Context Of Communication Research Articles

The encoding of speech modes in motor speech disorders: whispered versus normal speech in apraxia of speech and hypokinetic dysarthria

ABSTRACT Speakers with motor speech disorders (MSD) present challenges in speech production, one of them being the difficulty to adapt their speech to different modes. However, it is unclear whether different types of MSD are similarly affected when it comes to adapting their speech to various communication contexts. This study investigates the encoding of speech modes in individuals with AoS following focal brain damage and in individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) secondary to Parkinson’s disease. Participants with mild-to-moderate MSD and their age-matched controls performed a delayed production task of pseudo-words in two speech modes: normal and whispered speech. While overall accuracy did not differ significantly across speech modes, participants with AoS exhibited longer response latencies for whispered speech, reflecting difficulties in the initiation of utterances requiring an unvoiced production. In contrast, participants with HD showed faster response latencies for whispered speech, indicating that this speech mode is easier to encode/control for this population. Acoustic durations followed these same trends, with participants with AoS showing greater lengthening for whispered speech as compared to controls and to participants with HD, while participants with HD exhibited milder lengthening. Contrary to the predictions of speech production models, suggesting that speech mode changes might be particularly difficult in dysarthria, the present results suggest that speech mode adaptation rather seems particularly costly for participants with AoS.

It's better to die before dishonour: Linguistic creativity and the negotiation of meaning in the Nigerian Army community of practice

This article investigates emblematic language use and the negotiation of meaning with particular emphasis on generative mechanisms like jargon and slang in two Nigerian Army barracks in Calabar municipality, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria. The study is anchored in a linguistic ideology framework which is grounded in beliefs and values people have towards explicit and implicit language use in a particular communicative context. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic data sourced through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants who were purposively sampled, the authors argue that jargon and slang are indexical linguistic resources that enable military personnel to create diverse new meanings in the informal linguistic ecology of the army. We conclude that beyond helping to create a new linguistic convention in the barracks, jargon and slang also facilitate the construction of professional identity, enact inclusion/exclusion and sustain dominant values and professional ethos. The study focuses on ways of interpreting the specificity of the military world and the reality of dominance through the prism of these linguistic specimens. Jargon and slang, therefore, offer a firmer lens to appreciate the army's social universe and subjectivities, and more broadly to enhance an understanding of contextually embedded social practices in the military.

Applying machine learning to assess emotional reactions to video game content streamed on Spanish Twitch channels

This research explores for the first time the application of machine learning to detect emotional responses in video game streaming channels, specifically on Twitch, the most widely used platform for broadcasting content. Analyzing sentiment in gaming contexts is difficult due to the brevity of messages, the lack of context, and the use of informal language, which is exacerbated in the gaming environment by slang, abbreviations, memes, and jargon. First, a novel Spanish corpus was created from chat messages on Spanish video game Twitch channels, manually labeled for polarity and emotions. It is noteworthy as the first Spanish corpus for analyzing social responses on Twitch. Secondly, machine learning algorithms were used to classify polarity and emotions offering promising evaluations. The methodology followed in this work consists of three main steps: (1) Extracting Twitch chat messages from Spanish streamers’ channels related to gaming events and gameplays; (2) Processing and selecting the messages to form the corpus and manually annotating polarity and emotions; and (3) Applying machine learning models to detect polarity and emotions in the created corpus. The results have shown that a Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers (BERT) based model excels with 78% accuracy in polarity detection, while deep learning and Random Forest models reach around 70%. For emotion detection, the BERT model performs best with 68%, followed by deep learning with 55%. It is worth noting that emotion detection is more challenging due to the subjective interpretation of emotions in the complex communicative context of video gaming on platforms such as Twitch. The use of supervised learning techniques, together with the rigorous corpus labeling process and the subsequent corpus pre-processing methodology, has helped to mitigate these challenges, and the algorithms have performed well. The main limitations of the research involve category and video game representation balance. Finally, it is important to stress that the integration of machine learning in video games and on Twitch is innovative, by allowing the identification of viewers’ emotions on streamers’ channels. This innovation could bring benefits such as a better understanding of audience sentiment, improving content and audience retention, providing personalized recommendations and detecting toxic behavior in chats.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CLITIC PRONOUN 'ME' IN PERSONAL LETTERS FROM TWO NORTHEASTERN REGIONS

This paper describes the syntactic-discursive behavior of the pronoun me in two epistolary materials from two different regions of Northeastern Brazil: Sertão of Pernambuco and Recôncavo in Bahia. Theoretically, this article is based on the Functionalism theories in linguistics, namely: Hopper and Thompson (1980), Neves (2012), Fuzer and Cabral (2014), and Halliday and Matthiessen (2014). It is also supported by the Valence Theory Grammar, which is approached according to: Neves (2000), Welker (2005), Perini (2007), and Rodrigues (2007). As part of its research methodology, the following steps were carried out: the selection of the contexts in which the phenomenon appears in the corpora, the collection of the socio-historical data regarding the missivists', the grammatical classification of the pronoun me, and the analysis of the verbal valence, accordingly with the assumptions of Functionalism. As a result of the analysis of the functionalities of the clitic me, it was observed that traditional grammars and descriptive grammars do not cover the particularities of the ethical dative pronoun, as they do not mention its capacity to be a discursive particle, a zero-switchable element in the sentence structure, not an actant, but in the communicative context it positions the writer and it can be associated with matters of morality and affection.

Developing the visual competency in the students’ project activity

Modern visual culture requires established skills of visual competency from all participants in communication. These skills are necessary, among other things, for creating educational, informational, advertising, and other materials. However, such skills are not always formed during training at universities. Even in the training program for future communication specialists, visual competency is rarely the goal of the study, make the same mistakes occur often in the students’ projects.The students’ visual competency developing methodology proposed in the article is based on the analysis and development of the visual concept of a communication project. The author generalized her own experience of working with students in the direction of training 43.03.01 “Advertising and Public Relations” in the Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin.Modern approaches to the formation of competencies necessary for working with visual images in the digital environment are analyzed and systematized: ICT competencies, media literacy, visual literacy, and communicative competency. A set of practical tasks with methodological guidelines for setting the goal and objectives of the project, analyzing the context of communication, collecting visual materials, and creating a visual image of the project is proposed. By the method of systematization of project and didactic tasks, the components of visual competency are revealed.The scientific novelty of the research consists of revealing the didactic content of all stages of developing the visual concept of the project and systematizing the components of visual competency. The presented set of tasks can be applied in practical ICT classes and students’ project activities. The revealed system of visual competency components can be used in the development of methodological recommendations. The article is addressed to media pedagogues, students conducting project activities, as well as specialists implementing communication projects using visual media

Unpredictable digital intimacies and virtual backstabbing: the feminist coalition’s political effect in Nigeria

Abstract This article explores digital intimacies within Nigeria’s networked political discourse, focusing on the resurgence of the Feminist Coalition (FemCo), known for their involvement in Nigeria’s 2020 #EndSARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) movement against police brutality, as feminist political subjects during the 2023 election campaigns. It analyzes Twitter-networked interactions as FemCo was unexpectedly thrust into hypervisibility when asked to endorse Peter Obi, the Labor Party’s presidential candidate, despite prior criticism of their #EndSARS activism. Employing close feminist reading and social network analysis of Twitter data, informed by a contextual feminist/computational approach, this article explores how processes of unpredictable digital intimacies and virtual backstabbing unfold when feminist political subjects are exploited by opposing clusters online. Investigating how affects circulate and transform feminist political subjects into bodies of hate/value, this article sheds light on the affective contexts of political communication in Nigeria, beset by a range of actors, including, activists, influencers, and citizen-users, wielding central power.

Analyzing the Role of Culture in TEFL Pedagogy and Its Implications for Language Teaching

This research investigates the role of culture in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) pedagogy and its implications for language teaching. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative interviews with educators and focus groups with students to explore how cultural integration impacts learner motivation, engagement, and communicative competence. Educators and students from diverse cultural backgrounds participated in the study. Educators, selected for their experience in TEFL and cultural content integration, were interviewed to understand their perspectives on cultural integration strategies and perceived impacts on students. Meanwhile, student focus groups provided insights into their experiences with culturally integrated lessons and their development of intercultural competence. Qualitative data analysis involved thematic coding of interview transcripts and focus group discussions, while quantitative data from surveys assessed attitudes towards cultural integration and its frequency in teaching practices. Results indicate that while educators vary in their integration approaches—ranging from daily to infrequent—literature, music, and traditional customs are commonly integrated elements. Students overwhelmingly perceive cultural integration positively, noting increased motivation and a deeper understanding of language contexts. Findings highlight the critical role of cultural awareness in enhancing language learning outcomes, fostering intercultural competence, and preparing learners for global communication contexts. Recommendations include enhancing teacher training in cultural competence and expanding resources to support diverse cultural content in TEFL curricula.

Publishing strategies and professional demarcations: Enacting media logic(s) in European academic climate communication through open letters

Abstract The mediatization concept rests on the increasing centrality of media in everyday spheres. Within academia, mediatization is explored in various ways, such as through the use of social media, news media, and researchers’ adoption of certain media logic(s). While many studies focus on media logic(s) as an explanatory device, it can also be seen as a contextual relationship between actors enacted for various purposes. This paper explores how academics enact media logic(s) in climate communication and for what purpose. By drawing on interviews with initiators of open letters on climate change, this paper illustrates that media logic(s) is evoked as a publishing strategy and a way to demarcate academics from news media journalists. The study thus suggests a conceptual shift from debates about what media logic(s) is to what it does in specific communication contexts.

Terminology in the domain of seafood: A comparative analysis Germany-Spain

In the last few decades, the study of terminology has undergone a cognitive shift that has led to the development of several approaches that study the social, linguistic, and cognitive dimension of terms, such as Communicative Theory of Terminology (CTT) and Frame-Based Terminology (FBT). CTT was developed in the early 1990s and argues that the study of terminology should be based on a communicative perspective, taking into account aspects such as the communicators and the context of communication. FBT has been developed from 2007 and uses certain aspects of Frame Semantics to conceptualise specialised domains and create non-language-specific representations through the analysis of the domain event and on the study of the behaviour of the terminological units in texts. The two theories share many of the same premises and propose the representation of the concepts of a domain in an ontology. FBT also proposes a representation in frames. We explore how these two methods of domain representation can be used to represent the terminology of the domain of seafood in Germany and Spain.

The Influence of Sexism and Incivility in WhatsApp Political Discussions on Affective Polarization: Evidence from a 2022 Multi-Party Election in India

In contemporary political discourse, the concern of affective polarization, often fueled by uncivil and sexist discourse, is notably evident in digital communication contexts like WhatsApp. In this study, we examined the potential effects of uncivil and sexist messages as well as moderator interventions against these messages coming from political in- and out-group members in such political groups through a survey experiment ( N = 1,464) fielded during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh (India) Legislative Assembly Elections. We investigate these questions and extend the prior work on affective polarization by introducing a new measure of Average Inter-party Affective Distance, which provides a single metric to index overall polarization in a multi-party election context. Our results showed that exposure to sexist uncivil messages had no discernible effect on affective polarization, political participation, and voting intention. Additionally, moderator warnings against incivility had no significant effects. However, we observed a variation in how respondents processed these messages based on their preexisting attitudes; notably, individuals with less sexist views were more inclined to vote after being exposed to sexist uncivil messages. These findings suggest that the influence of incivility and sexism in messaging platforms like WhatsApp on the wider electorate’s political behavior and attitudes is relatively limited. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of digital political communication, highlighting the importance of message content and preexisting individual differences in shaping affective polarization and mobilization.

Exploring Online Communication in Self-Identified Autistic Adolescents.

Social media sites provide autistic youth a familiar space to interact that is devoid of many of the challenges that accompany face-to-face interactions. As such, it is important to determine whether the linguistic profiles observed during online interactions are consistent with face-to-face interactions. This preliminary study took a step in this direction by examining gender differences observed in autistic adolescents in an online forum to determine whether they are consistent with the emerging body of research investigating linguistic gender differences in autistic adolescents. We analyzed the entries of self-identified autistic adolescents in an online forum to determine whether autistic girls (n = 99) and boys (n = 94) differ in their use of linguistic features as a proportion of total words produced. Transcriptions were coded across discourse, lexical, and semantic features and compared to previous research investigating linguistic gender differences in autistic people. Exploratory comparisons were also made to linguistic gender differences in neurotypical people. Of the linguistic features we examined, three out of four of the gendered usage patterns observed in the online forum language samples were consistent with previous research on face-to-face communication for autistic adolescents. Only one feature out of 12 occurred in the same gender distribution as previous research on neurotypical communication. Autistic girls and boys demonstrate largely consistent gender differences in their language use across in-person and online communication contexts. Interestingly, most of the significant gender differences previously reported in neurotypical communicators were not seen in this sample of autistic adolescents, suggesting that perhaps autistic individuals may linguistically express gender characteristics to a different extent or in a different manner than neurotypical individuals.

THE UTILIZATION OF CODE-SWITCHING AMONG STUDENTS IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

This study aimed to investigate and analyze the application of code-switching by students enrolled in the English Department. The research employed a quantitative descriptive methodology, utilizing a questionnaire to collect data from students who actively incorporated code-switching in their daily interactions on campus. Results indicated that students in the English Department employed code-switching in various communication contexts, including informal class conversations, campus interactions, and social engagements beyond the campus boundaries. The primary motives behind the use of code-switching were identified as the need for self-expression, enhanced comprehension, and adaptation to social and cultural settings. Furthermore, the research findings highlighted that the prevalent code-switching pattern involved shifts between English and Indonesian languages, particularly emphasizing the use of specific phrases or words lacking direct equivalents in the target language. This research contributes to a more profound comprehension of the code-switching phenomenon among English Department students, shedding light on its implications in social, cultural, and educational domains. Recommendations derived from this study emphasize the importance of adopting a more creative approach to language learning that accommodates the diverse linguistic backgrounds of students.

V-Mail: 3D-Enabled Correspondence About Spatial Data on (Almost) All Your Devices.

We present V-Mail, a framework of cross-platform applications, interactive techniques, and communication protocols for improved multi-person correspondence about spatial 3D datasets. Inspired by the daily use of e-mail, V-Mail seeks to enable a similar style of rapid, multi-person communication accessible on any device; however, it aims to do this in the new context of spatial 3D communication, where limited access to 3D graphics hardware typically prevents such communication. The approach integrates visual data storytelling with data exploration, spatial annotations, and animated transitions. V-Mail "data stories" are exported in a standard video file format to establish a common baseline level of access on (almost) any device. The V-Mail framework also includes a series of complementary client applications and plugins that enable different degrees of story co-authoring and data exploration, adjusted automatically to match the capabilities of various devices. A lightweight, phone-based V-Mail app makes it possible to annotate data by adding captions to the video. These spatial annotations are then immediately accessible to team members running high-end 3D graphics visualization systems that also include a V-Mail client, implemented as a plugin. Results and evaluation from applying V-Mail to assist communication within an interdisciplinary science team studying Antarctic ice sheets confirm the utility of the asynchronous, cross-platform collaborative framework while also highlighting some current limitations and opportunities for future work.

‘We really enjoyed doing the extracurricular transmedia stuff’: How I Met Your Mother and the beginnings of transmedia in the sitcom genre

The sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–14) applies a narrative with a transmedia perspective, using advertising techniques that had been unusual for its genre up to that point. We refer to the reverse product placement tool as a technique to expand the narrative in a ground-breaking way through books apparently written by one of the characters in the series. This study explores the communicative dimensions applied by its developers through an exploratory-descriptive methodology that offers a qualitative analysis. We conduct a bibliographic study alongside an exclusive interview with the co-creator of the series, Carter Bays. Consequently, our study dissects the communicative process from a semantic and advertising perspective with an international reach. Finally, the results identify a paradigmatic case that takes advantage of the communicational context to build a transmedia narrative, giving rise to an intertextual and parasocial interpretation.

Utilizing Social Media in Communicating in English as a Second Language

Social media is a powerful tool in communicating in English as a second language, its utilization affecting students in meaningful ways. The purpose of this study was to ponder issues and nuances in utilizing social media in second-language communication. Data constituted memoirs and introspections, drawn heavily from personal experiences of the author-participant in an online learning course at an open university, highlighting the use of the English language in virtual meetings with classmates, the teacher, and friends, utilizing synchronous and asynchronous modes. Dialectical tensions emanating from the narratives indicate that social media utilization offers learning facilitation in mediated communication. However, technology creates learning difficulties such as chunking sentences into small words and phrases, replacing words with acronyms, giving rise to incorrect spelling and grammar usage, which lead to faulty sentence construction. These are juxtaposed with social media’s capacity to broaden learning opportunities due to the high presence of the English language in social media networks, maximize technological capacity to auto-correct spelling errors, provide suggestions for proper phrasing and sentence construction, and broaden cross-cultural communication because of foreign language appropriation in different communication contexts. The study’s implications centered around personal and cultural nuances of second-language communication bordering on a self-driven desire to improve English communication using creative methods, while bridging cultural divides through decolonization as a democratic process, exemplifying openness and interconnectedness of foreign language in the global front.

Designing A Distance Learning System for English Reading by Applying Multimodal Discourse Analysis Theory

Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) theory is a comprehensive framework that examines communication beyond just language, considering various modes of expression such as images, sounds, gestures, and typography. This theory recognizes that communication is inherently multimodal, and meaning is conveyed through the interplay of different modes. MDA analyzes how these modes interact within texts and contexts to create meaning, emphasizing the importance of visual, auditory, and spatial elements alongside linguistic features. By examining multimodal texts, MDA provides insights into how meaning is constructed, negotiated, and understood in diverse communicative contexts, from advertising campaigns to political speeches. This paper proposes the design of a distance learning system for English reading by applying Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) theory, augmented with Distance Vector Space Coordinate Classification (DVS-CC). The system aims to provide an immersive and interactive learning experience by integrating various modes of communication, including text, images, audio, and video. Through simulated experiments and empirical validations, the effectiveness of the DVS-CC-enhanced distance learning system is evaluated. Results demonstrate significant improvements in student engagement, comprehension, and learning outcomes compared to traditional distance learning approaches. For example, students using the DVS-CC-enhanced system achieved an average score increase of 25% in reading proficiency assessments. Additionally, the system's adaptive learning features enabled personalized instruction tailored to each student's learning style and pace. These findings underscore the potential of applying MDA theory with DVS-CC in designing effective distance learning systems for English reading, fostering enhanced learning experiences in remote educational settings.

Social Communicative Contexts between Technological Determinism and the New Media

The advent of the new media is a major paradigm shift in human communication and the traditional media that sustained communication from the earliest times till today. Human social progress is almost entirely dependent on the nature of communication that exists in the society. No society survives without a good system of managing information within it as no meaningful encounter and engagement that can drive growth and development can occur without the media. The 21st century brought in its wake several innovations in the information and communication technologies that totally changed the nature of communication, its processes, practice and management. This paradigm shift has given birth to new orientations and attitudes which have combined to create the notion of technological determinism which is the belief that technology is the principal initiator of the society’s transformation. This view of the society is usually attributed to the American sociologist, Thorstein Veblen, who argued that there is a causal link between technology and the society. He opines therefore that all social transformations in the society are controlled by technology and the new media orientation it has birthed. Using content analysis as its main methodological tool, this paper examines the nature of communication, its role in the human society and the interaction between it, its media and the society which is its theatre of action. It argues that the new media technologies and the society have a symbiotic relationship that has altered, redefined, refashioned and redirected social communicative contexts in such a way that has changed the way the human society and individuals act and react leading to a total overhaul of the ways everything is done-trading, teaching, learning, paying taxes, interacting and negotiating. It concludes that social communicative contexts are not distorted by the new media but are rather recontextualised by affirming existing identities and creating new roles in stimulating specialised communication.

Terminología en el discurso político: alcance de la dimensión cognitivo-social

Terminology in Political Discourse: The Impact of Its Cognitive-Social Dimension. The aim of the present article is to compare the terminology used in oral political discourse and that produced on Twitter in the context of COVID-19 in Spain, in order to observe its possible cognitive, conceptual and semantic implications, derived from the terminological integration into political discourse and subsequent digitisation. The study departs from the question of how textual typology affects terminology, given the differences between the participants engaged in the communicative situation, as well as possible cultural and ideological elements that may affect the terminological value of the lexical unit. In order to determine the influence of the communicative context, the textual typology and the ideological and emotional load of the texts on the cognitive dimension of the terms, the two types of political discourse have been classified according to their defining social features, on the one hand, and the terminology present in them according to their degree of cognitive demand, depending on their formal representation and contextual elements that may condition conceptualisation, on the other. The study has shown how the sociolinguistic function of texts has a significant impact on the specialised language used in them, due to the communicative context and certain ideological narratives and cultural elements that are integrated into it, and has highlighted the possible cognitive implications of using terminology outside its sphere of specialisation, which could act to the detriment of the specialised knowledge it designates and conveys. Keywords: political discourse, terminology, socioterminology, social media, COVID-19

University students' self-presentation on Tiktok in the context of group communication

The phenomenon of self-presentation is increasingly trending to reveal, develop identities, manipulate and customise individuals' self-images on social media. University students present themselves on TikTok through video uploads, music, and distributed using TikTok's highly personalised algorithms in group communication: watch history, re-watches, likes, comments, and post-view activity. We present the concept of online impression management through the lens of self-presentation theory as the practice of conveying self-impression and controlling personal information to represent one's self-image to be liked. This study uses a qualitative approach, uses phenomenological methods to find the meaning and interpretation of self-presentation through uploads on TikTok. They expressed personal information to their reference group and experimented based on different roles when constructing identity. Some strategies are used to give a positive impression to their friends. They projected different versions of themselves depending on self-category and group communication context when receiving positive feedback or likes.

How to Convey Trustworthiness via Social Media: Content Analysis and Citizen Testing of British MPs’ Facebook Posts

Abstract The low and declining level of political trust in the UK is well documented but less is known about how citizens form trust judgements and how politicians can influence perceptions of trustworthiness through social media. This article addresses these important questions using a novel combination of content analysis and survey research, operationalising academic theory on political trust within the context of Facebook communication through a new lens. The findings offer a unique insight into how trustworthiness is conveyed on social media and the types of content that display competence, integrity and authenticity. UK citizens’ perceptions of MP communication are tested in an original survey using embedded Facebook content, allowing key features of high- and low-trust posts to be identified.