The history of ideology and its definition continues to occupy scholars across a range of disciplines. Contrary to the vast volume of earlier work on ideology however, this books provides a challenging new theory of ideology, one that is capable of explaining not only the internal structures of ideologies, but also how ideologies function in society. In formulating theory that is capable of providing the first insights into the internal structures of ideologies while simultaneously explaining how discourse structures may be (...) used in the production and reproduction of ideologies, van Dijk offers a highly important theoretical bridge between the micro and macro structures of society. This book will be essential for all students of discourse studies, communication, social psychology, sociology, and political science. (shrink)

In this article the relevance of a sociocognitive approach to discourse is shown by presenting a new theory of context, defined as subjective participants’ constructs of communicative situations, and made explicit in terms of mental models - context models - in Episodic Memory. Through a ‘contextual analysis’ of a fragment of one of the ‘Iraq’ speeches by Tony Blair in the British House of Commons, it is shown how such context models control and explain many political aspects of interaction that (...) cannot be accounted for in autonomous approaches to text and talk. Context models thus provide an explicit theory of relevance and the situational appropriateness of discourse, and hence also a basis for theories of style. (shrink)

Hare has written a clear, brief, and readable introduction to ethics which looks at all the fundamental problems of the subject.

First published in 1984, this is a study of categorization practices: how people categorize each other and their actions; how they describe, infer, and judge. The book presents a sociological analysis and description of practical activities and makes a cogent contribution to the study of how the moral order actually works in practical communicative contexts. Among the issues dealt with are: collectivity categorizations, the organization of lists and descriptions, moral attribution and inferences, and the relationship between standards of morality and (...) standards of rationality. (shrink)

“This one,” she said, pointing at a chocolate in the box she was handing to me, “is absolutely evil.” And she was right or, at least, half-right: I’ve never tasted chocolate like that before, or since. Should I refrain from doing so?

ABSTRACTWhile numerous studies have examined evasion strategies in political discourse, the use of such strategies in internationally authored conflict resolution documents has yet to be examined. The demands of addressing different audiences are most evident in such documents, as the central audiences – the two conflicting parties – have conflicting demands. Through a discourse analysis of four central conflict resolution documents in the Arab–Israeli conflict, this paper presents six central evasion strategies utilized to cater to the demands of oppositional actors. (...) Furthermore, this paper analyzes how evasion strategies are interpreted in the media discourse of relevant actors. Finally, the paper examines the role of evasion strategies and their interpretation by media actors in conflict resolution and perpetuation, arguing that evasion strategies release mediators of responsibility while allowing conflicted parties to ‘dig into’ their respective narratives. (shrink)

Discourses of War and Peace examines specific contexts around the globe in which discourse operates in the service of war and to build alternative visions of peace.