Doing equality and difference: Representation and alignment in Finnish identification
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Rusten Menard is a doctoral student in the Department of Social Research at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include social values, positioning, identification, critical discourse analysis, social semiotics, qualitative and post-qualitative methodologies, and discourse and social transformation.
Abstract
Using tools from critical discourse analytic approaches informed by systemic functional linguistics, this paper is an examination of how social values – specifically equality values in Finland – are given meaning by differently socially positioned Finnish citizens, and how those meanings are positioned in constructions of identities. The focus of my examination is on how respondents align with different meanings of equality using linguistic resources of engagement and graduation (James R. Martin and Peter R. R. White [2005], The language of evaluation. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan). I conduct my analyses on written texts that were elicited in response to open items on a questionnaire. Respondents include individuals recruited through a national random sample, and individuals with transgendered life experiences and/or Asperger’s diagnoses. I consider how being positioned in the margins by institutionalized norms may interact with representation and alignment of Finnish equality in identification. I also pay attention to how individuals strategically reconcile meanings of equality with other important yet potentially conflicting values, such as national identity, sameness and moderation. I discuss the implications of the study in relation to the historical path of equality, and in terms of how particular formulations of equality may contribute to building and maintaining relations of domination.
About the author
Rusten Menard is a doctoral student in the Department of Social Research at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include social values, positioning, identification, critical discourse analysis, social semiotics, qualitative and post-qualitative methodologies, and discourse and social transformation.
Acknowledgments
This paper was written as part of my doctoral study funded by the Kone Foundation, a Finnish Doctoral Program in Social Sciences (SOVAKO) and the Doctoral Program in Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. I want to thank Jukka Törrönen, Satu Venäläinen and three anonymous reviewers for their critical and constructive comments.
Appendix Coding conventions
Instances of respondents’ uses of engagement and graduation resources in the example texts are marked as follows:
| indicates instances of disclaim | |
| bold text | indicates instances of proclaim |
| double underlining | indicates instances of entertain |
| dashed underlining | indicates instances of attribute |
| single underlining | indicates instances of graduations of focus and force |
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- “Occupy Central” and the rise of discursive illusions: a discourse analytical study
- “To be real honest, I’m just like you”: analyzing the discourse of personalization in online sermons
- Analogies in interaction: practical reasoning and participatory design
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- “Occupy Central” and the rise of discursive illusions: a discourse analytical study
- “To be real honest, I’m just like you”: analyzing the discourse of personalization in online sermons
- Analogies in interaction: practical reasoning and participatory design
- Doing equality and difference: Representation and alignment in Finnish identification
- The use of demo-prefaced response displacement for being a listener to distressful experiences in Japanese interaction
- Self-mockery: A study of Persian multi-party interactions
