operationalising laclau and mouffes disc

8/16/2019 Operationalising Laclau and Mouffes Disc

1/32

1

Operationalising Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory

as a Practical Method for Text Analysis

Discursive struggle and contested signifiers in the arenas of

education policy and work skills in Japan

By

David Rear and Alan Jones

School of Arts and Sciences

Shibaura Institute of Technology

[email protected]

Department of Linguistics

Macquarie University

[email protected]

The final definitive version of this article has been published in:

Critical Policy Studies 7 (4), 375 - 394. (2013)

By Taylor & Francis

An electronic version is available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcps20/current#.Usj2vEGCiUk

This article is a post-review corrected version, and is the final version prior to publisher proofing.

Readers are advised to refer to the published article for accurate citation.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


2/32

2

Discursive struggle and contested signifiers in the arenas of

education policy and work skills in Japan

This paper examines changing discourses of work skills in twenty-first century Japan, which, in the

face of globalised economic competition, have begun to receive much attention in government and

business circles. It operationalises the Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe in the form of a

practical analytical technique by combining it with the construct of ‘ intertextuality’ , commonly

employed in textually-oriented Critical Discourse Analysis. It argues that, despite the

epistemological differences between the two approaches, they offer conceptual tools that can be

used in conjunction with one another to trace relationships between micro examples of discourse

and macro-level representations of the wider socio-political world. Conducting a close analysis of

texts produced by the Ministry of Education and the Japan Business Federation, it identifies areas

of discursive struggle which can be described at the level of key lexical items or signifiers within

the texts.

Keywords: Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, intertextuality, hegemony,

work skills, education policy, Japan

Author’s Note

This paper is part of a wider study of contemporary Japanese discourses on education policy and

work skills, which seeks to combine Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory with Fairclough’s

Critical Discourse Analysis to operationalise Discourse Theory as a practical method for the

discursive analysis of texts.

Please see the following paper for an introduction to Discourse Theory and Critical Discourse

Analysis, which suggests how their key analytical constructs might be combined:

https://www.academia.edu/2912341/Laclau_and_Mouffes_Discourse_Theory_and_Faircloughs_Cr

itical_Discourse_Analysis_An_Introduction_and_Comparison


3/32

3

Introduction

The present paper identifies and partially deconstructs two conflicting discourses that are shaping

public representations of education policy, employee skills and attributes and, indirectly, identities

in twenty-first century Japan. A discourse is here defined as a particular way of representing certain

parts or aspects of the world, whether physical, social, or psychological. A discourse thus forms an

important strategic resource for those interested in either reproducing or challenging the social,

political and economic status quo. In defining discourse in this way we are essentially following

Fairclough (1992, 2005). However, in conceptualizing the nature and structure of a discourse we

depart from Fairclough’s theoretical framework and draw instead upon the work of Ernesto Laclau

and Chantal Mouffe – particularly with regard to the role of key signifiers.

In this paper, discourses are seen to be made up of articulatory ‘moments’ each of which

subtly modifies (or renegotiates) the structured totality of that discourse (Laclau and Mouffe 1985,

1987). What it means in concrete terms is that every instance of use of a key signifier – we assume

the existence of multi-word signifiers – can be viewed as an attempt by the agents of a discourse to

subtly transform or renegotiate meanings of that term as it is concurrently used by the agents of

another, competing discourse. It is, we assert, at the level of the individual signifier that crucial

contests over meaning take place, often with far-reaching consequences for entire discourses qua

structured wholes. An articulatory ‘moment’ as we interpret it is thus simultaneously a location, a

time and an event, the critical nexus of contingent social forces, when the function of a given

signifier in a particular discourse is momentarily fixed.

Very similar insights and indeed extensive analyses of key or “salient” cultural terms have

previously appeared, embedded in a variety of theoretical frameworks. We should mention

Fairclough’s analysis of tendentious uses of the term ‘enterprise’ (1992, p. 187-190), though in

more recent work (Chiapello and Fairclough 2002) he has focused more on themes and tropes, and

on discourse genres and their syntactic realizations, rather than individual signifiers. Urciuoli (2003,

2009, 2010) has analyzed discursive and interdiscursive uses and appropriations of key terms like

‘culture,’ ‘diversity’ and ‘race’. Her work is carried out in terms of social ideologies anddifferential entextualizations of the terms at issue and, as with Fairclough (1992), it is permeated by

a keen consciousness of the strategic goals and functions of lexical appropriationi. Within a

Discourse Theory framework, Howarth (2010) and Howarth and Griggs (2006) have examined the

practice of ‘rhetorical redescription’ (Skinner 2002) focusing on uses of the term ‘sustainable’ by

supporters of aviation expansion. Meanwhile Leitch and Davenport (2007) also investigated


4/32

4

discourses of sustainability, this time in the context of biotechnology. Finally, Sum (2009) has

analyzed the concept of ‘competitiveness’ as a ‘nodal imaginary’ in the production of hegemonic

policy discourses, and Glasze (2007) has traced the differing use of the term Francophonia as an

‘empty signifier ’ in discursively constructing former French colonies as a geocultural entity,

spanning the globe.

A discourse does not exist solely at the level of knowledge structures, or indeed

ideologies; it possesses an ontological ‘hardness’ (Watson 2000) in that it actively contributes to the

creation and transformation of social reality and through that the material conditions of human

beings (Foucault 1972, Fairclough 1992). In recent years, much attention has been paid to the role

discourses play in processes of social, organizational and political change (see, for example,

Fairclough 1992, Bazerman 1999, Faber 2003, Chreim 2006, Howarth 2010, Schmidt 2011).

Bazerman has shown that, in order to effect lasting change on the material plane, social agents

must operate first on a discursive level by creating ‘significant and stable meanings’ within the

terrain they are competing for (Bazerman 1999, p. 335). Karlber g uses the phrase ‘discourse

intervention’ to describe change-making that is deliberate or ideological, meaning by this phrase

‘an effort to change our social reality by altering the discourses that help constitute that reality’

(Karlberg 2005, p. 1). When discursive change-making is espoused or promoted by the powers that

be, and is aimed at reinforcing the status quo, it can more properly be called ‘hegemonic

intervention’ (Gramsci 1971, Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 1987).

One of the major areas in which hegemonic change has been effected in postmodern

Western societies is the discursive terrain of the ‘ New Work Order ’ (Gee et al . 1996) or

‘ post-Fordist’ production system (Bagguley and Lash 1988). Both of the foregoing labels implicate

a new discourse of skills and attributes demanded of workers in the ‘knowledge-based’ global

marketplace. In what Boltanski and Chiapello (1999) have termed the ‘new spirit of capitalism’, a

fresh representation of the firm has emerged, featuring a flexible, project-based organization in

which information flows in a horizontal as well as vertical direction. Workers in corporations

so-conceived must be able to think and act for themselves, make decisions independently, andcommunicate their ideas across hierarchies and divisions. In many ways, workers are rendered

simultaneously more visible and more accountable, incidentally saturating subject-positions with

ambiguity and dislocating established identities (Iedema 2003).

This paper examines changing discourses of work skills in twenty-first century Japan,

which, in the face of globalised economic competition, have begun to receive much attention in


5/32

5

government and business circles.ii It operationalises the Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe

(Laclau and Mouffe 1985, Laclau, 1990, 1993, 1996, Mouffe, 1993, 2008) in the form of a

practical analytical technique by combining it with the construct of ‘intertextuality’ (Kristeva 1986,

Fairclough 1992), commonly employed in textually-oriented Critical Discourse Analysis

(Fairclough 1989, 1992, 1995 etc.). It argues that, despite the epistemological differences between

the two approaches, they offer conceptual tools that can be used in conjunction with one another to

trace relationships between micro examples of discourse (texts) and macro-level representations of

the wider socio-political world. The paper can be regarded as an extension of similar efforts by a

number of researchers in recent years (see, for example, Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Phillips

and Jorgensen 2002, Carpentier and de Cleen 2007, Sjolander and Payne 2011). Specifically, we

employ major Discourse Theory concepts such as articulation, hegemony, nodal points, floating

signifiers, and chains of signification together with the CDA constructs of intertextuality and

interdiscursivity (Kristeva 1986, Fairclough 1992, Candlin and Maley 1997, Candlin 2006, Bhatia

2010) to develop an analytic framework that is empirically grounded but potentially more powerful

than either of the aforementioned theories on their own. Our focus is on the ‘essentially contested

concepts’ (Gallie 1956, Collier et al . 2006, Boromisza-Habashi 2010) that Laclau and Mouffe

(1985) term ‘floating signifiers’.

The texts examined using this approach are documents produced in both English and

Japanese by the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Education and the Japan Business

Federation on the subject of work skills and education policy. The paper theorizes policymaking as

‘an arena of struggle over meaning’ (Taylor 2004, p. 435), in which discourse plays a primary role

in mediating settlements between the competing interests of various ‘ policy players’ (Paul 2009,

Howarth 2010). This ‘ post-positivist’ view of policymaking contrasts with the ‘rational model’,

which assigned a false functionality to the workings of society, making the assumption that ‘society

is underpinned by a value consensus and that the various institutions in society contribute to the

ongoing stability of the whole’ (Taylor et al. 1997, p. 24). The post-positivist view, in contrast, sees

society as a locus of conflict in which diverse groups, with their own priorities and values, competeto set agendas in different policy areas. Politics concerns ‘the process of prioritizing those values’

(Clarke 2012, p. 298). Thus, in order to understand the origins and processes of policies, we need

to ‘identify the discourses that dominate in them, how they come to do so, and which discourses

are excluded and marginalized in the process’ (Paul 2009, p. 243).

In the case of Japanese education, these policy players consisted in the first decade of this


6/32

6

century of politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, bureaucrats in the Ministry of

Education, and representative organizations of big business, like the Japan Business Federation. It

identifies two distinct and antagonistic discourses within these texts through the presence of

intertextually-linked signifiers: a neo-liberal discourse stressing individuality, creativity and

self-reliance and a ‘moral conservative’ discourse emphasizing ‘traditional’ Japanese values such ascollectivism, self-sacrifice and obedience to society and state. It shows how these ideologically

unaligned discourses can be seen within nominal groups in the form of pre- and post-modifying

elements surrounding a head noun. The syntax of the nominal groups renders the tension between

these competing discourses semi-invisible, but a close intertextual reading reveals the potential for

significant tension, which places potentially conflicting demands on the identities of Japanese

workers.

The paper begins with an introduction of the major concepts of Discourse Theory and how

they can be operationalized in a critical analysis of a corpus of selected texts. In more detail, it then

discusses the concept of hegemony and how hegemonization can be achieved through the fixation

of meaning of contested signifiers. From there, it examines texts on work skills produced by the

major policy players in Japanese education. The analysis comes in two sections. First, we identify

distinct discourses apparent in the texts, tracing how these discourses are constituted through the

use of certain key signifiers. Second, we present a more detailed intertextual analysis of ten official

policy texts issued by the Japanese Ministry of Education from 2001 to 2010, showing how

antagonistic discourses are combined within the structure of nominal groups. The paper concludes

with a discussion of the implications of this discursive struggle for Japanese society and institutions

as a whole.

Key signifiers and the constitution of discourses

Before we attempt to marry concepts from Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory (hereafter DT)

with those of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we must first acknowledge the epistemological

differences that exist between the two approaches. Fundamentally, while Laclau and Mouffe viewthe social world as being wholly constituted by discourse, CDA distinguishes between discursive

and non-discursive social practices. What they share in common is the emphasis DT places on the

contingent nature of discourses and thus of social practices. While Fairclough and others have

argued that Laclau and Mouffe overestimate the ability of social groups to bring about change

through the rearticulation of elements into new social orders (Mouzelis 1990, Coombe 1998,


7/32

7

Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999), they acknowledge that:

Laclau and Mouffe provide valuable resources for theorizing and analyzing the openness and

complexity of late modern social life - they capture the instability and flux of social practices and

identities, and the pervasive dissolution and redrawing of boundaries, which characterize late

modernity.... We regard Laclau and Mouffe as providing valuable conceptual resources for the analysis

of change in discourse - in particular their conceptualization of ‘articulation’ and ‘equivalence /

difference’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, p. 124).

The concept of articulation dissolves the strict demarcation between the three dimensions

used in Fairclough’s CDA of text, discursive practice and social practice (Chouliaraki and

Fairclough 1999, Phillips and Jorgensen 2002). It brings together shifting elements of the social

and stabilizes them into more or less relative permanences as moments within a particular discourseor social practice. Moments are themselves transformed through articulatory processes by being

brought into new combinations with each other. Equivalence / difference, meanwhile, describes

how signifiers are linked together in intertextual chains to produce more or less stable discourses.

To Laclau and Mouffe, a discourse is an attempt to fix a web of meanings within a particular

domain. The constitution of a discourse involves the structuring of signifiers into certain meanings

to the exclusion of other meanings, and can be seen, therefore as an exercise of power (Howarth

and Stavrakakis 2000). All other possible meanings excluded by a particular discourse are known

as the field of discursivity. Thus:

Any discourse is constituted as an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, to arrest the flow of

differences, to construct a centre (Laclau and Mouffe [1985] 2001, p. 112).

Since no discourse can fix a web of meanings completely or permanently, the field of

discursivity makes possible the articulation of a multiplicity of competing discourses (Torfing 1999,

Howarth 2005). A signifier that is allocated a certain meaning in one discourse may acquire anothermeaning in a different discourse, and since signs (form-meaning pairs) derive their meaning from

their relation to one another, all other signs within the discourse will be configured differently as a

result. This means that an articulation is, in linguistic terms, a predication – it is an assertion that

‘establish[es] a relation’ (Laclau and Mouffe [1985] 2001, p. 105).

Discourses fix webs of meaning in relation to nodal points. A nodal point is a central


8/32

8

privileged signifier or reference point (‘ points de capiton’ as Lacan 1977, terms them), which binds

together chains of signification and are thus capable of assigning meaning to other signifiers within

a discourse. In and of itself, a nodal point possesses no density of meaning – quite the opposite, it is,

in Žižek ’s words, an ‘empty signifier, a pure signifier without the signified’ (Žižek 1989, p. 97).

However, it acquires meaning through its positioning relative to other signs, a process that occurs

through what is called articulation. Through this partial fixity of meaning, a nodal point ‘unifies a

given field, constitutes its identity’ (Žižek 1989, p. 95).

Nodal points and the key moments they structure offer an empirical way in which

discourses can be identified, mapped, interpreted and invoked. Working from the general

standpoint of discursive psychology, Antaki et al . (2003) point to the ‘circular discovery of

discourses’ as one of the ‘six analytical shortcomings’ of some discursive analyses. By the circular

discovery of discourses, they mean that the identification of a particular discourse in the text under

analysis is taken as proof that such a discourse exists in other contexts. Phillips and Jorgensen

(2002, p. 143) too warn that sometimes ‘it seems as if anything at any level can be a discourse.’

Fairclough (1992), in devising his own influential conceptual framework, carefully avoided using

discourse as a countable term referring loosely to the “elements” of a configuration of discursive

formations. Hence, in attempting to identify the mixture of “discourses” drawn upon, either

consciously or unconsciously, by the producer of a text, we need to be able to demonstrate the

existence of such discourses beyond the text under investigation.

One way that this can be achieved is by highlighting the presence of nodal points and

moments within the text, which can be traced to related, prior texts - i.e. through intertextual

analysis. The notion of intertextuality (originating with Bakhtin 1981, 1986, and popularized by

Kristeva 1986) was operationalized by Fairclough in his seminal 1992 volume ‘Discourse and

Social Change’. Fairclough gives the following “basic” definition:

Intertextuality is basically the property texts have of being full of snatches of other texts, which may be

explicitly demarcated or merged in, and which the text may assimilate, contradict, ironically echo, and

so forth (Fairclough 1992, p. 84).

If discourses can be identified (partially at least) through the use of particular key

signifiers, as adumbrated by (for instance) Bourdieu and Wacquant (2001), it follows that

discursive struggle might be identifiable through analysis of how the meanings of these signifiers


9/32

9

are represented, negotiated and effectively contested within the texts. Such analyses are relatively

rare within mainstream CDA, but important work has been carried out in other fields on terms of

particular importance, frequently referred to as ‘keywords’, that are demonstrably representative of,

and performative of (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001), a particular ‘discourse’ (cf., e.g. Williams

1985, Leitch and Davenport 2007, Urciuoli 2009, 2010).

Under Laclau and Mouffe’s terminology, a ‘keyword’ would have two technically defined

varieties: a signifier that encapsulates an entire discourse (a nodal point) and a key signifier within

that discourse (a moment). For example, if we accept that there is a ‘discourse of neo-liberalism’,

the term ‘neo-liberalism’ itself would be a nodal point, effectively identifying the discourse, while

terms such as ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ would be moments within that discourse, whose meanings are

fixed by their articulation with the nodal point and with each other.

Discourse Theory also has a term for words whose meaning is fundamentally contested,

referring to these as floating signifiers. A floating signifier may be a particular signifier within a

discourse, or it may be a nodal point. By tracing the chain of signification established by a nodal

point, it should be possible to analyze how the meanings of floating signifiers are configured in

different discourses, and thus how articulatory processes (such as framing, reportage,

presupposition, negation, metadiscourse, irony, metaphor and so on) contribute to the

reinforcement or dissolution of hegemonic practices. This is dealt with in more detail in the next

section.

Contested signification and discursive hegemonization

The representation of discourse as a structuring of meaning within a particular terrain led Laclau

and Mouffe, following Gramsci (1971), to their concept of hegemony, which has been taken up by

many other researchers working within CDA. In DT terms, hegemony is ‘the expansion of a

discourse, or set of discourses, into a dominant horizon of social orientation and action by means of

articulating unfixed elements into partially fixed moments in a context crisscrossed by antagonistic

forces’ (Torfing 1999, p. 101). When discourses become hegemonic, the social practices theystructure can appear so natural that we fail to see they are the result of political hegemonic

practices. They reach the level of ‘common sense’, in that their origins and intrinsic contingency

are forgotten (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, Deetz 1992):

The practices of articulation through which a given order is created and the meaning of social


10/32

10

institutions is fixed, are what we call “hegemonic practices.”… What is at a given moment accepted as

the “natural order ”, jointly with the common sense that accompanies it, is the result of sedimented

hegemonic practices (Mouffe 2008, p. 4).

Discursive hegemony is achieved, when it is achieved, by means of a relatively stable

fixation of the meanings of polysemous and contested signifiers around a nodal point. It proceeds

in terms of ‘articulatory moments’ in each of which the relational signification of the nodal point –

i.e. the way in which it ‘articulates’ with other signifiers in a relatively stable configuration – is

reconstituted. Some of these signifiers may have had different and even diametrically opposed

meanings, hitherto, in competing or antagonistic (mutually exclusive) discourses. But

hegemonization works best on signifiers that exist simultaneously in different discourses and

different social or institutional terrains, and that are thus inherently ambivalent. Such signifiers are

ubiquitous and invisible and their ambivalence normally troubles no one. As Urciuoli (2010, p. 48)

puts it:

people routinely use what seem to be the same referring expression in reference to what appears to be

the same thing in ways that are often incoherent, sometimes even contradictory, though users rarely

seem to notice. In large part, this is due to the varying ways in which referring expressions get

sedimented as they travel along different discursive paths in different discursive fields. Such semiotic

disconnection is especially likely to happen when circulating referring expressions are entextualized,

particularly in institutional discourses, and when the phenomena in reference to which they are used are

complex, fluid and indeterminate.

We will thus distinguish between relatively polyvalent signifiers and signifiers that have

relatively fixed associations (i.e. those that tend to be associated in talk and texts with certain other

signifiers and to appear in particular types of statements, such as attributions) by virtue of their

being recurrently entextualized in well-established discourses with coherent and distinctive

value-systems, or ideologies. This means that the key moments in a discourse will consist of

relatively stable signs while there will usually be a wider discursive field in which floating

signifiers predominate. The latter will be “up for grabs” in the sense that different hegemonizing

discourses may attempt to conscript and appropriate them, usually by using them, tendentiously

and opportunistically, in contexts that constrain their inherent meaning potential and align it with


11/32

11

the broader values and interests of the discourse and the discourse community or interest group that

it serves (Swales 1990).

The terms “tendentiously” and “opportunistically” above are not meant to imply that the

uses made of floating signifiers stem from conscious decisions made by social agents, even though

these uses may be recognized, retrospectively, as “strategic.” As Bourdieu (2000, p. 138) puts it,social agents generate strategies that are appropriate and effective ‘without express intention or

calculation.’ Eisenberg (1984, 2007), who has written so much on the strategic uses of ambiguity,

is often rather vague on this point; however, at times he explicitly states that individuals can use

ambiguity ‘ purposefully’ to accomplish goals (Eisenberg 2007, p. 7) and many of his followers

seem to believe that that ambiguity is a type of manipulative discourse practice, even a rhetorical

device. Menz (1999), however, represents a position in which ambiguity is seen as naturally

occurring and as having multiple positive effects. According to this kind of thinking, organisations

should tolerate or encourage ambiguity in order to generate new ideas and keep options open

(Menz 1999). For Eisenberg (1984, 2007), the main function of ambiguity is to avoid open conflict

in organizations and promote unity in diversity.

At the same time, strategic ambiguity lends itself to the preservation of privilege

(Eisenberg 1984, Iedema 1998), and facilitates top-down initiatives for social, organisational and

institutional change below the threshold of public awareness (Fairclough 1992). These functions

generally coincide with the hegemonizing aims of established interest groups. And, as Urciuoli

(2010, p. 48) remarks, such initiatives work best when the negotiated terms ‘are complex, fluid and

indeterminate’. Such terms, on the surface, often seem simple and ideologically neutral; but they

can possess a latent meaning potential that is complex and multifaceted. A hegemonizing discourse

will attempt to pull such terms into its orbit and conscript them to its cause. A domain made up of

contingently relevant terms of the type just described is what we call a field of contested

signification.

Key signifiers in discourses of work skills and education policy in Japan In the following section, we introduce some of the key discourses, nodal points and moments that

have been espoused over the past two decades by the major policy players in Japanese education on

the subject of work skills and education. Our sources come from policy documents from the

Ministry of Education (MEXT), policy speeches by successive prime ministers, and major reports

issued by the Japan Business Federation ( Nippon Keidanren). Although space constraints prevent a


12/32

12

full intertextual analysis, we will attempt to trace key signifiers through the chain of texts, drawing

out the chains of signification constituted by discoursal nodal points.

Neo-liberal discourse

Byron Marshall (1994), in his study of Japanese political discourse on education, quotes from a

significant report on education issued by the Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations (since

amalgamated into the Japan Business Federation, or Nippon Keidanren) in 1983:

We must try to maintain the Japanese worker ’s diligence and group consciousness which have been so

crucial in helping to push up the nation’s economy. Thus it is vitally important that the schools guide

students in such a way that they have a proper outlook on society and work (Marshall 1994, p. 235).

Coming from what is generally considered to be the most conservative, as well as

influential, of Japan’s major business organizations, such a statement would not have been

surprising in the political and economic climate of the time. In that period, confidence in Japan’s

economic system was high. It was bolstered by the popular discourse of nihonjinron (‘theories of

Japaneseness’) which emphasized the uniqueness of Japanese culture and society, contrasting the

group-centered values of Japan with the individualist attitudes of the West. Befu (2001) wrote

about the “hegemony of homogeneity”, based largely on this notion. In terms of employee skills,

personality-based traits such as kyōchō sei (‘cooperativeness’), nesshin (‘enthusiasm’), tairyoku

(‘stamina’), and kunrenkanō (‘trainability’) were said to be the most desirable qualities, with

corporations able to invest considerable time and resources in in-house training programs

(Nakamura 1991).

In the 1990s, however, Japan went through a series of tumultuous shocks induced by the

collapse of the bubble economy, which rocked the nation’s self-confidence. Since then, new

pressures of hyper-competition have led to a re-examination of what the nation as a whole and

Japanese corporations in particular need to do in order to succeed in the new environment. The

most pervasive discourse apparent in Japanese work skills and education policy since that time has

been a neo-liberal philosophy emphasizing independence, self-reliance, creativity and diversity in

both the education system and Japanese society as a whole. Pushed strongly by representatives of

big business, it places the individual at the centre of society, with citizens and workers expected to

act as self-governing and self-directed individuals willing and able to take on responsibilities


13/32

13

previously performed by the state or corporations.

Kosei (individuality) is the nodal point that binds this neo-liberal discourse together, with

other polysemous signifiers acquiring particular meanings through their association with it. The

following example from a Ministry of Education White Paper in 2002 is typical:

One of the main pillars of the educational reforms is the ‘ principle of respect for individuality’ (kosei

jū shi) and, in school education, reforms to promote individualization and diversification are being

implemented. However, since Japanese society is strongly oriented to homogeneity, lock-step mentality,

school education was apt to place too much emphasis on conformity. It is necessary to provide

well-tailored education so that each and every child can develop his or her individuality and ability,

while flexibly and proactively responding to social changes (MEXT 2002, p. 6).

In policy terms, what the Education Ministry is actually pushing here is the diversification

of Japan’s egalitarian education system to introduce free-market competition, reforms vigorously

opposed by teaching unions and – in fact – pursued only reluctantly by the Ministry itself (Cave

2001, Hood 2003). ‘Individuality’, therefore, is not meant as an aspect of human character so much

as a marker of neo-liberal free-market economics, a connotation strengthened further by its

collocation with the term ‘diversification’. It is contrasted with signifiers such as ‘homogeneity’,

‘conformity’ and ‘lock-step mentality’, depicted as a strength of Japanese corporations in the 1983

report from Nippon Keidanren but here represented as a weakness of both Japanese institutions and

society as a whole. ‘Individuality’ also acquires a skill connotation through the phrase

‘individuality and ability’ - individuality is something that can inculcated through education and

put to use in the workplace.

This skill connotation is strengthened further in neo-liberal discourse by its frequent

association with the term ‘creativity’, as in this policy speech by Prime Minister Ryutaro

Hashimoto in 1996:

As we look to the 21st century, we will continue to pursue a policy stressing individuality and creativity

(Hashimoto 1996, p. 3).

Here, the meaning of ‘creativity’ is both limited and made ambiguous by its association with the

nodal point. It could be taken to mean either the fostering of creative minds or the creation of

schools able to exercise creativity in the marketplace, or both - yet in either case, its inclusion


14/32

14

within a discourse of individuality suggests that creativity is only attainable through a school

system based on free market principles.

Nippon Keidanren have extended the discourse of individuality beyond the education

system and into a vision of society as a whole. They have argued that education needs to provide

employees with a broader set of skills than in the past:

Corporate employees must develop sophisticated judgment and problem-solving skills based on a

broader perspective than before. Young people… also need the creativity and reformist approach to

create new business models that take an “outside the box” approach ( Nippon Keidanren 2003a, p. 4).

In the same year, they produced a report entitled Japan 2025, which provided a vision of

how Japanese society should look in the near future. The following extract came under the heading

‘Vibrant Diversity’:

Communities of self-reliant individuals with clearly-defined values will form the core of the Japan of

2025, and people must wean themselves away from the business-centered culture that compels

uniformity if they are to play a role in these communities.... As Japan moves forward, though, it will

have to shift society’s center of gravity from the interests of corporations to the lives of individuals. The

Japanese will identify themselves less with the companies for which they work and more with their

own personal talents and interests. In short, the Japan of 2025 will be powered by individuals and the

communities they form. And these communities need not be bound by national borders - foreigners in

Japan and Japanese active overseas will be a key element of this diverse, vigorous society ( Nippon

Keidanren 2003b, p. 5 - 6).

Here individuality is associated with other signifiers, such as ‘self-reliance’, ‘ personal

talents and interests’, ‘communities’, ‘vigor ’ and ‘diversity’. Self-reliance is presented positively as

a way to place people rather than corporations at the centre of society, but viewed more critically, it

can be seen as a repudiation of the ideals of lifetime employment in which companies were

expected to care for their employees on a long-term basis. This, of course, reflects a similar but

somewhat earlier trend in the US, the UK and Australia (see Urciuoli 2008).

The signifier ‘diversity’ can be regarded as a nodal point in itself, encapsulating a socially

radical, albeit business-focused, discourse of internationalization and immigration. The discourse

of ‘internationalization’ (kokusaika) in Japan has often been regarded as a nationalistic ideology,

emphasizing the homogeneous nature of Japanese society and the uniqueness of its culture


15/32

15

compared to other countries (Nakamatsu 2002, Burgess 2004). Faced with a demographic crisis

caused by an aging population and falling birth rates, Nippon Keidanren, however, are making an

explicit call to invite large numbers of immigrants into the country, placing it under the banner of

diversity. By placing ‘diversity’ in this context, they are extending its meaning beyond the narrower

connotation of the diversification of Japan’s education system. Diversity and individuality will bring ‘vigor ’ to Japan’s ‘communities’, the latter being another key signifier whose meaning is

altered from how it would traditionally be defined in Japan. These discoursal associations are

significant, since they clash strongly with the second major discourse of education policy in

contemporary Japan: that of what we label ‘moral conservatism’.

Moral conservative discourse

The first decade of the twenty-first century saw the revival of a discourse of ‘moral conservatism’,

which provides a very different representation of the type of attributes the education system should

inculcate in its pupils. In 2006, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe pushed through a controversial revision

of the 1947 Fundamental Law of Education that had been drawn up during the American

occupation. Arguing that the law had been imposed upon an unwilling Japan by a foreign power,

Abe set about creating a break from what he termed the ‘ post-war regime’ by advocating a return to

patriotism and “traditional” Japanese values. He called for the reintroduction of patriotic education

(aikoku kyōiku) into the curriculum, contending that children should be taught:

values such as public service (k ōkyō no seishin), self-discipline ( jiritsu), morals (d ōtokushin) and

attachment to and affection for the community and country where we have been born and raised

(Abe 2007, p. 6).

Although Abe’s abrupt fall from power (until his dramatic re-election in late 2012) led to a quiet

dropping of the controversial term “ patriotic education”, his reforms to the Fundamental Law of

Education remained. Furthermore, his call for instilling patriotism in young people survived in the

guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education for the teaching of moral education (d ōtoku kyōiku)

in Japanese schools.

The specified textbook for moral education in junior high schools, entitled Kokoro no

Nōto (Notes for the Heart), pushes the nationalist values of the ideology of nihonjinron (‘theories

of Japaneseness’), which contrasts the beneficial group-centered values of Japan with the harmful


16/32

16

individualist attitudes of the West (Befu 2001). In Kokoro no Nōto, as in nihonjinron generally,

Japan is presented as a monolithic entity, with its values and culture homogeneous and uncontested.

Moreover, the title of the book evokes a nodal point of moral conservative discourse, that of

‘kokoro’ (heart) which Befu (2001, p. 32) describes as ‘an example par excellence of the Japanese

ethos.’ Kokoro appears frequently in education policy texts, as in this extract from a speech by theultra-conservative Prime Minister Mori in 2000:

Still, our performance in terms of instilling our people with compassion for others, a spirit of dedication

to the betterment of others (hōshi no seishin), respect for the culture and traditions of our nation and

other elements of what it takes for us to be rich in spirit as Japanese ( nihonjin to shite motsu beki

yutaka na kokoro), as well as the fostering of principles and ethics, has not necessarily been as

exemplary (Mori 2000, p. 3).

The extracts from Mori and Abe are loaded with signifiers from moral conservative

discourses that can be traced through numerous policy texts. ‘Public service’, ‘a spirit of

dedication’, ‘self-discipline’, ‘morals’, ‘respect for culture and traditions’, ‘rich in spirit’,

‘ principles and ethics’ - these terms acquire quite specific meanings from their intertextual links.

‘Morals’, for example, are of a certain and specific kind related to group-based, hierarchical values.

‘A spirit of dedication’ refers to dedication to the aims and aspirations of the nation as a whole,

rather than one’s own personal ambitions. ‘Affection for the community where we have been born

and raised’ also evokes a quite different vision of community than that of the Nippon Keidanren

extract above. Jiritsu, meanwhile, is a floating signifier, often used in neo-liberal discourse and

translated as ‘self-reliant’, as in the extract from Nippon Keidanren (2008b) above, but here

appropriated into moral conservative discourse and translated as ‘self-discipline’, where it is listed

as a ‘value’ along with public service, morals and patriotism.

Contested signifiers: hybridity in education policy texts

In the next section, we examine education policy documents produced in both English and Japanese

by the Ministry of Education in Japan from 2001 to 2010. This was a period in which the Ministry

found itself caught between two conflicting demands: calls for individual expertise and independent

thinkers by Japan’s business community and appeals for traditional group-based values from

conservative political leaders. The Education Ministry itself, although a powerful and influential

body in its own right, has tended towards a natural conservatism, attempting to preserve a degree of


17/32

17

consensus in order to enable the education system to function without overt conflict (Schoppa 1991).

These antagonistic demands, therefore, placed a strain not just on policy choices but also on the

ways in which these policy choices were articulated discursively.

The typical solution was an attempt to meld the two discourses together, tying individuality

and creativity to the needs of Japanese society and state. Within this hybrid ideology, individuality

is desirable only in the context of Japanese citizenship. The following excerpt from the Basic Plan

for the Promotion of Education produced in 2008 contains signifiers that are strongly reminiscent of

neo-liberal individuality (‘unique personality development’, ‘acquisition of independence’, ‘lifelong

pursuit of a happy life’), but places them in a context of service to the country as a whole (relevant

phrases are in bold):

Education is essential to building character through unique personality development, improvement of

abilities, acquisition of independence and lifelong pursuit of a happy life. At the same time, education

takes on a mission to nurture the citizens who form the country and society…. It is necessary to put

greater emphasis on the mission of education to develop the ability of individuals to participate in

society voluntarily, support other people and fulfill their respective responsibilities as members of

society (MEXT 2008a, p. 4).

The use of the transitional phrase ‘At the same time’ at the beginning of the secondsentence suggests that the author of the report is aware of the latent tension between the two

discourses, as if education has two equal but separate goals: development of individual traits and the

nurturing of responsible citizens. This both ..., and ... construction is found frequently in this type of

discourse where the hegemonic aim is to appropriate signifiers, often linking dissimilar or

semantically antagonistic items.

The excerpt given above also contains an example of “systematically distorted” discourse

(Habermas 1976, Jones 2009) with the phrase: ‘the ability of individuals to participate in society

voluntarily’. Two layers of institutional agency are represented as acting upon ‘individuals’, i.e.

MEXT itself (“It is necessary ...”) and ‘education’, in order to ‘develop’ an ability that these

individuals will then exercise ‘voluntarily’. Participation in society is portrayed, in the first place, as

depending on an inculcated ‘ability’ – inculcated presumably through moral education. But the

word ‘voluntarily’ reminds the reader that such participation depends on the individual having a


18/32

18

certain disposition, based on values freely held. Indeed, when one examines a range of MEXT

documents, it becomes possible to recognize a discursive pattern or trope in which abilities are

inculcated and the willingness to apply them presupposed. That is, individual agency is

tendentiously presumed to be aligned with institutional goals. This produces a “distorted” syntax in

which the juxtaposition of ill-assorted signifiers renders the sense of predications indeterminate.

They often have an effect of cognitive dissonance due to the attempted unification of signifiers that

derive from disparate if not antagonistic discourses, in the construction of novel, hegemonizing

signs, but these signifiers unfortunately often have too much intertextual “ baggage” attached for the

project to succeed.

Elsewhere in the report, there are similar attempts to bind the two discourses together,

hegemonically appropriating a discourse of individuality and free-market economics for one of

social development and moral conservativism. The sentence below uses a very symptomatic phrase

in speaking of ‘individuals as citizens’, implying that individuality is only acceptable within the

context of a person’s duties as a Japanese national:

Compulsory education is meant to foster the fundamental strengths of individuals as citizens. (MEXT

2008a, p. 6).

We next review key signifiers that appeared in the 2006 White Paper which is particularlyrich in hybridity and tension. In the opening two sentences of the summary of key points, the

authors describe the anticipated outcomes of a rebuilt education system as a particular type of

‘human resource’ (an expression that itself attempts to draw together two signifiers from quite

disparate discourses):

Human resources are indeed the foundation for the development of a nation. Japan needs warmhearted

and robust human resources with abundant individuality and creativity in order to be an affluent country

that will continue to have the vitality for growth into the future (MEXT 2006, p. 1).

The last italicized phrase in the extract above can be represented analytically as:

Premodifiers Head Postmodifier


19/32

19

(coordinated epithets) (Classifier + Noun) (prepositional phrase)

warmhearted and robust

kokoro yutaka takumashii

human resources

jinzai

with abundant individuality and creativity

yutaka na kosei to sō z ō sei

Here the head, a compound nominal, indexes and unites two disparate discourses. The first

premodifying epithet (‘warmhearted’ – kokoro yutaka) is a signifier in the discourse of moral

conservatism, evoking social conformity and traditional Japanese morality. Its use with the term

‘human resources’ is incongruous, and the two postmodifying terms – ‘individuality’ and ‘creativity’

add to the confusion.

A similar confusion is evident in a later section in the White Paper in which the overall

aims of education are set out. The nominal expressions that refer to the targeted human values are

highlighted in bold, while conjunctions and relative pronouns that signal an attempted coordination

and fusion of more or less discordant value systems are in italics. Following the extract is a table in

which the expressions are characterized according to the discourse in which their meanings are

structured.

Education is aimed at the perfection of human character and at the same time it plays an important role

in fostering individuals who are full of vitality and kindness and cherish freedom and self-discipline,

and in pursuing the happiness of the people. In addition to the existing principle of cultivating capable

human resources who are spiritually rich and full of creativity, it is important to once again rethink

the value of traditional social norms that have long been treasured in Japan, as well as

public-mindedness. (MEXT 2006, p. 1)

Table 1 The Discursive Terrain of a Ministry of Education Text in Japan

Economic-business

development (neo-liberal)

Contested signifiersSocial-moral development

(moral conservative)

perfection of human character

individuals

cherish freedom full of vitality

self-discipline

(full of) kindness

happiness of the people


20/32

20

capable human resources

full of creativity

spiritually rich

traditional social norms

public-mindedness

The signifiers pertaining to the two discourses have specific meanings acquired through

their association with that discourse, to the extent that their nuances cannot truly be understood

without knowledge of the contexts from which they are derived. Almost certainly the producers of

the text would themselves have been aware of their intertextual roots, and their use can, therefore,

be seen as a deliberate attempt at discursive compromise, balancing the viewpoints of two powerful

interest groups.

The presence of the two conflicting discourses makes the meaning of several signifiers

used in the extract unclear. Since the discourses of individuality and moral conservatism offer such

differing visions of what Japanese society and culture should be like, we cannot say for certain

what ‘the perfection of human character ’, ‘happiness of the people’, ‘vitality’, and ‘self-discipline’

mean in this context. Even the meaning of the word ‘individuals’ is contested, as in one discourse

individuals are represented as the ideal basic unit of society while in the other their needs and

ambitions are subservient to those of the group.

The overall effect of this hybridity is a confusion of both language and educational aims.

While there has been some attempt to meld the two conflicting discourses together by linking

individuality to duty as a citizen of the state, the process is not strongly developed. What has

emerged is not a new discourse that reconciles the conflict, but a mixture that serves more to

highlight it.

Conclusion

This paper began by characterizing policy texts as ‘an arena of struggle over meaning’ (Taylor

2004, p. 435) in which policies are the outcomes of struggles ‘ between contenders of competing

objectives, where language – or more specifically discourse – is used tactically’ (Fulcher 1989, p.

7). Wodak (2000) calls the process of producing a policy text one of moving ‘from conflict to

consensus’, and critical discourse analysis can help to reveal this process by ‘documenting multiple

and competing discourse in policy texts, in highlighting marginalized and hybrid discourses, and in


21/32

21

documenting discursive shifts in policy implementation processes’ (Taylor 2004, p. 433). Likewise,

Discourse Theory – in accordance with its emphasis on the contingency of discourses, and of social

life qua discourse – views the policy process as ‘dynamic and marked by a continuous

contestations about meanings’ (Paul 2009, p. 243-4).

In attempting to document competing visions of the skills and attributes that the Japanese

education system should inculcate, we have argued that intertextual analysis can be enhanced

through the employment of major concepts drawn from Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory. In

particular, the terms nodal points, moments, floating signifiers, articulation, and chains of

signification can be used to show how discourses construct the meanings of key signs and structure

them into more or less stable configurations. By tracing key signifiers through a chain of texts, we

can identify privileged signifiers, or nodal points, through which other signs within a discourse

acquire specific meanings, often to the exclusion of other meanings. Furthermore, we can identify

points of intersection between discourses where a struggle over meaning takes place. This allows

us to make empirical interpretations of texts, pinpointing signifiers that signal the use of a

particular discourse.

In the White Paper policy texts issued by the Ministry of Education from 2001 to 2010,

distinct discourses can be identified: neo-liberal discourses emphasizing individuality, creativity

and diversity on both a personal and societal level; and moral conservative discourses calling for a

return to traditional morality, group-based values and patriotic service. Each discourse is marked by

signifiers which are structured around nodal points such as kosei (individuality), tayō sei (diversity),

and kokoro (heart).

These signifiers appear in texts repeatedly, and only with knowledge of context can their

significance be understood. When the Education Ministry uses these signifiers in official policy

texts, it is doing so with full awareness of the intertextual “ baggage” they carry with them. Placed

side-by-side in single propositions and linked, somewhat crudely, with conjunctive expressions,

they are a deliberate and – to those involved in the policymaking process – manifest attempt to

bring together diverse viewpoints into a single vision. They are, in other words, the outcome of the process of moving from conflict to consensus.

The problem for policymakers is that the two competing discourses differ in such

fundamental ways that any attempt to produce a hybrid discourse coherent enough to build and

maintain hegemony is laden with difficulty. In other contexts, semiotic coherence might be

achieved through indexical ordering (Silverstein 2003), when the denotational parameters of


22/32

22

related terms are “reset” (see Urciuoli 2003, for an example). In face-to-face interactions semiotic

coherence (“validation”) is (re-)constituted through glossing episodes (i.e. “repair”), as recently

pointed out by Duncker (2012). However, when parties with divergent interests, commitments and

premisesiii

come to debate meanings publicly and formally, semiotic negotiation and indexical

re-ordering are rarely observed and contestation remains the norm (Silverstein 2004, Collier et al .,

2006).

One method by which it might be achieved in education policy discourses is through

widespread use of strategic ambiguity, in which the meanings of floating signifiers are blurred to

allow them to be appropriated into a new discourse. Eisenberg (1984) suggested that one function

of strategic ambiguity was to avoid overt conflict in the interests of organizational unity, and

El-Sawad et al . (2004) referred to “double-think” as an essentially functional device, i.e. as a

means of containing contradiction and of ordering the individual’s experience. The nodal point of

‘individuality’, for example, is well-positioned for this, in light of its structuring in Japanese

neo-liberal discourse as a utilitarian quality that can be put to use in the workplace. The frequent

collocation of ‘individuality’ with ‘creativity’ positions them both as skills that can be acquired

through education. This fits into the general moral conservative philosophy that the citizenry of

Japan have a duty of service toward society and state – individuality as a skill that can be used to

expand national economic power. Other terms in common use as desirable skills for graduates and

workers, such as ‘communication skills’ (komyunik ē shon nōryoku), ‘teamwork ’ (chī muwāku), and

‘flexibility’ ( jūnan-sei) can also blur the differences between the two conflicting discourses.

Communication skills, for example, might equally well be articulated as the ability to express one’s

own opinions in a persuasive manner (discourse of neo-liberal individuality) or as the ability to use

language appropriate to the context and one’s own hierarchical position (discourse of moral

conservatism).

We can visualize such a situation diagrammatically, as represented in Fig. 1, with the

meanings of the middle terms still actively contested and in a sense “up for grabs” from moment to

moment.

Figure 1. The Discursive Terrain of Education Policy and Work Skills in Japan


23/32

23

Independentthinking

Individualfreedom, rights

Identify own

priorities

Take initiative

Critical thinking

Discourse of individual skills

and independent thought

Field of contested signification

(“floating signifiers”)

Discourse of collective values

and moral conservatism

On a fundamental level, however, the two discourses are incongruent. Most significantly,

neo-liberalism takes the individual as the basic unit of society, while moral conservatism takes the

group. It is true that this view is not universally accepted. Some scholars have argued that it is

wrong to see Japan in terms of individualism versus communitarianism, and that the basic principle

underlying Japanese society is that of kanjinshugi or ‘relationism’ (Clammer 1995). Under this

view, individuals see themselves as interdependent with no clear boundary between self and society.

If we accept that this idea – or ideal – runs deep in Japanese society, we would expect it to be

possible to blend the two discourses described in the body of this article (and the political stances

they embody) in a more sophisticated and seamless manner than they appear in the policy

documents examined in this study (see, for example, Ikegami & Campbell 1998). Indeed, there

should be no real contradiction between them at all.However, the discourse of moral conservatism is not oriented towards consensual goals

and the unification of competing voices but rests on the harder ideology of nihonjinron, which

depicts Japanese society and Japanese values as homogeneous, unique, superior and unchanging.

Indeed, the revivification of moral conservative discourse can be regarded as an effort to restore the

hegemony of that nationalistic point of view, which has been steadily eroded with the decline of

Communicationskills

Flexibility

Individuality

Individual

choice

Self-

reliance

Floating

Signifiers

Teamwork

Creativity

Patriotism,loyalty

Proper outlook

Public service

Morality

Traditionalnorms

Enthusiasm

Respectfor others

Self-discipline


24/32

24

Japanese economic power over the past two decades (Rear 2011). Within the nihonjinron vision,

there is no room for diversity, and foreign viewpoints introduced through immigration are regarded

as a threat rather than a benefit.

Finally, there is a mismatch in pedagogical implications between the discourses. If

creativity and ‘outside-the-box’ thinking are to be major objectives of education, it would appearcounter to that aim to stress a course such as moral education in which Japanese culture and

traditions are depicted as ideal and unchanging in their present form. If students are denied the

opportunity to look critically at their own society, or indeed are actively discouraged from doing so,

one wonders how they will be inculcated with both the ability and disposition to create business

models that run counter to the prevailing climate.

It also places potentially conflicting pressures upon the self-identities of Japanese workers

– should they challenge the organization to change its working practices when this seems

appropriate or should they quietly acquiesce in the status quo? Cases of such conflicting pressures

have been well-documented in workplace studies in the West, albeit in different circumstances (see,

for example, Watson 1996, Iedema 2003, Clarke et al 2009). In Japan, the ambivalent attitude

toward critical and creative thought produces a faultline that runs through Japanese education

policy and, as the need for constant innovation proceeds around the world, it is an issue that

policymakers in Japan must surely get to grips with.

References

L ist of the MEXT texts used as data

MEXT, 2001. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2001 [online].

Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200101/index.html> [Accessed

20 Jan 2013].MEXT, 2002. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2002. [online].

Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200201/index.html [Accessed

20 Jan 2013].

MEXT, 2003. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2003. [online].

Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200301/index.html [Accessed


25/32

25

20 Jan 2013].


Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/english/whitepaper/1302288.htm [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].


Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/06101913.htm [Accessed 20 Jan

2013].

MEXT, 2006. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2006 . [online].

Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200601/index.htm [Accessed 20

Jan 2013].

MEXT, 2007. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2007 . [online].

Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab200701/1283225.htm

[Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

MEXT, 2008a. Basic plan for the promotion of education.[online]. Available from:

http://www.mext.go.jp/english/lawandplan/1303463.htm [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

MEXT, 2008b. White paper on education, culture, sports, science and technology 2008. [online].









References

Abe, S., 2007. Policy speech to the 166 th

session of the Diet . [online]. Available from:

http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/abespeech/2007/01/26speech_e.html [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].Agha, A., 2007. Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Antaki, C., et al . , 2003. Discourse analysis means doing analysis: a critique of six analytic

shortcomings. Discourse analysis online 1 (1) [online]. Available from:

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002.html [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

Bagguley, P. and Lash, S., 1988. Labour relations in disorganized capitalism: a five-nation


26/32

26

comparison. Environment and planning D: society and space, 6, 321-38.

Bakhtin, M., 1981. The dialogical imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bakhtin, M., 1986. Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bazerman, C., 1999. The l anguages of Edison’s light . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Befu, H., 2001. Hegemony of homogeneity. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.

Boltanski, L. and Chiapello, E., 1999. Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme [The new spirit of

capitalism]. Paris: Gallimard.

Boromisza-Habashi, D., 2010. How are political concepts ‘essentially’ contested? Language &

communication, 30, 276-284.

Bourdieu, P., 2000. Pascalian meditations. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L., 2001. New liberal speak: Notes on the new planetary vulgate.

Radical philosophy,105, 2-5.

Burgess, C., 2004. Maintaining identities: discourses of homogeneity in a rapidly globalizing Japan.

Electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies. [online]. Available from:

http://www.japanesestudies. org.uk/articles/Burgess.html [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

Candlin, C. 2006. Accounting for interdiscursivity: challenges to professional expertise. In: M.

Gotti and D. Giannone, eds. New trends in specialized discourse analysis. Bern: Peter Lang, 21-45.

Candlin, C. and Maley, Y., 1997. Intertextuality and interdiscursive in the discourse of alternative

dispute resolution. In: B. Gunarrsson, P. Linell and B. Nordberg, eds. The construction of

professional discourse. London: Longman, 201-22.

Carpentier, N. and de Cleen, B., 2007. Bringing discourse theory into media studies. Journal of

language and politics, 6 (2), 265-293.

Cave, P., 2001. Educational reform in Japan in the 1990s: “Individuality” and other uncertainties.

Comparative education, 37 (2), 173-91.

Chiapello, E. and Fairclough, N., 2002. Understanding the new management ideology: A

transdisciplinary contribution from critical discourse analysis and new sociology of capitalism.

Discourse & society, 13 (2), 185-208.Chouliaraki, L. and Fairclough, N., 1999. Discourse in late modernity: rethinking critical discourse

analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Chreim, S., 2006. Managerial frames and institutional discourses of change: Employee

appropriation and resistance. Organization studies, 27 (9), 1261-1287.

Clammer, J., 1995. Difference and modernity: social theory and contemporary Japanese society.


27/32

27

London: Kegan Paul International.

Clarke, C., Brown, A., and Hailey, V., 2009. Working identities? Antagonistic discursive resources

and managerial identity. Human relations, 62 (3), 323 – 352.

Clarke, M., 2012. The (absent) politics of neo-liberal education policy. Critical studies in education,

53 (3), 297-310.

Collier, D., Hidalgo, F. and Maciuceanu, A., 2006. Essentially contested concepts: debates and

applications. Journal of political ideologies, 11, 211-246.

Coombe, R., 1998. The cultural life of intellectual properties. Durham and London: Duke

University Press.

Deetz, S., 1992. Democracy in an age of corporate colonization: developments in communication

and the politics of everyday life. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Duncker, D., 2012. “What’s it called?” – Conventionalization, glossing practices, and linguistic

(in)determinacy. Language & communication, 32, 400-419.

Eisenberg, E., 1984. Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication. Communication

monographs, 51 (3), 227-242.

Eisenberg, E., 2007. Strategic ambiguities: essays on communication, organization, and identity.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

El-Sawad, A., Arnold, J., and Cohen, L., 2004. ‘Doublethink’: The prevalence and function of

contradiction in accounts of organizational life. Human relations, 57 (9), 1179-1203.

Faber, B., 2003. Creating rhetorical stability in corporate university discourse. Written

communication, 20 (4), 391 - 425.

Fairclough, N., 1989. Language and power . London: Longman.

Fairclough, N., 1992. Discourse and social change. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Fairclough, N., 1995. Critical discourse analysis. Boston: Addison Wesley.

Fairclough, N., 2005. Peripheral vision: discourse analysis in organization studies: the case for

critical realism. Organization studies, 26, 915 – 939.

Foucault, M., 1972. Archeology of knowledge. New York: Pantheon.Fulcher, G., 1989. Disabling polities? A comparative approach to education, policy and disability.

London and New York: Farmer Press.

Gallie, W., 1956. Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian society 56,

167-198.

Gee, J., Hull, G., and Lankshear, C., 1996. The new work order: behind the language of the new


28/32

28

capitalism. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Glasze, G., 2007. The discursive construction of a world-spanning region and the role of empty

signifiers: the case of Francophonia. Geopolitics, 12, 656-679.

Gramsci, A., 1971. Selections from prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Habermas, J., 1976. On systematically distorted communication. Inquiry, 13, 205-218.

Hashimoto, R., 1996. Policy speech to the 136 th

session of the Diet . [online]. Available from:

http:// www.kantei.go.jp/jp/hasimotosouri/speech/1996/danwa-122.html [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

Hood, C., 2003. The third great reform of the Japanese education system: success in the 1980s

onwards. In: R. Goodman and D. Phillips, eds. Can the Japanese change their education system?

Oxford: Symposium Books, 73-87.

Howarth, D., 2005. Applying discourse theory: the method of articulation. In D. Howarth and J.

Torfing, eds. Discourse theory in European politics: identity, policy and governance. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan, 316-349.

Howarth, D., 2010. Power, discourse, and policy: articulating a hegemony approach to critical

policy studies. Critical policy studies, 3 (3-4), 309-335.

Howarth, D. and Griggs, S., 2006. Metaphor, catachresis and equivalence: the rhetoric of freedom

to fly in the struggle over aviation policy in the United Kingdom. Policy and society, 25 (2), 23-46.

Howarth, D. and Stavrakakis, Y., 2000. Introducing discourse theory and political analysis. In: D.

Howarth, A. Norval, and Y. Stavrakakis, eds. Discourse theory and political analysis: identities,

hegemonies and social change. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1-24.

Iedema, R., 1998. Institutional responsibility and hidden meanings. Discourse & society, 9 (4),

481-500.

Iedema, R., 2003. Discourses of post-bureaucratic organization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia:

John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Iedema, R., 2007. The tensions between professional and institutional discourse in acute care

medicine. Journal of Applied Linguistics 2 (3), 239-248. [Special Issue editorial]

Ikegami, N. and Campbell, J., 1998. The art of balance in health policy: maintaining Japan'slow-cost, egalitarian system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jones, A., 2009. Business discourse as a site of inherent struggle. In: A. Mahboob and C. Lipovsky,

eds. Studies in applied linguistics and language learning . Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars

Publishing, 84-105.

Karlberg, M., 2005. The power of discourse and the discourse of power: pursuing peace through


29/32

29

discourse intervention. International journal of peace studies, 10 (1), 1-23.

Kristeva, J., 1986. Word, dialogue and novel. In: T. Moi, ed. The Kristeva reader . Oxford:

Blackwell, 34-61.

Lacan, J., 1977. Ecrits: a selection. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Laclau, E., 1990. New reflections on the revolution of our time. London: Verso.

Laclau, E., 1993. Power and representation. In: M. Poster, ed. Politics, theory and contemporary

culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 277-296.

Laclau, E., 1996. The death and resurrection of the theory of ideology. Journal of political

ideologies, 1 (3), 201-20.

Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C., 1985 [2001]. Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical

democratic politics. London: Verso.

Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C., 1987. Post-Marxism without apologies. The New Left Review, 166,

79-106.

Leitch, S. and Davenport, S., 2007. Strategic ambiguity as a discourse practice: The role of

keywords in the discourse on ‘sustainable’ biotechnology. Discourse Studies, 9 (1), 43-61.

Marshall, B., 1994. Learning to be modern: Japanese political discourse on education. Boulder,

Colorado: Westview Press.

Menz, F., 1999. ‘‘Who am I gonna do this with?’’: Self -organization, ambiguity and

decision-making in business enterprise. Discourse & society, 10 (1), 101-128.

Mori, Y., 2000. Policy speech to the 147 th session of the Diet . [online]. Available from:

http:// www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/souri/mori/2000/0407policy.html [Accessed 20 Jan 2013].

Mouffe, C., 1993. The return of the political . London: Verso.

Mouffe, C., 2008. Critique as counter-hegemonic intervention. Transversal multilingual

webjournal . [online]. Available from: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0808/mouffe/en/print [Accessed

20 Jan 2013].

Mouzelis, N., 1990. Post-Marxist alternatives: the construction of social orders. London:

Macmillan. Nakamatsu, T., 2002. Marriage, migration, and the international marriage business in Japan.

Unpublished thesis. Murdoch University.

Nakamura, K., 1991. Hiring practices in Japan. Japan labor bulletin, 31 (2), 6-8.

Nippon Keidanren, 2003a. Summary of position paper 2004 on management and human resources .

[online]. Available from: http://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/policy/2003/123.html [Accessed 20

http://eipcp.net/transversal/0808/mouffe/en/printhttp://eipcp.net/transversal/0808/mouffe/en/print


30/32

30

Jan 2013].

Nippon Keidanren, 2003b. Japan 2025: envisioning a vibrant, attractive nation in the twenty-first

century. [online]. Available from: http://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/policy/vision2025.pdf.


Paul, K., 2009. Discourse analysis: an exploration of methodological issues and a call for

methodological courage in the field of policy analysis. Critical policy studies, 3 (2), 240-253.

Phillips, L. and Jorgensen, M., 2002. Discourse analysis as theory and method . London: Sage.

Rear, D., 2011. Mixed messages: discourses of education in policy speeches to the Japanese Diet.

Asia pacific journal of education, 31 (2), 129-142.

Schimdt, V., 2011. Speaking of change: why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy

transformation. Critical policy studies, 5 (2), 106-126.

Schoppa, L., 1991. Education reform in Japan: a case of immobilist politics. London: Routledge.

Seeleib-Kaiser, M., 2002. Globalization, political discourse, and welfare systems in comparative

perspective: the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and the US. Czech Sociological Review 38

(6), 749-769.

Silverstein, M., 2003. Indexical order in the micro-/macro-dialectics of social life. Language &

communication, 23, 193-229.

Silverstein, M., 2004. “Cultural” concepts and the language-culture nexus. Current anthropology,

45, 621-652.

Sjolander, A. and Payne, J., eds., 2011. Tracking discourses: politics, identity and social change.

Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press.

Skinner, Q. 2002. Visions of politics, vol 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sum, N-L., 2009. The production of hegemonic policy discourses: ‘competitiveness’ as a

knowledge brand and its (re-)contextualizations. Critical policy studies, 3 (2), 184-203.

Swales, J., 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Takayama, K., 2009. Is Japanese education the “exception”? Examining the situated articulation ofneo-liberalism through the analysis of policy keywords. Asia pacific journal of education, 29 (2),

125-42.

Taylor, S., 2004. Researching educational policy and change in ‘new times’: using critical

discourse analysis. Journal of education policy, 19 (4), 433-451.

Torfing, J., 1999. New theories of discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Ž i ž ek . Oxford: Blackwell.


31/32

31

Urciuoli, B., 2003. Excellence, leadership, skills, diversity: marketing liberal arts education.

Language & communication, 23, 385 – 408.

Urciuoli, B., 2009. Talking/not talking about race: the enregisterments of culture in higher

education discourses. Journal of linguistic anthropology, 19 (1), 21-39.

Urciuoli, B., 2010. Entextualizing diversity: semiotic incoherence in institutional discourse.

Language & communication, 30 (1), 48-57.

Urciuoli, B., 2011. Discussion essay: Semiotic properties of racializing discourses. Journal of

linguistic anthropology, 21 (1, supplement), E113-E122.

Watson, T., 1996. Managing work – managing self. In: M. Wetherell, ed. Identities, groups and

social issues. London: Sage, 293-298.

Watson, T., 2000. Review: David Grant, Tom Keenoy and Cliff Oswick (Eds.) Discourse and

Organization. (Sage, 1998). Human relations, 53 (4), 559-573.

Wierzbicka, A., 1997. Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish,

German, Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A., 2006. English: meaning and culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A., 2010. Experience, evidence and sense: the hidden cultural legacy of English. New

York: Oxford University Press.

Williams, R., 1985. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society (revised edition). New York:

Oxford University Press.

Wodak, R., 2000. From conflict to consensus? The co-construction of a policy paper. In: P. Muntigl,

G. Weiss, and R. Wodak, European union discourses on un/employment. an interdisciplinary

approach to employment policy-making and organisational change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins,

73-114.

Žižek, S., 1989. The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso.

i Silverstein (2003, 2004) and Agha (2007) tend to emphasise the indexical nature of key terms/key signifiers, i.e. their

role in identifying social groups. While this is an important function of such terms, indeed a criteria one, it is not one

that concerns us centrally here. Meanwhile several of Anna Wierzbicka’s publications (1997, 2006, 2010) containinsightful analyses of the cultural and ideological work that is done by “key cultural concepts”.ii An anonymous reviewer points out that the discursive struggles taking place in the arena of education and

employability resonate with similar struggles in the field of health care and health-care policy. Seeleib-Kaiser (2002)


32/32

provides a useful comparative study of Japanese health and welfare policies in relation to political discourses; Iedema

(2003, 2007) has analysed conflicting discourses of health care within the more concrete context of health care

provision (e.g. in hospital administration).iii Silverstein (2004) points to the “knowledge schemata” that anchor some cult ural concepts and (by implication)discourses; Boromisza-Habashi (2010) gives the same status to a community’s “moral universe” (moral norms).

operationalising laclau and mouffes disc

Documents