Recent papers by Cedric Deschrijver
Language & Communication, 2024
Full paper available until 24 March at:
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Despite ... more Full paper available until 24 March at:
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Despite increasing attention to its spread, there has been little sustained engagement with online disinformation’s localized effects. This paper provides a case study of online commenters’ own interpretations of potential disinformation campaigns, by analyzing The Financial Times’s anonymous comment boards below coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Despite a lack of clear-cut evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns, disparate textual features retrievable in discourse come to function as contextualization cues that situationally index ongoing disinformation campaigns. Participants’ awareness of the possibility of disinformation may thus engender accusations of disinformation towards any comment criticizing the protest movement, with several arguments becoming stereotypically indexical of potential disinformation campaigns. The case study provides a linguistic-anthropological account of the interrelation between disinformation and social polarization.
Journal of Pragmatics, 2024
Full paper available until 15 Feb at:
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Journal of Pragmatics, 2021
Conspiracy theories are powerful narratives that can decisively shape people's understandings of ... more Conspiracy theories are powerful narratives that can decisively shape people's understandings of the world. Despite a long-standing scholarly interest, however, they have not yet been analysed from the angle of metapragmatics. A metapragmatic approach treats the concept of ‘conspiracy theory’ as a label understood to refer to a certain type of discourse, and the theories themselves as potentially demonstrating specific manifestations of metapragmatic awareness by incorporating the label into their theories.
To demonstrate the utility of this approach, the article investigates a conspiracy theory according to which the notion of ‘conspiracy theory’ itself is ruled by government strategy. The analysis, focused on explicit occurrences of metalanguage and metacommunication, reveals that epistemological arguments and notions such as ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘evidence’ come to be interpreted and judged according to the imagined, stereotypical persona uttering them. Some arguments may then be metacommunicatively denied: denied not based on propositional content, but based on them allegedly representing the ‘mainstream’. The article suggests that the label ‘conspiracy theory’ may hinder rather than resolve disagreements, as it will itself become linked to ‘suspect’ personae.
Language & Communication, 2020
Metalanguage, language about language, is one of language's most creative and intriguing properti... more Metalanguage, language about language, is one of language's most creative and intriguing properties. Yet it has rarely been crystallised as an analytical focus, nor has its occurrence been systematically described or scrutinised. This paper employs a focus on (explicit) metalanguage as a means to detect the extent to which a term and its denotational norms/indexical links are shared across a subset of language users. It argues that the relative amount of metalanguage focusing on a term, the term's ‘metalinguistic density’, offers insights about the term's status in a particular community. Specifically, it proposes the categories of Contentious, Common, and Unstable Terms to describe the contextually influenced behaviour of terms.
Language at Internet, 2018
On 30 June 2015, the euro crisis and its devastating effect on Greece culminated in the short ter... more On 30 June 2015, the euro crisis and its devastating effect on Greece culminated in the short term when two of Greece's bailout packages were set to expire. The deadline attracted an enormous amount of media coverage – and user engagement with it. This article analyses how the evening's main event was conceptualised in two ways – as Greece being 'in default' or 'in arrears' – and how the competing concepts were used in The Guardian Online's live blog reporting and the ensuing user comments. Tendencies regarding the concepts' usage and uptake are discussed through a close analysis of indicators of metapragmatic awareness (Verschueren, 1999). It is shown that the two terms were entextualized in distinct ways, and that this engendered specific and politically-motivated indexical links for some users in the commenting community. Drawing upon Agha's (2011) conceptualisation of mediatization, the article suggests a need to refocus investigations on the online audience's uptake of economic/financial news reporting.
Language at Internet 16, 2018
The starting point of this Special Issue of Language@Internet is the observation that discourse o... more The starting point of this Special Issue of Language@Internet is the observation that discourse on economics and finance has been shifting in terms of genre, register, and context, and that novel forms of online engagement are crucially symbiotic in these shifts. We propose to analyse these new contexts through the analytical concept of social mediatization, which permits close engagement with the influence of particular affordances on the enregisterment, vernacularization, recontextualization, and rescripting of particular features and fragments of discourse on the economy. While the main, but not exclusive, focus of the issue lies on engagements with euro crisis discourse, the framework is applicable to a wide variety of contemporary media engagements.
Conference Presentations by Cedric Deschrijver
AILA 2020 Groningen
Researchers in applied linguistics are increasingly focused on shifting modes of engagement, 'glo... more Researchers in applied linguistics are increasingly focused on shifting modes of engagement, 'glocal' information flows, and superdiverse communicative styles. Metalanguage-or talk about talk-has proven to be an invaluable research lens in these complex settings, allowing researchers access to participants' "emic" interpretations of real-time interactional dynamics and social contexts. The reflexive nature of language-in-use is proving to be a rich analytical resource in, e.g., medical encounters, education spaces, and online spaces. However, an integrated theory of metalanguage as a research lens has yet to be developed.
This symposium aims to aid in this development by answering the following questions: (a) How can metalanguage be used as a lens for revealing how interlocutors orient to, and interpret, situated communication? (b) How does metalanguage provide insights to changes in social relations over time?
The first question is addressed in Subtheme 1: Metalanguage in synchronous discourse. We invite papers with a systematic focus on talk-about-talk in either real or virtual "face-to-face" interactions (e.g., those happening in real-time). The second question will be addressed in Subtheme 2: Metalanguage in asynchronous discourse. We invite papers that explore metalanguage in, e.g., policy discourse, online comments sections, social media, or other discourses taking place over time.
Papers by Cedric Deschrijver
Journal of Pragmatics, Jan 31, 2024
Full paper available until 15 Feb at: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iL3j1L-nhTbNI
Language & communication, Mar 1, 2024
Full paper available until 24 March at: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iXdezlIuHKDP Despite incr... more Full paper available until 24 March at: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iXdezlIuHKDP Despite increasing attention to its spread, there has been little sustained engagement with online disinformation’s localized effects. This paper provides a case study of online commenters’ own interpretations of potential disinformation campaigns, by analyzing The Financial Times’s anonymous comment boards below coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Despite a lack of clear-cut evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns, disparate textual features retrievable in discourse come to function as contextualization cues that situationally index ongoing disinformation campaigns. Participants’ awareness of the possibility of disinformation may thus engender accusations of disinformation towards any comment criticizing the protest movement, with several arguments becoming stereotypically indexical of potential disinformation campaigns. The case study provides a linguistic-anthropological account of the interrelation between disinformation and social polarization.
Sociolinguistic Studies
Research Companion to Language and Country Branding Irene Theodoropoulou and Johanna Tovar (eds) ... more Research Companion to Language and Country Branding Irene Theodoropoulou and Johanna Tovar (eds) (2021) London: Routledge. Pp. 434 ISBN: 9780367343590 (hbk) ISBN: 9780429325250 (eBook)
King's College London, 2018
1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURS... more 1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES AND ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL (MEDIA) DISCOURSE 2.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1989) and the Euro Crisis 15 2.2.2 The Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak & Meyer, 2001) and the Euro Crisis 17 2.2.3 Interim Summary 20 2.3 METAPHORS IN EURO CRISIS MEDIA DISCOURSE 2.3.1 Euro Crisis Media Discourse and (Critical) Metaphor Analysis 21 2.3.2 'Framing' in Euro Crisis Media Discourse 23 2.4 A RHETORICAL VIEW (MCCLOSKEY, 1990B) OF DISCOURSE ON THE ECONOMY 26 2.4.1 Economics and Rhetoric 26 2.4.2 Meta-Theoretical Realism in a Rhetorical View 27 2.5 ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY 2.6 A NECESSITY OF NARROWING DOWN THE ANALYTICAL FOCUS 3. THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT OF NEWS PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 3.1 'THE' MEDIA AS DOMINATING DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE 3.2 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON NEWS REPORTING 3.3 AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IN THE NEWS PROCESS 3.4 AUDIENCE RECEPTION 3.5 MEDIATIZATION 4. METHODOLOGY 4.1 METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM: ORIGINS AND CONTEXT 4.2 A WEAK FORM OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM IN LINGUISTICS 4.2.1 Criticisms of Critical Discourse Studies 52 4.2.1.1 Projecting pre-defined power relations onto discourse 52 4.
1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURS... more 1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES AND ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL (MEDIA) DISCOURSE 2.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1989) and the Euro Crisis 15 2.2.2 The Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak & Meyer, 2001) and the Euro Crisis 17 2.2.3 Interim Summary 20 2.3 METAPHORS IN EURO CRISIS MEDIA DISCOURSE 2.3.1 Euro Crisis Media Discourse and (Critical) Metaphor Analysis 21 2.3.2 'Framing' in Euro Crisis Media Discourse 23 2.4 A RHETORICAL VIEW (MCCLOSKEY, 1990B) OF DISCOURSE ON THE ECONOMY 26 2.4.1 Economics and Rhetoric 26 2.4.2 Meta-Theoretical Realism in a Rhetorical View 27 2.5 ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY 2.6 A NECESSITY OF NARROWING DOWN THE ANALYTICAL FOCUS 3. THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT OF NEWS PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 3.1 'THE' MEDIA AS DOMINATING DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE 3.2 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON NEWS REPORTING 3.3 AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IN THE NEWS PROCESS 3.4 AUDIENCE RECEPTION 3.5 MEDIATIZATION 4. METHODOLOGY 4.1 METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM: ORIGINS AND CONTEXT 4.2 A WEAK FORM OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM IN LINGUISTICS 4.2.1 Criticisms of Critical Discourse Studies 52 4.2.1.1 Projecting pre-defined power relations onto discourse 52 4.
1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURS... more 1. INTRODUCTION 2. LANGUAGE AND ECONOMY: SETTING THE SCENE 2.1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES AND ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL (MEDIA) DISCOURSE 2.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1989) and the Euro Crisis 15 2.2.2 The Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak & Meyer, 2001) and the Euro Crisis 17 2.2.3 Interim Summary 20 2.3 METAPHORS IN EURO CRISIS MEDIA DISCOURSE 2.3.1 Euro Crisis Media Discourse and (Critical) Metaphor Analysis 21 2.3.2 'Framing' in Euro Crisis Media Discourse 23 2.4 A RHETORICAL VIEW (MCCLOSKEY, 1990B) OF DISCOURSE ON THE ECONOMY 26 2.4.1 Economics and Rhetoric 26 2.4.2 Meta-Theoretical Realism in a Rhetorical View 27 2.5 ECONOMY, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY 2.6 A NECESSITY OF NARROWING DOWN THE ANALYTICAL FOCUS 3. THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT OF NEWS PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 3.1 'THE' MEDIA AS DOMINATING DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE 3.2 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON NEWS REPORTING 3.3 AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION IN THE NEWS PROCESS 3.4 AUDIENCE RECEPTION 3.5 MEDIATIZATION 4. METHODOLOGY 4.1 METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM: ORIGINS AND CONTEXT 4.2 A WEAK FORM OF METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM IN LINGUISTICS 4.2.1 Criticisms of Critical Discourse Studies 52 4.2.1.1 Projecting pre-defined power relations onto discourse 52 4.
Conspiracy theories are powerful narratives that can decisively shape people's understandings... more Conspiracy theories are powerful narratives that can decisively shape people's understandings of the world. Despite a long-standing scholarly interest, however, they have not yet been analysed from the angle of metapragmatics. A metapragmatic approach treats the concept of ‘conspiracy theory’ as a label understood to refer to a certain type of discourse, and the theories themselves as potentially demonstrating specific manifestations of metapragmatic awareness by incorporating the label into their theories. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, the article investigates a conspiracy theory according to which the notion of ‘conspiracy theory’ itself is ruled by government strategy. The analysis, focused on explicit occurrences of metalanguage and metacommunication, reveals that epistemological arguments and notions such as ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘evidence’ come to be interpreted and judged according to the imagined, stereotypical persona uttering them. Some arguments may t...
Language & Communication, 2020
Abstract Metalanguage, language about language, is one of language's most creative and intrig... more Abstract Metalanguage, language about language, is one of language's most creative and intriguing properties. Yet it has rarely been crystallised as an analytical focus, nor has its occurrence been systematically described or scrutinised. This paper employs a focus on (explicit) metalanguage as a means to detect the extent to which a term and its denotational norms/indexical links are shared across a subset of language users. It argues that the relative amount of metalanguage focusing on a term, the term's ‘metalinguistic density’, offers insights about the term's status in a particular community. Specifically, it proposes the categories of Contentious, Common, and Unstable Terms to describe the contextually influenced behaviour of terms.
The starting point of this Special Issue of Language@Internet is the observation that discourse o... more The starting point of this Special Issue of Language@Internet is the observation that discourse on economics and finance has been shifting in terms of genre, register, and context, and that novel forms of online engagement are crucially symbiotic in these shifts. We propose to analyse these new contexts through the analytical concept of social mediatization, which permits close engagement with the influence of particular affordances on the enregisterment, vernacularization, recontextualization, and rescripting of particular features and fragments of discourse on the economy. While the main, but not exclusive, focus of the issue lies on engagements with euro crisis discourse, the framework is applicable to a wide variety of contemporary media engagements.
Abstract: This paper investigates the problematic relation between unaccusativity and Spanish bar... more Abstract: This paper investigates the problematic relation between unaccusativity and Spanish bare plurals in postverbal subject position. The appearance of this type of NP is usually regarded as an adequate means to detect unaccusativity. However, in some contexts, most notably that of the locative inversion construction, bare plural subjects can also appear after verbs that are considered to be unergative. Furthermore, there are a number of indications that it is discourse-pragmatic restrictions that regulate the distribution of postverbal bare plurals as a subject. In this paper, both types of proposals will be analysed critically. It will be concluded that a pragmatic account, instead of one based on the unaccusative status of the verb, seems to be preferable when analysing Spanish postverbal bare plural subjects. Resumen: Este trabajo investiga la relación problemática entre la inacusatividad y los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal en español. La aparición de este tipo de SN suele considerarse como indicación de la inacusatividad de un verbo. Sin embargo, en algunos contextos, el de la construcción de la inversión locativa en particular, estos plurales escuetos llegan a aparecer también después de verbos considerados como inergativos. Además, hay unas indicaciones, que son restricciones discursivas-pragmáticas, que regulan la distribución de los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal. En este trabajo, los dos tipos de propuestas serán analizados de manera crítica. Se concluirá que una aproximación pragmática, en vez de un análisis basado en el estatus inacusativo del verbo, es preferible a la hora de analizar los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal en español. Palabras clave: Inacusatividad, plurales escuetos, construcción de inversión locativa, pragmática. (Deschrijver, C. (2012). "On the relation between Spanish postverbal bare plural subjects and unaccusative verbs". In: Álvarez Mosquera, P., et al. (eds.). Interlingüística XXII, Volume I. 311-325.)
On 30 June 2015, the euro crisis and its devastating effect on Greece culminated in the short ter... more On 30 June 2015, the euro crisis and its devastating effect on Greece culminated in the short term when two of Greece's bailout packages were set to expire. The deadline attracted an enormous amount of media coverage – and user engagement with it. This article analyses how the evening's main event was conceptualised in two ways – as Greece being 'in default' or 'in arrears' – and how the competing concepts were used in The Guardian Online's live blog reporting and the ensuing user comments. Tendencies regarding the concepts' usage and uptake are discussed through a close analysis of indicators of metapragmatic awareness (Verschueren, 1999). It is shown that the two terms were entextualized in distinct ways, and that this engendered specific and politically-motivated indexical links for some users in the commenting community. Drawing upon Agha's (2011) conceptualisation of mediatization, the article suggests a need to refocus investigations on the online audience's uptake of economic/financial news reporting.
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Recent papers by Cedric Deschrijver
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iXdezlIuHKDP
Despite increasing attention to its spread, there has been little sustained engagement with online disinformation’s localized effects. This paper provides a case study of online commenters’ own interpretations of potential disinformation campaigns, by analyzing The Financial Times’s anonymous comment boards below coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Despite a lack of clear-cut evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns, disparate textual features retrievable in discourse come to function as contextualization cues that situationally index ongoing disinformation campaigns. Participants’ awareness of the possibility of disinformation may thus engender accusations of disinformation towards any comment criticizing the protest movement, with several arguments becoming stereotypically indexical of potential disinformation campaigns. The case study provides a linguistic-anthropological account of the interrelation between disinformation and social polarization.
To demonstrate the utility of this approach, the article investigates a conspiracy theory according to which the notion of ‘conspiracy theory’ itself is ruled by government strategy. The analysis, focused on explicit occurrences of metalanguage and metacommunication, reveals that epistemological arguments and notions such as ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘evidence’ come to be interpreted and judged according to the imagined, stereotypical persona uttering them. Some arguments may then be metacommunicatively denied: denied not based on propositional content, but based on them allegedly representing the ‘mainstream’. The article suggests that the label ‘conspiracy theory’ may hinder rather than resolve disagreements, as it will itself become linked to ‘suspect’ personae.
Conference Presentations by Cedric Deschrijver
This symposium aims to aid in this development by answering the following questions: (a) How can metalanguage be used as a lens for revealing how interlocutors orient to, and interpret, situated communication? (b) How does metalanguage provide insights to changes in social relations over time?
The first question is addressed in Subtheme 1: Metalanguage in synchronous discourse. We invite papers with a systematic focus on talk-about-talk in either real or virtual "face-to-face" interactions (e.g., those happening in real-time). The second question will be addressed in Subtheme 2: Metalanguage in asynchronous discourse. We invite papers that explore metalanguage in, e.g., policy discourse, online comments sections, social media, or other discourses taking place over time.
Papers by Cedric Deschrijver
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iXdezlIuHKDP
Despite increasing attention to its spread, there has been little sustained engagement with online disinformation’s localized effects. This paper provides a case study of online commenters’ own interpretations of potential disinformation campaigns, by analyzing The Financial Times’s anonymous comment boards below coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Despite a lack of clear-cut evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns, disparate textual features retrievable in discourse come to function as contextualization cues that situationally index ongoing disinformation campaigns. Participants’ awareness of the possibility of disinformation may thus engender accusations of disinformation towards any comment criticizing the protest movement, with several arguments becoming stereotypically indexical of potential disinformation campaigns. The case study provides a linguistic-anthropological account of the interrelation between disinformation and social polarization.
To demonstrate the utility of this approach, the article investigates a conspiracy theory according to which the notion of ‘conspiracy theory’ itself is ruled by government strategy. The analysis, focused on explicit occurrences of metalanguage and metacommunication, reveals that epistemological arguments and notions such as ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘evidence’ come to be interpreted and judged according to the imagined, stereotypical persona uttering them. Some arguments may then be metacommunicatively denied: denied not based on propositional content, but based on them allegedly representing the ‘mainstream’. The article suggests that the label ‘conspiracy theory’ may hinder rather than resolve disagreements, as it will itself become linked to ‘suspect’ personae.
This symposium aims to aid in this development by answering the following questions: (a) How can metalanguage be used as a lens for revealing how interlocutors orient to, and interpret, situated communication? (b) How does metalanguage provide insights to changes in social relations over time?
The first question is addressed in Subtheme 1: Metalanguage in synchronous discourse. We invite papers with a systematic focus on talk-about-talk in either real or virtual "face-to-face" interactions (e.g., those happening in real-time). The second question will be addressed in Subtheme 2: Metalanguage in asynchronous discourse. We invite papers that explore metalanguage in, e.g., policy discourse, online comments sections, social media, or other discourses taking place over time.
Resumen: Este trabajo investiga la relación problemática entre la inacusatividad y los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal en español. La aparición de este tipo de SN suele considerarse como indicación de la inacusatividad de un verbo. Sin embargo, en algunos contextos, el de la construcción de la inversión locativa en particular, estos plurales escuetos llegan a aparecer también después de verbos considerados como inergativos. Además, hay unas indicaciones, que son restricciones discursivas-pragmáticas, que regulan la distribución de los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal. En este trabajo, los dos tipos de propuestas serán analizados de manera crítica. Se concluirá que una aproximación pragmática, en vez de un análisis basado en el estatus inacusativo del verbo, es preferible a la hora de analizar los plurales escuetos en posición de sujeto posverbal en español.
Palabras clave: Inacusatividad, plurales escuetos, construcción de inversión locativa, pragmática.
(Deschrijver, C. (2012). "On the relation between Spanish postverbal bare plural subjects and unaccusative verbs". In: Álvarez Mosquera, P., et al. (eds.). Interlingüística XXII, Volume I. 311-325.)