Using tools from critical discourse analytic approaches informed by systemic functional linguistics, this paper is an examination of how social values – specifically equality values in Finland – are given meaning by differently socially positioned Finnish citizens, and how those meanings are positioned in constructions of identities. The focus of my examination is on how respondents align with different meanings of equality using linguistic resources of
Quantitative studies on trust often attempt to measure levels of trust, while neglecting local meanings of trust. These studies are usually based on Eurocentric models in Western cultures, though the models may have limited ecological validity. As a result, this study sought to investigate trust as locally produced structures and practices in Cameroon, Finland and India. In each country, teachers and principals were interviewed individually, while nineteen focus groups among teachers were also conducted (N = 111). The theory of social representations provides the methodological framework for the study. Our analyses suggest that in Cameroon understandings of trust were anchored in complementarity, in Finland in contracts, and in India in social hierarchies. We suggest that the Cameroonian representations were more fluid than in the other two countries, which may be due in part to the working arrangements there. In all of the national contexts, numerous metaphors and imagery helped to solidify trust as phenomena built in everyday practices. Cooperation was an important element in the data from all of the country contexts, although it had particular and varying meanings in each. Finally, we interpret culturally embedded dichotomies, or themata, that participants draw upon to imbue workplace trust with meaning. We discuss the analyses and interpretations in terms of local practices and the concrete conditions in which the participants worked.
This article contributes to the concept of social values by presenting analytical tools that explore how social values are classified, re-presented and interpersonally performed in the construction of identities. I approach social values as classificatory systems of acceptability and desirability that are collectively generated. The meanings of social values are embedded in culture and in power imbalanced social relations; they constantly undergo reformulation in identification processes and are also used to define the social order. I suggest that social values can be analysed in relation to aspects of representation and interpersonal positioning that are also involved in the construction of identities: Value classifications involve compartmentalising moral orders into e.g. good, desirable, important, necessary; value projects are concerned with how value classifications and content occupy roles and become oriented to action; and value positioning is concerned with how narrators align with value classifications and projects as well as with individuals and groups seen to share or reject such classifications and projects.Theory and research on values is longstanding, diverse and vast. However, frameworks that approach values as culturally embedded and collectively generated structures that are continuously reshaped and implemented in identification processes are lacking. In this article I present tools for analysing social values based on how they are classified, re-presented and performed in the discursive construction of identities.
Modalities are fundamental in building, maintaining and contesting ideological systems. While modalities have been described as resources for constructing both representational and interpersonal aspects of reality and truth, the analytical focus has been on modalities as a relationship between authors, their texts and their audiences, i.e. on their interpersonal functions. Informed by a framework on modalities for discourse analyses of values, Hodge and Kress’s theory on ideological complexes and Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse, in this paper I develop a method for examining modalities as resources for building dominant and counter discourses. I use example excerpts that come from my research on Finnish equality discourses to build and demonstrate the method. The example texts were written by people who are differently positioned in relation to salient norms and institutions on gender/sex and sociability: people contacted through a national random sample, people diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and people with transgender experiences. The method allows not only for systematic examinations of how modalities function in ordering power-imbalanced interpersonal relations but also attends to an underexplored dimension dealing with how modalities work in ideological representation.
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