Discourse of future-orientedness as neoliberal ideal: metaphor scenarios as a means of representing neoliberal logics

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism is a pervasive hegemonic phenomena that manifests in variegated ways which can be associated with the numerous trajectories that it undertakes as it pervades various geographical contexts. This paper examines the metaphorical representations of neoliberal logics in the Singapore higher education context with the aim of elucidating how neoliberalism is applied towards particular objectives that are deemed as necessary and relevant by the Singapore state. The paper focuses specifically on the discourse of future-orientedness as state-sanctioned neoliberal ideal and utilises conceptual metaphor theory, in particular metaphor scenarios, to show how the discourse of future-orientedness is represented under the associated theme of being ready to face/facing challenges. Corporate newsletters from two Singapore universities, NUS and SMU, with their varied institutional backgrounds, are utilised for the analysis. What emerges from the analysis is a representation of the ideal neoliberal subject as agent, with characteristics of preparedness, being well-equipped, and possession of the ability to embrace change and move forward into an unknown, possibly adverse future. This representation is then linked to the specific context of Singapore, with its particular contextual factors that have enabled the entrenchment of particular types of hegemonic neoliberal logics as neoliberal ideal valorised by the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• conceptual metaphor theory
• critical discourse analysis
• neoliberalization
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/nus-and-ntu-tie-as-asias-top-university (Teng, 19 June 2019).

2 For the academic year 2016/2017, NUS had 27,702 full-time undergraduates enrolled (‘National University of Singapore (NUS) - Student and Graduate Statistics’, 2016). The next largest university enrolment was NTU with 23,495 full-time undergraduates enrolled (‘Nanyang Technological University (NTU) - Facts and Figures,’ 2016).

3 Nanyang University was established by the local Chinese community to offer Chinese-medium university education for students who had graduated from Chinese-medium schools.

4 The People’s Action Party (PAP), the current ruling party in Singapore, was made more aware of the need to avoid a high-handed approach that could lead to further electoral setbacks after their worst election performance in 2011.

5 ‘Diversity’ has become a frequently used term, especially in the domains of workplace management, race and gender. However, despite its positive connotations, questions remain as to its exact definition and whether its frequent use can potentially conceal existing inequalities (Eagleton-Pierce, 2016).

6 The terms ‘organisation’ and ‘institution’ are usually used interchangeably but an analytical distinction can be made where the former refers to the structural coordination of activities to operationalise particular objectives of a functional entity and the latter incorporates the element of significant social relevance into the activities of the organization as a functional entity (Selznick, 1984).

7 Wee (2015) makes a distinction between ‘agent’ and ‘actor’, where the former has a higher degree of autonomy and can challenge institutional myths. This distinction is not used here since the paper is not focused on the individual’s counter-hegemonic potential.

8 While there have been instances where corporations have corporate identities that construct the organisation as a metaphoric person, this is admittedly still a grey area (Lum, 2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marissa K. L. E.

Marissa is currently a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She recently attained her PhD and has previously worked on research projects in digital humanities, social semiotics and multimodal discourse analysis. Her PhD work involved using an inter-disciplinary approach to examine neoliberal discourses in the context of higher education and how neoliberal logic and subjectivities are represented in such discourses. This approach utilised an innovative theoretical framework that combined aspects of Discourse Theory with Critical Discourse Analysis. Her research interests also include systemic functional linguistics, critical multimodal discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory. She has published and presented in the areas of social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, multiliteracies and the use of multimodality for educational purposes.