Butter packaging and national identity

Professor Angela Smith has co-written an article with Helen Andersson (Örebro University, Sweden) on the topic of butter packaging. Researchers have shown that it is common to use nationalist appeals when marketing food products. Research has also shown that geographical places play an important role in creating feelings of national identity and national belonging. To a much lesser extent, research has shown how these “places” are represented and reproduced in the packaging of food products in specific national environments and to an even lesser extent, compared these representations and reproductions. In their article, Angela Smith and Helen Andersson use multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine how butter packaging in Sweden and the UK represents nature in ways that create associations that are linked to the national identity that exists in each country. They argue that commercial interests, through their choice of packaging design, not only exploit cultural and political ideas and values but also reinforce them by connecting to prevailing national sentiments. In times of political and social change, this can be used to strengthen national affiliation and thus ally with political interests.

Andersson, H. and Smith, A. 2021. Flags and fields: a comparative analysis of national identity in butter packaging in Sweden and the UK. Social Semiotics.

Women and the Politics of Civility/Incivility in Parliament and Public Life

Professor Angela Smith is giving a paper with Michael Higgins at an online roundtable and workshop organized by the Maison Française d'Oxford (MFO). The two-day event, to be held on May 6th and 7th 2021, is called ‘Women, and the Politics of Civility/Incivility in Parliament and Public Life’ and will reflect on the profoundly aggressive nature of recent discourse and actions associated with the Brexit debate, the responses to Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and the consequences for parliamentary and public life. Angela's paper will be given in the panel called 'Women and the Language of Incivility'. Information about how to register for the event can be found here.

The survival of traditional dialect lexis

Bairn, canny, spuggies, lass, bonny, spelk, plodge ... If you're from the North East or have spent any time here you'll have heard some of these words - you might even use them yourself. They are examples of what we might call 'traditional' dialect lexis, in the sense that they can all be traced back to at least the nineteenth-century (and in many cases much earlier). Dr Mike Pearce has published an article which examines the extent to which words such as these - many of which were attested in the Survey of English Dialects - can be found in a contemporary online context virtually located in the North East of England (which, as we know, is one of the most dialectally distinct parts of the country). His findings suggest that the rate of survival is perhaps higher than might be imagined, given the conclusions of previous research on lexical attrition in regional varieties of English in the UK. The article also shows the affordances of corpus-based dialect study, illustrating how access to the discursive contexts in which these words occur can offer insights into meaning and usage, and give access to the metalinguistic reflections of dialect users.

Pearce, M. 2020. The Survival of Traditional Dialect Lexis on the Participatory Web. English Studies.

You can read more about Mike's research on the language and culture of North East England here.

Gender equality in changing times

Professor Angela Smith has edited a collection of essays exploring issues of gender equality in the global context. Contributors to Gender Equality in Changing Times (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) acknowledge the advances brought about by the second-wave movement of feminism, but highlight the work which still needs to be done in the twenty-first century, including the changes in society that have resulted in shifts in masculinity. The book is divided into two parts. Part One looks at gender equality by exploring the 'experience' of being part of a group where gender boundaries still exist, drawing on auto-ethnographies of those in key groups that are central to this debate, as well as interviews with members of such groups. Part Two investigates wider representations of these groups, offering an insight into the geopolitical world of gender relations in Saudi Arabia and China. Ultimately, this collection shows how much has been achieved, yet how far is also left to go.

Volume 7 of Codex is now out!

The 2020 edition of the Humanities undergraduate research journal Codex is now out. Visit the site to read eight fascinating articles based on Third Year dissertations in English language and literature.

Astrid Newby Multicultural Northeastern English (MNE): Could the North East be Host to a New Centre for the Emergence of a Multiethnolect?

Julie Egan Husband versus Wife: An Exploration of the Representations of Gender and Marriage within the Satire of Juvenal, Ben Jonson and Aphra Behn

James Lowther ‘Finished with the War’: The Depiction of War and Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Pat Barker’s Regeneration

Shelby Penman “Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?”: Intertextual Metempsychosis in James Joyce’s Ulysses and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

Louise Thompson An Exploration of Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl and Rosa as Work that Challenges Adorno’s Claim that ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’

Fiona King Exploitation of a Patriarchal System in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett

John Ferry Representations of Gender and Sexuality in the Book of Genesis and How Those Representations are Used to Create a System of Patriarchal Hegemony

Sarah Raistrick What Linguistic Strategies do Students and Teachers Use in Order to Create a Co-operative and Collaborative Learning Environment in the Key Stage 1 Classroom?

North east pronouns

English dialects demonstrate considerable variation in their pronominal systems, and pronouns in North East England often contrast with those found in Standard English. As this anecdote published in the Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend in 1887 illustrates, the pronominal idiosyncrasies of the region's English have long been the subject of comment, and Dr Mike Pearce gives us his take on the subject in the form of an article published in English Today, which explores how the North East pronoun system manifests itself in a large, naturalistic corpus of online writing (other aspects of the morphology and syntax of North East English are explored on Mike's research website).

Pearce, Michael. 2020. The Participatory Vernacular Web and Regional Dialect Grammar: A New Account of Pronouns in North East England. English Today.

The sexy dad and caring father

Professor Angela Smith has contributed an entry on male stereotypes to the International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication. It explores how fatherhood can be articulated as both an opportunity for men to demonstrate their caring, nurturing side, while also being a site for sexual desirability, popularly referred to as the “DILF.” Angela shows how the “new man” masculinity that emerged in the 1990s came to be linked with the popularizing of female‐directed pornography around the same time, finally merging in the 21st century as the “sexy dad.” By drawing on various media texts relating to fatherhood, she shows how there is a self‐presentation of fatherhood that is largely in line with the caring, emotional “new man,” but at times wittily espousing a playful form of macho masculinity linked with gym culture. This is contrasted with the media interpretation of such fatherhood that seeks to sexualize the male body in the popular press. The discussion finds that the act of carrying or holding a child becomes a site for these two discourses to meet, both in the visual images used to illustrate stories and in the associated text.

Smith, A. 2020. Male Stereotypes: The Sexy Dad and Caring Father. In Ross, K. et al. (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

A new online grammar of North East English

Senior Lecturer in English Language Dr Mike Pearce has written a major new grammar of North East English. Drawing on a naturalistic corpus of contemporary vernacular writing, the grammar covers morphology, syntactic linkage, syntax, and the organisation of discourse. This new work appears alongside Mike's archived research on his Dialectological Landscapes of North East England site, where you can read about perceptual dialectology, the 'survival' of traditional dialect lexis, the use of vernacular forms in the linguistic landscape, and the origins and meanings of the region's ethnonyms.

A house through time

Professor Angela Smith's research into early 20th century social welfare has been used to inform the content of the popular BBC2 programme, A House Through Time.  Using extensive data - mostly gleaned from the National Archives - Angela's research was published in a 2012 book which examines the way in which British widows of servicemen who died in the First World War were represented in society and by themselves, exploring the intertwining discourses of social welfare, national identity, and morality that can be identified in these texts. The third series of A House Through Time focuses on a house in Bristol, and as the timeline reached the early part of the 20th century, researchers there found three sisters who were widowed as a result of the First World War.  Angela's research led to the development of this aspect the house's history being explored in a 20-minute section of the third episode of the series, and for the first time in the series, viewers were able to hear the testimony of a former resident of the house who revisited it, and was interviewed by host, David Olusoga. This programme attracts more than 3m viewers per episode, which makes it the most popular show on the channel.

Discourses Surrounding British Widows of the First World War (Bloomsbury, 2012). 

Trump's tweets

Angela Smith has co-written an article with Michael Higgins (Strathclyde University) which looks at discourses of masculinity in the social media performance of US President Donald Trump. The authors discuss the implications of these for the normalisation of regressive forms of masculinity in public discourse, where normalisation is the process of co-opting otherwise deviant behaviours by integrating them into institutional practice. The article begins by exploring ways in which Trump’s social media performance exhibits the characteristics of “hypermasculinity”. The analysis then turns to the everyday expression of traditionally macho masculinity by Trump by conducting a search for tokens of the masculine gendered nouns “man” and “guy”, and using critical discourse analysis to reveal the use of these in exercising gendered forms of judgement. Of particular importance is the informal “guy”, through which Trump defines challengers within power-based masculine oppositions. Overall, the authors find that while the concept of hypermasculinity is useful in describing provocative displays of “bad behaviour” oriented-towards a populist style of leadership, Trump routinely produces more banal types of masculine performance that objectify allies and opponents within a gendered hierarchy, and may be said to normalise regressive forms of masculinity within the prevailing political culture.

Smith, A. and Higgins, M. 2020. Tough guys and little rocket men: @Realdonaldtrump’s Twitter feed and the normalisation of banal masculinity. Social Semiotics.

Clean eating

Angela Smith has published an article about 'clean eating'. The clean eating dietary fad has grown in popularity in the last decade. Angela's research explores how it has come to be associated with certain ingredients and a general discourse of well-being. Whilst being largely discredited as pseudo-science, many of these ingredients have found their way into recipes in the cookery books of those who declare a clear opposition to clean eating. In particular, Angela explores the cookery books of Nigella Lawson, as she states a preference for new ingredients that are typically associated with clean eating.

Smith, A. (2020) 'Clean eating’s surprising normalisation: The case of Nigella Lawson'. Discourse, Context & Media 35.

Just call me Dave

In a special edition of the Journal of Language and Politics which she guest-edited, Professor Angela Smith has published an article which shows how male politicians can draw on performances of masculinity to appeal to voters. Angela uses former UK Prime Minister David Cameron as an example of how performances of masculinity interact with the opportunistic use of populist forms of political engagement. She argues that while Cameron’s performances of populism are often situated in compatible policy initiatives such as the “big society”, we can also identify a more sustained deployment of masculine discourse in “performances” of alignment with the people. Angela shows how these gendered performances of political leaders mirror changes in society, while exploring how they can also be politically hazardous.

'Just call me Dave': David Cameron’s perilous populist status.' Journal of Language and Politics (Published online: 15 Jan 2020), 1–20.

The semiotics of British butter in the context of Brexit

Professor Angela Smith has recently given a paper at the 6th FoodKom seminar in Stockholm. She considered the semiotics of butter packaging in the British context, to explore how national identity is represented. Angela argued that since 2016 national identity has become a central theme in the packing of British butter, whether this is a supermarket own brand, or a leading dairy producer.  The absence of cows in this packaging is part of a long-running semiotic practice that seems to relate to the industrialisation of the dairy industry in Britain, but the raising of national symbols seems triggered by the threat to the UK dairy industry that Brexit embodies.  Through the exploration of the changes made to one specific brand, Anchor, Angela showed how both of these strands have lead to the redesigned packaging we find now.

Angela Smith on British widows of the First World War

Angela Smith recently presented a talk based on her research relating to British widows of the First World War to the University of the Third Age (U3A), Newcastle.  This research is also being drawn on by the producers of the social history television programme, A House Through Time. Angela has been helping to explain more of the lives and social context of some of the residents of an old house in Bristol for the third series of the show, which is due to be broadcast in spring 2020.

Political offensiveness

In a chapter co-authored with Martin Montgomery (University of Macau) and Michael Higgins (Strathclyde University) entitled 'Political offensiveness in the mediated public sphere: the performative play of alignments', Professor Angela Smith explores developing concerns about the rise of offensiveness in the political public sphere and more especially in social media. The authors argue that current iterations of purposeful political offence should be considered in the context of a number of factors.  One is the ascendency of short-form social media such as Twitter and Instagram, which disperse and fragment the discourse of political elites, enabling multi-articulated tactics of address that are subject to processes of remediation.  A second factor is the rise of “post-truth” politics (Montgomery, 2017), in which impressions of personal authenticity take the place of facts, and truth becomes less important than ‘speaking your mind’. The chapter shows that several significant cases of political offence take form and shape along an axis between ’authentic' expression (or ‘speaking your mind’) and submission to political correctness.

'Political offensiveness in the mediated public sphere: the performative play of alignments' can be found in Anne Graefer (ed) Media and the Politics of Offence. Palgrave, 2019.

Visiting Professor Karen Boyle

Humanities at Sunderland are delighted to announce that Professor Karen Boyle (Strathclyde University) has been appointed as visiting professor of English. She gave her inaugural paper on the history and development of the MeToo movement at the 'Gendered Worlds' event last month. Professor Boyle's appointment lasts for three years and will involve occasional visits to Sunderland to give research papers and to teach.

Contesting Islamophobia

Dr Geoff Nash has published a chapter co-authored with Dr Nath Aldalala’a (University of Shandong, China) entitled 'Islamophobia and the War of Representations: Martin Amis's 'The Last Days of Muhammad Atta'', in Contesting Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Media, Culture and Politics (Bloomsbury 2019).

The collection reveals the way in which Islamophobia's pervasive power is being met with responses that challenge it and the worldview on which it rests. The volume breaks new ground by outlining the characteristics of contemporary Islamophobia across a range of political, historic, and cultural public debates in Europe and the United States. Its editors are Professor Peter Morey, University of Birmingham, Dr Amina Yaqin and Dr Alaya Forte, both of the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London.

Dr Geoff Nash has recently become a Research Associate at SOAS (University of London).  

Naked dating shows

Professor Angela Smith has published an article about the Channel 4 show Naked Attraction. This programme involves clothed participants viewing and commenting on six potential 'dates' as they stand naked in plastic pods designed to gradually reveal their bodies from the feet upwards. Angela explores how the shock of graphic nudity is ameliorated by the linguistic strategies of positive politeness with which all participants seem to collude and engage. Such amelioration, she argues, would appear to be a defence against accusations of voyeuristic and pornographic content on mainstream TV.

Smith, A. 2019. ‘How the hell did this get on tv?’: Naked dating shows as the final taboo on mainstream TV. European Journal of Cultural Studies. 

Rare Birds by Natalie Scott

Rare Birds, by the poet Natalie Scott, who was awarded a PhD in English from Sunderland in 2015, is a collection of dramatic monologues which creatively re-imagines the story of Holloway Prison’s first one hundred years through the voices of prisoners, staff and others connected to its history, to explore some of the injustices of the penal system during this period. 

The poems voice women in roles other than that of criminal: there are social campaigners, comrades, as well as sisters, daughters, mothers, wives, lovers and companions. Although it has a historical context, the collection explores many of the themes which are still relevant today: human rights, equality, gender, identity, mental illness, social class.

Natalie received Arts Council funding to bring her work to the stage, and in May 2019 an ensemble of West End actors performed her piece in a workshop production at The Soho Theatre, supported by original music and songs from award-winning British musical theatre composers, and devised and directed by Simon Greiff.

You can find out more about Natalie's work at her website.

Keynote address in Sweden

Professor Angela Smith

Professor Angela Smith will be giving a keynote address at the annual conference of the Swedish association of Media and Communication Studies (FSMK) at Örebro University (16th-17th May 2019). The conference topic is "The critical challenge" and Angela's keynote will focus on the challenges and rewards of teaching media theory to non-media students.