Constructing Otherness: A Linguistic Analysis of the Politics of Representation and Exclusion in Freshmen Writing

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which college freshmen compositions seek to reflect and construct differences between the self and the other. The data sample consists of over 100 freshmen compositions on a variety of topics spanning a period of three years. The framework of analysis is derived from critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1994;Riggins, 1997; van Dijk, 1993). This study demonstrates that lexicalizations of outsiders, of others, in freshmen writing can often reflect univocal attitudes of ambivalence, derision, or impersonalization. Usually, differences in social groups are resolved via linguistic categorizations that absolve feelings of guilt or shame particularly if the student writes as a member of the powered group. Sometimes, however, lexicalizations reflect a unique critical stance on the part of the student writer who creatively utilizes such linguistic representations of 'others' to challenge status quo othering practices. Access to and the use of othering strategies, it is argued, is a powerful rhetorical tool. As the excerpts examined in this study will demonstrate, overt as opposed to covert lexicalizations of othering-encoded in language evocative of hierarchy, subordination, and dominance-often reflect differential rhetorical ability on the part of the student writer. The implications of this study are pedagogical, and call for a re-imagining of the teaching of writing via an examination of the actual discursive tools accessible to different writers, and how these serve in judgments of rhetorical skills in particular, and creative and critical thinking in general.

Deconstructing racial code words

“…Othering, like metonymy, also contributes to efficient race talk (Santa Ana 2002; Santa Ana et al 1998). It creates a qualitative difference and ideological distance between two racial groups, placing them on the opposing sides of a contextually salient binary of us vs. them (Hall 2013;Lens 2009;Pandey 2004;Plumwood 1993). Othering contrasts sharply with euphemism by explicitly using disagreeable, harsh or potentially offensive language to forge racial difference.…”

Investigating the Historical and Sociopolitical Lethal Effect of Language: A Semantic Study of the Causality Between the Hutu- Tutsi Otherness Discourse and the Genocide Outbreak in Rwanda

“…This work is based on the theoretical concept of othering which Pandey (2004) views as a technical term used to describe the manner in which social group dichotomies are represented via language. Pandey (2004) explains that for the critical linguist, it is in and through linguistic choices that writers/speakers encode their semantic stance, more specifically, their critical stance.…”

“…This work is based on the theoretical concept of othering which Pandey (2004) views as a technical term used to describe the manner in which social group dichotomies are represented via language. Pandey (2004) explains that for the critical linguist, it is in and through linguistic choices that writers/speakers encode their semantic stance, more specifically, their critical stance. When we start describing ourselves as part of a group of people united in a "we", while other people are constructed as fundamentally different, united in a "they", we are using a powerful weapon that might serve to delegitimize others (Leilani van Rheenen https://www.trainerslibrary.org/othering-and-overpowering).…”

“…When we start describing ourselves as part of a group of people united in a "we", while other people are constructed as fundamentally different, united in a "they", we are using a powerful weapon that might serve to delegitimize others (Leilani van Rheenen https://www.trainerslibrary.org/othering-and-overpowering). As Pandey (2004) indicates, othering functions through language with the creation of social, ethnic, religious, or professional dichotomies in the form of "we" and "they" groups. Othering is thus fundamentally built on authentic or mentally constructed differences and then routinised through language in an intentionally selected semantics that satisfies the preset aim.…”

COLD: Annotation scheme and evaluation data set for complex offensive language in English

“…Granted the homeless are down on their luck and don't really have a choice weather or not they are poor, but that is not my fault. [(Pandey, 2004)] (5) @USER all them b*tches far as f*ck from us. We got el gran p*llo up this way and it serves us well.…”