Counter-discourse corpora, ethical subjectivity and critique of argument
An alternative critical discourse analysis pedagogy
In the article, I model an alternative critical discourse analysis (CDA) pedagogy which is based on an ethical subjectivity instead of a political subjectivity. Aimed at undergraduates, it facilitates critical purchase on arguments which attack the standpoint of relatively powerless groups/organizations (who seek political change). Via corpus linguistic analysis of appropriate web-based data, I show how the analyst can rigorously find out at scale the recurrent key concerns of a relatively powerless Other with whom they were previously unfamiliar. They use this counter-discourse information as a lens on an argument which criticises the relatively powerless group, ascertaining whether or not the argument has distorted the group’s key concerns. Should this be the case, I highlight how the analyst can go on to explore whether any mischaracterisation has implications for the argument’s credibility because it loses coherence relative to the outlook of the Other. The approach is grounded in Jacques Derrida’s ‘ethics of hospitality to the Other’. It is in being hospitable to the outlook of a relatively powerless Other, and adopting it for purposes of argument evaluation, that the analyst effectively creates an ethical subjectivity. That said, the ethical and political are, in principle, relatable with this method as I indicate.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.CDA, otherness, corpora
- 2.1Orientation to the relatively powerless other
- 2.2Corpus-based CDA
- 3.Derrida’s ethical outlook
- 3.1Natural interconnection with the other
- 3.2Hospitality to the other and interruption of the self
- 3.3The other, self-invention and the future
- 3.4Transformation in reading through the encounter with the other
- 4.Criticising an argument via an ethical (surrogate) subjectivity
- 4.1The dialectical dimension to argument
- 4.2Digital argument deconstruction: A ‘dialethical’ approach
- 4.2.1Generating an ethical subjectivity via corpus analysis of counter-discourse
- 4.2.2Deconstructing the argument’s cohesion and coherence
- 4.2.3Deepening ethical responsiveness
- 4.2.4Non-predestined deconstructions
- 4.3Advantages of the technology used for generating an ethical subjectivity
- 4.3.1User-generated text on campaign websites
- 4.3.2Corpus linguistic method
- 5.Argument data and description of its major cohesive patterns
- 5.1 The Sun and the ‘No More Page 3’ campaign
- 5.2The argument criticizing NMP3
- 5.3Using software to help highlight the cohesive structure of the argument
- 5.4Reflexivity: Why have I chosen this argument?
- 6.Corpus analysis of key NMP3 standpoints
- 6.1The NMP3 petition on www.change.org
- 6.2Lexical lemma frequency analysis of the digital supplements
- 6.2.1Sun readers can be children
- 6.2.2The experience of women
- 6.2.3Incongruity of Page 3 in a newspaper
- 7.Deepening ethical responsiveness: Evaluating the argument’s cohesion and coherence via the NMP3 ethical subjectivity
- 7.1Orientation
- 7.2Deconstructions
- 7.2.1‘Sun reader’ includes ‘child Sun reader’
- 7.2.2Cohesion via understanding of (male) ‘Sun reader’
- 7.2.3Female experience of Page 3
- 8.Reflection on the method
- 8.1Beneficial transformations for students from nomadic digital hospitality
- 8.2After the fall of the argument
- 8.2.1Ethical responsiveness does not lead to political commitment
- 8.2.2Ethical responsiveness leads to political commitment
- 8.2.3Ethically enriching an existing political orientation/commitment
- 8.3Issues around the choice of argument
- 8.4Reducing arbitrariness of argument intervention via corpus linguistic method
- 8.5Corpus analysis cannot escape totalising the Other
- 8.6How much revelation of instability is necessary?
- 9.Conclusion
- Notes
-
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