Jessica Hughes - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jessica Hughes

This dissertation offers a critical, action implicative discourse analysis of neurodiversity (ND)... more This dissertation offers a critical, action implicative discourse analysis of neurodiversity (ND) advocacy online. The neurodiversity movement is a contemporary disability rights movement aimed at autism acceptance grounded in an understanding of autism as natural neurological variation. ND advocacy is a site of discursive struggle where advocates work to redefine autism and combat stigma. This study takes a novel, hybrid discourse analytic approach in an effort to understand why ND advocacy is needed and how its emancipatory potential might be developed. Using a critical discourse analytic lens the author first examines dominant autism discourse in order to better understand how oppressive discursive mechanisms disadvantage autistic individuals in the U.S. Next, ND advocacy practices are reconstructed using action implicative discourse analytic methods to foster normative reflection about what ND advocacy ought to look like. The author finds that, while ND advocacy is making important strides in changing public conversations around autism, the young movement has yet to address its own problems of exclusion. The concluding chapter offers some ideas for ways in which advocates might work to include disenfranchised members of the autistic community and more parent advocates

Disability Studies Quarterly, 2021

No abstract available.

Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2016

The National Council on Disability (NCD) is a federal agency that connects members of a broad dis... more The National Council on Disability (NCD) is a federal agency that connects members of a broad disability community to federal policymakers within the deliberative system (Mansbridge, 2012) that constitutes the disability rights movement in the U.S. In this critical discourse analysis, the author considers the Council's depiction of the deliberative system in its publication Equality of opportunity: The making of the Americans with Disabilities Act (NCD, 2010). Paying particular attention to discourses of unity and difference within this history of the ADA and in NCD's About Us web pages, the study looks to understand how the Council's depiction of the disability community and portrayal of its own role within the deliberative system impacts their legitimacy within the disability rights movement. Interrogating the ways in which unity is privileged over diversity in NCD's history of the ADA shows how the Council exhibits a consensus democratic orientation that presents the disability community as an unwavering force to be reckoned with, positions the National Council on Disability at a position of power within its deliberative system, and highlights the deliberative nature of NCD's mission. However, the ways in which NCD's history of the ADA downplays difference in favor of unity sidesteps stakeholder concerns and fails to engage with social difference as a resource for inclusion and collaboration. Further, NCD discourse works to define human worth in terms of work and deliberation in terms of consensus in ways that reinforce stigma around disability and exclude underrepresented groups. The author offers some practical suggestions aimed at helping the Council and other policymakers and leaders in social justice movements to incorporate more pluralist perspectives to address issues of exclusion.

Review of Communication, 2018

ABSTRACT This article argues for an increased emphasis on resistance in Critical Discourse Studie... more ABSTRACT This article argues for an increased emphasis on resistance in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), thereby joining calls for more Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), a branch of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) focused on progressive—rather than oppressive—discourse that has been slowly gaining traction in international circles but remains largely unknown within U.S. communication studies. While CDS brings oppression and resistance together in theory, in practice it is overwhelmingly focused on deconstructing oppression, not reconstructing resistance. In spite of calls for more generative analyses focused on progressive discourses, PDA has not yet been established as a necessary complement to CDA. Thus, CDS’s potential as a lens for understanding resistance is underdeveloped. In an effort to push CDS in a more progressive direction, this article considers the role of design in CDS and outlines the aims, contributions, and challenges of PDA as a tool for emancipatory CDS research. A critical action implicative discourse analysis of neurodiversity discourse is provided as a model of PDA that may be useful for scholars interested in analyzing progressive discourse as well as disability rights activists interested in challenging cognitive ableism.

Information, Communication & Society, 2017

This is a book review for Filippo Trevisan’s Disability rights advocacy online: voice, empowermen... more This is a book review for Filippo Trevisan’s Disability rights advocacy online: voice, empowerment and global connectivity (2017).

Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 2015

ABSTRACT Institutes of higher education around the world respond to the challenge of globalizatio... more ABSTRACT Institutes of higher education around the world respond to the challenge of globalization by internationalizing their curricula. We argue that adding an element of cultural reflection to curriculum design is an important step toward internationalization. We use ethnographic analysis to highlight the cultural gap between Anglo-American and non-Anglo interpretations of public speaking. We begin by reconstructing the Anglo cultural ideal of public speaking from a historical overview of the evolution of the public speaking textbook (Sproule, J.M. [2012]. Inventing public speaking: Rhetoric and the speech book, 1730–1930. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 15, 563–608.). Then, we review alternative cultural models of public speaking. Finally, we identify directions for future research and curriculum design.

The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, 2015

ABSTRACT Indexicality is the function by which linguistic and nonlinguistic signs point to aspect... more ABSTRACT Indexicality is the function by which linguistic and nonlinguistic signs point to aspects of context. This concept encompasses all of the ways communicative acts are situated in relation to spatiotemporal, historical, discursive, social, interactional, and other contexts. Interactants draw on contextual parameters to create and interpret particular meanings for signs in use. These indexical meanings position speakers, listeners, and others in time and place, in relation to each other, and along ideological axes, at the same time cuing social meanings associated with identity categories. In this article connections between signs and contexts are explained in terms of key concepts and theoretical approaches. Indexical features of discourse like deictics, contextualization cues, stance indicators, membership categorization, and linguistic variation are addressed. For full encyclopedia, visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781118611463.

Journal of Applied Communication Research, 2014

ABSTRACT This study develops a context-grounded ideal about how citizens ought to communicate in ... more ABSTRACT This study develops a context-grounded ideal about how citizens ought to communicate in legislative hearings about contentious issues. We begin with an overview of the dominant model of good citizen discourse, democratic deliberation, and argue why it is an inappropriate norm for public hearings in state legislative bodies. After overviewing grounded practical theory (GPT), the meta-theoretical approach used, and providing background on the demands of public meetings, we describe the public hearing that is the focal data. That hearing was the 18-hour, 2009 Hawaii hearing on a bill that proposed to recognize committed relationships of same-sex couples through civil unions. The analysis of citizen testimony evidences a discourse strategy, democracy-appealing partisanship, which speakers on both sides of the issue used to manage the challenges they confronted in speaking out. This strategy involved advocating strongly for one viewpoint as an appeal to either majority rule or minority rights and/or either freedom of religion or separation of church and state were made. In concluding, we describe the problem to which this strategy is responsive, justify the norm of democracy-appealing partisanship, and offer implications for future studies using GPT.