STRATEGIJE NACIONALNE BEZBEDNOSTI KAO IZRAZ KULTURALNIH MODELA: KOGNITIVNO-DISKURZIVNI PRISTUP. (Croatian)
In: Communication & Culture Online / Komunikacija i Kultura Online, Jg. 4 (2013-12-01), Heft 4, S. 13-35
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Zugriff:
Cultural models stand for the conventional conceptualization of certain phenomena shared by the members of a community, often presented as the collective wisdom and experience that binds the community within, helping it achieve the sense of unity and common purpose. Not surprisingly, ideology and the closely related realm of politics rely heavily on these widely accepted patterns of thought and behaviour in their attempts to win the 'hearts and souls' of the target audience. In the words of Quinn and Holland (1987: 13) 'to be successful, ideology must appeal to and activate the pre-existing cultural understandings'. This is where language, as the main link between an individual and the community he lives in, comes into play making it possible for individuals to exchange these understandings and providing the political actors with a vehicle for spreading the carefully selected conceptualizations across the community. In this paper we focus on the National Security Strategies of the Republic of Serbia and the USA. Both documents were created at the approximately same time for more or less the same target audience. In all aspects they belong to the same genre, with the main variable being the language: Serbian vs. English. Drawing on the apparatus of Cognitive Linguistics combined with the Critical Discourse Analysis approach we set out on determining the extent to which the cultural models underlying the projected conceptualizations in both Strategies motivate the language use, or in other words how the specific choices of linguistic resources in the analysed texts can be understood as resulting from the culture-bound representations of the self, world and the role one has in this world. We first demonstrate that apparent translation equivalents create different collocations (i.e. 'zaštita interesa' "protection of interest' in Serbian vs. 'to advance one's interest' in English), thus indicating a different interpretation and cognitive value of the word in question (e.g. interest) for the speakers of the respective languages. This, in a way, proves that 'meanings are something that we construe' (Croft, Cruise 2004: 98) based on both linguistic clues in actual use and non-linguistic knowledge underlying that use. Furthermore, words do not reflect stable representations, but tend to be understood within the limits invoked by the given context. In other words, discourse creates the frames for evaluation of the specific meaning. In our example, the word globalization is evaluated differently in Serbian and English. The discursive environment of this word in the Serbian Strategy invokes negative evaluation (mostly associated with instability, threats and problems), while the USA Strategy presents globalization as opportunity which makes part of an entrepreneurship scenario. As proved by Hofstede's research, uncertainty avoidance for Serbia is very high compared to the USA (http://geert-hofstede.com/serbia.html). The scope of individual responsibility and perceived locus of control are also addressed in our analysis. Drawing on Figure/Ground distinction, we have identified constructions and linguistic strategies that help us establish the hierarchy among the participants and events, as presented in the texts. Non-finite and inanimate constructions, nominalization and passivization in the Serbian text tend to hide the agents, thus relieving them from responsibility. The static scene where phenomena are viewed as objects and disconnected entities in space stands in stark contrast to dynamism emphasized by the progressive aspect of interdependent finite verbal constructions and the conceptualization of phenomena as processes unfolding in time. The Serbian concept of limited individual control and the American model of individual responsibility for intentional controllable activities motivate the use of specific, notably different linguistic resources. '[I]n processing any discourse people 'position" other entities in their 'world" by 'positioning" these entities in relation to themselves along (at least) three axes, space, time and modality' (Chilton 2004: 57-58). As discourse unfolds the relations between the entities, events and participants changes, and the conceptualizer has to reposition himself or redistribute them. The movement along the axes in a discourse space toward or away from the deictic centre reflects the desirability or rejection of certain social values and establishes the ground for recognizing 'us' vs. 'them'. While both Serbian and American National Security Strategies rely on the image schema of CONTAINER, in the American model I, we and USA become the same entity ('us') positioned inside the container, who eventually takes the main role in guiding the others ('them') in their movement toward or away from the container. In Serbian view, however, the conceptualizer is often an observer residing in an unspecified place outside the container, barely affected, or sometimes attracted by a stronger entity. The interplay between deixis, tense, and modality in the Serbian and English texts produces different effects. By applying the concepts of Cognitive Linguistics to discourse analysis we bring individual experience and social practice together. Cultural models unite individuals providing for conceptualizations that constitute specific discourse. As National Security Strategies demonstrate, the employment of specific linguistic resources and choices made in language use are motivated by these conceptualizations. In other words, the Serbian and American cultural models find their own linguistic representations to express particulars in cultural orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Kulturalni modeli predstavljaju društveno prihvaćenu ili poželjnu konvencionalizovanu konceptualizaciju određenih fenomena i otuda igraju važnu ulogu u artikulaciji ideologije i državne politike. Sa stanovišta jezičkih istraživanja njihov uticaj uočava se u izboru jezičkih sredstava koja se aktiviraju u formulisanju stavova i dokumenata koji tu ideologiju i politiku projektuju. Kroz uporednu analizu Strategija nacionalne bezbednosti Srbije i SAD-a, primenom koncepata i alata kognitivne lingvistike i kritičke analize diskursa, u ovom radu nastojimo da pokažemo da izbor jezičkih sredstava u jednom i drugom dokumentu, odnosno jeziku, nije slučajan nego pre motivisan određenim kulturalnim modelom. Primeri stvaranja predstave, postavljanja okvira za evaluaciju, usmeravanja pažnje i pozicioniranja u diskursu pokazuju kako se u jezičkoj upotrebi projektuju ti modeli. Razlike i sličnosti u jezičkim strategijama nisu samo rezultat posebnosti engleskog i srpskog nego su, kako u ovom radu dokazujemo, uslovljeni širim okvirom kulturalnih razlika. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Titel: |
STRATEGIJE NACIONALNE BEZBEDNOSTI KAO IZRAZ KULTURALNIH MODELA: KOGNITIVNO-DISKURZIVNI PRISTUP. (Croatian)
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Markoš, Marin N. |
Zeitschrift: | Communication & Culture Online / Komunikacija i Kultura Online, Jg. 4 (2013-12-01), Heft 4, S. 13-35 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2013 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
ISSN: | 2217-4257 (print) |
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