[ecrea] call for papers Critical Discourse Studies

 Critical Discourse Studies

Special Issue on Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis

David Machin (Cardiff University), Guest Editor

Over the past decade there has been a surge in interest in multimodality 
with its associated innovative approaches to analyzing communication. 
This interest has come from across a range of disciplines, in 
educational studies, business studies, media and cultural studies, etc, 
and especially from within linguistics. Much of this work has reflected 
the research interests and procedures of those fields. However, 
considering that the work of some of the pioneers in multimodality is in 
the first place critical it is of note that the majority of work 
labelling itself multimodal is not. Much of it is highly descriptive of 
visual communication and often having as its primary aim to show how it 
is much like language and can be best analyzed using linguistic 
terminology.

The proposed special edition would invite authors to analyze the 
multimodal realisation of discourses from a critical point of view. 
Authors would be invited to consider the way that images, drawings, 
sounds, architecture, sculpture, gesture, artifacts, fashion, textures, 
etc, can be exploited in the interests of institutions and ideologies. 
Just as language based critical analysis seeks to reveal not just what 
texts communicate ideologically but how they accomplish this in a way 
not necessarily immediately obvious to the casual reader so authors 
would be asked to show how multimodal discourse analysis can do the same 
as regards other forms of communication.
Papers will include systematic analysis of relevant examples. A 
consideration of the way that different semiotic modes combine is 
encouraged as are papers which place discourses in historical context.

Themes could include but are not restricted to:
Political use of images
Branding
Sculpture
Sound
Postures
Movement
School books
Video games
Art
Architecture
Public Space
Deadlines:

Submission of abstract: July 1, 2012

Submission of manuscript: December 1, 2012

Contacts:
Inquiries specifically about the theme of this special issue can be 
directed to the guest editor:
portvale100 [at sign] gmail [dot] com