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A Critical Discourse Analysis of Canada: a People's THE MYTHS THAT BIND US: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CANADA: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Foundations University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Joyce Hobday © Joyce Hobday, March 2006. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Department Head Educational Foundations College of Education University of Saskatchewan 28 Campus Drive Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 0X1 i ABSTRACT The 32- hour documentary series Canada: A People’s History was aired in 2000-2001 and has been widely disseminated: it is now available as video and DVD sets and has been aired in at least nine languages. In this thesis I examine the packaging of the series, that is, the images and promotional blurbs on the boxed DVD set and the introductory and concluding segments of the series, and I intensively examine Episode 10 “Taking the West” (1873-1896). Through Critical Discourse Analysis, I closely examine the language and other semiotic material used in Canada: A People’s History to analyse power relationships in the series. As well as paying attention to the overall structure of the verbal and visual text, I am attentive to the way in which grammar and words are used, and the representation that is portrayed through these elements. In this thesis, I find that while the series does include women and Aboriginal people, Canada: A People’s History’s use of language and images portrays a Canadian identity that privileges Whiteness and masculinity and that presents current power imbalances in society as natural and inevitable. By devaluing women and Aboriginal people in its representation, Canada: A People’s History lends legitimacy to the systemic discrimination against women and Aboriginal people in Canadian society. I find that the series presents past events as inevitable, over which people had no control or influence, and I argue that this presentation encourages people to accept the current situation, rather than challenging it and seeking alternatives. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to all the faculty members of the Departments of Educational Foundations and Curriculum Studies with whom I studied. Their collective knowledge, wisdom, and scholarship encouraged me to challenge my thinking. In particular, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Dianne Miller, my committee members, Dr. Richard Julien and Dr. Lynne Lemisko, and my external examiner, Dr. Valerie Korinek from the Department of History. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support I received from the SIAST professional development fund which was established through the collective bargaining process. I also acknowledge the unflagging personal support I received from family and friends throughout my graduate school experience. I am very thankful that I have had the privilege to attend graduate school and I am grateful to all the writers whose work I encountered that engaged my thinking. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PERMISSION TO USE..................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ iv INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 LANGUAGE, IMAGES, AND POWER...............................................4 Problem Statement.................................................................................................4 Critical Discourse Analysis and Poststructuralism................................................6 Analytical Approach: Fairclough’s Five Stage Framework ..................................8 Evaluation............................................................................................................10 Analytic Process ..................................................................................................12 CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION ..................................................14 Nation, Empire, Gender, and Race......................................................................14 Historiographic Debates ......................................................................................23 Reviews and Analyses of Canada: A People’s History ......................................27 CHAPTER 3 WHOSE STORY FOR WHOSE PURPOSES? ..................................32 Making History: Construction of the Series ........................................................32 History as Inevitability.........................................................................................37 CHAPTER 4 GENDER IN CANADA: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY...............................44 Where Are the Women? ......................................................................................44 Aboriginal Women ..............................................................................................45 White Women......................................................................................................47 Masculinity and Militarism .................................................................................54 The Significance of Gender in Canada: A People’s History ..............................57 CHAPTER 5 AND THE SETTLERS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH: WHITENESS AND ABORIGINALITY IN “TAKING THE WEST”60 The Frontier Myth................................................................................................60 Battle for the West: Crowfoot, Riel and Macdonald...........................................62 iv The Ordinary People in Canada: A People’s History: Portraits of Aboriginals and Settlers ..........................................................................................................65 Portrayal of the Land: Representing Entitlement ................................................69 Understanding my own Whiteness ......................................................................73 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION....................................................................................76 Discourse in Society............................................................................................76 Resistance............................................................................................................79 REFERENCES................................................................................................................81 APPENDIX A: AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF CANADA: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY INTRODUCTION AND EPILOGUE..................................................89 APPENDIX B: AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF “TAKING THE WEST” EPISODE BEGINNING .......................................................................................91 v INTRODUCTION In 2000, when CBC announced that it was producing a “history for the television age,” I eagerly anticipated its airing. Being a Social Studies teacher, I was always on the lookout for resources that would connect with the lived experiences of my students while providing them with tools for analysing society. In the adult upgrading program in which I teach, many of the students are Aboriginal, most are female, and most live in poverty while many of the teachers are, like me, White, female, and middle-class. I have been working to construct for myself, and assisting my students to construct for themselves, an understanding of Canada’s history that makes visible and analyses the contemporary and historical issues of power and privilege in our society. This understanding is important, not only as an academic exercise, but also as a theoretical basis for political and social action. Knowledge about oppression and power, according to Paulo Freire (1970), is an important part of praxis, “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (p. 66). This is consistent with the purported theoretical underpinning of the new curricula in the adult upgrading program in which I teach. This underpinning is a transformational approach, drawing on Freire (1970) and Mezirow (1990), among others. As I understand transformative learning, the naming and analysis of power and privilege within society is viewed as a necessary part of social change. In trying to incorporate
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