Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Online-First Articles

(Re)contextualizing the ‘anti-woke’ discourse

Attitudes towards gender-inclusive language in English and French on X (formerly Twitter)

ORCID logo | University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
This study examines how ‘anti-woke’ discourse is drawn upon by French and English-speaking X (formerly Twitter) users to abnormalize gender-inclusive language practices from a Critical Discourse Analytic (CDA) perspective (Fairclough 2010). Using strategies and tools drawn from the Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak and Reisigl 2017) and CDA (interdiscursivity and recontextualization), I compare and discuss how ‘woke’ is (re)appropriated within online arenas across both linguo-cultural contexts to other and undermine those invested in challenging gender-based discrimination(s). Responses, therefore, contribute to a broader right-wing (populist) project that substantiates the uncivil and ‘unsayable’ by subverting the civil and ‘sayable’ amid the emergence of borderline discourses (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017). I conclude that ‘anti-woke’ discourse has become a symbolic catch-all discursive strategy to bolster far right attitudes at the expense of abnormalizing the struggles faced by marginalized genders. This analysis thus provides further insight into how discriminatory ideologies become more viable political alternatives through rhetorical and discursive phenomena (Wodak 2015).
Keywords: woke, critical discourse studies, social media, gender identity, populism, politics, civility
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Borderline discourses, in/civility and the new ‘far-right’ norm
    • 2.2In/civility and political discourse on X
    • 2.3Discourse identification and Critical Discourse Analysis
  • 3.Data and analytical methods
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Procedure of analysis
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Quantitative results
    • 4.2Qualitative results: Ideological battles and the ‘war on woke’
      • 4.2.1French-speaking posters’ attitudes
      • 4.2.2English-speaking posters’ attitudes
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 11 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00114.joh
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