1st Edition
Multimodal Legitimation Understanding and Analysing Political and Cultural Discourse
This volume meditates on the various meanings of legitimation and expands on the notion that language can be used to gain or preserve it by demonstrating the added impact of other modes in specific examples of political and institutional discourse. The book draws on a multilayered framework that builds on and integrates work from both critical discourse analysis and social semiotic traditions, as well as the work of philosophers such as Habermas, Weber, and Rousseau, to show how it might be applied in practice to analyse and understand myriad forms of discourse. The volume focuses on examples from political campaign spots, which highlight various modes, including images, film, oratory, and color, but are also of global relevance and scale, highlighting their unique and complex position at the nexus between legitimation and multimodality. Offering a new analytical framework for understanding legitimation across a range of discursive contexts, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in discourse analysis, multimodality, political science, psychology, design, and education.
Contents
List of figures
Formal acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
1. LEGITIMATION AND MULTIMODALITY IN DISCOURSE: KEY FIGURES AND CONCEPTS
Aristotle
Bourdieu
Foucault
Latour
Orwell and Chomsky
Critical Discourse Analysis ~ Critical Discourse Studies
Van Dijk
Van Leeuwen
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction
Analytical Gap
Blending Theoretical Approaches
Theoretical Framework
Key Notions and Terms
3: LEGITIMATION
Introduction
Rationality
Rationality and Legitimation
Dichotomies and Dualisms
Irrationality
Irrationality and Legitimation
Legitimating the Irrational
Rationality and Legitimation in Romanticism
Rationality and Legitimation in Modernism
Mythology and Legitimation
Technology and Legitimation
4: LEGITIMATION, MODE, GENRE, AND CONTEXT: THE COMPLEXITY OF THE POLITICAL AD
The Transferability of the Arts
Dada and Surrealism: Their Politics and Paradoxical Legacy
The Russian Avant-Garde, Eisenstein and Soviet cinema
Adorno, Eisler, and the De-legitimation of Mass Cultural Products
Inverted Modal Salience and Music
Introduction
Genre of Political Ads
Legitimation by the Multimodal Affordances of a Speech
‘Yes We Can’ (2008)
Multimodal Re-contextualisation in a Supporting Role
Legitimation through Genres
Background
‘Don’t Vote Alone’ (2008)
Legitimation through Multimodally Realised Genre and Register
Legitimation and Semiotic Simultaneity
Background
‘Don’t Know Much’ (2008)
Legitimation through Semiotic Simultaneity
Conclusion
5: NATURALLY
Introduction
Persuasion, Naturalisation, and Bourdieu
The Expedience of Uncertainty
‘Daisy’ (1964): Emotional Advertising
Unmodern Resonances
Children in/as Nature
Children and Politicians
Children and Innocence
‘Icecream’ (1964): Protecting Childhood
‘Dangerous World’ (2000), ‘Changing World’ (2004), and ‘Ashley’s Story’ (2004): Childhood Threatened
Deciphering the Body
Child as Savage
‘Poverty’ (1964), ‘The Threat’ (1996): Childhood Changed
Metaphorical Nature
‘Victory’ (2004)
Metaphor and Multimodality
‘Bear’ (1984)
‘Wolves’ (2004)
‘Polar Bears’ (2008) and ‘Wolves (II)’ (2008)
Nature as Environment
‘Orbiting’ (1984)
‘National Parks’ (1956)
‘Harbor’ (1988) and ‘Bay’ (1988)
‘Matters’ (2000)
Theoretical Framework Applied
‘The Threat’ (1996), Dole
‘Matters’ (2000), Gore
Typology
6: SELLING SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE
Introduction
‘Two Futures’ (2013)
Legitimation and National Identity
Analysis
Multimodal Resources
Pragma-strategic Level
Justificatory Schema
Legitimation as a Process
Legitimation as a Quality
Discourse-Historical Moral Evaluation
7. LEGITIMATION IN OTHER DISCIPLINES AND CONTEXTS
Cartography
Communication with Hazard Maps in Central America
Organization and Management Studies
The Law
Critical Legal Studies
The Heat of Passion Doctrine
‘Adequate Provocation’ and the ‘Reasonable Man’
Fear, Anger, and Agency
Incitation
Ad: ‘Willie Horton’, Hate as strategy
Literature
‘Measure for Measure’: Legitimation and the Law
Literature = Legitimate?
Art
Art and Value
Art and the Body
8. TRUTH AND LEGITIMATION
Truth and Expertise
Truth, Truths, and Lies
Free Speech, ‘Safe Spaces’, Algorithms and Echo Chambers
POSTSCRIPT
Biography
Rowan R. Mackay is Assistant Professor of English at the Chinese University, Hong Kong. Working at the crossroads of political language, social semiotics, and identity politics, previous publications have analysed the politics of Scotland, gender debates and how they can be analysed sensitively, and the role of irony within senior management teams.
