Objectivation

Artur Lipiński, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland
artur.lipinski@amu.edu.pl

This concept was introduced by Theo van Leeuwen in his 1996 work ‘The Representation of Social Actors’ as part of a framework for analysing how social actors are represented in discourse. Objectivation appears when individuals or groups are depicted through references to a place or object closely linked to them or their actions. One of the typical figures employed to implement objectivation is metonymy where something associated with a person or their activity is used to represent them.

Objectivation can take a form that includes spatialisation, utterance autonomisation, instrumentalisation, and somatisation. Spatialisation occurs when people are represented by a place closely connected to them. Utterance autonomisation happens when people are identified through their speech or written statements. Instrumentalisation represents people in terms of the tools they use in their actions. Somatisation reduces people to body parts rather than individuals.

Objectivation in discourse serves several key functions. First, it can obscure agency and responsibility, making it unclear who is responsible for human action. Second, replacing individuals with institutions, documents, or abstract entities, objectivation can lend an impersonal, authoritative tone and contribute to the creation of (epistemic) authority. Third, it might strenghten the collective, group, or national identity through spatialisation when individuals are represented by the country, erasing the differences between them. Fourth, by referring to people as body parts or tools, objectivation can strip them of individuality or humanity. Objectivation might also contribute to reproduction of power structures by representing some phenomena as natural.

Keywords: instrumentalisation, metonymy, objectivation, spatialisation, somatisation

Related Entries: Attitude, Audience Segmentation, Collectivisation, Persuasion, Identity

References:
Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2023). How to do critical discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Smrdelj, R., & Vogrinc, J. (2020). Television news discourse migrant objectification in the context of criminalisation: A case study concerning Slovenian public television broadcast news. In N. Kogovšek Šalamon (Ed.), Causes and consequences of migrant criminalisation (pp. 287–305). Springer.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford University Press.