Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:22:11.203Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Oxford University and Globalisation: Rebranding the Dreaming Spires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2020

Douglas Mark Ponton*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Catania, Via Vittorio Emanuele II 49, Catania95131, Italy. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Oxford currently finds itself in the process of an upheaval, provoked by the need to respond to the inroads made by globalising forces, which require all British universities to take on some of the characteristics of business organisations. Its distinguished academic reputation can no longer be entrusted to word of mouth, but instead the university must compete with other similar institutions through advertising and an energetic policy of rebranding. The principal communicative genre involved in this rebranding is the website, and this article explores the semiotic construction of webpages relating to Oxford’s ‘international mission’ in which, it is suggested, a covert attempt to attract foreign students is presented in the guise of a text whose ostensible purpose is to provide information.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, FK (2000) The changing face of accountability. Journal of Higher Education 71(4), 411431.Google Scholar
Arnold, M (1922) The Poems of Matthew Arnold 1840–1867, edited by Quiller-Couch, A. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aronczyk, M (2013) Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, GJ, Kavaratzis, M and Warnaby, G (2014) The need to rethink place branding. In Kavaratzis, M, Warnaby, G and Ashworth, GJ (eds), Rethinking Place Branding: Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions. Heidelberg and New York: Springer, pp. 113.Google Scholar
Bateman, JA (2008) Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baxter, LA (1984) An investigation of compliance-gaining as politeness. Human Communication Research 10(3), 427456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BBC News (2016) Online at: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-23614142, 28 February 2016 (accessed 6 November 2019).Google Scholar
Bennett, R, Ali-Choudhury, R and Savani, S (2007) Defining the components of a university brand: a qualitative investigation. Paper presented at the International Conference of Higher Education Marketing; 2–4 April 2008, Krakow, Poland.Google Scholar
Bhatia, V (2005) Generic patterns in promotional discourse. In Halmari, H and Virtanen, T (eds), Persuasion across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. London: John Benjamins, pp. 213226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloor, T and Bloor, M (1995) The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Bok, D (2003) Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bullo, S (2014) Evaluation in Advertising Reception: A Socio-cognitive and Linguistic Perspective. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerny, PG, Menz, G and Soederberg, S (2005) Different roads to globalization: Neoliberalism, the competition state, and politics in a more open world. In Soederberg, S, Menz, G and Cerny, PG (eds), Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Decline of National Varieties of Capitalism. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 133.Google Scholar
Chapleo, C (2011) Exploring rationales for branding a university: should we be seeking to measure branding in UK universities? Journal of Brand Management 18(6), 411422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, HH (1978) Inferring what is meant. In Levelt, WJM and Flores d’Arcais, GB (eds), Studies in the Perception of Language. London: Wiley, pp. 295321.Google Scholar
Clifton, R and Maughan, E (2000) Twenty-five Visions: The Future of Brands. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cook, G (1992) The Discourse of Advertising. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coulthard, M (1994) Advances in Written Text Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coupland, N (ed) (2010) The Handbook of Language and Globalization. Chichester: John Wiley CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, J and Newson, J (1998) Universities and Globalisation. Critical Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Deardorff, DK, De Wit, H, Heyl, J and Adams, T (eds) (2012) The Sage Handbook of International Higher Education. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Docherty, T (2011) For the University: Democracy and the Future of the Institution. London and New York: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Docherty, T (2015) Universities at War. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, P and Sterne, P (2006) Marketing Management and Strategy. Harlow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Entman, RM (2004) Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Evans, GR (2010) The University of Oxford: A New History. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N (1989) Language and Power. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Fairclough, N (1996) Technologization of discourse. In Caldas-Coulthard, CR and Coulthard, M (eds), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Flowerdew, J (2004) The discursive construction of a world-class city. Discourse and Society 15(5), 579605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, A (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Goddard, A (1998) The Language of Advertising. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grice, P (1989) Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, MAK and Matthiessen, CMIM (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3rd edn. London and New York: Hodder.Google Scholar
Hannerz, U (1992) Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hannerz, U (1996) Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hart, C (2014) Construal operations in online press reports of political protests. In Hart, C and Cap, P (eds), Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies. London and New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 167188.Google Scholar
Head, S (2011) The grim threat to British universities. The New York Review of Books. Available at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/01/13/grim-threat-british-universities/ (accessed 6 November 2019).Google Scholar
Hobbs, P (2003) Is that what we’re here about? A lawyer’s use of impression management in a closing argument at trial. Discourse and Society 14(3), 273290.Google Scholar
Hyatt, D (2005) Time for a change: a critical discoursal analysis of synchronic context with diachronic relevance. Discourse and Society 16(4), 515534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyland, K and Paltridge, E (2011) Introduction. In Hyland, K and Paltridge, E (eds), The Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 19.Google Scholar
Jevons, C (2006) Universities: a prime example of branding gone wrong. Journal of Product and Brand Management 15(7), 466467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kavaratzis, M, Warnaby, G and Ashworth, GJ (eds) (2015) Rethinking Place Branding: Comprehensive Brand Development for Cities and Regions. New York and London: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klassen, M (2002) Relationship marketing on the internet: the case of top and lower ranked universities and colleges. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 9, 8185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kress, G (1996) Representational resources and the production of subjectivity: questions for the theoretical development of critical discourse analysis in a multicultural society. In Caldas-Coulthard, CR and Coulthard, M (eds), Text and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge: London, pp. 1532.Google Scholar
Kress, G and Van Leeuwen, T (2002) Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication 7(4), 395423.Google Scholar
Kress, G and Van Leeuwen, T (2006) Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazar, MM (2009) Communicating (post) feminisms in discourse. Discourse and Communication 3, 339344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, H (2007) Excellence without a Soul. Does Liberal Education have a Future? New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Levinson, SC (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin Angel, MY and Martin, PW (eds) (2005) Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-in-Education Policy and Practice. Clevedon, Buffalo and Toronto: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Machin, D and Thornborrow, J (2003) Branding and discourse: the case of Cosmopolitan. Discourse and Society 14(4), 453471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J (2004) Mourning: how we get aligned. Discourse and Society 15(2-3), 321344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J and White, PRR (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Naidoo, R (2005) Universities in the marketplace: the distortion of teaching and research. In Barnett, R (ed.), Reshaping the University. Maidenhead: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill, pp. 2736.Google Scholar
Nöth, W (2001) Medien Pädagogik. Available at http://www.science.smith.edu/classwiki/images/2/22/Wordandimage.pdf (accessed 13 June 2018).Google Scholar
Oxford’s International Profile Available at https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/international-oxford/oxfords-international-profile?wssl=1 (accessed 6 November 2019).Google Scholar
Pinxten, H (2012). The humanities under fire? In Vanderbeeken, R, Le Roy, F, Stalpaert, C and Aerts, D (eds), Drunk on Capitalism. An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Market Economy, Art and Science. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 2534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preece, S (2011) Universities in the Anglophone centre: sites of multilingualism. Applied Linguistics Review 2, 121146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, A (2015) The war against humanities at Britain’s universities. Online at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/29/war-against-humanities-at-britains-universities, last visit 20/05/2018.Google Scholar
Pride, R (2001) Wales: can a country be a brand? In Gilmore, F (ed), Warriors on the High Wire: The Balancing Act of Brand Leadership in the Twenty-first Century. Bury St Edmunds: Harper Collins Business, pp. 163175.Google Scholar
Reisigl, M and Wodak, R (2001) Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sobolev, D (2003) Hopkins’ rhetoric: between the material and the transcendent. Language and Literature 12(2), 99115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, H (1996) Reconsidering power and distance. Journal of Pragmatics 26(1), 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tapper, T and Palfreyman, D (2011) Oxford, the Collegiate University: Conflict, Consensus and Continuity. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, P (2006) Branding higher education: illusion or reality? Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education 10(1), 1519.Google Scholar
Universities UK (2014) The funding environment for universities: international students in higher education: the UK and its competition. Universities UK 2014. London. Available at: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2014/international-students-in-higher-education.pdf (accessed 6 November 2019).Google Scholar
Van Dijk, TA (1991) Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T (1996) The representation of social actors. In Caldas-Coulthard, CR and Coulthard, M (eds), Texts and Practices. Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 3270.Google Scholar
Vasta, N (2005) Profits and principles: is there a choice? The multimodal construction of Shell’s commitment to social responsibility and the environment in and across advertising texts. In Cortese, G and Duszak, A (eds), Identity, Community, Discourse. English in Intercultural Settings. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 429452.Google Scholar
Waeraas, A and Solbakk, M (2008) Defining the essence of a university: lessons from higher education branding. Higher Education 57(4), 449462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherall, A (2002) Gender, Language and Discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weiss, G and Wodak, R (2007) Introduction: theory, interdisciplinarity and critical discourse analysis. In Weiss, G and Wodak, R (eds), Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity. London, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 135.Google Scholar
Wilson, D and Sperber, D (2012) Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winston, GC (1999) Subsidies, hierarchy and peers: the awkward economics of higher education. Journal of Economic Perspectives 13(1), 1336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wodak, R (2011) Critical discourse analysis. In Hyland, K and Paltridge, E (eds), The Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 3854.Google Scholar
Wodak, R and Meyer, M (2001) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodman, C (2016) Warwick University plc: neo-liberalism, authoritarianism and resistance, Prometheus 34(1), 3948.CrossRefGoogle Scholar