Cultural Discourse Research Articles

This Is Your Voice on T

Trans bodies and lives—and by extension, voices—are at the forefront of contemporary cultural, legislative, and political discourses in the United States and beyond. In this article, I apply a disability lens to concerns about exogenous testosterone (T) and transmasculine vocality, as well as larger anxieties around the transmasculine body as constructed or even irreversibly damaged. Inspired by the use of bodymind as a term in disability studies and activism, I propose bodyvoice as a term in vocal studies to express that the body, voice, and perceptions around them are often interdependent. On social media, the photographic transition timeline constructs a stagnant, binary, before-and-after narrative in contrast to the more fluid sonic transition timeline, in which trans people on T record and display a series of vocal changes, either spoken or sung, over time. The sonic transition timeline functions as a vital way of sharing embodied transvocal knowledge in an increasingly hostile climate.

Street art and the disruption of the expected

One of the most powerful aspects of street art is its potential to disrupt the expectations that we have about certain spaces and also how it urges us to question why those expectations existed in the first place. Street art interventions are often intended to make the viewer think about the space in which the intervention is produced, and how the identity of that space has been formed, along with the normalized behaviours that correlate with that space. This article examines recent examples of street art interventions created by Mobstr, Olafur Eliasson and Selma Selman and places them in contextual lineage with similar spatial interventions by Guy Debord, Christian Philipp Müller, Will Self and Keri Smith which attempt to disrupt the expected usages, experiences and identities of various spaces. Throughout this presentation, it is demonstrated that each of these projects should be considered political acts because they subvert the cultural regulative discourses and established societal hierarchies that exist in distinct spaces.

The External Construction of the Socialist Cultural Discourse System with Chinese Characteristics under the Threshold of Harmonizing Heterogenesis Translatology—Take the Cultural View of Harmonizing Heterogenesis Translatology as an Example

This paper, based on the theory of Harmonizing Heterogenesis Translatology, explores the expression of the Chinese socialist cultural discourse system in external construction. By analyzing the practice of Harmonizing Heterogenesis Translatology in international cultural exchanges and its contribution to the enhancement of cultural soft power, it reveals the external perspective of the Chinese socialist cultural discourse system. The study found that the application of Harmonizing Heterogenesis Translatology in international communication can effectively disseminate China's cultural values, enhance China's cultural soft power, and contribute to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. Therefore, this research is of great theoretical and practical significance for strengthening the external dissemination of the Chinese socialist cultural discourse system and promoting the enhancement of cultural soft power.

Englishes in China: Evolution and Recognition in World Englishes

This study offers an in-depth examination of the development of “China English” (CE) within the framework of World Englishes (WE). Tracing the historical trajectory of English in China, from its origins in Chinese Pidgin English to the contemporary manifestations of CE, the paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of its various stages. Situating CE within the broader context of WE, the study engages in debates regarding its recognition as a distinct variety of English. Moreover, it investigates the process of nativization of CE, highlighting its phonological features, lexicon enriched with cultural nuances and discourse patterns shaped by sociocultural dynamics. Despite ongoing debates surrounding the legitimacy of CE, the paper argues that its evolution conforms to established parameters of nativization, thereby establishing it as a legitimate variant within the global landscape of English. Beyond linguistic examination, the study emphasizes the significant role of CE in facilitating international English communication amidst China's expanding global influence. By delving into the intricate interplay of language, culture, and identity in our interconnected world, this research provides valuable insights into the evolving dynamics of global communication.

Translating Identity in Leila Abouzeid’s Return to Childhood

This paper delves into the intricate process of translating migrant literature, using Leila Abouzeid’s autobiography Return to Childhood as its case study. Beyond merely examining the multifaceted mechanics of translation, it uncovers the profound significance embedded within this process. By navigating linguistic disparities and cultural nuances, translators, it avers, play a pivotal role in bridging gaps between cultures. By employing a detailed analytical framework, the study elucidates how translation serves as a dynamic catalyst for cultural transformation. In so doing, it seeks to catch the delicate balance between preserving cultural identity and catering to the expectations of diverse audiences. Additionally, the paper underscores the pivotal role of migrant authors as agents of cultural hybridization. Through their translated works, they challenge dominant cultural narratives and dismantle stereotypes, enriching the cultural landscape with diverse perspectives. Moreover, the discussion delves into the inherent power dynamics of translation, emphasizing its primordial role in fostering cross-cultural understanding and disrupting monolithic cultural identities. In fine, this study illuminates the transformative potential of translation in shaping cultural discourse and promoting inclusivity on a global scale.

Public discourse and wilful incommensurability: a case for attentive free speech.

Many thinkers lament the decline of liberal democracy. Some argue that, to rejuvenate it, we must think big. Thinking big involves generating new ideas about how to achieve an unprecedented level of social transformation aimed at cultivating solidarity, empowering citizen efficacy, and promoting the common good. We propose that fundamental to such a transformation must be a radical change in how people speak to one another. To this end, the primary objective of this paper is to offer a framework for understanding how speech currently erodes democratic engagement. The central idea is that much of speech today both reflects and perpetuates a culture of wilful incommensurability. The core features of this culture are totalizing safetyism, expressive safetyism, dismissive intransigence, and polarized alienation, all of which have been worsened by the current trajectory of social media. The result is that people are increasingly prone to engage in degraded free speech, which is characterized by a pervasive aversion to reach out, identify points of unity, benefit from diverse perspectives, and discover truth in all its potential complexity. In view of this diagnosis and the response of those who advocate for freedom of speech, a second objective of this paper is to introduce the concept of attentive free speech. Attentive free speech has similarities with civil discourse but is specifically characterized by discernment and thoughtfulness and is imbued with key dispositions such as courage, reverence, and love. We end by inviting future research into how such speech can promote the social and spiritual health of the public sphere and freedom itself at a practical level.

Witnessing the Architecture of a Cancellation: The Silencing of Voices on Palestine in Austrian Academia

This article analyzes the cancellation of a public lecture by Palestinian scholar, Walaa Alqaisiya, during a curatorial program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in May 2022 due to false accusations of antisemitism in the context of anti-Palestinian racism in Austria. We speak of an ‘architecture’ because we analyze the questions of power, (in)visibility and erasure from the point of view of the public and institutional spaces, asking who can speak, about what and for whom, when? As a collective of former participants, we write from an implicated positionality that we call ‘participatory witnesses:’ the program ceased to be an abstract exploration of decolonial and queer/feminist perspectives, and transformed us affectively and politically, forcing us to critically respond to the censorship. We start by summarizing the unfolding of events and introducing the figure of the participatory witness and the concept of architecture. Then, we turn to Austrian academia’s climate of censorship of Palestinian perspectives. From this context, we analyze Alqaisiya’s cancellation through the prism of Euromodern Orientalist tropes, disciplinary strategies and civilizational discourses employed to continue the marginalization and exclusion of Palestinian perspectives. We pay particular attention to the significance of silencing queer Palestinian voices in the context of Israeli pinkwashing. Finally, we mnemonically map our attempts at navigating the architecture, negotiating between reclaiming public visibility for queer Palestinian perspectives and collective acts of refusal and delinking.

Exploring the Interplay between Writing Practices and Identity Formation in Academic Contexts

In academic settings, the relationship between writing practices and identity formation is a cornerstone of scholarly inquiry. As individuals engage in writing, they convey information and construct and negotiate their identities within disciplinary, cultural, and linguistic frameworks. This review paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of existing scholarship on the intricate relationship between writing practices and identity formation in academic contexts. Drawing upon a systematic analysis of 30 studies, the paper illuminates the complex interplay between language, culture, and academic discourse in shaping authorial identities. Key themes explored include conceptualizing writing as an act of identity construction, the challenges faced by distinct student populations in establishing authorial voices, disciplinary variations in identity formation, and pedagogical implications for academic writing instruction. The review integrates diverse theoretical frameworks, such as sociocultural perspectives, academic literacy approaches, and integrationist models, offering a nuanced understanding of the mechanisms underlying identity construction through writing. Furthermore, this review also identifies gaps and potential avenues for future research, including the need for longitudinal studies, the exploration of individual agency in identity formation, and the examination of emerging technologies and interdisciplinary collaborations. Ultimately, this synthesis adds to ongoing conversations about how writing practices affect identity formation. It does this by informing teaching methods and institutional policies that support positive identity development among diverse academic communities.

Historiographic imaginary and hypotheses of heredity in the configuration of Romanian cultural identity

This paper analyses the ways in which Romanian culture struggles to forge, at the level of historical and cultural discourse, an identity, a “personality”, and a specificity. It observes, within the process of forging its identity through a series of avatars, the discursive strategies through which specificity is revealed as an essential form of national uniqueness as well as the compensatory trends of identity fabrication. The paper also attempts to highlight the forms of historical and literary mystification through which, over time, Romanian culture responded to complexes related to its age, identity, belatedness, heredity, legitimacy, etc. Thus, the analysis reveals that, in essence, all the efforts, complexes and myths through which an identity was negotiated at the level of the histories of literature and Romanian historiographical texts betray, in fact, the same spectrum of the Identity-Otherness dialectic. Romanian culture, like other emerging cultures, was forced, first to survive and, later, in order to have a potential for prosperity, to define itself as a distinct entity by relating to the surrounding cultural reality, its growth and evolution taking place either under the sign of antagonism (i.e. a refusal of allogeneic import), or under that of synchronism (as permeabilization with regard to foreign influence), but, necessarily, as a reference to the Other. Moreover, the paper highlights, at the discursive level, the two main poles that have obsessively polarized the questions of descent and heredity within Romanian culture: its Roman and Dacian ancestries. The nuanced intentions underpinning the cultural need for international recognition by means of belonging as well as differentiation are discussed in the process.

‘Who is the ideal woman?’: The subjectification of impoverished Javanese working mothers

AbstractThis study examines the subjectification of working mothers through the lens of intersectionality by listening to the under‐represented voices of those whose lives are shaped at the intersections of gender, poverty, Islam, and Javanese ethnicity. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist discourse analysis, the subtle subjectification process is observed through conversational interactions in which working mothers construct the ‘ideal woman’. The findings challenge the predominant postfeminist framing in the extant literature by illustrating how here working mothers draw on a specifically local discourse (i.e., moderate‐Islam and Javanese cultural discourses) to construct the ideal woman as embodying the dual wife‐mother identities. Based on these locally dependent discourses, working mothers accentuate their identity as wives while subduing identities as mothers and workers. The emphasis on the underexplored wife identity imbues work with a distinct significance for mothers within this context.

PEDAGOGICAL REGIONAL STUDIES AS INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

The article reveals the peculiarities and prospects for the development of pedagogical regional studies as interdisciplinary scientific knowledge and a multidimensional phenomenon of education, culture, and science. It was established that in the conditions of modern social changes, the need for the crystallization of national identity as the basis of Ukrainian statehood, the historical and cultural approach plays an important role in the training of future specialists – citizens of Ukraine. Among the modern trends in the development of Ukrainian education and pedagogy is the actualization of regional research, which is manifested in the appeal of scientists to various aspects of pedagogical local history, microhistory, etc. The regional approach is based on highlighting the patterns of development of national education and pedagogical thought on little-known, unique regional materials. One of the aspects of such a regional approach is the subject of research in pedagogical regional studies – interdisciplinary knowledge about the peculiarities of the development of education, science, pedagogical thought, the culture of the region, the study, preservation and creative use of regional pedagogical experience in the theory and practice of modern educational institutions, scientific institutions, institutions of the social sphere . The authors analyzed the experience of the Scientific and Research Center of Pedagogical Local Studies operating at the Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University. In 2022, with the aim of updating regional scientific problems, studying little-known pages of pedagogical local history, scientists of the Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University launched a new research project – «Education, schooling and pedagogical thought of Cherkasy region». The purpose of the project is to present to the public the achievements of Ukrainian and foreign pedagogical science and of education, consolidating biographical and bibliographic information about teachers, educators, teachers in the form of an informational and bibliographic electronic resource «Pedagogical Cherkasy» and a popular science reference book. It has been established that the relevance of regional scientific issues is enhanced by the multidimensionality and interdisciplinary nature of pedagogical regional studies as a pedagogical, historical, and social phenomenon that requires a thorough study in order to present it representatively in the modern interdisciplinary historical and cultural discourse – educational, social-pedagogical, historical-pedagogical, etc.

Investigating the Educational Challenges Related to Cultural Competence Faced by Iraqi Nursing College Students

English for specific purpose is becoming increasingly considerable in various sectors, including medical sectors. Although numerous studies have investigated the effectiveness of such programs o n cultural competence behaviors and client outcomes, limited research has explored professionals' perceptions of cross-cultural educational representations (such as cultural consciousness and cultural competence) and the magnitude to which they and their administrations implement these values in preparation. In light of this gap, this study is directed to investigate the perceptions of healthcare professionals regarding customarily competent care, their involvements with multicultural patients, their own levels of cultural competence, and the degree to which they believe their cultural competencies discourse multicultural encounters. Data for this study are collected from a sample of 56 healthcare professionals affiliated with a Baghdad university in Iraq, representing various healthcare systems. A 19-item questionnaire, consisting of open-ended inquiries and multiple-choice items, is used to gather participants' perspectives and experiences. The majority of participants seem to perceive cross-cultural education primarily from a "cultural awareness" perspective. They emphasize on the importance of possessing practical cultural knowledge, such as understanding norms and customs, and facilitating communication through the use of interpreters. The study participants pay little attention to the principles of systemic cross-cultural approaches, such as cultural competence, cultural safety, and addressing issues like racism, power imbalances, and biases ingrained in the majority culture. Additionally, the need for self-reflection and awareness of personal prejudices was rarely acknowledged.

Safe water as empowerment, structural dilemma, and savior: conflicting discourses about arsenic groundwater contamination in West Bengal

ABSTRACT This essay explores the conflicting discourses circulated ‘on the ground’ in rural West Bengal regarding blame, water, and health. We take a culture-centered approach that builds on environmental health communication literature through qualitative research with health workers and rural community members living with arsenicosis. Local discourses about structural dilemmas and water as savior/medicine reveal important practical and cultural considerations to water contamination solutions in West Bengal. This study makes three key contributions. First, we illuminate how empowerment discourses reinforce neoliberal and lifestyle theories of health while concealing important realities connected to water contamination and water access. Second, we demonstrate how cultural discourses of water as a savior disrupt Eurocentric health narratives and argue for free, decommodified water. Third, we argue that the narratives based on people’s lived illness experiences could be used to foster solidarity with healthcare workers and should be the basis of practical solutions to create water access.

A Classification Essay on Islamic Poetry in New Turkish Literature

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to define Islamic poetry, explore its analytical methodology, and provide examples that illustrate its thematic concepts within modern Turkish poetry. Methods: To achieve these objectives, the study employs the document analysis method, which is a qualitative research approach. The analysis focuses on modern Turkish poetry, examining examples across eight distinct categories of Islamic poetry. Results: The analysis of Islamic poetry within modern Turkish literature reveals its diverse manifestations across various thematic categories. These include Islamist Poetry, Turkish-Islamic Poetry, Sufi Poetry, Islamic Mystical Poetry, Islamic Metaphysical Poetry, Islamic Cultural Poetry, Religious Poetry, and Islamic Romantic Love Poetry. Each category is exemplified with a poem, showcasing the rich tapestry of Islamic sensibility, motivation, and thematic concepts present in modern Turkish poetry. Conclusion: In conclusion, this study highlights the enduring influence of Islam on Turkish poetry, both historically and in contemporary times. Through the exploration of Islamic poetry across different thematic categories, the study illustrates the depth and breadth of Islamic sensibility within modern Turkish literature. The researchers' conclusions drawn from the analysis further contribute to our understanding of the role of Islamic poetry in shaping cultural and literary discourse in Turkey.

Trolling as a Disruptive Tool for Human Rights Violations: An Exploration of the Challenges Faced by Performance Artists

The proliferation of online platforms and digital tools has introduced both opportunities and challenges for individuals, particularly within the realm of social media. While platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. have served as avenues for cultural, social, economic, educational, state-run, and political discourse, they have also facilitated the emergence of paranoiac phenomena, such as trolling. This paper delves into the portrayal of trolling as a disruptive technological tool and cultural phenomenon in Bangladesh, specifically targeting TV actors, theatre performers, and local rural artists. The study highlights the pervasive use of trolling as a means to harass, criticize, and intimidate artists online. It reveals how trolling not only violates the human rights of these artists but also undermines their creativity, credibility, and sense of belonging within society. For methodological justification, it has employed a mixed-method research approach incorporating questionnaire surveys administered to 38 participants, interviews with two aspiring artists, three theatre artists, and three students studying theatre and performance studies, and analysis of social media comments. The paper unravelled that trolling is used exclusively as an online harassment tool to embarrass performance artists in Bangladesh. It underscores the detrimental impact of trolling, leading to psychological distress, depression, and alienation among targeted artists. In response to these challenges, the paper offers recommendations aimed at empowering artists to confront and combat online harassment, thereby safeguarding their well-being and fostering a more supportive digital environment conducive to artistic expression and innovation.

Research on the Actual Sentence Partition and Translation of Chinese Cultural Landscape Discourses Based on Natural Language Processing Technology

In recent years, ChatGPT has been extensively applied across various fields, with translation being one of them. The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology on the translation process. The research method involved utilizing the concept of Actual Sentence Partition (ASP) within the framework of Function Sentence Perspective (FSP). ASP, introduced by V. Mathesius, the founder of the Prague School, divides sentences into the point of departure and the nucleus of an utterance, providing insights into their communicative and semantic characteristics. Conversely, Formal Sentence Division (FSD) solely focuses on marking grammatical elements without identifying the correct ASP, resulting in ambiguity and inaccuracy. In Chinese discourse, incomplete sentences are commonly observed, including the omission of known information and the use of multiple clauses. Consequently, when translating from Chinese to English, it is crucial to appropriately visualize the hidden information in Chinese and analyze Chinese discourse using ASP to reconstruct its equivalent in English. The findings of this study emphasize the significance of ASP in translation. By understanding the ASP, translators can better comprehend the intention and meaning behind Chinese discourse, ensuring a more accurate and faithful representation in English. Therefore, the application of ASP in translation serves as a valuable tool for bridging the linguistic and cultural gaps between languages. In conclusion, ASP, as a pivotal concept in FSP, offers a comprehensive framework for understanding and translating complex sentence structures in Chinese discourse. By utilizing ASP, translators can capture the communicative and semantic nuances of Chinese sentences, leading to more accurate and effective translation outcomes..

Making The Future School: An Analysis of Teens' Collaborative Digital Fabrication Project

Maker culture emphasizes informal, networked, self- and peer-led learning, motivated by fun and self-fulfillment, and learning through mistakes. However, studies often describe activities involving a lot of guidance. As guidance may lead to both the process and outcomes influenced by those guiding the activity, it is also important to examine how projects evolve without the supporters' push. We take a nexus analytical approach to explore 1) how teens' background, interactions with others, and available materials and spaces are at play when they shape their ideas and outputs in a collaborative maker project with minimal support, and 2) how these factors can be considered to better support learning in such projects. The work carried out by five teens in a local FabLab was based on peer collaboration within changing apprentice mentor pairs. When they ideated and prototyped for a future school, researchers provided minimal support, mainly online. Without their push, teens quickly modified tasks which both guided and narrowed down their thinking. Their experiences from school environment and the FabLab space served as an inspiration as they designed solutions to overcome current problems in the current school setting or digital fabrication process. When making, they gravitated towards processes they had previous experience of or which they enjoyed, perhaps partly affected by the competing discourses of maker culture and expertise we observed to be present in the FabLab space. While building on existing skillsets, this may leave the potential of novel trajectories and expanding one's skills and competences unexplored. Teens' self-esteem improved as they turned from apprentices to mentors for their peers. This allowed them to process their learning from a different perspective. In general, our results paint a detailed picture of the roles of different participants in a maker project and provide an example of how familiar discourses of education persist in teens' designs. Looking at the project through the lens of Nexus analysis contributes to an increased understanding of the space for action and participants' histories, and interactions on the process, valuable for researchers studying DF and making, and practitioners working in makerspaces and FabLabs with different user groups. On a more practical level, our work contributes to a deeper understanding on how to include teens into non-guided and community-driven maker practices. We provide practical implications on how to support learning in collaborative making projects in informal learning situations, and regarding the role of the different actors and the environment in such situations. We also identify avenues for future research in this area.

Angela Carter and Recreating Femininity in The Bloody Chamber: A Semiotic Analysis

Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" stands as a transformative work in feminist literature, challenging entrenched gender norms and reshaping the landscape of contemporary storytelling. This paper delves into Carter's narrative prowess, exploring how her reimagining of traditional myths serves as a potent critique of patriarchal structures. Employing a qualitative research approach, this study utilizes a comprehensive literature review to analyse Carter's contributions to feminist discourse and the critical reception of her seminal work. Drawing on postmodern literary theories, particularly Roland Barthes's theory of myths, the paper examines Carter's deconstructive approach to storytelling and its implications for feminist literary criticism. Through meticulous analysis of Carter's narrative techniques, thematic preoccupations, and engagement with feminist discourse, this study offers fresh insights into the enduring relevance of "The Bloody Chamber" in contemporary literary studies. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of Carter's literary interventions and their broader implications for gender representation and cultural discourse.

Symbiosexual Attraction: An Integrated Mixed-Methods Study

A recent review of cultural and academic discourse presented evidence that some people experience attraction to two (or more) people in a preexisting relationship. This phenomenon, symbiosexuality, is understudied in the field of sexuality. Lack of recognition and validation for this attraction, including in the polyamorous community, may be negatively impacting those who experience symbiosexual attraction. I conducted an integrated mixed-methods analysis of secondary data from the 2023 The Pleasure Study to learn more about symbiosexual attraction. Findings from this study support the hypothesis that people experience symbiosexual attraction, which they describe as an attraction to the energy, multidimensionality, and power shared between people in relationships. Further, findings from this study indicate that a diverse group of people experience symbiosexual attraction and, while unanticipated, symbiosexual attraction can be a strong, frequent, and/or pervasive experience. These findings push the boundaries of the concepts of desire and sexual orientation in sexuality studies and challenge the ongoing invisibility and invalidation of and stigma and discrimination against such attractions, within both the polyamorous community and our broader mononormative culture.

Disabled influencers on Instagram: exploring digital celebrity and marginalised identities

ABSTRACT This article illuminates the nexus of social media, celebrity, and marginalised identities by examining the phenomenon of disabled influencers. Since the late 2010s, disability representations in media, culture, and public discourse have increasingly moved away from stigmatising stereotypes. Disabled influencers have emerged as new voices in this landscape but, so far, exploration of their work has been limited. To address this gap, this study explores how 15 diverse fashion influencers with visible impairments address disability in their personal brands, whether they frame themselves as advocates for disability rights, and investigates their relationships with both followers and commercial brands. Through a content analysis of one year worth of Instagram posts (N = 1,429) and profile information, we outline the strategies these influencers use to make disability central to their online personas, explore their multi-layered relationship with brands, identify their distinct but somewhat limited voice in disability advocacy, and highlight their engagement strategies with digital publics. Drawing on disability and celebrity scholarship, this work provides insights on how the use of participatory platforms like Instagram intersects with the changing demands and expectations of celebrity, generating both opportunities and constraints for traditionally marginalised groups.