WorldWideScience

Sample records for language endangerment discourse

  1. GlottoVis : Visualizing Language Endangerment and Documentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Castermans, T.H.A.; Speckmann, B.; Verbeek, K.A.B.; Westenberg, M.A.; Hammarström, H.

    2017-01-01

    We present GlottoVis, a system designed to visualize language endangerment as collected by UNESCO and descriptive status as collected by the Glottolog project. Glottolog records bibliographic data for the world’s (lesser known) languages. Languages are documented with increasing detail, but the

  2. Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wyman, Leisy

    2012-01-01

    Detailing a decade of life and language use in a remote Alaskan Yup'ik community, Youth Culture, Language Endangerment and Linguistic Survivance provides rare insight into young people's language brokering and Indigenous people's contemporary linguistic ecologies. This book examines how two consecutive groups of youth in a Yup'ik village…

  3. Teaching materials on language endangerment, an interactive e-learning module on the internet

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Odé, C.; de Graaf, T.; Ostler, N.; Salverda, R.

    2008-01-01

    In 2007, in the framework of the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) Research Programme on Endangered Languages, an interactive e-learning module has been developed on language endangerment. The module for students in secondary schools (15-18 years of age) is available free of

  4. Gendered Language in Interactive Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussey, Karen A.; Katz, Albert N.; Leith, Scott A.

    2015-01-01

    Over two studies, we examined the nature of gendered language in interactive discourse. In the first study, we analyzed gendered language from a chat corpus to see whether tokens of gendered language proposed in the gender-as-culture hypothesis (Maltz and Borker in "Language and social identity." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp…

  5. Infectious Disease, Endangerment, and Extinction

    Science.gov (United States)

    MacPhee, Ross D. E.; Greenwood, Alex D.

    2013-01-01

    Infectious disease, especially virulent infectious disease, is commonly regarded as a cause of fluctuation or decline in biological populations. However, it is not generally considered as a primary factor in causing the actual endangerment or extinction of species. We review here the known historical examples in which disease has, or has been assumed to have had, a major deleterious impact on animal species, including extinction, and highlight some recent cases in which disease is the chief suspect in causing the outright endangerment of particular species. We conclude that the role of disease in historical extinctions at the population or species level may have been underestimated. Recent methodological breakthroughs may lead to a better understanding of the past and present roles of infectious disease in influencing population fitness and other parameters. PMID:23401844

  6. Language Officialization in Puerto Rico: Group-Making Discourses of Protectionism and Receptivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shenk, Elaine

    2011-01-01

    This article applies social constructionism and groupism theory to discourses on language officialization in Puerto Rico. It examines three argumentative texts presented prior to the passage of Law #4 in 1991 making Spanish the sole official language of the island. Grounded critical discourse theory maintains that language form and content are…

  7. Language-Mixing, Discourse Length and Discourse Quality in Bilingual Aphasia

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    Avanthi Paplikar

    2014-04-01

    In sum, while PWA may not altogether avoid language-mixing with monolingual listeners, they appear to mix less when they know their listeners are monolinguals, not bilinguals. PWAs’ personal narratives are markedly longer when their listener is bilingual, though ratings of ‘overall success’ of the discourse are not linked to the degree of patients’ mixing. The lack of differences in the rated success of the more- and less-mixed samples suggests that, contrary to our hypothesis, language-mixing did not improve quality of communication.

  8. The verbal-visual discourse in Brazilian Sign Language – Libras

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    Tanya Felipe

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to broaden the discussion on verbal-visual utterances, reflecting upon theoretical assumptions of the Bakhtin Circle that can reinforce the argument that the utterances of a language that employs a visual-gestural modality convey plastic-pictorial and spatial values of signs also through non-manual markers (NMMs. This research highlights the difference between affective expressions, which are paralinguistic communications that may complement an utterance, and verbal-visual grammatical markers, which are linguistic because they are part of the architecture of phonological, morphological, syntactic-semantic and discursive levels in a particular language. These markers will be described, taking the Brazilian Sign Language–Libras as a starting point, thereby including this language in discussions of verbal-visual discourse when investigating the need to do research on this discourse also in the linguistic analyses of oral-auditory modality languages, including Transliguistics as an area of knowledge that analyzes discourse, focusing upon the verbal-visual markers used by the subjects in their utterance acts.

  9. Turkish Language Teachers' Stance Taking Movements in the Discourse on Globalization and Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coskun, Ibrahim

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates how Turkish teachers take and give stances in the discourse on globalization and language by using linguistic resources. According to the findings obtained through the discourse analysis of the corpus that consisted of 36 h of recording of the discussion among 4 teachers with 5 to 10 years of teaching experience, the…

  10. Language Planning and Development Aid: The (In)Visibility of Language in Development Aid Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor-Leech, Kerry; Benson, Carol

    2017-01-01

    Despite the essential role of local, regional, national and international languages in human development, there is little reference to language planning in development aid discourse. Beginning with definitions of development aid and language planning, the paper examines how the two were linked in pre- and post-colonial times, showing how language…

  11. Trust, Endangerment and Divine Vulnerability

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christoffersen, Mikkel Gabriel

    2017-01-01

    Faith is trusting God in the midst of endangerment. Yet, human experience of excessive suffering has challenged any spontaneous trust in God. In this article, I reconsider the idea of faith as trust in God, adding an emphasis on the divine vulnerability in the incarnation, and I develop a more...

  12. Language and Discourse in Social Media Relational Dynamics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Valentini, Chiara; Romenti, Stefania; Kruckeberg, Dean

    2016-01-01

    constitution perspective that focuses on the power of communicative acts and practices to create organizational realities. The theoretical proposition suggests that social media are communicatively constituted, just as are relationships; thus, relational dynamics in social media that feature oral or written......This article presents and discusses a theoretical proposition to study social media and their relational dynamics based on the role of language and discourse in communicative interactions that occur in social media. We propose a theoretical foundation that is grounded on the communicative...... communications should be analyzed through the study of actors’ language and discourses. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this theoretical proposition for the study of relational dynamics in social media and provides suggestions for future research....

  13. The Discourse of Language Learning Strategies: Towards an Inclusive Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Alexander Harris

    2016-01-01

    This paper critiques discourse surrounding language learning strategies within Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and argues for the creation of new definitions of language learning strategies that are rooted in the socio-political and socio-economic contexts of the marginalized. Section one of this paper describes linguistic…

  14. Policy Discourses and U.S. Language in Education Policies

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Jong, Ester J.

    2013-01-01

    Language in education policy for English language learners in the United States has varied significantly over time and has been shaped by policy discourses that could broadly be described as assimilationist (monolingual) and pluralist (multilingual) views of the role of linguistic and cultural diversity in schools. This article outlines the main…

  15. Critical Discourse Analysis of Advertising: Implications for Language Teacher Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turhan, Burcu; Okan, Zuhal

    2017-01-01

    Advertising is a prominent discourse type which is inevitably linked to a range of disciplines. This study examines the language of a non-product advertisement, not isolating it from its interaction with other texts that surrounds it. It is based on Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework in which there are three levels of…

  16. The effects of the lack, excess and strangeness in the discourses about the Portuguese language

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    Rosely Diniz da Silva Machado

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In this research based on the studies of the Discourse Analysis, we propose to analyze how students from a Language and Literature Course of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG move their discourses over the Portuguese language. The corpus has been collected for nine years, always on the first day of class, when they were invited to write about why they chose to study Language and Literature in the University. Through this theme, the ideological issue, the power relations, and the senses effect present therein are observed by triggering three key concepts studied by Ernst (2011: the lack, the excess and the strangeness. Therefore, from the marks left in the discourses of those university students as well as from their identifications with certain discourse formations, gestures of interpretation are mobilized. Such will allow us to analyze the ways of saying and not-saying about/in the language and, ultimately, how the sense effects in those specific discourses are produced.

  17. Instructional and regulative discourse in language tutorials: An ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The research is situated in the context of literature tutorials. To achieve this goal Bernstein's (1990; 1996) pedagogic discourse is employed, as it was used by Buzzelli and Johnston (2001). Keywords: language learning, learning process, teacher-student interaction, participation, potentially offensive views, pedagogic ...

  18. Lyrical language and nursing discourse: can science be the tool of love?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cody, William K

    2002-04-01

    Lyricism is a quality of discourse expressing intensely personal feeling or emotion. It is historically associated with romanticism, which involves the imagination and emotions, the use of autobiographical material, the exaltation of a common humanity, and an appreciation of nature. The language of a science conveys the meaning, significance, and utility of concepts among scholars, practitioners, and the general public. It is incumbent upon nurses to attempt to represent in our disciplinary language the realities lived by people, that is, to apprehend, describe, and explain the full breadth and diversity of human phenomena, guided by the discipline-wide focus on the wholeness of the human being. The language of objectivistic science cannot do this. Even in contemporary qualitative research there are limitations in achieving such a representation. This column therefore calls for greater attention to lyrical discourse in nursing science and outlines the potential benefits in nursing theory development, research, and practice. Encouragement of lyrical discourse in nursing science is consistent with the contemporary movement toward a dialogical rationality. It is posited that, if the ethos of nursing is rooted in love of humanity, lyrical discourse may be one way for nursing to pursue its mission to serve humankind.

  19. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2001. Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tannen, Deborah, Ed.; Alatis, James E., Ed.

    This book contains papers from the 2001 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, "Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond." Papers include: "Introduction" (Deborah Tannen); "A Brief History of the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics" (James E.…

  20. Reflection of society and language interaction in Internet-discourse

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    Nefedov Igor Vladislavovich

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The article attempts to show the conditioning by extralinguistic factors of the active usage in the online discourse the lexeme maidan, related to it words from the viewpoint of word-building and occasional paronomasia with emotionally-estimated meaning. The lexeme maidan in recent years has become one of the most important discursive phenomenon within new modern-language situation. Events of the end of 2013- beginning of 2014 led to a new political confrontation in Ukraine and as a consequence - to activization of the word maidan. Analysis of linguistic resources, represented in online discourse, suggests that the semantic net of the lexeme has changed considerably: there are new, contextually preconditioned lexical meanings, some of the old meanings were on the periphery, some -got a very narrow scope of usage. In online discourse, language picture of the world is represented by a large number of new words and the intensification of the use of words, long-established in the lexical system. Many of these words have negative semantics and colloquial pejorative and derogatory overtones. This is due to extralinguistic factors - political events in the life of Ukrainian society at the present stage.

  1. Discourses of Linguistic dominance: A Historical Consideration of French Language Ideology

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    Kasuya, Keisuke

    2001-07-01

    The paper offers a historical perspective on the linguistic and cultural imperialism embedded in the struggle to maintain French as a leading international language. France was the nation-state where the ideology of national language was first clearly formulated and directly extended to overseas colonies. This shows the close relationship between linguistic nationalism and imperialism. It was believed that French was the language of universal human reason and had the power to civilize people who spoke it. This myth of the "clarté française" and the "mission civilisatrice" had a strong influence on various kinds of metalinguistic discourses that created the taken-for-granted representation of French as dominant language. It is the essential strategy of language dominance to establish the hierarchy of languages as if it were natural order of things. When French was obliged to yield the status of international language to English, there emerged the ideology of "Francophonie" which tried to defend its privilege against the monopoly of English, but the same ideology is also directed against minorities' claims for their own linguistic human right. It could be said that these discourses form a recursive prototype of language dominance whose variations are to be found in other shapes almost all over the world.

  2. Communicative Discourse in Second Language Classrooms: From Building Skills to Becoming Skillful

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suleiman, Mahmoud

    2013-01-01

    The dynamics of the communicative discourse is a natural process that requires an application of a wide range of skills and strategies. In particular, linguistic discourse and the interaction process have a huge impact on promoting literacy and academic skills in all students especially English language learners (ELLs). Using interactive…

  3. The Construction of Cultural Values and Beliefs in Chinese Language Textbooks: A Critical Discourse Analysis

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    Liu, Yongbing

    2005-01-01

    This article examines the discourses of cultural values and beliefs constructed in Chinese language textbooks currently used for primary school students nationwide in China. By applying story grammar analysis in the framework of critical discourse analysis, the article critically investigates how the discourses are constructed and what ideological…

  4. "Here, without English, You Are Dead": Ideologies of Language and Discourses of Neoliberalism in Adult English Language Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Warriner, Doris S.

    2016-01-01

    Ideologies of language (and language learning)--in concert with discourses of individualism and meritocracy that characterize neoliberalism--shape pedagogical policies and practices in ways that are consequential for multilingual students all over the developing and developed world. To investigate how such intersections and influences work in…

  5. NOVUS ORTUS: THE AWAKENING OF LAZ LANGUAGE IN TURKEY

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    Nurdan KAVAKLI

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Laz (South Caucasian language, which is spoken primarily on the southeastern coast of the Black Sea in Turkey, is being threatened by language endangerment. Having no official status, Laz language is considered to be an ethnic minority language in Turkey. All Laz people residing in Turkey are bilingual with the official language in the country, Turkish, and use Laz most frequently in intrafamilial conversations. In this article, Laz language is removed from the dusty pages of Turkish history as a response to the threat of language attrition in the world. Accordingly, language endangerment is viewed in terms of a sociolinguistic phenomenon within the boundaries of both language-internal and -external factors. Laz language revitalization acts have also been scrutinized. Having a dekko at the history of modern Turkey will enlighten whether those revitalization acts and/or movements can offer a novus ortus (new birth for the current situation of Laz language.

  6. Gender in Research on Language. Researching Gender-Related Patterns in Classroom Discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tannen, Deborah

    1996-01-01

    Examines gender-related patterns of behavior in the second-language classroom and argues that these patterns dovetail with all the other dynamics of language behavior. The article concludes that drawing on the theoretical foundations of frames theory will ensure that research into gender-related patterns of classroom discourse will reflect the…

  7. From the Totalitarian Language to the Informative Discourse. A Romanian Media Discourse Analysis During the '90s

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    LUMINIŢA ROŞCA

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at emphasizing the institutional transformations that occurred in the public environment following the events in December 1989 in Romania, focusing on the dismantling of mechanisms that marked the transition from the national-communist propaganda discourse to the informative discourse, which laid the foundation of the public sphere in post-totalitarian Romania. The hypothesis we start from is that Romanian media was slow in abandoning the communist press model, which explains the manichaeist discourse of nowadays media, the involvement of politics in media business and, last but not least, the extremely poor market - the poorest in Eastern Europe, as showed by the latest studies. The analysis has two components: the context analysis (historical, political, ideological and the media discourse analysis (cf. P. Charaudeau, R. Fowler, John Hartley, in line with the view of certain authors (C. Sparks with respect to the transitions in Eastern Europe and the role media played in these processes. Also, we permanently referred to the theories of the public sphere explained by J. Habermas. The discourse procedures of the totalitarian language were emphasized by investigating a corpus formed of the main publications of the printed press before and after 1989.

  8. FROM THE TOTALITARIAN LANGUAGE TO THE INFORMATIVE DISCOURSE. A ROMANIAN MEDIA DISCOURSE ANALYSIS DURING THE ’90S

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    LUMINIŢA ROŞCA

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at emphasizing the institutional transformations that occurred in the public environment following the events in December 1989 in Romania, focusing on the dismantling of mechanisms that marked the transition from the national communist propaganda discourse to the informative discourse, which laid the foundation of the public sphere in post-totalitarian Romania. The hypothesis is that Romanian media was slow in abandoning the communist press model, which explains the manichaeist discourse of nowadays media, the involvement of politics in media business and, last but not least, the extremely poor market – the poorest in Eastern Europe, as showed by the latest studies. The analysis has two components: the context analysis (historical, political, and ideological and the media discourse analysis, in line with the view of certain authors (C. Sparks with respect to the transitions in Eastern Europe and the role the media played in these processes. The discourse procedures of the totalitarian language were emphasized by investigating a corpus formed of the main publications of the printed press before and after 1989.

  9. Examining the Effects of Gender and Second Language Proficiency on Hispanic Writers' Persuasive Discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bermudez, Andrea B.; Prater, Doris L.

    1994-01-01

    Examines the use of persuasive responses by Hispanic second-language writers and categorizes these responses by level of language proficiency and gender. Findings indicate that students exit English-as-a-Second-Language classes without having achieved a higher level of expertise in the use of persuasive discourse and that females elaborate more…

  10. Brain size is correlated with endangerment status in mammals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abelson, Eric S

    2016-02-24

    Increases in relative encephalization (RE), brain size after controlling for body size, comes at a great metabolic cost and is correlated with a host of cognitive traits, from the ability to count objects to higher rates of innovation. Despite many studies examining the implications and trade-offs accompanying increased RE, the relationship between mammalian extinction risk and RE is unknown. I examine whether mammals with larger levels of RE are more or less likely to be at risk of endangerment than less-encephalized species. I find that extant species with large levels of encephalization are at greater risk of endangerment, with this effect being strongest in species with small body sizes. These results suggest that RE could be a valuable asset in estimating extinction vulnerability. Additionally, these findings suggest that the cost-benefit trade-off of RE is different in large-bodied species when compared with small-bodied species. © 2016 The Author(s).

  11. Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (Washington, D.C., 1981).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tannen, Deborah, Ed.

    The Georgetown Round Table on discourse analysis dealt with the following aspects of the topic: Emerson's essay on language; oral remembering and narrative structures; persuasive discourse; social construction of topical cohesion; discourse as an interactional achievement; the place of intonation; topic as the unit of analysis in a criminal law…

  12. Towards a Discourse for Criticism in Language Teaching: Analysis of Sociocultural Representations in Mass Media

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    Margarita Rosa Vargas Torres

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available This article states that in order to exercise citizenship with responsibility, language teachers need to popularize a discourse for criticism in which students and teachers transcend tacit knowledge and common sense due to meta-cognition and argumentation and reach systematic knowledge and procedures posed by experts in the different disciplines. As illustrated inside, the source and objective of analysis by means of which this discourse can be contextualized in language teaching is the language of mass media and all the sociocultural and signifying practices that it invokes. We conclude that through the analysis of mass media it is possible to educate students with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to interact critically in the world.

  13. "No One Speaks Korean at School!": Ideological Discourses on Languages in a Korean Family

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    Song, Kwangok

    2016-01-01

    This study examined how a Korean family with temporary immigrant status in the United States employed ideological discourses on languages to make sense of their experiences. The parents initially accepted but later rejected ideologies on children's learning of English. English-as-a-legitimate-language ideology in the United States and…

  14. A Language-in-Use Study of EFL Students’ Social Discourses in Project-Based Learning

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    Ingrid Bello Vargas

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available This article is based on a qualitative research study that was conducted to explore students’ discourses as citizens in an English as aForeign Language (EFL course. A pedagogical intervention was proposed in order to bridge the existing gap. The instructional design consistedof PBL sessions with a coeducational group of eighteen undergraduate students, who worked collaboratively to discuss social issues whilestudying the target language (TL. Student artifacts, transcriptions of project oral reports, and a conference with the participants were used togather the data. Following a discourse analysis approach, three main discourses were identified to show the learners’ social representations,their critical stand on topical issues, and their interest in social transformations. Overall, the findings suggest that the students’ views of socialreality are diverse, contradictory, and changing, and that the EFL class can become a site for citizenship education when the TL is presentedas a tool to facilitate self-expression and critical reflection.

  15. Discourse, Paragraph, and Sentence Structure in Selected Philippine Languages. Final Report. Volume II, Sentence Structure.

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    Longacre, Robert E.

    Volume II of "Discourse, Paragraph, and Sentence Structure in Selected Philippine Languages" begins with an explanation of certain assumptions and postulates regarding sentence structure. A detailed treatment of systems of sentence structure and the parameters of such systems follows. Data in the various indigenous languages are…

  16. From Commodification to Weaponization: The Russian Language as "Pride" and "Profit" in Russia's Transnational Discourses

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    Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara

    2017-01-01

    The article expands the debate about the interaction and conflict of linguistic commodification with other values attached to a language. It interrogates Russian dominant discourse produced between 2010 and 2015, focusing on how it attributes the values of "pride" and "profit" to the Russian language in three transnational…

  17. Bridging the gap between theory and practice in language ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper examines the increasing concerns about language endangerment in Sub-Saharan Africa, and assesses the necessity and practicality of language revitalization efforts in some situations in the region in light of a number of practical problems of implementation. The paper identifies the need for a clearer paradigm ...

  18. Endangerment of cultural heritage sites by strong rain

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    Krauß, Thomas; Fischer, Peter

    2017-09-01

    Due to climate change extreme weather conditions become more and more frequent in the last years. Especially in Germany nearly every year a large flood event happens. Most of these events are caused by strong rain. There are at most two causes for these floodings: The first is locally strong rain in the area of damage, the second happens at damage sites located near confluxes and strong rain in the upper stream areas of the joining rivers. The amount of damage is often strongly correlated with unreasonable designation of new construction in such endangered regions. Our presented study is based on an earlier project together with a German insurance company. In this project we analyzed correlations of geographical settings with the insurance data of flood damages over ten years. The result of this study was a strong relation of the terrain with the amount and the probability of damages. Further investigations allow us to derive a system for estimating potential endangerment due to strong rain just from suitable digital terrain models (DTMs). In the presented study we apply this method to different types of cultural heritage (CH) sites in Germany and other parts of the world to detect which type of CH sites were build with potential endangerment of strong rain events in mind and which ones are prone to such events.

  19. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Language Use in US Presidential Campaign, 2016

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    Mohammad Mohammadi

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The present study reports on the latest and newest hot topic in the world, the United States Presidential Election. So, this is the newest attempt to explore and discover interrelation of discourse structures and ideological structures of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech in the United States Presidential Election, 2016 as a good sample of his language use in presidential campaign. In so doing, the current study utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA model to unmask the use of power and hidden strategies through language use. Also we analyze and uncover the experiential, relational and expressive values of the wordings, metaphors and grammatical structures of Trump’s language use.  Furthermore, this study tries to show that there are linguistic traces that depict the strategy and ideology in the text as well. The findings of the present study can be provocative for English foreign language learners to promote their analytical skills. Therefore, findings of the present article can be applied to English Reading Comprehension and Reading Journalistic Texts classes.

  20. Knowledge, language and subjectivities in a discourse community: Ideas we can learn from elementary children about science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurth, Lori Ann

    2000-10-01

    In light of continuing poor performance by American students in school science, feminists and sociocultural researchers have demonstrated that we need to look beyond content to address the science needs of all school children. In this study I examined issues of discourse norms, knowledge, language and subjectivities (meaning personal and social observations and characteristics) in elementary science. Over a two-year period, I used an interpretive methodological approach to investigate science experiences in two first-second and second grade classrooms. I first established some of the norms and characteristics of the discourse communities through case studies of new students attempting to gain entry to whole class conversations. I then examined knowledge, a central focus of science education addressed by a variety of theoretical approaches. In these classrooms students co-constructed and built knowledge in their whole class science conversations sometimes following convergent (similar knowledge) and, at other times, divergent (differing knowledge) paths allowing for broader discourse. In both paths, there was gendered construction of knowledge in which same gender students elaborated the reasoning of previous speakers. In conjunction with these analyses, I examined what knowledge sources the students used in their science conversations. Students drew on a variety of informal and formal knowledge sources including personal experiences, other students, abstract logic and thought experiments, all of which were considered valid. In using sources from both in and out of school, students' knowledge bases were broader than traditional scientific content giving greater access and richness to their conversations. The next analysis focused on students' use of narrative and paradigmatic language forms in the whole class science conversations. Traditionally, only paradigmatic language forms have been used in science classrooms. The students in this study used both narrative and

  1. EXPLORING IMPLICIT META-DISCOURSE IN LEGAL DISCOURSE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CHINESE AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS

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    Mengyu He

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Research in meta-discourse, particularly explicit meta-discourse or meta-discourse markers has contributed much knowledge on the discourse features of specialised genres. However, there are very few studies on implicit meta-discourse. The current study explores implicit meta-discourse in legal discourse by comparing the implicit interpersonal meta-discourse in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China with the Constitution of the United States. The focus of the study is the use of implicit meta-discourse, particularly the grammatical meta-discourse in the legal discourse of two different languages and cultural groups. The findings demonstrate that there are similarities and differences in the use of implicit meta-discourse in the two constitutions. Within the context of language discourse, the findings of the current study suggest that legal discourse is distinctive in the use of implicit interpersonal meta-discourse, particularly in the way writers intrude into the discourse implicitly by certain key grammatical forms of meta-discourse. Despite the objectivity and rigour of legal discourse, the current study found that there is some level of subjectivity in such discourse, evident from the use of implicit meta-discourse.

  2. Language shifts in free indirect discourse

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maier, Emar

    Free indirect discourse is a way of reporting what a protagonist thinks or says that is distinct from both direct and indirect discourse. In particular, while pronouns and tenses are presented from the narrator's perspective, as in indirect discourse, other indexical and expressive elements reflect

  3. Methodological Adaptations for the Discourse Analysis of Children with Intellectual Disability: Narrating Without a Language

    OpenAIRE

    Manghi Haquin, Dominique; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Otálora Cornejo, Fabiola; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Arancibia M., Marianela; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

    2017-01-01

    Given the need to understand the forms of communication of people with intellectual disability, as to favor their social participation, this study deals with narration as a self-managed instance of discourse beyond language. The purpose is to standardize a methodology which allows us to explore their narrative discourse using a multi-modal perspective. The description corresponds to narrations of fifteen Chilean children of school age with intellectual disability and low development of oral l...

  4. Framing new research in science literacy and language use: Authenticity, multiple discourses, and the Third Space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallace, Carolyn S.

    2004-11-01

    This article presents a theoretical framework in the form of a model on which to base research in scientific literacy and language use. The assumption guiding the framework is that scientific literacy is comprised of the abilities to think metacognitively, to read and write scientific texts, and to apply the elements of a scientific argument. The framework is composed of three theoretical constructs: authenticity, multiple discourses, and Bhabha's Third Space. Some of the implications of the framework are that students need opportunities to (a) use scientific language in everyday situations; (b) negotiate readily among the many discourse genres of science; and (c) collaborate with teachers and peers on the meaning of scientific language. These ideas are illustrated with data excerpts from contemporary research studies. A set of potential research issues for the future is posed at the end of the article.

  5. Empirical study of the effects of discourse markers on the reading comprehension of Spanish students of English as a foreign language

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    Ana Cristina Lahuerta Martínez

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this work is to analyse how Spanish readers react to English discourse markers in a text. We carry out an empirical study in which we ask three research question: (a if there is any relationship between presence of discourse markers or absence of discourse markers and reading comprehension in English as a foreign language, (b if there is any relationship between the readers’ proficiency in English and the effect of the presence or absence of discourse markers on reading comprehension and, (c if there is any relationship between the readers’ age, sex, competence as learners and as learners of English, and the effect of the presence or absence of discourse markers on reading comprehension. The results obtained show that discourse markers enhance reading comprehension in foreign language reading, and that the more successful students tend to use discourse markers as aids to help their reading comprehension. This latter result is nevertheless limited by the possible effect of the readers’ familiarity with the topic of the text and points to a need for further investigation.

  6. Language and the Facilitation of Authority: The Discourse of Noam Chomsky (Reader Response).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beaugrande, Robert de

    1991-01-01

    Applies discourse analysis to an interview with Noam Chomsky to show the use of language to facilitate authority. Discusses idealism and scientism, change and the role of the intellectual, Chomsky's dualism, his "problem," his method, creativity and composition, activism and the intellectual, and the future of intellectualism. (PRA)

  7. Critical Discourse Analysis. The Elaboration of a Problem Oriented Discourse Analytic Approach After Foucault

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rainer Diaz-Bone

    2006-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The German discourse researcher Siegfried JÄGER from Duisburg is the first to have published a German-language book about the methodology of discourse analysis after FOUCAULT. JÄGER integrates in his work the discourse analytic work of Jürgen LINK as well as the interdisciplinary discussion carried on in the discourse analytic journal "kultuRRevolution" (Journal for Applied Discourse Analysis. JÄGER and his co-workers were associated with the Duisburger Institute for Language Research and Social Research (DISS, see http://www.diss-duisburg.de/ for 20 years, developing discourse theory and the methodology of discourse analysis. The interview was done via e-mail. It depicts the discourse analytic approach of JÄGER and his co-workers following the works of FOUCAULT and LINK. The interview reconstructs JÄGERs vita and his academic career. Further topics of the interview are the agenda of JÄGERs discourse studies, methodological considerations, the (problematic relationship between FOUCAULDian discourse analysis and (discourses, linguistics, styles and organization of research and questions concerning applied discourse analytic research as a form of critical intervention. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0603219

  8. Televison as saviour for endangered languages? - A survey among Scottish-Gaelic teenagers

    OpenAIRE

    Burmeister, Melanie

    2008-01-01

    The following article focuses on the use of media offers to strengthen endangered languages. A general introduction to situations of language endangerment is given and arguments for the use of minority language media offers to strengthen endangered languages are presented. An important question concerning this issue is, if media offers, due to the fact that media are to a great extent language-based, are able to directly encourage speakers of minority languages to use the language in question...

  9. Functional and anatomical correlates of word-, sentence-, and discourse-level integration in sign language

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    Tomoo eInubushi

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available In both vocal and sign languages, we can distinguish word-, sentence-, and discourse-level integration in terms of hierarchical processes, which integrate various elements into another higher level of constructs. In the present study, we used magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry to test three language tasks in Japanese Sign Language (JSL: word-level (Word, sentence-level (Sent, and discourse-level (Disc decision tasks. We analyzed cortical activity and gray matter volumes of Deaf signers, and clarified three major points. First, we found that the activated regions in the frontal language areas gradually expanded in the dorso-ventral axis, corresponding to a difference in linguistic units for the three tasks. Moreover, the activations in each region of the frontal language areas were incrementally modulated with the level of linguistic integration. These dual mechanisms of the frontal language areas may reflect a basic organization principle of hierarchically integrating linguistic information. Secondly, activations in the lateral premotor cortex and inferior frontal gyrus were left-lateralized. Direct comparisons among the language tasks exhibited more focal activation in these regions, suggesting their functional localization. Thirdly, we found significantly positive correlations between individual task performances and gray matter volumes in localized regions, even when the ages of acquisition of JSL and Japanese were factored out. More specifically, correlations with the performances of the Word and Sent tasks were found in the left precentral/postcentral gyrus and insula, respectively, while correlations with those of the Disc task were found in the left ventral inferior frontal gyrus and precuneus. The unification of functional and anatomical studies would thus be fruitful for understanding human language systems from the aspects of both universality and individuality.

  10. Profiling academic research on discourse studies and second language learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Harold Castañeda

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available There is little profiling academic research on discourse studies in relation to second language learning from a regional perspective. Thisstudy aims at unveiling what, when, where and who constitute scholarly work in research about these two interrelated fields. A dataset wasconfigured from registers taken from Dialnet and studied using specialized text-mining software. Findings revealed myriad research interests,few prolific years and the lack of networking. It is recommended to trace out our research as an ELT community locally and globally.

  11. Discourse intonation and second language acquisition: Three genre-based studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wennerstrom, Ann Kristin

    1997-12-01

    This dissertation investigates intonation in the discourse of nonnative speakers of English. It is proposed that intonation functions as a grammar of cohesion, contributing to the coherence of the text. Based on a componential model of intonation adapted from Pierrehumbert and Hirshberg (1990), three empirical studies were conducted in different genres of spoken discourse: academic lectures, conversations, and oral narratives. Using computerized speech technology, excerpts of taped discourse were measured to determine how intonation associated with various constituents of text. All speakers were tested for overall English level on tests adapted from the SPEAK Test (ETS, 1985). Comparisons using native speaker data were also conducted. The first study investigated intonation in lectures given by Chinese teaching assistants. Multivariate analyses showed that intonation was a significant factor contributing to better scores on an exam of overall comprehensibility in English. The second study investigated the role of intonation in the turn-taking system in conversations between native and nonnative speakers of English. The final study considered emotional aspects of intonation in narratives, using the framework of Labov and Waletsky (1967). In sum, adult nonnative speakers can acquire intonation as part of their overall language development, although there is evidence against any specific order of acquisition. Intonation contributes to coherence by indicating the relationship between the current utterance and what is assumed to already be in participants' mental representations of the discourse. It also performs a segmentation function, denoting hierarchical relationships among utterances and/or turns. It is suggested that while pitch can be a resource in cross-cultural communication to show emotion and attitude, the grammatical aspects of intonation must be acquired gradually.

  12. EPA's Endangerment Finding: Paving the Way Toward the Next Generation of Cars and Trucks

    Science.gov (United States)

    View a fact sheet on how the Final Endangerment Finding will allow EPA to finalize the first greenhouse gas standards for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.

  13. Non-native Chinese Foreign Language (CFL) Teachers: Identity and Discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhang, Chun

    2014-01-01

    Abstract Native Chinese foreign language (CFL) teacher identity is an emerging subject of research interest in the teacher education. Yet, limited study has been done on the construction of Non-native CFL teachers in their home culture. Guided by a concept of teacher identity-in-discourse, the pa......Abstract Native Chinese foreign language (CFL) teacher identity is an emerging subject of research interest in the teacher education. Yet, limited study has been done on the construction of Non-native CFL teachers in their home culture. Guided by a concept of teacher identity...... teachers face tensions and challenges in constructing their identities as CFL teachers, and the tensions and challenges that arose from Danish teaching culture could influence the Non-native CFL teachers' contributions to CFL teaching in their home cultures. The findings further show that in order to cope...

  14. Discourses, Identities and Investment in English as a Second Language Learning: Voices from Two U.S. Community College Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yueh-ching Chang

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Adopting a qualitative case study methodology, the present study illuminates how two multilingual students enrolled in a U.S. community college ESL class negotiated the sociocultural norms valued in their multiple communities to make investment in learning English in college. Drawing on Gee’s theory of Discourse and identity (1996 and Norton’s theory of investment (2000, the study found that each student’s investment in learning the language practices of the classroom was shaped by the diverse Discourses in which they participated across time and space. Despite confronting structural constraints, the focal students were able to mobilize their multiple Discourses to negotiate the existing sociocultural norms and invest in identities that have the potential to transform their lives. These findings suggest that multilingual students’ learning at the college is shaped by their socio-cultural milieu and future aspirations. Thus, language educators should recognize their multiple identities as well as their agency, and broaden the curriculum goals to accommodate their diverse linguistic and educational needs. Keywords: Discourses, identities, investment, community college, ESL, multilingual students

  15. Areal Analysis of Language Attitudes and Practices: A Case Study from Nepal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hildebrandt, Kristine A.; Hu, Shunfu

    2017-01-01

    This paper has two aims. One aim is to consider non-structural (language attitude and use) variables as valid in the field of dialect and linguistic geography in an inner Himalayan valley of Nepal, where four languages have traditionally coexisted asymmetrically and which demonstrate different degrees of vitality vs. endangerment. The other aim is…

  16. The theory of discourse in the linguistic scenario: a new route for the clash interior x exterior in the studies of the language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daiany Bonácio

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The language has always aroused human interest. Since ancient times, it was discussed by wise men like Aristotle and Plato. Philosophers discoursed, for example, on the relationship between the names and the things which they named, if the relationship was natural or conventional, in an attempt to explain the functioning of the language. Such discussions fomented a question: the studies of the language should focus on what aspect? What is going on inside the subject, in his ability to speak? Or what goes on outside, the manifestation of the interior considering the social? This impasse was extending over the linguistic studies. Faced with the reality described, this article aimed to discuss the impasse between an approach to the language focused on interiority and another focused on the exteriority, tracing a route through language studies from the classics, through the materialist theory of Michel Pêcheux to reach concepts proposed by the philosopher Michel Foucault, which will be used for analysis from a discursive perspective. The Discourse Analysis tries to think Linguistic out of this issue of logicism and sociology: it proposes to look at the discourse, offering another field of study for the language.

  17. Discourse, More Discourse!

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lara N. Sinelnikova

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The article is an analytical review of three volumes of the Bulletin of the Russian University of Friendship of Peoples on the problem of discourse. The author has formed a number of headings, the complex of which allows to judge the priority areas of modern scientific knowledge, an essential part of which is discourse. The heading «Pragmatics and metapragmatics of discourse» was formed mainly on the basis of the articles of famous foreign researchers. In each article there are curious ideas, and the generalization of the thesis can be as follows: the evaluation category has a direct relation to the pragmatics, and the estimated semantics of the word is manifested in communication. In the section «Synchronization of paradigmatic relations: text, discourse, style, utterance, speech act, genre» the articles are presented, the material of which is important for revealing the paradigmatic relations between the phenomena named in the heading, including the culturally conditioned features. In the heading “Institutional discourses and problems of hybridization of discourses”, the material of articles of both Russian and foreign researchers is summarized, which makes it possible to identify both the general (even universal orientation of discourse studies and specific approaches and characteristics due to the peculiarities of social processes and national cultural codes . The heading «Identity in its relation to the language / discursive personality» focuses on understanding the close relationship of the category of identity with the problems of discourse and various types of communication. Many authors of the articles present a retrospective of the development of the concepts under consideration, describe the path of their development from the moment they enter the scientific space to the present. At the same time, ways of coordination and integration of methods and approaches are outlined, which is necessary for understanding the prospects

  18. Doing Culture, Doing Race: Everyday Discourses of "Culture" and "Cultural Difference" in the English as a Second Language Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Ena

    2015-01-01

    While current conceptualisations of the inextricable connection between language and culture in English language education are largely informed by complex sociocultural theories that view culture as constructed in and through social practices among people, classroom practices continue to be influenced by mainstream discourses of culture that…

  19. Discourse Approaches to Oral Language Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Richard F.

    2002-01-01

    Looks at a sample conversation and examines layers of interpretation that different academic traditions have constructed to interpret it. Reviews studies that have compared the discourse of oral interaction in assessment with oral discourse in contexts outside the assessment. Discusses studies that related ways of speaking to cultural values of…

  20. English Computer Discourse: Some Characteristic Features

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Rusko

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The problem of virtual discourse is coming into focus of linguistic research. This interest results from the rapid spread of information technology, modern Internet culture incipience, a symbol of information revolution, new opportunities and threats that accompany computer civilization. The emergence of the communicative environment as a particular sphere of language actualization, necessitates new language means of communication or transformation and reframing the already existing ones. Obviously, it’s time to talk about the formation of a new discourse in the new communicative space – computer (electronic, virtual discourse, which subsequently may considerably affect the speech behavior of society. The present article makes an attempt to identify some linguistic and communicative features of virtual discourse. Computer discourse, being a sub-language of hybrid character, combines elements of oral and written discourse with its own specific features. It should be noted that in the context of information culture the problem of communication interaction is among the most topical issues in science and education. There is hardly any doubt that the study and advancement of virtual communication culture is one of higher education distinctive mission components.

  1. Analysis of Discourse Structure of Cases Verdict in The District Court (A Study of Legal Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Usman Pakaya

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The title of this article is the discourse structure of cases verdict in the district court (a study of legal language. This article discusses several elements that compose verdict in a criminal case, such as heading, the identity of the defendant, the attorney’s indictment, witnesses’ testimony, the testimony of the accused, and the verdict statements. This study employed the qualitative method to find out the scientific facts. This article is aimed at proving that discourse structure can be used as a framework in unraveling a case verdict.

  2. Lexical Discourse Analysis in Translation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al Khotaba, Eissa; Al Tarawneh, Khaled

    2015-01-01

    Lexical Discourse very often depend on lexis. Lexical Discourse analysis, however, has not yet been given enough consideration of the phenomenon of translation. This paper investigates lexical discourse analysis in translation from one language to another. This qualitative study comprises 15 text translated by M.A. students at the Department of…

  3. POLITICAL DISCOURSE – A SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miodarka Tepavcevic

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The language of politics is commonly studied within discourse analysis, whereby its linguistic features relating to vocabulary, grammar structures, textual and intertextual aspects are investigated using various methodologies. This paper presents an analysis of political discourse from a syntactic-semantic point of view. The corpus studied has been extracted from five. Montenegrin dailies and the analysis attempts to describe the genre as effectuated in the Montenegrin political discourse. As a result, the functions of political language are extrapolated and illustrated and its style is described in terms of intertextuality and other linguistic strategies commonly employed in political discourse. The paper aims to give a contribution to the understanding and linguistic profiling of political language.

  4. First and Second Modern Language Ideologies, Cosmopolitan Discourses of English and the Emergence of New Social Hierarchies in Transnational Contexts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneider, Britta

    2017-01-01

    This article scrutinises language discourse in transnational culture and considers theories on "reflexive modernity" (Beck et al. 2003) for analysis. I introduce symbolic meanings of language in transnational Communities of Practice constituted by salsa dance, where, depending on dance styles and on local, national and transnational…

  5. The Naivasha Language Policy: The Language of Politics and the Politics of Language in the Sudan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdelhay, Ashraf Kamal; Makoni, Busi; Makoni, Sinfree Bullock

    2011-01-01

    This article provides a textual analysis of the Naivasha language provisions in Sudan in an attempt to explore how political discourse is manifested in each policy statement. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an analytic and interpretive framework, the article argues that the Naivasha language provisions as political discourse are shaped…

  6. Does syntax help discourse segmentation? Not so much

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Braud, Chloé Elodie; Lacroix, Ophélie; Søgaard, Anders

    2017-01-01

    Discourse segmentation is the first step in building discourse parsers. Most work on discourse segmentation does not scale to real-world discourse parsing across languages, for two reasons: (i) models rely on constituent trees, and (ii) experiments have relied on gold standard identification...

  7. Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstrusting the Talk- Generating Machinery in Natural Convresation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amaechi Uneke Enyi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The study entitled. “Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstructing the Talk - Generating Machinery in Natural Conversation,” is an analysis of spontaneous and informal conversation. The study, carried out in the theoretical and methodological tradition of Ethnomethodology, was aimed at explicating how ordinary talk is organized and produced, how people coordinate their talk –in- interaction, how meanings are determined, and the role of talk in the wider social processes. The study followed the basic assumption of conversation analysis which is, that talk is not just a product of two ‘speakers - hearers’ who attempt to exchange information or convey messages to each other. Rather, participants in conversation are seen to be mutually orienting to, and collaborating in order to achieve orderly and meaningful communication. The analytic objective is therefore to make clear these procedures on which speakers rely to produce utterances and by which they make sense of other speakers’ talk. The datum used for this study was a recorded informal conversation between two (and later three middle- class civil servants who are friends. The recording was done in such a way that the participants were not aware that they were being recorded. The recording was later transcribed in a way that we believe is faithful to the spontaneity and informality of the talk. Our finding showed that conversation has its own features and is an ordered and structured social day by- day event. Specifically, utterances are designed and informed by organized procedures, methods and resources which are tied to the contexts in which they are produced, and which participants are privy to by virtue of their membership of a culture or a natural language community.  Keywords: Language, Discourse and Conversation

  8. Linguistic analysis of discourse in aphasia: A review of the literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bryant, Lucy; Ferguson, Alison; Spencer, Elizabeth

    This review examined previous research applications of linguistic discourse analysis to assess the language of adults with aphasia. A comprehensive literature search of seven databases identified 165 studies that applied linguistic measures to samples of discourse collected from people with aphasia. Analysis of methodological applications revealed an increase in published research using linguistic discourse analysis over the past 40 years, particularly to measure the generalisation of therapy outcomes to language in use. Narrative language samples were most frequently subject to analysis though all language genres were observed across included studies. A total of 536 different linguistic measures were applied to examine language behaviours. Growth in the research use of linguistic discourse analysis and suggestions that this growth may be reflected in clinical practice requires further investigation. Future research directions are discussed to investigate clinical use of discourse analysis and examine the differences that exist between research and clinical practice.

  9. ppropriation of scientific discourse by protestant biology students: the contribution of Bakhtin's language theory to educational research and culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudia Sepulveda

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available Studies about the relations between classroom discourse interactions and processes of teaching and learning show that science learning is related to a process structured by speech genres and ways of establishing semantic links between events, objects, and people. Accordingly, it has been emphasized that science education research needs to incorporate theories and methods developed for the interpretative analysis of discourse. This paper shows the heuristic power that an interpretative analysis of discourse based on Bakhtin’s theory of language can have in the investigation of meaning making in science education in multicultural contexts. With this purpose, we discuss here results obtained in the analysis of the discourse about “nature” or “natural world” of protestant Biology preservice teachers of a Brazilian university, produced in the context of semi-structured interviews.

  10. Agency lost in the discourse of language endangerment : nominalisation in discourse about South Estonian / Kadri Koreinik

    Index Scriptorium Estoniae

    Koreinik, Kadri

    2011-01-01

    Analüüsitakse agentsuse representatsiooni keele ohustatuse küsimustes peetavas avalikus diskursuses. Uuritakse, millised protsessid on nominaliseeritud ning milliseid teisi varjatud või taandatud agentsuse võtteid on kasutatud

  11. Toward a computer-aided methodology for discourse analysis

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    aided methods to discourse ... Multilingual Concordancer, NLTK (Natural Language Tool Kit), Simple .... "media discourse" or "learner discourse". ..... The pair 'active euthanasia' occurs seven times in the text used for this .... New York: Pantheon.

  12. Language Hotspots: What (Applied) Linguistics and Education Should Do about Language Endangerment in the Twenty-First Century

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Gregory D. S.

    2011-01-01

    I outline the concept of "Language Hotspots", seeking to direct public and professional awareness of the global language extinction crisis. The loss of a single language leaves the science of linguistics impoverished and yet even few linguists realize that the vast majority of "language families" will likely be lost by the end…

  13. Inference generation during discourse and its relation to social competence: an online investigation of abilities of children with and without language impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ford, Janet A; Milosky, Linda M

    2008-04-01

    This study examined whether young children with typical language development (TL) and children with language impairment (LI) make emotion inferences online during the process of discourse comprehension, identified variables that predict emotion inferencing, and explored the relationship of these variables to social competence. Preschool children (16 TL and 16 LI) watched narrated videos designed to activate knowledge about a particular emotional state. Following each story, children named a facial expression that either matched or did not match the anticipated emotion. Several experimental tasks examined linguistic and nonlinguistic abilities. Finally, each child's teacher completed a measure of social competence. Children with TL named expressions significantly more slowly in the mismatched condition than in the matched condition, whereas children with LI did not differ in response times between the conditions. Language and vocal response time measures were related to emotion inferencing ability, and this ability predicted social competence scores. The findings suggest that children with TL are inferring emotions during the comprehension process, whereas children with LI often fail to make these inferences. Making emotion inferences is related to discourse comprehension and to social competence in children. The current findings provide evidence that language and vocal response time measures predicted inferencing ability and suggest that additional factors may influence discourse inferencing and social competence.

  14. Language, Cognition, and Manipulation in Advertising Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Egorova, Veronika

    2013-01-01

    This research examines advertising discourse in Russian and English as acts of communicative exchange and interpersonal relationship between advertising discourse participants. The purpose was to identify and describe the way that viewers process information contained in television commercials and how they become consumers moving from getting…

  15. Story discourse and use of mental state language between mothers and school-aged children with and without visual impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tadić, Valerija; Pring, Linda; Dale, Naomi

    2013-01-01

    Lack of sight compromises insight into other people's mental states. Little is known about the role of maternal language in assisting the development of mental state language in children with visual impairment (VI). To investigate mental state language strategies of mothers of school-aged children with VI and to compare these with mothers of comparable children with typically developing vision. To investigate whether the characteristics of mother-child discourse were associated with the child's socio-communicative competence. Mother-child discourse with twelve 6-12-year-old children with VI was coded during a shared book-reading narrative and compared with 14 typically sighted children matched in age and verbal ability. Mothers of children with VI elaborated more and made significantly more references to story characters' mental states and descriptive elaborations than mothers of sighted children. Mental state elaborations of mothers in the VI group related positively with the level produced by their children, with the association remaining after mothers' overall verbosity and children's developmental levels were controlled for. Frequency of maternal elaborations, including their mental state language, was related to socio-communicative competence of children with VI. The findings offer insights into the potential contribution of maternal verbal scaffolding to mentalistic language and social-communicative competences of children with VI. © 2013 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

  16. Educator Language Ideologies and a Top-Down Dual Language Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fitzsimmons-Doolan, Shannon; Palmer, Deborah; Henderson, Kathryn

    2017-01-01

    Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs are framed to reflect pluralist discourses (de Jong, E. [2013]. "Policy Discourses and U.S. Language in Education Policies." "Peabody Journal of Education" 88 (1): 98-111) and affiliated language ideologies. The continued expansion of DLBE programs not surprisingly brings to…

  17. Identity-Forming Discourses: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Policy Making Processes Concerning English Language Teaching in Colombia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Escobar Alméciga Wilder Yesid

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available This article addresses a critical problem about asymmetrical power relationships and uneven conditions in English language education exerted via identity shaping discourses in the document Educación: Visión 2019 issued by the Colombian Ministry of National Education. The study follows the critical discourse analysis method. It characterizes discursive strategies which, in turn, unveil power structures, means of control, and subject positioning of submission and dominance inherent in three main categories: Being bilingual, being successful, and being Colombian. It concludes that discourses are being strategically employed by the Colombian Ministry of National Education to change or preserveideologies and to widen gaps between socio-economic groups to protect the interests of only a small segment of the population.Este reporte postula una problemática de relaciones desequilibradas de dominio, poder, control y de la desproporcionada distribución de recursos en la enseñanza del inglés en Colombia, lo cual es perpetrado por discursos que moldean la identidad, en el documento Educación: Visión 2019 publicado por el Ministerio de Educación Nacional de Colombia. El estudio sigue los principios del análisis crítico del discurso. Esta investigación caracteriza estrategias discursivas que a su vez develan estructuras de poder, medios de control, y posicionamiento de sumisión y dominio en tres categorías: ser bilingüe, ser exitoso y ser colombiano. El estudio sugiere que el Ministerio de Educación Nacional está empleando discursos para manipular ideologías y generar inequidad entre grupos sociales en tanto que protege los intereses de un segmento de la población exclusivamente. 

  18. Gendered Discourse about Family Business

    Science.gov (United States)

    Danes, Sharon M.; Haberman, Heather R.; McTavish, Donald

    2005-01-01

    Language patterns of family business owners were explored by identifying discourse styles and emphasized ideas in four presenting contexts: business, family, intersection of family and business, and business success. The content analysis supports the existence of a general discourse style within family businesses and of similarities and…

  19. Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the Movie "Argo"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bo, Xu

    2018-01-01

    Based on multimodal discourse theory, this paper makes a multimodal discourse analysis of some shots in the movie "Argo" from the perspective of context of culture, context of situation and meaning of image. Results show that this movie constructs multimodal discourse through particular context, language and image, and successfully…

  20. Discourse Functions of Kama in Arabic Journalistic Discourse from the Perspective of Rhetorical Structure Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asem Ayed Al-Khawaldeh

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The study aims at examining the functions of the discourse marker Kama in the Arabic journalistic discourse in the light of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST proposed by Mann and Thompson (1987. To this end, the study compiled a small-scale corpus of journalistic discourse taken from two prominent Arabic news websites:  Aljazeera.net and Alarabia.net. The corpus covers three distinct sub-genres of journalistic discourse: opinion articles, news reports, and sport reports. The journalistic discourse is chosen on the basis that it is considered as the best representative of the contemporary written Arabic and it receives a wide readership in the Arabic-speaking countries. The motivation for the study is that although it is frequently used in the written form of Arabic (particularly in the language of Arabic media, the discourse marker kama is largely neglected and very few has been said about it in the present literature on Arabic discourse markers. The current findings show that kama is found to achieve 290 occurrences in the corpus under investigation. This obviously indicates that kama is commonly used in the language of Arabic journalistic discourse, which calls for paying attention to its usage in such a type of discourse. In the light of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST proposed by Mann and Thompson (1987, kama was found to serve four common functions: elaboration (around 50 %, similarity (around 19 %, evidence (16 %, and exemplification (13 %. Two functions of kama (similarity and   exemplification are listed in RST while the other two are incorporated.

  1. Factors influencing the implicitation of discourse relations across languages

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoek, Jet; Zufferey, Sandrine

    2015-01-01

    Relations that hold between discourse segments can, but need not, be made explicit by means of discourse connectives. Even though the explicit signaling of discourse relations is optional, not all relations can be easily conveyed implicitly. It has been proposed that readers and listeners have

  2. The neural correlates of highly iconic structures and topographic discourse in French Sign Language as observed in six hearing native signers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courtin, C; Hervé, P-Y; Petit, L; Zago, L; Vigneau, M; Beaucousin, V; Jobard, G; Mazoyer, B; Mellet, E; Tzourio-Mazoyer, N

    2010-09-01

    "Highly iconic" structures in Sign Language enable a narrator to act, switch characters, describe objects, or report actions in four-dimensions. This group of linguistic structures has no real spoken-language equivalent. Topographical descriptions are also achieved in a sign-language specific manner via the use of signing-space and spatial-classifier signs. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the neural correlates of topographic discourse and highly iconic structures in French Sign Language (LSF) in six hearing native signers, children of deaf adults (CODAs), and six LSF-naïve monolinguals. LSF materials consisted of videos of a lecture excerpt signed without spatially organized discourse or highly iconic structures (Lect LSF), a tale signed using highly iconic structures (Tale LSF), and a topographical description using a diagrammatic format and spatial-classifier signs (Topo LSF). We also presented texts in spoken French (Lect French, Tale French, Topo French) to all participants. With both languages, the Topo texts activated several different regions that are involved in mental navigation and spatial working memory. No specific correlate of LSF spatial discourse was evidenced. The same regions were more activated during Tale LSF than Lect LSF in CODAs, but not in monolinguals, in line with the presence of signing-space structure in both conditions. Motion processing areas and parts of the fusiform gyrus and precuneus were more active during Tale LSF in CODAs; no such effect was observed with French or in LSF-naïve monolinguals. These effects may be associated with perspective-taking and acting during personal transfers. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. duction to discourse analysis

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Thus the definition of text in dis- course given here is quite broad with the underlying meaning being the intention to communicate information, whether it succeeds or fails to communicate. Discourse con- sists two interacting dimensions: context and language. Context and language interact simultaneously to realize a text.

  4. Phonological Analysis of University Students’ Spoken Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Clara Herlina

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available The study of discourse is the study of using language in actual use. In this article, the writer is trying to investigate the phonological features, either segmental or supra-segmental, in the spoken discourse of Indonesian university students. The data were taken from the recordings of 15 conversations by 30 students of Bina Nusantara University who are taking English Entrant subject (TOEFL –IBT. Finally, the writer is in opinion that the students are still influenced by their first language in their spoken discourse. This results in English with Indonesian accent. Even though it does not cause misunderstanding at the moment, this may become problematic if they have to communicate in the real world.  

  5. Urban Cultural Heritage Endangerment: Degradation of historico-cultural landscapes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vaz, Eric; Cabral, Pedro; Caetano, Mário; Painho, Marco; Nijkamp, Peter

    2010-05-01

    land-use. This brings forth a dichotomy between areas to cope with population increase (and therefore highly probable of urbanization) and regions of valuable historico-cultural and archaeological legacy. To bridge this dichotomy, this paper attempts to provide a methodology for measuring cultural heritage endangerment brought by urban pressure. By using spatial modeling to prompt urban growth combined with archaeological predictive models, composing a secondary layer, a propensity map for areas with extremely high cultural value and where urban growth should be dealt with especial care become evident. Fundamentally, the joined model of Cultural Heritage Endangerment, tackles a recent and unprecedented problem at global level: Committing urban planning to allow the conservation of cultural and archaeological legacy for future generation. In an attempt to abridge the consequences of the decadence of historico-cultural landscapes, the historico-cultural endangerment (HCE) method will be applied to two entirely different regions in the world. On one side, the methodology will be applied on a regional emphasis in the Algarve region in Portugal, addressing the input of maintaining the integrity of archaeological landscapes, and on the other, a local micro-simulation of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, shall allow to envision a segment of local consequences of urban pressure on irreplaceable monuments. The conclusions of both study-cases abridge the global nature of this problem as well as the importance of HCE implementation at different scales.

  6. FRAMING OF JOURNALISM DISCOURSE TO IMPROVE DISCOURSE COMPETENCE OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dadang S. Anshori

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to describe the analysis model of framing on journalism discourse in Indonesian textbooks in Senior High School to be used in language learning. This research used qualitative method with framing theory from Pan and Kosicki as an tool of analysis. The research data is journalism discourse in textbook amounted to 30 pieces of discourse taken from 10 text books of class X, XI, and XII in Senior High School. The results show the following: (1 The discourse of journalism has received acceptance in the world of education, especially in textbooks. The use of journalism discourse in 10 textbooks is very high and very diverse in terms of number, topic, source, and usage. (2 The journalism discourse in the textbook meets the criteria of reporting value, even if not all reporting value is fulfilled. (3 The frame construction of the journalism discourse in Indonesian textbooks is packaged in different angles according to news topics and facts. (4 The analysis model of journalism discourse framing is developed by focusing on the structural analysis of category, syntax, script, thematic, diction/phrase, and rhetoric.

  7. Aspects of cohesion, tense and pronoun usage in the discourse of the older language-impaired child

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hilary Berger

    1978-11-01

    Full Text Available Aspects of the discourse of 5 language-impaired children and 5 children with no language impairment, aged approximately 9 years, were compared. A film and a story sequence were utilised to elicit narratives on which, measures of cohesion, tense and pronouns were appraised. Measures of cohesion refer  to the ability to indicate appropriately the relations of meaning with regard to situational context. Measures of tense include aspects of tense range and tense continuity. Measures of  pronouns refer  to the anaphoric use of  pronouns with non-ambiguous referents.  The group of language-impaired children was found  to be significantly poorer on measures of  cohesion and pronominal usage than the normal children, whereas a significant difference between the two groups was not revealed on measures of tense. Possible factors  accounting for  these findings  were discussed and implications for the diagnosis and therapy of the older language-impaired child were considered.

  8. Digital Discourse Markers in an ESL Learning Setting: The Case of Socialisation Forums

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alireza Shakarami

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Analysis of the linguistic discourse plays an important role in the social, cultural, ethnographic, and comparative studies of languages. Discourse markers as indispensable parts of this analysis are reportedly more common in informal speech than in written language. They could be used at different levels, i.e. as „linking words‟, „linking phrases‟, or „sentence connectors‟ to bind together pieces of a text like „glue‟. The objective of the study is to ascertain the discourse markers employed in synchronous online interactions and networking through constant comparison of discourse markers used in the discussion forums (DF with the discourse markers already reported in the literature. The study maintains discourse markers (DMs used in the formal written discourse in order to identify any probable pragmatic, or discoursal level differences in the DMs used in the two modes of writing (formal writing and typing in online communication. The findings indicate that the written language that students use in their electronic posts is to a great extent similar to that of the process view of writing. Specifically, the written language used in a digital socialisation forum is at times, monitored, reviewed, revised, and corrected by the students themselves and their peers.

  9. Poetics in the shadow of the other's language: The melancholic discourse of the trilingual poet Amelia Rosselli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antinucci, Pina

    2016-10-01

    In this paper, I propose a psychoanalytic reading of some of the writings of Amelia Rosselli, a trilingual poet who, at the age of seven, lost her father Carlo, who was persecuted and murdered by Mussolini's regime. History and her history conflate into personal and collective trauma which defies human possibilities to work through and mourn. Rosselli's work testifies to such predicament of the human subject of the 20th century, his/her dislocation, alienation and internal irreconcilable divisions. In particular I examine Diary in three tongues, which is the most autobiographical of her works and a self-analytic piece, written after the conclusion of her second analysis. In the Diary, Rosselli employs textual strategies which convey the fragmentation and destructuring of language, where her traumatic experience resides as a wound inflicted to the symbolic order. I propose that her writings contain her unconscious memories in an estranged and melancholic language which becomes the crucible to express her impossible mourning, in a complex mixture of Eros and Thanatos which allowed her to survive psychically and to create a very personal experimental poetic discourse which made her a literary figure of international acclaim. My primary engagement will be with Freud's theory of mourning and melancholia and its successive elaboration by Kristeva, who maintains that the melancholic discourse finds its expression in the pre-verbal and infra-verbal aspects of language, which she calls 'semiotics', in dialectic articulation with its symbolic components. Drawing on literary texts, significant inferences can be made on the psychoanalytic listening to the prosodic aspects of language as the carrier of inchoate forms of representation of that which exceeds language: trauma, raw affects, mnemic traces, that is, the unrepresented and/or unrepresentable. Copyright © 2016 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

  10. An evaluation of So language vitality in Thailand

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas M. Tehan

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the vitality and endangerment of So [sss] speech communities in Thailand. Beginning with a review of sociolinguistic survey results for five So communities in Thailand to ascertain the likely need for vernacular language development in So, additional data to cover the rest of the So community are provided. The language vitality of the So communities in Thailand is then assessed using Expanded GIDS and the Sustainable Use Model (SUM, Lewis & Simons 20152, an expansion of the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS, Fishman 1991. This vitality model indicates that many So villages display vigorous language vitality whereas other villages are threatened by language shift. Some initial efforts at revitalization and language development show promise. Several additional activities are suggested to enhance the vitality of the language and help the So to resist the regional trend towards language shift to Northeastern Thai (Isaan.

  11. Dimensions of Discourse Level Oral Language Skills and Their Relation to Reading Comprehension and Written Composition: An Exploratory Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Young-Suk Grace; Park, Cheahyung; Park, Younghee

    2015-01-01

    We examined the relations of discourse-level oral language skills [i.e., listening comprehension, and oral retell and production of narrative texts (oral retell and production hereafter)] to reading comprehension and written composition. Korean-speaking first grade students (N = 97) were assessed on listening comprehension, oral retell and…

  12. Cross-lingual and cross-domain discourse segmentation of entire documents

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Braud, Chloé; Lacroix, Ophélie; Søgaard, Anders

    2017-01-01

    -quality syntactic parses and rich heuristics that are not generally available across languages and domains. In this paper, we propose statistical discourse segmenters for five languages and three domains that do not rely on gold pre-annotations. We also consider the problem of learning discourse segmenters when...... no labeled data is available for a language. Our fully supervised system obtains 89.5% F1 for English newswire, with slight drops in performance on other domains, and we report supervised and unsupervised (cross-lingual) results for five languages in total....

  13. Therapy Talk: Analyzing Therapeutic Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leahy, Margaret M.

    2004-01-01

    Therapeutic discourse is the talk-in-interaction that represents the social practice between clinician and client. This article invites speech-language pathologists to apply their knowledge of language to analyzing therapy talk and to learn how talking practices shape clinical roles and identities. A range of qualitative research approaches,…

  14. Violence through language in the Romanian totalitarian discourse (1945-1989

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sorin Cristian Semeniuc

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Just as in any other totalitarian regime, the communist political discourse and the mass-media of that time employed to a great extent the strategy of the attack against the „enemy”, regardless of whether this enemy was domestic or foreign, real or imaginary. From a linguistic point of view, identifying, isolating and classifying the procedures used by the communists to this purpose means including these formulae into the typology of wooden language, whose features were accounted for by Françoise Thom. „The passage of attack”, a possible name for the ritual violent excerpt usually found in propagandistic speeches or articles, is mainly characterised by the fact that it is invariably present in these texts, it is shorter than the one devoted to „accomplishments” and contains linguistic prefabricates, repeated for years in a row, usually with no substantial change in form or meaning.

  15. Contrast and Critique of Two Approaches to Discourse Analysis: Conversation Analysis and Speech Act Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nguyen Van Han

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Discourse analysis, as Murcia and Olshtain (2000 assume, is a vast study of language in use that extends beyond sentence level, and it involves a more cognitive and social perspective on language use and communication exchanges. Holding a wide range of phenomena about language with society, culture and thought, discourse analysis contains various approaches: speech act, pragmatics, conversation analysis, variation analysis, and critical discourse analysis. Each approach works in its different domain to discourse. For one dimension, it shares the same assumptions or general problems in discourse analysis with the other approaches: for instance, the explanation on how we organize language into units beyond sentence boundaries, or how language is used to convey information about the world, ourselves and human relationships (Schiffrin 1994: viii. For other dimensions, each approach holds its distinctive characteristics contributing to the vastness of discourse analysis. This paper will mainly discuss two approaches to discourse analysis- conversation analysis and speech act theory- and will attempt to point out some similarities as well as contrasting features between the two approaches, followed by a short reflection on their strengths and weaknesses in the essence of each approach. The organizational and discourse features in the exchanges among three teachers at the College of Finance and Customs in Vietnam will be analysed in terms of conversation analysis and speech act theory.

  16. Counselor-Advocate-Scholar Model: Changing the Dominant Discourse in Counseling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ratts, Manivong J.; Greenleaf, Arie T.

    2018-01-01

    Discourse represents the languages, ideas, and images that together shape one's understanding of the world. In counseling, discourse determines clinical practice. The authors posit that dominant discourse in counseling promotes an intrapsychic status quo that discounts the relationship between individuals and their environment, which often leads…

  17. Lexical Features of Scientific Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Rusko

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Currently, a lot of emphasis is placed of the ability of a person to successfully communicate in any sphere of activity, which along with upbringing and education is among the factors that determine a person’s culture. In the context of rapid scientific and technological progress, it is vital to constantly exchange relevant infor- mation. The effectiveness of this process relies not only on the proficient knowledge of the subject and the ability to make grammatically correct sentences, but to a large extent on the level of competence in scientific language. The present article attempts to consider the interaction of discourse and vocabulary, different types of cognitive phenomena responsible for the use of a language in real time and related to the language as a means of storing and organising information. Analysing and classifying some key elements of a scientific discourse lexicon contributes to the development of certain provisions of lexicology, functional stylistics, cognitive linguistics and terminology. The results of the analysis may be advantageous both to linguistics and teaching the language for specific purposes.

  18. Cue Effectiveness in Communicatively Efficient Discourse Production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qian, Ting; Jaeger, T. Florian

    2012-01-01

    Recent years have seen a surge in accounts motivated by information theory that consider language production to be partially driven by a preference for communicative efficiency. Evidence from discourse production (i.e., production beyond the sentence level) has been argued to suggest that speakers distribute information across discourse so as to…

  19. Critical Discourse Analysis and Leadership

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arriaza, Gilberto

    2015-01-01

    This article outlines the need of infusing critical discourse analysis into the preparation and support of prospective school leaders. It argues that in the process of school transformation, the school leader must possess the ability to self-reflect on his/her language and understand the potential power of language as a means that may support or…

  20. 臺灣原住民族語教育政策之批判論述分析The Critical Discourse Analysis of Taiwan Indigenous Language Education Policy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    趙素貞Su-Chen Chao

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available 本研究是以Fairclough的批判論述分析模式為架構,探討臺灣原住民族語教育的論述文本、論述實踐及社會實踐,分別進行文本分析、過程分析及社會分析。本研究的結論如下:一、現行族語教育政策制定與執行過程欠缺評估與監督;二、族語教育隱含我族中心主義的意識形態與權力鬥爭;三、原住民主體性論述是主宰當今族語教育政策的霸權;四、族語論述實踐與臺灣族群意識和政治存在辯證關係;五、族語政策論述體系重構原住民族社會的知識信仰;六、族語教育政策和原住民的族群認同應解構。This research followed Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis model to explore the discourse text, discourse practice, and social practice of Taiwan indigenous language education. It conducted text analysis, processing analysis, and social analysis. The conclusions are as follows: (1 The existing decision making and execution process for indigenous language education policy are lack of evaluation and monitoring. (2The Indigenous language education has concealed ethnocentrism and power conflicts. (3 The indigenous subjectivism discourse has become the hegemony that manipulates present indigenous language education policy. (4 The existence of dialectic relationship among indigenous discourse practice, Taiwan ethnic consciousness and politics. (5The indigenous language policyscourse system rebuilds the knowledge and belief of indigenous society. (6 Indigenous language education policy and indigenous ethnic identity should be detached from each other.

  1. On the plurality of discourses

    OpenAIRE

    Stewart-Wallace, Adam

    2010-01-01

    We talk about the world in different ways; by better understanding the ways we talk, we can better understand the world. Anyone who can appreciate this thought can appreciate the position here called discourse pluralism, or 'pluralism' for short. This covers a family of views in the realism debate, notably those of Michael Dummett (in one guise at least), Crispin Wright and Simon Blackburn. They believe that language is divided up into discourses corresponding to traditional areas of philosop...

  2. Concluding Essay: On Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Robert B.

    1990-01-01

    Discusses trends and problems in regarding discourse analysis as a viable paradigm that can govern research, focusing on such issues as the wide diversity and variety of research that can be considered discourse analysis, the predominant focus on English language, research approaches, and undefined variables affecting research outcomes. (seven…

  3. The 2011 Estonian High School Language Reform in the Context of Critical Language Policy and Planning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skerrett, Delaney Michael

    2014-01-01

    This paper seeks to situate Estonian language use and policy within the emerging field of critical language policy and planning (CLPP) by investigating the discourses that frame linguistic behaviour. This done by way of an analysis of a series of interviews carried out with key actors in language policy in Estonia. The discourses framing language…

  4. Contrast and Critique of Two Approaches to Discourse Analysis: Conversation Analysis and Speech Act Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Nguyen Van

    2014-01-01

    Discourse analysis, as Murcia and Olshtain (2000) assume, is a vast study of language in use that extends beyond sentence level, and it involves a more cognitive and social perspective on language use and communication exchanges. Holding a wide range of phenomena about language with society, culture and thought, discourse analysis contains various…

  5. Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements Comment on "Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Carmel; Blaiklock, Alison

    2016-03-05

    Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN) summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era. © 2016 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

  6. Digital Discourse Markers in an ESL Learning Setting: The Case of Socialisation Forums

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shakarami, Alireza; Hajhashemi, Karim; Caltabiano, Nerina

    2016-01-01

    Analysis of the linguistic discourse plays an important role in the social, cultural, ethnographic, and comparative studies of languages. Discourse markers as indispensable parts of this analysis are reportedly more common in informal speech than in written language. They could be used at different levels, i.e. as "linking words,"…

  7. The role of discourse in the promotion of the education of the girl ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This means that if classroom discourse is handled well it will have a positive effect on ... to analyse discourse strategies that teachers use in class to interact with .... social disadvantage from which women have suffered in most human societiesin ... a Foreign Language (EFL) materials are guilty of sexist language in different.

  8. Exploring Language Awareness through Students' Engagement in Language Play

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahn, So-Yeon

    2016-01-01

    The present study explores Korean students' demonstration of language awareness through their engagement in language play. Grounded in the understanding of the relationship between language play and an "engagement with language" (EWL) perspective, this ethnographic and discourse analytic study investigates how Korean students aged 11-15…

  9. Alise's Small Stories: Indices of Identity Construction and of Resistance to the Discourse of Cognitive Impairment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenchuk, Iryna; Swain, Merrill

    2010-01-01

    In this paper, we discuss two types of discourse: the first one--the discourse of cognitive impairment of a long-term care facility (LTCF) reflected in the institution's language policy and in the language use of several caregivers of the LTCF; and the second one, the discourse of "small" stories (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008) told by Alise, a…

  10. Discourse abilities in the structure of intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Voronin A. N.

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Background. This article is devoted to empirical research on discourse abilities within the structure of cognitive abilities. Discourse abilities, as well as linguistic abilities, are part of language abilities, but they are directly linked with discourse practices and a certain communicative situation. Discourse abilities allow a person to effectively initiate, keep, expand, and complete the process of communication, using language appropriate to any given situation. These abilities contribute to making communication more effective and achieving mutual understanding between partners, while at the same time they speed up the process of forming an interaction strategy. the empirical verification of the construct “discourse abilities,” and the design of original diagnostic tests on them, led us to differentiate linguistic and discourse abilities. Objective. However, it is not yet clear what place discourse abilities occupy in the structure of cognitive abilities. This is the primary goal of our research. Method. The design of the study involved group testing (in groups of 15-35 people using the following methods: a discourse abilities test; a short selection test; a social intelligence test, and short variations of Torrance’s and Mednick’s tests. In total, 208 people (133 women and 75 men, ages 17 to 21 years participated in the study, all of them either first year humanities students or high school students from Moscow. Results and Discussion. The research results revealed that discourse abilities relevantly correlate with the majority of indicators of general and social intelligence and creativity (except non-verbal intelligence. Discourse abilities as part of the structure of cognitive capabilities form a discrete factor, and include relevant components such as verbal and general intelligence and indicators of social intelligence, such as the ability to group expressions. Structures indicative of cognitive abilities varied within the

  11. Discourse Markers s Sentence Openers in Legal English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Onorina Botezat

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Discourse markers can be defined as linguistic expressions of different length which carry pragmatic and propositional meaning, they are used to combine clauses or to connect sentence elements andthey appear in both speech and writing, and facilitate the discourse. Each discourse marker indicates a particular meaning relationship between two or more clauses. English is predominantly the language ofinternational legal practice and its importance to lawyers cannot be over-emphasized. The way in which one uses legal English can therefore be crucial to professional success. This paper stresses the importance of good usage of discourse markers in legal English.

  12. Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements Comment on “Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carmel Williams

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era.

  13. Some Aspects of “Face-Saving” in Dialogue Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Rusko

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available During the last two decades human communication has become a topic of interest for language analysts. Language and environment have a significant impact on the way people communicate trying to establish good relations with each other. Language has in store various means that help communicants not only to achieve felicitous communication but also save face in the process of interpersonal communication. The article deals with language and speech means aimed at saving face in Modern English conversational discourse. It describes theoretical grounds of investigation based on the politeness theory and cooperation principles and focuses on defining and analyzing “face-saving” strategies and tactics in Modern English conversational discourse. Understanding the effect “face-saving” strategies and tactics produce will benefit interpersonal communication on different levels. Hence this subject is germane and most topical to education in general and language teaching in particular.

  14. Identity-Forming Discourses: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Policy Making Processes Concerning English Language Teaching in Colombia (Discursos que forjan identidades: un análisis crítico de discursos en la formulación de políticas sobre la enseñanza del inglés en Colombia)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Escobar Alméciga, Wilder Yesid

    2013-01-01

    This article addresses a critical problem about asymmetrical power relationships and uneven conditions in English language education exerted via identity shaping discourses in the document Educación: "Visión 2019" issued by the Colombian Ministry of National Education. The study follows the critical discourse analysis method. It…

  15. The intrusion of the discourse of economics into the clinical space III: economic rationalism and clinical effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plastow, Michael

    2010-10-01

    Language has always been a means of imposing political and economic dominance. The ascendancy of the discourse of economics is examined in the context of economic rationalism. Some of the effects of this discourse, both upon our services, as well as upon different modes of conceptualizing the therapeutic relationship, will be examined in this paper. The intensification of the use of terms from economics and management can be dated from the introduction of neo-liberal policies in our Western democracies, but the economic discourse circulates with a life of its own. The use of the language of economics and management has spread generally through our society. Thus, if the economic discourse is the language utilized by some clinicians, it is also to some degree the language adopted by our patients. It is proposed that the extension of the economic discourse into the clinical field is re-shaping the therapeutic relationship with our patients.

  16. "You Are Confusing!": Tensions between Teacher's and Students' Discourses in the Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Hyu-Yong

    2008-01-01

    This article concludes that a "pedagogic discourse" is legitimized in school practices when power in society is actualized and exercised through the use of language as symbolic power. Under these circumstances, the classroom becomes an arena where teachers' discourse as "the regulator" collides with students' discourse as "the regulated".…

  17. The New Development of the Study of Discourse Anaphora ------Review of Discourse Anaphora: A Cognitive-Functional Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meixia Li

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The English word anaphora is derived from the Greek word ἀναφορά, meaning carrying back. For a long time anaphora has been the object of research in a wide range of disciplines, such as rhetoric, philosophy, theoretical linguistics and so on. A great number of remarkable achievements have been made in these fields. In the 1970’s there was a “discourse turn” in the domain of the humanities and the social sciences, which marked the birth and flourishing of such cross-disciplines as psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse studies and so on, and which also paved the way for the turn of the study of anaphora from focusing on intrasentential anaphora to intersentential anaphora. Intrasentential anaphora refers to the relationship between a pronoun and its antecedent being contained within one sentence, while intersentential anaphora can also be called discourse anaphora, which refers to “the relationship between a pronoun and its antecedent earlier in the discourse” (Clark & Parikh, 2006, p. 1. From the late 20th century on, discourse anaphora has become one of the hot topics in several fields such as psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, etc. Many fruitful research results (i.e. Huang, 2002; Clark & Parikh, 2006, etc. have been obtained. Ming-Ming Pu’s monograph Discourse Anaphora: A Cognitive-Functional Approach, published by LINCOM GmbH in Muenchen, Germany in 2011 is another important work of the study of discourse anaphora. In this book, the author first proposes a cognitive-functional model to account for how the construction of mental structures determines the use and resolution of discourse anaphora. Afterwards he does a comparative quantitative study of both English and Chinese empirical and text data, which demonstrates that on the one hand the occurrence and distribution of discourse anaphora is more universal in nature than language

  18. Art Education and Disability Studies Perspectives on Mental Illness Discourses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Derby, John K.

    2009-01-01

    This dissertation critically examines mental illness discourses through the intersecting disciplinary lenses of art education and disability studies. Research from multiple disciplines is compared and theorized to uncover the ways in which discourses, or language systems, have oppressively constructed and represented "mental illness." To establish…

  19. Patient participation as discursive practice-A critical discourse analysis of Danish mental healthcare.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joergensen, Kim; Praestegaard, Jeanette

    2018-04-01

    Patient participation is one of the most prevalent focus areas in the Danish healthcare debate. Patient participation is generally presented as a fundamental democratic right, and is stated in an objective language with legal requirements for healthcare professionals to ensure that patients systematically participate in their own courses of care and treatment. In the research literature, it is not clear what is meant by 'patient participation', and several discourses on patient participation exist side by side. This study explores how discourses of patient participation unfold and are at play in the articulations in official legal and political documents and patient records relating to a Danish psychiatric context. The documents and patient records have been analyzed using a Fairclough-inspired critical discourse approach which is concerned with how power is exercised through language. The research findings show that patient participation within Danish psychiatric healthcare is governed within a neoliberal discourse where underlying discourses; discourse of biomedicine, paternalism, management, evidence and ethics of care are embedded, and a discourse that seems to ascribe stigmatizing traits to mentally ill patients. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. THE CHARACTERISTIC OF JAPANESE NEOLOGISM-LOANWORDS IN CHINESE PUBLICISTIC DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Фу Цзе

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of writing this article is investigation of the basic ways of meaning changing of Japanese words in Chinese publicistic discourse - active assimilation is associated with Chinese youth’s lifestyle changes and, consequently, it’s related to the mental part of Chinese society.The most deep and quick changing in modern world is reflected in publicistic, this is the reason why we considered Chinese publicistic discourse as a topical resource, that reflects lighting fast changing in modern language. Learning common neologism-loanwords in Chinese publicistic discourse is new field of learning the issue in assimilation Japanese neologism-loanwords in Chinese language.The results of analysis of basic ways in the meaning changing of Japanese words in Chinese publicistic discourse reveals the following: extension of meaning, contraction of meaning, rhetorical meaning changing: positive or negative, conversion of the initial and secondary meaning.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-2-36

  1. Promotional discourse in the websites of two Australian universities: A discourse analytic approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thi Van Yen Hoang

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This article shows how universities represent themselves through the use of language on their institutional websites. Specifically, it compares and contrasts how a long established university, the University of Melbourne and a young university, Macquarie University construct their institutional identities and build up a relationship with potential students. A three-dimensional framework developed by Fairclough is utilised for three stages of discourse analysis. The analysis reveals that the websites of the two universities exhibit a promotional discourse which reflects the impacts of globalisation and the trend of academic marketing on higher education. This type of discourse is utilised by the universities to promote themselves in order attract more students and other resources. A comparison and contrast of the two university websites show that the representation of the two universities is not only determined by the social trends, but also their own tradition and reputation.

  2. "Well, Hang On, They're Actually Much Better than That!": Disrupting Dominant Discourses of Deficit about English Language Learners in Senior High School English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alford, Jennifer H.

    2014-01-01

    This paper explores how four English teachers position their English language learners for critical literacy within senior high school curriculum in Queensland, Australia. Such learners are often positioned, even by their teachers, within a broader "deficit discourse" that claims they are inherently lacking the requisite knowledge and…

  3. Nursing scholars appropriating new methods: the use of discourse analysis in scholarly nursing journals 1996-2003

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buus, Niels

    2005-01-01

    Nursing scholars appropriate the analysis of discourse. "Discourse analysis" covers a wide spectrum of approaches to analysing meaning and language and there is no widely accepted definition of either a concept or an analysis of discourse. A sample of the discourse analyses indexed in the CINAHL...

  4. The Role of Indigenous Languages in National Development: A Case Study of Nigerian Linguistic Situation

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    Anthony Ayodele Olaoye

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Indigenous languages are indispensable cultural legacies without which all forms of human interactions can be carried out. National development is the development of individuals in a nation. Individuals can develop educationally, socially, politically, economically, and culturally through interaction with government agencies that disseminate policies through various indigenous languages. Development indices such as internal cohesion, integration, unity, economic wellbeing and citizens’ participation in governance are promoted through indigenous languages. Based on these assertions, the author studied the current linguistic situations in Nigeria and found that native languages play fundamental role on issues  such as democracy, technology, metalanguage and linguistic globalization .There are however some challenges in the optimum  utilization of these mother tongues. The major problems being orthographic inadequacy,the multiplicity of minority languages, linguistic desertification and deforestation and  language endangerment.The author then suggests a way forward.

  5. Emotions in political discourse. Kirchnerism's"Phatogram"

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    Nicolás Bermúdez

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This article relies on a broader research on the kirchnerista discourse operations. Nowadays, Argentinean political language is full of terms that designate emotions and full of thrill seeking resources. This indicates the intensity of the emotional dimension of political discourse. Therefore, it seems important to analyze what are the emotions that kirchnerista discourse really develops. Concretely, the objective of this paper is to present an analysis about discursive procedures developed by the presidential speaker in order to produce certain emotion in the audience. Although the main thesis of the research is that there are determinable emotional cycles in the history of kirchnerista presidential discourse, in this article the analysis is limited to a corpus of commemoration messages pronounced between 2003 and 2007. This election demonstrates the importance to be given to genre between restrictions affecting the formation of the sense. This analysis was made according to the theoretical and methodological foundations of the social discourses theory. However, the descriptive phase calls for the contributions of rhetoric and philosophy, disciplines that long ago think about the emotions.

  6. Education between discourse and matter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lysgaard, Jonas Greve; Fjeldsted, Kristoffer Lolk

    2015-01-01

    education should be based on. Inspired by the speculative realists we argue that the focus on language and discourse to a wide degree has gone too far, especially when dealing with issues linked to education and nature. This is by no means a cry for a return to naïve realism, but to a greater degree......This article takes the central concepts of the emergent philosophical movement speculative realism and applies them to notions linked to education and nature. In doing that we argue that it is now time to delimit the role of discursive approaches as the sole road to a coherent understanding of what...... an effort to insist that it is important to include a focus on a material Real and perhaps take it easy when pushing language, discourse, and notions like social constructivism when engaging with issues linked to nature and education. Our aim is not to promote a certain kind of education, but to argue...

  7. Language and Politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chimombo, Moira

    1999-01-01

    Surveys the interrelationship between language and politics. Touches on the context of political discourse, or political culture and ideology in new and old democracies and the reemerging manifestations of totalitarianism, censorship, and linguistic imperialism; then examines selected linguistic features of political discourse and their…

  8. Interlanguage comparison of sport discourse (on the material of sport analytic article

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gavryushina Ekaterina Alexandrovna

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the study of cultural and mental specificity of language units in the sport communication. The study was conducted on the material of English, Russian and German analytical articles, thematically related to tennis. Using the technique of cross-language comparison it is revealed significant characteristic parameters of sports discourse. The proposed comparative procedure consists in three stages of analysis: linguistic, cognitive-communicative and linguistic-cultural. During the analysis at each step there were identified certain criteria specific to the sport discourse in three linguasocieties. Sport communication reflects not only the specificity and originality of the language, but also the traditions, history, mentality, culture, and behavior patterns of modern professional sport community. Comparative study of sport discourse reveals the cultural, linguistic and cognitive features of sublanguage sports and allows to get a common view of the structure of sport analytical articles.

  9. Stancetaking and Language Ideologies in Heritage Language Learner Classroom Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Showstack, Rachel E.

    2017-01-01

    Drawing on linguistic anthropological notions of language ideologies and sociolinguistic approaches to stance, this study examines the meaning-making resources through which Spanish heritage language (HL) learners orient toward ideological perspectives on language value and linguistic expertise in classroom interaction. Part of a larger…

  10. Language, Subject, Ideology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    German A. Ivanov

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available In this paper the problem of interdependence between power and language is viewed. The authors point out that the problem may be investigated in two aspects: from the point of view of a conscious use of language as a political instrument and from the point of view of an unconscious dependence of an individual on language and ideology. In this context, the authors investigate the ideas expressed by Louis Althusser and Michel Pźcheux. The theory of Ideological State Apparatuses by Althusser is represented here as one of possible conceptual bases for defining gender distribution of power. In this paper the specificity of the Pźcheux’s  discourse analysis is revealed: discourse is viewed by Pźcheux as a sphere of intersection of language and extra-linguistic restrictions created by ideology. 

  11. Perspectives on Language Sustainability in a Performance Era: Discourses, Policies, and Practices in a Digital and Social Media Campaign to Revitalise Irish

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kelly-Holmes Helen

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The poststructuralist turn has been widely acknowledged in contemporary applied and sociolinguistics (Rampton 2006, Blommaert 2010. While for many this paradigmatic shift has been a welcome challenge to segregationalist approaches (Mühlhäusler 1996, Makoni and Pennycook 2007 and deficit discourses in relation to multilingualism (Jacquemet 2005, Jaffe 2007, it is not an unproblematic concept for minority language media and language sustainability. For those committed to activism and engagement with policy makers, the current paradigmatic shift, which has been described in terms of a performance era for minority language media (Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes 2011, presents particular challenges which have the potential to undermine gains made in previous eras in relation to media rights for minority language speakers. Using the example of a recent multi-media campaign to revitalise Irish, the Bród Club, this paper explores the opportunities and problems presented by the contemporary performance era for minority language media.

  12. The Relation Between the View on the Language and Educational Ideology in the Early Meiji Period in Japan Through the Discourse of Regionalism

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    Yufuko ICHIMIYA

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available In this article, the Japanese language situation in early Meiji period will be analysed from the viewpoint of the provinces. In concrete terms, the origin of the idea that "an opaque language yields an unlcear ideology" – we can often find such a discourse through Meiji, Taisho and early Showa period – will be searched for by using primary sources in northern Kyushu, the southern part of Japan. This kind of idea can be seen in the writings of teachers and professors. Consequently, educational theories and teaching methods which had spread over the country in that period will be clues to analyse this subject. Moreover, I will try to compare the concept of "opaque language" in the Taisho period, during which dialects were considered as the representative example of such a language, with what was considered "opaque language" in the early Meiji period, when the definition of dialect and the concrete form of the standard language were still vague.

  13. Some Cholón discourse particles and Quechua homologues

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alexander-Bakkerus, A.; Romero-Figueroa, A.

    2011-01-01

    Cholón belongs to a small language family. It was spoken in North Peru in the valley of the Huallaga River. Cholón is an agglutinative SOV language, and it has, amongst other things, some twenty interesting, suffixed discourse particles: adverbial markers, emphasis markers, exclamation markers,

  14. Argumentation and acts of language in political discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paulo Henrique Aguiar Mendes

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the relations between speech acts and argumentation in political discourse, considering the relevance of the dimensions of ethos, logos and pathos in engendering the most typical enunciative processes of that discursive domain.

  15. RHIZOME AND DISCOURSE OF INTERMEDIALITY

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    Л Н Синельникова

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Rhizomaticity is a strategy and a regularity of text creation in a lot of modern commu-nicative discourse practices. What remains urgent is the problem of the systematic interdisciplinary de-scription of texts whose structure and language qualities are determined by the signs of the rhizome - a concept of post-modern philosophy introduced into the scientific field by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychotherapist Félix Guattari (Deleuze, Guattari 1996. The rhizome (Fr. rhizome - rootstock, tuber, bulb, mycelium possesses the following qualities: it is non-linear, open and directed towards the unpredictability of discourse transformations through the possibilities of structure development in any direction; there is no centre or periphery in the rhizome, and any discourse element can become ‘a vital structure’ for text-creation. The rhizome does not have non-intersecting boundaries; and in the space of the rhizomatic discourse environment, an increase of reality facets takes place, non-standard associative con-nections appear, multiplication effects are formed, which create new meanings. Rhizomaticity is the quality of texts being organised by the laws of rhizomatic logic (V.F. Sharkov 2007, by the terms of which ‘su-perposition’ of discourses can take place, a transition from one semiotic system to another. The article makes an attempt to correlate the qualities of the rhizome with the signs of the intermedia discourse, which is built on the semiotic interaction of different media. The moving lines of the rhizome, its ‘branch-ing’ qualities can be found in poetic texts, in the evaluating segments of political discourse, in advertising discourse, in internet communications, which represent rhizomorphic environments. An analysis of examples from these spheres has shown that the rhizomatic approach opens new facets of intermediality. The author uses the methods of discourse analysis to prove that the openness and non

  16. Discourse Approaches to Writing Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connnor, Ulla; Mbaye, Aymerou

    2002-01-01

    Discusses assessment of English-as-a-Foreign/Second-Language (EFL/ESL) writing. Suggests there is a considerable gap between current practices in writing assessment and criteria suggested by advances in knowledge of discourse structure. Illustrates this by contrasting current practices in the scoring of two major EFL/ESL writing tests with…

  17. Wondering Discourse in the Classroom.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Townsend, Jane Susan

    A study examined classroom discourse in three literature class discussions among 15 high school juniors and their teacher as they tried to make sense of "Hamlet" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." Participants' moves (what the students and teacher were trying to do with their language during the discussion);…

  18. Discourse(s) of emotion within medical education: the ever-present absence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNaughton, Nancy

    2013-01-01

    Emotion in medical education rests between the idealised and the invisible, sitting uneasily at the intersection between objective fact and subjective values. Examining the different ways in which emotion is theorised within medical education is important for a number of reasons. Most significant is the possibility that ideas about emotion can inform a broader understanding of issues related to competency and professionalism. The current paper provides an overview of three prevailing discourses of emotion in medical education and the ways in which they activate particular professional expectations about emotion in practice. A Foucauldian critical discourse analysis of the medical education literature was carried out. Keywords, phrases and metaphors related to emotion were examined for their effects in shaping medical socialisation processes. Despite the increasing recognition over the last two decades of emotion as 'socially constructed', the view of emotion as individualised is deeply embedded in our language and conceptual frameworks. The discourses that inform our emotion talk and practice as teachers and health care professionals are important to consider for the effects they have on competence and professional identity, as well as on practitioner and patient well-being. Expanded knowledge of how emotion is 'put to work' within medical education can make visible the invisible and unexamined emotion schemas that serve to reproduce problematic professional behaviours. For this discussion, three main discourses of emotion will be identified: a physiological discourse in which emotion is described as located inside the individual as bodily states which are universally experienced; emotion as a form of competence related to skills and abilities, and a socio-cultural discourse which calls on conceptions from the humanities and social sciences and directs our attention to emotion's function in social exchanges and its role as a social, political and cultural mediator

  19. Language Policy and Language Ideology: Ecological Perspectives on Language and Education in the Himalayan Foothills

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groff, Cynthia

    2018-01-01

    Ethnographic research in the Kumaun region of North India highlights different perspectives on this multilingual context and on national-level policies. Language policies that explicitly or implicitly minoritize certain linguistic varieties influence local discourses about language and education but are also interpreted through the lens of local…

  20. How to Deal with Non-Dominant Languages – Metalinguistic Discourses on Low German in the Nineteenth Century

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    Nils Langer

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses nineteenth-century metalinguistic discussions of Low German, an authochthonous of Northern Germany, which, having lost its status as a written language suitable for formal discourse during the Early Modern period, has since been reduced to the spoken domain. During the nineteenth century the language was on the verge of enjoying a revival, with original poetry being published and extensive discussions as to whether Low German ought to play a role in formal education. As this article shows, this discussion was intense and controversial. Comparing the views of Klaus Groth, the leading proponent of Low German in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the internal debates amongst school teachers - hitherto never discussed by the scholarly literature – this article demonstrates the intellectual and ideological split felt by these educational practioners in their views of Low German: on the one hand, they recognise the cultural value of Low German as the historical language of the North and the native language of the pupils they teach, on the other hand they agree with each other that the language of education and science, as well as national unity, can only be High German. We hope to show with our discussion not only how very similar modern thinking on the use of Low German is to these historical discussions but also how the status and perception of many regional and minority languages across the world has been subject to the same or very similar thoughts and pressures.

  1. Language and status: On the limits of language planning

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Post-1994 language planning: the rise of a new policy discourse. 'Language .... was post-1945 'nation building' (Fishman 1968:54) and the emergence of new nationalist movements ..... professional scholars in Africa played in the production of "'inventory' descriptions of ... appropriate conceptualization of its subject matter.

  2. Language Teacher Subjectivities in Japan's Diaspora Strategies: Teaching My Language as Someone's Heritage Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motobayashi, Kyoko

    2016-01-01

    This study demonstrates the ways in which discourses in a state-sponsored volunteer program incited transformations of individual subjectivities, focusing on a group of Japanese language teacher volunteers training in Japan to become teachers of Japanese as a heritage language for the country's diaspora (Nikkei) population in South America. As…

  3. Denials of Racism in Canadian English Language Textbooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gulliver, Trevor; Thurrell, Kristy

    2016-01-01

    This critical discourse analysis examines denials of racism in descriptions of Canada and Canadians from English language textbooks. Denials of racism often accompany racist and nationalist discourse, preempting observations of racism. The study finds that in representations of Canada or Canadians, English language texts minimize and downplay…

  4. Challenging conflicting discourses of climate change

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fleming, Aysha; Vanclay, Frank; Hiller, Claire; Wilson, Stephen

    2014-01-01

    The influence of language on communication about climate change is well recognised, but this understanding is under-utilised by those seeking to increase uptake of action for climate change. We discuss the terms, discourse, resistance, and agency, to assist in developing ways to progress social

  5. The Discourse of a Preschool Education Curriculum

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lidija Miškeljin

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents a critical analysis of the discourse of a preschool education curriculum. Its starting point is Foucault’s concept of discourse as language in use, which not only reflects the social order, but also shapes it through a network of conventions, knowledge and practices determining man’s – or, in this case, the reader’s – perception of reality. The analysis is based on identifying the discourse strategies and/or systems of rules laid out in the text The basic principles of the preschool education curriculum for three- to seven-year-old children – model A which make possible certain statements and insights regarding children and thus position the child and the preschool teacher by means of discourse repertoires. This approach helps contextualize the text and leads to an understanding of the basic discourse mechanism involved in the creation of specific versions of preschool education. As discourse analysis itself is related to interpretation and narratology, with the story as a constant, so is this paper a story about a preschool curriculum, for, like any other text, it tells an unfinished story that can yet evolve in different directions.

  6. Professional and personal responsibility in higher education - An inquiry from a standpoint of pragmatismand discourse theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carsten Ljunggren

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, reports have drawn attention to an ongoing instrumentalization of academic actions, governed by economic power. In the light of these reports higher education in Sweden is analysed combining Deweyan pragmatism with the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe to construct a theoretical conception of professional and personal responsibility. At the beginning of the 1990s and the 21st Century, it is possible to observe a discursive domain filled with variations in language use – the existence of a classical academic discourse, a discourse of Bildung, a discourse of democracy and a discourse of economic globalization – that causes both conflicts and openness regarding the meaning of higher education and professional responsibility. The closer we get to 2007, the more this variation in language use is reduced and the narrower the meaning we find, owing to the hegemonic tendencies of the discourse of economic globalization.

  7. Manipulation Impact through Metaphors in Political Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Руслан Ирикович Зарипов

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The article covers the metaphorical modeling in a political discourse as one of linguistic manipulation impact means. Political speech exercising a motivation function use symbols in order to link concepts which are not often even adjoined. And it’s a metaphor that plays one of leading roles in this process. Communication needs stable metaphors. It’s very important to use this linguistic means in a political discourse as it’s able to form a positive stock phrase and a negative figure. The summation of metaphors in a definitive conceptual domaine of a political discourse form part of a metaphorical model that is an universal epistemological category expressing a general discourse semantics and organizing special mentality stereotypes for a message recipient. The article is designed for students and post-graduate students specialized in philology, lecturers and professors of linguistics and foreign languages, scientists and amateurs.

  8. A Pragmatic Analysis of Discourse Particles in Filipino Computer Mediated Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palacio, May Antonette; Gustilo, Leah

    2016-01-01

    As the English language continues to evolve through time, many of its structures and functions changed, which made it even realizable that the smallest unit in a discourse can play a crucial role in communication. Hence, this present study is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon and further delve into the discourse-pragmatic functions of…

  9. Revealing Linguistic Power : Discourse Practice toward “Youth” in Japanese and Thai Newspapers

    OpenAIRE

    SVETANANT, Chavalin

    2009-01-01

    The discourse of mass media is considered as a site of power, a site of social struggle where language is apparently transparent. Media institutions, whether intentionally or not, tend to naturalize things and try to place themselves in the position of objective agents who know “the facts” and have a legitimate right to report them to the public. In recent studies of sociopolitical discourse analysis where language, ideologies, and power relations have been examined, “youth” has been viewed a...

  10. Discourse Memory and Reading Comprehension Skill

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perfetti, Charles A.; Goldman, Susan R.

    1976-01-01

    A study is reported in which short-term memory capacity, estimated by a probe digit task, and memory for structured language, measured by a probe discourse task, were investigated in an experiment with third and fifth grade IQ-matched children representing two levels of reading comprehension skill. (Author/RM)

  11. Customer-friendly Approach or Pidginization of German Tourist Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brigita Bosnar-Valkovic

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available If the sentences or phrases like Fast Food-Konzept in Chile, Leonardo goes Gastronomie, Der Claim „Inspiration for modern living“, WM-Countdown läuft; Deutschland ist die fünftgrößte Incoming-Destination weltweit und … are considered, the first impression is that this is a typical mixture of both English and German. To all intents and purposes, they support the main part of a definition of pidgin language. Communication plays a central role in tourism. As emphasized by numerous authors, it is a personification of tourism; conversely tourism could be said to totally encompass a system of communication. As it is a crucial component of the industry, tourist discourse not only serves as a medium for buying/selling tourist products, it also assumes the role of the product itself within the complexity of various economic, technological and political processes in tourism. If analyzed within linguistic norms, discussion of Anglo-American influence on the German tourist discourse should focus on the problem of erosion of the national language, due to the impact of these Ango-Americanisms. The German tourist discourse aims at a customer-friendly approach in order to attract potential buyers or guests, all of which results in a slightly pidginized version of the German tourist discourse.

  12. Student and Teacher Interventions: A Framework for Analysing Mathematical Discourse in the Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drageset, Ove Gunnar

    2015-01-01

    Mathematical discourse in the classroom has been conceptualised in several ways, from relatively general patterns such as initiation-response-evaluation (Cazden in "Classroom discourse: the language of teaching and learning," Heinemann, London, 1988; Mehan in "Learning lessons: social organization in the classroom." Cambridge,…

  13. CREATION OF THE SHUGHNANI DISCOURSE OF PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE MEDIA AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    П Ш Абдулхамидова

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Shughnani, one of the Pamiri languages of Tajikistan, is a minority language, and has no written script. Socio-economic and political changes in the lives of language speakers have affected the functioning of this small language, which was previously devoid of social significance. In the late 1980s, ideas began to emerge about the expansion of its functions, and attempts were made to use it in print media, television and radio. Observation of the functional development of Shugnani in these media led to the hypothesis of the emergence of a public sphere discourse, where it is possible to raise problems of social importance, and discuss them to search for eventual solutions. The main purpose of the article is to study attempts to create a discourse of the public sphere for Shugnani, in media and on the Facebook social network. The theoretical and methodological approaches of the study are based on the concept of the pub-lic sphere of Habermas, using the Critical Discourse Analysis paradigm (Fairclough. The data for the study were taken from Shughnani print media, from speeches on television and radio, and from postings by members of Shughnani Facebook groups. The findings reveal that the Shughnani presence in the media is limited, and construction of public opinion is more successfully carried out via Shughnani groups on Facebook. Analysis of the discursive practices involved shows that, despite the slow development of a media presence, the establishment of public discourse occurs through the creation of verbal units which have a journalistic character. Shugnani-speaking groups on Facebook contribute to the strengthening of the posi-tion of the language, through the formulation and discussion of issues relevant to members of the language community and the creation of language units that enhance confidence in the use of non-written Shugnani in the public sphere.

  14. Prevailing Lexical-stylistic Features in Emirati Language Learners’ Digital Discourse | Caractéristiques lexicales stylistiques dominantes dans le discours numérique des apprenants en langue émirienne

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tsoghik Grigoryan

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Predicting the future path of the digital classroom discourse is twofold. Today’s language classroom is undergoing an irreversible revolution and one of the most powerful drivers of this transformation is ICT. Digital classroom not only exposes the learners to grammatical language of linguistics, but rather the everyday life of the language in use (Thurlow and Mroczek, 2011. The aim of this study was to explore the nature of free digital discourse in a digital language classroom and capture lexical-stylistic features used in students’ online conversations through Blackboard-learn discussion board. To identify common or unique features of digital discourse in a paperless language classroom and to show how they affect students’ speech behaviors, mixed method case study was used. Aujourd’hui, l’enseignement des langues est entraîné dans une hyperbole irréversible, et les TIC sont l’un des moteurs les plus puissants de cette transformation. Les salles de classe numériques exposent les apprenants non seulement à la grammaire linguistique, mais aussi à la vie quotidienne de la langue en usage (Thurlow et Mroczek, 2011. Le but de cette étude était d’explorer la nature du discours numérique gratuit sur iPad dans une salle de classe numérique pour l’apprentissage linguistique et de capter les caractéristiques lexicales stylistiques utilisées dans les communications en ligne des apprenants adolescents en langue émirienne. Cette approche mixte par étude de cas a mis en œuvre un cadre théorique de détection des sentiments sur une plateforme d’apprentissage sur tableau noir pour cerner les caractéristiques communes ou uniques du discours numérique dans une salle de classe dématérialisée et démontrer comment elles affectent les comportements linguistiques des élèves de langue maternelle émirienne.

  15. The language of violence in mental health: shifting the paradigm to the language of peace.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alex, Marion; Whitty-Rogers, Joanne; Panagopoulos, Wendy

    2013-01-01

    Language used in health care, particularly with vulnerable populations such as those with mental illness, is often violent, rising from historical prejudices and politics of power over others. This creates disharmony and distrust between health care providers and patients and families. Peace involves relationships that nurture ongoing harmony, trust, and constructive solutions. In this descriptive philosophical article, we discuss connections between and among the concepts of peace, health, relational ethics, in relation to nurses' responsibilities, current health care realities, and the language of nursing. We propose a shift in discourse within nurse-patient relationships from oppressive and stigmatizing language to the discourse of peace.

  16. Multimodal instruction and persuasion in disclosing greenwashing discourses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Maier, Carmen Daniela

    and accompanied by new voice-over commentaries and new visual material. The new voice-over narrator instructs the viewers how to identify and decode the multimodal persuasive strategies employed in the original discourse. Simultaneously, the viewers are also persuaded to accept the new understanding...... and social actions when the commercials' greenwashing discourse is used for other instructive and persuasive purposes. When mapping and explaining these transformations, the analysis is based on the investigation of the multifunctional interplay of semiotic modes as language and images. On the basis...

  17. POLITICALLY CORRECT MEANS OF PERSON’S NOMINATION IN CLIENTELE DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Маргарита Сергеевна Михайлова

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the present article is to describe the patterns of politically correct naming of persons with disabilities, replacing direct human nominations, that can hurt one’s feelings and dignity.The article deals with the ways of politically correct persons’ nomination in the clientele discourse presented on the English-language web-sites of insurance and airline companies. The author gives the definition of the clientele discourse, educes the linguistic mechanism of politically correct persons’ naming in the English clientele discourse.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-3-20

  18. Language and Social Identity Construction: A Study of a Russian Heritage Language Orthodox Christian School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Ekaterina Leonidovna

    2012-01-01

    Grounded in discourse analytic and language socialization paradigms, this dissertation examines issues of language and social identity construction in children attending a Russian Heritage Language Orthodox Christian Saturday School in California. By conducting micro-analysis of naturally-occurring talk-in-interaction combined with longitudinal…

  19. Hearts and minds: Agency and discourse on distress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemp, Martin

    2003-01-01

    This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in south Bristol, United Kingdom, and on the south Atlantic island of St Helena. It addresses the relationship between the experience of psychosocial distress, the language used to express such distress and the socio-cultural constraints on both language and experience. Accounts of emotional distress were obtained from interviews with 36 informants in south Bristol and with 40 informants on St Helena. Informants in both settings shared a Euro-American discourse on the self in which emotional distress is conceived as a breakdown in human agency. This discourse is linked to narrative as a way of depicting and re-affirming individual agency. A prototypical concept of narrative is used in this paper to interpret accounts of emotional distress. This interpretation demonstrates the usefulness of the idea of narrative for understanding such experiences.

  20. The re-production of homosexually-themed discourse in educationally-based organised sport.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCormack, Mark; Anderson, Eric

    2010-11-01

    In this study, we draw on findings from one year of participant observation and 12 in-depth interviews with men in a highly-ranked English university rugby team in order to nuance theoretical understandings concerning the re-production of homosexually-themed discourse in organised sport. We use ethnographic data to theorise the complex relationship between language, homosocial masculine relationships and organised sport. In examining the political, intentional and inadvertent effects of these men's discourses, we define and discuss the notion of gay discourse as a form of heteronormativity that is dissimilar to the traditional use of homophobic discourse. Highlighting that homosexually-themed discourse is best understood as a continuum, we stress the importance of context in interpreting the meaning and explicating the effects of this kind of discourse.

  1. Transforming Words: The Early Methodist Revival from a Discourse Perspective

    OpenAIRE

    van Noppen, Jean Pierre

    1999-01-01

    Hitherto, the language of the Methodist revival has received only moderate, and mainly descriptive, attention. A present-day study should move beyond description and approach the phenomenon from a «critical» angle, thus allowing the linguist to assess the indictments which have branded Methodist discourse as manipulative. Critics have stereotyped Methodism as an oppressive, reactionary discourse forced upon illiterate audiences by insidious rhetorical devices. The guiding hypothesis which und...

  2. Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisa Forman

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available While the right to health is increasingly referenced in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG discussions, its contribution to global health and development remains subject to considerable debate. This hypothesis explores the potential influence of the right to health on the formulation of health goals in 4 major SDG reports. We analyse these reports through a social constructivist lens which views the use of rights rhetoric as an important indicator of the extent to which a norm is being adopted and/or internalized. Our analysis seeks to assess the influence of this language on goals chosen, and to consider accordingly the potential for rights discourse to promote more equitable global health policy in the future.

  3. Political Discourse on Higher Education in Denmark: From Enlightened Citizen to Homo Economicus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vingaard Johansen, Ulrik; Knudsen, Frederik B.; Engelbrecht Kristoffersen, Christian; Stellfeld Rasmussen, Joakim; Saaby Steffen, Emil; Sund, Kristian J.

    2017-01-01

    The literature on higher education policy points to changes in the dominant discourse over the years. In particular, the ascendance of a discourse marked by concepts of new public management, using language inspired by neoclassical economic theory which characterizes education as a marketplace where students are customers, has led scholars to…

  4. Arguing in L2: Discourse Structure and Textual Metadiscourse in Philippine Newspaper Editorials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tarrayo, Veronico N.; Duque, Marie Claire T.

    2011-01-01

    This study described the discourse structure and textual metadiscourse in newspaper editorials in the Philippines where English is used as a second language or L2. Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions: (1) What discourse features characterize the structure of the following parts of Philippine newspaper editorials--orientation…

  5. Language, visuality, and the body. On the return of discourse in contemporary performance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vangelis Athanassopoulos

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This article deals with the return of discourse in experimental performance-based artistic practices. By putting this return in a historical perspective, we wish to address the questions it raises on the relation between language, image, and the body, resituating the avant-garde heritage in a contemporary context where intermediality and transdisciplinarity tend to become the norm rather than the exception. The discussion of the status and function of discourse in this context calls on the field of theatre and its ambivalent role in modern aesthetics, both as a specifically determined artistic discipline, and as a blending of heterogeneous elements, which defy the assigned limitations of creative practice. The confrontation of Antonin Artaud's writings with Michael Fried's conception of theatricality aims to bring to the fore the cultural transformations and historical paradoxes which inform the shift from theatre to performance as an experimental field situated “between” the arts and embracing a wide range of practices, from visual arts to music and dance. The case of lecture-performance enables us to call attention to the internal contradictions of the “educational” interpretation of such experimental practices and their autonomization inside the limits of a specific artistic genre. The main argument is that, despite the plurality of its origins and its claims to intermediality and transdisciplinarity, lecture-performance as a genre is attracted by or gravitates around the extended field of the visual arts. By focusing on the work of Jerôme Bel, Noé Soulier, Giuseppe Chico, Barbara Matijevic, and Carole Douillard, we stress some of the ways contemporary discursive strategies enable to displace visual spectacle toward a conception of the body as the limit of signification.

  6. Indigenous Languages and the Racial Hierarchisation of Language Policy in Canada

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haque, Eve; Patrick, Donna

    2015-01-01

    This paper addresses language policy and policy-making in Canada as forms of discourse produced and reproduced within systems of power and racial hierarchies. The analysis of indigenous language policy to be addressed here focuses on the historical, political and legal processes stemming from the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism…

  7. Institutional discourse analysis: educational discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Б В Пеньков

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The author examines discourse parameters for the administrative, teachers and students discourse varieties in American high school. The study identifies the discourse markers, their relationships and functions.

  8. Discourse-shifting practices of a teacher and learning facilitator in a bilingual mathematics classroom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tyler, Robyn

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In bilingual classrooms, content is often learned simultaneously with a new language. Recent applied linguistics research has identified shifts in discourse made by teachers and learners as they work towards these two goals. Departing from a sociocultural perspective on teaching and learning, this study assumes learners and teachers bring rich and diverse linguistic repertoires to the classroom. This paper examines selected episodes of discourse shifts which took place in a week-long mathematics enrichment programme run by a non-government organisation in rural South Africa. In this Xhosa-English bilingual context, I undertook a small-scale ethnographically-informed case study in which evidence of and comment on discourse shifting was collected in the form of video and audio recordings of lessons and interviews with participants. The focus of the analysis is on the translanguaging strategies (especially register meshing of the teacher and a learning facilitator as they work to make the curriculum accessible to the learners. The argument made in the paper is that the unidirectional notion of discourse shifting from more everyday, spoken, home language discourses to more discipline-specific, written, English discourses is not adequate in explaining the complex multidirectional shifting apparent in my data.

  9. Studies in Philippine Languages and Cultures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brainard, Sherri, Ed.

    2001-01-01

    This issue of Studies in Philippine Languages and Cultures contains the following articles: "Functions of Locatives in Northern Subanen Expository and Hortatory Discourse" (Josephine Sanicas-Daguman); "Functions of Demonstratives in Sama Bangingi' Expository Discourse" (John Blakely); "A Brief Look at Sinama Basic Verbs…

  10. COMPENSATORY STRATEGIES OF FIRST-LANGUAGE-ATTRITED CHILDREN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Syahdan Syahdan

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This article explores the compensatory strategies used by two Indonesian children who experienced first language attrition when acquiring English in the English-speaking environment. They use compensatory strategies to compensate for their lack of competence in first language. They employ both interlingual strategies and discourse strategies when they have difficulties in communication. Interlingual strategies used are codeswitching and lexical borrowings and the discourse strategies are overt comments, appeal for assistance, and avoidance.

  11. Ideologies of English in a Chinese High School EFL Textbook: A Critical Discourse Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Tao; Qian, Yamin

    2012-01-01

    In this article we examine ideologies of English in present-day China with a special focus on textbook discourse. The research framework is informed by critical theories on language and education. Critical discourse analysis is applied as a methodological approach characterized by a socially committed attitude in the explanation and interpretation…

  12. Problems of future philologists’ training in modern scientific discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maryna Ikonnikova

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Philosophical, psychological-pedagogical and sociolinguistic projections of future philologists’ professional training have been studied in the paper. It has been defined that they provide for creating optimal conditions for learning language, literature, translation, etc.; stimulating speech and mental activity of students; developing their critical thinking skills, linguistic personality, multiple intellect, the ability to model conceptual information; widening knowledge-based space taking into account individual styles and strategies for student learning. It has been indicated that within foreign scientific discourse scholars focus on the problem of training philologists of the integrated type that is possible provided the methodology is scientifically justified, based on the significant achievements of philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, linguodidactics, sociolinguistics and culturology, oriented toward European requirements to language education, positive foreign experience and national traditions.Key words: future philologists, professional training, philological education, philology, scientific discourse.

  13. DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF HONORIFIC USE IN KOREAN EMAIL DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaegu Kim

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available It is a relatively new field that examines how Korean culture affects Korean language use in terms of age difference in a corpus of computer mediated email discourse. The purpose of this descriptive study and experiment is to prove the close relationship between Korean language and culture. This paper shows the descriptive study of Korean culture in relation to language use. Korean culture acknowledges an inherent hierarchy with regard to age, and considers [+age] as relating socially to [+power]. When younger Koreans converse with older ones, they express different morpho-syntactic patterns, which is an age complex. The main task of the experiment was to examine the way through which the age complex is reflected by Korean honorific linguistic system in email discourse. I asked 15 Korean native speakers between the ages of 20 to 25 to write emails expressing an impositive request to [+age (46-50 years old], [-age (below 25 years old] and [=age] recipients. The results show significant differences in the use of grammatical features in emails written to [+age] recipients, as compared to emails written to [-age] and [=age] recipients. The implication of the findings is that the cultural values that are attached to age and aging in the Korean society affects Koreans’ language use, which means Korean language and culture are closely intermingled.

  14. Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forman, Lisa; Ooms, Gorik; Brolan, Claire E

    2015-09-29

    While the right to health is increasingly referenced in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) discussions, its contribution to global health and development remains subject to considerable debate. This hypothesis explores the potential influence of the right to health on the formulation of health goals in 4 major SDG reports. We analyse these reports through a social constructivist lens which views the use of rights rhetoric as an important indicator of the extent to which a norm is being adopted and/or internalized. Our analysis seeks to assess the influence of this language on goals chosen, and to consider accordingly the potential for rights discourse to promote more equitable global health policy in the future. © 2015 by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

  15. 'Do not quench the Spirit!' The discourse of the Holy Spirit in earliest ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The Trinitarian discourse of the 4th and 5th centuries grew out of earlier developments, whilst at the same time reflecting a renewal over against the language of the earliest Christian sources. This article reflects on the way in which early Christianity thought about the Holy Spirit and developed a new discourse on the basis ...

  16. Psychoanalysis and bioethics: a Lacanian approach to bioethical discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zwart, Hub

    2016-12-01

    This article aims to develop a Lacanian approach to bioethics. Point of departure is the fact that both psychoanalysis and bioethics are practices of language, combining diagnostics with therapy. Subsequently, I will point out how Lacanian linguistics may help us to elucidate the dynamics of both psychoanalytical and bioethical discourse, using the movie One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sophocles' tragedy Antigone as key examples. Next, I will explain the 'topology' of the bioethical landscape with the help of Lacan's three dimensions: the imaginary, the symbolical and the real. This will culminate in an assessment of the dynamics of bioethical discourse with the help of Lacan's theorem of the four discourses. Bioethics, I will argue, is not a homogeneous discourse. Rather, four modalities of bioethical discourse can be distinguished, all of them displaying specific weaknesses and strengths, opportunities and threats. This will be elucidated with the help of two case studies, namely the debates on human reproductive technologies and on the use of animals as biomedical research models.

  17. The Primacy of Discourse in the Study of Gender in Family Therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutherland, Olga; LaMarre, Andrea; Rice, Carla

    2017-09-01

    Family therapists and scholars increasingly adopt poststructural and postmodern conceptions of social reality, challenging the notion of stable, universal dynamics within family members and families and favoring a view of reality as produced through social interaction. In the study of gender and diversity, many envision differences as social constructed rather than as "residing" in people or groups. There is a growing interest in discourse or people's everyday use of language and how it may reflect and advance interests of dominant groups in a society. Despite this shift from structures to discourse, therapists struggle to locate the dynamics of power in concrete actions and interactions. By leaving undisturbed the social processes through which gendered and other subjectivities and relations of power are produced, therapists may inadvertently become complicit in the very dynamics of power they seek to undermine. In this article, we argue that discourse analysis can help family therapy scholars and practitioners clarify the link between language and power. We present published examples of discourse analytic studies of gender and sexism and examine the relevance of these ideas for family therapy practice and research. © 2017 Family Process Institute.

  18. Business as a Site of Language Contact.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Sandra; Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca

    2003-01-01

    Discusses the field of language for business. Argues for redressing the balance of research into business as a site of language contact in favor of less well-represented languages and cultures through indigenous discourse studies, and notes the increasing frequency and importance of work involving Asian languages. (Author/VWL)

  19. Stylistics Analysis in Advertising Discourse: A Case of the Dangote Cement Advertisement in Bamenda--Cameroon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fomukong, Seino Evangeline Agwa

    2016-01-01

    There are many purposes for using language which determine how the writer or speaker chooses words, syntactic expressions and figurative language. This is as a result of the fact that language has a very powerful effect over people, their actions and thoughts. This is seen in the use of language in various discourse types which include…

  20. Discourse in science communities: Issues of language, authority, and gender in a life sciences laboratory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conefrey, Theresa Catherine

    Government-sponsored and private research initiatives continue to document the underrepresentation of women in the sciences. Despite policy initiatives, women's attrition rates each stage of their scientific careers remain higher than those of their male colleagues. In order to improve retention rates more information is needed about why many drop out or do not succeed as well as they could. While broad sociological studies and statistical surveys offer a valuable overview of institutional practices, in-depth qualitative analyses are needed to complement these large-scale studies. This present study goes behind statistical generalizations about the situation of women in science to explore the actual experience of scientific socialization and professionalization. Beginning with one reason often cited by women who have dropped out of science: "a bad lab experience," I explore through detailed observation in a naturalistic setting what this phrase might actually mean. Using ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, I present a detailed analysis of the discourse patterns in a life sciences laboratory group at a large research university. I show how language accomplishes the work of indexing and constituting social constraints, of maintaining or undermining the hierarchical power dynamics of the laboratory, of shaping members' presentation of self, and of modeling social and professional skills required to "do science." Despite the widespread conviction among scientists that "the mind has no sex," my study details how gender marks many routine interactions in the lab, including an emphasis on competition, a reinforcement of sex-role stereotypes, and a conversational style that is in several respects more compatible with men's than women's forms of talk.

  1. Can (a second) language be learned in the workplace?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Michael Svendsen; Lund, Karen

    2006-01-01

    Taking Danish legislation on second language teaching for refugees and immigrants as it point of departure, the article discusses whether the workplace is such an ideal place for learning a second language as the Act implies. It is pointed out that it is of crucial importance whether one sees...... the central concepts of the Act - language-in-the-workplace, flexibility, individualisation and effectivisation - as part of a politically restricting discourse or as a pedagogically liberating counter-discourse. Subsequently, the article offers som proposals for a language-pedagogical development...... of a dynamic interaction between the language teaching space and the work space, one which would enable course participants to negotiate meaning, social context and identity....

  2. Victimization and vilification of Romani children in media and human rights organizations discourses

    OpenAIRE

    Christianakis, Mary

    2015-01-01

    Through an analysis of European newspapers, human rights organization reportage, and United Nations documents and websites, this article examines how public discourse regarding education, human rights, poverty, child rearing, and child labour manufactures a dangerous, implausible childhood for Romani children. These discourses, perpetrated by human rights organizations and news media, leverage the languages of intervention, cultural difference, nationalism, and social justice to simultaneousl...

  3. A Frame-Reflective Discourse Analysis of Serious Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayer, Igor; Warmelink, Harald; Zhou, Qiqi

    2016-01-01

    The authors explore how framing theory and the method of frame-reflective discourse analysis provide foundations for the emerging discipline of serious games (SGs) research. Starting with Wittgenstein's language game and Berger and Luckmann's social constructivist view on science, the authors demonstrate why a definitional or taxonomic approach to…

  4. Discourse of transformation in organizational change management

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Della Christiantine

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This study examines the discursive construction of ideological change and identity within the practice of organisational control in organisational change management. The focus of the study was to examine how the organisation through its large-scale reengineering process to implement organisational change initiatives appropriated discourse of transformation to effect change among its organisational members. The organisation’s focus is to change mindsets and persuade members to embrace characteristics, traits, attitudes and behaviour that are deemed to be beneficial to the organisation. Discourse of transformation is used as an object of discursive construction of reality in the construction of an ‘ideal’ member identity and ideological change. The theoretical framework for the study is informed by theories of identity and ideology in discourse, theories of power and language as articulated in the field of critical discourse analysis. The data consist of transcripts of ‘Sharing Sessions’ which were transcribed verbatim. The analytical framework for the textual analysis of identity and ideology is developed on a basis of a combination of concepts and methods namely, [1] analysis, intertextual analysis, Antaki and Widdicombe’s principles for analysing identity in talk and [2] modes of identity regulation.

  5. Communication Strategies of Adult ESL Learners: A Discourse Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clennell, Charles

    1995-01-01

    Examines the communication strategies used by adult second-language learners of English when performing contrasting pedagogic tasks. The article suggests that existing descriptions of communication strategies ignore the pragmatic function of such devices in interactive discourse and offers a reclassification that differentiates strategies…

  6. The specificity of an interpretive discipline (Brazil’s Discourse Analysis: some notes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucas Nascimento

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Discourse analysis is a way of reading phenomena recorded in diuscourses and texts, which are located in the space of Discourse. In relation to language, discourse analysis shares specificities that translate the fact that syntactic runs are not limited to sentence scopes.. In this work, I propose to develop the sharing with archeology (derived from Michel Foucault’s assumptions, particularly the Archaeology of Knowledge work, published in 1969. Examples of this sharing are research by Nascimento (2011 and Gregolin and Mazzola (2012. These authors adopt the theoretical and methodological perspectives of Foucault and Pêcheux. Considering Pêcheux alerts about the transformations of political discourse and new materialities, this study shows some promising developments in the field of discourse in which several linguistic objects register as materiality: testimony (Nascimento, 2011 and charge, as well as painting (Gregolin and Mazzola, 2012. The relevance of the shares mentioned by Pêcheux ([1984a] 2011, which interest Discourse Analysis, promote interfaces with other disciplines that do contribute to the discourse field regarding its first assignment: reading and interpreting texts.

  7. Does Social Media Benefit Dominant or Alternative Water Discourses?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Mancilla-García

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Political ecology and cognate fields have highlighted the social constructedness of different water discourses, exposing them as the product of a particular view of nature with underpinning interests and political consequences. Integrated Water Resources Management, technical approaches, or the privatisation of drinking water services have enjoyed dominant positions, being able to determine what constitutes common sense. This has excluded numerous other alternative approaches, such as those championed by indigenous peoples. Social media, through its easy accessibility and its emphasis on visual, interactive, and short communication forms, bears the promise to challenge dominant discourses. Whether social media benefits dominant or alternative discourses has not yet been explored by the political ecology literature to which this article contributes. The article conducts a qualitative analysis of the use of two of the main social networking services (Facebook and Twitter by nine organisations working on water. Organisations were selected considering their likelihood to champion different water discourses. The article analyses the formats used, the place of communities, and the kind of language employed. It argues that while social media presents an interesting potential for alternative discourses, it also offers important tools for dominant discourses to consolidate themselves. The article concludes that social media does not structurally challenge the status quo and suggests avenues for future research.

  8. [Study on discourse right construction of China's medical aid to Africa].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li-Ying, Zhou; Yao, Deng; Kun, Yang

    2016-11-24

    To analyze the discourse right construction of China's medical aid to Africa, so as to provide evidences for improving the effect and sustainable development of China's medical aid to Africa. The documents of the discourse right that China constructed in the medical aid to Africa were selected at different periods as discourse samples. The achievement and deficiency were analyzed from four aspects, namely confident, charismatic, influential, and dominant. China's medical team made much in the discourse right construction in their aid to Africa, but some China's medical team members were still too cautious and too low-key. China's medical team gained the trust of the people of Africa, but the language communication difficulties still hampered in China's medical aid to Africa. Chinese medical team were widely praised by the African society, but in the west, some African media, even China's media still neglected to report China's doctors. China's international discourse right were greatly improved, but western countries still dominated the public opinion. China should refer to the actual situation of medical aid to Africa to strengthen the construction of discourse right.

  9. A Discourse Perspective of Topic-prominence in Chinese EFL Learners’ Interlanguage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shaopeng Li

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The present study aims to investigate the general characteristics of topic-prominent typological interlanguage development of Chinese learners of English in terms of acquiring subject-prominent English structures from the discourse perspective. We have selected as the research target “topic chain” which is the main topic-prominent structure in Chinese discourse and “zero anaphora” which is the most common topic anaphor of topic chain. Topic structures mainly appear in Chinese discourse in the form of “topic chain” (Wang, 2002; 2004. Actually, in the event of a topic chain, research on topic structures should go into the typical range of discourse. Two important findings were yielded by the present study. First, the characteristics of Chinese topic chain are transferrable to the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners, thus resulting in overgeneralization of zero anaphora; second, interlanguage discourse of Chinese EFL learners reflects the characteristics of a second language acquisition process from topic-prominence to subject-prominence, thus lending support to the discourse transfer hypothesis.

  10. The Political Discourse of the Campaign against Bilingual Education: From "Proposition 227" to "Horne v. Flores"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamagami, Mai

    2012-01-01

    Using the frameworks of critical discourse analysis, representation theory, and legitimization theory, this study examines the political discourse of the campaign for Proposition 227 in California--particularly, the key social representations of languages, their speakers, and the main political actors in the campaign. The analysis examines the…

  11. Academic Language in Early Childhood Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnes, Erica M.; Grifenhagen, Jill F.; Dickinson, David K.

    2016-01-01

    This article defines academic language by examining the central features of vocabulary, syntax, and discourse function. Examples of each feature are provided, as well as methods of identifying them in oral language and printed text. We describe a yearlong study that found teachers used different types of academic language based on instructional…

  12. A Reappraisal of Lexical Cohesion in Conversational Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomez Gonzalez, Maria De Los Angeles

    2013-01-01

    Cohesion, or the connectedness of discourse, has been recognized as playing a crucial role in both language production and comprehension processes. Researchers have debated about the "right" number and classification of cohesive devices, as well as about their interaction with coherence and/or genre. The present study proposes an integrative model…

  13. Introduction: Discourse Analysis and Policy Discourse

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    D.R. Gasper (Des); R.J. Apthorpe (Raymond)

    1996-01-01

    markdownabstractAbstract: As introduction to a collection on policy discourses and patterns of argumentation in international development, this paper clarifies different meanings of `discourse' and 'discourse analysis', including as applied in development studies, and explains why effective

  14. Does Discourse Congruence Influence Spoken Language Comprehension before Lexical Association? Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boudewyn, Megan A.; Gordon, Peter C.; Long, Debra; Polse, Lara; Swaab, Tamara Y.

    2011-01-01

    The goal of this study was to examine how lexical association and discourse congruence affect the time course of processing incoming words in spoken discourse. In an ERP norming study, we presented prime-target pairs in the absence of a sentence context to obtain a baseline measure of lexical priming. We observed a typical N400 effect when participants heard critical associated and unassociated target words in word pairs. In a subsequent experiment, we presented the same word pairs in spoken discourse contexts. Target words were always consistent with the local sentence context, but were congruent or not with the global discourse (e.g., “Luckily Ben had picked up some salt and pepper/basil”, preceded by a context in which Ben was preparing marinara sauce (congruent) or dealing with an icy walkway (incongruent). ERP effects of global discourse congruence preceded those of local lexical association, suggesting an early influence of the global discourse representation on lexical processing, even in locally congruent contexts. Furthermore, effects of lexical association occurred earlier in the congruent than incongruent condition. These results differ from those that have been obtained in studies of reading, suggesting that the effects may be unique to spoken word recognition. PMID:23002319

  15. Theological ethics, moral philosophy, and public moral discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jonsen, Albert R

    1994-03-01

    The advent and growth of bioethics in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s precipitated an era of public moral discourse, that is, the deliberate attempt to analyze and formulate moral argument for use in public policy. The language for rational discussion of moral matters evolved from the parent disciplines of moral philosophy and theological ethics, as well as from the idioms of a secular, pluralistic world that was searching for policy answers to difficult bioethical questions. This article explores the basis and content of the unique contributions of both theological and philosophical ethics to the development of public moral discourse.

  16. Features structuring image of Ukraine in socio-political and socio-cultural discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. O. Pocelujko

    2015-08-01

    Layers of socio-political discourse under defined-State officially and historically historiographical discourses. These discourses present the image of the state in the context of national history as the source, where by means of targeted public policy is formed and implemented state identity as the language of institutional communication. Images states that officially created in-state and historically historiographic discourses as a set of ethnic myths, frames, stereotypes intended to create mechanisms of perception and interpretation of the past of the country, used in educational policy as a tool for national identity with the corresponding identity discourse. Socio-cultural discourse and the corresponding image of the state is characterized by a strong plurality, conceptuality, multyparadyhmality. In the socio-cultural discourse is conceptualization image of the state as part of the living world as opposed to social and political discourse, in which the image of the state appears more like dogmatic ideological construct, which tends to uniqueness. In the scientific discourse in constructing the image of the state is dominated intellectual and conceptual component, while in the state mediadyskurs-image formed on the basis of emotional and social representations stained. Latest distributed in makroteksts designed to create appropriate social attitudes, sensatsion, mobilizing different social groups on a variety of events and more

  17. Language and Cultural Imperialism: Indonesian Case

    OpenAIRE

    ZTF, Pradana Boy

    2017-01-01

    The discourse of language, culture and imperialism are closely intertwined. In this paper I will describe cultural imperialism through language by taking Indonesian case as an example. This essay will develop two main arguments. Firstly, it sets forth that language is a medium through which cultural imperialism could take place, since language is an important and even fundamental aspect of culture. The cultural imperialism through language starts to occur when a certain foreign...

  18. SPEECH TACTICS IN MASS MEDIA DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olena Kaptiurova

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the basic speech tactics used in mass media discourse. It has been stated that such tactics as contact establishment and speech interaction termination, yielding up initiative or its preserving are compulsory for the communicative situation of a talk show. Language personalities of television talk shows anchors and linguistic ways of the interview organisation are stressed. The material is amply illustrated with relevant examples.

  19. Storytelling as Academic Discourse: Bridging the Cultural-Linguistic Divide in the Era of the Common Core

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Ching Ching

    2014-01-01

    Bakhtin's dialogism provides a sociocultural approach that views language as a social practice informed by the complex interaction between discourse and meaning. Drawing on this theoretical framework, I argue that a dialogized version of storytelling can be helpful in creating a reflective form of academic discourse that bridges the gap between…

  20. Language as capital in international university education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Margrethe; Shaw, Philip

    be a trade-off between the fluency in a second language provided by its use as sole or parallel medium in education and educational depth in the discipline studied. This fluency may in some circumstances constitute greater capital than the disciplinary insights partially sacrificed. But this varies......As Bourdieu and Passeron noted, academic discourse is never anyone’s ‘mother tongue’. Acquisition of this discourse in one’s first language is a prime aim of undergraduate education, but there is evidence that a substantial minority of students fail to acquire it. There is strong evidence...

  1. English borrowings in the French financial discourse as a feature of national character

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Наталья Сергеевна Найдёнова

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available English, being by far the most dominant language in modern business communications, makes an undeniable impact on other languages, which are in contact with it. French financial discourse characterised by an array of English borrowings is one of the examples of this phenomenon. This article analyzes how this trend coexists with such features of the national character of the French as patriotism, pride of their country and language.

  2. Internet Discourse: Metalanguage Models of Practice

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    Aleksandr Arkadyevich Barkovich

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the identification and systematization of generalized prototypical traits of online communication in linguistic context. The identification of these traits and their presentation in the form of models is an important issue of objective metadescription of modern speech practice. The involvement of discursive paradigm for the characterization of speech practice is relevant in the context of dynamic development of communication: discourse is speech activity, extended in time and space, and is due to wide extra-linguistic context and communicational specifics. Paradigmatic flexibility of discourse is in demand in different methodological perspectives: humanistic, cognitive-semiotic, metalinguistic, phenomenological, etc. Internet as a phenomenon of communication is a modern representative object of interdisciplinary scientific development. The key concept in this regard is the Internet-discourse – speech practice in the field of computer-mediated communication that is due to the format of the Internet. In the context of metalanguage modeling of Internet discourse phenomenological, structural and functional types of models can be highlighted; the typology of, for example, phenomenological models suggests differentiation of their pragmatic, social, and personal integrities. Characteristics of metalanguage models, including Internet surfing, trolling, liking, etc., meets the challenges of modeling of speech practice of the Internet, expounds scientific knowledge about peculiarities and regularities of communication and extends the object base of language research.

  3. Rights to Language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Phillipson, Robert

    This work brings together cutting-edge scholarship in language, education and society from all parts of the world. Celebrating the 60th birthday of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, it is inspired by her work in minority, indigenous and immigrant education; multilingualism; linguistic human rights; and global...... language and power issues. Drawn from all parts of the world, the contributors are active in a range of scientific and professional areas including bilingual education; sociolinguistics; the sociology of education, law and language; economics and language; linguistics; sign language; racism; communication......; discourse analysis; language policy; minority issues; and language pedagogy. The book situates issues of minorities and bilingual education in broader perspectives of human rights, power and the ecology of language. It aims at a distillation of themes that are central to an understanding of language rights...

  4. Research into Practice: The Influence of Discourse Studies on Language Descriptions and Task Design in Published ELT Materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilmore, Alex

    2015-01-01

    Discourse studies is a vast, multidisciplinary, and rapidly expanding area of research, embracing a range of approaches including discourse analysis, corpus analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, genre analysis and multimodal discourse analysis. Each approach offers its own unique perspective…

  5. Corpus Approaches to Language Ideology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vessey, Rachelle

    2017-01-01

    This paper outlines how corpus linguistics--and more specifically the corpus-assisted discourse studies approach--can add useful dimensions to studies of language ideology. First, it is argued that the identification of words of high, low, and statistically significant frequency can help in the identification and exploration of language ideologies…

  6. Victimization and Vilification of Romani Children in Media and Human Rights Organizations Discourses

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    Mary Christianakis

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Through an analysis of European newspapers, human rights organization reportage, and United Nations documents and websites, this article examines how public discourse regarding education, human rights, poverty, child rearing, and child labour manufactures a dangerous, implausible childhood for Romani children. These discourses, perpetrated by human rights organizations and news media, leverage the languages of intervention, cultural difference, nationalism, and social justice to simultaneously victimize and vilify Romani children, rendering them incapable of experiencing humane childhoods. Employing critical discourse analysis and systemic functional grammar analysis, the proposed article seeks to disentangle the discourses of human rights for Roman children from the assimilationist arguments aimed at compulsory schooling and Eurocentric family and labour practices rooted in access to middle class dominant labor markets.

  7. Production of space and discourse in a multicultural society

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    Miodragović Bojana R.

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The main idea in this paper is based on two theories: first, it follows Lefebvre's idea of social space production, and accordingly, his concept of social praxis, which connects physical and material flows with existing social reproduction model; second, there is a Foucault's theory of feedback effects of language and social discourse. The hypothesis of this paper is based on these and similar theories, such as Touraine's theory of new cultural paradigm for understanding today's world: concept of multiculturalism and discourse of multicultural society is reflected in production of social institutions (material and linguistic. If intercultural or assimilating discourse is present, institutional and capacitive resources will reflect that. Discourse potential enriches the linguistic creations, which are a clear reflection of the concept that prevails. By state control, an economic and cultural space coexists with political space. In this paper, the deconstruction of the enumerated theory and separation of regularity proves the hypothesis that, as final goal, shows reflection of real concept and policy of multiculturalism in the public social space, no matter what commonsensical manifestation of this policy indicate.

  8. CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN BASKETBALL DISCOURSE

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    Reda Toleikienė

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available This article presents part of the research performed within the scope of the national project “Conceptual Metaphors in Public Discourse,”1 financed by the Research Council of Lithuania. The aim of the present paper is to analyze conceptual metaphors in the discourse of the European Basketball Championship which took place in Kaunas, Lithuania in 2011, as well as to determine the source concepts. The analysis allows certain features of the images which are used while conceptualizing the entities related to basketball to be described. The metaphorical collocations drawn from the Lithuanian language corpora and web portals (www.delfi.lt and www.lrytas.lt were selected and analyzed from 31 August 2011 to 18 September 2011. A conceptual metaphor is defined as an interaction of two conceptual fields (source and target concepts. On the basis of the analyzed conceptual sayings, the reconstructed conceptual metaphors proved that the most prolific metaphors are of war, ontology, and scale. In basketball discourse, the war metaphor is characterized by the fact that the image of sport is war is supplemented by other source concepts (e.g.,a person, a building, a thing, a material, a scale. The features of two or sometimes even three source concepts are ascribed to the target concept.

  9. Framing and Face: The Relevance of "The Presentation of Self" to Linguistic Discourse Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tannen, Deborah

    2009-01-01

    Although Erving Goffman did not turn his analytic focus specifically toward language until later in his career, his work, beginning with "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life," has been crucial for discourse analysts and interactional sociolinguists who study language in social context. Perhaps most influential have been his concepts of…

  10. Review of Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    aus der Wieschen, Maria Vanessa

    2015-01-01

    Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse investigates interactional practices in L2 classrooms. Using Conversation Analysis, the book unveils the processes underlying the co-construction of mutual understanding in potential interactional troubles in L2 classrooms – such as claims...... taster sessions over foreign language classrooms in monolingual contexts to English as an Additional Language settings in a multilingual context. This variety of settings allows him to examine a range of verbal and non-verbal features of classroom interaction, for example how code-switching is used......-6), and application (Chapters 7 and 8). A central focus throughout the entire book is classroom interactional competence and its influence on language learning....

  11. A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Images of Iranians in Western Movies: The Case of Iranium

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    Mohammad Reza Amirian

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The significant role of the media, in general, and the movies, in particular, in disseminating information and creating images of the real life by use of the language as a powerful social tool is totally irrefutable. Although critical analysis of the movie discourse is a fashionable trend among the critical discourse analysts, there is a paucity of research on movie discourse in Iran. Besides, the increasing number of the anti-Iranian movies produced in the last decade and the growing tendency among the English students to watch American movies, have established the need for conducting a research to investigate the images of Iranians represented in the Western movies. Thus, in this article an anti-Iranian movie called Iranium, allegedly labeled as documentary, has been critically analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA. For this purpose, Van Dijk’s framework (2004 has been utilized to uncover the ideological manipulations and misrepresentations of this movie. The analysis revealed that the dichotomy of in-group favoritism vs. out-group derogation is a very effective discursive strategy at the disposal of the movie makers who have used language as a weapon to attack Iran by representing a distorted and unrealistic image of the Iranians’ history, culture and ideologies. The findings of the present study imply that adopting a critical discourse analysis perspective in the EFL classes is a necessity which needs the development of the required materials, by the curriculum developers, that raise the students’ critical awareness as well as their language skills and proficiency.

  12. The interactional significance of formulas in autistic language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dobbinson, Sushie; Perkins, Mick; Boucher, Jill

    2003-01-01

    The phenomenon of echolalia in autistic language is well documented. Whilst much early research dismissed echolalia as merely an indicator of cognitive limitation, later work identified particular discourse functions of echolalic utterances. The work reported here extends the study of the interactional significance of echolalia to formulaic utterances. Audio and video recordings of conversations between the first author and two research participants were transcribed and analysed according to a Conversation Analysis framework and a multi-layered linguistic framework. Formulaic language was found to have predictable interactional significance within the language of an individual with autism, and the generic phenomenon of formulaicity in company with predictable discourse function was seen to hold across the research participants, regardless of cognitive ability. The implications of formulaicity in autistic language for acquisition and processing mechanisms are discussed.

  13. Variations in Textualization: A Cross-Generic and Cross-Disciplinary Study, Implications for Readability of the Academic Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonabi, Mina Abbasi; Lotfipour-Saedi, Kazem; Hemmati, Fatemeh; Jafarigohar, Manoochehr

    2018-01-01

    According to discoursal views on language, variations in textualization strategies are always sociocontextually motivated and never happen at random. The textual forms employed in a text, along with many other discoursal and contextual factors, could certainly affect the readability of the text, making it more or less processable for the same…

  14. A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Images of Iranians in Western Movies: The Case of Iranium

    OpenAIRE

    Mohammad Reza Amirian; Ali Rahimi; Gholamreza Sami

    2012-01-01

    The significant role of the media, in general, and the movies, in particular, in disseminating information and creating images of the real life by use of the language as a powerful social tool is totally irrefutable. Although critical analysis of the movie discourse is a fashionable trend among the critical discourse analysts, there is a paucity of research on movie discourse in Iran. Besides, the increasing number of the anti-Iranian movies produced in the last decade and the growing tendenc...

  15. Men's discourses of help-seeking in the context of depression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Joy L; Oliffe, John L; Kelly, Mary T; Galdas, Paul; Ogrodniczuk, John S

    2012-03-01

    Depression is an illness increasingly constructed as a gendered mood disorder and consequently diagnosed in women more than men. The diagnostic criteria used for its assessment often perpetrate and reproduce gender stereotypes. The stigma associated with mental illness and the gendered elements of depression suggest there are likely numerous discourses that position, explain, and justify help-seeking practices. This qualitative study explored men's discourses of seeking help for depression. The methodological approach was informed by a social constructionist perspective of language, discourse and gender that drew on methods from discourse analysis. We conducted individual in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 38 men with depression, either formally diagnosed or self reported. The analysis revealed five discursive frames that influenced the men's talk about help-seeking and depression: manly self-reliance; treatment-seeking as responsible independent action; guarded vulnerability; desperation; and genuine connection. The findings are discussed within a broader context of social discourses of gender, the limitations of current help-seeking literature and the evidence for how men seek help in ways that extend traditional notions of medical treatment. © 2011 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2011 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  16. Analysing Discourse. An Approach From the Sociology of Knowledge

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    Reiner Keller

    2005-09-01

    Full Text Available The contribution outlines a research pro­gramme which I have coined the "sociology of knowledge approach to discourse" (Wissens­sozio­logische Diskursanalyse. This approach to dis­course integrates important insights of FOU­CAULT's theory of discourse into the interpretative paradigm in the social sciences, especially the "German" approach of hermeneutic sociology of knowledge (Hermeneutische Wissenssoziologie. Accordingly, in this approach discourses are con­sidered as "structured and structuring structures" which shape social practices of enunciation. Un­like some Foucauldian approaches, this form of discourse analysis recognises the importance of socially constituted actors in the social production and circulation of knowledge. Furthermore, it com­bines research questions related to the concept of "discourse" with the methodical toolbox of qual­itative social research. Going beyond ques­tions of language in use, "the sociology of knowl­edge ap­proach to discourse" (Wissenssozio­logi­sche Dis­kurs­analyse addresses sociological inter­ests, the analyses of social relations and politics of knowl­edge as well as the discursive construction of re­al­ity as an empirical ("material" process. For empiri­cal research on discourse the approach proposes the use of analytical concepts from the sociology of knowledge tradition, such as inter­pretative schemes or frames (Deutungsmuster, "clas­sifi­ca­tions", "phenomenal structure" (Phäno­men­struktur, "narrative structure", "dispositif" etc., and the use of the methodological strategies of "grounded theory". URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503327

  17. Teaching and Learning the Language of Science: A Case Study of Academic Language Acquisition in a Dual Language Middle School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gose, Robin Margaretha

    English language learners (EL) are the fastest growing sub-group of the student population in California, yet ELs also score the lowest on the science section of the California Standardized Tests. In the area of bilingual education, California has dramatically changed its approach to English learners since the passage of Proposition 227 in 1998, which called for most EL instruction to be conducted in English (Cummins, 2000; Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008). In reality, this means that EL students are often placed in programs that focus on basic language skills rather than rigorous content, meaning that they are not getting access to grade level science content (Lee & Fradd, 1998). As a result, many EL students exit eighth grade without a strong foundation in science, and they continue to score below their English-speaking peers on standardized achievements. While the usefulness of the academic language construct remains controversial (Bailey, 2012), the language used in science instruction is nevertheless often unfamiliar to both EL and English proficient students. The discourse is frequently specialized for discipline-specific interactions and activities (Bailey, 2007; Lemke, 1990). This qualitative case study examined academic language instruction in three middle school science classrooms at a dual language charter school. The goal was to understand how teachers integrate academic language and content for linguistically diverse students. The findings fom this study indicate that targeting language instruction in isolation from science content instruction prohibits students from engaging in the "doing of science" and scientific discourse, or the ability to think, reason, and communicate about science. The recommendations of this study support authentically embedding language development into rigorous science instruction in order to maximize opportunities for learning in both domains.

  18. Health discourse, sexual slang and ideological contradictions among Mozambican youth

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Groes-Green, Christian

    2009-01-01

    . Young people's resistance to enquiry, the paper argues, is due to ideological contradictions between their sexual culture and slang, on the one hand, and Western health discourses associated with colonial and post-colonial opposition to traditional culture and languages, on the other. Mixing colloquial...... Portuguese and changana sexual slang is constructed around ideas of safedeza and pleasure, while dominant health discourses address sexuality as both ‘risky' and ‘dangerous'. In order to gain a deeper understanding of sexual cultures and to make HIV prevention efforts relevant to young people...

  19. Language Testing, "Integration" and Subtractive Multilingualism in Italy: Challenges for Adult Immigrant Second Language and Literacy Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Love, Stephanie V.

    2015-01-01

    Since Italy's unification in 1861, the establishment and diffusion of the standard Italian language at the expense of all other linguistic varieties has dominated language and education policy discourses. Today, as Italy has transformed from a country of mass "emigration" to a country of mass "immigration," the language…

  20. Analyzing discourse and text complexity for learning and collaborating a cognitive approach based on natural language processing

    CERN Document Server

    Dascălu, Mihai

    2014-01-01

    With the advent and increasing popularity of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and e-learning technologies, the need of automatic assessment and of teacher/tutor support for the two tightly intertwined activities of comprehension of reading materials and of collaboration among peers has grown significantly. In this context, a polyphonic model of discourse derived from Bakhtin’s work as a paradigm is used for analyzing both general texts and CSCL conversations in a unique framework focused on different facets of textual cohesion. As specificity of our analysis, the individual learning perspective is focused on the identification of reading strategies and on providing a multi-dimensional textual complexity model, whereas the collaborative learning dimension is centered on the evaluation of participants’ involvement, as well as on collaboration assessment. Our approach based on advanced Natural Language Processing techniques provides a qualitative estimation of the learning process and enhance...

  1. Discourses on Slang: Implications for English Classes in Brazil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Senefonte, Fábio Henrique Rosa

    2014-01-01

    There are primarily two discourses on slang: one is based on the Linguistic Purism View (slang is seen as an ugly, poor and/or dirty vocabulary); and on the other hand, the Socio-historical-cognitive view understands slang as a rich component of language (BARRA, 2007; MATTIELLO, 2005; ZARBALIYEVA, 2012). Taking this into consideration, this…

  2. Black Women's Bodies, Ideology, and the Public Curriculum of the Pro- and Anti-Choice Movements in the US

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidson, Maria del Guadalupe

    2018-01-01

    This paper explores how opposite sides of the abortion debate employ a discourse of endangerment to mobilise political support for their ideologies about black women's bodies. I examine the role of black women within that rhetorical strategy through various rhetorical artefacts. To analyse these artefacts, I employ the theoretical framework of…

  3. Factors Affecting Construction of Science Discourse in the Context of an Extracurricular Science and Technology Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Webb, Horace P.

    2009-01-01

    Doing and learning science are social activities that require certain language, activities, and values. Both constitute what Gee (2005) calls Discourses. The language of learning science varies with the learning context (Lemke, 2001,1990). "Science for All Americans" (AAAS, 1990) and "Inquiry and the National Science Education…

  4. Da língua ao discurso nos limites da sintaxe: as tênues fronteiras entre discursos citados e citantes / From language to discourse: the faint borders among reported speechs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Zandwais

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available RESUMO: Este estudo propõe uma discussão em torno das especificidades que caracterizam a língua e o discurso, a partir de concepções propostas por Bakhtin/Volochínov. Por meio de uma análise do tratamento dos discursos direto e indireto em uma gramática não-formal (A University Grammar of English; QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM,S., London, 1973, buscamos investigar como as fronteiras entre estes discursos são descritas. Os resultados obtidos conduzem a uma retomada dos conceitos propostos em Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem (BAKHTIN/VOLOCHÍNOV, ratificando a importância dos mesmos. ABSTRACT:This study aims to discuss on specificities that characterize language and discourse according to conceptions proposed by Bakhtin/Volochínov . Through an analysis of the treatment of direct and indirect speech in a non formal grammar (A University Grammar of English; QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM, S., London, 1973 we try to investigate how the borders among these discourses are described. The results of this research lead us to return to concepts placed in Marxism and the philosophy of language (BAKHTIN/VOLOŠINOV for ratifying their important roles.

  5. A Language Socialization Approach to Uzbek Language Learning

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    Baburhan Uzum

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Using an ethnographic case study design, this study investigates language learners' socialization into the cultural values of Uzbek language. Informed by a language socialization theoretical framework, the study focuses on the classroom routines and interactions that socialize students into certain social values through mini-lectures that are beyond the linguistic objectives of the curriculum. The research questions addressed are: What social values are being taught implicitly or explicitly? What cultural values are students being socialized into? What constitutes valuable cultural knowledge as claimed by the teacher? In the audio and video recorded observation data, a selected excerpt of typical classroom interactions is analyzed adopting discourse analysis methods. The findings of the study could be implemented in teacher education programs and in designing textbooks and curriculum for less commonly taught languages.

  6. The "Language Barrier" in Private Online Tutoring: From an Innocuous Concept to a Neoliberal Marketing Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozar, Olga

    2014-01-01

    The "language barrier" is a common buzzword in Russian-English teaching discourse that has not yet been critically investigated. This study contemplates a recently emerging phenomenon of private online language tutoring in Russia through investigation of this popular phrase. The paper draws on Critical Discourse Analysis to explore…

  7. Security, Identity, and the Discourse of Conflation in Far-Right Violence

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    Jeffrey Stevenson Murer

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available In the aftermath of Anders Breivik’s shooting spree and bombing in Norway, many people asked where did the anger and the violence come from?  The article examines the contemporary trends in political and social discourses to conflate opponents with enemies.  Popular discourses, television and on-line media, radio talk shows and even newspaper spread the language of threat and insecurity, and the idea that the biggest threats may be the people in our own neighbourhoods, in our own cities, on our own streets.  These threatening individuals are those that do not quite fit in; they are familiar foreigners.  Similarly it explores the discourses of who should be afforded trust and protection within multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural political and social environments, who exhibits social membership and who should be excluded.  The language of austerity and shortage suggests that security is not a human right that all people are entitled to equally.  Rather if states can only afford to protect certain people, then by default the state chooses to actively not protect others.  This article explores the social and physical consequences these decisions have, particularly when certain individuals decide that they will do what others only talk about: eliminate enemies.

  8. 3rd grade English language learners making sense of sound

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suarez, Enrique; Otero, Valerie

    2013-01-01

    Despite the extensive body of research that supports scientific inquiry and argumentation as cornerstones of physics learning, these strategies continue to be virtually absent in most classrooms, especially those that involve students who are learning English as a second language. This study presents results from an investigation of 3rd grade students' discourse about how length and tension affect the sound produced by a string. These students came from a variety of language backgrounds, and all were learning English as a second language. Our results demonstrate varying levels, and uses, of experiential, imaginative, and mechanistic reasoning strategies. Using specific examples from students' discourse, we will demonstrate some of the productive aspects of working within multiple language frameworks for making sense of physics. Conjectures will be made about how to utilize physics as a context for English Language Learners to further conceptual understanding, while developing their competence in the English language.

  9. GENDER COGNITION IN RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE: A STUDY OF FRAMING IN THEMATIC HOLY KORAN INTERPRETATION

    OpenAIRE

    Dadang S. Anshori

    2016-01-01

    The study is aimed at describing gender cognition phenomenon in religious discourse in thematic interpretation (tafsir) of the Holy Koran published by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia. Each interpretation book as a written discourse is different from each other due to author’s cognition frame. This study employs a constructive qualitative approach with technical framing analysis. The data are language data (religious text) that are obtainable from thematic interp...

  10. The discourse of causal explanations in school science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slater, Tammy Jayne Anne

    Researchers and educators working from a systemic functional linguistic perspective have provided a body of work on science discourse which offers an excellent starting point for examining the linguistic aspects of the development of causal discourse in school science, discourse which Derewianka (1995) claimed is critical to success in secondary school. No work has yet described the development of causal language by identifying the linguistic features present in oral discourse or by comparing the causal discourse of native and non-native (ESL) speakers of English. The current research responds to this gap by examining the oral discourse collected from ESL and non-ESL students at the primary and high school grades. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do the teachers and students in these four contexts develop causal explanations and their relevant taxonomies through classroom interactions? (2) What are the causal discourse features being used by the students in these four contexts to construct oral causal explanations? The findings of the social practice analysis showed that the teachers in the four contexts differed in their approaches to teaching, with the primary school mainstream teacher focusing largely on the hands-on practice , the primary school ESL teacher moving from practice to theory, the high school mainstream teacher moving from theory to practice, and the high school ESL teacher relying primarily on theory. The findings from the quantitative, small corpus approach suggest that the developmental path of cause which has been identified in the writing of experts shows up not only in written texts but also in the oral texts which learners construct. Moreover, this move appears when the discourse of high school ESL and non-ESL students is compared, suggesting a developmental progression in the acquisition of these features by these students. The findings also reveal that the knowledge constructed, as shown by the concept maps created

  11. Queer Theory and Discourses of Desire

    OpenAIRE

    Vasvári, Louise O.

    2006-01-01

    In her paper "Queer Theory and Discourses of Desire," Louise O. Vasvári proposes that the multiplicity of ways that language constructs -- or silences -- the socially constructed expression of erotic desire is a necessary complement to the study of gendered and of sexual identity. Vasvári contributes to queer theory and its subfield, queer linguistics, with the term "queer" understood as more inclusive and less male-oriented than "gay" where queer theory seeks to read between and outside the ...

  12. Movements and Meanings: Towards an Integrated Approach to Political Discourse Analysis

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    Дуглас Марк Понтон

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This chapter has two principal focuses; firstly backwards in time, across some of the high points in the development of political discourse analysis, in order to assess the current state of the field. It also has a future focus, as it attempts to integrate insights from some emerging fields, such as Multimodality, with more consolidated approaches. It has been argued, in many accounts (e.g. Fairclough and Fairclough 2012, that persuasion is the most pervasive function of all political discourse, and most authors agree that the processes involved encompass both textual and non-textual features. An influential early attempt, for example, to describe some non-verbal aspects of persuasive rhetoric was Atkinson (1984, who identified features like the speaker’s voice quality, intonation, posture, body language, eye movements, and so on, as well as some other non-linguistic ‘tricks’. As influential as this work was, however, these features have tended to be omitted from many subsequent accounts of persuasion in political rhetoric, which have concentrated on features of argumentation operating at a strictly textual level.The overall aim of this work is to suggest pathways towards the ambitious goal of developing a usable, integrated model for analysing political discourse. Instead of analysing a single feature such as metaphor (Charteris-Black 2006, parliamentary insults (Ilie 2004, evaluative language or humour (Swain 1999, 2002, the model attempts to combine descriptions of textual and non-verbal/multimodal features of political discourse, in order to provide a practical tool for analytical purposes, and a coherent account of their possible pragmatic effects.

  13. Linguistic Legitimation of Political Events in Newspaper Discourse

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    Marwah Kareem Ali

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the discursive structures employed in legitimizing the event of U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq and identifies them in relation to linguistic features. It attempts to describe the relation between language use and legitimation discursive structures in depicting political events. The paper focuses on the political event of U.S. forces’ withdrawal from Iraq in the English newspaper issued in Iraq. The study shows the way in which journalists express their values and attitudes concerning this critical event. Consequently, this requires a critical discourse analysis (henceforth, CDA to analyse news articles in the Iraqi English newspaper: The Kurdish Globe (henceforth, KG newspaper. Accordingly, the study presents a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles to identify the legitimation discursive structures and their linguistic features. It is found that the main discursive structures of legitimation employed in the KG newspaper are: authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation. Besides, there were five verb processes used to represent this legitimation, including material, verbal, relational, mental, and existential. Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, legitimation discursive structures, linguistic features, newspaper discourse, systemic functional linguistics

  14. Rehabilitation of discourse impairments after acquired brain injury

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gigiane Gindri

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT Language impairments in patients with acquired brain injury can have a negative impact on social life as well as on other cognitive domains. Discourse impairments are among the most commonly reported communication deficits among patients with acquired brain damage. Despite advances in the development of diagnostic tools for detecting such impairments, few studies have investigated interventions to rehabilitate patients presenting with these conditions. Objective: The aim of this study was to present a systematic review of the methods used in the rehabilitation of discourse following acquired brain injury. Methods: The PubMed database was searched for articles using the following keywords: "rehabilitation", "neurological injury", "communication" and "discursive abilities". Results: A total of 162 abstracts were found, but only seven of these met criteria for inclusion in the review. Four studies involved samples of individuals with aphasia whereas three studies recruited samples of individuals with traumatic brain injury. Conclusion: All but one article found that patient performance improved following participation in a discourse rehabilitation program.

  15. Conference Report: Project Journal of Discourse Research and the Prospects of Disciplinary, Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Cooperation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nils Matzner

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available A symposium was held to mark the first anniversary of Journal of Discourse Research (ZfD, at which the status of German discourse research was discussed. Since its inception, German-language discourse research has been characterized by connections, challenges and limitations of interdisciplinarity in terms of both practical research and methodology. In four lectures and two panel discussions, participants explored specific issues of interdisciplinarity. Taking into account the difficult process of institutionalization of discourse research in the 1990s, it can be determined that a diverse and highly productive research environment has been created that marks a specific style of interdisciplinary thinking. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140390

  16. Representations of Peace in News Discourse: Viewpoint and Opportunity for Peace Journalism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lea Mandelzis

    2007-04-01

    Full Text Available This study presents a news discourse analysis of a case in which the dominant political and ideological discourse of conflict and violence gave way to optimism and hopes for peace in Israel. It offers a profile of three types of discourse used by Israeli print news media in the context of 'peace' and 'war' in the immediate aftermath of the Oslo Accords signed on September 13, 1993. By this time, the Israeli media had already demonstrated a dramatic change in attitude and terminology: The familiar war discourse was rapidly being replaced by peace representations and peace images. The assumption of the study is that overuse of the term 'peace' at a time of revolutionary change in Israeli socio-political practice not only detracted from Israeli peace perspectives and beliefs, but also caused news discourses to deteriorate into war discourses. The purpose of the study was to uncover the role of the contextual system developed to communicate specific topics relating to 'peace' representations in news discourse and the negative socio-political consequences of the incompatibility of discourse types with actual political conditions at a given time. The findings suggest that inter-textual representations of 'war' and 'peace' led to a discourse type which imposed unwanted meanings upon itself. It also suggests that certain types of news discourse, such as reconciliation, peace and war reporting, may be important in establishing the proper relations between discourse, language, media and the meaning of peace because of the essential role that the mass media play, not only in war coverage, but, no less important, also in peace reporting. Ultimately, inappropriate discourse at a given time may lessen the chances of building trust among peoples and nations.

  17. Research in Mathematics Education and Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Planas, Núria

    2016-01-01

    A synthesis of reasons for the production of this monograph is presented with a focus on contemporary research in the context of the Ninth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Within the domain of mathematics and language, three lines of concern are addressed: (1) classroom discourse, (2) language diversity, and…

  18. Prosodic and lexical indications of discourse structure in human-machine interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Swerts, M.G.J.; Ostendorf, M.

    1997-01-01

    From a discourse perspective, utterances may vary in at least two important respects: (i) they can occupy a different hierarchical position in a larger-scale information unit and (ii) they can represent different types of speech acts. Spoken language systems will improve if they adequately take into

  19. Text Me! Interpersonal Discourse Analysis of Egyptian Mobile Operators' SMSs

    Science.gov (United States)

    El-Falaky, Mai Samir

    2016-01-01

    The present study examines the discourse of a number of Short Messaging Service (SMS). The selected data is analyzed according to the lexico-grammatical choices reflected in the interpersonal metafunction. Results are, then, interpreted for the purpose of deciding how service providers use language to convince a large number of customers of their…

  20. A radical construction grammar perspective on the modal particle-discourse particle distinction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fischer, Kerstin; Alm, Maria

    2013-01-01

    between the contributions of lexical and grammatical constructions. In accordance with Croft’s (2001) Radical Construction Grammar approach, cross-linguistic comparison is then carried out on the basis of the conceptual space, which comprises the language specific sets of functions discourse and modal...

  1. Health discourse, sexual slang and ideological contradictions among Mozambican youth: implications for method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groes-Green, Christian

    2009-08-01

    Despite the urgency of improving an understanding of sexual cultures in the face of a globally devastating HIV epidemic, methodological reflection and innovation has been conspicuously absent from qualitative research in recent years. Findings from fieldwork on condom use among young people in Mozambique confirm the need to remain alert to the ideological and linguistic bias of applied methods. Interviewing young people about their sexuality using a conventional health discourse resulted in incorrect or socially acceptable answers rather than accurate information about their sexual behaviour. Young people's resistance to enquiry, the paper argues, is due to ideological contradictions between their sexual culture and slang, on the one hand, and Western health discourses associated with colonial and post-colonial opposition to traditional culture and languages, on the other. Mixing colloquial Portuguese and changana sexual slang is constructed around ideas of safedeza and pleasure, while dominant health discourses address sexuality as both 'risky' and 'dangerous'. In order to gain a deeper understanding of sexual cultures and to make HIV prevention efforts relevant to young people, it is suggested that researchers and policy makers approach respondents with a language that is sensitive to the local ideological and linguistic context.

  2. Parents' Discourses about Language Strategies for Their Children's Preschool Bilingual Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwartz, Mila; Moin, Victor; Leikin, Mark

    2011-01-01

    The study focused on immigrant parents' discourses about strategies for their children's preschool bilingual development and education. The article investigated how immigrant parents described and explained these strategies. The study was based on semi-structured interviews with 4 families. The 8 parents were Russian-speaking immigrants to Israel…

  3. Language Muse: Automated Linguistic Activity Generation for English Language Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madnani, Nitin; Burstein, Jill; Sabatini, John; Biggers, Kietha; Andreyev, Slava

    2016-01-01

    Current education standards in the U.S. require school students to read and understand complex texts from different subject areas (e.g., social studies). However, such texts usually contain figurative language, complex phrases and sentences, as well as unfamiliar discourse relations. This may present an obstacle to students whose native language…

  4. Bio-ecology and language: a necessary unity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cowley, Stephen

    2014-01-01

    -ecology. While shaped by discourse and beliefs about language-systems (and representations), the language and actions of human organism–environment systems change the world. As Garner (2004) argues, ecolinguistics can do more than invoke ‘interaction’ between language and ecology. While ‘realities’ are partly...... shared, much is biophysical. Living subjects link language and languaging with experience and technologies that have transformed the bio-ecology. Once these dynamics are subject to investigation, macrosocial issues can be reconnected with biological, human and linguistic concerns. Ecolinguistics can thus...

  5. Talking to Score: Impression Management in L2 Oral Assessment and the Co-Construction of a Test Discourse Genre

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luk, Jasmine

    2010-01-01

    In recent years, the emphasis in second language (L2) oral proficiency assessment has shifted from linguistic accuracy to discourse strategies such as the ability to initiate, respond, and negotiate meaning. This has resulted in a growing interest in the discourse analysis of students' performance in different oral proficiency assessment formats.…

  6. Discourse Intonation - Making It Work

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Paunović

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Discourse Intonation (DI (Brazil 1997; Chun 2002 seems to be particularly well suited for use in the EFL classroom, much more so than the rather complex traditional models (e.g. O’Connor and Arnold 1973 or some recent phonological theories. Yet if L2 teachers are to be provided with clear guidelines on how to incorporate DI into communicative language teaching, much more empirical research is needed with L2 students of different L1 backgrounds to uncover the specific problems they face. The small-scale study presented here examines how 15 second-year students of the English Department in Niš manage intonation in a reading task. The analysis focuses on the components singled out by Chun (2002 as crucial for language learners: sentence stress (nuclear tone placement, terminal contour (direction of pitch change and key (pitch range at transition points.

  7. Race and ethnicity in English language teaching Korea in focus

    CERN Document Server

    Jenks, Christopher Joseph

    2017-01-01

    This book examines racism and racialized discourses in the ELT profession in South Korea. The book argues that language teaching and learning is shaped by White normativity, an ideological commitment and a form of racialized discourse that comes from the social actions of those involved in the ELT profession.

  8. Natural language processing techniques for automatic test ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Natural language processing techniques for automatic test questions generation using discourse connectives. ... PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH. AFRICAN JOURNALS ... Journal of Computer Science and Its Application.

  9. Discourse analysis: A useful methodology for health-care system researches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yazdannik, Ahmadreza; Yousefy, Alireza; Mohammadi, Sepideh

    2017-01-01

    Discourse analysis (DA) is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry and becoming an increasingly popular research strategy for researchers in various disciplines which has been little employed by health-care researchers. The methodology involves a focus on the sociocultural and political context in which text and talk occur. DA adds a linguistic approach to an understanding of the relationship between language and ideology, exploring the way in which theories of reality and relations of power are encoded in such aspects as the syntax, style, and rhetorical devices used in texts. DA is a useful and productive qualitative methodology but has been underutilized within health-care system research. Without a clear understanding of discourse theory and DA it is difficult to comprehend important research findings and impossible to use DA as a research strategy. To redress this deficiency, in this article, represents an introduction to concepts of discourse and DA, DA history, Philosophical background, DA types and analysis strategy. Finally, we discuss how affect to the ideological dimension of such phenomena discourse in health-care system, health beliefs and intra-disciplinary relationship in health-care system.

  10. Transgender People at Four Big Ten Campuses: A Policy Discourse Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dirks, Doris Andrea

    2016-01-01

    This article examines the language used to discuss transgender people on university campuses. This study asks how, despite seemingly benefitting transgender people, the discourses carried by the documents that discuss trans people may actually undermine the intended goals of policy initiatives. For example, a report on the status of transgender…

  11. The Organization of Narrative Discourse in Lewy Body Spectrum Disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ash, Sharon; McMillan, Corey; Gross, Rachel G.; Cook, Philip; Morgan, Brianna; Boller, Ashley; Dreyfuss, Michael; Siderowf, Andrew; Grossman, Murray

    2011-01-01

    Narrative discourse is an essential component of day-to-day communication, but little is known about narrative in Lewy Body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We performed a detailed analysis of a semi-structured speech sample in 32 non-aphasic patients with LBSD, and we related their narrative impairments to gray matter (GM) atrophy using voxel-based morphometry. We found that patients with PDD and DLB have significant difficulty organizing their narrative speech. This was correlated with deficits on measures of executive functioning and speech fluency. Regression analyses associated this deficit with reduced cortical volume in inferior frontal and anterior cingulate regions. These findings are consistent with a model of narrative discourse that includes executive as well as language components and with an impairment of the organizational component of narrative discourse in patients with PDD and DLB. PMID:21689852

  12. Is Korean Really a Listener-Responsible Language like Japanese?: A Contrastive Analysis of Discourse in Apologies between Korean and Japanese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sumi YOON

    2012-01-01

    The informants in the present study consisted of four groups: Japanese university students who live in their own country, Japanese university students who live in the U.S., Korean university students who live in their own country and Korean university students who live in the U.S. A Discourse Complete Test (DCT was completed by Japanese and Korean university students to compare the differences in speaker responsibility in apologies. The results suggest that Korean should be classified as a speaker-responsible language for understanding in conversations, since Korean speakers produce many more utterances and convey more information per utterance to the interlocutor than Japanese speakers. Furthermore, it is found that the responsibility for the understanding of utterances correlate with daily use of American English, especially in the case of Japanese university students.

  13. Engaging the Discourse of International Language Recognition through ISO 639-3 Signed Language Change Requests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parks, Elizabeth

    2015-01-01

    Linguistic ideologies that are left unquestioned and unexplored, especially as reflected and produced in marginalized language communities, can contribute to inequality made real in decisions about languages and the people who use them. One of the primary bodies of knowledge guiding international language policy is the International Organization…

  14. Critical Language Awareness: Curriculum 2005 meets the TRC ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article discusses the different ways in which the relationship between language and power is conceptualised in recent curriculum documents and in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. It uses the commissioners' insights that language is a form of social action and that discourses constitute our identities to ...

  15. Exploring Bilingual Pedagogies in Dual Language Preschool Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gort, Mileidis; Pontier, Ryan W.

    2013-01-01

    In this paper, we present an analysis of the language practices of four Spanish/English dual language (DL) preschool teachers, focusing on the ways in which the teachers mediate bilingual interactions with students and distribute Spanish and English across different classroom discourse functions. Findings reveal teachers' flexible and strategic…

  16. Multiple Discrimination and Immigration: Traces from Institutional, Academic and Populational Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miguel S. Valles Martínez

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This article focus on the pairing multiple discrimination and immigration, exploring documentation left in political-institutional grounds, academia and people speech. A triple discursive trace is documented (institutional, academic, populational. Main results are: 1 greater use of adjective ?multiple? within political-legal literature on discrimination, being more latent within sociological research; 2 the presence of multiple discrimination forms in institutional, academic and general population language (not always explicitly ; 3 available statistics and surveys do not record the complexity of a sociological and social-legal phenomenon, requering qualitative materials as well (conversational primary discourses from native or immigrant population, and documentary elaborated discourses from institutions or academia.

  17. Memes: discourse formations echoing in cyberspace

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Fabiano de Souza

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes discourse formations acting as “memes” in social networks based on the writings of Fiorin (1998 and the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA as theoretical support. According to the conceptions of Fairclough (2001a, 2001b; 2003, CDA is a theory of discourse that aims to investigate language as a social and ideological practice. Thus, the study opens with considerations about the appearance of the term coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976, in which the author postulates the idea of “meme” – unity of cultural information that is replicated from person to person – in analogy to genes. Another theoretical perspective considered in the investigation are the conceptions of Susan Blackmore (1999 on the role of “memes” as a powerful force shaping our cultural evolution through ideas copied from individual to individual by imitation. The work closes with discussions on the implications of the role played by memetic components in virtual environments as an ideological representation of voices of characters from the real world that post comments in social networks, thus fostering discussions that cooperate to the dissemination of “memes”.

  18. Slovene-English Language Contact and Language Change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nada Šabec

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper focuses on Slovene - English language contact and the potential language change resulting from it. Both the immigrant context (the U.S. and Canada and Slovenia, where direct and indirect language contact can be observed respectively, are examined from two perspectives: social on the one hand and linguistic on the other. In the case of Slovene Americans and Canadians the emphasis is on language maintenance and shift, and on the relationship between mother tongue preservation and ethnic awareness. The linguistic section examines different types of bilingual discourse (borrowing, code switching, showing how the Slovene inflectional system in particular is being increasingly generalized, simplified and reduced, and how Slovene word order is gradually beginning to resemble that of English. In the case of Slovenia we are witnessing an unprecedented surge in the influence of English on Slovene, especially in the media (both classic and electronic, advertising, science, and the language of the young. This influence will be discussed on a number of levels, such as lexical, syntactic and intercultural, and illustrated by relevant examples.

  19. Design and Interaction in the Narratives of Decoration Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heba Zaytoon

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The vast literature on discourse analysis includes many studies which investigate different types of texts and attempts to identify the properties that characterize them. The present study proposes an analysis of the narrative aspect in decoration discourse with the aim of revealing the textual features and organization that are uniquely utilized by this type of discourse and to clarify facets of similarities and differences from traditional narratives. The study explores the utilization of the problem-solution pattern and the goal-achievement pattern to communicate the intended message. Language with its pragmatic aspects plays an essential role in the construction and interpretation of such narratives. The database includes a variety of narratives extracted from different decoration and household magazines. Sharing experiences through narratives serves a broader function of establishing certain norms and standards to be followed by the majority of the population. By abiding to these norms, individuals strive to be affiliated to a particular social standard; the one intended by authors and publishers of these magazines.

  20. Evidence for the role of infectious disease in species extinction and endangerment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Katherine F.; Sax, Dov F.; Lafferty, Kevin D.

    2006-01-01

    Infectious disease is listed among the top five causes of global species extinctions. However, the majority of available data supporting this contention is largely anecdotal. We used the IUCN Red List of Threatened and Endangered Species and literature indexed in the ISI Web of Science to assess the role of infectious disease in global species loss. Infectious disease was listed as a contributing factor in extinctions known to have occurred since 1500 (833 plants and animals) and as contributing to a species' status as critically endangered in animals). Although infectious diseases appear to play a minor role in global species loss, our findings underscore two important limitations in the available evidence: uncertainty surrounding the threats to species survival and a temporal bias in the data. Several initiatives could help overcome these obstacles, including rigorous scientific tests to determine which infectious diseases present a significant threat at the species level, recognition of the limitations associated with the lack of baseline data for the role of infectious disease in species extinctions, combining data with theory to discern the circumstances under which infectious disease is most likely to serve as an agent of extinction, and improving surveillance programs for the detection of infectious disease. An evidence-based understanding of the role of infectious disease in species extinction and endangerment will help prioritize conservation initiatives and protect global biodiversity.

  1. English, a Tonal Language? | Pam | AFRREV IJAH: An International ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Tone is associated with lexical meaning, distinguishing one word from another. Diacritical marks are used for indicating tone to eliminate confusion.The general conclusion is English, is not a tonal language. English is an intonation language which expresses syntactic, discourse, grammatical and attitudinal functions.

  2. The Impact of the English Language on the Development of African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The predominance and relegation of the English and Igbo Languages in discourse respectively have been speculated with a paucity of empirical backup. The need arises therefore for a quantitative assessment of the Impact of the English Language on the development of values (language, dressing and religion) among the ...

  3. Rethinking Discourses of Diversity: A Critical Discourse Study of Language Ideologies and Identity Negotiation in a University ESL Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jung Sook

    2017-01-01

    Diversity is valued and promoted in contemporary public discourse, but on the other hand, there is a strong tendency to homogenize differences in society. The tension between diversity and homogeneity is palpable on U.S. college campuses as the number of international students has been ever-increasing. A more nuanced approach is needed to grapple…

  4. Intersection of a Foucauldian and a Bakhtinian analysis of work life discourses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bager, Ann; Mølholm, Martin

    2018-01-01

    affinity to Bakhtin whose claim was that authoritative discourses crystallize over time (monologism) as they are shaped and reshaped in situated dialogical interactions in which battles between centripetal and centrifugal forces of interaction are going on in the language of life (heteroglossia......). These strategies of relations of forces and authoritative discourses exercise influence on the possibilities of conduct in today’s organizational discursive communicative practices. In this article we will intersect these two diverse analytical positions and show how they inform one another and, thus, which new...... knowledge they give rise to. We will further discuss how both Foucault’s and Bakhtin’s writings (as well as some of their followers) give rise to an ethics of dispositif and dialogue in which the conduct of conduct and authoritative discourses can be contested in order to oppose – shape and reshape...

  5. There is More to the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics Than the Use of Local Languages: Mathematics Teacher Practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nancy Chitera

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available In this article, we present a discussion about the type of mathematical discourse that is being produced in classrooms where the language of learning and teaching is local languages.  We also further explore the tensions in the mathematical discourse being produced. The study sample was 4 mathematics teachers from a semi-urban primary school in Malawi. The methods of data collection included classroom observations, pre-observation focus group discussions and reflective interviews. The results show that even though both students and teachers were able to communicate freely in local languages in the mathematics classroom, the mathematical discourse that came was distorted. This is mainly caused by lack of a well-developed mathematical discourse in local languages, which in turn takes away the confidence of mathematics teachers in the classroom. As a result, the mathematics classrooms are still being characterized by teachers not being creative, use of word by word from books, focus more on procedural than conceptual and thus teacher centered is still dominant in these classrooms. Furthermore, it is found that there are tensions between the formal and informal mathematical language in local languages. These results in turn have promoted a more in-depth understanding to the teaching and learning of mathematics when local language is the language of learning and teaching. Therefore, this article argues for a well-balanced approach when it comes to teaching and learning of mathematics rather than just focusing on the use of local languages.

  6. Klik-suri sa Online Community ng mga Lesbiyana sa Facebook Gamit ang Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA at Natural Language Processing (NLP (Click-analysis of a Lesbian Online Community in Facebook Using the CDA and NLP

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alona Jumaquio-Ardales

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to describe the discourse on the online community of lesbians in the Philippines. The organization of Lesbian Community or LESCOM was chosen as subject of the study based on high number of ‘likes’ they received in Facebook. The texts were automatically gathered, filtered, shortlisted, and harvested from their Facebook page using the Natural Language Processing (NLP. The theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA was used in analysing the data in order to describe online discourses that reflect the identity and community of lesbians based in the Philippines. The result of analysis were the following: [1] the emotions projected by exclamatory mark displayed their identity; [2] some plural words served as their voice for being group-oriented; [3] frequent usage of personal names manifested their inclusive community; and [4] social consciousness was part of their organizational agenda.

  7. Causality and subjectivity in discourse : The meaning and use of causal connectives in spontaneous conversation, chat interactions and written text

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sanders, T.J.M.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/075243911; Spooren, W.P.M.S.

    Many languages of the world have connectives to express causal relations at the discourse level. Often, language users systematically prefer one lexical item (because) over another (even highly similar) one (since) to express a causal relationship. Such choices provide a window on speakers'

  8. English as a global language in China deconstructing the ideological discourses of English in language education

    CERN Document Server

    Pan, Lin

    2014-01-01

    This book offers insight into the spread and impact of English language education in China within China's broader educational, social, economic and political changes. The author's critical perspective informs readers on the connections between language education and political ideologies in the context of globalizing China. The discussion of the implications concerning language education is of interest for current and future language policy makers, language educators and learners. Including both diachronic and synchronic accounts or China's language education policy, this volume highlights how China as a modern nation-state has been seeking a more central position globally, and the role that English education and the promotion of such education played in that effort in recent decades.

  9. Resisting Magic Waves: Ideologies of "English Language Teaching" in Iranian Newspaper Advertisements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mirhosseini, Seyyed-Abdolhamid

    2015-01-01

    Discourse practices play crucial roles in shaping the cultural environment of social events and, therefore, influence how they actually take place. Promotional materials and media advertisements are significant instances of such discourses through which understandings of social practices, including language education, are both reflected and…

  10. Discourses of prejudice in the professions: the case of sign languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Humphries, Tom; Kushalnagar, Poorna; Mathur, Gaurav; Napoli, Donna Jo; Padden, Carol; Rathmann, Christian; Smith, Scott

    2017-09-01

    There is no evidence that learning a natural human language is cognitively harmful to children. To the contrary, multilingualism has been argued to be beneficial to all. Nevertheless, many professionals advise the parents of deaf children that their children should not learn a sign language during their early years, despite strong evidence across many research disciplines that sign languages are natural human languages. Their recommendations are based on a combination of misperceptions about (1) the difficulty of learning a sign language, (2) the effects of bilingualism, and particularly bimodalism, (3) the bona fide status of languages that lack a written form, (4) the effects of a sign language on acquiring literacy, (5) the ability of technologies to address the needs of deaf children and (6) the effects that use of a sign language will have on family cohesion. We expose these misperceptions as based in prejudice and urge institutions involved in educating professionals concerned with the healthcare, raising and educating of deaf children to include appropriate information about first language acquisition and the importance of a sign language for deaf children. We further urge such professionals to advise the parents of deaf children properly, which means to strongly advise the introduction of a sign language as soon as hearing loss is detected. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  11. Making Agency Matter: Rethinking Infant and Toddler Agency in Educational Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duhn, Iris

    2015-01-01

    This article engages critically with the concept of agency in infant and toddler educational discourse. It is argued that agency, when conceptualised with emphasis on individuality and the autonomous self, poses a conceptual "dead end" for those who are not-yet-in-language, such as babies and toddlers. In considering agency as an aspect…

  12. Sociological Implications of English as an International Language in Music Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra

    2016-01-01

    Internationalization and globalization have created a global music education community which is not only linked by similar ideas, but also shares a common language. English functions as a global language and facilitates the international discourse in music education. While it is good to have a common language supporting international dialogue, it…

  13. LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL IMPERIALISM:INDONESIAN CASE

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    Pradana Boy ZTF

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The discourse of language, culture and imperialism are closely intertwined. In this paper I will describe cultural imperialism through language by taking Indonesian case as an example. This essay will develop two main arguments. Firstly, it sets forth that language is a medium through which cultural imperialism could take place, since language is an important and even fundamental aspect of culture. The cultural imperialism through language starts to occur when a certain foreign language is arbitrarily and irresponsibly used in correspondence and combination with local languages within formal and colloquial contexts. Secondly, using Frantz Fannon’s theory as described in his Black Skin White Masks, Indonesian case of use of mixed language of Bahasa and English in any medium is an obvious example of how this language imperialism in contemporary setting arises.

  14. Sociolinguistic Competence and Malaysian Students' English Language Proficiency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muniandy, Mohan K.; Nair, Gopala Krishnan Sekharan; Shanmugam, Shashi Kumar Krishnan; Ahmad, Irma; Noor, Norashikin Binte Mohamed

    2010-01-01

    This paper aims to highlight the importance of teaching sociolinguistic competence to ESL learners in Malaysian schools. Sociolinguistic competence is the knowledge of socio cultural rules of language and of discourse. This type of competence requires an understanding of the socio context in which language is used. It is proposed that carefully…

  15. Gender, Discourse, and "Gender and Discourse."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Hayley

    1997-01-01

    A critic of Deborah Tannen's book "Gender and Discourse" responds to comments made about her critique, arguing that the book's analysis of the relationship of gender and discourse tends to seek, and perhaps force, explanations only in those terms. Another linguist's analysis of similar phenomena is found to be more rigorous. (MSE)

  16. Disclosing discourses: biomedical and hospitality discourses in patient education materials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Öresland, Stina; Friberg, Febe; Määttä, Sylvia; Öhlen, Joakim

    2015-09-01

    Patient education materials have the potential to strengthen the health literacy of patients. Previous studies indicate that readability and suitability may be improved. The aim of this study was to explore and analyze discourses inherent in patient education materials since analysis of discourses could illuminate values and norms inherent in them. Clinics in Sweden that provided colorectal cancer surgery allowed access to written information and 'welcome letters' sent to patients. The material was analysed by means of discourse analysis, embedded in Derrida's approach of deconstruction. The analysis revealed a biomedical discourse and a hospitality discourse. In the biomedical discourse, the subject position of the personnel was interpreted as the messenger of medical information while that of the patients as the carrier of diagnoses and recipients of biomedical information. In the hospitality discourse, the subject position of the personnel was interpreted as hosts who invite and welcome the patients as guests. The study highlights the need to eliminate paternalism and fosters a critical reflective stance among professionals regarding power and paternalism inherent in health care communication. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  17. CULTURAL TRANSFER IN TRAVEL GUIDE TRANSLATION: DISCOURSE APPROACH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Novikova Elina Yuryevna

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Intercultural communication and dialogue between various social and political structures and their globalized conditions immediately lead to the development of tourism and services market in this area, including translation services. The study of linguocultural characteristics of a travel guide in terms of pragmatically adequate translation is an interesting aspect for the analysis of the development and functioning of logics of modern interaction planes because the mass tourism participants' communicative characteristics are determined, on the one hand, by the universal, global, economic, social and cultural programmes of mass tourism and, on the other hand, by the local and national peculiarities of tourism discourse in general. The choice of linguistic means in travel guides is determined by their communicative and pragmatic as well as ethno-cultural characteristics that form the main discourse oriented translation programme. The translation of the travel guide texts to German supposes significant differences at out- and in-text levels to achieve maximum compliance with the potential recipients' expectations. The analysis of the two translations of the Russian-language travel guide made to German by the native German speaker and the non-native German speaker let define the so-called sharp edges in the cultural transfer of the information important for the discourse. The travel guide is characterized by the specific features of the touristics discourse, on the one hand, and by the interesting experience of translating, on the other hand.

  18. Discourse analysis and social constructionism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Robert

    2004-01-01

    Discourse analysis (DA) is underpinned by a social constructionist orientation to knowledge. Social constructionism rests on the philosophical assumptions that multiple versions of the world are legitimate; that texts are open to multiple readings; and that language is non-representational. As social constructionism is relativistic, the status of 'evidence' generated by DA is questionable from more traditional research perspectives. On a common-sense level, people obviously construct meaning in relation to their lives. Thus, DA can help us to examine constructions of meaning in relation to nursing care. Equally the discourse analyst constructs one possible meaning in relation to a phenomenon that may compete with other versions. Multiplicity does not necessarily entail anarchy and competing versions prevent authoritarianism and loss of freedom. However, judgements have to be made about competing versions, for example, by assessing the level of 'facticity', or referring to the ethics embedded in the cultural context. In this paper, Bob White discusses DA as a form of qualitative research that offers promise for nursing research. Subsequent papers will examine the methodology and methods of DA and its application to nursing research.

  19. Discourse analysis and social constructionism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Robert

    2004-10-01

    Discourse analysis (DA) is underpinned by a social constructionist orientation to knowledge. Social constructionism rests on the philosophical assumptions that multiple versions of the world are legitimate; that texts are open to multiple readings; and that language is non-representational. As social constructionism is relativistic, the status of 'evidence' generated by DA is questionable from more traditional research perspectives. On a common-sense level, people obviously construct meaning in relation to their lives. Thus, DA can help us to examine constructions of meaning in relation to nursing care. Equally, the discourse analyst constructs one possible meaning in relation to a phenomenon that may compete with other versions. Multiplicity does not necessarily entail anarchy, and competing versions prevent authoritarianism and loss of freedom. However, judgements have to be made about competing versions, for example, by assessing the level of 'facticity', or referring to the ethics embedded in the cultural context. In this paper, Bob White discusses DA as a form of qualitative research that offers promise for nursing research. Subsequent papers will examine the methodology and methods of DA and its application to nursing research.

  20. Hemispheric asymmetries in discourse processing: evidence from false memories for lists and texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ben-Artzi, Elisheva; Faust, Miriam; Moeller, Edna

    2009-01-01

    Previous research suggests that the right hemisphere (RH) may contribute uniquely to discourse and text processing by activating and maintaining a wide range of meanings, including more distantly related meanings. The present study used the word-lists false memory paradigm [Roediger, H. L., III, & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803-814.] to examine the hypothesis that difference between the two cerebral hemispheres in discourse processing may be due, at least partly, to memory representations for implicit text-related semantic information. Specifically, we tested the susceptibility of the left hemisphere (LH) and RH to unpresented target words following the presentation of semantically related words appearing in either word lists or short texts. Findings showed that the RH produced more false alarms than the LH for unpresented target words following either word lists or texts. These findings reveal hemispheric differences in memory for semantically related information and suggest that RH advantage in long-term maintenance of a wide range of text-related word meanings may be one aspect of its unique contribution to the construction of a discourse model. The results support the RH coarse semantic coding theory [Beeman, M. (1998). Coarse semantic coding and discourse comprehension. In M. Beeman & C. Chiarello (Eds.), Right hemisphere language comprehension: Perspectives from cognitive neuroscience (pp. 255-284). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.] and suggest that hemispheric differences in semantic processing during language comprehension extend also to verbal memory.

  1. Mostly empty words--what the discourse of "choice" in health care does.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nordgren, Lars

    2010-01-01

    This paper has two purposes: one is to analyse how the policy of freedom of choice emerged and was formed in the Swedish health care discourse; the second is related to how free choice influences the discourse in health care and how subjects are formed within the field, i.e. what the language of choice in health care does. The research strategy is inspired by a combined theoretical framework borrowed from Michel Foucault's concepts of "discursive formation" and "subjectivization" completed with Judith Butler's concept of performativity. The language of "freedom of choice" calls to mind the rhetoric of promises, i.e. that the patient should be free and responsible, in his or her relation to health care. Since patients seem to be insufficiently informed and supported about the actual benefits of possibilities and limitations associated with the severely restricted reform of free choice, the statements concerning opportunities to make personal health decisions will lose their significance. The advocacy of discourses of freedom of choice seems therefore mostly like empty words, as they are producing weak patients instead of free and empowered people. As the reform was initiated in the beginning of 2000 it is rather fresh. The paper produces insights into the rhetoric of political promises and the limitations of the reform dealing with freedom of choice in health care.

  2. Means of Harmonization in Religious Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irina Ščukina

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Means of harmonization of religious discourse are considered by studying communicational behaviour (verbal and nonverbal between the religion institution and believers. The following factors defining specificity of realization of harmonization in Orthodox and other religious texts are taken into account: the communication channel between the author and the reader, a defining speech genre, the command of language (communication code, and extra-linguistic factors. It is shown that sharing the general social, historical and national experience, as well as a lexical overlapping of actors on both sides of the communication channel are the deciding elements of the harmonization process. The analysis also shows that usage of rational argumentation is more likely to lead to harmonisation in comparison to other rhetoric tools (i. e. affective ones or story-telling. Rational and unemotional sermonic discourse is perceived as a sign of respect (namely, for the listener's intelligence. Another successful and much-applied way seems to be evoking a feeling of equality, unity and/or identity between clerics and their flocks.

  3. Question-Answer Pairs in Sign Language of the Netherlands

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kimmelman, V.; Vink, L.

    2017-01-01

    Several sign languages of the world utilize a construction that consists of a question followed by an answer, both of which are produced by the same signer. For American Sign Language, this construction has been analyzed as a discourse-level rhetorical question construction (Hoza et al. 1997), as a

  4. Impact of Prematurity on Language Skills at School Age

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Jamie Mahurin; DeThorne, Laura Segebart; Logan, Jessica A. R.; Channell, Ron W.; Petrill, Stephen A.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: The existing literature on language outcomes in children born prematurely focuses almost exclusively on standardized test scores rather than discourse-level abilities. The authors of this study looked longitudinally at school-age language outcomes and potential moderating variables for a group of twins born prematurely versus a control…

  5. Dialogue-Games: Meta-Communication Structures for Natural Language Interaction

    Science.gov (United States)

    1977-01-01

    analogy from Wittgenstein’s term "language game" ( Wittgenstein , 1958). However, Dialogue-games represent knowledge people have about language as used to...and memory of narrative discourse. CoRtiiiive PsycholoRy, 1977, 9, 77-110. Wittgenstein , L. Philosophical inve-ÜRalions (3rd ed.). New York

  6. Second Language Socialization and Learner Agency: Adoptive Family Talk

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fogle, Lyn Wright

    2012-01-01

    This book examines how Russian-speaking adoptees in three US families actively shape opportunities for language learning and identity construction in everyday interactions. By focusing on a different practice in each family (i.e. narrative talk about the day, metalinguistic discourse or languaging, and code-switching), the analyses uncover…

  7. Social constructionism, discourse analysis and mental health nursing: a natural synergy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leishman, June L

    2003-09-01

    This paper has been developed to identify the natural synergy between social constructionism, discourse analysis and mental health research. It is based on research undertaken to explore mental health nurses' identity. The proposal is that nurses' identities are rhetorically constructed in the language they use to account for and justify their work in the practice context.

  8. The Impact of Canadian Social Discourses on L2 Writing Pedagogy in Ontario

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalan, Amir

    2013-01-01

    This paper attempts to illustrate the impact of Canadian social, political, and academic discourses on second language writing pedagogy in Ontario schools. Building upon the views that regard teacher knowledge as teachers' sociocultural interactions and lived experiences, and not merely intellectual capabilities gained within teacher preparation,…

  9. Language Countertrading In Courtroom Exchanges in Nigeria: A Discursive Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tunde Opeibi

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available The view of discourse as serving transactional and interactional purposes cascades into practical realities in courtroom exchanges. As an institutional setting, the law courts exemplify a typical social domain where language provides the basis for conveying information; promoting meaningful and goal-directive social and interactional exchanges. Whether in civil or criminal litigations, the proceedings rely on linguistic facilities for accomplishing communicative actions. Language thus remains the sole ‘legal tender’ and the major instrument for prosecuting the cases and resolving conflicts brought before the courts. This paper is motivated by the increasing but interesting challenges lay participants face in the courtrooms as they are confronted with language use that is different from their day-to-day experiences. The study discusses these peculiar communicative interactions in a law court in Lagos, Nigeria against the backdrop of very little efforts in courtroom discourse in non-native English speaking contexts. Specifically, this paper focuses mainly on an aspect of courtroom discourse (i.e. examination-in-chief, a procedural questioning session which provides the basis for presenting the plaintiff’s arguments and information through the plaintiff’s counsel. The data used in this work were drawn from a civil suit filed in a Lagos High Court by a complainant in connection with a dispute on a property in central Lagos. Using insights from discourse analysis and theoretical construct based on Genre Analysis (e.g. Hasan’s Generic Structure Potential as well as other relevant constructs, the study analyses discourse features and strategies deployed by active participants in the proceedings. The study finds that legal proceedings contextualized within a given L2 sociolinguistic and lingual-legal jurisdiction helps to project some of the peculiar features of a non-native English in legal domains. Apart from identifying some peculiar

  10. Against the Standards: Analyzing Expectations and Discourse of Educators regarding Students with Disabilities in a Kindergarten Classroom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernanda T. Orsati

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This two-year ethnographic case study critically examines the language educators use to describe students with disabilities who are considered to present challenging behaviors in one classroom. Focusing on the language and practices used by one special education teacher and three teaching assistants, this paper explores how educators respond to students’ behaviors by analyzing educators’ utterances and the implication of such use for the education of the students. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper highlights how educators’ language in the classroom reflects a discourse of expectations that is based on various social standards and pressures that educators have to juggle. Educators expressed academic and behavioral standards by comparing students’ performance to the expected norm as well as through comparisons between students. Based on such comparisons, some students were constructed as always lacking and ultimately defined by the adjectives originally used to describe them. Students were perceived to embody defiance or smartness, the characteristics by which they were defined.

  11. Cultivating Space for the Language Boomerang: The Interplay of Two Languages as Academic Resources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin-Beltran, Melinda

    2009-01-01

    Grounded in sociocultural theory, this study uses an ecological approach to examine how student interactions within a dual-language school context may offer affordances for increased linguistic and conceptual understanding. Using qualitative analysis of student discourse, this paper focuses on data from recorded interactions between pairs of…

  12. Argumentation in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Response to Haiman's "Farewell to Rational Discourse."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grice, George L.; Schunk, John F.

    In a 1968 address, Franklyn S. Haiman stated that public discourse at that time was marked by irrationality because of emphases on emotional appeals, disorganization, and aggressive or abusive style and language. He also cited "body rhetoric" (lawful protests or marches) and civil disobedience (illegal actions) as examples of irrational arguments.…

  13. Media discourse on Split reading rooms and libraries in Dalmatian periodicals (1862 - 1918

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivanka Kuić

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The paper focuses on the media discourse on reading rooms and libraries as a historical phenomenon that describes the role and place of reading rooms and libraries in Dalmatia in the 60ties of the 19th century and World War I. The papers in Dalmatian newspapers from that period, as materialized forms of discourse, answer many important questions related to the history of Croatian librarianship: how were the reading rooms and libraries established and what crucial concept determined their role and place in a particular period in history. The paper presents the historical concept, conditions in which the discourse occurred, discourse types and functions, conceptual structure, and transformation processes towards new discourse practices. The discourse analysis has shown that the reading rooms and libraries are cultural artifacts strongly influenced by the social context. Two stages in the development of discourse have been identified: in the first stage the discourse takes a considerable role in metaphorical games and construction of mythical structures - ethnic identity, national unity and language community. On the conceptual level the role of reading rooms and libraries is recognized in the deconstruction of traditional relations - they are a territorially separate, exclusive place of symbolic production, creation of new social structures and cultural values. In that context, the activities of libraries are underrepresented compared to other activities of reading rooms. The second stage, which started in the 90ies of the 19th century, is marked by discourse multiplication, differentiation of library organization structure and function from other functions of culture, and the strong influence of new discourse. The media discourse presents the change of conceptual structures, in which the role and place of libraries is interpreted in the context of the role of knowledge and education in meeting society goals in the situation of social

  14. An Integrated Approach for Treating Discourse in Aphasia: Bridging the Gap between Language Impairment and Functional Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milman, Lisa

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: A primary goal of aphasia intervention is to improve everyday communication. Although a large body of research focuses on treatment generalization, transfer of learning to real-world interactions involving discourse does not always occur. The goal of an integrated discourse treatment for aphasia (IDTA) approach is to facilitate such…

  15. Discourse Futures and Discourse-to-Come

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    McIlvenny, Paul

    assemblages, and ‘the future’, in order to develop a prefigurative discourse studies for social change that is relevant to the turbulent twenty first century. This exploration of key issues is illustrated with three case studies: (a) reality TV parenting programmes, (b) the “Earth Hour” global media campaign......, implementing and managing democratic social change and transformation, with an explicit focus on shaping a just future. Work in discourse studies will be compared and contrasted with contemporary ideas about governmentality, mobility, infrastructure, social movements, consumption practices, sociotechnical...... to profile in future research. This includes mapping the mediated discourses and social interactional encounters interleaved with the ever changing practices and powers of, for example, control, freedom, access, mobility, cleanliness, comfort, convenience, consumption, waste, recycling and reuse...

  16. Scientific Discourse in the Academy: A Case Study of an American Indian Undergraduate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandt, Carol B.

    2008-01-01

    This case study explores how an American Indian woman experienced scientific discourse and the issues of language, power, and authority that occurred while she was an undergraduate student at a university in the southwestern United States. This ethnographic research, using a phenomenological perspective, describes her experiences as she searched…

  17. Competency-based medical education: the discourse of infallibility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boyd, Victoria A; Whitehead, Cynthia R; Thille, Patricia; Ginsburg, Shiphra; Brydges, Ryan; Kuper, Ayelet

    2018-01-01

    Over the last two decades, competency-based frameworks have been internationally adopted as the primary educational approach in medicine. Yet competency-based medical education (CBME) remains contested in the academic literature. We look broadly at the nature of this debate to explore how it may shape scholars' understanding of CBME, and its implications for medical education research and practice. In doing so, we deconstruct unarticulated discourses and assumptions embedded in the CBME literature. We assembled an archive of literature focused on CBME. The archive dates from 1996, the publication year of the first CanMEDS Physician Competency Framework. We then conducted a Foucauldian critical discourse analysis (CDA) to delineate the dominant discourses underpinning the literature. CDA examines the intersections of language, social practices, knowledge and power relations to highlight how entrenched ways of thinking influence what can or cannot be said about a topic. Detractors of CBME have advanced an array of conceptual critiques. Proponents have often responded with a recurring discursive strategy that minimises these critiques and deflects attention from the underlying concept of the competency-based approach. As part of this process, conceptual concerns are reframed as two practical problems: implementation and interpretation. Yet the assertion that these are the construct's primary concerns was often unsupported by empirical evidence. These practices contribute to a discourse of infallibility of CBME. In uncovering the discourse of infallibility, we explore how it can silence critical voices and hinder a rigorous examination of the competency-based approach. These discursive practices strengthen CBME by constructing it as infallible in the literature. We propose re-approaching the dialogue surrounding CBME as a starting point for empirical investigation, driven by the aim to broaden scholars' understanding of its design, development and implementation in

  18. AN ACTIVITY THEORY-BASED ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF DISCOURSE IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rodrigo Drumond Vieira

    Full Text Available In this paper we introduce a new framework and methodology to analyze science classroom discourse and apply it to a university physics education course. Two fields of inquiry were adapted to develop the framework: activity theory and linguistics. From activity theory we applied levels of analysis (activity, actions, and operations to organize and structure the discourse analysis. From the field of linguistics we used resources from sociolinguistics and textual linguistics to perform analysis at the action and operation levels. Sociolinguistics gave us criteria to introduce contextualization cues into analysis in order to consider ways that participants segmented their classroom conversations. Textual linguistics provided a basis for categories of language organization (e.g, argumentation, explanation, narration, description, injunction, and dialogue. From this analysis, we propose an examination of a teacher's discourse moves, which we labeled Discursive Didactic Procedures (DDPs. Thus, the framework provides a means to situate these DDPs in different types of language organization, examine the roles such DDPs play in events, and consider the relevant didactic goals accomplished. We applied this framework to analyze the emergence and development of an argumentative situation and investigate its specific DDPs and their roles. Finally, we explore possible contributions of the framework to science education research and consider some of its limitations.

  19. Snapshots of Language and Literature Teaching in Denmark and England

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Peter; Dorf, Hans

    2016-01-01

    To illustrate differences in lower secondary-level language and literature teaching, we contrast a typical teaching episode in Denmark with one in England. Both reflect the dominant discourses in each country alongside recent policy initiatives, and each exemplifies a different orientation to language and literature teaching focussing on…

  20. Multiple Schools, Languages, Experiences and Affiliations: Ideological Becomings and Positionings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maguire, Mary H.; Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao Lan

    2007-01-01

    This article focuses on the identity accounts of a group of Chinese children who attend a heritage language school. Bakhtin's concepts of ideological becoming, and authoritative and internally persuasive discourse, frame our exploration. Taking a dialogic view of language and learning raises questions about schools as socializing spaces and…

  1. On discourse space modeling

    OpenAIRE

    Казыдуб, Надежда

    2013-01-01

    Discourse space is a complex structure that incorporates different levels and dimensions. The paper focuses on developing a multidisciplinary approach that is congruent to the complex character of the modern discourse. Two models of discourse space are proposed here. The Integrated Model reveals the interaction of different categorical mechanisms in the construction of the discourse space. The Evolutionary Model describes the historical roots of the modern discourse. It also reveals historica...

  2. ‘Am I anorexic?’ Weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mullany, Louise; Smith, Catherine; Harvey, Kevin; Adolphs, Svenja

    2015-01-01

    This article explores the communicative choices of adolescents seeking advice from an internet-based health forum run by medical professionals. Techniques from the disciplines of sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics are integrated to examine the strategies used in adolescents’ health questions. We focus on the emergent theme of Weight and Eating, a concern which features prominently in adolescents’ requests to medical practitioners. The majority of advice requests are authored by adolescent girls, with queries peaking at age 12. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis provides detailed insights into adolescents’ communicative strategies. Examinations of question types, register and a discourse-based analysis draw attention to dominant discourses of the body, including a ‘discourse of slenderness’ and a ‘discourse of normality’, which exercise negative influences on adolescents’ dietary behaviours. The findings are of applied linguistic relevance to health practitioners and educators, as they provide them with access to adolescents’ health queries in their own language.

  3. The right hemisphere's contribution to discourse processing: A study in temporal lobe epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lomlomdjian, Carolina; Múnera, Claudia P; Low, Daniel M; Terpiluk, Verónica; Solís, Patricia; Abusamra, Valeria; Kochen, Silvia

    2017-08-01

    Discourse skills - in which the right hemisphere has an important role - enables verbal communication by selecting contextually relevant information and integrating it coherently to infer the correct meaning. However, language research in epilepsy has focused on single word analysis related mainly to left hemisphere processing. The purpose of this study was to investigate discourse abilities in patients with right lateralized medial temporal lobe epilepsy (RTLE) by comparing their performance to that of patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE). 74 pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients were evaluated: 34 with RTLE and 40 with LTLE. Subjects underwent a battery of tests that measure comprehension and production of conversational and narrative discourse. Disease related variables and general neuropsychological data were evaluated. The RTLE group presented deficits in interictal conversational and narrative discourse, with a disintegrated speech, lack of categorization and misinterpretation of social meaning. LTLE group, on the other hand, showed a tendency to lower performance in logical-temporal sequencing. RTLE patients showed discourse deficits which have been described in right hemisphere damaged patients due to other etiologies. Medial and anterior temporal lobe structures appear to link semantic, world knowledge, and social cognition associated areas to construct a contextually related coherent meaning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Discourse and media: construction of concepts about person with intellectual disability in advertisements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carla Maria de Schipper

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available This study was designed in order to understand language work respecting  the construction of conceptions about Intellectual Disabilities in the contemporary discourse and their discursive genesis. The basis of the discourse analysis were advertisements published by an institution of special education in the period of 1980 to 2009. To perform this action, the Analysis of Discourse (AD from French perspective, especially the concepts of interdiscours, memory and heterogeneity, was used as a theoretical basis. Prior to analyzing, presenting some basic concepts of AD and the various conceptions of disability that have arisen throughout history was proven necessary. The Material for analysis is composed of five advertising texts published on a magazine that represents institutions devoted to the care of people with intellectual disabilities and an advertisement to raise funds. The recovery of memory discourse, considering the socio-historical condition of production of discourse, has given visibility to the different places occupied by the person with intellectual disability in the society in each time reported. At the speeches of subject enunciators, attempts to internalize the social roles focused on educational inclusion have been observed, but at the interdiscours, they proved to be voices that exceeded sediment paradigm of medicalization and work as mission.

  5. Fictive Interaction : The conversation frame in thought, language, and discourse

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pascual, Esther

    2014-01-01

    Language is intimately related to interaction. The question arises: Is the structure of interaction somehow mirrored in language structure and use? This book suggests a positive answer to this question by examining the ubiquitous phenomenon of fictive interaction, in which non-genuine conversational

  6. The Cultural Politics of Language in Sudan: Against the Racialising Logic of Language Rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdelhay, Ashraf; Eljak, Nada; Mugaddam, AbdelRahim; Makoni, Sinfree

    2017-01-01

    The sociolinguistic repertoires of individuals in Sudan are products of institutionalised orders of normalisation. The visibility of language in popular and official discourses in Sudan is always linked with wider cultural and political projects. This paper intends to engage with and explicate this observation by, first, examining how the dominant…

  7. Indian citizenship and the discourse of hygiene/disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wilson, Fiona

    2004-01-01

    Citizenship became conflated with 'race' in late 19th century Latin America partly on account of the new language of biological science. The article focuses on the contrast between rights of belonging and rights of citizenship as played out in the provincial town in Andean Peru. It explores how b...... by drawing on a discourse of hygiene/disease a provincial elite was able to restrict access to public space in the town and thus deny 'Indians' the possibility of participating as citizens in urban political life.......Citizenship became conflated with 'race' in late 19th century Latin America partly on account of the new language of biological science. The article focuses on the contrast between rights of belonging and rights of citizenship as played out in the provincial town in Andean Peru. It explores how...

  8. Human Rights Discourse in the Sustainable Development Agenda Avoids Obligations and Entitlements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Carmel; Blaiklock, Alison

    2016-01-01

    Our commentary on Forman et al paper explores their thesis that right to health language can frame global health policy responses. We examined human rights discourse in the outcome documents from three 2015 United Nations (UN) summits and found rights-related terms are used in all three. However, a deeper examination of the discourse finds the documents do not convey the obligations and entitlements of human rights and international human rights law. The documents contain little that can be used to empower the participation of those already left behind and to hold States and the private sector to account for their human rights duties. This is especially worrying in a neoliberal era. PMID:27285518

  9. Shared Places, Separate Spaces: Constructing Cultural Spaces through Two National Languages in Finland

    Science.gov (United States)

    From, Tuuli; Sahlström, Fritjof

    2017-01-01

    Finland is a bilingual country with 2 national languages, Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish-speaking school institution aims to protect the minority language by maintaining a monolingual school space. In this article, the construction of linguistic and ethnic difference in educational discourse and practice related to the national languages in…

  10. Mediators of the Risk for Problem Behavior in Children with Language Learning Disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vallance, Denise D.; Cummings, Richard L.; Humphries, Tom

    1998-01-01

    The independent and relative influences of social discourse and social skills on problem behaviors were examined in 50 children with language learning disabilities (LLD) and 50 control children. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both impaired social discourse skills and poor social skills accounted for the negative effects of LLD on…

  11. Corrupt Language, Corrupt Thought: The White Paper "The Importance of Teaching"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lumby, Jacky; Muijs, Daniel

    2014-01-01

    This article deconstructs the language of the 2010 UK Coalition Government's White Paper, "The Importance of Teaching". It uses analytical frameworks related to rhetoric established by Aristotle and Cicero. It explores the mechanisms of language using both critical discourse analysis and content analysis, offering quantitative data on…

  12. Discourse Features of Written Mexican Spanish: Current Research in Contrastive Rhetoric and Its Implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montano-Harmon, Maria Rosario

    1991-01-01

    Analyzes discourse features of compositions written in Spanish by secondary school students in Mexico, draws comparisons with those written in English by Anglo-American students in the United States, and discusses the implications of the results for teaching and evaluating composition skills in Spanish language programs. (29 references) (GLR)

  13. "Essential Cogs in the Innovation Machine": The Discourse of Innovation in Ontario Educational Reform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moffatt, Ken; Panitch, Melanie; Parada, Henry; Todd, Sarah; Barnoff, Lisa; Aslett, Jordan

    2016-01-01

    In this article the authors explore a Canadian example of how the language of innovation reproduces discourses of neoliberalism in postsecondary education policy documents. How innovation is defined and used in postsecondary education is explored through the analysis of international and regional policy documents. Through their research they ask…

  14. Critical Language Awareness in Pedagogic Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ali, Shamim

    2011-01-01

    This study was designed to investigate the significance of developing students' critical language awareness through explicit teaching methodology of some procedures of critical discourse analysis. The researcher integrated critical activities into her teaching and students' learning process. The study was planned prudently to discover the…

  15. The Meanings of Hebrew: Defining Bilingual Education in a Dual-Language Charter School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avni, Sharon

    2015-01-01

    Using a discourse analytic framework that draws on theories of language ideologies, this paper analyzes the semiotics of a heritage language as it moves from the context of parochial education to the realm of public schooling. Specifically, it examines how Hebrew undergoes resemioticization when a Hebrew language charter school in the District of…

  16. Second Language Acquisition and Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dugan, James E.

    2014-01-01

    Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder that results in language-related symptoms at various discourse levels, ranging from semantics (e.g. inventing words and producing nonsensical strands of similar-sounding words) to pragmatics and higher-level functioning (e.g. too little or too much information given to interlocutors, and tangential…

  17. Decolonializing Discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Alvesson, Mats; Kärreman, Dan

    2011-01-01

    identifies three particular problems prevalent in the current organizational discourse literature: reductionism, overpacking, and colonization and suggests three analytical strategies to overcome these problems: counter-balancing concepts — aiming to avoid seeing ‘everything’ as discourse — relativizing...

  18. The Role of Inuit Languages in Nunavut Schooling: Nunavut Teachers Talk about Bilingual Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aylward, M. Lynn

    2010-01-01

    This article provides a discourse analysis of interview transcripts generated from 10 experienced Nunavut teachers (five Inuit and five non-Inuit) regarding the role of Inuit languages in Nunavut schooling. Discussion and analysis focus on the motif of bilingual education. Teachers' talk identified discourse models of "academic truths" and…

  19. Mediating National Language Management: The Discourse of Citizenship Categorization in Norwegian Media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lane, Pia

    2009-01-01

    The dimension of language policing that is the focus in this article refers to the management of micro-level language use by a macro-level institution, in this context the Norwegian Language Council, co-constructed with media actors. An important aspect of language policing is the official definition of terms, carried out by bodies like the…

  20. An Investigation of Organizational and Regulatory Discourses of Workplace Bullying

    OpenAIRE

    Johnson, Susan L.; Boutain, Doris M.; Tsai, Jenny H.-C.; de Castro, Arnold B.

    2015-01-01

    Organizations use policies to set standards for employee behaviors. Although many organizations have policies that address workplace bullying, previous studies have found that these policies affect neither workplace bullying for targets who are seeking assistance in ending the behaviors nor managers who must address incidents of bullying. This article presents the findings of a study that used critical discourse analysis to examine the language used in policies written by health care organiza...

  1. Identity Construction of Native Chinese Language Teachers in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhang, Chun

    Abstract This study reports on a qualitative research that investigated how three native Chinese language teachers (NCLTs) constructed their teacher identity as they entered the initial teaching practice in Denmark. Drawing upon a framework that underlines the discursive nature of identity...... stages of their teacher identity construction showed the negotiation of past experiences, present perception, and future ideals in regard to Chinese language, pedagogy and context. Key words: Native Chinese language teachers, teacher identity, discourse analysis, narrative...

  2. Critical Discourse Analysis as a Tool in Psychosocial Research on the World Of Work. Discussions from Latin America

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ANTONIO STECHER

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available This article presents the theoretical-methodological perspective of critical discourse analysis and, within this, a three-dimensional framework of discourse developed by Norman Fairclough. We note the way in which these approaches can enrich the field of psychosocial research on work in Latin America, shedding light on the discursive dimensions of the productive restructuration and work flexibilization processes implemented in diverse countries of the region. We argue that, in spite of the important development and renewal of this field in Latin America over the last ten years, the incorporation of the conceptual tools of discourse analysis remains scarce,thereby hindering the study of the emerging modalities of the use of language that characterize the new capitalism.

  3. LEXICAL FEATURES OF THE MODERN ENGLISH DISCOURSE OF THE LAW ENFORCEMENT SYSTEM

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    Teneneva Irina Vitalyevna

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the results of a study of terminological units and discourse formulas which constitute the lexical basis of the discourse of the English law enforcement system. Due to the current expanding cooperation of Russian law enforcement units with their foreign partners the area addressed is of great interest to those involved in teaching foreign languages for specific purposes at law faculties and schools, yet has not received an adequate treatment to this point. The article reveals an interdisciplinary character of the law enforcement terminology, which accounts for numerous transterms used in it. The study identifies the reasons for the integration of the law enforcement terminology with other terminological systems and also names the main sources of transterms. Other highly productive methods of concept nomination in the area include syntactic and morphosyntactic term formation. This enriches the law enforcement terminology with multicomponent terms and their abbreviated and elliptical variants. The analysis of discourse formulas suggests syntactic heterogeneity of these structures, their stylistic neutrality, monosemy and semantic transparency. This layer of the law enforcement discourse is also characterized by information compression by means of abbreviations and digital encoding. The results of the research can be applied in English textbook and translation dictionary designing.

  4. The discourse of a community of student teachers: a corpus-based analysis of online and face-to-face modes

    OpenAIRE

    Riordan, Elaine

    2013-01-01

    peer-reviewed This research study focuses on the discourse of a community of student teachers and a peer tutor in an English language teaching teacher education programme. The chief aims of this study are (1) to examine the features of the discourse in online and face-to-face modes of communication, (2) to investigate the community practices, and extrapolate how the student teachers and the peer tutor build and maintain their community, and (3) to elucidate what roles the...

  5. When Technology Became Language: The Origins of the Linguistic Conception of Computer Programming, 1950-1960

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nofre, D.; Priestley, M.; Alberts, G.

    2014-01-01

    Language is one of the central metaphors around which the discipline of computer science has been built. The language metaphor entered modern computing as part of a cybernetic discourse, but during the second half of the 1950s acquired a more abstract meaning, closely related to the formal languages

  6. TEACHER-STUDENTS DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH TEACHING AT HIGH SCHOOL (CLASSROOM DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

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    Alamsyah Harahap

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available English classroom's process of teaching and learning is an important aspect of successful English teaching and learning. The analysis of classroom discourse is a very important form which the classroom process research has taken place. The present study focuses on SMA (high school English classroom discourse. The microethnography of Spradley was the research method deployed. Through a detailed description and analysis of the collected data referring to Sinclair and Coulthard’s classroom discourse analysis model, the problem of patterns of the classroom discourse is made clear. On the basis of the discourse patterns' problem found, a few strategies for high school English teachers are put forward through the teacher training in order to improve English teaching and learning at high school in Indonesia. The research results showed that teacher talk highly dominated the English classroom discourse; 94% of teacher-students talk. IRF Model of Sinclair and Coulthard was not found in the English classroom (only IF pattern and no lesson achieved.

  7. For Function or Transformation? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Education under the Sustainable Development Goals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brissett, Nigel; Mitter, Radhika

    2017-01-01

    We conduct a critical discourse analysis of the extent to which Sustainable Development Goal 4, "to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote lifelong learning," promotes a utilitarian and/or transformative approach to education. Our findings show that despite transformative language used throughout the Agenda,…

  8. Genre: Language, Context, and Literacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyland, Ken

    2002-01-01

    Focuses on genre and its application in language teaching and learning. Suggests genre approaches have had an impact on how we understand discourse and transform literacy education in different contexts around the world. Describes studies on generic integrity and variation, and the ways that genres are seen as similar and different in terms of…

  9. Person-first and identity-first language: Developing psychologists' cultural competence using disability language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dunn, Dana S; Andrews, Erin E

    2015-04-01

    The American Psychological Association (APA) advocates the use of person-first language (e.g., people with disabilities) to refer to individuals with disabilities in daily discourse and to reduce bias in psychological writing. Disability culture advocates and disability studies scholars have challenged the rationale for and implications of exclusive person-first language use, promoting use of identity-first language (e.g., disabled people). We argue that psychologists should adopt identity-first language alongside person-first constructions to address the concerns of disability groups while promoting human dignity and maintaining scientific and professional rigor. We review the evolution of disability language and then discuss the major models used to characterize disability and people with disabilities. The rationale for person-first language and the emergence of identity-first language, respectively, are linked to particular models. We then discuss some language challenges posed by identity-first language and the current intent of person-first language, suggesting that psychologists make judicious use of the former when it is possible to do so. We conclude by offering five observations of ways that use of both person-first and identity-first language could enhance psychologists' cultural competence regarding disability issues in personal and scientific communications. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  10. GENDER COGNITION IN RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE: A STUDY OF FRAMING IN THEMATIC HOLY KORAN INTERPRETATION

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    Dadang S. Anshori

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available The study is aimed at describing gender cognition phenomenon in religious discourse in thematic interpretation (tafsir of the Holy Koran published by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia. Each interpretation book as a written discourse is different from each other due to author’s cognition frame. This study employs a constructive qualitative approach with technical framing analysis. The data are language data (religious text that are obtainable from thematic interpretation of the Koran of the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia. Data analysis was performed on the following topics: the origins of the creation of men and women, women's leadership, women and inheritance rights, women and ownership, and women's testimony. The research findings show: (1 The lingual and religious discourse containing gender cognition are present in the forms of words, phrases, and sentences. The lingual form of religious discourse is related to the meaning of technical vocabulary that contains appropriate understanding of the discourse topic. (2 Discourse representing gender cognition is found on three topics: women leadership (nation leadership, waris (inheritance, and women’s testimony. In terms of inheritance and women’s testimony, this interpretation refers to conditions that are explicitly stated in the Holy Koran. Meanwhile, this interpretation views leadership of the nation as more worthy to be given to men than women. book looks is more worthy of leadership in the countries was given to men than women.

  11. Studies of Discourse and Governmentality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    have attempted to critically rethink Foucault’s ideas. This is the first volume that attempts to revisit and expand studies of governmentality by connecting it to the theories and methods of discourse analysis. The volume draws on different theoretical stances and methodological approaches including...... critical discourse analysis, conversation analysis, dialogic analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, the discourse-historical approach, corpus analysis and French discourse analysis. The volume is relevant to students and scholars in the fields of critical discourse studies, conversation analysis......, international studies, environmental studies, political science, public policy and organisation studies....

  12. AN ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATION STRUCTURE OF LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

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    Ahmad Sofwan

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Learners of English as a foreign language need to develop skills in conversation as part of their discourse competence. It is important that they learn the structure of the conversation for them to be able to produce a well-communicative language when speaking to other people. The theory of conversation analysis is used to analyze the organization and the features of the conversation of learners of English as a foreign language, including exchange structure, turn-taking strategies, adjacency pairs, repair, and sequences within the conversation. The recorded casual conversation among learners is transcribed and analyzed. It is expected that this study helps learners understand the importance of conversation organization and contribute to the development of the learners‘ communication skills and to the enhancement of their discourse competence.

  13. Travelling in Time and Space at the Origins of Language

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    Francesco Ferretti

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we propose a narrative hypothesis on the nature of language and a proto-discursive hypothesis on the origin of our communicative abilities. Our proposal is based on two assumptions. The first assumption, concerning the properties of language, is tied to the idea that global discourse coherence governs the origin of our communicative abilities as well the functioning of these abilities. The second assumption, concerning processing devices, is connected to the idea that the systems of spatial and temporal navigation are implicated in discourse coherence processing. Analysis of the relationship between these two assumptions allows us to integrate the model of language based on clues proposed by Sperber and Wilson with Relevance Theory with the discursive foundation of human communication. In this respect, our proposal can be considered as a tentative extension of Relevance Theory (both at the level of properties and the level of cognitive systems.

  14. Advertising Radio Discourse – Lexical Analysis

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    Dumitrascu Elena

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Radio advertising, although it seems to be the "poor relative" on the advertising market, is avery interesting topic of study, because it uses language to a very large extent. In a relatively shorttime, a maximum of information is transmitted that causes emotions and raises the interest of asmany people as possible for a product or brand, all wrapped up in a coherent text of 60 to 100words . In radio advertising, the text is the one that has priority, being the star because themessage is based on the text. For this reason, radio discourse may be a research object of interestto linguists, and this has led us to pay close attention to it.

  15. The Role of Aboriginal Literacy in Improving English Literacy in Remote Aboriginal Communities: An Empirical Systems Analysis with the Interplay Wellbeing Framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Byron; Quinn, Stephen J.; Abbott, Tammy; Cairney, Sheree

    2018-01-01

    Indigenous language endangerment is critical in Australia, with only 120 of 250 known languages remaining, and only 13 considered strong. A related issue is the gap in formal education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared with other Australians, with the gap wider in remote regions. Little empirical research exists in…

  16. Space and iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Perniss, P.M.

    2007-01-01

    This dissertation investigates the expression of spatial relationships in German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS). The analysis focuses on linguistic expression in the spatial domain in two types of discourse: static scene description (location) and event narratives (location and

  17. SOCIOLINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF ADVERTISEMENT LANGUAGE

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    Savina, N.A.

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available This article examines the text of the English-language advertising as a special type of discourse, which morphological and syntactic features are directly dependent on the target audience, which this type of text is created for, and provides some observations made in the course of practical linguistic studies of English advertisement texts. A proportional system of the most general male and female social roles is worked out here that helps to analyze different types of advertisement texts according to their grammatical functions, which helps not only to detect their impact in our everyday life but also gives a field for the further development of advertisement as a type of discourse.

  18. When Is Language Not a Language? Challenges to "Linguistic Legitimacy" in Educational Discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reagan, Timothy

    1997-01-01

    Examines the concept of linguistic legitimacy (and illegitimacy) using three specific cases--Black English, American Sign Language, and Esperanto. The paper argues that legitimacy is grounded more on personal, political, and ideological biases than on linguistic criteria. (SM)

  19. The Effect of Language Ability on Chinese Immigrants’ Earning in Hong Kong

    OpenAIRE

    Chi Man Ng

    2015-01-01

    After the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty to China in 1997, the language importance gap between English and Putonghua in Hong Kong has been narrowing, even English language is remain an international language and being adopted in legal documents, but foreign investors cannot avoid speaking Putonghua when doing business with Chinese enterprises, these language importance changes provide a new discourse to human capital theorists.  In Hong Kong, natives are desire to be proficient in Putonghu...

  20. Multimodal Discourse Strategies of Factuality and Subjectivity in Educational Digital Storytelling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patricia Bou-Franch

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available As new technologies continue to emerge, students and lecturers are provided with new educational tools. One such tool, which is increasingly used in higher education, is digital storytelling, i.e. multi-media digital narratives. Despite the increasing attention that education and media scholars have paid to digital storytelling, there is scant research examining digital narratives from a discourse-analytic perspective.This paper addresses this gap in the literature and, in line with the belief that individuals make meaning through a range of semiotic devices, including, among others, language, sound, graphics and text, it aims to examine discourse strategies of factuality and subjectivity in historical-cultural digital narratives and their multimodal realisations (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001; Patrona 2005. To carry out this study a corpus of 16 digital stories was compiled and analysed from a multidisciplinary framework which draws from studies on digital storytelling, computer-mediated communication, media studies, and multimodal discourse analysis. Results show that students/digital story tellers resort to a number of varied multimodal discursive strategies which are constitutive of their identity as capable students in an educational setting.

  1. Towards a Discourse for Criticism in Language Teaching: Analysis of Sociocultural Representations in Mass Media (Hacia un discurso para la crítica en la enseñanza de la lengua: análisis de representaciones socioculturales en medios de comunicación)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas Torres, Margarita Rosa

    2010-01-01

    This article states that in order to exercise citizenship with responsibility, language teachers need to popularize a discourse for criticism in which students and teachers transcend tacit knowledge and common sense due to meta-cognition and argumentation and reach systematic knowledge and procedures posed by experts in the different disciplines.…

  2. Unveiling EFL and Self-Contained Teachers’ Discourses on Bilingualism Within the Context of Professional Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennyfer Paola Camargo Cely

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Throughout time, the predominant use of certain languages has allowed some nations to take control over others and assure for them a privileged position. This study unveiled how certain practices and ideologies in regard to bilingualism have influenced teachers’ professional development. Data were collected through discussion group sessions, reflective journals, and protocols from five teachers from a private K-11 school in Bogota. Analysis indicated participants’ discourses drew on hegemonic, colonial, and manipulative ideas. Nevertheless, when dialoguing and peer coaching, a discourse of resistance was constituted. The study suggested further research into teachers’ professional growth, bilingualism, and bilingual education in monolingual contexts as the Colombian one.

  3. Managerial and Organizational Discourses of Workplace Bullying.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Susan L; Boutain, Doris M; Tsai, Jenny H-C; de Castro, Arnold B

    2015-09-01

    To explore how workplace bullying is addressed by hospital nursing unit managers and organizational policies. Although workplace bullying is costly to organizations, nurses report that managers do not consistently address the issue. This study used discourse analysis to analyze interview data and policy documents. There were differences in the manner in which managers and the policy documents labeled bullying-type behaviors and discussed the roles and responsibilities of staff and managers. Policies did not clearly delineate how managers should respond to workplace bullying. These differences can allow management variation, not sanctioned by policy. Unclear policy language can also offer insufficient guidance to managers, resulting in differential enforcement of policies.

  4. Language Comprehension and the Acquisition of Knowledge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freedle, Roy O., Ed.; Carroll, John B., Ed.

    Thirteen papers given by language specialists are presented. These analyze special linguistic (semantic) problems that occur when interconnected strings of sentences constitute data base; they also analyze special psychological problems (of memory, inference, and motivation) that occur when human subjects are exposed to discourse materials in…

  5. Social Communication in Children with Autism: The Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Discourse Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hale, Courtney M.; Tager-Flusberg, Helen

    2005-01-01

    This longitudinal study investigated the developmental trajectory of discourse skills and theory of mind in 57 children with autism. Children were tested at two time points spaced 1 year apart. Each year they provided a natural language sample while interacting with one parent, and were given standardized vocabulary measures and a developmentally…

  6. Rhetoric, Grammar, and the Conception of Language As a Substantial Medium

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruns, Gerald L.

    1969-01-01

    Discusses language as being (1) substance, and as such a reflection of the mind, and (2) an activity played out in oratory and the pattern of discourse. Examples from classical, medieval, and contemporary works are cited to illustrate the various concepts of language and to present a historical view of the literary and oral traditions. (DS)

  7. Negotiating Discourses: Sixth-Grade Students' Use of Multiple Science Discourses during a Science Fair Presentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomez, Kimberley

    2007-01-01

    This study offers important insights into the coexistence of multiple discourses and the link between these discourses and science understanding. It offers concrete examples of students' movement between multiple discourses in sixth-grade science fair presentations, and shows how those multiple discourses in science practices illuminate students'…

  8. Credibility and Accountability in Academic Discourse: Increasing the Awareness of Ghanaian Graduate Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adika Gordon S. K.

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Drawing from a social constructionist perspective to written scholarly communication, this paper argues that training in academic writing for students in higher education especially in second language contexts should go beyond emphasis on grammatical correctness and paragraphing strategies, and also focus on the rhetorical character of academic discourse together with the mastery of its communicative protocols. Using the University of Ghana as a reference point, the paper reviews a selection of Ghanaian graduate students’ awareness of the protocols that govern academic discourses in scholarly writing, and in consideration of their unique educational and socio-cultural circumstances, the paper proposes strategies, from the pedagogical and institutional standpoints, aimed at increasing students’ awareness of the relevant communicative practices that engender credibility and accountability.

  9. Discourse pragmatics and ellipsis resolution in task-oriented natural language interfaces

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Carbonell, J.G.

    1983-01-01

    The author reviews discourse phenomena that occur frequently in task-oriented man-machine dialogs, reporting on an empirical study that demonstrates the necessity of handling ellipsis, anaphora, extragrammaticality, intersentential metalanguage, and other abbreviatory devices in order to achieve convivial user interaction. Invariably, users prefer to generate terse or fragmentary utterances instead of longer, more complete stand-alone expressions, even when given clear instructions to the contrary. The xcalibur expert system interface is designed to meet these needs, including generalized ellipsis resolution by means of a rule-based caseframe method superior to previous semantic grammar approaches. 23 references.

  10. The Development of Reference Realisation and Narrative in an Australian Contact Language, Wumpurrarni English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samantha eDisbray

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The development of narrative skill has been investigated extensively in a wide range of languages, cross-linguistically and in multilingual settings (Berman & Slobin, 1994b; Hickmann, 2004; Severing & Verhoeven 2001, Strömqvist & Verhoeven, 2004. The present study investigates the development of reference realisation in narrative among Indigenous children in a remote urban township in Central Australia. The children, aged between 5 and 14 years, are speakers of a contact language, Wumpurrarni English. Language development is rarely investigated among speakers of minority languages, whose language development is often appraised in the majority language, with little attention to language performance in the speaker’s home variety. The present study addresses this gap through a fine-grained qualitative analysis of the development of reference in narrative, drawing on a complex stimulus and a model of discourse strategy. The results show a a developmental trajectory similar to that found in other languages, with children aged eight and under producing simpler and less globally organised narratives than older speaker groups, and b vulnerability to the changing demands of the stimulus among these younger speakers. In addition, a subset of narrations were produced in ‘school variety’, a style more like Standard Australian English, and the results for this set showed that the narrative content and global organisation of the productions by ten- and twelve–year-olds was more similar to the productions of younger children, than like-aged speakers narrating in their home variety. Analysis of speaker responses to two factors of complexity, the stimulus and code choice, illuminated mechanisms for discourse production and development, and suggest that constructing discourse requires co-ordination of an underlying schema and on-line construction of a particular story through the deployment of linguistic devices in a particular narrative context, and

  11. Counteracting Domain Loss and Epistemicide in Specialized Discourse: A Case Study on the Translation of Anglophone Metaphors to French

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geneviève Bordet

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The dominance of English as the world language of publication has had a decisive impact on the dissemination of information and innovation across cultures, with a resulting tendency to a standardization of scientific conceptualization. This dominance does not only impact scientific and academic discourse, but also the whole range of professional and technical texts representative of various specialized discourses. This paper advocates engaging in the practice of dynamic translation to keep non-English specialized languages alive. Advanced students’ analysis of translation projects yields revealing examples of conflicting views of the world, between English and French, in emerging and controversial fields such as “shadow banking” or “human branding”. The students’ evaluation of alternative solutions to problems of equivalence highlights the cultural gaps which exist within global fields of knowledge and can be interpreted in terms of the intercultural and interlinguistic transfer of specialized metaphor. It is shown that the practice and analysis of translation provide an appropriate approach for a better understanding of languages for specific purposes (LSP and the development of awareness of domain loss and epistemicide.

  12. Percorsi linguistici e semiotici: Critical Multimodal Analysis of Digital Discourse

    OpenAIRE

    edited by Ilaria Moschini

    2014-01-01

    The language section of LEA - edited by Ilaria Moschini - is dedicated to the Critical Multimodal Analysis of Digital Discourse, an approach that encompasses the linguistic and semiotic detailed investigation of texts within a socio-cultural perspective. It features an interview with Professor Theo van Leeuwen by Ilaria Moschini and four essays: “Retwitting, reposting, repinning; reshaping identities online: Towards a social semiotic multimodal analysis of digital remediation” by Elisabetta A...

  13. Language and Dementia: Neuropsychological Aspects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kempler, Daniel; Goral, Mira

    2008-01-01

    This article reviews recent evidence for the relationship between extralinguistic cognitive and language abilities in dementia. A survey of data from investigations of three dementia syndromes (Alzheimer's disease, semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia) reveals that, more often than not, deterioration of conceptual organization appears associated with lexical impairments, whereas impairments in executive function are associated with sentence- and discourse-level deficits. These connections between extralinguistic functions and language ability also emerge from the literature on cognitive reserve and bilingualism that investigates factors that delay the onset and possibly the progression of neuropsychological manifestation of dementia.

  14. Minority Languages Learned Informally: The Social Construction of Language Skills through the Discourse of Ontario Employers. NALL Working Paper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldberg, Michelle; Corson, David

    Many immigrants, refugees, and aboriginal Canadians learn their own languages in the normal, informal way. These minority languages learned informally are not valued as a skill that yields returns in the labor market in the same way the official languages or formally learned languages do. What counts as a skill in a society, in a given point in…

  15. Written cohesion in children with and without language learning disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koutsoftas, Anthony D; Petersen, Victoria

    2017-09-01

    Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing (TD) peers on measures of cohesion in spoken language and on written transcription measures; however, there is far less research comparing groups on cohesion as a measure of written language across genres. The current study addresses this gap through the following two aims. First, to describe and compare cohesion in narrative and expository writing samples of children with and without language learning disabilities. Second, to relate measures of cohesion to written transcription and translation measures, oral language, and writing quality. Fifty intermediate-grade children produced one narrative and one expository writing sample from which measures of written cohesion were obtained. These included the frequency, adequacy and complexity of referential and conjunctive ties. Expository samples resulted in more complex cohesive ties and children with TD used more complex ties than peers with LLD. Different relationships among cohesion measures and writing were observed for narrative verse expository samples. Findings from this study demonstrate cohesion as a discourse-level measure of written transcription and how the use of cohesion can vary by genre and group (LLD, TD). Clinical implications for assessment, intervention, and future research are provided. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

  16. The promotional functionality of evaluative language in tourism discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. Mocini

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This study intends to investigate the use of evaluation in a corpus of British tourist brochures produced by tour operators specializing in the promotion of Italy. The theoretical framework is the Appraisal System developed mainly by White (1998, 2001 and Martin (2000 in order to study the discourse functions of evaluative resources. The creators of brochures resort mainly to two categories of Appraisal. The first concerns the expression of emotions (Affect, both in an implicit and explicit way, while the second category (Appreciation includes aesthetic assessments. Evaluation can be amplified by several linguistic devices which either sharpen the margins of an experiential category or intensify the meaning of a word, like those lexical items which include an assessment of intensity as part of their semantic load. The iteration of evalua­tive meanings constructs a prosody, bringing an emotional and aesthetic colour to the whole text which in­volves the reader and increases the perceived value of a tourist destination.

  17. Capitalist Discourse, Subjectivity and Lacanian Psychoanalysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanheule, Stijn

    2016-01-01

    This paper studies how subjectivity in capitalist culture can be characterized. Building on Lacan's later seminars XVI, XVII, XVIII, and XIX, the author first outlines Lacan's general discourse theory, which includes four characteristic discourses: the discourse of the master, the discourse of the university, the discourse of the hysteric and the discourse of the analyst. Next, the author explores the subjectivity and the mode of dealing with jouissance and semblance, which is entailed in a fifth type of discourse, the capitalist discourse, discussed by Lacan (1972). Indeed, like the other discourses that Lacan discerns, the discourse of the capitalist can be thought of as a mode of dealing with the sexual non-rapport. It is argued that in the case of neurosis the discourse of the capitalist functions as an attempt to ignore the sexual non-rapport and the dimension of the unconscious. Psychosis, by contrast, is marked by an a priori exclusion from discourse. In that case, consumerist ways of relating to the other might offer a semblance, and thus the possibility of inventing a mode of relating to the other. Two clinical vignettes are presented to illustrate this perspective: one concerning the neurotic structure and one concerning the psychotic structure. PMID:28018280

  18. Disabling Discourses and Human Rights Law: A Case Study Based on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liasidou, Anastasia

    2016-01-01

    This article examines the symbolic power of language to construct and convey disabling discourses, albeit ample rhetoric, on the need to reinstate and safeguard disabled people's human rights and entitlements. The role of language and its discursive ramifications need to be explored and problematized in the light of legal mandates and…

  19. Investigating the Female Subaltern, Colonial Discourse and False Consciousness: A Spivakian Marxist-Postcolonialist Reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jalal Mostafaee

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The present research study attempts to investigate Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease in terms of Gayatri Spivak Marxist-Post colonialist conceptions of subaltern, colonial discourse and false consciousness. In Post-modernist fiction, there is anxiety that historical concerns such as the scale of violence in the Second World War, the Nazi genocide, the paranoiac politics of the Cold War and European colonialism have made fiction a medium for history. Chinua Achebe’s novels, indeed, are manifestation of colonialism and its subsequent impact on the literary text and dominant discourse. In exploring these terms, this dissertation endeavors to closely examine Gayatri Spivak’s concept of subaltern in the Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. Furthermore, the present paper demonstrates Spivak’s voice to differences: that is, class categorization and marginalized subaltern subjects. By the emergence of colonialism, the significance of social class and social discourse became predominant; therefore, colonial discourses instilled into the social, cultural construction and literary text, particularly novel. In this regard, the investigation of the dominate discourses is pursued, and this helps to show how colonialism resulted in discourse inculcation. The resistant perspective against ruling ideology, as the Italian Marxist political activist, Antonio Gramsci calls it cultural hegemony is presented through language, tradition, and customs. Finally, the study focuses on Marxist concept of false consciousness from the viewpoint of Antonio Gramsci to Louis Althusser. Keywords: Colonial discourse, Subaltern, False Consciousness, Social Class, Change and Tradition, Language, Culture

  20. Language and Dementia: Neuropsychological Aspects

    OpenAIRE

    Kempler, Daniel; Goral, Mira

    2008-01-01

    This article reviews recent evidence for the relationship between extralinguistic cognitive and language abilities in dementia. A survey of data from investigations of three dementia syndromes (Alzheimer's disease, semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia) reveals that, more often than not, deterioration of conceptual organization appears associated with lexical impairments, whereas impairments in executive function are associated with sentence- and discourse-level deficits. These ...

  1. 164 Meaning and Thematic Roles in the Igbo Language Chukwuma ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Ike Odimegwu

    Chukwuma O. Okeke*. Abstract. Semantics is ... syntactic level of words, phrases, sentences, and even larger units of discourse ... Semantics has been defined as a level of linguistics which studies meaning. ..... English Language. New York: ...

  2. DISCOURSE STYLISTICS AS CONTEXTUALIZED STYLISTICS

    OpenAIRE

    Marina Katnić-Bakaršić

    2003-01-01

    The focus of the paper is on discourse stylistics, viewed as contextualized discipline. Context includes various factors (sociohistorical, cognitive, cultural and intertextual). The paper investigates the most important approaches to discourse stylistics: pragmatic stylistics, discourse and/ or conversational analysis, cognitive stylistics, critical stylistics, feminists stylistics. In discourse stylistics analysis is always combined with interpretation, and description is followed by explana...

  3. Sociology of Discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Agustin, Oscar Garcia

    Sociology of Discourse takes the perspective that collective actors like social movements are capable of creating social change from below by creating new institutions through alternative discourses. Institutionalization becomes a process of moving away from existing institutions towards creating...

  4. Terrorism in Newsweek: Unveiling the Connection between Language, Ideology, and Powe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bambang Trisno Adi

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available The study analyzes the discourse on terrorism in the Newsweek magazine and exposes how the notion of ideology and power contributes to the hegemonic representations of Muslims and Islam in the post 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre (WTC. Two Newsweek articles appeared on the 24th September 2001 were selected. The study employed Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; this is a five-stage analytical methodology that perceives language within a three-dimensional framework: text, discourse, and society. The representation of discourse on terrorism, as found in the analysis, supports a conception that media coverage is not merely the representation of facts but also that of ideas which has gone through various considerations incorporating the three key notions of text, discourse and society altogether. The elements within the textual level and discourse level were ideologically used to represent terrorism with regard to its actor, process, and goal, constituting a commonsense as to how it should be perceived. The study concluded that the representation of discourse on terrorism in Newsweek during the post 9/11 period was perceived from what Chomsky considers as the propagandistic approach

  5. DISCOURSE STYLISTICS AS CONTEXTUALIZED STYLISTICS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Katnić-Bakaršić

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available The focus of the paper is on discourse stylistics, viewed as contextualized discipline. Context includes various factors (sociohistorical, cognitive, cultural and intertextual. The paper investigates the most important approaches to discourse stylistics: pragmatic stylistics, discourse and/ or conversational analysis, cognitive stylistics, critical stylistics, feminists stylistics. In discourse stylistics analysis is always combined with interpretation, and description is followed by explanation and critique.

  6. Teaching Pragmatics in the Foreign Language Classroom: Grammar as a Communicative Resource

    Science.gov (United States)

    Felix-Brasdefer, J. Cesar; Cohen, Andrew D.

    2012-01-01

    This article focuses on the teaching of pragmatics in the Spanish as a Foreign Language classroom and examines the role of grammar as a communicative resource. It also aims to highlight the importance of teaching pragmatics from beginning levels of language instruction, with the spotlight on speech acts at the discourse level. After the concept of…

  7. Ownership and maintenance of a language in transnational use

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haberland, Hartmut

    2011-01-01

    education, due to increased transnational student mobility, university teacher mobility and offshore delivery of university education. In this paper it is argued that in discussing norms for international English, an ownership discourse and a maintenance (or cultivation) discourse should be distinguished......English is a very special language in that it has many more non-native speakers than native speakers, and that it is used in far more settings where there are no native speakers present than in those between or including native speakers. Many of these settings are within contexts of higher...

  8. Social Software as a Tool of Promoting Indigenous African Languages in Higher Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ndebele, Hloniphani

    2018-01-01

    Within the discourse of language planning and policy, there is an increasing realisation of the strategic role of information and communication technologies in the promotion of indigenous African languages. The article discusses the strategic role that social software, in particular blogs and wiki, can and should play in the development of African…

  9. Centrifugal and centripetal forces in the discourse of early years reading instruction

    OpenAIRE

    Hunt, Christopher George

    2010-01-01

    This thesis reports on a research project investigating how a sample of eight teachers of P2 children in Scotland encouraged dialogic interaction in their reading groups while following prescriptive policy. The research is based on a detailed analysis of the discourse of reading sessions conducted by the eight teachers, and is informed by previous research on oral language development, the role of dialogue in children’s learning, and the relationships between reading developmen...

  10. The discourse markers in basic education: a need for systematization in textbooks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bougleux Bomjardim da Silva Carmo

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available In this article, we will discuss the need for a systematization of discourse markers in Basic Education. This proposal emerges from the following ongoing research: “The systematization of contrastive connectors when devising textbooks”, which departs from the pragmatic theories by Portolés (1998, Alomba Ribeiro (2005, and others. Markers are linguistic units with a prominent role in the functioning of language use. However, it is known that textbooks do not show the pragmatic function of certain traditional grammatical categories. So, we selected one out of the textbook collections approved by PNLD 2014, namely, the Perspective: Portuguese collection by Discini and Teixeira (2012 to verify these premises. As a result of the description and analysis we present a illustrative source activity with the discourse marker “but” and its uses in written texts.

  11. Using Synchronous Online Peer Response Groups in EFL Writing: Revision-Related Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mei-Ya Liang

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, synchronous online peer response groups have been increasingly used in English as a foreign language (EFL writing. This article describes a study of synchronous online interaction among three small peer groups in a Taiwanese undergraduate EFL writing class. An environmental analysis of students’ online discourse in two writing tasks showed that meaning negotiation, error correction, and technical actions seldom occurred and that social talk, task management, and content discussion predominated the chat. Further analysis indicates that relationships among different types of online interaction and their connections with subsequent writing and revision are complex and depend on group makeup and dynamics. Findings suggest that such complex activity may not guarantee revision. Writing instructors may need to proactively model, scaffold and support revision-related online discourse if it is to be of benefit.

  12. Disciplinary Literacy from a Speech-Language Pathologist's Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ehren, Barbara J.; Murza, Kimberly A.; Malani, Melissa D.

    2012-01-01

    Disciplinary literacy is an increasingly popular focal area in adolescent literacy. In disciplinary literacy, the discourse features of specific knowledge domains (e.g., literature, history, science, and math) assume major importance in understanding and constructing meaning in each discipline. Because language plays a significant role in…

  13. Social scripts and stark realities: Kenyan adolescents' abortion discourse.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, Ellen M H; Halpern, Carolyn Tucker; Kamathi, Eva Muthuuri; Owino, Shirley

    2006-01-01

    This study explores students' narratives and discourses about adolescent pregnancy and abortion elicited via internet-based open-ended questions posed in response to a cartoon vignette. We report on content analysis of recommendations and strategies for how to manage the unplanned pregnancy of a fictional young couple and in their own personal lives. The responses of 614 young people were analysed. Strategies vary widely. They include giving birth, adoption, running away, abortion, denial, and postponement until discovery. Young people were also queried about unplanned pregnancy resolution among their peers. Discourse analysis reveals competing social scripts on abortion. Florid condemnation of abortion acts in the hypothetical cases contrasts with more frank and sober description of peers' real life abortion behaviour. Students' language is compared with that found in official curricula. The rhetorical devices, moralizing social scripts and dubious health claims about abortion in students' online narratives mirror the tenor and content of their academic curricula as well as Kenyan media presentation of the issue. The need for factual information, dispassionate dialogue and improved contraceptive access is considerable.

  14. Bringing the Body Back: The (Mis)Languaging of Bodies in Bio-Medical, Societal and Poststructuralist Discourses on Diabetes and Epilepsy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramanathan, Vaidehi; Makoni, Sinfree

    2007-01-01

    Recent scholarship on "disabilities" and bodies has tended to be extreme in its orientation and has, on the whole, not been able to speak of chronic disabilities and bodily breakdown in humanistic ways. In its verve toward finding "cures," biomedical discourses, from which societal discourses draw their strength, have emphasized malfunctioning…

  15. The discourse of "social licence to operate": case study of the Australian wind industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nina L. Hall

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Social Licence to Operate is a concept from the mining industry that reflects the ongoing acceptance or approval for a development granted by local stakeholders. It is now being applied by wind farm developers. Using the Australian wind industry as a case study, this discourse analysis examined how Social Licence to Operate is perceived and operationalised, and the key themes in this conceptual and applied discourse. Discourse analysis acknowledges that language choices are not accidental and discourse reflects power relationships. The wind industry representatives interviewed considered power over the Social Licence to Operate was shared with community stakeholders. They recognised the stakeholders' power to delay or prevent projects, but rejected the notion that every stakeholder group should have veto power. Social Licence to Operate is seen by the wind industry through a business-oriented perspective, with an emphasis on business risk, and they describe the opposition to wind farms by invoking a metaphor of "battle". The industry respondents described Social Licence to Operate as incorporating the values of trust, transparency and participation—which all contribute to creating "authentic" relationships. These findings can inform Social Licence to Operate research, engagement practices, and also encourage reflection by industry representatives on their implicit intentions for stakeholder engagement.

  16. L1 Frequency in Foreign Language Acquisition: Recurrent Word Combinations in French and Spanish EFL Learner Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paquot, Magali

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated French and Spanish EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' preferred use of three-word lexical bundles with discourse or stance-oriented function with a view to exploring the role of first language (L1) frequency effects in foreign language acquisition. Word combinations were extracted from learner performance data…

  17. The Subversive Role of Verbal Aggression in the Sarcastic Language of Njuz.net

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jovanka Kalaba

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available In the last years, Serbia has witnessed coming into being of various media forms that all provide social, political and cultural criticism through acrid comedy, parody and satire. The paper centers on sarcasm as one of the key aggressive rhetorical devices used in the language of popular satirical portal Njuz.net, with an overview of the structural and functional characteristics of sarcasm in contemporary communication. The paper explores how language aggressiveness manages to create an affirmative context in which the domineering structures of the official discourse are undermined by marginalized alternative discourses, as well as how such content, disseminated mainly through social networks and blogs and charged with verbal aggression and intertextual allusiveness stemming from deeper political, historical and social issues, succeeds in providing a narrative of kinship among those who often see it as the last recourse to sanity.Keywords: sarcasm, violence, language, popular culture, Njuz.net

  18. Advertising as a Site of Language Contact.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piller, Ingrid

    2003-01-01

    Reviews work on language contact phenomena in advertising. More emphasis is being placed on multilingual discourses in advertising and the ways in which these index identities, both of the products and services with which multiple cods are associated and of the consumers who peruse them. Also examines the various functions of different contact…

  19. Taking action: A cross-modal investigation of discourse structure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elsi eKaiser

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Segmenting stimuli into events and understanding the relations between those events is crucial for understanding the world. For example, on the linguistic level, successful language use requires the ability to recognize semantic coherence relations between events (e.g. causality, similarity. However, relatively little is known about the mental representation of discourse structure. We report two experiments that used a cross-modal priming paradigm to investigate how humans represent the relations between events. Participants repeated a motor action modeled by the experimenter (e.g. rolled a ball towards mini bowling pins to knock them over, and then completed an unrelated sentence-continuation task (e.g. provided a continuation for Peter scratched John. …. In two experiments, we tested whether and how the coherence relations represented by the motor actions (e.g., causal events vs. non-causal events influence participants’ performance in the linguistic task. Our analyses focused on the coherence relations between the prompt sentences and participants’ continuations, as well as the referential shifts in the continuations. As a whole, the results suggest that the mental representations activated by motor actions overlap with the mental representations used during linguistic discourse-level processing, but nevertheless contain fine-grained information about sub-types of causality (reaction vs. consequence. In addition, the findings point to parallels between shifting one’s attention from one event to another and shifting one’s attention from one referent to another, and indicate that the event structure of causal sequences is conceptualized more like single events than like two distinct events. As a whole, the results point towards common representations activated by motor sequences and discourse-semantic relations, and further our understanding of the mental representation of discourse structure, an area that is still not yet well-understood.

  20. CONFLICT PERSONALITY AS A PARTICIPANT OF CONFLICT DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seyranyan Margarita Yuryevna

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The conflict discourse as a communicative event reveals the characteristics of its participants as linguistic personalities. In this respect, this study enables us to reveal and describe their personal and social features. Undoubtedly, the individual characteristics of participants, their cultural and ideological differences and similarities have a great impact on the interaction process in general and on the use of linguistic means in particular. To better understand the nature of conflict discourse, its causes and consequences, one should take into account that adverse behaviour depends on the personality type and the role the speaker plays in different situations. Conflict personality is referred to as an archetype, transcendental phenomenon common to everybody. The research revealed such key characteristics typical of conflict personality as: verbal (use of language units with "conflict" connotation, the "manipulation" of speech means that convey negative, conflict meaning in particular contexts and non-verbal (communicative aim, communication medium, pre- and post-supposition of the speaker and the listener, mode of behaviour. It also proved that conflict patterns of behavior may lead to confrontation and/or transfer of collaborative interaction into an adverse one.

  1. "I Am Not a Francophone": Identity Choices and Discourses of Youth Associating with a Powerful Minority

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groff, Cynthia; Pilote, Annie; Vieux-Fort, Karine

    2016-01-01

    Taking a broad interest in the linguistic, educational, and identity issues relevant to young people, this article examines the experiences and discourses of linguistic minority youth in the French-dominant context of Québec City. Our analysis is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 10 young people who speak a language other than French…

  2. Implicit Discourse: Contributions to a Sociological Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Josep Espluga Trenc

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses the variety of types or dimensions of implicit discourse. Specifically, a typological characterisation is proposed, based on the intentions of the producer of the discourse, including a distinction between four basic dimensions: insinuated discourse, hidden discourse, ?failed? discourse and underlying discourse. Some examples are provided of each dimension, and then it is held that the proposed typology is useful for the sociological analysis of implicit discourse, that is, for its detection and interpretation.

  3. Translating a Narrative of Migration: reflections and strategies towards countering xenophobic discourse in the Italian version of Russell Banks' Continental Drift

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paola Brusasco

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Collective identities and power relations are the result of converging projections deriving from history, geography, language, religion, memories and customs that – informed by more or less acknowledged ideologies – contribute to shaping them. Translation too, as a language interface, plays a relevant role in both representing Self and the Other and confirming or challenging power relations through various operations that include discourse shifts and a questioning of accepted meanings and practices. This paper revolves around the main strategies adopted in the translation of Russell Bank's novel Continental Drift into Italian at a time (2009-10 when political discourse in the target culture mainly constructed immigrants asan undifferentiated category threatening citizens' jobs, health and safety. Although written in 1985 and set in America around that time, the novel focuses on economic crises and tragedies of migration which evoke images of contemporary Italy and require a highly connoted lexicon. In the context of fear and social conflict promoted in Italy by the then political forces in power to justify restrictive laws, the translator envisaged herself as an “agent of social change” (Tymoczko 2003 who did not want to be complicit with such discourse. Therefore, in translating the novel, a kind of “pre-emptive critical discourse analysis” was adopted, whereby lexical items, syntactic structures and the resulting pragmatic contexts were weighed in the light of how the target text would inscribe itself in the receiving culture so as to avoid – as far as possible – resonances and associations that might support prejudice. Some of the translator's considerations and solutions will be discussed as attempts (however ideologically connoted too to avoid an a-critical use of language and find a balance between ethical issues and the “naturalness” usually required by the publishing sector.

  4. “ALADDIN” FROM ARABIAN NIGHTS TO DISNEY: THE CHANGE OF DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mundi Rahayu

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available This study compares the folktale “The Story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” from the Arabian Nights, and the animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation under the title “Aladdin” (1992. The differences of those two stories in two different medias shows the shifts of ideology and discourse. The study applies Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, by applying the three stages of analysis.  The first level is micro level, on the language practice. In the second level, mezo level, discusses the discourse practice that covers the intertextuality of ideas, concept as the reference in delivering the ideas. In the third level, macro level, it interprets the social context of   particular events, especially the social practice in exercising their power. The finding shows that the Disney’s Aladdin campaigns ideology that refers to the American values such as freedom and American heroism. Besides, the discourse of Arab barbarism is developed in line with the practice of   stereotyping such as labeling the Arab people as barbaric, bad, silly and wicked as well as dangerous Arabs. These imply to the removals of the Islamic messages and values that exists in the original tales of Arabian Nights. The Disney’s Aladdin completely removes the Islamic messages and values, and changes them into ‘American values’.

  5. Nanotechnology, neuromodulation & the immune response: discourse, materiality & ethics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fins, Joseph J

    2015-04-01

    Drawing upon the American Pragmatic tradition in philosophy and the more recent work of philosopher Karen Barad, this paper examines how scientific problems are both obscured, and resolved by our use of language describing the natural world. Using the example of the immune response engendered by neural implants inserted in the brain, the author explains how this discourse has been altered by the advent of nanotechnology methods and devices which offer putative remedies that might temper the immune response in the central nervous system. This emergent nanotechnology has altered this problem space and catalyzed one scientific community to acknowledge a material reality that was always present, if not fully acknowledged.

  6. Discourse analysis and personal/professional development

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boyes, C.

    2004-01-01

    The article discusses discourse analysis and its relevance to personal and professional development, drawing on elements of social theory. Related terms such as text, discourse and genre are defined and social theoretical implications explored. Practical application of discourse analysis to CPD is illustrated. A case is developed for understanding contemporary practice and the construction of personal and professional identity through discourse. Understanding discourse is presented as an enabling structure for personal and professional development

  7. Machinery, Intelligence and Our Intentionality. Grounds for Establishing Paradoxical Discourses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Colin T. A. Schmidt

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available Attaching the robotic body to the artificial brain (the computer is a poor way of going about constructing autonomous mentality. It represents nothing more than an extension of the brain and succumbs to using experience as a confirmation of the scientist's belief that he may speak in artificial terms of mind of mentality. This naturally leads to producing a paradoxical discourse on the subject of robotics and thereby leads to confusion. The author indicates readings of paramount importance for disentangling the language involved in this special form of evolutionary computation.

  8. Structural Differences between English and Indian Languages at the Sentence and Discourse Level

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Dipti Misra

    2010-01-01

    This paper is a very preliminary attempt to look at how languages encode information. Different languages use different linguistic devices. Indian languages encode information morphologically or lexically. This provides flexibility in their word order. English, on the other hand, uses position for encoding information which results in a relatively…

  9. Modeling Narrative Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elson, David K.

    2012-01-01

    This thesis describes new approaches to the formal modeling of narrative discourse. Although narratives of all kinds are ubiquitous in daily life, contemporary text processing techniques typically do not leverage the aspects that separate narrative from expository discourse. We describe two approaches to the problem. The first approach considers…

  10. Italy - A sustainable development discourse analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leconte, Arnaud; Lallemand, Xavier

    2009-01-01

    This paper investigates the Italian Discourse on Sustainable Development (SD). The 'mainstream political discourse', in line with the European guidelines, encompasses the three key SD dimensions (social, economic, and environmental dimensions), at least in theory. But, in practice, Italy is the country with the highest open infringements on EU environmental laws, as recently reflected by the scandalous waste management crises in the region of Naples. In the wake of the economic crises, the mainstream SD discourse is challenged by the environmentalist discourse, led by NGOs, the 'socio-religious discourse', focusing on a human SD, and by the 'alternative development' discourse, which opposes the capitalist system

  11. Suffragism and italianità : political and literary discourses of women's citizenship in Italy, 1900-1923

    OpenAIRE

    Delaney, Emer

    2014-01-01

    The present research sets out to trace distinctive patterns of language use around the issue of women’s suffrage in early-twentieth-century Liberal Italy. In particular, the question of how women’s identities were constructed in suffrage-related discourse is addressed. TARA (Trinity’s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns:

  12. Troubling Discourses on Gender and Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lahelma, Elina

    2014-01-01

    Background: In educational policies, two discourses on gender have existed since the 1980s. I call them the "gender equality discourse" and the "boy discourse". The gender equality discourse in education is based on international and national declarations and plans, and is focused predominantly on the position of girls and…

  13. Discourse Analysis in Ethnographic Research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poole, Deborah

    1990-01-01

    Reviews the contribution of ethnographic research to discourse analysis, focusing on discourse practices as a reflection of cultural context; educational applications and the discontinuity issue; literacy as a focus of discourse-oriented ethnographic research; and implications for applied linguistics. A 9-citation annotated and a 50-citation…

  14. Sociological Discourse(s) on Freedom

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bertilsson, Margareta

    The concept of freedom is often thought of as antithetical to sociology. The discipline is more prone to detect and unveil forms of unfreedom, as Zygmunt Bauman (1988) has pointed out. The question remains if any academic discipline, however, including sociology can do away with the concept...... of freedom al together! In matters of science, the problem of determinism vs. chance and spontaneity is essential. Hence, freedom, in one sense or the other, is necessarily at bottom also of sociological discourse. This text is an attempt to map the predominant forms of freedom found in sociological...... discourses. While starting out with the classic liberal concept informing theories of modernity followed by the various critiques directed against liberalism, not the least the most recently occurring (Lyotard, Agamben), the aim here is to spot possible trajectories in our comprehension of freedom, also...

  15. Discourse Communities--Local and Global.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Killingsworth, M. Jimmie

    1992-01-01

    Argues that rhetorical theory needs to keep alive competing concepts of discourse communities, so that alternatives exist in the description and analysis of discourse practices. Proposes distinguishing between two kinds of discourse communities--the local and the global--so that rhetorical analysis can achieve the necessary critical edge,…

  16. Language games: Christian fundamentalism and the science curriculum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freund, Cheryl J.

    Eighty years after the Scope's Trial, the debate over evolution in the public school curriculum is alive and well. Historically, Christian fundamentalists, the chief opponents of evolution in the public schools, have used the court system to force policymakers, to adopt their ideology regarding evolution in the science curriculum. However, in recent decades their strategy has shifted from the courts to the local level, where they pressure teachers and school boards to include "alternate theories" and the alleged "flaws" and "inconsistencies" of evolution in the science curriculum. The purpose of this content analysis study was to answer the question: How do Christian fundamentalists employ rhetorical strategies to influence the science curriculum? The rhetorical content of several public legal and media documents resulting from a lawsuit filed against the Athens Public Schools by the American Center of Law and Justice were analyzed for the types of rhetorical strategies employed by the participants engaged in the scientific, legal, and public discourse communities. The study employed an analytical schema based on Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of language games, Lawrence Prelli's theory of discourse communities, and Michael Apple's notion of constitutive and preference rules. Ultimately, this study revealed that adroit use of the constitutive and preference rules of the legal and public discourse communities allowed the school district to reframe the creation-evolution debate, thereby avoiding a public spectacle and ameliorating the power of creationist language to affect change in the science curriculum. In addition, the study reinforced the assertion that speakers enjoy the most persuasive power when they attend to the preference rules of the public discourse community.

  17. Snapshots of language and literature teaching in Denmark and England

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kelly, Peter; Dorf, Hans

    2016-01-01

    To illustrate differences in lower secondary-level language and literature teaching, we contrast a typical teaching episode in Denmark with one in England. Both reflect the dominant discourses in each country alongside recent policy initiatives, and each exemplifies a different orientation...... to language and literature teaching focussing on performance in England and a personal formation in Denmark. Descriptions of the episodes are linked to wider debates and potential areas for further consideration are identified....

  18. Reasons for Using English or the Local Language in the Genre of Job Advertisements: Insights From Interviews With Dutch Job Ad Designers.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meurs, W.F.J. van; Planken, B.C.; Gerritsen, M.; Korzilius, H.P.L.M.

    2015-01-01

    Research problem: This study provides insight into practitioners' reasons for choosing a particular language (English versus the local language) in the genre of job ads in countries where English is a foreign language (EFL countries). Scholarly publications and public discourse have suggested

  19. The English Language of the Nigeria Police

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chinwe, Udo Victoria

    2015-01-01

    In the present day Nigeria, the quality of the English language spoken by Nigerians, is perceived to have been deteriorating and needs urgent attention. The proliferation of books and articles in the recent years can be seen as the native outcrop of its received attention and recognition as a matter of discourse. Evidently, every profession,…

  20. A report on academic listening development of second language ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Particular attention is given to the students' ability to engage successfully in the academic discourse by employing effective listening skills in their second language. Listening tasks were developed within the theoretical and practical framework of active listening. The discussion will focus on the theoretical approach and ...

  1. Language used in interaction during developmental science instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avenia-Tapper, Brianna

    The coordination of theory and evidence is an important part of scientific practice. Developmental approaches to instruction, which make the relationship between the abstract and the concrete a central focus of students' learning activity, provide educators with a unique opportunity to strengthen students' coordination of theory and evidence. Therefore, developmental approaches may be a useful instructional response to documented science achievement gaps for linguistically diverse students. However, if we are to leverage the potential of developmental instruction to improve the science achievement of linguistically diverse students, we need more information on the intersection of developmental science instruction and linguistically diverse learning contexts. This manuscript style dissertation uses discourse analysis to investigate the language used in interaction during developmental teaching-learning in three linguistically diverse third grade classrooms. The first manuscript asks how language was used to construct ascension from the abstract to the concrete. The second manuscript asks how students' non-English home languages were useful (or not) for meeting the learning goals of the developmental instructional program. The third manuscript asks how students' interlocutors may influence student choice to use an important discourse practice--justification--during the developmental teaching-learning activity. All three manuscripts report findings relevant to the instructional decisions that teachers need to make when implementing developmental instruction in linguistically diverse contexts.

  2. Developing Multilingual Pedagogies and Research through Language Study and Reflection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Catalano, Theresa; Shende, Madhur; Suh, Emily K.

    2018-01-01

    Globalisation and increased transnational migration underscore the need for educational responses to multilingualism and multilingual discourses. One way to heighten awareness of multilingual pedagogies (while simultaneously providing data for multilingual research) is the use of reflective language study and journaling by language…

  3. INTERDISCURSIVE PROCESSES IN LINGUISTICS AND LITERARY STUDIES: LANGUAGES AND MEDIA IN THE INNOVATION PROCESS OF THE FIELD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rogério Barbosa da Silva

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available We propose a brief reflection on the interaction between languages ??and media, resulting in a close dialogue between language and technological processes that underlie the historical, and temporal dimensions, but also discursive and audiovisual, especially in poetic interart. Such elements have formed the basis of the discussion held in the discipline Language, Media and Discourse Processes within the Postgraduate in Studies of Languages of CEFET MG

  4. Discourse analysis and Foucault's

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jansen I.

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Discourse analysis is a method with up to now was less recognized in nursing science, althoughmore recently nursing scientists are discovering it for their purposes. However, several authors have criticized thatdiscourse analysis is often misinterpreted because of a lack of understanding of its theoretical backgrounds. In thisarticle, I reconstruct Foucault’s writings in his “Archaeology of Knowledge” to provide a theoretical base for futurearchaeological discourse analysis, which can be categorized as a socio-linguistic discourse analysis.

  5. Destructiveness in Political Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Яна Александровна Волкова

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Destructiveness is among the fundamental discourse categories that play a significant role in the organization of communicative interaction and define the pragmatics of discourse; its study helps to understand some mechanisms and principles of communication, identify strategies and tactics used by a destructive communicative personality. The relevance of this study is determined by the increasing aggressiveness in various types of discourse, and, accordingly, by the need to extend the knowledge of destructive behavior of a communicative personality. The study is based on the theory of discourse-analysis and theory of destructiveness (Z. Harris, T. van Dijk, A. Buss, E. Fromm, D. Ponton, K. Hacker, R. Wodak. N. Arutyunova, V. Karasik, M. Makarov, E. Sheigal et al. Developing the theory of destructiveness and relying on Erich Fromm’s research (1973, we specify the concept of “destructiveness” in relation to the political discourse and compare it with the related concept of aggressiveness. The paper analyses the category of destructiveness in modern US political discourse, using excerpts from the speeches of the candidates for presidency of 2016. Particular attention is paid to the dominant destructive intention - to harm the reputation of the opponent and reduce his political chances, as well as to the functions of verbal aggression: on the one hand - to discredit the opponent, bring accusations, on the other hand - to poison the audience mind against him/her and arouse the feeling of danger posed by a political opponent. The analysis of verbal and nonverbal means of destructiveness in the US political discourse is carried out. The article concludes that abusive remarks of politicians do not result from spontaneous emotional outburst, but from an elaborated destructive strategy where the agonistic nature of political discourse stipulates the use of instrumental aggression (Buss, 1971 for the sake of the conquest of power, lowering the

  6. LANGUAGE COMPETENCE OF STUDENT TOWARD RIGHT HEMISPHER BRAIN FUNCTION : A Neuropragmatic Study

    OpenAIRE

    Handoko, Handoko; Sastra, Gusdi; Revita, Ike

    2015-01-01

    It has been known that the right hemisphere is contributed to language processing, especially in macro level, including macrostructure or discourse processing. This research is aimed at evaluating the students’ ability in language processing concerning macrostructure and the right hemispher brain function. This research is based on Dharmaperwira-prins method “Right Hemisphere Communication Assessment” (Pemeriksaan Komunikasi Hemisfer Kanan/PKHK). Research on students’ ability in macrostructur...

  7. A Critical Study of Selected Political Elites' Discourse in English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Biook Behnam

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available This study explored how political elites can contribute to power enactment through using language. It started with a theoretical overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA, and then presented a corpus consisting of speeches of eight political elites, namely, Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Winston Churchill, J.F. Kennedy and Adolph Hitler. This study analyzed speeches in terms of figures of' speech, and interpreted them from the point of view of CDA using the framework introduced by Fairclough (1989 as a three-dimensional approach to the study of discourse (Description, Interpretation, Explanation and van Dijk (2004 as the theory of critical context analysis.. Speech figures are classified in this study into six main categories as Comparison, Grammar, Meaning, Parenthesis, Repetition and Rhetoric. The result of analyses reveals that while there are differences in the type and degree of speech figures employed by our selected individual political elites, there is one striking pattern which is common among all speeches: the frequent use of figures of Grammar, Repetition and Rhetoric

  8. True to the Language Game: African American Discourse, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilyard, Keith

    2011-01-01

    In "True to the Language Game", Keith Gilyard, one of the major African American figures to emerge in language and cultural studies, makes his most seminal work available in one volume. This collection of new and previously published essays contains Gilyard's most relevant scholarly contributions to deliberations about linguistic diversity,…

  9. Translating a Narrative of Migration: reflections and strategies towards countering xenophobic discourse in the Italian version of Russell Banks' Continental Drift

    OpenAIRE

    Paola Brusasco

    2014-01-01

    Collective identities and power relations are the result of converging projections deriving from history, geography, language, religion, memories and customs that – informed by more or less acknowledged ideologies – contribute to shaping them. Translation too, as a language interface, plays a relevant role in both representing Self and the Other and confirming or challenging power relations through various operations that include discourse shifts and a questioning of accepted meanings and pra...

  10. Commenting to Learn: Evidence of Language and Intercultural Learning in Comments on YouTube Videos

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benson, Phil

    2015-01-01

    It is often observed that the globalization of social media has opened up new opportunities for informal intercultural communication and foreign language learning. This study aims to go beyond this general observation through a case study that explores how discourse analysis tools might be used to uncover evidence of language and intercultural…

  11. Critical Discourse Analysis of Moderated Discussion Board of Virtual University of Pakistan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayesha Perveen

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available The paper critically evaluated the discursive practices on the Moderated Discussion Board (MDB of Virtual University of Pakistan (VUP. The paramount objective of the study was to conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA of the MDB on the Learning Management System (LMS of VUP. For this purpose, the academic power relations of the students and instructors were evaluated by analyzing whose discourse was dominant in communication with each other on MDB. The researcher devised a model based on the blended theoretical framework of Norman Fairclough and Teun van Dijk to critically analyze the linguistics, ideological, semiotic and socio cognitive-cultural undercurrents in the production and reception processes of MDB discourse. The primary data of the MDB of English Comprehension (ENG101 course was randomly selected to be qualitatively analyzed for this research study. The findings demonstrated that the learners were at a disadvantage because of their lack of command of the English language. However, quick and pertinent replies from instructors revealed students’ empowerment in an educational discursive practice. The results indicated a balance of power relations amongst instructors, students and the University. However, the need to improve the critical thinking of the students to further empower them was strongly felt.

  12. DISCOURSE AND PARTICIPATION IN ESL FACE-TO-FACE AND WRITTEN ELECTRONIC CONFERENCES

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    Michael Fitze

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available This study was a comparative investigation of face-to-face and written electronic conferences. The participants were advanced English as a second language (hereafter: ESL students. The two types of conferences were compared in terms of textual features and participation. There was no statistically significant difference in the total number of words that students produced in an equivalent amount of time in the two types of conferences. The discourse in written electronic conferences displayed greater lexical range, and students in these conferences produced more discourse demonstrating interactive competence. The statistically significant finding of increased lexical range in written electronic conferences persisted even when the interactive discourse was eliminated from the conference transcripts and the transcripts were reanalyzed. This finding suggests that, during written electronic conferences, students were better able to use and practice a wider range of vocabulary related to the topics. For one of the groups, participation in written electronic conferences was more balanced among students, while for the other group participation was about equally balanced regardless of the conference setting. This last finding came as a surprise and points to a need for further research into variables that might mediate balanced participation in face-to-face and written electronic conferences.

  13. 西班牙移民新闻语篇的评价性分析*%Analysis of the Evaluation Mechanism in Spanish Immigrants News Discourse

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    田申

    2014-01-01

    Based on Van Dijk’s research theory concerning racism in the news discourse ,the paper summa-rizes Spanish news media’s stance on immigrants and their attempts of anti -language racism .The study aims to clarify the evaluation mechanism in the news discourse of immigrant themes by analyzing the characteristics of topics and processing the data on theme statistics in the language of immigrant discourse in Spanish mainstream new spapers .%本文以VanDijk对新闻语篇中的种族主义研究为理论依据,总结了西班牙新闻媒体对待移民的立场和反语言种族主义的尝试。通过对西班牙主流新闻报纸中移民主题语篇的语言特征分析和主题数据统计,阐明新闻语篇中移民主题报道的评价机制。

  14. "Er zog sich die 'neue Sprache' des 'Dritten Reiches' über wie ein Kleidungsstück": Communities of Practice and Performativity in National Socialist Discourse

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    Horan, Geraldine

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to provide new insights into the characteristics and use of National Socialist discourse. It discusses the methodological problems underlying the analysis of the topic and shows how previous research has resulted in a falsely polarised portrayal of the discourse and its creators and recipients. Applying the concepts of the 'community of practice' and 'performativity', taken from the study of language and gender, the article argues that discourse was not created by National Socialist ideologues and imposed upon the population, but instead was co-created and shaped by members of formal and informal groupings (communities of practice. Participation in these communities of practice enabled or coerced individuals to 'perform' their National Socialist identity to varying degrees and resulted in a discourse which was stylistically and communicatively adaptable and malleable.

  15. Book Review : INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

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    Kaswan Kaswan

    2013-10-01

    If the goal of language instruction is communicative competence, language instruction must be integrated with cultural and cross-cultural instruction for sociocultural competence is part of   communicative competence, besides linguistic competence, discourse   competence,   formulaic   competence,   and   interactional   competence,   as proposed by Celce-Murcia (1995 in Soler and Jorda (2007. Sociocultural competence refers to the speaker’s pragmatic knowledge, i.e. how to express messages appropriately within  the  overall  social  and  cultural  context  of  communication.  This  includes knowledge of   language variation with reference to sociocultural norms of the target language. In fact a social or cultural blunder can be far more serious than a linguistic error when one is engaged in oral communication.

  16. An Investigation of Organizational and Regulatory Discourses of Workplace Bullying.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Susan L; Boutain, Doris M; Tsai, Jenny H-C; de Castro, Arnold B

    2015-10-01

    Organizations use policies to set standards for employee behaviors. Although many organizations have policies that address workplace bullying, previous studies have found that these policies affect neither workplace bullying for targets who are seeking assistance in ending the behaviors nor managers who must address incidents of bullying. This article presents the findings of a study that used critical discourse analysis to examine the language used in policies written by health care organizations and regulatory agencies to regulate workplace bullying. The findings suggest that the discussion of workplace bullying overlaps with discussions of disruptive behaviors and harassment. This lack of conceptual clarity can create difficulty for managers in identifying, naming, and disciplining incidents of workplace bullying. The documents also primarily discussed workplace bullying as a patient safety concern. This language is in conflict with organizations attending to worker well-being with regard to workplace bullying. © 2015 The Author(s).

  17. SUPERVISING IN ENGLISH: THE DOCTORAL THESIS, PROFES­SOR/ STUDENT DISCOURSE, AND SOCIAL PRACTICE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jane Mattisson

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available y article investigates the situation, goals, and discourse praxis of professors supervising doctoral students writing in English. It is part of a wider project examining student-teacher interaction which is designed to improve written communication, particularly at the higher levels of academic study. Like the students they supervise, the five professors studied are English as a Foreign Language users, and all give instruction exclusively in English. Based on separate interviews with each professor, my study demonstrates that there is a tendency among doctoral supervisors to focus on the content and form of the thesis to the detriment of socio-cultural practice, i.e., the discourse between the professor and student, as well as the recognition of the text as a piece of social practice, shaped by a particular kind of academic public and the rules of scholarship that have been developed over time. The type of social practice that students bring with them varies from culture to culture. I argue that a doctoral thesis bears witness not only to the student’s ability to conduct research at a high level, but also to the creation of a distinct scholarly identity that is the result of effective discourse between professor and student, whereby the professor communicates “the rules of the game” that lead to a successful career both at university and after. My paper reflects on how we as teachers/supervisors can promote the formation of scholarly identity through the medium of English as a Foreign Language. I do so by focusing on the five supervisors’ knowledge of English, their ability to provide guidance in English, and their awareness of the importance of promoting scholarly identity in English. The article concludes with some reflections on the type of support required, if any, from native English teachers.

  18. Metaphorical profile of distress in English media discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Verbytska Anna

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The current research is directed towards the transition of distress studies in the English speaking culture from the prototype towards the conceptual metaphor approach. It enables the enlightenment of mental images, which underlie distress language usage in modern mass communication. The analysis involves identification of conceptual distress metaphors and metonymies within the image-schematic structure. The study includes a cognitive semantic analysis of linguistic units of the distress lexicon retrieved from the GloWbE, BNC, COCA, English newspapers and media platforms. Figurative language reveals conventional beliefs about distress represented in English media discourse, such as strong associations of emotion with darkness and coldness. Metaphorical mappings contain views about the reasons for distress experience which lie in the loss of balance or inner equilibrium, loss of control, and convictions about the reaction characterizing a person as being weak and brittle. The findings of data analysis are summed up in a metaphorical profile of distress (MPD which discloses the behavioural patterns (communicative behaviour, adequacy/inadequacy of behaviour, ability to socialize and physical effects including health issues.

  19. The biomedical discourse relation bank

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    Joshi Aravind

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Identification of discourse relations, such as causal and contrastive relations, between situations mentioned in text is an important task for biomedical text-mining. A biomedical text corpus annotated with discourse relations would be very useful for developing and evaluating methods for biomedical discourse processing. However, little effort has been made to develop such an annotated resource. Results We have developed the Biomedical Discourse Relation Bank (BioDRB, in which we have annotated explicit and implicit discourse relations in 24 open-access full-text biomedical articles from the GENIA corpus. Guidelines for the annotation were adapted from the Penn Discourse TreeBank (PDTB, which has discourse relations annotated over open-domain news articles. We introduced new conventions and modifications to the sense classification. We report reliable inter-annotator agreement of over 80% for all sub-tasks. Experiments for identifying the sense of explicit discourse connectives show the connective itself as a highly reliable indicator for coarse sense classification (accuracy 90.9% and F1 score 0.89. These results are comparable to results obtained with the same classifier on the PDTB data. With more refined sense classification, there is degradation in performance (accuracy 69.2% and F1 score 0.28, mainly due to sparsity in the data. The size of the corpus was found to be sufficient for identifying the sense of explicit connectives, with classifier performance stabilizing at about 1900 training instances. Finally, the classifier performs poorly when trained on PDTB and tested on BioDRB (accuracy 54.5% and F1 score 0.57. Conclusion Our work shows that discourse relations can be reliably annotated in biomedical text. Coarse sense disambiguation of explicit connectives can be done with high reliability by using just the connective as a feature, but more refined sense classification requires either richer features or more

  20. Instrumental, Integrative, and Intrinsic Orientations Towards Language: Deconstructing the Dichotomy in a Puerto Rican Community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elaine Shenk

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Using a critical discourse analytical approach, this paper applies self-determination theory to the analysis of orientations towards language acquisition in data collected through interviews with 26 participants from Puerto Rico. In light of significant Spanish-English contact on the island, the paper considers how the participants’ discourses construct overlapping instrumental, integrative, and intrinsic orientations towards the presence of English in their community and, more broadly, towards language acquisition. The data suggest that both instrumental and integrative orientations are present, and that specific factors in this community’s history and experience do not predispose the participants towards a clear distinction between these two but rather contribute to a melding of both with a third way, that of intrinsic motivation, which validates and promotes bi- or even multilingualism on a broader scale without being focused on any one particular language or group of speakers.

  1. The Discourse of Chemistry (and Beyond)

    OpenAIRE

    Jesper Sjöström

    2007-01-01

    This paper discusses the mainstream discourse of chemistry and suggests a complementary discourse. On a disciplinary level, the discourse of chemistry is based on objectivism, rationalism, and molecular reductionism. On a societal level, the discourse is based on modernism. The aims of chemical research and education are often unclear, which nowadays often leads to an emphasis on the needs from industry. Integrating meta-perspectives (philosophical, historical, and socio-cultural) within chem...

  2. MIXED SIGNS IN THE SEMIOTICS OF ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Goncharova Darya Anatolyevna

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the linguosemiotic explication of nomination process in educational discourse by signs of different types – verbal, non-verbal, mixed. Verbal signs are presented by lexical units, nominating agents, clients, non/material resources, artifacts, processes, incentives and forms of pedagogical influence. The non-verbal signs include paralinguistic signs (gestures, facial expressions, postures of the participants of the educational process; color-semiotic signs (coloremas, in which the information-impacting vector is directed to a color indication of messages that is important for successful educational communication; visual elements representing traditional British values and concepts; sound signs, topographic signs, that add meaning to the overall significance of a mixed sign. In linguosemiotic system of educational discourse, the mixed signs form the most numerous group and are represented mainly by emblems, anthems and school songs of secondary schools. The author checks and verifies the hypothesis that the semiotics of the educational process in British secondary schools includes the extensive and complex system of mixed signs, which consist of two non-homogeneous parts – verbal and non-verbal – belonging to other sign systems rather than natural language and expressed via graphics, colors, music, etc. Linguistic analysis is applied to the study of the semiotic space of educational discourse. The article determines that in the context of educational communication, verbal, non-verbal and mixed signs form the unity of the linguistic and extralinguistic parameters, being in different relationships and presenting a multilayer intersection of lexical groups, graphic description, color schemes and music accompaniment.

  3. Idiosyncratic gesture use in atypical language development, and its interaction with speech rhythm, word juncture, syntax, pragmatics and discourse: a case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howard, Sara J; Perkins, Michael R; Sowden, Hannah

    2012-10-01

    Very little is known about the use of gesture by children with developmental language disorders (DLDs). This case study of 'Lucy', a child aged 4;10 with a DLD, expands on what is known and in particular focuses on a type of idiosyncratic "rhythmic gesture" (RG) not previously reported. A fine-grained qualitative analysis was carried out of video recordings of Lucy in conversation with the first author. This revealed that Lucy's RG was closely integrated in complex ways with her use of other gesture types, speech rhythm, word juncture, syntax, pragmatics, discourse, visual processing and processing demands generally. Indeed, the only satisfactory way to explain it was as a partial byproduct of such interactions. These findings support the theoretical accounts of gesture which see it as just one component of a multimodal, integrated signalling system (e.g. Goldin-Meadow, S. (2000). Beyond words: The importance of gesture to researchers and learners. Child Development, 71(1), 231-239), and emergentist accounts of communication impairment which regard compensatory adaptation as integral (e.g. Perkins, M. R. (2007). Pragmatic Impairment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.).

  4. Speech and language therapies to improve pragmatics and discourse skills in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joyal, Marilyne; Bonneau, Audrey; Fecteau, Shirley

    2016-06-30

    Individuals with schizophrenia display speech and language impairments that greatly impact their integration to the society. The aim of this systematic review was to identify the importance of speech and language therapy (SLT) as part of rehabilitation curriculums for patients with schizophrenia emphasizing on the speech and language abilities assessed, the therapy setting and the therapeutic approach. This article reviewed 18 studies testing the effects of language therapy or training in 433 adults diagnosed with schizophrenia. Results showed that 14 studies out of 18 lead to improvements in language and/or speech abilities. Most of these studies comprised pragmatic or expressive discursive skills being the only aim of the therapy or part of it. The therapy settings vary widely ranging from twice daily individual therapy to once weekly group therapy. The therapeutic approach was mainly operant conditioning. Although the evidence tends to show that certain areas of language are treatable through therapy, it remains difficult to state the type of approach that should be favoured and implemented to treat language impairments in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Alain Chartier and the death of lyric language

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    Helen J. Swift

    2002-12-01

    Full Text Available The fifteenth-century poet Alain Chartier uses the courtly contexts of his lyric, narrative and debate poems as enabling fictions to support his interrogation of the validity of courtly language and his metapoetic questioning of the rhetoric of his own, inherited poetic discourse. This mise en question  is performed through several, interacting ironic strategies, which may most fruitfully be elucidated in terms of Linda Hutcheon's theory and politics of irony expounded in Irony's Edge (1994. Thus 'meta-ironically functioning signals', together with intertextual, 'relational' irony and the 'oppositional' irony constituted by his Belle Dame sans mercy's pro-ferninist discourse, articu­late Chartier's  esprit critique  regarding 'la,parole'  as both the general unit of human communica­tion and the specific resource of poetic creativity. A satirical reading of his ouvre enables us to appreciate how the rhetorical play in which Chartier engages functions as an indictment of the courtly code's hermeneutic disintegration: its obsolescence results from a divorce between ethics and aesthetics as its language has lost the capacity to mean.

  6. Media framing of complex issues: The case of endangered languages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rivenburgh, Nancy K

    2013-08-01

    This study investigates how media frame a global trend that is complex in nature, emergent in terms of scientific understanding, and has public policy implications: the rapid disappearance of languages. It analyzes how English-language media from 15 western, industrialized countries frame the causes and implications of endangered languages over 35 years (1971-2006) - a time period notable for growing, interdisciplinary concerns over the potential negative impacts of losing the world's linguistic diversity. The results reveal a media discourse characterized by three complementary frames that are sympathetic to the plight of endangered languages, but that present the problem, its cause, and societal implications in a logical structure that would promote public complacency.

  7. Approaching the relationship between religion and science through language games

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Stanciulescu

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Generally, applying Wittgenstein phrase “language games” into the science and religion relationship, reflects the futility of attempting to identify the truth beyond linguistic communities in which each of them takes part. Starting from the idea that through semantic assumption of some concepts, specific to a particular language game by another language game, the principles of comprehension can be violated, the postmodernist thinkers consider necessary the compartmentalization of the two types of discourses, scientific and religious. Therefore, the statements should be regarded as moves in a game. Each category of utterance operate according to some rules, without which there can be no “language game” and whose change, even minor, leads to changing the whole game.

  8. Neurobiological roots of language in primate audition: common computational properties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina; Schlesewsky, Matthias; Small, Steven L; Rauschecker, Josef P

    2015-03-01

    Here, we present a new perspective on an old question: how does the neurobiology of human language relate to brain systems in nonhuman primates? We argue that higher-order language combinatorics, including sentence and discourse processing, can be situated in a unified, cross-species dorsal-ventral streams architecture for higher auditory processing, and that the functions of the dorsal and ventral streams in higher-order language processing can be grounded in their respective computational properties in primate audition. This view challenges an assumption, common in the cognitive sciences, that a nonhuman primate model forms an inherently inadequate basis for modeling higher-level language functions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Architectural discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Boeriis, Morten; Nørgaard, Nina

    2013-01-01

    Using a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this article presents an analysis of the University of Southern Denmark as a text with particular focus on discourse and framing (cf. van Leeuwen 2005). The university consists of an original part and more recent extensions. The article examines how...... the original and the new parts of the buildings respectively realize different discourses related to education and the educational system more generally, and in particular how framing plays an important role in this respect. While employing van Leeuwen’s system network for framing (2005: 18) for the analysis...

  10. Communicative Interaction and Second Language Acquisition: An Inuit Example.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crago, Martha B.

    1993-01-01

    The role of cultural context in the communicative interaction of young Inuit children, their caregivers, and their non-Inuit teachers was examined in a longitudinal ethnographic study conducted in two small communities of arctic Quebec. Focus was on discourse features of primary language socialization of Inuit families. (32 references) (Author/LB)

  11. Facilitating Professional Development for Teachers of English Language Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Molle, Daniella

    2013-01-01

    The study explores the process of facilitation in professional development for educators. The study relies on discourse analysis of interaction among K-12 teachers and administrators in a Midwestern U.S. state during a semester-long professional development program especially designed for educators working with English language learners (ELLs).…

  12. Language, Literacy and Learning in Educational Practice. A Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stierer, Barry, Ed.; Maybin, Janet, Ed.

    Articles presented include: "Introducing the New Literacy" (John Willinsky); "The Emergence of Literacy" (Nigel Hall); "Media Education: The Limits of a Discourse" (David Buckingham); "Extracts from 'Thought and Language' and 'Mind in Society'" (L. S. Vygotsky); "From Communicating to Talking" (Jerome Bruner); "What Does It Mean To Be Bilingual?"…

  13. A Response to Professor Wu Zongjie's "Interpretation, Autonomy, and Transformation: Chinese Pedagogic Discourse in a Cross-Cultural Perspective"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curran, Thomas D.

    2014-01-01

    In response to an essay by Prof Wu Zongjie that was published in the "Journal of Curriculum Studies" [43(5), (2011), 569-590], I argue that, despite dramatic changes that have taken place in the language of Chinese academic discourse and pedagogy, evidence derived from the fields of psychology and the history of Chinese educational…

  14. Public opinion and change in language. On the history of the atomic energy discourse

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jung, M.

    1994-01-01

    The representation of the atomic energy controversy as a linguistic and social process of development reveals the discrepancy between linguistic consciousness and the actual change in language which proves to be the unintentional result of manifold influences and intentions. A vivid, exciting description is given of political language culture in the Federal Republic of Germany. The role of technical languages in the public controversy is discussed, and numerous errors committed by scientific language criticism are disclosed. (orig.) [de

  15. NEGOTIATING INTO ACADEMIC DISCOURSES: TAIWANESE AND U.S. COLLEGE STUDENTS IN RESEARCH WRITING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yichun Liu

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available Cross-national, or cross-cultural, studies of academic writing have moved beyond contrastive rhetoric’s textual focus to broad concerns of students’ first-and second-language literacy development. However, we remain in the dark as to how, in a micro view, students initiate into academic discourses in cross-national contexts. Situating our study in first-year writing courses in a Taiwanese and a U.S. university, we examined students’ negotiation acts when they struggled to enter into social science discourses. Our study reveals that students in both institutions negotiated with academic writing at metacognitive, textual, and contextual levels. They brought rhetorical values, such as writing as a display of knowledge or writing grounded in evidential research, into their writing that they acquired in high school. Further, teachers’ expectations, their new perceptions of research and writing, and their dreams and experiences all came into play in their writing.

  16. High-Level Language Production in Parkinson's Disease: A Review

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    Lori J. P. Altmann

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses impairments of high-level, complex language production in Parkinson's disease (PD, defined as sentence and discourse production, and situates these impairments within the framework of current psycholinguistic theories of language production. The paper comprises three major sections, an overview of the effects of PD on the brain and cognition, a review of the literature on language production in PD, and a discussion of the stages of the language production process that are impaired in PD. Overall, the literature converges on a few common characteristics of language production in PD: reduced information content, impaired grammaticality, disrupted fluency, and reduced syntactic complexity. Many studies also document the strong impact of differences in cognitive ability on language production. Based on the data, PD affects all stages of language production including conceptualization and functional and positional processing. Furthermore, impairments at all stages appear to be exacerbated by impairments in cognitive abilities.

  17. Narratives of location: School science identities and scientific discourse among Navajo women at the University of New Mexico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandt, Carol B.

    This research examines the interplay of scientific discourse and students' sense of self among four Navajo (Dine) women as they major in science at a university in the southwestern United States. This dissertation research is an ethnographic case study of Navajo women as they were completing their final year of undergraduate study in the life sciences at a university. How do Navajo women express their identity in Western science at the university? What role does scientific discourse play in this process? This research employs a feminist poststructural approach to language and expands the way discourse has typically been addressed in science education. I expand the notion of discourse through poststructuralism by recognizing the co-constitutive role of language in fashioning realities and generating meaning. Data sources in this study included transcripts from one-on-one interviews, electronic correspondence (e-mail), observations of social contexts on campus, students' writing for science courses, university policy statements, departmental outcomes assessments, web profiles of student research in science, and a researcher's reflective journal. This study took place beginning in January 2002 and continued through May of 2003 at the University of New Mexico. After completing the thematic (constant comparative analysis) and an analysis of metaphors, I "retold" or "restoried" the narratives collected during interviews. In the cross case analysis, I compared each participant's description of those discursive spaces that afforded engagement with science, and those locations where their awareness of academic language was heightened in a process of metadiscourse. I identified these spaces as locations of possibility in which students and their mentors (or instructors) valued connected knowing, acknowledged each other's history, culture, and knowledge, and began speaking to each other subject-to-subject to challenge normative views of schooling. The participants in this

  18. Discourses of Technology

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sommer, Jannek K.; Knudsen, Gry Høngsmark

    In this poster we address consumption of technology from the perspective of failure. A large body of studies of consumption of technology have focused on consumer acceptance (Kozinets, 2008). These studies have identified particular narratives about social and economic progress, and pleasure...... (Kozinets, 2008) as drivers of consumer acceptance of new technology. Similarly, Giesler (2008) has conceptualized consumer acceptance of technology as a form of marketplace drama, in which market ideologies are negotiated between consumers and media discourses. We suggest to study discourses around failed...... technology products to explore the negotiation of the familiar and alien that makes consumers reject or embrace a new technology. Thus, this particular project sets out to analyze consumer discourses surrounding the Google Glass video “How it Feels [through Google Glass]” on YouTube, because we want...

  19. Cultural Keywords in Discourse

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    contributes to a global turn in cultural keyword studies by exploring keywords from discourse communities in Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, Melanesia, Mexico and Scandinavia. Providing new case studies, the volume showcases the diversity of ways in which cultural logics form and shape discourse...

  20. Discourse, Complexity, Normativity: Tracing the Elaboration of Foucault's Materialist Concept of Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olssen, Mark

    2014-01-01

    In this article, I want to suggest that it is through the elaboration of the concept of discourse that the differences between Foucault and thinkers like Habermas, Hegel and Marx can best be understood. Foucault progressively develops a conception of discourse as a purely historical category that resists all reference to transcendental principles…

  1. The application of language-game theory to the analysis of science learning: Developing an interpretive classroom-level learning framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmadibasir, Mohammad

    In this study an interpretive learning framework that aims to measure learning on the classroom level is introduced. In order to develop and evaluate the value of the framework, a theoretical/empirical study is designed. The researcher attempted to illustrate how the proposed framework provides insights on the problem of classroom-level learning. The framework is developed by construction of connections between the current literature on science learning and Wittgenstein's language-game theory. In this framework learning is defined as change of classroom language-game or discourse. In the proposed framework, learning is measured by analysis of classroom discourse. The empirical explanation power of the framework is evaluated by applying the framework in the analysis of learning in a fifth-grade science classroom. The researcher attempted to analyze how students' colloquial discourse changed to a discourse that bears more resemblance to science discourse. The results of the empirical part of the investigation are presented in three parts: first, the gap between what students did and what they were supposed to do was reported. The gap showed that students during the classroom inquiry wanted to do simple comparisons by direct observation, while they were supposed to do tool-assisted observation and procedural manipulation for a complete comparison. Second, it was illustrated that the first attempt to connect the colloquial to science discourse was done by what was immediately intelligible for students and then the teacher negotiated with students in order to help them to connect the old to the new language-game more purposefully. The researcher suggested that these two events in the science classroom are critical in discourse change. Third, it was illustrated that through the academic year, the way that students did the act of comparison was improved and by the end of the year more accurate causal inferences were observable in classroom communication. At the end of the

  2. Arab Media Discourse: Breaking Taboos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    El Mustapha Lahlali

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the development and change of Arab media discourse since mid-1990s. The paper looks at how the production and consumption of media discourse have changed dramatically in the Arab world over the last decade or so, notably in relation to taboos such as religion, governance and gender. The paper argues that transnational Arab media, particularly al-Jazeera, have contributed to this change by adopting a liberal and critical approach when dealing with Arab taboos. This change is clearly reflected in the new discourse adopted by both the Arab public and Arab media. Such a discourse practice shapes and is shaped by a new Arab social, cultural and political practice.

  3. EXPLORING INTENTIONALITY. IDEOLOGICAL ROMANIAN MEDIA DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LUMINIŢA ROŞCA

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available This study examines the discursive practices of media “transition” from Romania 80’s and early 90’s in order to identify a pattern of the ideological discourse of transition. The pragmatic analysis is in line with recent studies that discuss media discourses in post-communist countries or “in transition” which led to new approaches and nuances of classical theories of the public sphere which we consider very important in the context of contemporary Romanian social discourse. The analysis of how to make the transition from “wooden language” to “informative discourse” of the Romanian media discourse focuses on intentionality describe in text linguistic as discursive component able to realize thematic choices, media discourse and attitude of media instances during the media process production. We also consider intentionality because it introduces in the discourse the component of journalist personality, with all that this may include: attitudes, training, professional conscience, and moral values. Understanding the mechanisms of intentionality in the media discourse production can lead to a more nuanced an complex understanding of the role of media in the production of meanings and the role of the journalist’s personality in media production

  4. Some Benefits of Corpora as a Language Learning Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marjanovic, Tatjana

    2012-01-01

    What this paper is meant to do is share illustrations and insights into how English learners and teachers alike can benefit from using corpora in their work. Arguments are made for their multifaceted possibilities as grammatical, lexical and discourse pools suitable for discovering ways of the language, be they regularities or idiosyncrasies. The…

  5. Exploring Flipped Classroom Effects on Second Language Learners' Cognitive Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jeong-eun; Park, Hyunjin; Jang, Mijung; Nam, Hosung

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the cognitive effects of the flipped classroom approach in a content-based instructional context by comparing second language learners' discourse in flipped vs. traditional classrooms in terms of (1) participation rate, (2) content of comments, (3) reasoning skills, and (4) interactional patterns. Learners in two intact…

  6. Paradox place: discourse line of nuclear sector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ponce, Iona

    2002-05-01

    This thesis examines the relationship between the public acceptance and image of nuclear energy and the discourse and arguments commonly employed by the nuclear institutions. In doing so, the Critical Discourse Analysis, the French Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics theories were used to evaluate important variables involved in the construction of the nuclear discourse such as social memory, intertextualilty and image construction. The analysis performed shows that the discourse in favor of the nuclear energy is in fact imbedded by the anti-nuclear discourse. As a consequence, the negative image of the nuclear sector is being reinforced at the same time that its public acceptance becomes more difficult. The core of this analysis consists of two sets of information. The first one is the Internet site of the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN). CNEN is the federal nuclear regulatory and research and development agency of Brazil. In this analysis it represents the discourse in favor of nuclear energy. The second set of information used in this thesis is composed by a number of texts displayed in the open literature such as newspapers, magazines and Internet sites, all of them expressing anti-nuclear positions. A careful comparison of both sets shows that the discourse of CNEN, instead of showing new ideas and issues related to nuclear energy, in fact, stays mainly in a reactive position as if it were trying to defend itself from the arguments posed by the anti-nuclear discourse. It was concluded that the discourse of CNEN is constrained within a complex field of non positive expressions, arguments and ideas mostly encountered in the anti-nuclear discourse which brings obvious difficulties to explain the benefits of nuclear energy as a whole. To overcome such situation a more detailed study of the CNEN discourse is suggested. (author)

  7. Ludwig Wittgenstein and Language Games (A Literary Application

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirela Arsith

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available The hypothesis which we assume is that a language cannot transform only one way, but more ways of seeing the world. Therefore, the speakers will not be stuck in a rigid framework of a single belief system. As the modes of discourse are changed, the speakers accomplish, constantly, ideological changes. As Ludwig Wittgenstein sustained, the “key” of our language is not in the mind but a way of life that pushes us towards certain ways of using signs, which are the language games. The approach that we started, namely to investigate various language games in the John Fowles’ novel The Magician, we have identified not only various types of language games, but, in the spirit of Austrian origin philosopher, we searched to make our expressions more accurate. We believe that according to the applications on the text The Magician, we were able to illustrate how Wittgenstein theme of “language games” can be exploited explicitly in the literature. What we showed is that between the activities called language games there are more relations of functional analogies or conceptual functionality.

  8. Discourses and Models of Intermediality

    OpenAIRE

    Schröter, Jens

    2011-01-01

    In his article "Discourses and Models of Intermediality" Jens Schröter discusses the question as to what relations do different discourses pose between different "media." Schröter identifies four models of discourse: 1) synthetic intermediality: a "fusion" of different media to super-media, a model with roots in the Wagnerian concept of Gesamtkunstwerk with political connotations, 2) formal (or transmedial) intermediality: a concept based on formal structures not "specific" to one medium but ...

  9. WORD USAGE OF КСИВА AND МАЛЯВА IN RUSSIAN CRIMINAL DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eugene Zubkov

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes the dynamics of usage of the lexical units ксива and малява (types of slip in Russian criminal discourse. We are led to believe that, despite the large variety in understanding of the term “discourse,” it can be defined as a sphere of human linguosemiotic experience which is determined by the pragmatics of activity carried out within it, the socio-psychological features of the participants of interactions, the specifics of time and space, and topics according to the methodology proposed by O. Leszczak. Nowadays, a growing interest in criminal discourse has been observed and implies “complex research on the discourse about crime, which enables better understanding of its participants, their criminal positions and functions, the problematics and issues for discussions about crime, along with its influence on modern criminology and crime prevention” (Жалинский 2009. All these factors should be taken into account, making the researcher verify the sources of language material in order to avoid distorting meanings in the word usage under study. This is caused by the notional sphere itself, which, in certain types of discourse, can be verbalized by the word group, which may be represented by a word expression, phrase, speech segment, etc. Words and word expressions considered as phraseological units of criminal discourse were analyzed in this paper.

  10. Constructing Israeli and Palestinian Identity: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of World History Textbooks and Teacher Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osborn, Daniel

    2017-01-01

    This research critically evaluates the depiction of Israelis and Palestinians in World History textbooks and World History teachers' instructional discourse. Employing a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis methodology, this study offers a comparison between written narratives and spoken discourse in order to analyze the portrayals found in…

  11. Early Science Instruction and Academic Language Development Can Go Hand in Hand. The Promising Effects of a Low-Intensity Teacher-Focused Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henrichs, Lotte F.; Leseman, Paul P. M.

    2014-11-01

    Early science instruction is important in order to lay a firm basis for learning scientific concepts and scientific thinking. In addition, young children enjoy science. However, science plays only a minor role in the kindergarten curriculum. It has been reported that teachers feel they need to prioritize language and literacy practices over science. In this paper, we investigate whether science lessons might be integrated with learning the language functional for school: academic language. The occurrence of scientific reasoning and sophisticated vocabulary in brief science lessons with 5-year-olds is evaluated. The aim of the study was twofold: first, to explore the nature of kindergarten science discourse without any researcher directions (pre-intervention observation). Second, in a randomized control trial, we evaluated the effect on science discourse of a brief teacher training session focused on academic language awareness. The science lessons focussed on air pressure and mirror reflection. Analyses showed that teachers from the intervention group increased their use of scientific reasoning and of domain-specific academic words in their science discourse, compared to the control group. For the use of general academic words and for lexical diversity, the effect was task-specific: these dependent measures only increased during the air pressure task. Implications of the study include the need to increase teachers' awareness of possibilities to combine early science instruction and academic language learning.

  12. The Role of social media discourses on stakeholder crises awareness and perception – A meta-theoretical framework

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Valentini, Chiara; Romenti, Stefania; Kruckeberg, Dean

    , such perspective is best suited to explain the relationships between publics and organizations in the online environment. According to this perspective, organizations are not the hub of stakeholder communications and interactions, but rather they are simply spikes in a more complex network. Public......This paper provides a meta-theoretical framework to examine social media communications and crisis communication in these social media through the lens of communicative constitution of reality. Our claim is that discourse and online conversations are significant in shaping publics’ opinions...... in social media, both in general and specifically in discussions about crisis situations. Therefore, studying language and discourse becomes paramount to understand how conversations structure relationships and public opinions. We approach this task through a network-based perspective because, we argue...

  13. DISCOURSE, REFERENCIATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF POLITICAL IDENTITY: THE CASE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thaysa Maria Braide de Moraes Cavalcante

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to undertake an analysis of identity construction of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS, North American movement that opposed the financial policy of capitalism and, consequently, the strong influence of the capital of the State. Thus, we aim to answer the question of how does the discursive construction of identity of this object of discourse, from the referential strategies mobilized in the text of the Statement of Autonomy, document approved by the General Assembly of movement. Our theoretical and methodological support consists of a link between the theory of discourse, the political scientist Ernesto Laclau (1990, 2011; LACLAU; MOUFFE, 2001 – especially his remarks about the relationship between discourse, antagonism and construction of political identities through an equivalence of logic –, and studies of referentiation from the perspective of authors such as Apothéloz e Reichler-Béguelin (1995, Koch (2005, 2015, Marcuschi (2007 e Ciulla e Silva (2008. Using as textual analysis category anaphoric expressions – without neglecting other elements, like some deictics, that interfere in the construction process of the discourse object in question – we attention to the fact that this construction sets the OWS as what Laclau calls empty significant whose identity is carved through the formation and expansion of a chain of equivalence, which is established from an antagonistic relationship. Finally, we discuss some issues concerning this identity construction mode in order to face the language not only as a way of materialization of social tensions but as the privileged place of social struggles brought about by these tensions.

  14. Mediating argumentative deconstruction of advertising discourses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Maier, Carmen Daniela

    exposes how the advertising discourse of various companies is articulated when promoting well known products and services in their commercials. The original advertising discourse is deconstructed and reconstructed with additional visual material in front of the viewers' eyes who are instructed by a voice......-over narrator what to look at and how to identify and decode the persuasive strategies employed. The present multimodal analysis focuses on the characteristic features of these Media Bites argumentative discourses that challenge the legitimacy of the original advertising discourses. Looking specifically...... the deceptive advertising messages.    ...

  15. Metaphors in the Press: The Effectiveness of Working with Newspaper Tropes to Improve Foreign Language Competence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zashchitina, Galina

    2013-01-01

    The given article intends to focus on some approaches to teaching English as a second language at an advanced or proficient level. The paper primarily deals with the ways in which stylistic aspect of newspaper language can be put to use by university students thus becoming an integral part of their classroom discourse. The study aims at presenting…

  16. Discourse Interpretation: A Deconstructive, Reader-oriented Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ayman Farid Khafaga

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper is based on the premise that discourse is always under the influence of different ideological readings which not only formulate its meaning but inspire various interpretations as well; hence, it needs a theoretical cover that could justify its multiplicity of meaning. This paper, therefore, discusses the possibility of introducing a deconstructive, reader-oriented approach (DRA to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA as a model of discourse interpretation. The paper tries to appraise the theoretical framework of CDA and to offer an overview of the fundamental propels of its interpretative task in the light of two poststructuralist literary theories: the deconstruction theory and the reception theory. The paper also endeavours to emphasize the deconstructive nature of CDA by shedding lights on its relationship with the above mentioned theories. The conclusion drawn from this paper shows that introducing a deconstructive, reader-oriented approach to CDA is relevant to the latter's interpretative nature enough to diminish a part of the criticism levelled against its interpretative framework concerning plurality of meaning; and to establish some sort of exoneration for its theoretical shortcomings. The paper recommends that DRA will bridge the gap between theory and practice as it offers a theoretical base to discourse which could advocate its critiques regarding diversity of interpretation.

  17. Collaboration: The key to integration of language and content in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This contribution enters into dialogue with studies conducted both at school and university level on the effectiveness of interaction between subject teachers and language teachers to improve learners' subject-specific discourse literacies. An overview is given of the key findings of a report by the National Center for Literacy ...

  18. Cognitive Contributions to Plurilithic Views of English and Other Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Christopher J.

    2013-01-01

    Monolithic views of languages predominate in linguistics, applied linguistics, and everyday discourse. The World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca, and Critical Applied Linguistics frameworks have gone some way to counter the myth, highlighting the iniquities it gives rise to for global users and learners of English. Here, I propose that…

  19. Contribution of Oral Language Skills, Linguistic Skills, and Transcription Skills to Chinese Written Composition among Fourth-Grade Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeung, Pui-sze; Ho, Connie Suk-han; Chan, David Wai-ock; Chung, Kevin Kien-hoa

    2013-01-01

    The present study aimed to investigate the contribution of oral language skills, linguistic skills, and transcription skills to Chinese written composition among Grade 4 students in Hong Kong. Measures assessing verbal working memory, oral language skills, linguistic skills (i.e., syntactic skills and discourse skills), transcription skills (i.e.,…

  20. REPRESENTATION OF DIFFERENCES IN BRAZILIAN JOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernando Resende

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available Considering the technological advance, which enhances the
    production of mediatic discourses, and the notion of a libidinal power installed in our globalized societies, reflecting upon representation of differences seems to be a major issue. This essay discusses the production of journalistic discourses from an epistemological perspective. The field of media is taken as constituted by a triple component – discourse/narrative/machines – and we suggest that this triad has proved to be incomplete: discourse and narrative, once they really are vertexes of the triangle, are absences. Two journalistic-documentary productions – which intend to represent life in the slums of Brazil – are compared in order to reflect upon representation of differences in Brazilian journalistic discourse. In view of the up-to-date polarization and pulverization of discourses, we suggest that in the perspective of the journalistic discourse, one can only speak about alterity if one tries to comprehend the ways news is staged.

  1. Representation of differences in Brazilian journalistic discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernando Resende

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Considering the technological advance, which enhances the production of mediatic discourses, and the notion of a libidinal power installed in our globalized societies, reflecting upon representation of differences seems to be a major issue. This essay discusses the production of journalistic discourses from an epistemological perspective. The field of media is taken as constituted by a triple component – discourse/narrative/machines – and we suggest that this triad has proved to be incomplete: discourse and narrative, once they really are vertexes of the triangle, are absences. Two journalistic-documentary productions – which intend to represent life in the slums of Brazil – are compared in order to reflect upon representation of differences in Brazilian journalistic discourse. In view of the up-to-date polarization and pulverization of discourses, we suggest that in the perspective of the journalistic discourse, one can only speak about alterity if one tries to comprehend the ways news is staged.

  2. The Study on the Interpersonal Meanings of Modality in Micro-blogging English News Discourse by the case of “Donald Trump’s Muslim Entry Ban”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhai Rui

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available News is a kind of writing style, which is so valuable that many linguists choose it to study. This thesis aims to conduct a systemic analysis of modality type, value and orientation under the framework of Halliday’s Systemic-functional Grammar in order to explore the interpersonal meanings of modality in English news discourse. The research data is drawn from micro-blogging official platforms, among which 20 pieces of news discourse in all are selected to establish a small type of corpus. All the 20 pieces of news discourse are taken from the micro-blogging in 1.20 to 2.20 of 2017. All the news is about “Donald Trump’s Muslim Entry Ban” (A ban made by Donald Trump, which claimed that Muslim can’t enter America. Meanwhile, both qualitative and quantitative research methods are adopted to discover the distribution of modality in micro-blogging news discourse and its interpersonal meanings, and hence to deepen people’s cognition and understanding on micro-blogging news discourse. Through a detailed analysis, the study has a lot of findings. We found that modality language is widely used in micro-blogging news. From the perspective of modality type, reporters prefer to use finite modal adjunct such as will in the type of modulation to show their emotional attitude of the target thing. From the perspective of modality value, we can see that median value is the most popular among three values for reporters, and “will” and “would” are the most popular expressions that express the speaker’s expectations, willingness and determination or the reporter’s views, attitudes on the possibility of a certain event. Meanwhile, from the perspective of modality orientation, the speaker or writer tends to use implicit objective orientation in order to show objectiveness of the news discourse and get rid of writers’ responsibilities. This paper attempts to analyze modality in micro-blogging English news discourse from the perspective of

  3. Critical discourse analysis of social justice in nursing's foundational documents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valderama-Wallace, Claire P

    2017-07-01

    Social inequities threaten the health of the global population. A superficial acknowledgement of social justice by nursing's foundational documents may limit the degree to which nurses view injustice as relevant to nursing practice and education. The purpose was to examine conceptualizations of social justice and connections to broader contexts in the most recent editions. Critical discourse analysis examines and uncovers dynamics related to power, language, and inequality within the American Nurses Association's Code of Ethics, Scope and Standards of Practice, and Social Policy Statement. This analysis found ongoing inconsistencies in conceptualizations of social justice. Although the Code of Ethics integrates concepts related to social justice far more than the other two, tension between professionalism and social change emerges. The discourse of professionalism renders interrelated cultural, social, economic, historical, and political contexts nearly invisible. Greater consistency would provide a clearer path for nurses to mobilize and engage in the courageous work necessary to address social injustice. These findings also call for an examination of how nurses can critique and use the power and privilege of professionalism to amplify the connection between social institutions and health equity in nursing education, practice, and policy development. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  4. The Robbers and the Others – A Serious Game Using Natural Language Processing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Toma, Irina; Brighiu, Stefan Mihai; Dascalu, Mihai; Trausan-Matu, Stefan

    2018-01-01

    Learning a new language includes multiple aspects, from vocabulary acquisition to exercising words in sentences, and developing discourse building capabilities. In most learning scenarios, students learn individually and interact only during classes; therefore, it is difficult to enhance their

  5. Science Students' Classroom Discourse: Tasha's Umwelt

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arnold, Jenny

    2012-04-01

    Over the past twenty-five years researchers have been concerned with understanding the science student. The need for such research is still grounded in contemporary issues including providing opportunities for all students to develop scientific literacy and the failure of school science to connect with student's lives, interests and personal identities. The research reported here is unusual in its use of discourse analysis in social psychology to contribute to an understanding of the way students make meaning in secondary school science. Data constructed for the study was drawn from videotapes of nine consecutive lessons in a year-seven science classroom in Melbourne, post-lesson video-stimulated interviews with students and the teacher, classroom observation and the students' written work. The classroom videotapes were recorded using four cameras and seven audio tracks by the International Centre for Classroom Research at the University of Melbourne. Student talk within and about their science lessons was analysed from a discursive perspective. Classroom episodes in which students expressed their sense of personal identity and agency, knowledge, attitude or emotion in relation to science were identified for detailed analysis of the function of the discourse used by students, and in particular the way students were positioned by others or positioned themselves. This article presents the discursive Umwelt or life-space of one middle years science student, Tasha. Her case is used here to highlight the complex social process of meaning making in science classrooms and the need to attend to local moral orders of rights and duties in research on student language use, identity and learning in science.

  6. We only talk about breast feeding: a discourse analysis of infant feeding messages in antenatal group-based education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jennifer, Fenwick; Elaine, Burns; Athena, Sheehan; Virginia, Schmied

    2013-05-01

    the aim of the study was to examine the dominant discourses that midwives draw on to present information on breast feeding in group-based antenatal education sessions. breast-feeding initiation rates are high among Australian women however, duration rates are low. Antenatal breast-feeding education is considered a key strategy in promoting breast feeding to childbearing women. The efficacy and effectiveness of such a strategy is equivocal and there is little qualitative work examining group-based antenatal breast-feeding education. discourse analysis was used to explore the language and practises of midwives facilitating group antenatal breast-feeding education sessions at two Australian maternity facilities. Nine sessions were observed and tape recorded over a 12 month period. Each session lasted between 60 and 140 mins. the analysis revealed four dominate discourses midwives used to promote breast feeding during group-based antenatal education session. The predominant discourses 'There is only one feeding option': breast feeding' and 'Selling the 'breast is best' reflected how midwives used their personal and professional commitment to breast feeding, within supportive and protective policy frameworks, to convince as many pregnant women as possible to commit to breast feeding. Sessions were organised to ensure women and their partners were 'armed' with as much information as possible about the value of breastmilk, successful positioning and attachment and practical strategies to deal with early breast-feeding problems. Antenatal commitment to breast feeding was deemed necessary if women were to overcome potential hurdles and maintain a commitment to the supply of breast milk. The latter two discourses, drawn upon to promote the breast-feeding message, presented infants as 'hard wired' to breast feed and male partners as 'protectors' of breast feeding. midwives clearly demonstrated a passion and enthusiasm for breast-feeding education. Examining the dominant

  7. Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available When native speakers of English write, they employ both grammatical rules and collocations. Collocations are words that are present in the memory of native speakers as ready-made prefabricated chunks. Non-native speakers who wish to acquire native-like fluency should give appropriate attention to collocations in writing in order not to produce sentences that native speakers may consider odd. The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL among Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. To measure the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse, there was a 60-minute task of writing story  based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year which indicate substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency.  The vital implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of writing.

  8. Acceptance of dying: a discourse analysis of palliative care literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zimmermann, Camilla

    2012-07-01

    The subject of death denial in the West has been examined extensively in the sociological literature. However, there has not been a similar examination of its "opposite", the acceptance of death. In this study, I use the qualitative method of discourse analysis to examine the use of the term "acceptance" of dying in the palliative care literature from 1970 to 2001. A Medline search was performed by combining the text words "accept or acceptance" with the subject headings "terminal care or palliative care or hospice care", and restricting the search to English language articles in clinical journals discussing acceptance of death in adults. The 40 articles were coded and analysed using a critical discourse analysis method. This paper focuses on the theme of acceptance as integral to palliative care, which had subthemes of acceptance as a goal of care, personal acceptance of healthcare workers, and acceptance as a facilitator of care. For patients and families, death acceptance is a goal that they can be helped to attain; for palliative care staff, acceptance of dying is a personal quality that is a precondition for effective practice. Acceptance not only facilitates the dying process for the patient and family, but also renders care easier. The analysis investigates the intertextuality of these themes with each other and with previous texts. From a Foucauldian perspective, I suggest that the discourse on acceptance of dying represents a productive power, which disciplines patients through apparent psychological and spiritual gratification, and encourages participation in a certain way to die. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Towards criterion validity in classroom language analysis: methodological constraints of metadiscourse and inter-rater agreement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Douglas Altamiro Consolo

    2001-02-01

    Full Text Available

    This paper reports on a process to validate a revised version of a system for coding classroom discourse in foreign language lessons, a context in which the dual role of language (as content and means of communication and the speakers' specific pedagogical aims lead to a certain degree of ambiguity in language analysis. The language used by teachers and students has been extensively studied, and a framework of concepts concerning classroom discourse well-established. Models for coding classroom language need, however, to be revised when they are applied to specific research contexts. The application and revision of an initial framework can lead to the development of earlier models, and to the re-definition of previously established categories of analysis that have to be validated. The procedures followed to validate a coding system are related here as guidelines for conducting research under similar circumstances. The advantages of using instruments that incorporate two types of data, that is, quantitative measures and qualitative information from raters' metadiscourse, are discussed, and it is suggested that such procedure can contribute to the process of validation itself, towards attaining reliability of research results, as well as indicate some constraints of the adopted research methodology.

  10. The relationship between identity, language and teaching and learning in Higher Education in South Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leibowitz, Brenda

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available he study on the relationship of identity, language and teaching and learning was conducted by a team of eight members at a higher education institution in the Western Cape. The aims of the research were to investigate the relationship between language, identity and learning, to show how this investigation can benefit dialogue about transformation, and to facilitate the research development of the team. The research design made use of narrative and educational biography in semi-structured interviews with 64 staff members and 100 students. The study supports views of identity as constructed and non-unitary. It shows how language, both as proficiency in the dominant medium of communication and as discourse, is a key component of identity in a higher education institution. The interviews demonstrated how, according to lecturers and students, language and discourse function as primary influences on individuals’ acculturation and integration into the academic community. According to the interviewees, language as a marker of identity is interwoven with other aspects of identity. It is both a resource and a source of identification and affiliation. The research demonstrated that dialogue and self reflection can be facilitated via research into identity, teaching and learning, and that this can be beneficial for both the interviewees and the research team.

  11. Whose Education Policies in Aid-Receiving Countries? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Quality and Normative Transfer through Cambodia and Laos

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCormick, Alexandra

    2012-01-01

    Critical discourse analysis of policy contexts and documents has been employed in this research to analyze the role of language in promoting normative positions affecting the quality of education in Cambodia and Laos. The article examines the ways institutional normative influences at multiple levels within the Education for All (EFA) program have…

  12. Analysis of word number and content in discourse of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Lira, Juliana Onofre; Minett, Thaís Soares Cianciarullo; Bertolucci, Paulo Henrique Ferreira; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

    2014-01-01

    Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by impairments in memory and other cognitive functions such as language, which can be affected in all aspects including discourse. A picture description task is considered an effective way of obtaining a discourse sample whose key feature is the ability to retrieve appropriate lexical items. There is no consensus on findings showing that performance in content processing of spoken discourse deteriorates from the mildest phase of AD. Objective To compare the quantity and quality of discourse among patients with mild to moderate AD and controls. Methods A cross-sectional study was designed. Subjects aged 50 years and older of both sexes, with one year or more of education, were divided into three groups: control (CG), mild AD (ADG1) and moderate AD (ADG2). Participants were asked to describe the "cookie theft" picture. The total number of complete words spoken and information units (IU) were included in the analysis. Results There was no significant difference among groups in terms of age, schooling and sex. For number of words spoken, the CG performed significantly better than both the ADG 1 and ADG2, but no difference between the two latter groups was found. CG produced almost twice as many information units as the ADG1 and more than double that of the ADG2. Moreover, ADG2 patients had worse performance on IUs compared to the ADG1. Conclusion Decreased performance in quantity and content of discourse was evident in patients with AD from the mildest phase, but only content (IU) continued to worsen with disease progression. PMID:29213912

  13. Analysis of word number and content in discourse of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juliana Onofre de Lira

    Full Text Available Alzheimer's disease (AD is characterized by impairments in memory and other cognitive functions such as language, which can be affected in all aspects including discourse. A picture description task is considered an effective way of obtaining a discourse sample whose key feature is the ability to retrieve appropriate lexical items. There is no consensus on findings showing that performance in content processing of spoken discourse deteriorates from the mildest phase of AD.OBJECTIVE:To compare the quantity and quality of discourse among patients with mild to moderate AD and controls.METHODS: A cross-sectional study was designed. Subjects aged 50 years and older of both sexes, with one year or more of education, were divided into three groups: control (CG, mild AD (ADG1 and moderate AD (ADG2. Participants were asked to describe the "cookie theft" picture. The total number of complete words spoken and information units (IU were included in the analysis.RESULTSThere was no significant difference among groups in terms of age, schooling and sex. For number of words spoken, the CG performed significantly better than both the ADG 1 and ADG2, but no difference between the two latter groups was found. CG produced almost twice as many information units as the ADG1 and more than double that of the ADG2. Moreover, ADG2 patients had worse performance on IUs compared to the ADG1.CONCLUSIONDecreased performance in quantity and content of discourse was evident in patients with AD from the mildest phase, but only content (IU continued to worsen with disease progression.

  14. Analysis of word number and content in discourse of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Lira, Juliana Onofre; Minett, Thaís Soares Cianciarullo; Bertolucci, Paulo Henrique Ferreira; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

    2014-01-01

    Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by impairments in memory and other cognitive functions such as language, which can be affected in all aspects including discourse. A picture description task is considered an effective way of obtaining a discourse sample whose key feature is the ability to retrieve appropriate lexical items. There is no consensus on findings showing that performance in content processing of spoken discourse deteriorates from the mildest phase of AD. To compare the quantity and quality of discourse among patients with mild to moderate AD and controls. A cross-sectional study was designed. Subjects aged 50 years and older of both sexes, with one year or more of education, were divided into three groups: control (CG), mild AD (ADG1) and moderate AD (ADG2). Participants were asked to describe the "cookie theft" picture. The total number of complete words spoken and information units (IU) were included in the analysis. There was no significant difference among groups in terms of age, schooling and sex. For number of words spoken, the CG performed significantly better than both the ADG 1 and ADG2, but no difference between the two latter groups was found. CG produced almost twice as many information units as the ADG1 and more than double that of the ADG2. Moreover, ADG2 patients had worse performance on IUs compared to the ADG1. Decreased performance in quantity and content of discourse was evident in patients with AD from the mildest phase, but only content (IU) continued to worsen with disease progression.

  15. When Worldviews Collide: What Linguistic Style Matching and Distal Language Reveal about Deception in Political Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Booker, Lucille M.

    2012-01-01

    Political discourse is an observable, measurable, and testable manifestation of political worldviews. However, when worldviews collide, notions of truth and of lies are put to the test. The challenge for researchers is how to establish confidence in their analysis. Despite the growing interest in deception research from a diversity of fields and…

  16. The effectiveness of discourse-based intervention on personal narrative of school-aged children with borderline intelligence quotient

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    Belghis Rovshan

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: Discourse-based interventions were studied less in speech therapy. This study aimed to investigate the effects of discourse-based intervention on language disabilities in school-aged children with borderline intelligence quotient (IQ.Methods: In an experimental study, 33 students at the age of 6-13 years with borderline intelligence quotient (17 students for intervention and 16 students for control group were selected with available sampling. The intervention lasted 14 sessions (every session: 45 minutes that focused on the structure and content of discourse. Personal narrative was elicited with explanation of the same topic (go to a trip for pre- and post-test.Results: Mean scores of intelligence quotient, age and education had no difference between the two groups. The intervention caused the increase of compound sentences (p=0.038, types of cohesive conjunctions (p=0.003, and related information (p=0.008 and decrease of ungrammatical sentences (p=0.031.Conclusion: Our findings indicate that participation in the intervention program has a clinically significant effect on the participants' abilities to produce personal narrative.

  17. Words for a linguistic ideal: naming formal varieties in the history of Spanish language

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    Lola Pons Rodríguez

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this work is to examine the variations in naming formal varieties of language. It offers an overview of the changes in its characterisation, construction and qualification through the names which have been associated with it in the course of the history of Spanish. These names point to distinctions found at the universal level of language and manifested in the historical language through terms resulting from codes of western rhetoric or discourse universes such as magnitudes, artistic criticism or external composition.

  18. Critical Discourse Analysis of Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie Part II”

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    Arbain Arbain

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This study is to analyze songs from Eminem which is related to his life story. In examining the songs, the researchers used the three inter-related processes of analysis tied to three inter-related dimensions of discourse proposed by Faiclough’s model of CDA. This study applied qualitative design with the content analysis approach. The analysis of this research focused on the words used such as African American Vernacular English variety, Informal language and American slang in the lyrics of the song Love The Way You Lie Part II and explain them. The result findings showed that there was a transcultural process or cross cultural in the song lyrics. There was a hiphop culture which was moved, changed and reused to create a new identity of the Eminem. There were 25 words and clauses of AAVE, 3 words of Informal language and 1 word of American slang language in the lyrics of the song of Love The Way You Lie.

  19. Stylistics Analysis in Advertising Discourse: A Case of the Dangote Cement Advertisement in Bamenda- Cameroon

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    Seino Evangeline Agwa Fomukong

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available There are many purposes for using language which determine how the writer or speaker   chooses words, syntactic expressions and figurative language. This is as a result of the fact that language has a very powerful effect over people, their actions and thoughts. This is seen in the use of language in various discourse types which include advertisements. The powerful influence language has on people therefore makes encoders to be choosy in the use of language, especially in advertisement because they have to persuade the readers. Consequently they make the language of advertisements positive and emphasize on the superiority of their products. This study discusses the advertisement of Dangote Cement on billboards in Bamenda, North West Region, Cameroon, analysing what is communicated, how it is communicated and the interpretation.  The analysis used as tools the Textual Conceptual Functions as given by Jeffries (2016, uncovering ideologies and social meanings expressed in Dangote Cement advertisement using the following apparatus: prioritisation, implying and assumption, listing, naming and description. The study has emphasized the structural analysis and the role of context to reveal functions and underlying meanings of the text. It also concludes that the advertisers use different stylistic devices that carry positivity, and a common ground that makes the readers identify with the advertisements, urging them go for the Dangote Cement. Keywords: stylistics, language, context, advertisements, ideologies, Dangote

  20. Linking Discourse and Space

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Richardson, Tim; Jensen, Ole B.

    2003-01-01

    The aim of the paper is to explore how spatialities are contructed in spatial policy discourses and to explore how these construction processes might be conceptualised and analysed.......The aim of the paper is to explore how spatialities are contructed in spatial policy discourses and to explore how these construction processes might be conceptualised and analysed....

  1. The Priority of Listening Comprehension over Speaking in the Language Acquisition Process

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Fang

    2011-01-01

    By elaborating the definition of listening comprehension, the characteristic of spoken discourse, the relationship between STM and LTM and Krashen's comprehensible input, the paper puts forward the point that the priority of listening comprehension over speaking in the language acquisition process is very necessary.

  2. The Iranian Foreign Language Practitioners‟ Perspectives about Iran‟s Foreign Language Education Policy

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    Naser Rashidi

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The present study was conducted to identify the perceptions of the Iranian foreign language practitioners about Iran‟s foreign language education policy within a systemic functional linguistics approach. To this end, 8 Iranian male and female foreign language practitioners were interviewed and asked to talk about what they thought about Iran‟s foreign language policy. The findings obtained from analysing the process types and participants employed by the Iranian foreign language practitioners within a systemic functional linguistics approach point out that the FLEP document is heavily influenced by and draws on well entrenched ideological, historical, religious, economic, and political discourses. Further investigations within a systemic functional linguistics approach indicate that the Iranian teachers believed that while English is a tool for understanding cultural exchanges and transferring technological advances, achieving these goals through the teaching of English is sometimes problematic within an absolute Islamic framework. The findings obtained from a transitivity analysis for the Iranian foreign language practitioners by subjecting their responses to the questions on the interviews to a systemic functional linguistics approach are also indicative of the Iranian foreign language teachers‟ loyalty to the “the younger, the better” belief. Likewise, course content was a topic for controversy. Some of the practitioners believed that course content should be developed around a variety of topics. Whereas others asserted that the inclusion of different topics in the foreign language education policy document may increase the workload on the part of the teachers. Other issues such as culture, the Islamic ideology, and imperialism were identified as causes of different understandings among the Iranian foreign language practitioners as well.

  3. Probabilistic modeling of discourse-aware sentence processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dubey, Amit; Keller, Frank; Sturt, Patrick

    2013-07-01

    Probabilistic models of sentence comprehension are increasingly relevant to questions concerning human language processing. However, such models are often limited to syntactic factors. This restriction is unrealistic in light of experimental results suggesting interactions between syntax and other forms of linguistic information in human sentence processing. To address this limitation, this article introduces two sentence processing models that augment a syntactic component with information about discourse co-reference. The novel combination of probabilistic syntactic components with co-reference classifiers permits them to more closely mimic human behavior than existing models. The first model uses a deep model of linguistics, based in part on probabilistic logic, allowing it to make qualitative predictions on experimental data; the second model uses shallow processing to make quantitative predictions on a broad-coverage reading-time corpus. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  4. Discourse, Paragraph, and Sentence Structure in Selected Philippine Languages. Final Report. Volume I, Discourse and Paragraph Structure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Longacre, Robert E.

    Twenty-five Philippine languages and dialects were studied to determine the manner in which words, clauses, sounds, and sentences group together to make up units larger than the sentence. Data obtained were analyzed according to tagmemic theory. The introduction to this volume (see also AL 002 032 and AL 002 033) gives a brief orientation to the…

  5. [Discourse analysis: research potentialities to gender violence].

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Azambuja, Mariana Porto Ruwer; Nogueira, Conceição

    2009-01-01

    In the last few years we see the growing use of the terms 'discourse' and 'discourses analysis' in academic and research contexts, frequently without a precise definition. This fact opens space for critics and mistakes. The aim of this paper is to show a brief contextualization of discursive studies, as well as tasks/steps to Discourse Analysis process by the Social Construcionism perspective. As examples we used fragments of an interview with a Family Doctor about gender violence. In the results we detach the potential of Discourse Analysis to deconstruct the existing discourses to subsequently (re)construction in the way to a more holistic view about gender violence problem.

  6. Navigating Hybridized Language Learning Spaces through Translanguaging Pedagogy: Dual Language Preschool Teachers' Languaging Practices in Support of Emergent Bilingual Children's Performance of Academic Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gort, Mileidis; Sembiante, Sabrina Francesca

    2015-01-01

    In recent years, there has been a growing interest among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in early bilingual development and the unique role of the educational setting's language policy in this development. In this article, we describe how one dual language preschool teacher, in partnership with two co-teachers, navigated the tensions…

  7. Creation and (Re)presentation of Historical Discourse in Isle of Passion by Laura Restrepo

    OpenAIRE

    Daniela Melis

    2011-01-01

    Published in Colombia in 1989, but neglected until the author’s later distinction, Laura Restrepo’s first novel, Isle of Passion , focuses on historical facts, as well as on the issues that arise when the impact of events is articulated in official discourse. This study—drawing from Walter Mignolo’s idea of decolonial theory—explores how Restrepo’s attempt to rewrite history following “an-other logic, an-other language, an-other thinking” contributes to the decolonization of knowledge, being...

  8. A discourse analysis methodology based on semantic principles - an application to brands, journalists and consumers discourses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luc Grivel

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available This is a R&D Paper. It describes an analysis coming from a research project about opinion measurement and monitoring on the Internet. This research is realized within "Paragraphe" laboratory, in partnership with the market research institute Harris Interactive (CIFRE grant beginning July 2010. The purpose of the study was to define CRM possibilities. The targets of the study were self-employed workers and very small businesses. The discourses analysis is linked to a qualitative study. It turns around three types of discourses: brands, journalists and clients’ discourses. In the brand discourses analysis we benchmarked brand websites belonging to several businesses. In this first step, we tried to identify the most used words and promises by brands to the target we were studying. For that benchmark, we downloaded "Professionals" sections of the websites. Clients’ discourses analysis is based on opened answers coming from satisfaction questionnaires. The questions we are studying have been asked after a call to a hot line or after a technician intervention. Journalists’ discourses analysis is based on articles, published on information websites specialized in Harris Interactive's client sector. These websites were chosen because we considered them to be representative of information sources, which the target could consult.

  9. Discourse of globalization

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    Balažić Milan

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the process of globalization has been understood as a necessary fate. The myth of the almightiness of the market economy, liberalization and deregulation is revitalized. Before us, there is a phenomenon Lacan’s discourse of University, which in 20 century was firstly given as a Stalinist discourse and today is given as a neo-liberal discourse of globalization. From underneath og a seeming objectivity, a Master insists-either the Party and the Capital. Just as the utopia of the world proletarian revolution has fallen apart, the utopia of globalize capitalism and liberal democracy is also falling apart. The 9/11 event is opening opportunities for a construction of the field of social and political, out of the contour of the status quo. The coordinates of the possibility has changed and if we take the non-existence of the grand Autre on ourselves, then the contingence interference in the existent socio-symbolic order is possible.

  10. Pedagogical discourses in Bhutanese upper secondary schools

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Keller, Hanne Dauer; Utha, Karma

    2017-01-01

    two pedagogical discourses in our analysis of the Bhutanese school system: The traditional cognitive learning discourse and an alternative, experience-based discourse. The theoretical framework is then used in our analysis of empirical data from classroom observations and semi-structured interviews...

  11. Pedagogical discourses in Bhutanese school system

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Keller, Hanne Dauer; Utha, Karma

    2013-01-01

    In this article we distinguish between three pedagogical discourses in our analysis of the Bhutanese school system. The results point to the dominance of the traditional cognitive discourse, but occasionally the teacher's unilateral control of the teaching-learning process is shared with the stud......In this article we distinguish between three pedagogical discourses in our analysis of the Bhutanese school system. The results point to the dominance of the traditional cognitive discourse, but occasionally the teacher's unilateral control of the teaching-learning process is shared...... with the students. On a value basis the teachers agree with the pedagogical ideal of student centered learning which is in line with an experiential learning discourse. In addition students tell about how they go to the better students, rather than to the teacher, for help. This behavior, where peers are used...... as ‘teachers’, points to a third understanding of how learning is undertaken, which builds on the social ressources of the local community of practice. Despite these smaller variations, the overall picture is that the underlying discourse of the Bhutaneese school system is in accordance with a traditional...

  12. Corpus-based critical discourse analysis as a method of exploring underlying ideologies and self-representation strategies in legal texts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Potts, Amanda; Kjær, Anne Lise

    that legal language can be subjective and emotive. The semantic field of ‘crime’ is an expected key, but concordance analysis shows ideological skew in discursive construction of crimes/victims. For instance, ‘rape’/‘sexual assault’ co-occurs with female victims, whereas ‘torture’/‘outrages upon personal......Legal language is an integral and foundational party of our social reality, but it is underrepresented in interdisciplinary, critical linguistic analyses. This is perhaps because language is more objective and formulaic than media texts, which can be more subjective and emotive (Kjær and Palsbro......, 2008). In this paper, I demonstrate how a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of legal language can expose hidden traces of the underlying ideologies of text creators, while demonstrating how identity can be performed in legal texts. Research is based on a half-million-word corpus of annual...

  13. Teaching in a foreign language

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Preisler, Bent

    2008-01-01

    to teach in English, after always teaching in their mother tongue in the past? This paper introduces some of the issues in a presentation of three "teacher voices of the international university" in Denmark - pointing out, in particular, some of the theoretical and methodological difficulties......The internationalization of universities puts pressure on all educational programs to use English as the language of instruction. Therefore research on the internationalization of universities in EFL countries[1] should obviously include a strong (though far from exclusive) focus on the impact...... of English. This paper is an example of this, focusing specifically on teacher discourse in an English-language context at a Danish university. It is part of the preparation for a project investigating the relationship between linguistic performance and academic authority for university teachers teaching...

  14. Credibility Discourse of PR Agencies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Isaksson, Maria; Jørgensen, Poul Erik Flyvholm

    2008-01-01

    to giving assurance of their expertise, trustworthiness and empathy, thus confirming our overall expectation that corporate credibility discourse is relatively uniform from a European perspective. However, contrary to our assumptions, the results of our study show that PR credibility discourse demonstrates...

  15. Functions of repetition in the discourse of elderly speakers: The role of prosody and gesture

    OpenAIRE

    Bolly, Catherine; Gerstenberg, Annette; 14th International Pragmatics Conference (IPra), Panel session "Age and language use"

    2015-01-01

    Cognitively speaking, repetition can work as a facilitator for both the planning and the understanding of spoken language. It can work as a cohesive and interactive device or, at a higher-level function of discourse, to engage in interaction by creating interpersonal involvement: repetition always conveys altered meaning, as it has to be re-interpreted by the interlocutor “in light of the accretion, juxtaposition, or expansion” (Tannen 2007: 62). Repetition is thus useful for the building of ...

  16. From translation to navigation of different discourses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Livonen, Mirja; Sonnenwald, Diane H.

    1998-01-01

    ' own search experience. Data further suggest that searchers navigate these discourses dynamically and have preferences for certain discourses. Conceptualizing the selection of search terms as a meeting place of different discourses provides new insights into the complex nature of the search term...

  17. Snake oil, silver buckshot, and people who hate us: metaphors and conventional discourses of wood-based bioenergy in the rural southeastern United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarah Hitchner; John Schelhas; J. Peter  Brosius

    2016-01-01

    Multiple experiences and sources of information influence ideas about wood-based bioenergy, and people often use similar language to reference various discourses (e.g., energy independence, rural development, environmental sustainability). We collected data during ethnographic research in three primary and three secondary field sites in the southeastern...

  18. Mobile-Based Chatting for Meaning Negotiation in Foreign Language Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castrillo, María Dolores; Martín-Monje, Elena; Bárcena, Elena

    2014-01-01

    This paper analyzes the adequacy of mobile chatting via Whatsapp for the enhancement of a type of spontaneous and colloquial written interaction which has a strong connection with oral discourse. This is part of a research project undertaken with Spanish students of German as a foreign language with a beginner's or quasi-beginner's level. The…

  19. Planning for Development or Decline? Education Policy for Chinese Language in Singapore

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao Lan

    2014-01-01

    This article examines how political discourse, language ideologies, recent Chinese curriculum reforms, and their representations in the media are inextricably related. Using the "Speak Mandarin Campaign" as background for the inquiry, I focus on textual features of the various media sources, TV advertisements, campaign slogans, official…

  20. The Language of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Gerry Adams vs. Ian Paisley

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kim Grego

    2010-03-01

        The discourse analysis of the texts collected is supported by computer-aided analysis. Two aspects are being focussed on, in particular: 1 the use of same/different linguistic resources by the same orators to discuss same/different subjects over the years; and 2 the overall influence of language on politics, i.e. how words are used to exercise power.     It is hoped that the present study may help clarify aspects of the evolution of political discourse in Northern Ireland, in general, and of the argumentative skills and strategies of the above two politicians, in particular.