Article published in:
Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction: Multimodal and cross-linguistic perspectives
Edited by Manuela Romano and Maria Dolores Porto
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 262] 2016
► pp. 159–183

Multimodal discourses of collective memory

| Adam Mickiewicz University
The aim of this paper is to analyze the interaction of the visual and the verbal layers of the memorials in the former extermination sites in Poland (cf. Young 1993). Two of the selected memorials were designed and erected in the 1960s (Chełmno nad Nerem and Majdanek) while the other two (Bełżec and Radegast) in the 2000s. The four case studies use the analytic categories of image schemata and metaphoric and metonymic extension in the analysis of the memorial landscape and critical discourse analysis in the analysis of the verbal layer. Memorials are memory carriers which have been constructed to facilitate rituals of commemoration designed to strengthen the in-group ties and collective identity. They thus become the potential vehicle of ideology of the period in which they were created. The analysis of the verbal and visual elements of the representation show how the change in the dominant discourse affected the design of the memorials, as well as how the traumatic landscape, in which these memorials are erected, motivated their imagery.
Keywords: critical discourse analysis, memorials, multimodal schemas and metaphors
Published online: 31 March 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.262.07fab
References
Assmann, Jan
2011 Cultural Memory and EarlyCcivilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt
2001 Modernity and the Holocaust. Ithaka: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bernárdez, Enrique
2007 “Synergy in the Construction of Meaning.” In Language and Meaning: Cognitive and Functional Perspectives, ed. by Małgorzata Fabiszak, 15–37. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2008 “Collective Cognition and Individual Activity: Variation, Language and Culture”. In Body, Language and Mind. Sociocultural Situatedness, ed. by Roslyn M. Frank, René Dirven, Tom Ziemke and Enrique Bernárdez, 137–166. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bielecki, Czesław
Dom i Miasto. “A Designer Company Website”. http://​www​.dim​.com​.pl​/index​.php​?option​=com​_content​&view​=article​&id​=85​&Itemid​=95​&lang​=en (date of access 21.01.2014).
Blomberg, Johan and Jordan Zlatev
2014 “Actual and Non-Actual Motion: Why Experientialist Semantics Needs Phenomenology (and Vice Versa)”. Phenomenology and Cognitive Science 13: 395–418. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buntman, Barbara
2008 “Tourism and Tragedy: The Memorial at Belzec, Poland.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 14 (3): 422–448. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Casasanto, Daniel
2009 “Embodiment of Abstract Concepts: Good and Bad in Right- and Left-Handers”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138(3): 351–367. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cassasanto, Daniel
2011 “Different Bodies, Different Minds: The Body Specificity of Language and Thought”. Current Directions in Psychological Science 20 (6): 378–383. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fabiszak, Małgorzata
2016 “Contesting Memories in Text and Image: Discursive Representation and Cognitive Construal”. In The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Contested/Contesting Memories, ed. by David M. Seymour and Mercedes Camino. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fabiszak, Małgorzata and Marcin Owsiński
(eds.) 2013 Obóz – Muzeum. Trauma we Współczesnym Wystawiennictwie [Camp – Museum. Trauma in Contemporary Exhibitions.] Kraków: Universitas.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1995 Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London/New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Golka, Marian
2008 Pamięć Społeczna i jej Implanty. [Social Memory and its Implants] Warszawa: Scholar.Google Scholar
Gross, Andrew S
2006 “Holocaust Tourism in Berlin: Global Memory, Trauma and the ‘Negative Sublime’”. Journeys 7 (2): 73–100. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johansson-Falck, Marlene and Raymond W. Gibbs
2012 “Embodied motivations for metaphorical meanings”. Cognitive Linguistics 23 (2): 251–272. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice
1980 The Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark
1987 Body in the Mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Kącka, Katarzyna
2012 “Shared Memory: The Sources of Polish and German Perceptions of History after System Transformations.” In Central Europe on the Threshold of the 21st century: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Challenges in Politics and Society, ed. by Lucyna Czechowska and Krzysztof Olszewski, 35–52. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltán
2002 Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuwałek, Robert
2010 Obóz Zagłady w Bełżcu. [Extermination Camp in Bełżec]. Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson
1980 Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
1999 Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald
1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Levy, Daniel and Natan Sznaider
2002 “Memory Unbound. The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory.” European Journal of Social Theory 5 (1): 87–106. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Litoe, Daniel B
2006 “Seeing Nothing: Allegory and the Holocaust’s Absent Dead.” SubStance 132 (35/2): 51–70.Google Scholar
Marcuse, Harold
2010 “Holocaust Memorials: The Emergence of a Genre.” American Historical Review 115: 53–89. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Michalic, Joanna Beata
2012 “’Remembering to Remember’, ‘Remembering to Benefit’, ‘Remembering to Forget’: The Variety of Memories of Jews and the Holocaust in Postcommunist Poland”. Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs 113. http://​jcpa​.org​/article​/remembering​-to​-remember​-remembering​-to​-benefit​-remembering​-to​-forget​-the​-variety​-of​-memories​-of​-jews​-and​-the​-holocaust​-in​-postcommunist​-poland/ [Date of access 27.05.2013]Google Scholar
Nora, Pierre
1989 “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire”. Representations 26: 7–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oakley, Todd
2007 “Image schemas”. In The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics., ed. by Geeraerts, Dirk and Hubert Cuyckens, 214–235. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Olesiuk, Danuta and Krzysztof Kokowicz
2009 “Jeśli ludzie zamilkną, głazy wołać będą...”. Pomnik ku czci ofiar Majdanka [“If people fall silent, the stones will call...” Memorial for the victims of Majdanek]. Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku.Google Scholar
Pawlicka-Nowak, Łucja
2004 “Dzieje upamiętnienia byłego obozu zagłady w Chełmnie nad Nerem (do 1995 r.) [A history of commemoration of the former extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem].” In Mówią świadkowie Chełmna [The Witnesses of Chełmno Speak], ed. by Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak, 32–39. Konin/Łódź: Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa w Warszawie, Muzeum Okręgowe w Koninie, Oficyna Bibliofilów Łódź.Google Scholar
Rohrer, Tim
2007 “Embodiment and Experientialism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, ed. by Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens, 25–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Elissa
2012 “Walking in the City: Memory and Place.” The Journal of Architecture 17 (1): 131–149. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sinha, Chris
2005 “Blending out of the Background: Play, Props and Staging in the Material World.” Journal of Pragmatics 37 (10): 1537–1554. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Szlachetka, Małgorzata
2009 Majdanek. Historia Pomnika Walki i Męczeństwa. Rozmowa z Wiktorem Tołkinem. [Majdanek. A History of the Memorial of Fight and Martyrology. A talk with Wiktor Tołkin]. Gazeta Wyborcza 17.09.2009.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun
1993 “Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Discourse and Society 4 (2): 249–283. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2006 “Discourse, Context and Cognition.” Discourse Studies 8 (1): 159–177. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2006 “History in the Making/ The Making of History. The ‘German Wermacht’ in Collective and Individual Memories in Austria”. Journal of Language and Politics 5 (1): 125–154. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and Martin Meyer
(eds.) 2001 Methods in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Young, James E
1993 The Texture of Memory. Holocaust Memorials and Meanings. New Haven / 
London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Chlebda, Wojciech
2020. Versprachlichtes Gedächtnis. tekst i dyskurs - text und diskurs :13 (2020) ► pp. 101 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 may 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.