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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 16:3 (2017) ► pp.345–366

Whose line is it anyway?

The diffusion of discursive frames in Pride movements of the South

| University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań

Pride marches are increasingly common in the 'global South' and can be seen as signs of progress towards greater social acceptance of sexual minorities. Such movements often appropriate and mimic semiotic symbols and discursive frames visible in Pride movements in countries in the North, such as rainbow flags and the discourse of human rights. However, there is also a degree of recontextualisation of these symbols and frames in order to deal with specific local social, political, cultural and economic contexts. Though at different 'stages' of acceptance of non-heteronormative lifestyles, India and South Africa offer fruitful sites for comparative, qualitative research. In analysing the language of print media as a way of gauging how Pride movements are discursively constructed, the paper focuses on nominational and predicational strategies (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) to critically analyse actor representations in a sample of articles from national newspapers from each country.

Keywords: South Africa, India, social movements, frame analysis, recontextualisation, critical discourse analysis, newspapers, social actors
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social movements and Pride movements
    • 2.1Diffusion of social movement frames
    • 2.2Pride as a social movement and non-heterosexual rights
  • 3.Pride in Southern contexts: India and South Africa
  • 4.Methodology and data collection
    • 4.1Critical approaches to Discourse Analysis
    • 4.2Data collection
  • 5.Empirical evidence of frame diffusion: Discourse topics in media representations of Southern Pride movements
    • 5.1Naming Pride
    • 5.2Indexes of Pride
    • 5.3Human rights
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.16008.ben
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