Vietnam national university Hanoi University of languages and international studies Faculty of Post-graduate studies -------*****-------- ĐÀO THỊ LAN TRANG DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ANDREA SACHS’ IDENTITIES IN THE MOVIE “THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA” (Nghiên cứu về cách kiến tạo đặc tính cá nhân thông qua diễn ngôn của nhân vật Andrea Sachs trong bộ phim “The devil wears Prada”) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201. NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ HANOI – 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vietnam national university Hanoi University of languages and international studies Faculty of Post-graduate studies -------*****-------- ĐÀO THỊ LAN TRANG DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ANDREA SACHS’ IDENTITIES IN THE MOVIE “THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA” (Nghiên cứu về cách kiến tạo đặc tính cá nhân thông qua diễn ngôn của nhân vật Andrea Sachs trong bộ phim “The devil wears Prada”) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.
NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ HANOI – 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Đào Thị Lan Trang, group QH.2015, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS From the bottom of my heart, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, who enthusiastically supported me during the process of doing research.
I owe much of my completion of this research to her invaluable guidance and encouragement. I would also like to show my sincere thanks to my classmates who gave me helpful support and advice to go through this strenuous process. Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks are for my loving family with their unconditional love, understanding and encouragement for me over this whole period of time. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT Undeniably, the intricate constructions of film characters’ identities have always been a noteworthy matter of research as they play an integral part in transferring film messages to the audience.
One of the most attention- grabbing film in the early 21st century is “Devil wears Prada”, which has intrigued both linguists and researchers in other fields in the search for its messages and associated ideologies conveyed through its characters. This paper makes an endeavour to shed light on linguistic tools employed in the construction of the main character’s identities. Based on that, the paper also aims to interpret the film’s social messages as well as the context impacting on such a character’s identity construction process. For the accomplishment of these purposes, critical discourse analysis and Fairclough’s three-dimensional model have been employed, facilitating the analysis of the film script.
The study’s findings show that the main linguistic devices used to construct the two most visible identities of the main character, gender identity and professional identity are euphemism, negation, modality, hedges, jargons, metaphor lexical resources and communicative styles. Besides, the study, while giving an insight into the social context, offers three interpretations drawn from the construction of the character’s identities. They are: the entanglement of feminist and anti-feminist ideas, the resurgence of natural sexual difference and the commonly held concept of woman objectification. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACCEPTANCE PAGE.
iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the research. Research aims and objectives. Scope of the research.
The significance of the research. The structure of the study.5 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND & LITERATURE REVIEW. Discourse and discursive construction of identities. Discursive construction of identities.
Different perspectives on multiple identities. Some common types of social identities .14 Summary of chapter two. General information on the film. Data selection method.
Data analysis method and procedure. The frameworks for data analysis .19 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Data analysis procedure .23 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The construction of Andrea’s identities.
Interpretations of Andrea’s identities construction under the influence of social context. Screen adaptations of “The Devil wears Prada”. The influence of postfeminism era on Andrea’s identities construction .42 Summary of chapter four. Limitations of the research.
Suggestions for further studies .59 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter states the problem and the rationale for the research, together with the aims and the scope of the study. Also, the research questions, which work as the guidelines for the paper, are clearly presented in this chapter. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the research It is undeniable that one’s identities and ideology are interconnected in real life. Studies such as Malesevic, S.
(2013) affirmed the decisive role of ideology in the creation and preservation of an individual’s social identities. In the context of film discourse, the images of film characters cannot be constructed randomly, but with a production crew’s purpose to reflect contemporary social problems, convey their own thoughts and beliefs towards the problem and deliver hidden messages of solutions to the audience. In other words, film characters’ identities, especially those of main characters, are, undoubtedly, the representation of ideology which can influence the audience when communicated through the screen. In order to construct characters’ identities, a production crew must employ a discourse with different strategies in which linguistic devices are always an indispensable part.
Undoubtedly, film characters’ lexical resources, grammatical structures, communication styles and so forth all contribute to portraying the identities that a film crew wishes the audience to perceive, as stated in Hall (2013): “. In our use of language, we represent a particular identity. Consequently, research into the discursive identity construction of a character is significant as it is an approach to shedding light on the use of strategies in constructing identities as well as the influence of social context on film production. In this study, the researcher focuses mainly on exploring linguistic devices employed to construct identities of the main character- Andrea and making interpretations of such a construction under hidden ideologies influenced by contemporary social context.
“The devil wears Prada” was a very successful film, drawing not only moviegoers’ but many researchers’ attention for its implied messages on many 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com aspects of life. Up to now, a certain number of studies and articles in a wide range of fields have been involved in the film. For example, Hudders, L. (2012) focused on marketing features and used the film as a demonstration to present ideas on people’s motives to purchase luxury brands.
Some other studies provided insight into media- related matters such as Gick, E. (2007) on the fashion formation process in a disclosure game between designers and media or Olya, A. (2011) on the image of a female fashion editor-in-chief presented through the media. There are also studies taking human and social issues of the film into account, such as Spiker, J.
(2017) on female power, or Gelogullari, G.(2015) on female friendship in the fashion industry. Meanwhile, studies like Hartini, M. (2011) focused on discussing specific linguistic elements in the film script and so forth. Nevertheless, currently, few studies are involved in the discursive construction of a character’s identities in the film “The Devil wears Prada”.
Also, the study into this matter can be a reference source for further investigation into related matters of the film “The devil wears Prada” in specific, and of film discourse in general. Research aims and objectives In general, the study aims at exploring the relationship between discourse and the construction of a film character’s identities. In particular, the study has two objectives. One is exploring linguistic devices employed in the construction of identities of the main character in “The devil wears Prada” – Andrea.
The other is discovering the social context of the film and discuss such identities construction in the light of the context. Research questions The study seeks the answers to the two questions. The first question is related to the discursive construction of the main character’s gender and professional identity. This question could be solved primarily based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model (2010).
The second question is concerned with the impact of the contemporary social context on the construction of identities. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com For this question, the researcher will present her own interpretations to shed light on the factors determining such construction of identities for the main character- Andrea. All in all, the two targeted research questions are as follows: 1. How are Andrea Sachs’ gender and professional identities discursively constructed? 2.
How is the discursive construction of those identities possibly influenced by the contemporary social context? 1. Research methods To resolve the above-mentioned research questions, the researcher will employ a qualitative approach to the analysis of conversations between Andrea Sachs and other characters in the film. The analysis will be mainly based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework (2010) in which text, discourse practice and social practice are the three primary dimensions. According to this framework, discourse analysis consists of three steps, involving text analysis, interpretation and explanation.
Text analysis, as mentioned before in Fairclough, N. (1989), is “concerned with formal properties of text” such as the choice of vocabulary, grammar and text structure. Meanwhile, interpretation is involved in “the relationship between the text and interaction” when regarding the text as “the product of a production process”. That is, in this step, discourse is not only the text but also a form of discursive practice related to how people produce and how others comprehend as well as interpret the given text.
Finally, explanation step is concerned with the mutual impact of social contexts and the process of production and interpretation. The researcher will manually scrutinize the film’s script, especially Andrea Sachs’ lines. Then, the researcher will take note of linguistic means and attempt to interpret the underlying messages regarding Andrea Sachs’ identities. Also, the 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com researcher will search for information related to the social context of the film, based on the year it was released and its detected hidden messages.
In terms of the study’s results, for the first research question, specific linguistic aspects will be presented with quotes from Andrea’s conversations whereas for the second question, the researcher’s own interpretations will be revealed. Scope of the research Recently, multimodality, which involves the use of several modes (linguistic, aural, spatial, visual resources) to transmit messages, is a prevalent matter of concern among researchers doing discourse analysis. However, within the scope of this study, only linguistic aspects such as lexical use, grammatical structures and to some extent, communication styles will be analyzed as they best serve to answer the research questions. Although some visual features may be incorporated in the data analysis procedure, they will not serve as the main subject of analysis, but only assist to cast light on the context of the film.
In addition, as gender and professional identities are the most noticeable throughout the film, the researcher decided to focus on analyzing them, instead of other aspects of multiple identities such as sexual identity, ethnic identity, national identity and so forth. While gender identity refers to the concept of self as male, female, a mixture or neither, professional identity is related to one’s self-perceptions within the workplace’s context and the way one communicates this to others. The significance of the research In recent years, there have been a number of studies on discourse analysis in general and on the relationship between language, identity and society in particular.