Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions by Department "Department of Linguistics"
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Item Babylon, the bar: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a Johannesburg queer digital space(2021) Kouridis, SofiaThis paper applies a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis to a corpus of posters that were published by Babylon, a self-identified gay bar. These posters advertise various events taking place at their establishment in Illovo, Johannesburg, and appeared on various digital media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and their official online website. The study focuses on the role of language and visual imagery in the indexing and circulation of discourses surrounding gender and sexuality, particularly in the context of LGBTQ+ people. The analysis of the corpus is divided into three sections, unpacking discourses around gay iconography, activism, and the gay body with a focus on intertextuality. Much of Babylon’s advertising approach involves placing focus and value in somewhat stereotypical representations of what it means to be queer, saturating their digital spaces with rainbows and allusions to a fun and promiscuous lifestyle. This oversimplified narrative is reinforced by the unidimensional nature of their models, the majority of whom are white and reproduce various elements of the hegemonic masculinity found in mainstream, cisheteropatriarchal society (Baker 2008b). The discourses surrounding these creative choices are unpacked, drawing comparisons between Babylon’s glamorous portrayal of gay existence and the actual realities of the queer lived experience in South Africa, where progressive legislation exists in opposition to social attitudes and cultural values. The topics of desirability and commodification are also explored, as is the relationship between the inherently-political nature of queerness and Babylon’s lacklustre involvement in issues of sociopolitical significance. This research therefore also exposes the ways in which the role of the gay bar may have shifted in the modern time, contributing more to the establishment of group identitity and less to the active defiance of cisheteropatriarchal conventionsItem Glossy representations of nationality and culture across popular magazine websites: a comparative analysis(2021) Hassim, FarhaanahRegarding magazines as a significant source of data explicating the performances of social factors such as gender, race, and class amongst others, this study explored the discursive constructions of nationality and culture on the homepage of four multinational magazine websites. Arguing for the recognition of nationality and culture as significant social characteristics of identity. Based on a review of the literature, this study collected screenshots of the homepage of , and Vogue magazine websites. The screenshots were then analysed using multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) focusing on the manifestations of nationality and culture A mixed-method social constructionist research paradigm demonstrated that aspects of identity represented across the magazine websites including nationality and culture were consistently enclosed in discourses of beautification fuelled by capitalist practices. Revealing that capitalism ultimately determines the regulatory standards of society. This study was however limited to geographical regions wherein English editions were published.