Cover not available

Discussion published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 4:3 (2005) ► pp.465–488

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required
Discussion

The discourses of food in the world system

Toward a nexus analysis of a world problem

 | Professor Eremitus of Geosemiotics, Georgetown University
Published online: 21 March 2006
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.4.3.07sco
This paper examines the role of discourse analysis in addressing the devastating consequences of the rapid restructuring of food production in the world system. I argue that although this is an issue far too large to encompass within discourse analysis, discourse analysis has much to contribute as part of an interdisciplinary and comprehensive analytical approach. Such an approach, a ‘nexus analysis’, consists of analyzing focal points or nexus which are mediated actions through which circulate cycles of discourse. The paper begins with an analysis of product labels and concludes by sketching the outlines of a constellation of three linked research projects: Prandial practices which examines practices of daily food consumption, Corn, tea, and intellectual property, which examines the world-wide industrialization of food production and consumption, and Mad cows, scallions, and global climate change which examines the consequences of this world food system for public and personal health.
References (40)
References
Bernstein, Basil. 1990. The Structure of Pedagogic Discourse: Class, Codes and Control, Vol.VI1. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2005. Discourse: A Critical Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Richard Nice (tr.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. 1969 [1945]. A Grammar of Motives. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie and Fairclough, Norman. 1999. Discourse in Late Modernity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Guy. 2004. Genetically Modified Language: The Discourse of Arguments for GM Crops and Food. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cozens, Claire. 2003. Shoppers ‘deluded’ by misleading food labels. The Guardian, November 27, 2003. Accessed on www.guardian.co.uk, November 27, 2003, 6:23, AKT.
de Saint-Georges, Ingrid. 2004. Materiality in discourse: The influence of space and layout in making meaning. In: Philip LeVine and Ron Scollon (eds). Discourse Analysis and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2002. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 71—87.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. From anticipation to performance: Sites of engagement as process. In: Sigrid Norris and Rodney Jones (eds). Discourse and Action: Introduction to Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 155–165.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
du Bois, Spencer. 2005. Power Hungry: Six Reasons to Regulate Global Food Corporations. Johannesburg: ActionAid International.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harré, Rom and Moghaddam, Fathali M. 2003. The Self and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political, and Cultural Contexts. Westport, Conn: Praeger.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hassol, Susan Joy. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick. 2003. Multimodality, resemiotisation: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication 2(1), 29–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther and van Leeuwen, Theo. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Multimodality. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1996. On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity 3(4), 228–245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehan, Hugh. 1993. Beneath the skin and between the ears: A case study in the politics of representation. In: Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (eds.). Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 241–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nishida, Kitaroo. 1958. Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness. Tokyo: Maruzen Co. Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Sigrid. 2004. Analyzing Multimodal Interaction. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
nSpired Natural Foods. 2003. http://www.nspiredfoods.com/about.html. Accessed 3:21 pm, AST, November 18, 2003.
Revill, Jo and Ahmed, Kamal. 2003. The junk food time bomb that threatens a new generation. The Observer, November 9, 2003. Accessed on www.guardian.co.uk December 2, 2003, 11:46am, AKT.
Schiffrin, Deborah. Forthcoming. From linguistic reference to social identity. In: Anna de Fina, Michael Bamberg, and Deborah Schiffrin (eds). Discourse and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scollon, Ron. 2001a. Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001b. Action and text: Toward an integrated understanding of the place of text in social (inter)action. In: Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (eds). Methods in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, 139–183.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron and Scollon, Suzie Wong. 2004a. Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2004b. Fast English, slow food, and intercultural exchanges: Social problems and problems for discourse analysis. Inaugural talk, The University of Turin, Conference on Identity, Community, Discourse: English in Inter-cultural Settings, 30 September – 2 October 2004.
2005a. Lighting the stove: Why habitus isn’t enough for critical discourse analysis. In: Ruth Wodak and Paul Chilton (eds), A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 101–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005b. Strategic multimodality: Ingredients of power. Lecture ate the Department of Linguistics, Hong Kong University. April 20, 2005.
Scollon, Suzanne. 2001. Habitus, consciousness, agency and the problem of intention: How we carry and are carried by political discourses. Folia Linguistica XXXV(1–2), 97–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Political and somatic alignment: habitus, ideology, and social practice. In: Ruth Wodak and Gilbert Weiss (eds). Theory and Interdisciplinarity in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael and Urban, Greg. 1996. Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
U.S. Climate Change Science Program. 2004. Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005. A Report by the Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. A Supplement to the President’s Budgets for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005. Washington, DC. U.S. Climate Change Science Program. Also at http://www.climatescience.gov.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1983. Historical Capitalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2001. The discourse-historical approach. In: Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (eds). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wertsch, James V. 1991. Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Mind as Action. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (18)

Cited by 18 other publications

Zhang, Hong
2025. Linguistic landscape as mediational means of collective action: a nexus analysis of Covid signs in China. Applied Linguistics Review DOI logo
Izadi, Dariush & Stephanie Dryden
2024. Woman/life/freedom: The social semiotics behind the 2022 Iranian protest movement. Discourse, Context & Media 60 ► pp. 100803 ff. DOI logo
Jocuns, Andrew & Kamolwan Fairee Jocuns
2023. Good brain, good concentration, good future: a critical multimodal analysis of Thai brain-enhancing lifestyle products advertisements. Multimodal Communication 12:2 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Velásquez Urribarrí, Jessica
2022. Mapping the itineraries of semiotic artefacts in the linguistic landscape of protest: The case of shields in Venezuela. Language in Society 51:5 ► pp. 749 ff. DOI logo
Patpong, Pattama
2019. Documenting linguistic and cultural heritage. Language Ecology 3:2 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Rheindorf, Markus
2019. Working with Different Types of Data: Methodological Plurality Within and Beyond the Linguistic. In Revisiting the Toolbox of Discourse Studies, ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Oostendorp, Marcelyn
2018. Extending resemiotisation: time, space and body in discursive representation. Social Semiotics 28:3 ► pp. 297 ff. DOI logo
Artioli, Francesca, Michele Acuto & Jenny McArthur
2017. The water-energy-food nexus: An integration agenda and implications for urban governance. Political Geography 61 ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
Izadi, Dariush
2017. Semiotic resources and mediational tools in Merrylands, Sydney, Australia: the case of Persian and Afghan shops. Social Semiotics 27:4 ► pp. 495 ff. DOI logo
Izadi, Dariush
2022. Doing penance as a nexus of practice. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 45:2 ► pp. 154 ff. DOI logo
Dlaske, Kati
2016. Shaping subjects of globalisation: at the intersection of voluntourism and the new economy. Multilingua 35:4 ► pp. 415 ff. DOI logo
Hult, Francis M.
2015. Making Policy Connections across Scales Using Nexus Analysis. In Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning, ► pp. 217 ff. DOI logo
Connolly, John
2014. A method of analysing recontextualisation in the communication of science. In The Functional Perspective on Language and Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 247], ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Gómez González, María de los Ángeles, Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco Gonzálvez-García & Angela Downing
2014. On the relatedness of functionalism and pragmatics. In The Functional Perspective on Language and Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 247], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hult, F. M.
2014. Covert Bilingualism and Symbolic Competence: Analytical Reflections on Negotiating Insider/Outsider Positionality in Swedish Speech Situations. Applied Linguistics 35:1 ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Hult, Francis M. & Sari Pietikäinen
2014. Shaping discourses of multilingualism through a language ideological debate. Journal of Language and Politics 13:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Kauppinen, Kati
2013. ‘Full power despite stress’: A discourse analytical examination of the interconnectedness of postfeminism and neoliberalism in the domain of work in an international women’s magazine. Discourse & Communication 7:2 ► pp. 133 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2025. Linguistic Landscapes at the Nexus of Ethnography, Sociolinguistics, and Discourse. In The Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism, ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue