“Eye on the big prize!”: Iconizing the Democratic Alliance in the Daily Sun

This article gives a snapshot view of how Mmusi Maimane’s rise to leadership in the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2015 was reported on in the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest-selling national daily newspaper (South African Audience Research Foundation, 2016). Through analysis of a Daily Sun news article exemplifying trends in the positioning of the DA in the tabloid over the first half of 2015, the present study demonstrates how Maimane tried to align the DA around a new iconography (Tann 2010, 2013), centred on the values of “freedom”, “fairness” and “opportunity”. Moreover, the present study also shows how this purported transformation in the DA was treated with scepticism by the news article’s author, who iconizes the DA as incapable of transformation and effective governance. Fine-grained complementary Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) analyses were conducted on this news article. The LCT analysis shows how multiple voices in the news article create conflicting binary constellations, axiologically charged through various linguistic resources, including intertextual references. The analysis, using SFL’s Appraisal system (Martin and White 2005), shows how iconization is accomplished in the news article through evaluative language, coupled with intertextual references, grammatical metaphor andtechnicality to produce syndromes of meaning in the news article. Such iconization works, in this case, to reproduce an attitude of cynicism toward party politics in post-apartheid South Africa. This cynicism foreshadows Maimane’s ultimate lack of success in transforming the discourses of the DA

Constellations, technicality, iconisation and Eskom: A case from South Africa’s Business Day

This article uses Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to explore interactions between various resources for building economic and political knowledge in a 2015 article from Business Day, a South African newspaper, concerning the country’s energy crisis. We use LCT to observe how three constellations are built in the article: a ‘developmental state’ constellation; a ‘neo-liberal’ constellation; and another underarticulated constellation that selectively draws ideas from both the preceding constellations. These constellations are built through the unfolding of the text using various linguistic resources, which we describe using SFL, including technicality and iconisation. We identify instances where words are charged with both ideational and axiological meaning concurrently, challenging existing understandings of the process of iconisation

Development of a translation device for axiological-semantic density in political news articles: Wording and charging

The concept of axiological-semantic density from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is extremely helpful in analysing political knowledge-building, as it describes the strength of relations between various people, political stances and moral judgements, enabling these to be positioned in relation to each other. We present a multi-level translation device designed to identify strengths of axiological-semantic density in political news articles from the Daily Sun, South Africa’s most popular tabloid newspaper. This translation device was devised through analysis of selected texts from a corpus of 516 articles published between January and June 2015. It was developed through a collaborative process involving the first author and a team of student research assistants. The final translation device has five tools, of which two, the wording and charging tools, are described in this article, and then illustrated using an example analysis of a Daily Sun political news article. Both tools reveal insights into South African political discourses and ways in which axiological-semantic density can be enacted in future research. Making axiological-semantic density visible using such a translation device also has practical applications in assisting readers to understand the ways in which publications such as the Daily Sun position political parties, enabling them to engage more constructively in discussions on the country’s future

Can contracts be both plain and precise?

One argument against the use of plain language in legal documents is that it is impossible to convey legal meanings in plain language with the same precision as in specialist legal discourse (Hunt, 2003). We tested this claim by redrafting an extract from a lease agreement into plain English in three stages, producing three versions of the extract in progressively plainer English. We submitted these with the original lease agreement to a senior advocate to elicit his opinion on whether the plain-language versions of the extract are equivalent to the original in legal force. Various differences between the versions are analysed using lexical semantics and Systemic Functional Grammar (as described in Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). This analysis reveals that the redrafted versions could easily be altered to eliminate the difference between them and the original extract, and that ‘plain language’ as conceived by redrafters of official documents may be easy for non-experts to read, but more difficult for experts. This demonstrates that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to readability is often not tenable, and that plain-language activists can learn much from research (such as Street, 1993) which asserts the existence of a plurality of literacies

Ethnographic Evidence of the Social Meaning of Fanakalo in South Africa

The social meaning of Fanakalo (F) and the social motivation for using it in South Africa are the focus of this article. Ethnographic evidence assembled from a range of written sources reveals that largely unfavorable connotations are associated with F. On the strength of this data, the contextual characteristics of the use of F as an unmarked (or preferred) choice are described. It is shown that F is restricted to work (that is, to non-affective domains) and is used in interactions where there is an asymmetrical role and power relationship between the participants (best described as master-servant). Furthermore, F is negatively evaluated by Blacks, who are always the less powerful participants. Also considered is oral ethnographic data, in the form of spontaneous, naturally-occurring interpersonal exchanges and self-reports on why people use F. Examination of this data shows that in marked settings, F is exploited as a conversational resource between South Africans, whether Black or White. It is shown that in marked settings F is a marker of solidarity, whereas in unmarked settings use of the language connotes power and domination.</jats:p

Development of a translation device for axiological-semantic density in political news articles: wording and charging

Abstract The concept of axiological-semantic density from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is extremely helpful in analysing political knowledge-building, as it describes the strength of relations between various people, political stances and moral judgements, enabling these to be positioned in relation to each other. We present a multi-level translation device designed to identify strengths of axiological-semantic density in political news articles from the Daily Sun, South Africa’s most popular tabloid newspaper. This translation device was devised through analysis of selected texts from a corpus of 516 articles published between January and June 2015. It was developed through a collaborative process involving the first author and a team of student research assistants. The final translation device has five tools, of which two, the wording and charging tools, are described in this article, and then illustrated using an example analysis of a Daily Sun political news article. Both tools reveal insights into South African political discourses and ways in which axiological-semantic density can be enacted in future research. Making axiological-semantic density visible using such a translation device also has practical applications in assisting readers to understand the ways in which publications such as the Daily Sun position political parties, enabling them to engage more constructively in discussions on the country’s future.</jats:p

Constellations, technicality, iconisation and Eskom: A case from South Africa’s Business Day

This article uses Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to explore interactions between various resources for&nbsp; building economic and political knowledge in a 2015 article from Business Day, a South African newspaper, concerning the country’s energy crisis.&nbsp; We use LCT to observe how three constellations are built in the article: a ‘developmental state’ constellation; a ‘neo-liberal’ constellation; and another&nbsp; underarticulated constellation that selectively draws ideas from both the preceding constellations. These constellations are built through the unfolding&nbsp; of the text using various linguistic resources, which we describe using SFL, including technicality and iconisation. We identify instances&nbsp; where words are charged with both ideational and axiological meaning concurrently, challenging existing understandings of the process of iconisatio