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Cultural Studies and critical discourse analysis in Class 8

Published in Danish in Sprogforum 60, 2015, 28–36.Translated from Danish by John Irons.

In connection with a PhD project1 on intercultural competence in English teaching in Class 8, three teachers experimented in the spring of 2014 with critical discourse analysis of a Facebook dialogue between two global celebrities. The project focused on the teachers’ interpretation of the cultural dimension and on challenging class-room practices, using critical language pedagogy as its springboard (Byram 2008; Dervin in this number; Guilherme 2002; Liddicoat & Scarino 2013; Norton & Toohey 2004; Pennycook 2010; Risager 2007). The teachers worked on how the critical cultural awareness of the students can be strengthened, partly by making use of the field of Cultural Studies, and partly that of discourse analysis. The teachers experimented in two teaching sequences involving the students’ critical cultural thinking when working on multimodal texts. This article deals with work during the second sequence, in which the teaching goal was for the students to pass through a sequence on reflection which discussed underlying meanings and stereotyped ideas about discourses concerning global celebrities. The sequence can be seen as a possible way of working with the new simplified Common Goals, which, among other things, deal with intercultural competence and critical cultural awareness.

lone krogsgaard svarstadAssociate Professor, Metropolitan University CollegePhD student at Aarhus University, Department of EducationlosvAphmetropol.dk

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Teaching period in Class 8: Othering – Audience, Performance and Celebrity

As a preparation to the first sequence, the three teachers took part in a seminar at Aarhus University, where, basing ourselves on Iben Jensen’s book Grundbog i kulturforståelse (2013) and Michael Ryan’s book Cultural Studies. A Practical Introduction (2010) we discussed the concept of culture as well as intercultural competence. The first sequence dealt with Identity, Lifestyle and Subculture, and in that con-nection, the classes worked with the concept of Othering. This enabled them to use this knowledge about cultural meetings and positions as a basis in their next sequence on othering and global celebrities: Othering - Audience, Performance and Celebrity.

The teachers took part in another seminar, where we discussed the underlying discourses in the music industry on the basis of, among other sources, literature about Cultural Studies: sexuality, gender, power, status, religion, talent, gossip and the media. The focal point of the teaching was an open Facebook dialogue between the former Disney princess Miley Cyrus, known as Hannah Montana, and Sinead O’Connor, the female Irish singer, who had a megahit with the song Nothing Compares 2U back in 1992. Sinead O’Connor wrote on Facebook to Miley Cyrus that she had gone too far in her outré appearances and sexual behaviour, and she accused Miley Cyrus of allowing herself to be manipulated by the music industry and reducing herself to a sex object. Sinead O’Connor was emotion-ally very involved and wanted to give Miley some good advice, since today Sinead is a mother of four and an experienced woman in the music industry. The conflict escalated, and Miley Cyrus counter- attacked on Facebook. A number of other celebrities, including Kate Winslett, known from the Titanic film, joined in and said that they were very concerned about Miley Cyrus and the exploitation she was being exposed to. A male blogger turned the whole discussion upside-down and praised Miley Cyrus for her obvious talent – for singing as well as business. In the teaching it was interesting to go behind the media-created discourses and to discuss what view of women, sexuality and music was involved – and why.

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She’s a slut – self-reflection in the meeting with the Other via texts and media

Practically all the students in the three classes knew about Miley Cyrus and her music video WreckingBall, but none of them knew about Sinead O’Connor or the background for the conflict. The teachers chose to use discourse analysis to pinpoint what meaning a particular use of language has for how celebrities are talked about, and to analyse what underlying meanings were possibly present. In the project, the teachers defined discourse analysis as the way in which we talk about a subject, the way in which we describe it, the way in which we ascribe meaning to it as well as adopt a critical distance towards it, and how language use creates meaning. This definition was inspired by James Paul Gee’s book How to do Discourse Analysis – A Toolkit (2011) and Maja Bødtcher-Hansen’s article Diskur-sanalyse i dansk (2013). It was important for the teachers that it was a definition that was not too difficult, one that could be understood by the students and used to analyse the Facebook dialogue and start discussions about both Othering and the underlying meanings in the palette of media that were used during the teaching sequence. The students were divided in their view of Miley Cyrus, and their reactions ranged from feeling she was a slut, whore, ugly, disrespectful to she’s bold, mature, breaking free etc. The teachers sought to challenge the students’ attitudes and to create a debate on what underlay such attitudes. Afterwards, the teachers stated that it required a different pedagogical approach to teach in this way, one that has a greater focus on content, and where the teacher must be aware that it is the critical perspective that is the focal point of the teaching.

What can Cultural Studies offer?

Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field with studies of popular culture, one that has challenged the boundaries between high and low culture since the 1970s. It was the Birmingham School, head-ed by Stuart Hall (Hall, Evans, & Nixon 2013) which established the field, and Hall was particularly interested in marginalised groups and their representation in the media. The field later became im-portant in USA, and today Cultural Studies exists as a discipline through out the world. Typical topics researched in are, identity, gen-der, lifestyle, subcultures, mass culture, well-known world figures, fashion, music, space, ethnicity and the media. In English teaching

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in schools up to upper secondary level, it is typically everyday sub-jects and popular culture that are taught, so it is therefore relevant to see what using Cultural Studies as a springboard can contribute to the teaching. It is a field that has a strong ethical and political involvement and is preoccupied with everyday issues, critical citi-zenship and agency, which is also the case in critical pedagogy (Byram 2008; Guilherme 2002). Cultural Studies can contribute with a theoretical understanding of social categorisations and represen-tations that can support discussions of Othering in teaching. It is important, however, not to resort to existentialist understandings of social categories and representations, but to adopt an intersection-alist approach to, for example, gender, sexuality, race and class af-filiations (Dervin in this number; Grzanka 2014) that seek to describe how categorisations and representations interact in discourses on such subjects as subcultures and well-known world figures. The Birmingham School was also extremely interested in hidden mes-sages and values which are transferred via cultural artefacts, atti-tudes and images that we experience in our everyday lives (Agger 1992: 90). Inspired by the above, I believe that the subtextuality of the texts will be a central feature of intercultural competence pedagogy – we must work with the students’ critical understanding and formulation in language of underlying meanings in the many different texts and media that are part of the teaching.

Pedagogical principles for intercultural learning

The project was development on the basis of five principles for inter-cultural learning: active construction, making connections, social interaction, reflection and responsibility (Liddicoat & Scarino 2013). The principles are not in themselves intercultural, but must be seen as a prerequisite for an intercultural perspective. The teachers were controllers and initiators in the introductory phases of the sequence so as to ensure that the students had the opportunity to express their opinions. This required more class dialogue than the teachers nor-mally work with, but they had prepared a series of slides for each lesson, which ensured that the class had a common springboard for discussing differences of opinion. It was a challenge for the students to bring up their own attitudes, but with post-it notes the class man-aged to work through the pros and cons, and they discussed what underlay certain people adopting the she’s a slut position and others the she’s bold position. It is, however, not only the disagreements that it is important to include in the teaching – shared understandings

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the students have should also be examined more closely to try and find out why they exist. At the end of the sequence, the students were to write a blog about a well-known global figure of their own choice. In the presentations, the students were challenged by having to try to understand the other students’ choice of a well-known figure and the discourses that the students felt were interesting for their actual choice.

Intercultural learning in practice

Liddicoat & Scarino (2013) demonstrates how the above principles can be put into practice in teaching by structuring it in phases, where there is focus on noticing, comparing, reflecting and interacting. We replaced ‘interacting’ by ‘producing’, because the students also inter-act when they notice, compare and reflect. Fig. 1. is a table that com-pares the four concepts and shows how the teachers have worked with discourse analysis and the Miley Cyrus phenomenon. It shows that discourse analysis has been divided into four phases, where the students were first introduced to other celebrities and discussed what the word discourse means. After this, the teacher discussed with the students which social categories, representations and dis-courses on Othering exist with reference to, for example, women of 80 who take part in a dancing show, or a nun who takes part in the Italian Voice, and who caused the judges in a predominantly Catho-lic country to react extremely violently. Why does it happen, what language is used, and how do the students position themselves? After this, the students worked with the Facebook dialogue, where they were to compare Sinead O’Connor’s letters to Miley with Simon Dumenco’s blog about Miley. The students were asked to underline verbs, nouns and adjectives to sharpen their linguistic awareness, and so as to be able to discuss language use. Then the whole class, along with the teacher, did a communication analysis of the two blogs, focusing on the sender, message and recipient. Once again, with the aim of making the students aware of subtextuality and underlying meanings. Finally, the students chose in groups a well-known global figure that they were to collect knowledge about and subsequently analyse what discourses existed about such figures. These included Angelia Jolie, who is a controversial Hollywood actor with clearly defined attitudes, or Arda Turan, a well-known Turkish football player who plays for Atlético Madrid. The student presen-tations displayed considerable insight and willingness to discuss the view of the many different figures that the students had chosen.

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Fig. 1: Critical discourse analysis in Class 8:

Othering – Audience, Performance and Celebrity

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Introduction to discourse analysis‘A discourse is the way we talk about any given subject – the way we describe it and give it meaning

The way we identify things gives it meaning

The way we understand the world depends on the words we use and the way we talk about it

(Teacher slide Class 8)

Teaching goal / OtheringKnowledge of women’s roles, the music industry, sexuality, The media and celebrities as well as the conflict between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O’Connor

To challenge one’s own prejudices and stereotype ideas about female celebrities

Activities in the classThe class watches YouTube clips from TV shows:

1. Italian Voice – Nun sings the Alicia Keys’ song

2. American You’ve got Talent – 80-year-old female dancer takes part with a young man as her dancing partner

The students are asked to note reactions and use of language about the persons

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Comparison of blogsSinead O’Connor’s open letter on Facebook and Simon Dumenco’s blog

Find verbs, nouns and adjectives

Make a semantic web of arguments/values/moral judgment

Find similarities and differences

Teaching goal/SkillsDecoding use of language about well-known female figures

Knowledge about the blog genre

Activities in the class

The students write Post-it notes on the board for and against Miley Cyrus

The students underline verbs, nouns and adjectives in the two blogs

The students make a semantic web out of the words

The class discusses underlying explanations regarding choice of words, e.g. religion, gender, sexuality

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Discourse analysisSinead O’Connor’s open letter on Facebook & Simon Dumenco’s blog about Miley Cyrus

Sender Celebrity

Message Performance

Receiver Audience

Teaching goal/SkillsDecoding use of language about Miley Cyrus on Facebook and in blogs

Activities in the classThe teacher runs through the communications model on the board:

Sender – message – receiver

The students analyse the relation between sender and receiver• What is the message?• Why are there different reactions

to the message? • What positionings are there?

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Produce a blogYour blog must include:

An opinion about how the celebrity represents himself/ herself or has been represented in the media.

Focus is on his/her performance, issues/themes this performance raises. Use verbs, nouns & adjectives from the discourse analysis

Use images or gossip from the Internet to back up your argument

Teaching goal/Intercultural competenceUse knowledge about othering, subtextuality and positions in discourse analysis.

Activities in the classThe students present their blogs about celebrities The students challenge each other during the presentations by asking:• What discourses apply to the

various celebrities?• What do the words that are

used to describe their choices of celebrities signal?

• What underlying meanings does the use of language create?

• What values underlie the use of language?

• What importance does othering have in the analysis?

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Evaluation of the teaching sequence

In their written evaluation of the sequence the students were able to formulate that they had learnt to look behind the presentation by the media of the celebrities – some use the word discourse to explain what they have learnt:

‘This period has also given me a new different point of view for the word discourse, and how we quickly judge people and the way that the judgment stays no matter what. I think that when we judge people we forget to think about what we say, because sometimes there are always reasons to why people make their decisions”.(Student in Class 8)

‘I have learned what discourse means. It is the way we talk about others, for example celebrities. I have also learned to make blogs, and it was something difficult to make, since we haven´t made a blog before. Another knowledge that I have gained is, that people judge a lot of celebrities about their look, personality etc., without knowing anything about them’. (Student in Class 8)

The student evaluations show that they have been through a process of reflection in which they have become aware of social categorisa-tions and representations as well as underlying meanings and stereotype presentations in discourses about global celebrities.

Discourse analysis – a tool for teaching critical cultural awareness

In the new, simplified Common Goals there is a requirement for stu-dents to gain intercultural competence in cultural meetings and via texts and the media (Svarstad 2014). The experiences gained from the three Class 8s show that knowledge from the field Cultural Studies about social categorisations, representations and subtextuality can supply the teacher with background knowledge about, for example, gender, music, sexuality and celebrities that helps when attempting to analyse underlying messages and planning teaching in this area. In the planning phase, it is a good idea to think of possibilities to notice, to compare, to reflect and to produce. The didactic approach focuses on asking critical questions that are not only discussed among the students in groups or in pairs but also in class dialogue,

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where the teacher controls a discussion as a lead-in to more innova-tive and creative approaches to the teaching. Critical discourse anal-ysis can be a tool that can concretise the students’ work by develop-ing competences in decoding underlying messages in a societal con-text, and thus contribute to developing the students’ critical cul-tural awareness and intercultural competence in the subject English.

Note

Literature

1  The teaching is from 2nd interven-

tion in an action research sequence

in connection with my PhD project

on intercultural learning processes

in English teaching, 2013-2016.

1  This heading ’produce’ is a replace-

ment of the original ’interact’.

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