This paper advances politeness theory, where the examination of polite and impolite acts is not realised as a straightforward interaction but as a means where expressions that contain features that point towards a polite interpretation are mixed with features that point towards an impolite interpretation. This study adopts mixed messaging (Culpeper et al. 2017) as an analytical framework to examine how surface-level politeness co-occurs with implicit hostility in Ghanaian parliamentary discourse. Specifically, the study investigates the strategic use of polite address forms and expressions as a means of tension management by Members of Parliament (MPs) when, in a practical sense, they are being hostile to an opponent. Additionally, the interpersonal deictic function that exists between the interlocutors is examined. Findings indicate that MPs use polite expressions as deference markers, strategic courtesy, familiarity/solidarity, and indirect address as a means to mask hostility. This study contributes to the broader understanding of discourse communities by illustrating how shared linguistic practices, such as im/politeness, regulate interactions in highly polarized environments.

Purpose The well-being of employees has been recognised as significant to both the health and success of businesses. Whilst physical wellness has typically been given more focus, the importance of psychological well-being has gained recognition and has been incorporated in more recent approaches. The current study investigated the perceptions of young Indian women textile workers of their workplace as well as working conditions and the effects of those on their wellbeing and empowerment Design/methodology/approach The current paper reports on a qualitative study with 63 young women textile workers, recruited through convenience sampling from a large textile manufacturer in the province of Gujarat in India's Northwest who volunteered to participate. Standardized one on one interviews were conducted, which explored the following themes: Social Inclusion; Individual Empowerment; Economic Empowerment and Health and Wellbeing. Thematic analysis was employed to reflect on the data using a phenomenological stance. Findings The following subthemes emerged within the pre-determined themes: family support; acceptance and sexism emerged for Social Inclusion. Education emerged for Individual Empowerment. Contribution to family; independence and self-sacrifice emerged for Economic Empowerment; and workplace dynamics; working conditions and gender bias emerged for Health and Wellbeing Originality/value While the participants of the current study shared various concerns and desires for change, they clearly did experience empowerment as income earners, which is, generally, in accord with the political and community discourse in India. Recommendation: further strategies, policies and interventions are encouraged to narrow gender biases in both worldviews and practice. Future research directions are discussed.

Although stance markers of hedge and booster have been studied in academic writings and receiving growing concerns from linguistic scholars worldwide, most of them focused on analyzing these stance markers in research purposes, such as research papers, research theses, etc. However, studies on this area within essay writings is still limited, and none has investigated these stance markers within the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) essay writings. Understanding the importance of filling this need has encouraged me to analyze stance markers of hedge and booster within the IELTS essay writings by addressing three research focuses: the roles of these two stance markers in essay writings, the distribution of hedge and booster in essay writings, and the possibilities of these two stance markers appear in the same sentence. To realize this intention, this study used a genre approach by employing 30 IELTS essays bands 7, 8, and 9 as data sets, and they were analyzed using a mix method. The results revealed that stance markers of hedge and booster are important in these data set to show authorial stances in academic essays. Then, hedge appears more dominantly in band 7, while booster has higher numbers of appearance in band 8 and 9. Last, these two stance markers are possible appearing in the same sentence when the sentence contains multiple clauses. These findings imply that genre is much influenced by discourse communities because the present findings also become evident that the employment of hedge and booster seems to have differences from earlier different academic writings.

This research study examines metaphor usage in fan posts from @starfess within the K-Pop community discourse. Adopting a cognitive linguistics framework, this research utilizes a qualitative descriptive methodology with data collected from September 1 to October 31, 2025. The analytical phase encompasses the identification and classification of conceptual metaphors based on Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) framework, subsequently employing conceptual mapping to elucidate complicated words. The analysis revealed several forms of vernacular metaphors across three categories: structural metaphors including 'comeback' and 'solo debut'; orientational metaphors comprising 'top tier visual' and 'flop'; and ontological metaphors such as 'hiatus' and 'bias.' Findings indicate that K-Pop community slang transcends its role as a mere communicative device, instead reflecting the community's cognitive patterns, value systems, and social structures. Within this community, metaphors operate as cognitive tools that furnish an organized conceptual framework for navigating the entertainment ecosystem. This study aims to contribute to the field of cognitive linguistics in popular culture studies.

Introduction. The relevance of this study stems from linguistic interest in the cross-cultural description of conceptual value formations, including those of a universal nature, such as moral and ethical values. The novelty of this study lies in its identification of the culturally specific content of the value of "Loyalty/Devotion" in Arabic and English cultures. Methodology and sources. The study utilized corpus linguistics and interpretive discourse analysis. The empirical basis for the study was the Leeds Corpus of Contemporary Arabic; the English corpora COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English); The British National Corpus (BNC1994; BNC2014) includes texts of various genres. Corpus methods were used to identify the frequency of lexical units representing the concept, describe their collocation profile, analyze contextual meanings, and define a cognitive-propositional model of value. Interpreting the results in the context of Max Weber's theory of social action revealed value implications reflecting behavior patterns characteristic of different linguistic cultures. Results and discussion. It was established that in English linguistic culture, devotion/loyalty is correlated with Weber's goal-oriented rationality, is pragmatically determined, and is oriented toward an external demonstration of commitment, expressed through specific actions and compliance with institutional rules, norms, and laws. In the Arabic linguistic culture, which is oriented toward value-based and rational action, loyalty/devotion is based on intrinsic motivation and a sense of duty, which determine the value orientations of members of the discourse community. Conclusion. The proposed methodology can be used in the analysis of other moral and ethical values in terms of their content and discursive-textual processing, as well as in the cross-cultural study of values to identify their universal and specific features.

Introduction: Sustainability in higher education has gained global significance, with universities playing a crucial role in fostering sustainable practices through curriculum integration, campus operations, and stakeholder engagement. Purpose: This review examines the trends, challenges, gaps, and prospects of sustainability in Indian higher education institutions (HEIs). Methodology: The study employs a systematic literature review methodology, utilizing the PRISMA framework to identify, screen, and analyze 46 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals and policy reports over the past 10–15 years. Key areas explored include the integration of sustainability in academic curricula, institutional governance policies, operational sustainability measures, and the role of faculty and students in promoting sustainability initiatives. Findings reveal that while Indian universities have made progress in sustainability education and campus greening programs, challenges persist, including financial constraints, inadequate policy enforcement, and limited stakeholder engagement. The study identifies a critical gap in research on stakeholder participation, industry-academia collaboration, and the inclusion of marginalized communities in sustainability discourse. Future research should focus on participatory governance models, leveraging technology for sustainability tracking, and enhancing cross-sector partnerships. The findings contribute to sustainability and stakeholder theory by emphasizing the importance of inclusive, multi-stakeholder engagement in higher education sustainability initiatives.

As the popularity of women’s professional sporting leagues in Australia grows, so too does community discourse surrounding financial investment in women’s sport. In particular, the Women’s Australian Football League (AFLW) has been subject to several Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) since its inception, outlining updates to the conditions of player contracts (e.g. salary). Implementing a netnographic approach, this study investigates attitudes toward the AFLW through Facebook user responses to news reports concerning the widely publicised 2022 CBA amendment. Our analysis revealed contradictory perspectives on investment in women’s football, emphasising the role of social media as a platform for both challenging and promoting stereotypical gender ideologies, which may act as an important reflection of broader societal attitudes toward women’s football and financial equity. The findings have important implications for relevant sport governing bodies regarding the importance of considering social media commentary in the promotion of women’s sport.

This research article is conducted to find out the orientational metaphor expression used in traditional marriage discourse of Manggarai speech community. Moreover, this research article wants to find out the imagery of Manggarai speech community based on the orientational metaphor expression in traditional marriage ritual. Hence, this research article used the perspective of cultural linguistic as the main theory and the orientational metaphor and discourse scenario as the supporting theory. The three theories are used and combined by the qualitative research method. Based on the source of the data, it can be concluded that there are some orientational metaphor expression that appeared in traditional marriage discourse of Manggarai speech community. The orientational metaphors expressions have the idiomatic meaning which is sourced from the imagery of Manggarai speech community. On the other hand, this research article also found the imagery that was appearing from orientational metaphor expression. Furthermore, the imagery of Manggarai speech community based on traditional marriage discourse, such as the cultural, social, magical, ideological, mythical, and biological. This research article also find out the content of traditional marriage discourse of Manggarai speech community contains the requests, hopes, and prays of the families to God and Ancestors for the bride and bridegroom, and the new family.

The term 'inertia' refers to the seemingly common Autisticexperience of remaining in a state of rest or a state of motion until there is some form of external intervention. While a heavily discussed phenomenon in the Autistic community, it has been scarcely acknowledged in the academic literature. The present study aimed to advance knowledge of Autistic inertia by analysing a large qualitative sample of naturalistic discourse on the topic from Autistic online communities on the social media platform, 'Reddit'. We identified 501 relevant posts shared between 2005 and 2023, including 9,955 comments. We analysed the posts using reflexive thematic analysis with an inductive approach. We identified four themes, centred on the "all or nothing" extremes of inertia (Theme 1), the range of factors that intersect with and exacerbate it (Theme 2), its joyful and often highly-disabling impacts (Theme 3), and the varied ways in which Reddit users manage it (Theme 4). Our findings corroborated those from existing interview-based studies and also uncovered additional insights, elaborating on 'the vicious cycle' of inertia, its fatiguing effects and its interaction with other commonly co-occurring conditions. We discuss these less-reported experiences and identify what we know - and are still yet to understand - about the key features of Autistic inertia.

Previous analyses of the rhetoric of literary criticism establish English studies as a disciplinary discourse community with both a characteristic rhetoric and a distinctive rhetorical approach to research activity, albeit one that is gradually changing over time. The findings of these prior studies allow me to examine LLM outputs to assess whether and how they simulate this disciplinary rhetoric. The comparison showcases differences and similarities between the rhetoric of literary criticism composed by human writers and the simulated literary-critical rhetoric that AI is capable of generating in 2025. This study shows that there remains a profound difference, although the superficial similarities between human- and LLM-composed literary criticism are striking. I will argue that while LLMs effectively signal the genre of the literary research article, they fail to register its rhetorical context or undertake its characteristic social action.

Suicide is a major global public health issue, yet the voices of people who have a lived and living experience of suicide are often left out of public discussion about suicide. Media plays a critical role in shaping perception and community discourse, with much of the current work to develop media guidelines focused on reducing suicide risk. Despite the known benefits of sharing lived and living experience stories of hope, recovery and coping with suicidality (the Papageno effect), guidelines on safe and effective storytelling remain limited. This study aimed to (1) understand how people with lived and living experience of suicide engage with and perceive media representations of suicide; (2) identify essential considerations for safe storytelling; and (3) understand best practices for media and communication professionals supporting lived or living experience storytellers. To meet these aims, people with lived and living experience were included across all aspects of the project, including as authors on this paper. A mixed method survey (with both quantitative and qualitative components) of people with a lived and living experience of suicide was distributed in Australia using a purposive, non-probability convenience sampling method. Participants answered questions about developing guidelines for safely sharing personal stories of suicide by drawing on their experiences of engaging in content relating to suicide on news media and other public communication platforms (part 1 of survey). In addition, participants who had direct experience sharing their story publicly were asked additional questions (part 2 of survey). A total of 309 participants engaged with part 1 of the survey, with 125 continuing to complete part 2. Findings indicated significant gaps in mainstream media representation, with 75% identifying that their lived experience is not represented in the media, with only bereaved participants reporting representation. Further, 79% believe media does not recognise diversity in experiences of suicide. Results from part 2 participants indicated key considerations for storytelling included: before sharing, having clarity on purpose (81.3%), differentiating meaningful from tokenistic opportunities (80.5%) and self-care planning (77.1%); during sharing, careful language use (81.2%) and consent when involving others' experiences (81.2%); and after sharing, preparation for distress contacts (82.4%) and boundary maintenance (74.8%). Notably, 40.9% of participants experienced burnout from public storytelling, with boundary-setting, adequate rest and organisational support identified as essential protective factors. The results suggest opportunities for media to increase and diversify public narratives of suicide to include stories of hope and survival, in addition to existing narratives of bereavement. They also suggest essential supports for storytellers must include improved protocols for preventing burnout. These findings informed the development of Australia's first comprehensive guidelines for sharing personal experiences of suicide safely, and guidance for media and public communication professionals supporting advocates and lived and living experience spokespeople (Our stories matter, 2024). This addresses a critical gap in suicide prevention practice.

Review on Online Discussion in Secondary and Higher Education: A Complete Guide to Building a Dynamic Online Discourse Community

The study of apprenticeship and professional training of printers in Eastern Galicia in the second half of the XIX century remains an insufficiently explored topic in Ukrainian historiography. The Polish professional newspaper Czcionka (1872–1876) provides a unique source for understanding the socio-professional discourse of the printing community, revealing the conditions, practices, and challenges of vocational education during this period. The relevance of this research lies in its potential to illuminate the historical foundations of professional training and labor relations in the printing industry, contributing to a broader understanding of social and economic history in Galicia. The purpose of the study is to analyze the system of apprenticeship and professional preparation of printers in Eastern Galicia, using Czcionka as a primary source, and to identify the social, economic, and organizational factors influencing the formation of skilled labor. The research methodology combines historical-comparative, source-critical, and discourse-analytical approaches. Articles, reports, and correspondences published in Czcionka were examined to reconstruct the practices of vocational training, the role of professional competitions, and the treatment of apprentices by employers. The results indicate that apprentices often faced exploitation, excessive work hours, and delayed professional advancement, while employers frequently prioritized profit over proper training. The newspaper highlighted exemplary practices in other European regions, drawing attention to the necessity of professional guidance, proper remuneration, and the observance of apprenticeship regulations. The analysis also reveals early expressions of labor solidarity and the role of professional communities in advocating for fair treatment. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its systematic examination of the Czcionka as a source for understanding the professional, social, and cultural dimensions of apprenticeship in Eastern Galicia. Unlike previous research focused mainly on general union structures and labor movements, this study provides insight into the micro-level dynamics of vocational training and labor relations in the printing sector. The practical significance is found in the potential application of historical lessons to contemporary vocational education and labor policy, highlighting the importance of proper guidance, ethical management practices, and structured apprenticeship programs. Conclusion. The research demonstrates that the system of apprenticeship in Eastern Galician printing houses was marked by significant challenges, but also by efforts to professionalize the trade and protect apprentices’ rights. The findings contribute to the historiography of labor, professional education, and print culture in Central and Eastern Europe in the XIX century.

In this WRS class, students were asked to propose a research project that would extend the understanding they already have about writing. Using John Swales’ work “The Concept of Discourse Community,” Evan Hurst examines how perceived hierarchies influence the integrity of discourse communities, and how the internet’s democratization of information influences dynamics of discourse communities for novice members.

Even though rhetorical move-step analysis has originally been applied to academic texts, this approach has also been employed to genre analysis of other written genres for some time. Reviews constitute an interesting example of texts as they may significantly influence the perception of a particular work and its potential success or failure. The juxtaposition of texts written by professional and consumer reviewers allows one to pinpoint similarities and differences between the characteristics of these discourse communities. While book and film reviews have been subject to comparative genre analysis, music reviews have not received much scholarly attention in this realm. In order to fill this gap, this paper aims to provide a comparative move-step genre analysis of 100 online music reviews from two salient online reviewing websites, namely Pitchfork (professional reviews) and Rate Your Music (consumer reviews). For the purpose of this study, two subcorpora of music reviews, each consisting of 50 texts published between 2021 and 2023 were compiled. The corpus was manually annotated with the use of a rhetorical function protocol employing structural move analysis and fine-tuned to the specific needs of the corpus in question. Respective parts of reviews were assigned a particular rhetorical step, e.g., providing background of the artist. Steps were then grouped into moves, e.g., situating the album. Corresponding steps were extracted from each subcorpus to examine what patterns are most frequently employed to realize them. The results indicate that professional reviews encompass more descriptive rhetorical elements, whereas consumer reviews contain more evaluative rhetorical elements. There are also many rhetorical steps that can be found in both professional and consumer reviews, yet they have different linguistic realizations in the two subcorpora.

This study intends to build on burgeoning research strands dedicated to the study of health communication and emerging genres of science popularization and dissemination by exploring the not‑for‑profit organization EuroHealthNet, resulting from an inter-European partnership, whose mission is to “help build a sustainable, fair, and inclusive Europe through healthier communities and to tackle health inequalities within and between European States” (https://eurohealthnet.eu/). In light of its mission and the heterogeneous nature of its target audience – including but not limited to European health institutions, health professionals, and the general public – a primary premise of this study is that, for it to be effective, EuroHealthNet’s communication must take heed of, be sensitive to, and be receptive of the diverse linguacultural backgrounds and levels of knowledge of specialized discourses of its audience. Thus, this study, which draws on a larger project funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU – explores fourteen editions of EuroHealthNet’s magazine, available on its official website, with particular attention to how this discourse community constructs, interprets, and uses different (sub-)genres to achieve its communicative goals. We draw on the multiperspective and multidimensional framework provided by critical genre analysis (Bhatia, 2017) to explore both the text-internal factors via information structure and the text-external factors via tag, keyness and deictic analysis that characterize EuroHealthNet magazine articles.

With food insecurity as a growing and global injustice, it is a common question for teachers to ask students if they have eaten breakfast. Although this question is often bound to good intentions and an ethic of care, it is simultaneously entangled with discursive-material forces that can perpetuate opposition and affective tensions among teachers, parents, and students: for instance, through the deficit assumption that basic needs insecurity implies a less-rich social and relational existence. Working with commitments to hybridity and inconclusiveness, this transqualitative study makes space for critical, poststructural, and posthumanist encounters with a discourse community I conducted with six elementary educators. I consider how three analytic “plug-ins” between instances from the discourse community and additional theory-data might disrupt deficit-based and human-centric configurations of agency within and beyond the phenomenon of students’ “basic needs.”

INTRODUCTIONFlavored e-cigarette use among US youth remains prevalent, prompting regulatory action by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On 2 January 2020, the FDA announced a federal ban on flavored e-cigarettes, which may be circumvented through unregulated do-it-yourself (DIY) methods shared in online communities. Understanding discourse within these communities is essential to understanding unintended policy effects. This study’s primary aim was to describe discourse in a DIY e-cigarette subreddit, with a secondary aim of examining how discussions shifted following the 2020 flavor ban.METHODSWe conducted a mixed-methods study of posts from the subreddit r/DIY_eJuice, an online community focused on DIY e-liquid mixing. A total of 5110 posts were extracted between January 2019 and January 2021, with posts before 2 January 2020 defined as the pre-ban period and those after as the post-ban period. From this dataset, we randomly selected 800 posts (17% of the total; 400 pre-ban and 400 post-ban), which were coded by three trained human coders using a systematically developed codebook with 12 thematic categories. Chi-squared tests were applied to compare thematic distributions between periods.RESULTSDIY mixing methods (76%, n=605) and discussions about flavors (49%, n=390) were the most frequent topics across both periods, despite the flavor ban. Policy-related discussions significantly increased from 3.5% (n=14) pre-ban to 8.3% (n=33) post-ban (p=0.004). Posts related to safety concerns remained infrequent in both pre- and post-ban period. The proportion of beginner users was constant at 22% across both periods (n=90 at pre-ban, and n=88 at post-ban), while discussions by experienced users increased from 35.3% (n=141) to 41.5% (n=166).CONCLUSIONSRegulatory action on flavored e-cigarettes influenced community discourse, increasing conversations about policy and DIY mixing techniques, but not significantly affecting discussions of safety. Continued surveillance of DIY communities is necessary to inform future public health strategies.

Abstract The current ethnographic case study traces a Chinese undergraduate student's investment in learning and socializing into specific disciplinary and professional discourses at a U.S. university and beyond. Drawing on Darvin and Norton's (2015) investment model, this study examines how his identity construction and negotiation were mediated by his exercise of agency, access to capital and resources, and ideologies within his situated contexts. Data collected from class observations and multiple interviews reveal that the focal participant, Xing, driven by his imagined identity as a cosmopolitan business professional, strategically mobilized various forms of capital and institutional resources to actively socialize himself into the disciplinary discourse community of finance and accounting. Nevertheless, his efforts were constrained by his positioning as a deficient English language learner during interactions with others. This positioning is rooted in the monolingual standard English ideologies. Although Xing employed strategic approaches to negotiate this position within academic contexts, these efforts did not necessarily signify empowerment. Instead, they risked perpetuating the linguistic hierarchies and power structures that disadvantaged Xing in the first place. The findings caution educators against an uncritical emphasis on learner agency without addressing the ideological forces that shape learners' choices. In addition, educators are encouraged to guide students to critically engage with the disciplinary discourse communities to prepare them to navigate future professional environments characterized by varied and sometimes conflicting language norms and practices.

In health-related research, experience of illness is commonly characterised by its physical signs and symptoms. However, the experience of illness also extends past the patients' bodily aches and ailments to influence, and possibly impair, their social interactions. Despite its relational ramifications, the field of medicine has not awarded enough attention towards social dimensions of suffering nor the ways in which chronic disease may change and constrain the tapestries of social life. During everyday encounters, ill individuals are often subjected to the objectifying, evaluative gaze of healthy onlookers, who view them from a detached, third-person perspective. This paper explores interpretations of illness in the context of the genetic blood disorder sickle cell disease in Uganda and Malawi. 11 focus group discussions were held with children above 10 years of age with sickle cell disease, while 18 discussions were performed with caregivers of children with sickle cell disease. Drawing on this data, we describe how social interplay between sickle cell 'sufferers', their caregivers, and surrounding 'spectators' was coloured by community discourses on death, misconceptions about contagiousness, and attribution of perceived deviance. Beyond clinical features of pain and pathology, sickle cell suffering would take on socially situated forms where the ideas and imageries of 'observing others' led to added agony and alienation among affected individuals and their intimates. When addressing the predicament of patients and their families, one should consider how the medical meaning-making and opinions of others may give rise to what we herein refer to as 'social sites of suffering'.