Monsters and Circles: Floating Signifiers in Halfdan Pisket’s Dansker Trilogy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rikke Platz Cortsen
Keyword(s):  
Floating Signifiers

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 GIFs as floating signifiers

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 294-318
Author(s):  
Camelia Gradinaru
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Materiality ◽  
Floating Signifiers

This paper investigates GIFs that use famous paintings and art collages in order to discern if their possible interpretations justify the label of ‘floating signifiers’. For this purpose, I explain what ‘floating signifier’ means and describe what happened with the term when it was correlated with the issues of information and digital materiality. Thus, in new media, the parallel term for ‘floating signifier’ is Hayles’s ‘flickering signifier’. In a subtle manner, GIFs represents perfect instantiation of both concepts. The paper also addresses the main “portrait” of GIFs, examining them in both online (Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook) and offline discursive contexts. The signifieds attributed to particular examples of GIFs, and to GIFs in general, delineate their profile in terms of floating signifiers.

Floating Signifiers in John Barth's Sabbatical

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-656
Author(s):  
Gordon E. Slethaug
Keyword(s):  
Floating Signifiers

Neoliberalism and Western accreditation in the Middle East

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Romanowski
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Leadership Programs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Educational Leadership Programs ◽  
Educational Leadership Constituent Council ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Elcc Standards ◽  
The One ◽  
Floating Signifiers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of neoliberalism and the accreditation of educational leadership programs in one Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country by contextualizing the accreditation process and closely examining the Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC) standards used by NCATE, now CAEP, to accredit educational leadership programs in the GCC. By using Habermas’ knowledge constitutive interests (KCIs) and evoking notions of floating signifiers, the paper develops an understanding of the use of Western-developed standards in a country that is different than the one in which these standards were conceived and how the discourse of accreditation standards shapes understandings and meanings of educational leadership. Design/methodology/approach A critical discourse analysis of the ELCC standards is conducted using a two-prong strategy that applies Habermas’ KCIs and evoking the notions of floating signifiers as a theoretical framework. Findings Understanding that knowledge is bounded by cultural circumstances, findings indicate that the ELCC standards contain all three KCIs, and various floating signifiers are embedded within the ELCC discourse that are problematic in a culture that is vastly different than the one in which these standards were conceived. Originality/value There are a few, if any, studies that have examined neoliberalism and accreditation in a GCC country. In particular, there are no studies that have examined the ELCC standards being used outside the USA. The research provides educators with an insight into the different forms of knowledge and understanding of the surplus of meaning of various concepts that are used within the ELCC professional standards outside the country where the standards were conceived without due regard for contextualization. The study provides discussion on how the discourse of the ELCC standards shapes understandings and meanings of educational leadership and educational leaders.

Flickering images, floating signifiers: optical innovation and visual piety in senegal

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen F. Roberts ◽  
Mary Nooter Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Visual Piety ◽  
Floating Signifiers

scholarly journals A New Discourse out of a Dark Atmosphere: Critical Discourse Analysis of Iran’s Eleventh Presidential Election

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
Anna Parvin
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Floating Signifiers

This paper tries to indicate how the candidates of Iran’s eleventh presidential election attempted to rise to power by the means of language. In this analysis, the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe is applied. The candidates tried to win the battlefield of election by creating exclusion borders and excluding their rivals. Critical discourse analysis is a methodology that can reveal ideological purposes behind the political discourses to reflect the hidden Realities. The study of the debates between presidential candidates shows that Hassan Rouhani was elected because he could exclude other discourses resulting from the rising sociopolitical crisis. Nevertheless, He could not articulate his floating signifiers and his discourse was not hegemonic.

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