Trip to Sweden Enriches Doctoral Studies Experience
In June 2018, Christopher A. Smith, a doctoral candidate in the School of Linguistics and Language Studies, attended a Symposium in Orebro, Sweden – “Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis” (MCDA).
On the second floor of an old, Victorian manor (Ostra Mark), at Orebro University campus, Chris joined host David Machin (Orebro University) and keynote speakers Andrea Mayr (Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland), John E. Richardson (Loughborough University, UK), Chiao-I Tseng (University of Bremen, Germany), and Tomasso Milani (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), along with 20 other PhD students from around the world to present their research over two days. It was a tremendous opportunity to speak with some key researchers in the field of multimodality and critical discourse analysis.
Following up on some advice from David Machin and Andrea Mayr, Chris refined his research after returning to Canada. Moving forward from that experience, Chris’ “Weaponized Iconoclasm in Internet Memes featuring ‘Fake News’” will be published in Discourse and Communication (June 2019). Perhaps the story here is not to be intimidated by preparing a research paper and submitting it for publication on one’s own. The considerable guidance afforded by our professors is meant to take us to that ‘step’.