FASS Staff Profile

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MICHELLE M. LAZAR
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT of ENGLISH, LINGUISTICS & THEATRE STUDIES

Appointment:
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Office:
AS5/03-12
Email:
ellmml@nus.edu.sg
Tel:
(65) 6516-3700
Fax:
(65) 6773-2981
Homepage:
http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/ellmml/
Tabs

Brief Introduction

I am a linguist with specialisations in critical discourse analysis, feminist discourse studies, and multimodal discourse analysis. 

I earned by PhD in Linguistics (1998) from Lancaster University, UK, and my MA (1991) and BA with Honours (1989) degrees from the National University of Singapore.


Teaching Areas

Courses Currently Teaching:

  • EL3254  Media, Discourse and Society (Undergraduate)
  • EL4254  Language, Ideology and Power (Undergraduate, Honours)
  • EL5253  Textual Construction of Knowledge (Postgraduate.)
  • EL5254  Language, Gender and Sexuality (Postgraduate)

Courses Previously Taught (here and in the UK):

  • Critical Discourse Analysis
  • Discourse Analysis
  • Gender and Discourse
  • Feminist Theory and Discourse
  • Language and Gender
  • Gender and Communication
  • Media, Culture and Communication
  • New Directions in Language Use
  • Text and Knowledge
  • Critical Reading and Writing
  • English in Context
  • English in Applied Linguistics
  • Nature of Language

Teaching Awards:

  • Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 2006.
  • Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 2007.
  • Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 2013.

Research Supervision:

I have supervised and examined about 100 Honours, Masters, and Ph.D theses and research projects in critical/discourse studies in the following areas:

  • Language, Power and Ideology: application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in a variety of domains; critique of the CDA research programme; systemic functional framework for the analysis of ideology; language ideologies
  • Media discourse:  advertising and ideology; pragmatics in advertising; genre analyses of commercial, philanthropic and institutional advertising; code-mixing in advertisements; news analysis of immigration; 9/11 news reportage; Iraq war in the media; expository styles of government and public discourses in the 'Letters to the Editor' pages; elections coverage in national newspapers; identity in personal weblogs; use of Singlish on the internet; CMC features in teen weblogs; job advertisements; empowermnt on social media
  • Gender/sexuality in discourse:  gender roles in fairy tales; gender in sexuality education; masculinities in men's magazines; women and politeness in interaction; gay self-representation in public discourse; gay resistance on the internet; blame strategies in violence against women; gender in advertising; gender and ideology in women's magazines; gender representations in short stories; feminist emancipatory discourse; feminist internet discourse
  • Multimodal discourse analysis:  visual semiotics and the production of meaning in adverts; 9/11 news images; political cartoons; graphic novels and the postmodern multimodal narrative; newspaper layout analysis; hypertext analysis; intersemiosis in multisemiotic texts; children's picture books; virtual worlds (e.g. 'Second Life'); spatial modalities
  • Political discourse:  politicians' memoirs; international relations in the news media; political cartoons; government campaigns; political satire; the 'war on terror'; metaphor in political discourse
  • Religious discourse:  tenor relationships in the Catholic mass; interfaith dialogue and discourse of common ground; feminist interpretations of the Bible; sermons in evangelical churches

Current Research

My current research projects include feminist critical discourse analysis, political discourse, and multimodality in advertising. 


Research Interests

  • Critical Discourse Analysis
  • Gender, Feminism, Sexuality
  • Multimodality
  • Media Discourse
  • Political Discourse

Publications

BOOKS/MONOGRAPHS AUTHORED

  • Lazar, M. M. (2005) (ed.) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse. London: Palgrave.  (Reprinted in paperback, 2007)

     

            

     

    JOURNAL ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS/MONOGRAPHS/PROCEEDINGS/REVIEWS

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (1993) 'Equalizing Gender Relations: A Case of Double-Talk’, Discourse & Society, 4(4).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (1997) 'Gender in Discourse’, in T. A. van Dijk (ed.). Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Volume 2: Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage. (with C. West and C. Kramarae).

    .

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (1998) '“Then Something Wonderful Happened”: Advertising a Lifestyle on Offer’. Centre for Language in Social Life Series, No. 92. Lancaster University.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (1999) 'Family Life Advertisements and the Narrative of Heterosexual Sociality’, in P. Chew and A. Kramer-Dahl (eds.). Reading Culture: Textual Practices in Singapore. Singapore: Times Academic Press.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2000) 'El género en el discurso’, en T. A. Van Dijk (compilador). El Discurso Como Interacción Social. Barcelona: Gedisa. (con C. West y C. Kramarae). 

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2000) 'Gender, Discourse and Semiotics: The Politics of Parenthood Representations’, Discourse & Society, 11(3).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2001) 'For the Good of the Nation: “Strategic Egalitarianism” in the Singapore Context’, Nations and Nationalism, 7(1).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2002) 'Women Beyond Borders’, Visual Communication, 1(3). 

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2002) 'Consuming Personal Relationships: The Achievement of Feminine Self-Identity through Other-Centredness’, in L. Litosseliti and J. Sunderland (eds.). Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2002) Review of D. Cameron's ‘Working with Spoken Discourse’ in Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6(1).

     

    ·      Lazar, M.M. (2002) Review of S.Titscher et al.'s ‘Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis’ in Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6(1).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2003) ‘Semiosis, Social Change, and Governance: A Critical Semiotic Analysis of a National Campaign’, Social Semiotics, 13 (3).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2004) ‘The Discourse of the New World Order: "Outcasting" the Double Face of Threat’, Discourse & Society, 15 (2-3) (with A. Lazar).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2005) ‘Politicizing Gender in Discourse: Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis as Political Perspective and Praxis’,  in M.M. Lazar (ed.).  Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2005) ‘Performing State Fatherhood: The Remaking of Hegemony’, in M.M. Lazar (ed.).  Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2005) ‘American Neo-Liberal Hegemony and the Positioning of the New Enemy: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Global Politics in the Post-Cold War Era’, in M Postigo (ed.).  Approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis.  Valencia: Universitat de Valencia Servei de Publicacions.  (with A. Lazar).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2005) ‘Discursive Construction of the "Other" in the New World Order’, MICOLLAC 2005 (Critical Perspectives in the Theory and Practice of the New World Order).  Serdang: UPM. (with A. Lazar). 

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2006) ‘"In the Pursuit of Justice":  The Discursive Construction of America as Global Policeman in the New World Order’ in T. Le (ed.).  Proceedings of the International Conference on Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory into Research. Tasmania: University of Tasmania.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2006) ‘Discover the Power of Femininity! Global "Power Femininity" in Local Advertising’, Feminist Media Studies, 6(4).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2007) ‘Enforcing Justice, Justifying Force:  America's Justification of Violence in the New World Order’, in A. Hodges and C. Nilep (eds.).  Discourse, War and Terrorism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (with A. Lazar).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2007) ‘Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Articulating a Feminist Discourse Praxis’,  Critical Discourse Studies, 4(2).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2007) ‘Gender, Discourse and Semiotics: The Politics of Parenthood Representations’, in T. A. Van Dijk (ed.).  The Study of Discourse. London: Sage. (Reprinted from Discourse & Society, 2000, 11(3)).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2007) ‘The Politics of Othering in the New World Order', in  F.S. Abdullah, M. H. Abdullah and B.H. Tan  (eds.).  Critical Perspectives on Language and Discourse in the New World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. (with A. Lazar)

     

     ·   Lazar, M.M. (2008) Review of M. Saraceni's 'Language of Comics' in Journal of Sociolinguistics. 12 (2).

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2008) Review of P. Herbst's 'Talking Terrorism' in Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4).  

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2008) ‘Language and Communication in the Public Sphere: A Perspective from Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis’, in  R. Wodak and V. Koller (eds.). Communication in the Public Sphere.  Handbook of Applied Linguistics., Vol. 4. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

     

    ·    Lazar, M.M. (2009) ‘The Discourse of Global Governance: American Hegemony in the Post Cold War Era',  Journal of Language and Politics. 7(2).  (with A. Lazar)

OTHERS

  •  

Editorial Work For Books

  • Series Editor of Critical Studies in Discourse (New York and London: Routledge).

The series publishes high quality original research monographs broadly in the field of critical discourse studies. It seeks theoretically innovative and empirically rigorous research that advances our critical understandings of the interrelations of discourse and social processes, including all aspects of power relations: from perspectives of maintenance and perpetuation of dominance, to negotiations of power and resistances, as well as solidarity formations for group empowerment. The series encourages interdisciplinarity of research, and welcomes investigations of new topics, domains, issues, frameworks and methods, as well as fresh perspectives on established ones, from a variety of international and cultural contexts. A broad understanding of 'discourse' is adopted in the series to include systematic and explicit analyses of spoken/written language and other modes of semiosis (e.g. visual images, sounds, gestures and actions).

 

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please send the proposal (with sample chapters and your cv) to me at ellmml@nus.edu.sg

 

  • Invited Reviewer of Book Proposals/Manuscripts for Routledge.

 

 

Editorial Work For International Journals

 

Membership on Editorial/Advisory Boards

  • Discourse and Society
  • Visual Communication
  • Social Semiotics
  • Gender and Language
  • Critical Discourse Studies
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Studies in Language and Capitalism
  • Revista Linguistica y Lenguas Aplicades

Invited Talks and Lectures

I have been invited to give presentations and lectures in several countries:

  • Austria (Salzburg) -- on discourses of multiculturalism, women's political participation 
  • Britain (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Birmingham, Cardiff, Central Lancashire, Glamorgan, Leeds, Manchester, Stirling, Sunderland) -- on media discourse, gender, critical discourse analysis, multimodality 
  • China (Hangzhou) -- on political discourse
  • Denmark (Aalborg) -- on feminist critical discourse analysis and multimodality
  • India (Rajasthan) -- on critical language awareness
  • Spain (Barcelona) -- on gender and discourse
  • Taiwan (Kaohsiung) -- on gender and critical language awareness
  • Turkey (Izmir) -- on feminist critical discourse analysis and the media
  • Yemen (Sana'a) -- on critical discourse analysis

 

Other International Academic Service

  • External Examiner of Ph.D Thesis for Macquarie University, Australia (2001)
  • Judge, BAAL Book Prize (2004)
  • Invited to join the International Advisory Board, UNESCO Chair in Discourse and Society (2007- )
  • Advisory Council Member, International Gender and Language Association (2008- )
  • International Advisory Committee, International Multidisciplinary Women's Congress (2008- ) 
  • Invited Reviewer, Research Grant Proposal, Israel Science Foundation (2009- )

Administrative Service

  • Staff Advisor, Literary Society (1999-2000)
  • Secretary, Organising Committee, Language and the Mind Conference (2000)
  • Member, Research Committee (2001-2002)
  • Member, Research and Graduate Studies Committee (2002-2003)
  • Member, Faculty's Central List of Teachers for Peer Review (2004- )
  • Member, Gender Studies Minor Programme Committee (2004- )
  • Mentor, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Programme (2005)
  • Coordinator, Department's Staff Seminar Series (2005-2006)
  • Coordinator, Department's Outreach Programme (2006- )
  • Member, Search Committee (for tenure-track and visiting EL positions in Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics) (2006-2007)
  • Member, Search Committee (for visiting EL position in Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Multimodality) (2007)
  • Member, Syllabus Review Steering Committee for General Paper (2007- )
  • Member, Department Evaluation Committee (for promotion) (2007-  )
  • Member, Organising Committee, Fourth International Conference on Multimodality (2008)
  • Member, Search Committee (for tenure-track EL position in Sociolinguistics (2008- )
  • Academic Convenor, Gender Studies Minor Programme (2008- )
  • Assistant Dean (Graduate Studies and Research) (2009-  )

 

Invited Media Interviews

I have been approached by the local media to provide expert views on a range of topics concerning the media and popular culture, public campaigns, and communication practices. These include:

  • Straits Times’ Life! interview on the ‘Language of Wit and Satire on Reality TV Shows’, 28 January 2004. 
  • Radio Singapore International’s interview on ‘Michael Jackson the Icon’, 22 April 2004.
  • News Radio 93.8 interview on the ‘Speak Mandarin Campaign’, 28 November 2004.
  • MediaCorp Radio’s invitation to appear as a panelist on the topic ‘Popular Culture in Singapore’, 17 May 2005.
  • Straits Times Interactive interview on the ‘Use of Profanity in Communication’, 30 March 2006.
  • Channel News Asia interview on 'Gender Stereotypes and Inequalities', July 2008.
  • My Paper interview on 'Movie villians and society's changing perceptions', July 2008.
  • News Radio 93.8 interview on 'Language of Terrorism', August 2008.
  • Today Newspaper interview on 'Barbie turns 50', March 2009.

 

Community/Volunteer Service

Don't breed or buy while homeless dogs die.

I am a volunteer/member/supporter of the following animal welfare organisations:

  • Action for Singapore Dogs (ASD)

http://www.asdsingapore.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=8&Itemid=108

  • Noah's Ark Cares

http://www.noahsarkcares.com/

  • Animal Lovers League

http://www.animalloversleague.com/

  • Animal Concerns Research and Education Society  (ACRES)

http://www.acres.org.sg/

  • Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA)

http://www.spca.org.sg/gallerydog1.html

 

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