Open DiscourseNet Seminar, London - monthly online seminar in Discourse Studies

Join us for monthly Friday lunchtime online English-language seminars from London, in collaboration with the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University, UK. 

To join our seminars, you will need to be logged into your discourseanalysis.net account (you may create one for free on the top right, which may well take two days) and then click 'Join Group' on the top left-hand side. You will then receive seminar announcements via email. We will send out unique Zoom links via email to all members of this group on the day before each seminar is scheduled. Note that we will video record all seminars. By joining our seminars, all participants agree that the recording can be made public.

We are excited to invite you to our last seminar for this academic year, which will take place on June 30, 2023, 1-2 (London Time): We will hear Michael Kranert (University of Southampton)  “On the Road to Net-Zero: Climate Change Discourses in Local Government“.

Abstract

This paper presents a pilot study for a project that aims to increase societal awareness of the relationship between language and democratic policy-making at a local level. The project focusses on Net Zero discourses and investigates how national discourses are adapted in local politics in Germany and the UK.

Broad goals on climate change are largely set at international and national level, whereas the tangible action required to tackle the challenge of climate change is essentially implemented at a local and individual level. We therefore seek to understand how this gap is bridged by actors in local politics by addressing four key questions:

1. How do actors in local politics employ language to shape debates and develop policy on achieving Net-Zero?
2. To what extent do local political discourses of Net-Zero depend on the relationship between national and sub-national layers of politics?
3. How are climate change discourses shaped in the work of local councils and local politics, and how are national political discourses on the target of Net-Zero altered when entering local debates?

The project investigates how national political discourses on climate change are adapted at local government level in different political systems by combining methods of linguistic ethnography and critical discourse analysis. We analyse textual trajectories of climate change discourses between national and local government in Germany and the UK to gain an understanding of how these discourses are adapted locally.

The paper will report on the pilot phase of the project, analysing a data set from a council debate in Germany about the EU programme “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” and the textual and discursive networks created by that debate. The analysis is based on recordings from the council and committee debates, the different versions of motions, as well as the broader textual networks produced by a debate the did not result in this city taking part in the programme but initiated a wider debate within the urban society.

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Past sessions

May 26, 2023, 1-2 (BST, London Time): Johannes Angermuller (The Open University): "Representing our discipline. A population of unequal academics" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQxSn7gJCf8

April 28, 2023: Sylvia Jaworska (University of Reading): "Who ‘shakes the trees’ and ‘deep dives’? Corpus-assisted discourse analysis of  the language of bias in corporate performance reviews"

March 31, 2023, : Melani Schroeter (University of Reading): "Communicative norms and ideals - and their exploitation in public discourse”. Melani Schroeter “Communicative norms and ideals - and their exploitation in public discourse” - YouTube 

February 24, 2023, 1-2 (London Time): Karolina Placzynta (Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin) “Hate speech online: Reflections, Methods and Goals of the Decoding Antisemitism Project”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gnfjeKQdOw

Friday, 27 January 2023, 1-2pm (London time): Alan Finlayson (University of East Anglia) on “The Rhetoric of Reactionary Digital Politics”. To view the recording, please follow this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dttHUlfn6I

Friday, 2 December 2022, 1-2pm (London time). Michael Farrelly (University of Hull) on the topic of "Can discourse analysis predict policy failure? - Applying Critical Policy Discourse Analysis to Policy Concepts of ‘Competition’ and ‘Cooperation’" To view the recording, please follow this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iUrlX-NYlg

Friday, 28 October 2022, 1-2pm (London time): Lise Fontaine (Cardiff University) Reference in reconciliation discourse. To view the recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=575FehcW9c0&t=479s

Wednesday, June 29, 2022, 12-1pm (London time): Richard Bramwell (Loughborough University) Vulnerability, violence and care: Caring masculinities in English rap culture

Friday, October 29, 2021, 1-2pm (London time): Johannes Angermuller (The Open University), Michael Kranert (University of Southampton), Stefanie Schneider (The Open University), Jaspal Naveel Singh (The Open University) "Discourse Studies in the UK today",

Friday, November 26, 2021, 1-2pm (London time): Rodney Jones (University of Reading) "Visibility and accountability in citizen’s encounters with police: An applied linguistic perspective." To view this recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqGpWk5OyP4

Friday, January 28, 2022, 1-2pm (London time): Stefanie Schneider (The Open University) "A conversation analytical lens on expressing doubt or scepticism in professional settings." To view this recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXa17PdxriY&t=170s

Friday, February 25, 2022, 1-2pm (London time): Dawn Knight (Cardiff University) and Christopher Fitzgerald (Mary Immaculate College) "Navigating Virtual Meetings: Multimodality and Variation in Online Professional Discourse." To view this recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyBkb44Hzd8 

Friday, March 25, 2022, 1-2pm (London time): Jan Zienkowski (Université Libre de Bruxelles): "Culture wars in Belgium? Analyzing the metapolitical dimension of civil society discourse(s) in Flanders." To view this recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNP9foS_s7I&t=3125s

Friday, April 29, 2022, 10-11am (London time): Rick Iedema (King's College London): "Affected: On Meaning Becoming (Undone) and the Meaning of Meaninglessness". To watch the recording, please follow this link: https://youtu.be/Wgk0z6qXePo

Friday, May 27, 2022, 1-2pm (London time): Majid KhosraviNik (Newcastle University) Digital Discourse and Society: Techno-Discursive Considerations in Social Media Critical Discourse Studies. To watch the recording, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znKv3TgIP0M&t=32s

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NB: Once people can travel again, participants will have the option to come and join us in the Open University's facilities in London. The seminars are open to everybody and free of charge but participants are encouraged to become members of the DiscourseNet Association. All sessions will be public, recorded and disseminated on social media. By joining our online session, all participants agree to being recorded. All recordings and the latest version of the programme will be posted on the group's page.

We are looking forward to stimulating discussions!

Johannes, Michael, Stefanie, Jaspal

PS: This seminar follows the format of our French-language discourse group in Paris, which has been running for seven years and is now held online: https://discourseanalysis.net/SEMLANSOC/group .

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Past talks

July 20, 2021, Jaspal Singh (The University of Hong Kong) "A sociolinguistic decolonisation of the Hindu right: ‘Purifying’ Hindi languaging from English and Urdu emblems"

May 10, 2021, 1-2pm BST: Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna), "Careless Car Culture - Critical Discourse Studies of car advertisements and car reviews"

April 12, 2021, 1-2pm GMT: Bogdana Huma (Free University of Amsterdam):"Language and persuasion"

March 15, 2021, 1-2pm GMT: Doris Schedlitzky (London Metropolitan University): "The absent follower or not becoming a leader"

February 15, 2021: Dominique Maingueneau (Sorbonne, Paris, France): “Ethos and 'entrepreneurial spirit'”

January 18, 2021: Rosina Márquez Reiter (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK): Leverage in relationships. Recommendations among Latin American migrants in London

December 7, 2020: Andrea Whittle (Newcastle University): Jeremy Corbyn – the ‘authentic' leader? Making sense of the press coverage of Corbyn’s authenticity. Go to the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuS-t-R83yo

November 9, 2020: Lílian Pereira de Carvalho (Federal Institute of São Paulo/Federal University of São Carlos), Julia Lourenço Costa (Federal University of São Carlos/FAPESP), Mariana Morales da Silva (Federal University of São Carlos/CAPES), Júlio Bonatti (Universitat de València): COVID-19 Discursive Encyclopedia.
Go to the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMLA5oBvBw

July 3, 2020: Nkululeko Mabandla (University of Cape Town),  Ana Deumert  (University of Cape Town)
Another Populism is Possible – Popular Politics and the Anti-Colonial Struggle
 
June 19, 2020:  Adriana Bolívar (Universidad Central de Venezuela): "Emotions and ideology in times of political change".
Go to the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Qjr9yyia0.

May 22, 2020:  Jens Maeße (University of Giessen): "Post-National Identities: How Discourses of Economics Create Social Positions in European Power/Knowledge Regimes". Go to the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtUib7CWyYo  

April 24, 2020:  Johannes Angermuller (The Open University) and  Juliane Reinecke (King's College London): "Science and populism in the coronavirus controversy: the celebrity logics of expert discourses". Go to the recording here: https://youtu.be/5yL2QTGvTMo