Discourse and 'democracy': some signals from the South African corpus of English

Beaugrande, Robert de; Williams, Linda Pearce

doi:10.1590/S1984-63982002000100002

Abstracts

Public discourse is replete with terms whose meaning is contested in the service of competing ideologies. In the discourse of the 'new' South Africa, as attested by a recently compiled corpus, the term 'democracy' is found to represent at least three conceptions: (1) a doctrine of equality in human rights and in personal and civil liberties; ( 2 ) a political system of 'majority rule' by means of a secure electoral machinery with multiple parties and universal voting rights; and (3) an economic system of free enterprise and equal opportunity in the economy and the job market. These are plainly incompatible, and, as the data show, the third one is currently undermining the first.

O discurso público é repleto de termos cujos múltiplos significados divergem em função de estarem a serviço de diferentes ideologias. No discurso da "nova África do Sul", como comprovado no corpus recolhido recentemente, o temo "democracia" pode representar pelo menos três concepções: (1) uma doutrina de igualdade nos direitos humanos e nas liberdades civis e pessoais; (2) um sistema de "norma de maioria" através de uma engenharia eleitoral segura com múltiplos partidos e direitos universais de voto; e (3) um sistema de empresas livres e igualdade de oportunidades na economia e no mercado de trabalho. Estas concepções são totalmente incompatíveis, e, como os dados demonstram, a terceira idéia está destruindo a primeira.

Discourse and 'democracy': some signals from the South African corpus of English

Robert de Beaugrande^I; Linda Pearce Williams^II

^IUniversidade Federal de Minas Gerais - FAPEMIG

^IIUniversity of Port Elizabeth

ABSTRACT

Public discourse is replete with terms whose meaning is contested in the service of competing ideologies. In the discourse of the 'new' South Africa, as attested by a recently compiled corpus, the term 'democracy' is found to represent at least three conceptions: (1) a doctrine of equality in human rights and in personal and civil liberties; ( 2 ) a political system of 'majority rule' by means of a secure electoral machinery with multiple parties and universal voting rights; and (3) an economic system of free enterprise and equal opportunity in the economy and the job market. These are plainly incompatible, and, as the data show, the third one is currently undermining the first.

RESUMO

O discurso público é repleto de termos cujos múltiplos significados divergem em função de estarem a serviço de diferentes ideologias. No discurso da "nova África do Sul", como comprovado no corpus recolhido recentemente, o temo "democracia" pode representar pelo menos três concepções: (1) uma doutrina de igualdade nos direitos humanos e nas liberdades civis e pessoais; (2) um sistema de "norma de maioria" através de uma engenharia eleitoral segura com múltiplos partidos e direitos universais de voto; e (3) um sistema de empresas livres e igualdade de oportunidades na economia e no mercado de trabalho. Estas concepções são totalmente incompatíveis, e, como os dados demonstram, a terceira idéia está destruindo a primeira.

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References

BARBER, B. CocaCola und Heiliger Krieg: Wie Kapitalismus und Fundamentalismus Demokratie und Freiheit abschaffen. Bern: Scherz Verlag. 1996a.
BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "The 'pragmatics' of doing language science: The 'warrant' for large-corpus linguistics". Journal of Pragmatics, v. 25, p. 503-535. 1996b.
BEAUGRANDE, R. de. New Foundations for a Science of Text and Discourse Greenwich, CT: Ablex. 1997.
BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "Society, education, linguistics, and language: Inclusion and exclusion in theory and practice". Linguistics and Education, v. 9, n. 2, p. 99-158, 1998.
BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "Theory versus practice in language planning and in the discourse of language planning". World Englishes, v. 18, n. 2, p. 107-121, 1999.
CHOMSKY, N. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. 1957.
CHOMSKY, N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. 1965.
EDELMAN, G. Brilliant Air, Bright Fire: On the Matter of the Mind New York: Basic Books. 1992.
FIRTH, J.R. Selected Papers of J.R. Firth 1952-1959, ed. F.R. Palmer. London: Longman. 1968.
FRANCIS, G.; SINCLAIR , J.McH. "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label: A riposte to Owen on corpus Grammar". Applied Linguistics, v.15, p. 190-200. 1994.
GERE, A.R.; SMITH, E. Attitudes, Language, and Change Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. 1979.
GREENBAUM, S. "Some verb-intensifier collocations in American and British English". American Speech, v. 49, p. 79-89. 1974.
GREENBAUM, S. The International Corpus of English London: University College Technical Report. 1991.
HALLIDAY, M.A.K. Language in a Changing World. Sidney: Australian Association of Applied Linguistics. 1994.
MARTIN, H.-P.; SCHUMAN, H. Die Globaliserungsfalle: Der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand Reinbeck: Rowohlt. 1996.
OWOMOYELA, O. The African Difference: Discourses on Africanity and the Relativity of Culture New York: Peter Lang. 1996.
PHILLIPSON, R. Linguistic Imperialism Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992.
REICH, R.B. The Work of Nations: Preparing for 21st-Century Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1993.
SAUSSURE, F. de. [orig. 1916]. Course in General Linguistics, transl. W. Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1969.
SINCLAIR, J.McH. "Shared knowledge". In ALATIS, (Ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1991 Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1991. p. 489-500.

Publication Dates

Publication in this collection
11 June 2013
Date of issue
2002

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

[1] BARBER, B. CocaCola und Heiliger Krieg: Wie Kapitalismus und Fundamentalismus Demokratie und Freiheit abschaffen. Bern: Scherz Verlag. 1996a.

[2] BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "The 'pragmatics' of doing language science: The 'warrant' for large-corpus linguistics". Journal of Pragmatics, v. 25, p. 503-535. 1996b.

[3] BEAUGRANDE, R. de. New Foundations for a Science of Text and Discourse Greenwich, CT: Ablex. 1997.

[4] BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "Society, education, linguistics, and language: Inclusion and exclusion in theory and practice". Linguistics and Education, v. 9, n. 2, p. 99-158, 1998.

[5] BEAUGRANDE, R. de. "Theory versus practice in language planning and in the discourse of language planning". World Englishes, v. 18, n. 2, p. 107-121, 1999.

[6] CHOMSKY, N. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. 1957.

[7] CHOMSKY, N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. 1965.

[8] EDELMAN, G. Brilliant Air, Bright Fire: On the Matter of the Mind New York: Basic Books. 1992.

[9] FIRTH, J.R. Selected Papers of J.R. Firth 1952-1959, ed. F.R. Palmer. London: Longman. 1968.

[10] FRANCIS, G.; SINCLAIR , J.McH. "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label: A riposte to Owen on corpus Grammar". Applied Linguistics, v.15, p. 190-200. 1994.

[11] GERE, A.R.; SMITH, E. Attitudes, Language, and Change Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English. 1979.

[12] GREENBAUM, S. "Some verb-intensifier collocations in American and British English". American Speech, v. 49, p. 79-89. 1974.

[13] GREENBAUM, S. The International Corpus of English London: University College Technical Report. 1991.

[14] HALLIDAY, M.A.K. Language in a Changing World. Sidney: Australian Association of Applied Linguistics. 1994.

[15] MARTIN, H.-P.; SCHUMAN, H. Die Globaliserungsfalle: Der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand Reinbeck: Rowohlt. 1996.

[16] OWOMOYELA, O. The African Difference: Discourses on Africanity and the Relativity of Culture New York: Peter Lang. 1996.

[17] PHILLIPSON, R. Linguistic Imperialism Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992.

[18] REICH, R.B. The Work of Nations: Preparing for 21st-Century Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1993.

[19] SAUSSURE, F. de. [orig. 1916]. Course in General Linguistics, transl. W. Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1969.

[20] SINCLAIR, J.McH. "Shared knowledge". In ALATIS, (Ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1991 Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1991. p. 489-500.