Cultural Discourse Analysis

Cultural Discourse Analysis:

            One way barriers are created between groups is through language.  Sometimes obscure words are used to simplify things.  It is quicker to say iris instead of colored part of the eye or stapes instead of tiny bone in the ear that is the shape of a horseshoe.  Sometimes people use obscure words to purposely leave people out of the conversation.  They may use jargon specific to their career or words native to their region.  Some accents have negative connotations (New England accents sound snooty, Southern accents make the speaker sound slow minded—not my opinion, just common misconceptions).  News anchors frequently lose their accents in favor of a generic, Midwest dialect.  People will use any excuse to exclude and humiliate.  (Example: “I can’t believe you call it ‘soda pop’.  Can you believe she said that?” or “It’s ‘ask’ not ‘axe’.”)  These dialectical differences don’t really cause a problem in understanding, but people use them as an excuse to justify their beliefs. 

            For this paper, you are going to look at your sources and see how people and groups are discussed in the paper.  In the example from the annotated bibliography, I analyzed the way Trump talked about African Americans.  He probably thought he was being fair and talking honestly with the black community, but in actuality he was demonstrating his “us vs. them” (or rather him vs. them) attitude.  He did a similar thing when talking about the Mexicans coming into the country illegally by saying the entire Mexican immigrant population are druggists and rapists.

            For the paper, you will create your own argument about the discourse between groups and determine if the sort of discourse your observation is harmful or helpful.