Interpretive Communities Research Articles

Functional mechanisms of united territorial communities as paradigms of communities

In this article, the authors propose an idea based on the interpretation of the functional mechanisms of united territorial communities considering Kuhn's interpretation of the scientific communities’ paradigms in the way that community paradigms should be interpreted as general theoretical assumptions and laws and means of their implementation which the scientific community members use. This forms and develops paradigms with its activities. That is, each community has its own paradigms, which include the established system and customs, as well as recorded standards, condemnations, dogmas, historical experience, as well as the actual situation and common goals. According to the author, a territorial community is a human association that is associated with self-organizing territories, a sequence of timely states called processes. It follows that the territorial community is a process. The paradigmatic stages of development of united territorial communities as a process that has a beginning, evolution and termination or end point are proposed. Differences between territorial, scientific or religious communities are determined, where the author states that the main difference is in paradigms and direction of their goals. It is stated what changes and crises in paradigms mean. Thus, changes are not independent events, but long episodes with regular repetitive structures. Crises – crises are the stage of change that follows discovery. As long as the methods (or tools) of the paradigm are able to solve certain problems or issues, the community develops effectively. Also in the article, the author takes the position that territorial communities are processes that cannot be controlled by elected or hired leaders, but which are controlled (influenced) by community paradigms, which, in turn, are constantly changing. Based on the position of the author and the context of territorial communities, the paradigm can be explained as follows: the paradigm is a "certain way of seeing the world", which was once accepted by many scientists, creates a community of these scientists; or a religious community of believers; or a territorial community from people living in a certain area. the paradigms of territorial communities determine the important objects with which the community cooperates and the related problems, and / or the issues that are identified, and the methods by which the identified problems and / or issues are resolved.

Ecology and Art – in the network of discourses

Art, just like our public life, is entangled in the network of discourses. In this article, using the example of ecology-related art, I present how this network develops and what could constitute an impulse to create new connections. I also indicate how the discursivization of art begins with nomenclature itself. I consider reflecting on the network of discourses and entering the level of metadiscourse as a way of freeing oneself from the limiting community of interpretation. Similarly, I see the type of art that creates spaces for joint activities as a way out of the dangerous rivalry of discourses.

Trust the test: Score-user perspectives on the roles of language tests in professional registration and skilled migration

English language proficiency is a deciding factor in the life opportunities of many thousands of applicants for Australian skilled migration every year. This paper focuses on the perspectives of professional bodies that use English language tests in their decisions. Taking an interpretative approach, we explore the meanings that policy makers from these organisations ascribe (as score users) to test standards (cut-scores) so that we can better understand the uses of test scores in migration policy. The policy narratives we observed around the use of test scores describe the need to manage large numbers of applicants, to assure a level of English proficiency for high-risk professional communications, to provide an objective assessment that is separate from any assessment of professional competence and to maintain consistency of standards with other bodies. These views are contextualised with other relevant information, particularly that available from test providers, who are key players in the test-using interpretive community. We observe that particular tests and their standards become trusted and entrenched in policy, using the apparently simple semiotics of scores. Concomitantly, trust in tests is nurtured by test marketing. These tendencies warrant attention from test researchers, providers and score users.

Interpreter Training in the Republic of Ireland: An Overview

Although the Republic of Ireland is a bilingual country,this study illustrates that there are comparatively few domestic training options available for interpreters of spoken languages. In providing an overview of the present state of affairs, this article contextualises the current linguistic situation both within the country and at the European level. Attention is paid to the recognition of Irish as an official language of the European Union (EU), as well as tothe corresponding implications for interpreter training. In addition, the domestic situation regarding community interpreters is also outlined, with the lack of official regulation of the interpreting profession also noted. Subsequently, the options for interpreter training in tertiary education are outlined, both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate level. In addition, relevant information regarding the structure and content of the modules and courses is provided. To conclude, some thoughts regarding potential developments of interpreter training in the Irish context are outlined.

Analogizing Jean Baudrillard’s America and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49*: Entropy Imagery of the Puzzled

In The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon presents a postmodern society of a huge replication of puzzling out of symbols and ciphers of entropy, which result in an immense number of interpretations and reflections. Therefore, the authentic interpretative communities of these allusions in Pynchon’s narrative are both overwhelmingly definite and entropic. The Cryings sole protagonist, Oedipa, is loaded by a chaotic information overflow that yields anarchy and uncertainty. She also cannot find convincing answers to the mysterious yet realistic questions, hence, she gets alienated in the hyperreal puzzling world of uncorrelated information. Oedipa becomes mentally disoriented and indifferent as a result of the dominant hyperreality in the postmodern world. To trace this novels confusing symbols and allusions, which trap Oedipa as the most significant hyperreal source of this paper argument. There is a significant thematointertextual analogy between Baudrillards America, with the notions of sign-based hyperreality and postmodernism and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, for the latter portrays a modern society full of codified signs and simulation. This study used qualitative research method to trace and explain the various analogies and commonalities between the two authors and their postmodernist texts.

Possible Tensions Between Individual Needs and Collective Treatment Methods for Substance Use Disorders and Addiction

The inpatient collective treatment model has strong historical roots in the treatment of people with substance use disorders in Norway. It focusses on safe and drug-free environments that support growth and development in individuals admitted for treatment, emphasising the community as method idea. However, little is known about how flexiblesuch treatment approaches are when adjusting to individual treatment needs. Here, we explore how such individual treatment needs are safeguarded within the framework of collective inpatient institutional settings by interviewing treatment staff members who hold a bachelor’s degree in social or health sciences (N= 5). The focus of our analysis ison exploring the possible challenges that may occur as a result of competing conflicts between individualised person-centred treatments in institutional settings that aim to build strong communities. Our findings here are summarised in three major themes: (a) individual treatment needs face possible neglect with strong adherence to the treatmentprogramme, (b) too rigid an interpretation of community as method may lead to attributional errors and a possible rejection of the client and (c) the collective paradigm faces important challenges regarding individuals with cognitive deficits. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to shed light on the tensions regarding individualisedperson-centred treatment arrangements within the collective treatment paradigm. Thus, our findings may provide increased awareness and better understanding of this problem and should inform future research questions, as well as professional education and clinical practices. Future research should focus on how to balance individualised treatment within the framework of inpatient collective treatment. In addition, important clinical implications relate to how such individualised person-centred treatment may contribute to better treatment quality and outcomes in programmes applying the community as method idea.

Citizen Journalists as Interpretive Discourse Communities: A Study of AMH Voices in Zimbabwe (2014–2018)

ABSTRACT This study focuses on news discourses by citizen journalists at the citizen journalism and alternative media platform of AMH Voices in Zimbabwe between the years 2014–2018. Central to the study was an endeavour to demonstrate how the multidimensional crisis in Zimbabwe supported the emergence of citizen journalism and how citizen journalists constructed alternative political narratives and counterhegemonic discourses of the crisis on the platform. The theoretical point of departure is that of interpretive communities. Zelizer (1993. “Journalists as Interpretive Communities.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10 (3): 219–237) observes that journalists become an interpretive community when they are united through shared discourses and collective interpretations of key public events. The argument is that AMH Voices emerged as an interpretive community of citizen journalists bound by common counterhegemonic interpretations of the crisis. The methodological approach to data analysis was critical discourse analysis which allowed the researcher to investigate meanings, emerging themes and ideological bias of citizen journalism. The study established that citizen news discourses at AMH Voices were mostly framed in non-dominant perspectives using interpretive news writing styles to express alternative political narratives, challenge the status quo and advocate for radical political change. The interpretive writing style foregrounded the citizen journalists’ interpretations, opinions and emotions regarding the crisis.

The phenomenon of fan creativity: the main directions of studies

The article considers the main directions of foreign and domestic studies of fan communities and fan creative production. The article synthesizes theoretical knowledge collected abroad. Media fandoms are understood as interpretive, participatory communities that are able to influence media production. Fanfiction is shown as one of the forms of expression of criticism and various potential interpretations and meanings of the original work. The Russian scientific community also refers to fan communities as interpretive communities. Fanfiction is defined as a literary work that performs the function of demonstrating a variety of individual readers interpretations of the work. It was revealed that despite the existence of some differences in approaches to the study of fan creativity, there is a common focus on the activity of the audience. More attention is given to the study of collective meaning-making and ways of expressing different interpretations of the original media product.

«Silver» education as a resource for regional development

The article considers the educational level, needs and activities of the third age, and the readiness of the Sverdlovsk Region to develop practices of silver education. The object of research - practices of silver education in the region and the readiness of pensioners and pre-retirees to participate in them. The research is based on the authors concept of silver education as a resource for preserving and developing the social community of the third age. The theoretical framework of the study combines the key ideas of the theories of adult education, continuing education, human capital and resource capacity. Main research methods are analysis of educational and demographic statistics, regulations and government programs, secondary analysis of sociological data, a survey in the Sverdlovsk Region (respondents older than 45 years), and an expert survey. According to the authors hypothesis, today the regional system of silver education cannot serve as a resource for its development, since neither the third age community nor the region is ready for it. The authors present the following main results of the research: interpretation of the third age social community and estimates of its educational level; educational needs and activities of the third age in the Sverdlovsk Region; the readiness of the region to develop practices of silver education. The results of the research can be useful for the public policy in the interests of the older generation and the regional development. The authors conclude that it is necessary to develop a concept of the regional silver education system and a corresponding policy for improving the quality of the third age educational capital.

From the Text to the Reader: An Application of Reader-Response Theory to Robert Browning’s "My Last Duchess"

Reader-response criticism as a reaction against new criticism has changed the focus from the text to the reader. The reader is no longer deemed a passive agent, but active, participating in the meaning-making process, as reading is a process during which the reader also experiences what the characters experience and feels with him/her. In this respect, the text and the reader interact with each other. Meaning is accordingly created out of this interaction and transaction. A multiplicity of meanings, perspectives and interpretations becomes possible in the process of reading. Each reading of a literary text produces different interpretations. Social, religious, political, psychological and cultural contextual factors and background of the reader have a strong potential to influence the interpretation. Accordingly, the characteristics of the interpretive community are influential in meaning-making. This study will, therefore, discuss reader-response criticism with specific emphasis on Iser’s theory (the implied reader and repertoire) and apply the reader-response theory to Robert Browning’s poem "My Last Duchess".

Intérprete comunitário: sua agência na entrevista de solicitação de refúgio

O texto aborda o papel do intérprete comunitário na interação entre o oficial de elegibilidade e o solicitante de refúgio no contexto das entrevistas de solicitação de refúgio no Comitê Nacional para Refugiados (Conare), órgão do Ministério da Justiça brasileiro, responsável pelo deferimento ou não da solicitação de refúgio pelo migrante. Partindo de uma abordagem sociolinguística interacional, buscou-se analisar como o intérprete se faz presente na interação durante a entrevista, e de que forma se manifesta linguisticamente. Para conduzir esse estudo, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo empírica com observação participante em algumas entrevistas no Conare, além do acesso a diversas gravações dessas interações para a condução das análises. Estas revelam estratégias de mediação não apenas linguística, mas também social e cultural por parte do intérprete.

Botanical geography correspondence between Alexander von Humboldt and Filippo Parlatore (1851-1852)

This paper focuses on the relationship between Alexander von Humboldt, the famous German explorer-naturalist and Filippo Parlatore, botanist from Palermo (Sicily, Italy) in the field of botanical geography. Our considerations are based on three letters written by Humboldt to Parlatore in May 1851 and two letters with attachments written by Parlatore in answer to Humboldt in May 1851 and June 1852. The former are preserved in the Biblioteca comunale di Palermo (Palermo City Library) and the latter in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). On reading the correspondence it can be inferred how, on the one hand, Humboldt asked Parlatore for verification on some important questions of botanical geography that he intended to cover in the second part (never published) of volume five of his Kosmos, and how, on the other hand, Parlatore diverged in his answers from Humboldt’s intent to search for universal laws to explain the distribution of plants on the planet. In fact, Parlatore was engaging in new lines of research, which, though stemming from Humboldt, were moving towards a modern twodimensional interpretation of natural plant communities according to which vegetation and flora, though interacting, are distinct realities and require different methods of study. The paper includes a portrait of Parlatore and one of Humboldt, a taxonomic table of the plants mentioned by the two scientists in their correspondence and illustrations of a selection of the same plants.

Detecting Communities with Multiplex Semantics by Distinguishing Background, General, and Specialized Topics

Finding semantic communities using network topology and contents together is a hot topic in community detection. Existing methods often use word attributes in an indiscriminate way to help finding communities. Through analysis we find that, words in networked contents often embody a hierarchical semantic structure. Some words reflect a background topic of the whole network with all communities, some imply the high-level general topic covering several topic-related communities, and some imply the high-resolution specialized topic to describe each community. Ignoring such semantic structures often leads to defects in depicting networked contents where deep semantics are not fully utilized. To solve this problem, we propose a new Bayesian probabilistic model. By distinguishing words from either a background topic or some two-level topics (i.e., general and specialized topics), this model not only better utilizes the networked contents to help finding communities, but also provides a clearer multiplex semantic community interpretation. We then give an efficient variational algorithm for model inference. The superiority of this new approach is demonstrated by comparing with ten state-of-the-art methods on nine real networks and an artificial benchmark. A case study is further provided to show its strong ability in deep semantic interpretation of communities.

기호자본주의 시대 사회적 질병으로서의 정신질환에 대한 분석과 이야기를 통한 사회적 치료의 가능성 고찰 - ‘해석자들의 공동체’를 중심으로

기호자본주의 시대 사회적 질병으로서의 정신질환에 대한 분석과 이야기를 통한 사회적 치료의 가능성 고찰 - ‘해석자들의 공동체’를 중심으로

Social Cohesion as an External Factor Affecting Families: An Analysis of the White Paper on Families in South Africa

Social cohesion is beneficial to economic restructuring, social change, and political action. At its core, it involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense of belonging, inclusion, participation, recognition, and legitimacy. A family, as a major social institution, is central to the functioning of any society and is therefore potentially the bedrock of creating and maintaining social cohesion. This article draws inextricable links between the role of the family and the creation of social cohesion by evaluating South Africa’s White Paper on Families. First, it defines and unpacks social cohesion and contextualises the family environment. This is done through an evaluation of the available literature on social cohesion in the family. Second, an evaluation of legislation and the White Paper on family is presented. Third, the aid of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is used to examine the various environments concerning social cohesion in the family. The White Paper on family recognises the family in aspects other than the concept of the family cycle, a key component of the developing individual who should be nurtured from infancy to adulthood. In addition, gaps in the policy are highlighted by looking at implementation challenges of the constitutional provisions and examining the way in which these gaps lead to social and economic exclusion and attendant poverty as the cardinal result.

“Dear Anglo”: Scrambling the Signs of Anglo-Modernity from New York to Lagos

AbstractThis essay reveals the surprising ties within an African American print franchise: the Anglo-African Magazine, the Weekly Anglo-African, and their various iterations between 1859 and 1865 and a Lagos journal also titled The Anglo-African (1863–65). The link was Robert Campbell, the West Indian editor of the Lagos paper and former contributor to the New York ones. I show how Campbell not only borrowed his title from his African American colleagues but also adapted their editorial models for hailing abolitionist publics and constituting interpretative communities. As these Anglo-African journals proliferated from New York to Lagos, “Anglo-African” became a racialized title associated with a particular kind of journal, rather than just a racial term. A salient feature of an “Anglo-African” type of journal was its scrambling of its titular term and its prefix Anglo. Thus, in the US papers, Anglo became a shorthand for a black publication, while their Nigerian counterpart inserted the US and African-America into the “Anglo” world of the Lagos Anglo-African. By decoupling “Anglo” from whiteness in one context, and from Britishness in the other, these editors forged a black Atlantic counterculture that worked at what Paul Gilroy has called the “hidden internal fissures” of modernity.

The Theoretical and Methodological Status of the Concept of Religion According to the Essentialist Interpretation of Ethnic Community in Foreign Researches

The article focuses on the theoretical and methodological status of the concept of religion in the essentialist interpretation of ethnic community by analyzing the material of foreign researches. The key effort is to reveal whether the essentialist views on ethnic communities are compatible with the constructivist paradigm of religion. The essentialist approach to the notion of an ethnic community now develops in the frame of primordialism, which can be divided into two main directions: cultural and socio-biological. Proponents of the former concentrate on a detailed description of cultural differences between ethnic communities, with cultural diversity being accepted only to describe the essence of a particular ethnic community. Sociobiological primordialists deny cultural features’ status at the face of biological evolution. The common theoretical assumption of primordialisms turns out to be the essentialist vision: an ethnic community is endowed with the essence defined by a number of attributes, including religion. The constructivist approach, however, suggests that religion has no referent in reality and its notion is defined conventionally and empirically. Accepting this approach would deprive religion of its essence. Rendering the essence of religion relative, therefore, means blurring the boundaries defining the essence of an ethnic community. This consequence clearly contradicts the essentialist approach to an ethnic community. Thus, embracing an essentialist approach to ethnic community leads to the need to adopt the essentialist interpretation of religion.

Translating child protection assessments for ELF users: Accommodation, accessibility, and accuracy

AbstractThis paper analyzes the translation of five child protection assessments and decisions from Finnish into English. Translators of such text have to make difficult decisions in relation to the linguistic resources of the end users, namely the child’s parents or custodians, because it is impossible for the translator to assess their linguistic resources. Therefore, it is difficult to strike a balance between an accurate translation and a pragmatically felicitous translation. Besides, these texts are typically translated by community interpreters who have no formal training in translation. A total of 18 examples of translation problems related to terminology, nominalization, passive constructions, and speech representation were analyzed by mobilizing different linguistic theories related to each category. The results show that the target texts present several accommodation strategies aimed at rendering the translations more accessible. Thus, terms are explained or glossed, and terms, grammatical constructions, and complex forms of reported speech are simplified. More awareness-raising among different stakeholders is needed in order to produce translations that really empower migrant communities.

Community detection with node attributes in multilayer networks

Community detection in networks is commonly performed using information about interactions between nodes. Recent advances have been made to incorporate multiple types of interactions, thus generalizing standard methods to multilayer networks. Often, though, one can access additional information regarding individual nodes, attributes, or covariates. A relevant question is thus how to properly incorporate this extra information in such frameworks. Here we develop a method that incorporates both the topology of interactions and node attributes to extract communities in multilayer networks. We propose a principled probabilistic method that does not assume any a priori correlation structure between attributes and communities but rather infers this from data. This leads to an efficient algorithmic implementation that exploits the sparsity of the dataset and can be used to perform several inference tasks; we provide an open-source implementation of the code online. We demonstrate our method on both synthetic and real-world data and compare performance with methods that do not use any attribute information. We find that including node information helps in predicting missing links or attributes. It also leads to more interpretable community structures and allows the quantification of the impact of the node attributes given in input.

Thinking about “New Normal” in healthcare interpreting and community interpreting in terms of COVID-19 conditions

Dünyayı etkisi altına alan COVID-19'un ülkemizdeki ilk vakaları 2020 Mart ayı başında görülmüştür. Hastalığın yayılması hem dünyada hem de Türkiye’de diğer alanlarla birlikte iş dünyasını da büyük ölçüde etkilemiş ve bu durumun çeviri sektörü ve çevirmenlik hizmetlerine çeşitli yansımaları olmuştur. Bu bağlamda, içinde bulunulan sürecin sosyal, ekonomik, ticari vb. tüm alanlarda yeniden düşünme, gözden geçirme ve hatta köklü değişiklikler yapma gerekliliğini ortaya çıkaracak nitelikte olduğu düşünülebilir. Hiç kuşkusuz, sağlık sektörü bu dönemde en çok etkilenen alanların başında gelirken, sağlık çevirmenliği hizmetlerinin COVID-19 koşullarında nasıl verildiği sorusu da araştırılmaya muhtaç bir konu olarak belirginleşmiştir. Bu ihtiyaçtan hareketle pandemi süreci özelinde sağlık kuruluşlarına başvuran hastalara ve sağlık personeline çevirmenlik yapan kişilerin durumunu ve çalışma koşullarını ortaya koymayı amaçlayan bir anket uygulanmıştır. Anketten elde edilen veriler, Toplum Çevirmenliğinin “yeni normal”i açısından irdelenmiş ve meslekleşme/profesyonellik sürecine etkileri bakımından değerlendirilmiştir.