The Man (of) Who(m) Laughs

Social Voices in Joker’s Filmic Discourse

Authors

  • Dina Ferreira Universidade Estadual do Ceará
  • Elayne Gonçalves Silva Universidade Estadual do Ceará
  • Marcos Roberto dos Santos Amaral Universidade Estadual do Ceará

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.18384

Keywords:

dialogized heterodiscourse, ideological sign, Joker

Abstract

This paper analyzes the dialogized heterodiscourse and the ideological-evaluative positions sustained by the social voices moving around the movie Joker (2019). Our theoretical framework is based on the proposals of dialogic discourse analysis (DDA), more specifically, the Bakhtinian notion of (dialogized) heterodiscourse and the Volochinovian concept of ideological sign. The relations and effects of meaning constructed by the film narrative emerge from the dialogical relation of opposition established between the centripetal/dominant speeches and centrifugal/oppositional speeches which, in turn, inscribe different meanings and values in the signs, which are configured as the arena of class struggle among antagonistic social classes.

Author Biographies

  • Dina Ferreira, Universidade Estadual do Ceará

    Dina Ferreira has a PhD in linguistics and is a teacher on the postgraduate programme in applied linguistics at the Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Brazil

  • Elayne Gonçalves Silva, Universidade Estadual do Ceará

    Elayne Gonçalves Silva is a doctoral student in applied linguistics at the Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Brazil.

  • Marcos Roberto dos Santos Amaral, Universidade Estadual do Ceará

    Marcos Roberto dos Santos Amaral is a doctoral student in applied linguistics at the Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Brazil.

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Published

2021-04-19

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Ferreira, D., Silva, E. G., & dos Santos Amaral, M. R. (2021). The Man (of) Who(m) Laughs: Social Voices in Joker’s Filmic Discourse. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 15(2), 163–181. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.18384