Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse

Authors

  • David Machin Örebro University
  • Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard Federal University of Santa Catarina
  • Tommaso M. Milani University of the Witwatersrand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i3.32037

Keywords:

multimodality, gender, sexuality, critical analysis, CDA

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to open a discussion about multimodal work in the area of gender, language and discourse, and propose the kinds of multimodal approaches that are most appropriate for this task. Multimodality, we claim, is a rather fragmented and unconsolidated field where many of the tools and concepts applied by different researchers are much less suitable than others. Our intention here is to raise critical questions about the affordances used by communicators in each context of usage and the ideological purposes they are meant to accomplish, so that meanings about gender and sexuality are uncovered.

Author Biographies

  • David Machin, Örebro University

    David Machin is professor of media and communication, at Örebro University, Sweden. His publications include Analysing Popular Music (2010), The Language of Monuments (2013) and Visual Journalism (2015). He coedits the journals Journal of Language and Politics and Social Semiotics.

  • Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard, Federal University of Santa Catarina

    Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard is professor of English language and applied linguistics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil and Senior Research Fellow in the English Department at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her main publications include Language and Sex (1991), News as Social Practice (1997) and Texts and Practices: Reading in CDA (co-edited with Malcolm Coulthard; 1996). She is the editor (with Tommaso M. Milani) of Gender and Language.

  • Tommaso M. Milani, University of the Witwatersrand

    Tommaso M. Milani is associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg. He has written extensively on issues of language, gender and sexuality in South Africa. His most recent publications include the edited collection Language and Masculinities (2015). He is editor (with Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard) of Gender and Language.

References

Abousnnouga, G. and Machin, D. (2013) The Language of War Monuments. London: Bloomsbury.

Baker, P. and Levon, E. (2016) ‘That’s what I call a man’: representations of racialised and classed masculinities in the UK print media. Gender and Language 10: 106–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i1.25401

Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. and Coulthard, M. (eds) (1996) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.

Djonov, E. and Zhao, S. (eds) (2014) Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse. New York: Routledge.

Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1992) (ed.) Critical Language Awareness, London: Routledge.

Forceville, C. (2010) Review of C. Jewitt (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (2009). Journal of Pragmatics 42: 2604–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.03.003

Fowler (1996) On critical linguistics. In C. R. Caldas-Coulthard and M. Coulthard (eds) Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis 3–14. London: Routledge.

Fowler, R., Hodge, R., Kress, G. and Trew, T (eds) (1979) Language and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotics. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

Holmberg, P. (2012) Kontext som aktivitet, situationstyp och praktik: en kritisk analys av kontextbegreppet i systemisk-funktionellteori [Kontext as activity, situations type and practice: a critical analysis of the concept of context in systemic functional theory]. Språk och stil 22: 67–86.

Kress, G. (1989) Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kress, G. (2010) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.

Kress, G. and Hodge, R. I. V. (1979) Language as Ideology. London: Routledge.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1990) Reading Images. Victoria: Deakin University.

Machin, D. (2013) What is multimodal critical discourse studies? Critical Discourse Studies 10: 347–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.813770

Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.

Machin, D. and van Leeuwen, T. (2016) Multimodality, politics and ideology. Journal of Language and Politics 15: 243–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.3.01mac

Mayr, A. and Machin, D. (2012) The Language of Crime and Deviance. London: Bloomsbury.

O’Toole, M. (1994) The Language of Displayed Art. Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh-Dickenson University Press.

Van Dijk, T. A. (ed.) (1985) Discourse and Communication: New Approaches to the Analysis of Mass Media Discourse and Communication. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Van Leeuwen, T. (2014) Critical discourse analysis and multimodality. In C. Hart and P. Cap (eds) Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies 281–97. London: Bloomsbury.

Wodak, R. (ed.) (1989) Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2001) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. London: Sage.

Downloads

Published

2016-12-20

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2016): Gender and Multimodality

Section

Editorial

How to Cite

Machin, D., Caldas-Coulthard, C. R., & Milani, T. M. (2016). Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse. Gender and Language, 10(3), 301-308. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i3.32037