Dissecting the language of elitism: The ‘joyful’ violence of premium

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crispin Thurlow
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Analysis ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Post Class ◽  
Promotional Materials ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
International Airlines ◽  
Floating Signifiers ◽  
The Prestige

Abstract Aligned with renewed commitments to class critique in sociolinguistics and discourse studies, I examine premium as a floating signifier. My initial semiotic landscape analysis demonstrates how this word is attached to any number of goods/services, coaxing people into a sense of distinction and superior status. These language games occur most vividly in my second analytic site—Premium Economy—where status is fabricated as tangibly but not too obviously distinct from Economy while preserving the prestige of Business. From a corpus of over forty international airlines’ promotional materials, I pinpoint three key rhetorics underpinning Premium Economy: extraction, excess, and comparison. My analysis locates premium as a quintessential form of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1997/2000) deployed for controlling people by seducing, flattering, and enchanting them. The anxious bourgeoisie are thereby ‘joyfully enlisted’ (Lordon 2014) into the aspirational logics of elitism, all animated by the tenacious neoliberal ideologies of a supposedly post-class world. (Elite discourse, post-class ideology, floating signifiers, Frédéric Lordon ‘premium’, Premium Economy)*

scholarly journals Touching taste: The classist intersections of materiality, textuality and tactility

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Crispin Thurlow
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Weight Density ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
International Airlines ◽  
Eating Practices ◽  
Linguistic Content

AbstractContemporary class formations increasingly exceed language and, therefore, defy the usual word-centric, text-based approaches of discourse studies. As Bourdieu famously observed, class-sustaining enactments of distinction and taste are often enacted outside language through banal “techniques of the body” such as people’s ways of walking or ways of eating. In this vein, my paper presents a social-semiotic analysis of the particular role menus play in materializing taste, both gustatory and social. However, rather than taking the obvious tack of addressing their linguistic content or typographic design, I focus on their haptic, experiential properties; for example, their shape, size, weight, density and other textural, tactile or material features. As a critical-empirical focus, my core evidence is an archive of Business Class menus from 18 international airlines; it is here that eating practices are explicitly framed as distinctive and superior. The significance of any text cannot be properly understood by simply attending to its straightforwardly representational meanings; its sensory and sensuous materialities must be addressed too. This, I propose, is where some of the most subtle but powerful status-making happens – the seemingly harmless, throw-away moments where privilege/inequality arises, invariably obscured but assuredly naturalized.

Language Games and the Sacred: A Definitional Content Analysis

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin A. Harris ◽  
Desiree S. Howell ◽  
Don W. Spurgeon ◽  
Adam W. Sirken ◽  
John M. McConnell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Language Games

Varieties of non-obvious meaning in CL and CADS: from ‘hindsight post-dictability’ to sweet serendipity

Corpora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Partington
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Special Relevance

In this paper, I want to examine the special relevance of (non)obviousness in corpus linguistics through drawing on case studies. The research discussion is divided into two parts. The first is an examination of (non)obviousness at the micro-level, that is, in lexico-grammatical analyses, whilst the second looks at the more macro-level of (non)obviousness on the plane of discourse. In the final sections, I will examine various types of non-obvious meaning one can come across in Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), which range from: ‘I knew that all along (now)’ to ‘that's interesting’ to ‘I sensed that but didn't know why’ (intuitive impressions and corpus-assisted explanations) to ‘I never even knew I never knew that’ (serendipity or ‘non-obvious non-obviousness’, analogous to ‘unknown unknowns’).

The Pain of Performative Professionalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-143
Author(s):  
Angela N. Gist-Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Communication ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Emotion Work ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Professional Perspective

This essay is the personal and professional perspective of the National Communication Association Organizational Communication Division's awards chair during the 2019 convention. It explores issues of emotion, work, professionalism, silence, embodiment, symbolic violence, and intersectional precarity from the vantage point of an outsider within the academy and the discipline of communication studies.

On Girard

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 59-65
Author(s):  
Mark Juergensmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Religious Violence ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
The World ◽  
Violent Acts

Much of what Freud and Girard have said about the function of symbolic violence in religion has been persuasive. Even if one questions, as I do, Girard’s idea that mimetic desire is the sole driving force behind symbols of religious violence, one can still agree that mimesis is a significant factor. One can also agree with the theme that Girard borrows from Freud, that the ritualized acting out of violent acts plays a role in displacing feelings of aggression, thereby allowing the world to be a more peaceful place in which to live. But the critical issue remains as to whether sacrifice should be regarded as the context for viewing all other forms of religious violence, as Girard and Freud have contended.

The Effect of Language Games with Audio Visual Aids on Students’ Speaking Competence at Fourth Graders of Tunas Daud Elementary School

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Susnawati. K ◽  
Marhaeni A.A.I.N ◽  
Ramendra D.P
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Fourth Graders ◽  
Fourth Grade ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Fourth Grade Students ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Competence Test ◽  
Better Than

Study aimed to determine the effect of language games with audio visual aids on students' speaking competence at fourth grade students of Tunas Daud elementary school and to describe the implementation of language games with audio visual aids on students’ speaking competence. The design used in this research was a mixed method design. It was explanatory design since this research was started with quantitative design (experimental design with post test only control design) followed by qualitative design. The samples were 62 students; 31 students of the experimental group and 31 students of the control group of fourth grade Tunas Daud elementary students. The data were collected by using speaking competence test and analyzed by IBM SPSS 22 with independent t-test. The data were also collected through an observation sheet for observing the implementation of the language games with audio visual aids. The results showed there was a significant effect of the language games with audio visual aids on students' speaking competence in which the mean score of the students who were taught by using language games with audio visual aids is better than the students who were taught without language games with audio visual aids. For the implementation of the language games with audio visual aids, it can be seen that the implementation of the language games with audio visual aids were done in a very good way. The games was suitable for the students since it could give good impacts for the students. The students are active and confident to speak.

تدريس كتاب "المحادثة والمطالعة العربية الجزء الأول" في تنمية مهارة الكلام للمستوى بمعهد دار اللغة والدراسات الإسلامية سنينان باميكاسن

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-133
Author(s):  
Moh. Hasyim Asy'ari
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Language ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Teaching Material ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Research Use ◽  
Provisional Teachers ◽  
Internal And External Factors

The topic of this research is "Learning the Book of Al-Muhadasah Wa Muthala'ahAl-Arabiyah Juz Awwal for the Development of Maharah Kalam in the IslamicBoarding School Darul Lughah Waddirosatil Islamiyah, Seninan Akkor PelengaanPamekasan Madura, East Java". Every year there must be acceptance of newsantri in all of the rapidly developing huts in Indonesia, The new santri usuallyfind it difficult to speak Arabic because they don't know much about Arabicbefore entering pondok. This research aim to know the steps of learning and thepositive factors that influence the learning. This research use qualitative researchmethods. The results of this study are as follows: 1. Learning Steps to the Book"Al-Muhadasah Wa Muthala'ah Al-Arabiyah Juz Awwal" the teacher greets,remembering the students last lesson, giving new teaching material, the teacherreading the Muhadasah text and the students practiced the Muhadasah text thestudents were allowed to ask about the difficult mufrodat, the students translatedthe muhadasah text according to their abilities, then the teacher interpreted thewhole of the Muhadasah text. then the teacher gives training about sometimesthe teacher gives Arabic language games, the teacher tells students to memorize the muhadasah text and tells them to have two or two in front of the class, at the end of the lesson the teacher gives advice and motivation. 2. There are twopositive factors in the Learning of the Book "Al-Muhadasah Wa Muthala'ahAl-Arabiyah Juz Awwal" namely internal and external factors, internal factorsnamely: provisional teachers, the use of learning methodologies and appropriateteaching materials, students are eager to learn. External factors are: the scope ofthe Arabic language contained in the cottage.

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