“I’m a licensed professional teacher, of course, I’m un(der)employed”: Teachers’ identities and social suggestions from transitivity in Facebook posts
Article

Neologisms and ingenuities can either impinge on language atrophy or induce much more open public discourses. A viral short linguistic template “I’m/We’re X, of course, I/we Y” on social media has afforded open discourses, albeit stereotypically. Using 343 clauses posted on a public Facebook page, this study combines the transitivity processes of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) with critical discourse analysis. Results show that Filipino Licensed Professional Teachers (LPTs) stereotypically view themselves as The Employed, The Un(der)employed, The Determined, The Practical, The Deprived, The Frustrated, The Needy, The Dictated, and The Questioned. These identities reinforce the emergence of the themes: un(der)employment; currency of the license; alleged backer system; and the exodus of LPTs to other countries due to unavailability of teaching items. The study contributes to the greater appreciation of the potent power of short linguistic expressions for wider discourses. While conducted in the context of the Philippines, the insights of this study may hold a universal relevance for the discourses of social inequality, nepotism, bureaucracy, and neoliberalism in the academe.

Revisiting the ‘Aquino Magic’: Extending Neoliberal Interests and Foreshadowing Communicative Capitalism in the Philippines
Article

The media hype over former president Corazon Aquino’s burial, specifically the cinematic coverage of big network stations and the outpouring of voices on print and new media about “Cory Magic,” are conscious and purposive articulations of a historical event. This paper contends that in this event and its attendant images, participated in and co-created by the population, lies an implicit strategy that intensifies the neoliberal project.

The constant reference to and revival of the “Cory Magic/Aquino Magic” can be rationalized as a phenomenon wielded by the media and the state to do a makeover of its political institutions constantly racked by crisis and instability under a neoliberal setup. This is made possible through the operation of communicative capitalism as evidenced by how the media orchestrated the coverage of Cory Aquino’s burial, accentuating necropolitics in the name of democracy while effacing the symbolic efficacy of people’s power.

Volume 12 Issue 01 · February 2015 · Special Issue · Main Article