Csilla Weninger
Biographic Data
| ID | 210527 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Csilla Weninger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Csilla |
| FAMILY NAME | Weninger |
| SIGNATURE | WENINGER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nanyang Technological University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5874-8757 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Language, Culture and Ideology
Digital Literacy and Language Teaching
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the resulting array of ever-powerful consumer-facing generative AI (GenAI) applications have simultaneously wowed, stunned, scared and energized language teachers and researchers over the past few years. Understandably so, since these new technologies challenge foundational assumptions in our field: When writing can be largely automated, beautiful multimodal content generated fr…
Representation of social class in Korean ELT materials
Within English language textbook (ELT) research, studies across national contexts show that neoliberal ideology pervades the textual and visual content of textbooks. However, little attention has been paid specifically to social class and how its representations fit within the neoliberal discourses of ELT textbooks. In this paper, drawing on multimodal critical discourse analysis, we consider how ELT textbooks in Korea represent social class in t…
Local English textbooks
Singlish in TikToks
A growing body of research within World Englishes has mapped multilinguals’ language use in digital and social media. While some studies have carried questions and methodologies of offline sociolinguistics into the digital realm, there is increasing recognition that online communication must be studied as digital social practice where different Englishes act as resources in the expression of identities and the negotiation of social meanings and r…
Microcelebrities’ identity construction on social media
Over the past decade, a robust body of scholarship on microcelebrity has emerged, occasioning several review studies of this growing field of research. Extant reviews on microcelebrity have mostly focused on microcelebrities’ strategic communication or audiences’ attitudes, but no review has specifically focused on microcelebrities’ identity. Echoing the call for more attention to this particular aspect in recent reviews, this article examines 97…
Digital resistance against linguistic invisibility
AI, representation, and critical digital literacy
The potential of eye tracking data to strengthen CDA’ explanatory power
Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged from the availability of social semiotic frameworks describing multimodal meaning making. However, weaknesses of these frameworks have raised concerns and prompted recent methodological reflections in MCDA. Inspired by these reflections, this paper critically assesses MCDA research on advertising persuasion and identifies a lack of atten…
Knowledge structures for knowledge communication
Because I have my phone with me all the time”
Given constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce media, less attention has been paid to the issue of access as an essential element of news literacy. Dra…
Performing microcelebrity
Contemporary digital media is characterized by a cultural logic of participation that encourages sharing, confession, phatic communication, and an emphasis on the visual. In this techno-cultural milieu, self-presentation has become a key mode of communication, and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status. A key component of being a microcelebrity entails developing a consistent persona that is recognizable and uniq…
Affective governance as multimodal discursive practice in Singapore’ Covid-19 vaccination video
Drawing on scholarship on affective-discursive practice and employing a critical multimodal analytic approach, this paper examines how an official vaccination campaign video from Singapore affectively engages with audiences through the construction of various social relationships and identities. Analysis of the multimodal images identifies four salient themes in the video: (1) a harmonious neighborhood comprising inter-ethnic friendships, (2) a p…
Skill versus Social Practice? Some Challenges in Teaching Digital Literacy in the University Classroom
Digital literacy is viewed by many governments as an educational priority area, resulting in policies and curricula aimed at developing students’ digital literacy skills. This can present many challenges, including lacking teacher professional development, uneven digital infrastructure across school districts or unequal access to digital media among students. In this article, I focus on a different challenge that stems from differing definitions …
Mapping Out Unequal Englishes in English-Medium Classrooms
The link between globalization and the spread of English is well established in the literature, resulting in the emergence and burgeoning of studies on the pluralization and localization of English. However, Englishes are also valued unequally and, thus, impact the lives and identities of their speakers differently as well. This paper aims to discuss the politics of Unequal Englishes by mapping out the specific ways inequalities of Englishes are …
Multimodality in critical language textbook analysis
Increasingly, studies are taking account of multimodality when analyzing language textbooks. Due to the diversity of multimodal frameworks used in analyses, and the interdisciplinary nature of language textbook studies, conceptual differences arise that are important to discuss – which is the purpose of this paper. Specifically, I argue that multimodal analyses of language textbooks can be divided into two groups based on how they conceptualise m…
Textbook Analysis
Textbook analysis is a small but distinct subfield of applied linguistic research aimed at examining textbooks as curricular‐cultural artifacts that communicate important meanings through their content and design. Orienting to an interdisciplinary, critical theoretical paradigm, researchers examine how the textual and visual material in textbooks represents people, places, and languages as well as how it positions and shapes learners' understandi…
Problematising the notion of ‘authentic school learning’
Creating authentic learning opportunities in schools has been an important mission for educators and educational researchers, where ‘authentic’ is generally understood to mean connecting school education to students’ current and future identities, experiences and expertise. This article aims to problematise the taken-for-granted notion of authentic learning based on data from a study on media literacy education in Singapore. Thirty-two secondary …
A contextual critique of critical literacy
Public education in post-industrial societies has been restructured based on a human capital model that prioritizes the economic value of citizens for the benefit of globally competitive national economies. In a policy-as-numbers climate [Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(4), 355–382], school administrators and teachers struggle to ‘produce results’ and ‘close ga…
The influence of individual and contextual variables on teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of media literacy
The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity
Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interacti…
What Does It Take to Collaborate
In this commentary, the authors share insights from a collaborative project in Singapore among secondary school teachers, academics from the National Institute of Education, and the Singapore Ministry of Education. The authors highlight that the success of this collaboration was facilitated by significant institutional support at all levels and participants’ willingness to negotiate professional backgrounds, goals, and personalities
The (bio)politics of engagement
This article provides a historical overview of civic educational policy and political discourse in Singapore from 1959 to 2011, focusing on changes in the role attributed to students in the education process. A review of educational programmes and analysis of political speeches reveals that an earlier transmissionist approach that focused on value inculcation and factual knowledge has been supplemented recently by policy and discourse emphasizing…
Culture in English as a Foreign Language ( EFL ) Textbooks
This article problematizes current, quantitative approaches to the analysis of culture in foreign language textbooks as objectifying culture, and offers an alternative, semiotic framework that examines texts, images, and tasks as merely engendering particular meanings in the act of semiosis. The authors take as a point of departure developments within the social sciences that have questioned monolithic conceptualizations of culture as well as rec…
The lexico-grammar of partnerships
This article contributes to the growing body of research that joins critical discourse analysis with corpus analysis. I investigate a one million-word special corpus on US urban redevelopment in an attempt to illustrate that partnerships as popular collaborative coalitions in new capitalism can be identified in representations of social actors at the lexico-grammatical level. Focusing on two recurrent patterns in a Hallidayan framework, I argue t…
Multimodality in critical language textbook analysis
Increasingly, studies are taking account of multimodality when analyzing language textbooks. Due to the diversity of multimodal frameworks used in analyses, and the interdisciplinary nature of language textbook studies, conceptual differences arise that are important to discuss – which is the purpose of this paper. Specifically, I argue that multimodal analyses of language textbooks can be divided into two groups based on how they conceptualise m…
Culture in English as a Foreign Language ( EFL ) Textbooks
This article problematizes current, quantitative approaches to the analysis of culture in foreign language textbooks as objectifying culture, and offers an alternative, semiotic framework that examines texts, images, and tasks as merely engendering particular meanings in the act of semiosis. The authors take as a point of departure developments within the social sciences that have questioned monolithic conceptualizations of culture as well as rec…
Mapping Out Unequal Englishes in English-Medium Classrooms
The link between globalization and the spread of English is well established in the literature, resulting in the emergence and burgeoning of studies on the pluralization and localization of English. However, Englishes are also valued unequally and, thus, impact the lives and identities of their speakers differently as well. This paper aims to discuss the politics of Unequal Englishes by mapping out the specific ways inequalities of Englishes are …
The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity
Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interacti…
The (bio)politics of engagement
This article provides a historical overview of civic educational policy and political discourse in Singapore from 1959 to 2011, focusing on changes in the role attributed to students in the education process. A review of educational programmes and analysis of political speeches reveals that an earlier transmissionist approach that focused on value inculcation and factual knowledge has been supplemented recently by policy and discourse emphasizing…
Performing microcelebrity
Contemporary digital media is characterized by a cultural logic of participation that encourages sharing, confession, phatic communication, and an emphasis on the visual. In this techno-cultural milieu, self-presentation has become a key mode of communication, and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status. A key component of being a microcelebrity entails developing a consistent persona that is recognizable and uniq…
Modes of Engagement for Urban Research
Cities are increasingly cast as being shaped by globalization and related neoliberal policies. While these diverse literatures have provided needed theoretical advancement to rethink the city in relation to political-economic change, they also run the risk of conceptualizing, studying, and representing cities without sufficient attention to the spatial copresence of multiple actors. The result is that some treatments of the city reproduce a unifi…
Skill versus Social Practice? Some Challenges in Teaching Digital Literacy in the University Classroom
Digital literacy is viewed by many governments as an educational priority area, resulting in policies and curricula aimed at developing students’ digital literacy skills. This can present many challenges, including lacking teacher professional development, uneven digital infrastructure across school districts or unequal access to digital media among students. In this article, I focus on a different challenge that stems from differing definitions …
Problematising the notion of ‘authentic school learning’
Creating authentic learning opportunities in schools has been an important mission for educators and educational researchers, where ‘authentic’ is generally understood to mean connecting school education to students’ current and future identities, experiences and expertise. This article aims to problematise the taken-for-granted notion of authentic learning based on data from a study on media literacy education in Singapore. Thirty-two secondary …
A contextual critique of critical literacy
Public education in post-industrial societies has been restructured based on a human capital model that prioritizes the economic value of citizens for the benefit of globally competitive national economies. In a policy-as-numbers climate [Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(4), 355–382], school administrators and teachers struggle to ‘produce results’ and ‘close ga…
The influence of individual and contextual variables on teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of media literacy
Urban pioneers in the making
This paper discusses the interconnections among discourse, personhood and the political economy of contemporary urban transformation. Drawing on interview and walking-tour data from three redeveloping neighborhoods in a mid-size city in the U.S. Southeast, I examine metasemiotic descriptions of the 'engaged urban resident' as a particular emblem of identity that is circulated in a social network of residents and community-redevelopment sponsors. …
Digital resistance against linguistic invisibility
Speakers' Perceptions of Code Choice in a Foreign Language Academic Department
The focus of this paper is on speakers' rationalisations of their everyday linguistic choices as members of a multilingual academic department in the US. Given the monolingual macro-context, the myriad of native languages spoken by participants, and the professional stake in language competence, the question of how speakers arrive at language choices is examined through in-depth interviews with participants (n=12). Results indicate that participa…
Modes of Engagement for Urban Research
Cities are increasingly cast as being shaped by globalization and related neoliberal policies. While these diverse literatures have provided needed theoretical advancement to rethink the city in relation to political-economic change, they also run the risk of conceptualizing, studying, and representing cities without sufficient attention to the spatial copresence of multiple actors. The result is that some treatments of the city reproduce a unifi…
Urban pioneers in the making
This paper discusses the interconnections among discourse, personhood and the political economy of contemporary urban transformation. Drawing on interview and walking-tour data from three redeveloping neighborhoods in a mid-size city in the U.S. Southeast, I examine metasemiotic descriptions of the 'engaged urban resident' as a particular emblem of identity that is circulated in a social network of residents and community-redevelopment sponsors. …
The lexico-grammar of partnerships
This article contributes to the growing body of research that joins critical discourse analysis with corpus analysis. I investigate a one million-word special corpus on US urban redevelopment in an attempt to illustrate that partnerships as popular collaborative coalitions in new capitalism can be identified in representations of social actors at the lexico-grammatical level. Focusing on two recurrent patterns in a Hallidayan framework, I argue t…
Turf Wars
Culture in English as a Foreign Language ( EFL ) Textbooks
This article problematizes current, quantitative approaches to the analysis of culture in foreign language textbooks as objectifying culture, and offers an alternative, semiotic framework that examines texts, images, and tasks as merely engendering particular meanings in the act of semiosis. The authors take as a point of departure developments within the social sciences that have questioned monolithic conceptualizations of culture as well as rec…
The (bio)politics of engagement
This article provides a historical overview of civic educational policy and political discourse in Singapore from 1959 to 2011, focusing on changes in the role attributed to students in the education process. A review of educational programmes and analysis of political speeches reveals that an earlier transmissionist approach that focused on value inculcation and factual knowledge has been supplemented recently by policy and discourse emphasizing…
What Does It Take to Collaborate
In this commentary, the authors share insights from a collaborative project in Singapore among secondary school teachers, academics from the National Institute of Education, and the Singapore Ministry of Education. The authors highlight that the success of this collaboration was facilitated by significant institutional support at all levels and participants’ willingness to negotiate professional backgrounds, goals, and personalities
The influence of individual and contextual variables on teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of media literacy
The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity
Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interacti…
Textbook Analysis
Textbook analysis is a small but distinct subfield of applied linguistic research aimed at examining textbooks as curricular‐cultural artifacts that communicate important meanings through their content and design. Orienting to an interdisciplinary, critical theoretical paradigm, researchers examine how the textual and visual material in textbooks represents people, places, and languages as well as how it positions and shapes learners' understandi…
Problematising the notion of ‘authentic school learning’
Creating authentic learning opportunities in schools has been an important mission for educators and educational researchers, where ‘authentic’ is generally understood to mean connecting school education to students’ current and future identities, experiences and expertise. This article aims to problematise the taken-for-granted notion of authentic learning based on data from a study on media literacy education in Singapore. Thirty-two secondary …
A contextual critique of critical literacy
Public education in post-industrial societies has been restructured based on a human capital model that prioritizes the economic value of citizens for the benefit of globally competitive national economies. In a policy-as-numbers climate [Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(4), 355–382], school administrators and teachers struggle to ‘produce results’ and ‘close ga…
Mapping Out Unequal Englishes in English-Medium Classrooms
The link between globalization and the spread of English is well established in the literature, resulting in the emergence and burgeoning of studies on the pluralization and localization of English. However, Englishes are also valued unequally and, thus, impact the lives and identities of their speakers differently as well. This paper aims to discuss the politics of Unequal Englishes by mapping out the specific ways inequalities of Englishes are …
Multimodality in critical language textbook analysis
Increasingly, studies are taking account of multimodality when analyzing language textbooks. Due to the diversity of multimodal frameworks used in analyses, and the interdisciplinary nature of language textbook studies, conceptual differences arise that are important to discuss – which is the purpose of this paper. Specifically, I argue that multimodal analyses of language textbooks can be divided into two groups based on how they conceptualise m…
Affective governance as multimodal discursive practice in Singapore’ Covid-19 vaccination video
Drawing on scholarship on affective-discursive practice and employing a critical multimodal analytic approach, this paper examines how an official vaccination campaign video from Singapore affectively engages with audiences through the construction of various social relationships and identities. Analysis of the multimodal images identifies four salient themes in the video: (1) a harmonious neighborhood comprising inter-ethnic friendships, (2) a p…
Skill versus Social Practice? Some Challenges in Teaching Digital Literacy in the University Classroom
Digital literacy is viewed by many governments as an educational priority area, resulting in policies and curricula aimed at developing students’ digital literacy skills. This can present many challenges, including lacking teacher professional development, uneven digital infrastructure across school districts or unequal access to digital media among students. In this article, I focus on a different challenge that stems from differing definitions …
Because I have my phone with me all the time”
Given constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce media, less attention has been paid to the issue of access as an essential element of news literacy. Dra…
Performing microcelebrity
Contemporary digital media is characterized by a cultural logic of participation that encourages sharing, confession, phatic communication, and an emphasis on the visual. In this techno-cultural milieu, self-presentation has become a key mode of communication, and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status. A key component of being a microcelebrity entails developing a consistent persona that is recognizable and uniq…
Knowledge structures for knowledge communication
Singlish in TikToks
A growing body of research within World Englishes has mapped multilinguals’ language use in digital and social media. While some studies have carried questions and methodologies of offline sociolinguistics into the digital realm, there is increasing recognition that online communication must be studied as digital social practice where different Englishes act as resources in the expression of identities and the negotiation of social meanings and r…
Microcelebrities’ identity construction on social media
Over the past decade, a robust body of scholarship on microcelebrity has emerged, occasioning several review studies of this growing field of research. Extant reviews on microcelebrity have mostly focused on microcelebrities’ strategic communication or audiences’ attitudes, but no review has specifically focused on microcelebrities’ identity. Echoing the call for more attention to this particular aspect in recent reviews, this article examines 97…
Digital resistance against linguistic invisibility
AI, representation, and critical digital literacy
The potential of eye tracking data to strengthen CDA’ explanatory power
Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged from the availability of social semiotic frameworks describing multimodal meaning making. However, weaknesses of these frameworks have raised concerns and prompted recent methodological reflections in MCDA. Inspired by these reflections, this paper critically assesses MCDA research on advertising persuasion and identifies a lack of atten…
Sociology (19 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Literacy, Media, and Education (8 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (6 works)