If you have not played The Sims Freeplay at all, you should have heard of The Sims before. They are both life-stimulation games offered by the Electronic Arts. Some people play videogames to escape from the real world. Our world is full of neoliberalist values. People consume in exchange of values. Things are commodified and quantified. We work and study hard to compete for social mobility. Do you know you have been fed with these 3Cs through the game as well?
Comsumption
n the game, nearly all items are obtained by buying. From the screenshot above, we can see that it is the first long instruction directing players to buy a toilet from the “Home Store”. By applying register analysis, the field is to teach first-time player to obtained items from the store and inventory through the action of buying given the setting of misconstruction of the toilet plus a common sense of the need to visit the toilet after a long trip in transportation, creating an atmosphere of “moving in to the town permanently”. The tenor is missing because it is a tutorial teaching the player how to play in written mode. Given that the game developers are in a stronger position than the vulnerable player in the power wrestling process, sentences are constructed in second person imperatives and end in exclamation mark just to show excitement instead of ordering the player to obtain the toilet.
That is not enough. The game also has a strong tendency to encourage players to spend money in exchange of time. The mechanism of the game is to interact with different items or people in the environment by controlling a Sim each time to earn Experience Points or Simoleons. Every action takes time, ranging from several seconds to a whole day. Most actions can be skipped by using an in-game currency called Lifestyle Points, which can be obtained easily by purchasing with real money, but comparatively difficult if you wish to earn them by completing tasks and quests. Look at the screenshot above, the game also established a hierarchy of VIP Perks to be achieved by accumulating points in purchasing with real money. These VIP Perks can help earning Experience Points or Simoleons or even unlock special features of the game. Although it is named and advertised as “freeplay”, it is never free in nature. The more you pay, the more you can play.
All the in-game items are non-transferrable, meaning that players can only obtain them individually. They can be obtained with by buying with Simoleons or Lifestyle Points or by completing tasks. On surface, it is about whether players are willing to spend more time individually on the game. But previously I have mentioned about how the game will be easier by purchasing with real money and accumulating VIP perks. The truth is that life gets a lot easier with more money spent into the game. Players consume both inside and outside the game.
Commodification
In the game, pets can hunt Simoleons. They had been commodified as a money earning machine. The same is also applied to hobbies and relationship in which players practice hobbies in exchange for Simoleons and other in-game items such as clothing or hairstyles. Can you imagine that you can gain XP from making friends with another sim as shown in the picture? Besides, players can visit their in-game friends’ town to complete some task or goals to obtain Social Points, which can never be purchased with money. Therefore, players establish “friendship” for the purpose of completing game missions only. Imagine in our real world where people establish friendship, practising hobbies and keeping pets for the sole purpose of profits only, there would not be love and affection. This is the neoliberal world where everything can be monetized.
Competition
Competition strengthened the desire to pay and consume the game and paying becomes part of the game. The SimChase Event offers a rival sim to complete with player’s sim of completing a list of designated tasks. On Reddit, players reflected that they need to sacrifice their sleeping time in real world to complete the tasks while the rival sim virtually completes all the tasks and recognized it to encourage players to activate the paid functions in order to complete tasks easier. This shows that the game is a neoliberalist by encouraging you to compete by offering a rival.
After reading this article, I hope that you won’t stop playing The Sims Freeplay if you’re already playing it, but to think about what ideology the game is trying to shape for you and avoid falling into the trap of the neoliberal reality especially under the current pandemic!
In March, 2018, the American president, Donald Trump, claimed that China steals American intellectual property and trade secrets, and America would accordingly ask U.S. trade representatives to impose tariffs on goods imported from China, from which China-United States trade war started. As stated by BBC News, “The dispute has seen the US and China impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of one another’s goods…Trump has long accused China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft. In China, there is a perception that America is trying to curb its rise as a global economic power.” This period has witnessed series of negotiations between China and U.S. It is not only an economic war but also a public opinion war, for the global and domestic public views have force and power on politicians and governments nowadays. Thus, apart from conversations in senior meetings between the two countries, numerous reports relevant to official claims on this issue appear on social media.
(Picture from Forbes)
The official statements play functions of two levels, where the first is to show power to respond to measures of the other party while the second targets at domestic readers and have the potential functions of leading their reactions for support. Thus, how the language in politics performs and functions can be seen through languages applied by the authorities in China–United States trade war. We select a corpus involving tweets by President Trump on Twitter, and posts by People’s Daily on Weibo, from China. We will analyse from the views of political discourse and CDA to explore how languages reconstruct power relations in the trade dispute.
Statement from America:
Statement from China (translated into English)
The usage of pronoun is an important way to call for inclusive support from the domestic citizens. From the texts, both America and China use the first-person pronoun when talking about the trade war, in which America mentions ‘Our Country’ with capital, and China says ‘Our position’ and ‘We’ to call for inclusive power and for national solidarity and position the other party as the third person.
For the written language, it can be seen that Trump applies series of capital to emphasize certain words like ‘HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS’. In this way, Trump implies that America has taken over huge loss of interests because of the trading relationship, and this also harms the American taxpayers’ interests. Here Trump applies implicature to state that the war will help to reduce the loss of interests of Americans. Though it is implication, these capitals play the functions of emphasis and leave a deep impression to audiences.
Meanwhile, Trump’s discourses see neo-liberalism and post-truth. He uses fear to persuade audience. When saying ‘with no end in sight….’ and ‘a great burden to the American Taxpayer’, he highlights the endless harms of individual interests and gives citizens an impression on the negative aspects of importing goods from China. From this, it shows neo-liberalism and post-truth in the U.S. market where the citizens consider and take their own responsibility, and people’s fear about loss of resources occupied by outsiders. This situation makes Trump’s strategy a persuasive one.
Apart from America, China also applies political discourse in the trade war. The most characteristic one is metaphor. In the transcript, China uses ‘Lift the ladder, or throw bricks’, and ‘not a 'blessing' but a 'nightmare'’ as source domain to describe policies from America as target domain. By using metaphors, China is representing America as a negative figure of imposing pressure in this war, to take the dominant power position, and these expressions can leave a simpler and deeper impression to audiences for support.
The differences between the two sides show distinctive social ideology from the strategies that Trump highlights the negative aspects in economic for Americans to continue trade relationship with China, while China does not stress its influences to Chinese people but to Americans. However, combining the use of metaphors, China condemns the U.S. for breaking the treaty and hurting both sides, and it reconstructs the relation of dominance by showing as a passive figure. As the value of being restrained, solidarity, and nationalism has long been part of cultural and social ideology in China, the strategy related with social ideology helps in getting recognition from some domestic citizens.
By studying languages used in the trade war, we explore the strategies involving pronoun, implicature, personal style, modality, and metaphor on this issue. With social ideology and shared identity, value and interests of groups. To deal with the position in power relation, future study may focus on various rhetoric strategies applied with regard to detailed contexts and social situations in countries by political figures.
Toys are the first avenues of experience for children and contribute to many aspects of childhood development by equipping them with a range of physical, cognitive, and social skills (Maccoby, 1998; Reich, Black and Foliaki, 2018). In recent years, however, there has been a significant increase in gendered toys. Among all, The LEGO® Group was criticised for deviating from its traditional gender-neutral marketing ever since its release of the girls’ line LEGO®Friends in 2012. This consequently cultivates stereotypical gender schema in children and perpetuates the prescribed gender roles across generations.
Significance of studying gender stereotyping in children’s toys
The explicit and implicit messages about gender roles in relation to toy play that children received from various socialising agents (e.g. media, parents, and peers) will replicate and reinforce their stereotypical gender schemas for fulfilling the cultural and social expectations of appropriate gender roles and behaviours, which will then be passed on to the next generation. Having identified such an urgent need to stop the permeance of gendered toys in the market, we should take a closer look at LEGO®’s gender-typed advertising of LEGO® Friends through the lens of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA).
Check this out:
Advertising Video 1 (Ad1): LEGO® Friends Rebrick
Advertising Video 2 (Ad2): LEGO® Friends x五個小孩的「正」綱
MCDA of two Facebook advertising videos of LEGO® Friends
Explicit gender labels
Adjectives
Examples in Advertising Video 1 (Ad1) of LEGO® Friend:
係女仔都想變靚啲，高踭鞋就最Lady!
All girls want to become prettier, like a lady wearing high heels.
佢成日笑到甜絲絲，不如送佢set High Tea?
Let’s prepare her a tea set that resembles her sweet smile!
The positive adjectives “prettier” (comparative form) and “sweet” are used to highlight pretty look and sweet temperament as desirable qualities of girls depicted by the mini-dolls in LEGO® Friends (see Fig. 1.1). This echoes the prevalence of toy make-up kits and dress-up play in the toy sets of LEGO® Friends.
In Advertising Video 2 (Ad2), “wasteful” (see Fig. 1.2) connotes the undesirable behaviour of wasting food. Given a cross-cultural tendency for children to imitate same gender models, the negative image of a “big waster” is demonstrated by a male mini-doll instead of the female protagonists in LEGO® Friends to avoid girls identifying with such bad behaviour. This negatively affects children’s perception of the opposite sex (as shown in Fig. 1.2, the girls despise the male mini-doll portrayed as a ‘big waster’).
Pronouns and collective nouns
Examples in Ad1 (female pronouns):
佢最愛中華白海豚，就砌個海豚樂園比佢喇!
She loves dolphins. Let’s build her a dolphin cruiser!
係?佢好似中意貓咪，貓咪屋岩玩啲!
Really? I think she likes cats, a cat’s playground sounds better!
The prevalent use of female pronouns (e.g. she, her) helps girls identify with the caregiving and animal-loving characteristic portrayed by the mini-dolls in the advertised toy set, which echoes the historical gender segregation of boys’ versus girls’ toys with the breadwinner versus caregiver model.
On the other hand, the use of deictic pronouns (e.g. we, you) and collective nouns (e.g. girls) also serves to cultivate a sense of participation and collectivism in the process of gender identification through toy play.
Examples in Ad1 (deictic pronouns):
我地比啲surprise佢囉！
Let’s (let us) give her a big surprise!
咁索性砌番間屋仔，入面賣雞蛋仔囉！
Why don’t we build a snack shop and sell egg waffles?
The use of the deictic pronouns allows the ad the sound more inviting as if the target audience (i.e. girls) are also taking part in the social conversation and activities performed by the mini-dolls in the ad.
Examples in Ad1 (collective nouns):
係女仔都想變靚啲，高踭鞋就最Lady!
All girls want to become prettier, like a lady wearing high heels.
Example in Ad2 (collective noun):
The use of the collective noun “girls” makes LEGO® Friends stands out as a girls’ toy and exclues boys from the toy play experience demonstrated in the ad. In Ad1, viewers’ attention is drawn to the aforementioned gender ideology on girls’ appearance and attractiveness. In Ad2, the slogan (see Fig. 1.3) highlights the creative and imaginative power of girls and keeps in line with LEGO® ’s mission of developing children as “creative, engaged, lifelong learners” (The LEGO Foundation, 2017). However, it also places boys in a disadvantaged position to be engaged in the creative and imaginative play opportunities brought by the LEGO® Friends series.
Implicit gender labels
Colour
The trend of “pinkification” in children’s toys not only attracts girls to toys designed and packaged with pastel colours, but also discourages boys to avoid playing with pinkified toys regardless of which gender it has been marked with.
Examples of pinkification in LEGO® Friends and its ads:
The use of a range of pastel colours (with pink and purple as the theme colours) are showcased in both product design and visual representation of the advertisements. In Ad1 (see Fig. 2.1), Pinkification is manifested in toys’ packaging, outfits of mini-dolls, and the decorative style of the room where the advertising video was filmed (i.e. pink pillow and purple wall). In Ad2, the interviewed girls dressed in outfits of pastel colours (and dresses, of course) to fit into the gender norms of girl fashion.
Font style
Past research suggested that script type fonts are associated with femininity, while display type fonts are associated with masculinity. In Fig 2.7, LEGO® Friends’ logo features a cursive and script type font coloured in purple with pink shades. The dot in ‘i’ appears in heart shape alongside the butterfly on top of ‘s’. This logo design captures the essence of femininity, thus serves as a subtle yet effective gendering tool for meeting the purpose of gendered marketing.
Product design
Mini-dolls as gender models
The mini-dolls in LEGO® Friends (see Fig 1.1) deviate from the appearance of the traditional LEGO® minifigs in that they are less blocky in body shape, looking more humanlike and stylish with the refined details of facial expressions, facial make-up and fashionable accessories. These stereotypical mini-dolls also mark distinction in gender roles, exemplify gender-appropriate activities, and influence children’s visions of their adult roles in both workplace and family contexts.
Suggested activities for play
Historically, feminine toys place an emphasis on nurturing and domesticity by engaging players in feminised labor and household activities that include baking and serving food, as well as caregiving (both human and animals). Later on with the prevalence of fashion dolls in the market, elements of glamour, entertainment and socialising are also recognised as common features in feminine toys. With all these markers of suggested activities for play shared among girls’ toys, children are directed to replicate and adopt the historical gender norms such as women domesticity and pursuit of beauty.
Examples in Ad 1:
In Fig 4.1, leisure and entertainment are highly recognised in different toy sets of the LEGO® Friends series. For instance, Ad1 showcases toy sets of a cafe, two playgrounds, and a dolphin cruiser, which seem to present leisure and socialising activities as the only options for girls’ play.
Examples in Ad2:
Fig 4.2 captures the enjoyment of the girls who are engaged in cooperative play in building and decorating the doll’s house with their peers. From their smiles and laughters, a friendly relationship between the girls is observed and it echoes the name of the LEGO® Friends series. However, Ad2 is still considered gender-typed in a way that it includes girls as the only participants in cooperative toy play. As much as how it may reinforce the feminine roles of caregiving, socialising, and domestic labouring in girls, Ad2 excludes boys’ participation in these activities and exploits their showcase of creativity and imagination through cooperative toy play with LEGO® Friends.
Implications and conclusion
Toys reinforce and perpetuate segregation of gender, as demonstrated in the above discussions of plentiful semiotic resources (e.g. language, colour, font style and product design) used in two advertising videos of LEGO® Friends. Although LEGO® ’s marketing has foregrounded caregiving, domesticity, entertainment and cooperative relationships as the core values of creative toy play, these values could be gender-biased when manifested in gendered marketing of toys that consequently leads to children’s limited play experiences and exacerbates the segregation and asymmetry of gender in adulthood. As more mature members in the society, we are responsible for limiting, monitoring, and challenging children’s exposure to different mediums of advertising where gender-typing is observed. In the meantime, members in the toy industry are also responsible for upholding gender equality through gender-neutral marketing of toys so that the existing gender stereotypes will not ingrain in children’s gender schema and affect their choices of roles to take in adulthood. Together we should all aim to facilitate children’s growth in a less gender-segregated environment so as to help them become more open-minded individuals and embrace diversity in not just toy plays, but all kinds of experiences in life.
Tags: Language and Gender, Gendered marketing of toys, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis
References
Maccoby, E. E. (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Reich, S., Black, M., & Foliaki, R. (2018). Constructing Difference: Lego® Set Narratives Promote Stereotypic Gender Roles and Play. Sex Roles,79(5), 285-298.
As citizens, we must have had certain experience in medical encounters or interactions in our daily lives. In institutional talks like business meetings, doctor-patient talks and political interviews, ‘institution’, ‘discourse’ (language) and ‘power’ are interconnected and language serves as the ‘principal means by which organizational members create a coherent social reality that frames their sense of who they are’ (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 181). Besides, every participant in institutional talks possesses specific goal orientations in order to match with their social roles. However, we might not be aware of the fact that power asymmetry does exist during the interactions since linguistic resources are employed in the process to make the power differences seem ‘pre-inscribed’. In that case, we as patients are usually at a more ‘inferior’ position while the doctors are more powerful since they possess the professional knowledge in medical science.
In fact, in the realm of language and power, a combination of Conversation Analysis (CA) which studies talk-in interactions at a micro-level as well as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which places the emphasis on describing, detailing and analysing linguistic features during talks could be used to help unfold the ‘generally hidden determinants’ during social interactions (Simpson et al., 2018). With these two methods, some common linguistic features that demonstrate the power asymmetry are found in doctor-patient interactions. They are ‘Topic control’, ‘Enforcing explicitness’, ‘Interruption’ suggested by Fairclough (1989, pp. 135-137) and a rhetorical device called ‘hedging’.
Topic Control
During the consultation, the doctor is usually the one controlling the sequences using a cycle of questions to elicit responses from the patient and the patients are bound to answer them. When answering these ‘closed’ questions asked by the doctors, the patients’ contributions are restrained since they are limited to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or give brief responses.
Enforcing Explicitness
Patients as the less powerful speakers are usually asked to disambiguate the responses, explain with further details and make the ‘vague’ answers explicit. In order to cooperate and meet the social goals, the patients have to provide a clarification and be enforced to describe their conditions as requested by the doctors.
Interruption Interruption indicated by speech overlaps is also commonly found in everyday talks as well as doctor-patient interactions and it is somehow regarded as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’. For example, when a patient is making his turn or answering the doctor’s question, the doctor may interrupt without allowing him or her to finish the turn since the doctor knows what might be an ‘adequate’ answer for him to do the diagnosis.
Hedging
Apart from the above three devices, ‘Hedging’ is a linguistic device used by the patient where a mitigating word is used in the utterance to soften the tone or certainty (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Sometimes when patients are describing their conditions, words such as “I think” or “like” are used to hedge their speeches. Even though the patients possess the ‘superior knowledge’ about how they feel, they still choose to hedge the speech by uncertainty markers to downplay the certainty without ‘challenging’ the doctor whom they think possess professional knowledge in giving diagnosis.
From the above devices identified in doctor-patient interactions, it is shown that they serve as good examples that illustrate how power asymmetry is being ‘naturalized’ in institutional talks. Even patients possess ‘superior knowledge’ of how they feel, they would still align with the mainstream thinking that doctors are the more powerful figure during the interactions since they have professional recognition in medical science. Through critically picking out details from the above talk-in interactions, asymmetrical speaking rights, obligations and power differences in institutional talks could be brought to light.
This article will analyze the language strategies used by Hillary and Trump and the ideological significance hidden behind their language from the perspective of critical discourse analysis (CDA). When focusing on the text, it gives more attention to the choices and patterns in vocabulary. The following context will mainly analyze the text itself from three aspects: the use of personal pronouns, transitivity and metaphor.
From the use of personal pronouns, the choice of different titles reflects the attitude and ideology of speaker. This article selects the first topic of the first TV debate, achieving prosperity, to count the frequency of personal pronouns used in it:
Personal Pronouns
I/me/my
You/your
We/us /our
They/them/their
Clinton
94
53
74
17
Trump
89
99
90
44
It is clear that the frequency of the first-person plural form “we/us/our” in Clinton and Trump’s discourse is ranked second. Both they used the first-person plural form “we/us/our”, narrowed the distance between the speaker and the voters, and won goodwill. “I/me/my” as the most used personal pronoun of Clinton, indicates that Clinton is more expressing her political views and showing her political wisdom, while Trump uses the second person “you/your” most, which refers to different objects.
Transitivity expresses people experience and knowledge in reality and the inner world and points out the participants and environmental components in various processes. The article also cites the first topic in first debate, achieving prosperity, to compare:
Material process
Metal process
Relational process
Behavioral process
Verbal process
Existential process
80
79
76
0
12
5
100
46
155
0
16
4
In terms of transitivity, Clinton used material processes, using a lot of real verbs to explain the measures she would take to achieve American prosperity, showing her political ability and self-confidence, thus winning more support. Trump often uses the relational process to show his understanding of the current state of the US economy and dispel voters’ doubts about him.
Metaphor is an important information processing tool that can simplify a large amount of complex and abstract information into easy-to-understand language, so that voters can better understand and accept, narrow the distance between candidates and voters, and achieve good political advice admonishment effect. There are four most important metaphors in election debate. The travel metaphor maps the characteristics of travel to the target domain, which is widely used in political speech and is a representative conceptual metaphor: Developing a country is a journey. The war metaphor maps the characteristics of war to the target domain. Architectural metaphor is to map the characteristics of architecture to the target domain, which has a corresponding structure and structure in terms of organization and internal structure. Body metaphor also become an important political metaphor for explaining political terms. It considers country/city as a human being, possessing human character and physiological status. Human organs are also used to refer to the different structures and functions of countries and organizations. The various use of metaphors in Clinton and Trump’s political speeches and debates not only helps explain and express their own ideas, demonstrates your strengths, but also helps voters understand political terms and make more sensible and clear choices.
In conclusion, the organization and wise use of language can effectively help candidates communicate their ideas to voters and attract them to vote more for candidates. By analyzing the linguistic elements in the television debates between Clinton and Trump, we can find the two speakers’ completely different speech styles and their ingenious intentions during the campaign.
Social institutions are all around people’s lives and they have the immense power to control and shape how people talk and think in particular ways. The government is one of the most significant social institutions and the governmental language discourses reflect the institutional power relations between the participants and in turn are shaped by the power control (Mayr, 2008).
The outburst of the COVID-19 epidemic is one of the hottest topics recently world-wide. Hong Kong had been through a tough time defeating this disease and the chief executive made her official statement through her website on January 25th, 2020 to report the government’s recent control measures, to explain the current situations, and to encourage the citizens to stay strong together fighting the decease.
Through the Critical Discourse Analysis on this text, it can be discovered that the textual elements are carefully designed: formal expressions and precise grammar such as “we dare not underestimate its severity” (line 9, page 1), “accorded top priority” (line 1-2, page 4) and a variety of subordinate clauses are applied in this decent governmental official article. These textual factors present how the governmental chief pays attention to her manners of speaking/writing in order to perform appropriately as the chief leader. Also, the discursive variables in the CDA of this article suggest that the institutional language discourses apply nominalizations (“Multiple measures are taken…”, line 12, page 1) to mitigate the agents of the activities/issues and this is a typical official manner of speaking since the governmental spokespersons need to avoid giving out too many details of the administrative information which are confidential. Apart from that, Carrie Lam in the last paragraph of this article encourages the citizens using a direct quotation from an expert who dedicated himself to the battle against the epidemic. This is another discursive practice of intertextuality to increase this article’s authenticity and the power of persuasion. Last but not least, Carrie Lam in this article is reporting on behalf of the HKSAR and she takes the role as the representative of the government in the stance-taking analysis. Therefore, she speaks in a formal and official tone and this indicates the power distance between the participants (the government and the citizens).
What’s more, the information content in this article has been filtered and carefully chosen before announcing it to the public. This governmental statement did not include any negative information about any mistakes or their dereliction of duty in the fight against the disease. For example, in this article, Carrie Lam reports the effective control measures that the HKSAR government has taken but did not mention their negligence of not carrying out a timely overseas entrance restriction in early February which resulted in the rapid growth of imported infection cases.
We can see from this article that the governmental announcement carefully designs its language use and the information content. They report the important relevant events but do not provide much in detail; they pay attention to their tone and use official and less emotional expressions; they manipulate and filtrate the information to report the ones that are in favor of them. It can be concluded that, power controls and shapes how the language is used in institutional contexts and the linguistic properties of the institutional language reflect the power relations and distance between the participants in the social hierarchical structure. This mutual influence between power and language can be found not only in the institutional discourses but also in many other types of contexts such as in the social media languages, in the legalese, etc. Power influences the language use to control and rule how people think and talk. We need to consider this effect before accepting the information from another agent in order to explore the truth, the unbiased facts and the authenticity.
(Comparing how the two Hong Kong ideologically opposed newspapers –Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily report the same incident by different linguistic strategies)
by Queenie Tsang
Nowadays, media discourse has become one of the most influential instrument for politicians to execute power and impose mind control over the audience. In order to understand the relation between media discourse and power construction, this article aims at comparing how the two Hong Kong ideologically opposed newspapers –Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily report the same incident (the conflict between Hong Kong police and student protestors on Hong Kong Chinese University Campus)[1] by means of different discourse structures and linguistic strategies, including the global structure (headline), the microstructures (lexical choices and transitivity) as well as the inclusion of quotations. As a matter of fact, a newspaper is always affiliated to a particular political party, so different newspapers have different political biases. In this paper, Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily represent the two different political parties and ideologies. The former represents the Pro-Beijing Camp whereas the latter represents the Pro-Democracy Camp. Since Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily are the mainstream newspapers which have gained a foothold in Hong Kong news media and a high popularity amongst the readers of different ages, they are always the best choices for analysis, and more importantly, they can reflect the political reality in Hong Kong. A mini critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted to investigate how different discourse structures and linguistic strategies are employed in the two newspapers.
A mini critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted to investigate how different discourse structures and linguistic strategies are employed in the two newspapers.
The analysis showed the following two major results.
In general, the first result indicated that although, theoretically speaking, a paper’s affiliation to a particular political party should not affect how a news story is reported, but, in reality, the newspaper text is strictly biased. In detail, the second result showed that by using different linguistic strategies, Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily have shown a totally different political standpoint and constructed a different political reality in readers’ mind. Tai Kung Pao upholds the beliefs of social stability and support the Hong Kong police’s acts upon the protestors, whereas The Apple’s Daily advocates the beliefs of democracy, freedom and support the student protestors’ acts.
Concerning the linguistic strategies, in terms of the global structure (headline), the two newspapers use different terms to describe the same incident. In particular, the roles and behaviors of the participants in the headlines are different. Tai Kung Pao identified mainland students and Hong Kong police as victim and student protestors as aggressor. In contrast, The Apple’s Daily identified student protestors as victim and Hong Kong police as aggressor. As for the microstructures, both Tai Kung Pao and The Apple’s Daily have highlighted the uses of metaphors, action verbs and numbers to shape the readers’ perception towards the participants involved in the incident and the incident as a whole. Apparently, they use the aforementioned three strategies (metaphors, action verbs and numbers) to highlight the offensive behaviors of the agent and arouse sympathy towards the patient from the readers. It is noted that the behaviors of the agent are always negative and aggressive. Besides these, transitivity is employed in the two texts. Concerning the role, Tai Kung Pao highlighted the student protestors as agent and the police as patient. On the contrary, the role reverse in The Apple’s Daily. Lastly, quotations are also used in the two texts to affect the readers’ interpretation of the same incident. Tai Kung Pao uses more primary sources and direct quotations to make the information appear to be more reliable. All these linguistic strategies are worked together to manipulate the readers’ thought and reinforce their political bias.
To conclude, it is realized that a newspaper is affiliated with a particular political party. So, the same incident reported by the two newspapers can be totally different. At the same time, it is interesting to note that political party often employs different linguistic strategies to affect readers’ perception of what happened to whom in the event. In the analysis, it is observed that the political standpoint and ideology are widely presented to readers through media discourse. Once the readers accept the political ideology, they will follow it and disseminate it to others. When a political party succeeds to establish its power and reinforce its ideologies in readers’ mind, such intangible power will lead to conflict and separatism between groups in society. For example, in Hong Kong, there are two different political groups which are ‘blue ribbon’ and ‘yellow ribbon’. The former represents the Pro-Beijing Camp whereas the latter represents the Pro-Democracy Camp. They not only represent different political parties, but also strengthen a particular political belief in society.
There is no doubt that everyone has the experience of visiting a doctor and not every visit is pleasant. Some frustrating situations a patient may encounter include not having a chance to ask questions, doctors having a cold tone and so on. Yet, the communication between the patient and the doctor is important as through effective communication, the patient can tell how s/he is feeling and the doctor can make the diagnosis accordingly. A breakdown of communication during consultations is undesirable and should be avoided as it would affect the doctor’s diagnosis and the patient’s recovery. It is also regarded as one of the major causes of medical malpractice. Knowing the importance of effective communication between the doctor and the patient, we are going to look into the power imbalance reflected in the medical discourse by analyzing a video recording of a patient’s medical appointment.
The consultation could be broken down into three stages: questioning, physical examination and follow up.
1. Questioning
a. Question-answer sequence- adjacency pairs
At the beginning of the consultation, doctors would start by asking the patient some questions regarding his/her symptoms. This kind of question-answer sequence is regarded as adjacency pairs, which are utterance produced by two speakers in a turn-taking base. One of the examples of adjacency pairs from the video would be:
Doc: Well have you still got phlegm?
H: Hmm yes
Doc: Yellow?
H: Well, yellowy greeny
b. Topic control
Patients usually would raise their concerns at the questioning stage. However, doctors have the power to deicide whether they want to develop the issue raised by the patient or not. The doctor can temporarily put aside the question-answer sequence to address the patient’s concern or simply dismiss it. This is regarded as topic control, which is one of the tactics used by a more powerful group in a conversation in an institutional setting.
As mentioned earlier, patients would raise their concern during the questioning stage. Apart from not addressing the newly raised issue, doctors can interrupt the patient when s/he is speaking and direct him back to the original question-answer chain if doctors find it irrelevant. One of the examples in the video shows that the doctor, who is the dominant speaker, ignores the patient’s contribution.
When the doctor is physically examining the patient, they would provide comments in which they assess and evaluate some physical signs and such commentary is regard as online commentary. These online commentaries are used to forecast a “no problem”.
Sometimes, during the examination, the patient would try to offer his/her explanation by using “do you think…”. Patients show tentativeness about the explanation they suggested as they are aware of their subordinate position and the doctor’s professional role.
The power imbalance is conveyed through presenting the patients as objects to be inspected, examined and manipulated by doctors. In the video, the doctor treated the patient like an object by turning the patient around without asking and neglecting her feelings by asking her to take off her top while the doctor can continue his process by only lifting her shirt up.
3. Follow up
a. Pre-closing moves
Doctors would have some pre-closing moves to suggest it is almost the end of the consultation. These pre-closing moves include making arrangements for tests and scheduling for a next visit if necessary. It is worth noting that sometimes the patient would subtly hint the doctor to influence the doctor’s prescription.
Although the patient is aware of his/her subordinate state, these actions can be seen as them bargaining for power and trying to take control of some aspects for instance having prescribed more antibiotics or having a diagnostic test
To conclude, there is a power imbalance between doctors and patients in the medical discourse, as doctors have more power and authority due to their social status and professional medical knowledge. Yet, such asymmetrical talk within the institute is not beneficial to the patients and doctors should encourage patients to express their feelings to achieve effective communication.
In a divorce, the man is often seen as the victimizer. People tend to be more sympathetic to the wife since the rise of feminism. Meanwhile, people are still skeptical about it. Today, some still believe that feminism is about women neglecting their domestic roles and taking over men’s positions. Social conventions place pressure on both sexes. Both sexes are the victims under the system. Through media representations, we get a glimpse into how social conventions affect discourse. As defined by Michel Foucalt, discourses are “forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them.” (Weedon, 1987) Media is one representation of the reality using discourses and tells us about social practices in the current era. In order to illustrate the discourse communities of men and women, and their power relations, excerpts from Marriage Story (2019) are analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis below.
Excerpts from Marriage Story (2019):
Nicole’s monologue: 28:04-30:35
Arguments between Charlie and Nicole: 1:10:48-1:11:51 and 1:34:26-1:39:16
The Courtroom scene: 1:25:16-1:27:51
Nora’s speech: 1:45:04–1:46:26
Use of pronouns
Source: Pinterest
Inclusive and othering pronouns are indications of the characters’ sense of self. As the embodiment of modern women, Nicole has a strong sense of self. She distinguishes between “I” and “he” or “his” in her monologue. However, she is torn between her sense of self and the social expectation of married woman. Charlie, on the other hand, appears to be more self-centered and possessive. Although he emphasizes that they are a “we”, it only represents Charlie’s ego. Unconsciously, he has a patriarchal mindset in which he sees Nicole, a female, as subordinate.
2. Determiners
Source: Pinterest
The use of determiners reveals Nicole’s strong self-awareness. She uses of the article “the” and the determiner, “that” to show the difference between life before and after marriage. Before, she is “the actress, the star”. Now, she is only “that actress who was in that thing that time”. The use of “that” shows a sense of carelessness while “the” indicates a sense of insistence on a specific person.
3. Naming strategy
Source: Pinterest
The naming strategy reveals how the characters in the movie see themselves in gender relations and criticizes the problematic gender norms that confines women into domesticity. Gendered terms such as “mother” and “wife” are used by Nicole and Nora. Nicole sees herself as “George Harrison’s wife” and “a mother”. In court, Nora says that Nicole has sacrificed a lot because of “Charlie’s bequest to be a mother”. From a male perspective, women are seen as less intelligent than men. In court, Jay names Nicole as “the girl in that college sex movie who takes her top off” while Charlie is named as “a well-regarded, up and coming director of the avant-garde”. The male and female protagonists are given very different attributes despite the similarity of their works.
However, the naming strategy also shows the inequality of men in a divorce. In Jay’s defense of Charlie, he says that Nora is referring Charlie as the director of “a ramshackled downtown dump” when she is arguing custody. When she wants more money, Charlie suddenly becomes a “big rich genius Broadway director”. Men always occupy an inferior position in divorce. Society expects men to be strong and independent. They have difficulties gaining sympathy and often seen as the victimizer in the relationship.
4. Metaphor
Source: Pinterest
The use of metaphor in Nora’s discourse shows the unfairness of gender norms towards the two sexes. People can “accept an imperfect dad” but not “a mother who drinks too much wine and yells at her child and calls him an asshole”. The reason is our problematic belief system. The metaphorical expression alludes to the Biblical story of the Holy Birth which also conveys a sense of sarcasm towards religion and its effects on the norms. Its sacrilege to Christianity makes Nora’s statement bolder.
5. Cohesion
Source: Pinterest
The cohesion in the arguments between Charlie and Nicole shows the increase in female’s power in the battle between the sexes. Repetition of words and reiteration of synonyms are often used. When Nicole confronts Charlie about his affair, she uses the word “surprise” thrice to create a sense of irony. She wants to prove that she is equal in power as Charlie. In another argument, Charlie tries to justify himself by making Nicole the insatiable villain. He uses the word “voice” for three times. It seems to be an act against feminism which often emphasizes on female’s voice. Also, the two uses offensive words like “regressed” and “villain”. Both of them are trying to surpass one another. It shows the hatred between the couple and reveals the increase in gender equality in relationships.
6. Modality
For modality, it shows the problem of modern relationship. Conflicts can be solved if the two has better communication. They believe their spouses are the ones who want to get married but actually, both of them do not. In Nicole’s monologue, she uses the hedge, “really” twice. It seems like she is doubting her past decisions and realizes that it is naïve to get married so soon. For Charlie, he confesses that “there’s so much more I could have done” but it is Nicole who “wanted so much so fast” and he “didn’t even want to get married.” in his argument with Nicole. Both of them refuse to share their real thoughts. When they cannot hold these secrets anymore, their relationship collapses.
Conclusion
Although Marriage Story is just a media portrayal of the reality, it is a version of reality from the director’s eyes that we should be aware of. Skeptical as it seems, the public is not fully liberated towards feminism. The conventions of gender roles are still deeply rooted. They do not just affect the society but gender relations, causing more disputes between the two sexes. The problem is never the oppression of women but the oppression of equality for the whole humanity.
Language Culture and Society in Hong Kong (and beyond) 
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