic features come about as a result of social processes, which are never
arbitrary. In most interactions, users of language bring with them different dispositions toward
language, which are closely related to social positionings. History must also be taken into
account, as ideologically and politically ”inflected time.” Finally, precise analysis and
”descriptions of the materiality *rf language” are factors which are always characteristic of CDA.

In addition to language structure, ideology also has a role to play in CDA. Kress stresses that
”any linguistic form considered in isolation has no specifically determinate meaning as such, nor
does it possess any ideological significance or function.” Consequently, ”the defined and
delimited set of statements that constitute a discourse are themselves expressive of and organized
by a specific ideology.” Languaae, ”can never appear by itself-it always appears as the
representative of a system of linguistic terms, which themselves realize discursive and ideological
systems.” For example,

...in The chairman has advised me that..., The Chairman occupies first position and has the
emphasis conveyed by that, in the equivalent passive clause / have been advised by the Chairman
that... that emphasis now attaches to I. Hence a syntactic form signals not simply the prior
presence of a specific ideological selection, it also^ signals or expresses the meaning or content of
that ideological choice.

The speaker (or writer) expresses ideological content in texts and so does the linguistic form of
the text: ”...selection or choice of a linguistic form may not be a live process for the’individual
speaker...,” but ”the discourse will be a reproduction of that previously learned,” discourse. Texts
are selected and organized syntactic forms whose ”content-structure” reflect the ideological
organization of a particular area of social life.

To illustrate his point, Kress offers as an example the transcript of a news report in which
”transactive clauses” are used (in the active voice) to portray causally the role of demonstrators
against apartheid at a football match. The demonstration, therefore, which was against a particular
injustice, was in fact portrayed by the media as having been somehow caused through the actions
of the demonstrators. The report portrayed the demonstrators in a violent way, as ”protesters”
who ”chanted slogans, ...blew whistles,” and even tried to ” ...disrupt the match, ...invade the
pitch.” In another incident, ”the demonstrators stormed thevfence,” and even began ”tearing the
fence down.” As Kress points out, ”Clearly,” in this particular incident, ”the mode in which an
action is presented, either as transactive or as nontransactive, is not a matter of truth or of reality
but rather a matter of the way in which that particular action is integrated into the ideological
system of the speaker, and the manner in which such an action is therefore articulated in a specific
discourse.”

The actual decision on the part of the journalist or editor to use either a transactive or a
nontransactive clause, Kress insists, was definitely a matter of choice and not chance. Kress
offers another example to illustrate a common way in which nontransactive clauses are used:

Things began peacefully enough, police hurried to the back fence, violent clashes followed; More
clashes...erupted, the confrontation was to last several hours; emotion subsided...
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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLISTICS

In the example (above) one can see that the adoption of a particular ideological-discursive
structure on the part of the journalist expresses the values of an ideological system and of a
specific ”discourse authority.”

The choice of lexical items, as well, is mentioned by Kress. With only minimal inspection, one is
able to see that some reports, as Kress puts it, are ”guided by the metaphor of a military clash.”
One side is cast by the journalist as ”enemy” ana ^e other as ”friend or protector.” ”So the police
guard the ground,” (the policing representing the defenders of ”good”) ”which the protesters
attempt to invade, storm” (the aggressors, in this case). ”In this way,” says Kress, ”the newscast
audience’s perceptions or readings of the text are structured so that they will not only regard the
report as ’simply reporting the facts as they were’ but will also structure their interpretation of
the relevance of the text overall.

The visual portion of a television text, says Kress, is also important for interpretation. This ,•„„!. i
-, n^ portrayal of the anti-racist demonstrators as being aggressive through the use of certain
camera shots. Kress mentions other examples, taken from newspaper reports, in which
government authorities, such as the Prime Minister, are consistently presented in thematic
positions, and the main events, such as talks or backlash, union unrest, etc., are presented as if
they are acting on the Prime Minister.

Consequently, according to Kress, ”From an ideological point of view this presents the Prime
Minister (through a syntactic-textual metaphor, so to speak) as the most significant individual, but
nevertheless, as acted on, nonactive himself, responding rather than initiating, with a network of
interactive relations.” The result is, that ”The main actions of people in government are,”
according to the existence of a syntactic-textual metaphor, ”not real actions, but the mediation,
facilitation, interrelation between individuals, groups, and abstract categories.”

Ideology, society, cognition and discourse analysis

Although Teun Van Dijk places emphasis on ethnic affairs, his study of racism and the press
provides a detailed discourse analytical approach to media studies. Van Dijk’s focus is also on
content from an interdisciplinary point of view. Discourse analysis, when used together with a
”multidisciplinary approach to the study of language,” provides the critic with a tool for studying
communication within ”socio-cultural contexts.” Specifically, Van Dijk states that the focus on
”textual or conversational structures” derives its ”framework” from the ”cognitive, social,
historical, cultural, or political contexts.” Van Dijk’s approach, however, differs from linguistics
in that it is not limited to the study of ...the surface structures and meanings of (isolated, abstract)
sentences... Once such a structural analysis has been made,” according to Van Dijk’s method, it is
possible to ”proceed to establishing relationships with the context... Weare ...interested in the
actual processes of decoding, interpretation, storage, and representation in memory, and in the
role of previous knowledge and beliefs of the readers in this process of understanding.”

ideology also plays a ”crucial role” in Van Dijk’s analytical method. To Van Dijk, ”ideologies”
are viewed as ”interpretation frameworks” which ”organize sets of attitudes” about other
elements of modern society. Ideologies, therefore, provide the ”cognitive foundation” for the
attitudes of various groups in societies, as well as the futherance of their own goals and interests.
Van Djik offers a ”schema” of relations between ideology, society, cognition and discourse:
Within social structures, social interaction takes place. This social interaction is presented in the
form of text/discourse, which is then cognizized according to a cognitive system/memory. This
”system/memory” consists of short-term memory, in which ”strategic process,” or decoding and
interpretation takes place. Long-term memory, however, serves as a holder of ”socio-cultural
knowledge,” which consists of knowledge of language, discourse, communication, persons,
groups and events-existing in the form of ”scripts.” ”Social (group) attitudes” also reside within
long-term

fcteusuofifS**”
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memory and provide further decoding guides. Each of these ”group attitudes” can represent an
array of ideologies which combine to create one’s own personal ideology which conforms to
one’s identity, goals, social position, values and resources.

This ”process” of framing ”beliefs and opinions,” say Van Djik, that benefit one particular group,
is not final. ”Some people may be forced or persuaded, socially or economically” to go against
their ”best interests....” Therefore, in contrast with many Marxist or other critics who interpret the
role of the media in modern societies deterministically, Van Dijk does not suggest that ideologies
are ”essentially ’false’ forms of consciousness, as in the case of many traditional theories of
ideology.” Still, the possible discrepancy between group ideology and group interests implies that
power relations in society can also be reproduced and legitimated at the ideological level,
meaning that, to control other people, it is most effective to try to control their group attitudes and
especially their even more fundamental, attitude-producing, ideologies. In such circumstances,
audiences will behave out of their own ”free” will in accordance with the interests of the
powerful. Van Dijk’s thesis, like Wodak and Kress, implies that the exercise of power in Modern,
democratic societies is no longer primarily coercive, but persuasive, that is, ideological.

The other essential element of Van Dijk’s thesis, especially as it applies to an intercultural
approach to media analysis, is ”the systematic analysis of implicitness.” Journalists and media
users are in possession of ”mental models...about the world.” Consequently, the text is really like
”an iceberg of information,” and it is really only the ”tip” which is ”actually expressed in words
and sentences. The rest is assumed to be supplied by the knowledge scripts and models of the
media users, and therefore usually left unsaid.” Van Dijk concludes, therefore, that ”the analysis
of the implicit...is very useful in the study of underlying ideologies.”

As this description of Van Dijk’s method should make clear, there are many messages
communicated through the text and structure of a television news broadcast, and what we see on
the surface is really only the ”tip of the ice berg.” The ritualization and fonnalization of broadcast
styles impart another implicitly understood message-carrying dimension to media studies, a
dimension which has only recently been opened to observation and study because of the
accessibility of foreign broadcasts through satellite technology. In most modern cultures, the
familiar television newscast follows a formalized format, one which may have been in use, with
only minor modifications, for decades. After many years of familiarity with a particular style of
news broadcasting, broadcasters and audiences tend to overlook the implicitly ”hidden” messages
which accompany news content. In other words, the coding and decoding of television news has a
tendency to become formalized to the point that many of the messages contained within the
broadcast style are taken for granted by one culture, but interpreted differently, misinterpreted or
not even decoded by another.

Both, audiences and broadcasters, learn to recognize and expect the familiar style typical of
”their” television news. Today, however, through the availability of international broadcasts on
satellite and cable, it is possible to examine, in the company of a foreign audience (one which
expects a different style in television news broadcasting) many of those ritualized and implicitly
understood formulas and turn them into visible phenomena.

Exposing and analyzing implicitness

Each culture has its own way of classifying the contents of the world. This truth was discovered
in the linguistic-anthropological studies of Sapir-Whorf. Stuart Hall offers a masterful summary
of the consequence of signification, as it was first employed in the work of Sapir-Whorf. As Hall
sees it, meaning in a text is constructed by society, and the world is created by huma” beings for
the purpose of that meaning. The linguistic and semantic structures which make up different
languages, as symbols are the means by which humans produce meaning.
*H^*t>-

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A HANDBOOK OF STYLE AND STYLISTICS

”Reality,” or the way we see reality through the prism of our own culture’s means of assigning
meaning to the various elements of our world, especially as this applies to television news
reports, is a phenomenon which will inevitably be defined differently according to the dictates
and needs of different cultures. Different formulas in different societies will be used to decode the
different scripts, or codes used in television news production-a process which is dependent upon
our culture’s history, its evolution and development. The meaning of ”reality,” therefore, will
depend very much on the way a particular society defines it. All elements of that society’s
history, the totality of its development, including its present economic, cultural, racial, class and
political balance, will make it unlikely that any two societies, no matter how similar, will look at
one issue in exactly the same way.

The language of television news, as a particular style of discourse, is a complex blend of national,
social, economic, and linguistic traditions which work in tandem with audience expectations.
These expectations may vary and create a. situation in which misunderstandings and
misinterpretations may occur. Eco has remarked that differences in the ideological makeup of any
audience in terms of ethical, religious, and psychological points of view as well as tastes, values,
etc., inevitably lead to some sort of misunderstanding, or gap, especially under those
circumstances where one culture comes in contact with the other.

Intercultural sensitivity
Understanding and mis-understanding between cultures is a topic which has invited much
attention, a result of a growing interest in translation theory, applied linguistics and language
teaching. As Edward T. Hall has warned:

The more precisely our linguistic components are examined, the more abstract and imprecise the
old observations become...one can only be precise on one analytic level at a time and then only
for a moment. There is much discussion of ”intercultural sensitivity” in the field of foreign
language teaching. Milton Bennet has asserted that sensitivity to other cultures is not even
natural, and that ”cross-cultural contact usually has been accompanied by bloodshed, oppression,
or genocide.” To remedy the problems of intercultural sensitivity in the foreign language
classroom, Bennet has developed a comprehensive program of education and training for both
students and teachers in the art of ”intercultural communication.” Whether Bennet’s observations
concerning the history and belligerent consequences of intercultural contacts is true or false
remains to be investigated. However, his method operates from what he calls ”an ethnocentric
assumptive base,” in which it is assumed that the learner attaches false meanings to observable
cultural differences in other individuals. To include, within the field of foreign language teaching,
extra-linguistic phenomena, such as cultural mis-understandings and mis-interpretations of
others’ intentions, is a significant development in language learning theory. This development
also recognizes the fact that successful communication in a foreign language precludes a
realization and understanding of cultural diversity. Bennet’s theoretical outline traces
”ethnocentrism” in the foreign-language learner from the level of ”denial,” in which cultural
differences are ignored and denied by the culturally uninitiated, through ”defense,” in which the
ethnocentric student believes his/her culture is superior (and acts accordingly), to ”integration,” in
which cultural differences are understood by the student who is, supposedly, in a position to
realistically evaluate the actions of individuals from another culture.
University Questions
1. Discuss Literature as a discourse

2. Discuss the literature of media in the context of critical Linguistics.

3. Discuss how Literature is reflected in context to produce meaningfulness.

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