LINGUIST List 20.4154
Fri Dec 04 2009
Diss: Discourse Analysis: Tienken: 'Everyday Genres and the...'
Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny
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1. Susanne
Tienken,
Everyday Genres and the Location of Culture
Message 1: Everyday Genres and the Location of Culture
Date: 04-Dec-2009
From: Susanne Tienken <susanne.tienkentyska.su.se>
Subject: Everyday Genres and the Location of Culture
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Institution: Stockholm University
Program: Department of Baltic Languages, Finnish and German
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2008
Author: Susanne Tienken
Dissertation Title: Everyday Genres and the Location of Culture
Dissertation URL: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-8248
Linguistic Field(s):
Discourse Analysis
Dissertation Director:
Angelika Linke
Dessislava Stoeva Holm
Dissertation Abstract:
The present dissertation examines how culture in terms of webs ofsignificance comprises even everyday genres, and how everyday genres inturn partake in creating cultural contexts. The theoretical cornerstones ofthis study are to be found in a dialogical notion of context and a semioticnotion of culture. Furthermore, the study benefits from the analyticalconcept of communicative genre by which texts can be set in the broadercontext of societal or socio-cultural relevancy. The methodologicalframework - with contrastive viewing as an overall heuristic approach - hasbeen developed by combining elements from linguistic hermeneutics, literarycultural analysis, and critical discourse analysis.
The study shows that the most significant trait of Swedish milk packagetexts is the recontextualization of national historical topics, closelyentangled with elements of school discourse and children's literature. Thisendows the texts with a certain socio-cultural meaning, even though thismeaning is dependent on other interactive resources. However, on recentmilk packages, changes of communicative patterns can be seen, indicatingsocio-cultural change. The most significant trait of German milk packagesis - besides the ubiquitous use of fresh generating an advertising context- the recontextualization of the fictionalizing topos of locus amoenus,closely intertwined with control and surveillance. The contrastive viewingof 19th-century texts in the dissertation makes clear that contemporaryGerman milk packages still imply urban-bourgeois perspectives on rurality.
Finally, the study shows that culture in terms of webs of significance hasno location where it is, but a location where it is represented - forinstance in everyday genre texts. It illustrates how linguistichermeneutics can be done.
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