Analyzing ideological complexes from the perspective of modalities
-
Rusten Menard
Rusten Menard is a social and critical psychology lecturer in the Sociology Unit at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He has a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki, Finland, where he also teaches methodological courses on a part-time basis. His research interests include social values, identification, critical discursive studies on motivation and affect, qualitative methodologies, and discourse and social transformation.
Abstract
Modalities are fundamental in building, maintaining and contesting ideological systems. While modalities have been described as resources for constructing both representational and interpersonal aspects of reality and truth, the analytical focus has been on modalities as a relationship between authors, their texts and their audiences, i.e. on their interpersonal functions. Informed by a framework on modalities for discourse analyses of values, Hodge and Kress’s theory on ideological complexes and Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse, in this paper I develop a method for examining modalities as resources for building dominant and counter discourses. I use example excerpts that come from my research on Finnish equality discourses to build and demonstrate the method. The example texts were written by people who are differently positioned in relation to salient norms and institutions on gender/sex and sociability: people contacted through a national random sample, people diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and people with transgender experiences. The method allows not only for systematic examinations of how modalities function in ordering power-imbalanced interpersonal relations but also attends to an underexplored dimension dealing with how modalities work in ideological representation.
About the author
Rusten Menard is a social and critical psychology lecturer in the Sociology Unit at the University of Portsmouth, UK. He has a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki, Finland, where he also teaches methodological courses on a part-time basis. His research interests include social values, identification, critical discursive studies on motivation and affect, qualitative methodologies, and discourse and social transformation.
Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by the Kone Foundation (Koneen Säätiö), a Finnish Doctoral Program in Social Sciences (SOVAKO) and the Doctoral Program in Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Special thanks go to Jukka Törrönen for commenting on multiple versions of this paper. I would also like to thank Inari Sakki, Gordon Sammut, Srikant Sarangi, Satu Venäläinen and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback and suggestions on previous versions of this work.
Appendix: respondents’ original textual responses
Vähemmistöt tuovat ”rikkautta” maahamme ja opettavat ihmisiä ymmärtämään toisiaan paremmin, sillä heihin pitää osata suhtautua tilanteen vaatimallattavalla. Toisaalta vähemmistöt voidaan kokea jopa uhkana maan perusolemukselle, ja näin ollen myös tietynlainen kielteinen leima on mahdollinen. Ongelmana voi olla myös kielimuurit, eli kaikkialla ei välttämättä ymmärretä esim. saamen kieltä. Muslimien taas voitaisiin ajatella ”loukkaavan” Suomen kristinuskoa.
En välttämättä usko yhteiskuntaluokkiin, mutta joskus minusta tuntuu, ettei minulla ole samoja ihmisoikeuksia, koska koen sukupuoleni eri tavalla kuin yhteiskunta sen antaa määrittää. Myös taloudellinen tilanteeni on heikko, enkä ole saanut siihen tarvitsemaani tukea.
Suomi on demokratia, jossa ihmiset elää rauhassa ja perustarpeista enimmäkseen huolehditaan. Terveydenhoito, koulutus jne. yleistarpeet on enimmäkseen tasa-arvoisia.
Kyllä, olennaisilta osin. Vapaus ja rauha ovat keskeisiä. Rauha=ei sotaa. Vapaus=oikeus tasa-arvoon ja vastuu.
Periaatteessa melko hyvät mahdollisuudet esimerkiksi opiskeluun ja terveydenhuoltoon. Parantamisen varaakin on. Kansainvälinen pääoma/rahatalous rikkovat tasa-arvoa ja vapautta myös Suomessa.
Vähemmistöt ovat rikastuttavia Suomelle ja opettavat enemmistölle erilaisten ihmisten hyväksymistä. Nykyään tämä on mennyt vähän yli kun he vaativat oikeuksia niin voimakkaasti (homoseksuaalit) ja jotkut muslimit ei ymmärrä ”maassa maan tavalla”.
Ihmisiä tasapäistetään ja erilaiset marginalisoidaan normaaliuden ihanteen mukaan. Tätä ei tehdä avoimesti vaan sanattomin sopimuksin yms. Konkreettisempia ovat tietyt tukiasiat, esim. lakeja omaishoidosta ei noudateta.
Ei. Sosiaalisuudella on liikaa merkitystä, virallisistakaan asioista ei aina tiedoteta avoimesti. Jos haluaa elää omannäköistä mutta muiden mielestä outoa elämää, harvat haluavat tukea sitä. Sen sijaan, jos haluaa normalisoitua – mitäpä muuta yhteiskunta meiltä edellyttää?
References
Althusser, Louis. 1971. Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In Louis Althusser (ed.), Lenin and philosophy and other essays, 127–186. London: New Left Books.Search in Google Scholar
Baker, Paul. 2012. Acceptable bias? Using corpus linguistics methods with critical discourse analysis. Critical Discourse Studies 9(3). 247–256.10.1080/17405904.2012.688297Search in Google Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian. 2002. The discursive construction of national identity in multilingual Britain. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 1(1). 67–87. 10.1207/S15327701JLIE0101_5.Search in Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2006. Regulating aversion: Tolerance in the age of identity and empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400827473Search in Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (Advances in discourse processes 20), 261–272. Norwood: Ablex.Search in Google Scholar
Chiapello, Eve & Norman Fairclough. 2002. Understanding the new management ideology: A transdisciplinary contribution from critical discourse analysis and new sociology of capitalism. Discourse & Society 13(2). 185–208.10.1177/0957926502013002406Search in Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 1991. Ideology: An Introduction. New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and power. Essex: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and social change. Oxford: Polity Press.Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analyzing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203697078Search in Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers.Search in Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1988. The Antonio Gramsci reader. Selected writings 1916–1935. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Search in Google Scholar
Greimas, Algirdas J. 1983 [1966]. Structural semantics: An attempt at a method. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Search in Google Scholar
Greimas, Algirdas J. 1987. On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Häkkinen, Antti & Miika Tervonen. 2004. Ethnicity, marginalization and poverty in the twentieth century Finland. In Vesa Puuronen, Antti Häkkinen, Anu Pylkkänen, Tom Sandlund & Reetta Toivanen (eds.), New challenges for the welfare society, 22–39. Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto.Search in Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart. 1988. The toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the theorists. In Cary Nelson & Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture, 35–57. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.10.1007/978-1-349-19059-1_4Search in Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. 1970. Functional diversity in language as seen from a consideration of modality and mood in English. Foundations of Language 6(3). 322–361.Search in Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. 1978. Language as social semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.Search in Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. & Christian M. Matthiessen. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar. 3rd ed. London: Hodder Education.Search in Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3). 575–599.10.2307/3178066Search in Google Scholar
Hart, Christopher. 2011. Legitimizing assertions and the logico-rhetorical module: Evidence and epistemic vigilance in media discourse on immigration. Discourse Studies 13(6). 751–814.10.1177/1461445611421360Search in Google Scholar
Hodge, Robert & Gunther Kress. 1988. Social semiotics. New York: Cornell University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther & Robert Hodge. 1979. Language as ideology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Search in Google Scholar
Kuisma, Mikko. 2007. Social democratic internationalism and the welfare state after the ‘golden age’. Cooperation and Conflict 42(1). 9–26.10.1177/0010836707073474Search in Google Scholar
Larrain, Jorge. 1996. Stuart Hall and the Marxist concept of ideology. In David Morley & Kuan-Hsing Chen (eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies, 46–70. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Marín-Arrese, Juana I. 2015a. Epistemicity and stance: A cross-linguistic study of epistemic stance strategies in journalistic discourse in English and Spanish. Discourse Studies 17(2). 210–225.10.1177/1461445614564523Search in Google Scholar
Marín-Arrese, Juana I. 2015b. Epistemic legitimation and inter/subjectivity in the discourse of parliamentary and public inquiries. Critical Discourse Studies 12(3). 261–278.10.1080/17405904.2015.1013484Search in Google Scholar
Menard, Rusten. 2016. Doing equality and difference; representation and alignment in Finnish identification. Text & Talk 36(6). 733–755. 10.1515/text-2016-0032.Search in Google Scholar
Menard, Rusten. 2017. Critical discourse studies on social values, ideology and Finnish equality. Helsinki: Publications of the Department of Social Research.Search in Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna. 2006. Epistemic modality and truth conditions. Lingua 166. 1688–1702.10.1016/j.lingua.2005.05.009Search in Google Scholar
Sulkunen, Pekka & Jukka Törrönen. 1997a. The production of values: The concept of modality in textual discourse analysis. Semiotica 113(1–2). 43–70.10.1515/semi.1997.113.1-2.43Search in Google Scholar
Sulkunen, Pekka & Jukka Törrönen. 1997b. Constructing speaker images: The problem of enunciation in discourse analysis. Semiotica 115(1–2). 121–146.10.1515/semi.1997.115.1-2.121Search in Google Scholar
Törrönen, Jukka. 2001. The concept of subject position in empirical social research. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 31(3). 313–329.10.1111/1468-5914.00161Search in Google Scholar
Törrönen, Jukka. 2003. On the road to serfdom? An analysis of Friedrich Hayek’s socio-political manifesto as a pending narrative. Social Semiotics 13(3). 305–320.10.1080/1035033032000167033Search in Google Scholar
Törrönen, Jukka. 2014. Situational, cultural and societal identities: Analysing subject positions as classifications, participant roles, viewpoints and interactive positions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 44(1). 80–98. 10.1111/jtsb.12029.Search in Google Scholar
Törrönen, Jukka & Antti Maunu. 2005. Going out, sociability and cultural distinctions. Nordisk Alkohol-och Narkotikatidskrift 22. 24–43.10.1177/145507250502201S07Search in Google Scholar
Trägårdh, Lars. 2002. Sweden and the EU: Welfare state nationalism and the spectre of “Europe”. In Lene Hansen & Ole Wæver (eds.), European integration and national identity : The challenge of the Nordic states, 130–181. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Tuori, Salla. 2007. Cooking nation: Gender equality and multiculturalism as nation-building discourses. European Journal of Women’s Studies 14(1). 21–35.10.1177/1350506807072315Search in Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2014. Discourse and knowledge. A sociocognitive approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107775404Search in Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2005. Introducing social semiotics: An introductory textbook. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203647028Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. Tolerance as an ideological category. Critical Inquiry 34. 660–668.10.1086/592539Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Maintaining coherence in research argument: identifying qualitative differences between experts’ and students’ texts
- Internet users’ neutralization of the morality of advertisement blocking
- Feeling spirits: sharing subjective paranormal experience through embodied talk and action
- Analyzing ideological complexes from the perspective of modalities
- The fictionalized reader in popular science: reader engagement with the scientific community
- Graffiti slogans and the construction of collective identity: evidence from the anti-austerity protests in Greece
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Maintaining coherence in research argument: identifying qualitative differences between experts’ and students’ texts
- Internet users’ neutralization of the morality of advertisement blocking
- Feeling spirits: sharing subjective paranormal experience through embodied talk and action
- Analyzing ideological complexes from the perspective of modalities
- The fictionalized reader in popular science: reader engagement with the scientific community
- Graffiti slogans and the construction of collective identity: evidence from the anti-austerity protests in Greece
