Michelle M Lazar
Biographic Data
| ID | 735506 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle M Lazar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle M |
| FAMILY NAME | Lazar |
| SIGNATURE | LAZAR M M |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0316-7004 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 599 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Hopefully this will be a wake-up call on how we treat migrant workers: National wokeness in press reports during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study examines how Singapore’s flagship newspaper, The Straits Times (ST), framed relationships between migrant workers (MWs) and non-state actors (NGOs, companies and individuals) during the Covid-19 pandemic. We propose the conceptual lens of national wokeness as a mediatisation strategy of positive self-presentation to overcome international criticisms concerning the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus amidst neglected MW dormitories, and to r…
Restoration of positive self-image: Ideological circles in the mediatization of government-migrant worker relations during Covid 19
This article focuses on migrant workers (MWs) during Covid-19 in Singapore. A second wave of Covid-19 transmissions in MW dormitories in 2020 had cast a spotlight on this vulnerable population, amidst inter/national criticisms of the national government for oversight. From a critical discourse studies perspective, we examine how the national newspaper attempted to restore a positive self-image of the Singapore government, through the discursive m…
Intersectionalisation as meta-discursive practice: Complicated power dynamics in Pink Dot’s movement-building
This article adopts the combined perspectives of critical discourse studies and (critical) intersectionality studies to examine efforts at movement-building by Pink Dot SG, an LGBTQ group, which has developed within the illiberal geopolitical space of Singapore. The term ‘intersectionalisation’ is introduced to refer to a reflexive meta-discursive strategy which mobilizes the intersectionality of social identities (such as gender, sexuality, race…
Remediatisation, media interdiscursivity and ideological ambivalence in online news reports on sexual assault
Semiotic timescapes
In linguistic/semiotic landscape (LSL) studies, overall, time and temporalities have occupied a curious space between visibility and invisibility, resulting in time and temporalities being treated as an optional, additive, subordinate, or separate dimension in the linguistic and semiotic study of place-making. The term semiotic timescape serves as a heuristic concept which endeavours to centre time and its imbrication with space/place, with an ex…
Chronotopes of 'Chinese' privilege: Class-inflected racialisation in condominium hoardings
This article explores racial 'privilege' through the lens of temporalized landscapes. Specifically, I examine chronotopes of class-inflected 'Chinese' privilege on advertising hoardings for 'Jadescape', a condominium development in multiracial Singapore. Two chronotopic dimensions are discussed. The first, pertaining to representations inscribed on the hoardings, manifest a 'chronotopic bricolage', involving the fusion of a 'traditional racial-cu…
Ideological manoeuvres in and around Pink Dot: A geopolitics of gender/sexuality in Asia
This commentary comprises two parts. In the first part, different ways 'ideological manoeuvres' performed in and around Pink Dot discourses in Singapore and Hong Kong, as evinced in this special issue, are highlighted. 'Ideological manoeuvres' refer to the ideological actions and skilful management undertaken by social actors, explicitly or implicitly, to bring about or secure a tactical end in support of, or in opposition to, the Pink Dot LGBT s…
Cultural dilemmas of motherhood and gendered public/private spheres: The case of a remediatized Chinese reality show
Linguistic (homo)nationalism, legitimacies, and authenticities in Singapore's Pink Dot discourse
Pink Dot SG is an LGBTQ social movement in Singapore, which since its inception in 2009 organizes an annual free-to-all public gathering in the Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park. Over the years, the gathering has grown in size, and has gained national and international visibility. Prior to the event each year, a set of official YouTube promotional videos is released on its website in order to announce the event and garner support for the movement…
Politics of the ‘South’: Discourses and praxis
The introduction ‘Politics of the “South”’ refers simultaneously to the thematic focus of the special issue on political discourse studies in the southern hemisphere as well as a theoretical focus on the geopolitics of academic knowledge production and exchange. In the first part, concerns regarding the geopolitics of knowledge in the social sciences generally and linguistics particularly, and the problematic nature of the conceptual categories o…
Political Discourses and the Global South
Gender, sexuality, and semioscapes
Preview this article: Gender, sexuality, and semioscapes, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/ll.00008.laz-1.gif
Sociolinguistics of gender/sexual stereotyping
In commenting on the articles in this special issue, I focus on a sociolinguistics of gender and sexual stereotyping through a transnational perspective. Defining stereotypes as distillations of types of persons and practices expressive of ideological meanings and integral to power relations, a sociolinguistics study of stereotyping is proposed as encompassing a number of dimensions: the constitutiveness of language, discourse and genre; flatness…
Seeing from the South: Discourse, gender and sexuality from southern perspectives
This article frames the Special Issue on 'Discourse, Gender and Sexuality from the Global South'. It does so by providing an overview of the notion of the South in the social sciences and the humanities. We engage, in particular, with current theoretical discussions around a set of concepts and approaches that have been labelled 'southern theories', 'theories from the south', or 'southern epistemologies'. Against this backdrop, we explain why sou…
Homonationalist discourse as a politics of pragmatic resistance in Singapore's Pink Dot movement: Towards a southern praxis
Pink Dot SG is a non-profit social movement launched by LGBTQ Singaporeans to rally support for Singapore's LGBTQ community. Every year, since its inception in 2009, it organises a free-to-all public event, which attracts increasingly larger crowds. In this article, I undertake a critical multimodal analysis of one of its official promotional videos, in order to show how a discourse of homonormative nationalism, or homonationalism, is constructed…
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis
Recuperating Feminism, Reclaiming Femininity
Traditional gender stereotypes of women have been a common feature of consumer advertisements. In response to feminist criticisms against these stereotypical representations, as well as in recognition of a rising population of female wage earners in industrial societies, advertisers have ‘updated’ their representations of women as strong, confident and autonomous. This article analyses the construction of this ‘postfeminist’ femininity in print j…
Doing "critical" in a postfeminist era: Reviving Critical Consciousness Through Peer Dialog
Critical language awareness (CLA) has aimed to raise critical consciousness in language education about the social aspects of language use, and especially the relationship between language and power, and is considered to play a significant role in enabling learners to participate effectively in democratic citizenship within and beyond the classroom. With a focus on gender representations in the media, I explain CLA's usefulness in the study of ge…
Multimodality and Metaphors
Metaphors are commonly viewed as a figurative literary device that adds eloquence to a speech or text. The assumptions underlying this popular understanding of metaphors are that they are a property of words; they are used to achieve some artistic or rhetorical effect; they are based on a relationship of similarity between two entities; they are a conscious and skilled use of language; and they are a figure of speech whose function is merely deco…
Performing the ‘lifeworld’ in public education campaigns: Media interdiscursivity and social governance
In Singapore, top down public education campaigns have long been a mode of governance by which the conduct of citizens is constantly regulated. This article examines how in two fairly recent campaigns, a new approach to campaign communication is used that involves media interdiscursivity, viz., the mixing of discourses and genres in which the media constitute a significant element. The present approach involves the appropriation of a popular loca…
Entitled to consume: Postfeminist femininity and a culture of post-critique
The article provides a critical analysis of a postfeminist identity that is emergent in a set of beauty advertisements, called ‘entitled femininity’. Three major discursive themes are identified, which are constitutive of this postfeminist feminine identity: 1) ‘It’s about me!’ focuses on pampering and pleasuring the self; 2) ‘Celebrating femininity’ reclaims and rejoices in feminine stereotypes; and 3) ‘Girling women’ encourages a youthful dispo…
Discourse of global governanceAmerican hegemony in the post-Cold War era
Discourse of global governance: American hegemony in the post-Cold War era
This article is based on the view that in the post-Cold War period, a US-defined New World Order discourse has been in formation. Adopting a critical discourse analytical perspective, the paper examines the deployment of American liberal democratic political ideology, which forms the basis of the New World Order discourse. American liberal democracy is construed vis--vis the articulation of illiberal global threats (namely, Osama bin Laden and Sa…
The Language of Comics by Mario Saraceni
Talking Terrorism: A Dictionary of the Loaded Language of Political Violence by Philip Herbst
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Articulating a Feminist Discourse Praxis1
This article outlines a 'feminist critical discourse analysis' at the nexus of critical discourse analysis and feminist studies, with the aim of advancing rich and nuanced analyses of the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining hierarchically gendered social orders. This is especially pertinent in the present time; it is recognized that operations of gender ideology and institutionalized power asymmetries between (and am…
The Discourse of the New World Order: ‘Out-Casting’the Double Face of Threat
This article suggests that a productive way to make sense of the discourse and actions surrounding the 11 September 2001 attacks, and thereafter, is to view them within the larger context of the discourse of the ‘New World Order’. This involves an intertextual analysis of President Bush’s speeches since 11 September, along with speeches made by the previous presidents, George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton. Our focus is on a significant element of …
Discover The Power Of Femininity!”: Analyzing global “power femininity” in local advertising
10.1080/14680770600990002
Seeing from the South: Discourse, gender and sexuality from southern perspectives
This article frames the Special Issue on 'Discourse, Gender and Sexuality from the Global South'. It does so by providing an overview of the notion of the South in the social sciences and the humanities. We engage, in particular, with current theoretical discussions around a set of concepts and approaches that have been labelled 'southern theories', 'theories from the south', or 'southern epistemologies'. Against this backdrop, we explain why sou…
Homonationalist discourse as a politics of pragmatic resistance in Singapore's Pink Dot movement: Towards a southern praxis
Pink Dot SG is a non-profit social movement launched by LGBTQ Singaporeans to rally support for Singapore's LGBTQ community. Every year, since its inception in 2009, it organises a free-to-all public event, which attracts increasingly larger crowds. In this article, I undertake a critical multimodal analysis of one of its official promotional videos, in order to show how a discourse of homonormative nationalism, or homonationalism, is constructed…
Gender, Discourse and Semiotics: The Politics of Parenthood Representations
This article analyses the co-presence of two potentially contending discourses of gender relations - the Discourse of Egalitarian Gender Relations, and the Discourse of Conservative Gender Relations - in the domain of parenthood in a Singaporean national advertising campaign. The difference between the two discourses is a question of symmetry and asymmetry, respectively, in gender roles and expectations. By undertaking a combined analysis of ling…
For the Good of The Nation: Strategic Egalitarianism’ in the Singapore Context
In this article, I introduce the concept of ‘strategic egalitarianism’ in relation to women's co‐optation into nationalist projects in Singapore. By strategic egalitarianism, I mean the granting of equality to women that is contingent upon meeting particular pragmatic nationalist objectives. For example, the granting of equal educational and employment opportunities by the government in the 1960s was necessitated by Singapore's economic survival …
Semiosis, social change and governance: A critical semiotic analysis of a national campaign
This paper deals with national public campaigns as a government technology of social change and control. Focusing on Singapore's National Courtesy Campaign, particularly undertaken in the public road and transport field in recent years, the study examines how the operation of this technology reflects current shifts in political practice. Two emerging tendencies within the style of contemporary governance in Singapore are identified: governance-th…
Semiotic timescapes
In linguistic/semiotic landscape (LSL) studies, overall, time and temporalities have occupied a curious space between visibility and invisibility, resulting in time and temporalities being treated as an optional, additive, subordinate, or separate dimension in the linguistic and semiotic study of place-making. The term semiotic timescape serves as a heuristic concept which endeavours to centre time and its imbrication with space/place, with an ex…
Equalizing Gender Relations: A Case of Double-Talk
In recent years, an issue that has received plenty of national publicity in Singapore is the growing trend for well-educated women to remain single. The oft-cited reason for the trend is male dispreference for marrying women of an equal or higher educational standing than themselves. Arising from this situation, a series of `educational' ads was launched by the government. In this study, two such ads are closely analysed within a critical discour…
Politics of the ‘South’: Discourses and praxis
The introduction ‘Politics of the “South”’ refers simultaneously to the thematic focus of the special issue on political discourse studies in the southern hemisphere as well as a theoretical focus on the geopolitics of academic knowledge production and exchange. In the first part, concerns regarding the geopolitics of knowledge in the social sciences generally and linguistics particularly, and the problematic nature of the conceptual categories o…
Recuperating Feminism, Reclaiming Femininity
Traditional gender stereotypes of women have been a common feature of consumer advertisements. In response to feminist criticisms against these stereotypical representations, as well as in recognition of a rising population of female wage earners in industrial societies, advertisers have ‘updated’ their representations of women as strong, confident and autonomous. This article analyses the construction of this ‘postfeminist’ femininity in print j…
Ideological manoeuvres in and around Pink Dot: A geopolitics of gender/sexuality in Asia
This commentary comprises two parts. In the first part, different ways 'ideological manoeuvres' performed in and around Pink Dot discourses in Singapore and Hong Kong, as evinced in this special issue, are highlighted. 'Ideological manoeuvres' refer to the ideological actions and skilful management undertaken by social actors, explicitly or implicitly, to bring about or secure a tactical end in support of, or in opposition to, the Pink Dot LGBT s…
Linguistic (homo)nationalism, legitimacies, and authenticities in Singapore's Pink Dot discourse
Pink Dot SG is an LGBTQ social movement in Singapore, which since its inception in 2009 organizes an annual free-to-all public gathering in the Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park. Over the years, the gathering has grown in size, and has gained national and international visibility. Prior to the event each year, a set of official YouTube promotional videos is released on its website in order to announce the event and garner support for the movement…
Chronotopes of 'Chinese' privilege: Class-inflected racialisation in condominium hoardings
This article explores racial 'privilege' through the lens of temporalized landscapes. Specifically, I examine chronotopes of class-inflected 'Chinese' privilege on advertising hoardings for 'Jadescape', a condominium development in multiracial Singapore. Two chronotopic dimensions are discussed. The first, pertaining to representations inscribed on the hoardings, manifest a 'chronotopic bricolage', involving the fusion of a 'traditional racial-cu…
Cultural dilemmas of motherhood and gendered public/private spheres: The case of a remediatized Chinese reality show
Discourse of global governance: American hegemony in the post-Cold War era
This article is based on the view that in the post-Cold War period, a US-defined New World Order discourse has been in formation. Adopting a critical discourse analytical perspective, the paper examines the deployment of American liberal democratic political ideology, which forms the basis of the New World Order discourse. American liberal democracy is construed vis--vis the articulation of illiberal global threats (namely, Osama bin Laden and Sa…
Hopefully this will be a wake-up call on how we treat migrant workers: National wokeness in press reports during the Covid-19 pandemic
This study examines how Singapore’s flagship newspaper, The Straits Times (ST), framed relationships between migrant workers (MWs) and non-state actors (NGOs, companies and individuals) during the Covid-19 pandemic. We propose the conceptual lens of national wokeness as a mediatisation strategy of positive self-presentation to overcome international criticisms concerning the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus amidst neglected MW dormitories, and to r…
Remediatisation, media interdiscursivity and ideological ambivalence in online news reports on sexual assault
Political Discourses and the Global South
Sociolinguistics of gender/sexual stereotyping
In commenting on the articles in this special issue, I focus on a sociolinguistics of gender and sexual stereotyping through a transnational perspective. Defining stereotypes as distillations of types of persons and practices expressive of ideological meanings and integral to power relations, a sociolinguistics study of stereotyping is proposed as encompassing a number of dimensions: the constitutiveness of language, discourse and genre; flatness…
Doing "critical" in a postfeminist era: Reviving Critical Consciousness Through Peer Dialog
Critical language awareness (CLA) has aimed to raise critical consciousness in language education about the social aspects of language use, and especially the relationship between language and power, and is considered to play a significant role in enabling learners to participate effectively in democratic citizenship within and beyond the classroom. With a focus on gender representations in the media, I explain CLA's usefulness in the study of ge…
Equalizing Gender Relations: A Case of Double-Talk
In recent years, an issue that has received plenty of national publicity in Singapore is the growing trend for well-educated women to remain single. The oft-cited reason for the trend is male dispreference for marrying women of an equal or higher educational standing than themselves. Arising from this situation, a series of `educational' ads was launched by the government. In this study, two such ads are closely analysed within a critical discour…
Gender, Discourse and Semiotics: The Politics of Parenthood Representations
This article analyses the co-presence of two potentially contending discourses of gender relations - the Discourse of Egalitarian Gender Relations, and the Discourse of Conservative Gender Relations - in the domain of parenthood in a Singaporean national advertising campaign. The difference between the two discourses is a question of symmetry and asymmetry, respectively, in gender roles and expectations. By undertaking a combined analysis of ling…
For the Good of The Nation: Strategic Egalitarianism’ in the Singapore Context
In this article, I introduce the concept of ‘strategic egalitarianism’ in relation to women's co‐optation into nationalist projects in Singapore. By strategic egalitarianism, I mean the granting of equality to women that is contingent upon meeting particular pragmatic nationalist objectives. For example, the granting of equal educational and employment opportunities by the government in the 1960s was necessitated by Singapore's economic survival …
Women Beyond Borders (March-June 2001, Singapore)
10.1177/147035720200100305
Semiosis, social change and governance: A critical semiotic analysis of a national campaign
This paper deals with national public campaigns as a government technology of social change and control. Focusing on Singapore's National Courtesy Campaign, particularly undertaken in the public road and transport field in recent years, the study examines how the operation of this technology reflects current shifts in political practice. Two emerging tendencies within the style of contemporary governance in Singapore are identified: governance-th…
The Discourse of the New World Order: ‘Out-Casting’the Double Face of Threat
This article suggests that a productive way to make sense of the discourse and actions surrounding the 11 September 2001 attacks, and thereafter, is to view them within the larger context of the discourse of the ‘New World Order’. This involves an intertextual analysis of President Bush’s speeches since 11 September, along with speeches made by the previous presidents, George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton. Our focus is on a significant element of …
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse
The first collection to bring together well-known scholars writing from feminist perspectives within Critical Discourse Analysis. The theoretical structure of CDA is illustrated with empirical researc
Politicizing Gender in Discourse: Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis as Political Perspective and Praxis
A critical perspective on unequal social arrangements sustained through language use, with the goals of social transformation and emancipation, constitutes the cornerstone of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and many feminist language studies. Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis brings together, for the first time, an international collection of studies at the nexus of CDA and feminist scholarship (which includes feminist studies of language.) …
Discover The Power Of Femininity!”: Analyzing global “power femininity” in local advertising
10.1080/14680770600990002
Discourse, War and Terrorism
Discourse since September 11, 2001 has constrained and shaped public discussion and debate surrounding terrorism worldwide. Social actors in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere employ the language of the “war on terror” to explain, react to, justify and understand a broad range of political, economic and social phenomena. Discourse, War and Terrorism explores the discursive production of identities, the shaping of ideologies…
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Articulating a Feminist Discourse Praxis1
This article outlines a 'feminist critical discourse analysis' at the nexus of critical discourse analysis and feminist studies, with the aim of advancing rich and nuanced analyses of the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse in sustaining hierarchically gendered social orders. This is especially pertinent in the present time; it is recognized that operations of gender ideology and institutionalized power asymmetries between (and am…
Discourse of global governanceAmerican hegemony in the post-Cold War era
Discourse of global governance: American hegemony in the post-Cold War era
This article is based on the view that in the post-Cold War period, a US-defined New World Order discourse has been in formation. Adopting a critical discourse analytical perspective, the paper examines the deployment of American liberal democratic political ideology, which forms the basis of the New World Order discourse. American liberal democracy is construed vis--vis the articulation of illiberal global threats (namely, Osama bin Laden and Sa…
The Language of Comics by Mario Saraceni
Talking Terrorism: A Dictionary of the Loaded Language of Political Violence by Philip Herbst
Entitled to consume: Postfeminist femininity and a culture of post-critique
The article provides a critical analysis of a postfeminist identity that is emergent in a set of beauty advertisements, called ‘entitled femininity’. Three major discursive themes are identified, which are constitutive of this postfeminist feminine identity: 1) ‘It’s about me!’ focuses on pampering and pleasuring the self; 2) ‘Celebrating femininity’ reclaims and rejoices in feminine stereotypes; and 3) ‘Girling women’ encourages a youthful dispo…
Performing the ‘lifeworld’ in public education campaigns: Media interdiscursivity and social governance
In Singapore, top down public education campaigns have long been a mode of governance by which the conduct of citizens is constantly regulated. This article examines how in two fairly recent campaigns, a new approach to campaign communication is used that involves media interdiscursivity, viz., the mixing of discourses and genres in which the media constitute a significant element. The present approach involves the appropriation of a popular loca…
Multimodality and Metaphors
Metaphors are commonly viewed as a figurative literary device that adds eloquence to a speech or text. The assumptions underlying this popular understanding of metaphors are that they are a property of words; they are used to achieve some artistic or rhetorical effect; they are based on a relationship of similarity between two entities; they are a conscious and skilled use of language; and they are a figure of speech whose function is merely deco…
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis
Recuperating Feminism, Reclaiming Femininity
Traditional gender stereotypes of women have been a common feature of consumer advertisements. In response to feminist criticisms against these stereotypical representations, as well as in recognition of a rising population of female wage earners in industrial societies, advertisers have ‘updated’ their representations of women as strong, confident and autonomous. This article analyses the construction of this ‘postfeminist’ femininity in print j…
Doing "critical" in a postfeminist era: Reviving Critical Consciousness Through Peer Dialog
Critical language awareness (CLA) has aimed to raise critical consciousness in language education about the social aspects of language use, and especially the relationship between language and power, and is considered to play a significant role in enabling learners to participate effectively in democratic citizenship within and beyond the classroom. With a focus on gender representations in the media, I explain CLA's usefulness in the study of ge…
Sociolinguistics of gender/sexual stereotyping
In commenting on the articles in this special issue, I focus on a sociolinguistics of gender and sexual stereotyping through a transnational perspective. Defining stereotypes as distillations of types of persons and practices expressive of ideological meanings and integral to power relations, a sociolinguistics study of stereotyping is proposed as encompassing a number of dimensions: the constitutiveness of language, discourse and genre; flatness…
Seeing from the South: Discourse, gender and sexuality from southern perspectives
This article frames the Special Issue on 'Discourse, Gender and Sexuality from the Global South'. It does so by providing an overview of the notion of the South in the social sciences and the humanities. We engage, in particular, with current theoretical discussions around a set of concepts and approaches that have been labelled 'southern theories', 'theories from the south', or 'southern epistemologies'. Against this backdrop, we explain why sou…
Homonationalist discourse as a politics of pragmatic resistance in Singapore's Pink Dot movement: Towards a southern praxis
Pink Dot SG is a non-profit social movement launched by LGBTQ Singaporeans to rally support for Singapore's LGBTQ community. Every year, since its inception in 2009, it organises a free-to-all public event, which attracts increasingly larger crowds. In this article, I undertake a critical multimodal analysis of one of its official promotional videos, in order to show how a discourse of homonormative nationalism, or homonationalism, is constructed…
Gender, sexuality, and semioscapes
Preview this article: Gender, sexuality, and semioscapes, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/ll.00008.laz-1.gif
Sociology (31 works) · Political science (26 works) · Politics (22 works) · Gender Studies (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Linguistics (13 works) · Media studies (13 works) · Ideology (12 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (11 works)