Discussion Of Theory Research Articles

Multimodal Social Network Analysis: Exploring Language, Visual, and Audio Data in Online Communities

This research investigates the complex dynamics of online communities in Saudi Arabia by analyzing textual and visual data. This study reveals a mutually beneficial association between technological discourse and visual representation, highlighting the dynamic narrative of a society that is profoundly involved in technological progress. Furthermore, the analysis uncovers the existence of a participatory culture wherein active discussions regarding cultural elements actively contribute to the formation and collaborative development of visual depictions of cultural events within the online community. Moreover, this study presents a challenge to prevailing perspectives on entertainment by emphasizing the wide range of cultural manifestations, surpassing the notion that humor is the exclusive portrayal within this intricate sphere. The study places its primary emphasis on textual and visual modalities, but it also recognizes the potential importance of audio dynamics. It encourages further investigation into the auditory aspect of online interactions. This study makes a valuable contribution to the scholarly understanding of the dynamic cultural identity, integration of technology, and various modes of expression found within the digital realm of online communities in Saudi Arabia.

Water courses and discourses: A media content analysis of environmental water reporting in Australia

This study presents the findings of a media content analysis (n=303) of articles discussing environmental water (water allocated to the environment in freshwater systems) in the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia across 20 years (2001 – 2021). The aim of the study was to determine the disposition of the articles, the actors (voices) invoked within them, as well as the topics they discuss in relation to environmental water, with a particular emphasis on understanding the representation and power dynamics prevalent in media discourse. The analysis highlighted that negative portrayals of environmental water occurred more often than those that were positive in nature. This led to a lack of balance in representation in heralding certain views, such as pro environmental, over others, such an economic arguments. Notably, Indigenous voices were given almost no representation across the analysed articles, while settler colonial voices such as Irrigators and Irrigator Lobby Groups were provided with a disproportionately larger share of discussion, driving the anti-environmental water disposition. This is notable as it serves to sway debate towards certain views and conceptualisations such as an economic valuing of environmental water. As such, environmental water is often discussed in the context of the economy and livelihoods of communities. There is a notable absence of discussions of climate change and cultural water in the debate, with zero mentions of either across all surveyed articles. This is surprising considering climate change is expected to reduce water availability across the basin by 20% in years to come. Water discussed as a commodity was regularly featured in discussion, which lends itself to understanding the wider policy debate nestled in neoliberal framings, rather than other valuations of water, such as environmentalist or Indigenous understandings. This has wider implications for other countries that are considering policy options for allocating environmental water and how a market-driven approach to water allocation serves to sway public discourse.

The impact of interviewer characteristics on residency candidate scores in Emergency Medicine: a brief report.

At the conclusion of residency candidate interview days, faculty interviewers commonly meet as a group to reach conclusions about candidate evaluations based on shared information. These conclusions ultimately translate into rank list position for The Residency Match. The primary objective is to determine if the post-interview discussion influences the final scores assigned by each interviewer, and to investigate whether interviewer characteristics are significantly associated with the likelihood of changing their score. Based on Foucault's 'theory of discourse' and Bourdieu's 'social capital theory,' we hypothesized that interviewer characteristics, and the discourse itself, would contribute to score changes after a post-interview discussion regarding emergency medicine residency candidates. We conducted a cross-sectional observational study of candidate scores for all candidates to a four-year emergency medicine residency program affiliated with Yale University School of Medicine during a single application cycle. The magnitude and direction of score changes, if any, after group discussion were plotted and grouped by interviewer academic rank. We created a logistic regression model to determine the odds that candidate scores changed from pre- and post-discussion ratings related to specific interviewer factors. A total of 24 interviewers and 211 candidates created 471 unique interviewer-candidate scoring interactions, with 216 (45.8%) changing post-discussion. All interviewers ranked junior to professor were significantly more likely to change their score compared to professors. Interviewers who were women had significantly lower odds of changing their individual scores following group discussion (p=0.020; OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.26-0.89). Interviewers with lower academic rank had higher odds of changing their post-discussion scores of residency candidates compared to professors. Future work is needed to further characterize the influencing factors and could help create more equitable decision processes during the residency candidate ranking process.

Active methodologies in textbooks for teaching the mother language

This research aims at undertaking a discursive-interpretive analysis of the way in which language teaching textbooks give visibility to methodologies, in order to track possible signs of active methodologies. The theoretical-methodological framework of this research is the discursive-deconstructive perspective (CORACINI, 2011; DIAS, 2016), guided by discourse theories (mainly based on Foucault), Derridean deconstruction, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. With the problematization being engendered, we expect critical-reflexive stances to be taken by users of language teaching textbooks, academic researchers and the scientific community, so that they can question and relativize what seems to be established as naturalized truth.

The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup: A Critical Examination of US and Qatari News Coverage

This study examines the tensions in the representations of human rights discourses in the context of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Primarily drawing from postcolonial approaches, it investigates how the construction of human rights narratives were deployed by two leading publications representing US ( The New York Times—NYT) and Qatari ( Gulf Times—GT) viewpoints. In doing so, the study probes the representation and self-portrayal of Qatari cultural, political, and socio-economic repertoire by the NYT and GT, respectively. Results from a qualitative content analysis highlight how the NYT emphasized the exotic Otherness of Qatar and its supposed inability-cum-illegitimacy to host the tournament. Alternatively, GT demonstrated a paradoxical disdain and desire for Western validation. Overall, the narratives in the NYT and GT tell a story of an ambivalent relationship between the West and Qatar situated in the historical context of colonialism and reflective of the ongoing, reciprocal dialogue between publications targeting English speaking audiences.

THE DISCOURSE ABOUT THE INDIGENOUS: DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF POSTS AND COMMENTS ON FACEBOOK IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC IN IPIXUNA-AM

This work falls within the field of Materialist Discourse Analysis (AD) and its general objective is to analyze posts and comments made on the social network Facebook about the Kulina indigenous people of the municipality of Ipixuna-AM, during the Covid-19 pandemic, more specifically in the period in which the first cases of the disease were recorded in that municipality, in order to identify which discourses are materialized in these texts and the effects of meanings produced there on the aforementioned subjects. To this end, we consider it necessary to describe the conditions of discursive production of these texts, in addition to verifying the subject positions assumed there, with the aim of identifying which discourses appear in the significant materiality of the texts, that is, in the posts and comments published on Facebook. With a view to achieving these objectives, we present the theoretical bases of AD, based on Pêcheux (2009), Althusser (1974), Orlandi (2013) and others, concerning the concepts of language, ideology, subject, discourse, among others, such as are understood in the theory of materialist discourse. We also present the analysis procedures, a brief historical contextualization of the space and the research subjects and finally we undertake the analysis itself, which pointed out the prominent presence of a discourse in the analyzed speeches: the discourse about the indigenous from the colonizer's perspective , responsible for an official version of Brazil's history that has been told and reproduced discursively. These traditional narratives told by official History about the historical presence of indigenous people in Brazil contribute to the maintenance of this calcified imaginary about them and which came to the surface in the texts analyzed here.

Multicomponent structure of conflictive in modern English fictional discourse

The current paper presents an overview of the multicomponent structure of conflictives as discursive constructs in modern English fictional discourse from the standpoint of pragmalinguistics, semiotics, multimodal discourse theory and paradigmatic and syntagmatic approach to the analysis of linguisticunits. The article elucidates the results of a linguosemiotic study of interpersonal conflicts in modern fictional discourse realized through the analysis of different multimodal semiotic modes, which collectively construct the meaning, communicated in conflict situations. This constructing is proceeded with the help of conflictives as emergent discursive constructs. Verbal, nonverbal and graphic semiotic resources are involved in this process at different stages of conflict communication. As a result of the multifaceted study of conflictives in modern English fictional discourse, the peculiarities of its multimodal and multicomponent structure have been revealed. Moreover, the detailed study of the successive stages of conflict development in fictional discourse involving the MDA method, linguosemiotic analysis, pragmatics and communicative linguistics allowed for singling out a conflictive as a discursive construct which in its form coincides with a certain phase of conflict communicative process, and structurally corresponds to the concept of a communicative act.The research also aims to establish a link between different approaches to the interpretation of conflict communication development and methods of their research in modern linguistic studies. The multimodal nature of conflictives comprises several modes of multimodality which are represented at least in onemode structure of conflictives constructed in a definite phase of the conflict communicative process. These patterns of meaning multiplication through different semiotic modes collectively construct the meaning, communicated and interpreted in the situations of interpersonal conflicts in modern Englishfiction discourse. Besides, the multicomponent structure of conflictives also includes its deep and surface elements involved in the process of construction and interpretation of these meanings. The obtained results show the decoding potential of interpreting conflict interpersonal communication at differentlevels of linguistic analysis to achieve the corresponding aims.

Within and Beyond: Indie Magazines and the Asian Diasporic Subject

As a resident of New York City during my twenties and early thirties, I lived through a cascade of cultural eras that exemplified America’s complex and oftentimes contradictory character. Certain palpable shifts coincided with major political events: my time in the city was bookended by the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 and Donald Trump’s last year in office in 2020. Other changes were more subtle or cumulative in nature, broader trends that took shape around me as I grew into my adult identity and found footing within various communities. Millennials and Generation Z began to stake positions in public discourse with their idiosyncratic worldviews and economic or political grievances, all while Internet 2.0 developed in step with the proliferation of smartphones and the rise of social media. Amidst this wholesale reshaping of human experience by technology, I started to become aware of the independent magazine as a site of representational discourse and collective identity formation, especially for the Asian American community.

Interior Intersubjectivity: Hortense Spillers's Theory of “the One”

Abstract There is much in Hortense Spillers's work to celebrate—from black feminism to literary criticism. One of her crucial contributions, however, has received little, if any, scholarly attention. Calvin Warren calls this a black discourse theory. Although we've focused on “the American Grammar Book” and its discursive violence, her proposed “solution” to this violence is virtually neglected. These remarks are intended to foreground this intervention by reconstructing her discourse theory of “the One” and “Interior Intersubjectivity.” In particular Warren notes the influence of Jürgen Habermas on her discourse theory, and how both find psychoanalysis beneficial in the task of restoring speech and addressing muteness. In short, this reconstruction provides a brief overview of the theoretical infrastructure rather than an exhaustive exposition and assessment.

New opportunities for discourse studies

Abstract This paper proposes a methodological framework that integrates poststructuralist Discourse Theory (DT), Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and Corpus Linguistics (CL). While previous research has discussed potential compatibility between combinations of these approaches, there have been few attempts to bring them all together into a cohesive research programme. Fostering dialogue between diverse methodological perspectives can facilitate multi-level analysis to capture the complex dynamics of sociopolitical issues. In this vein, the article presents the methodological tree, an analogy used to illustrate how these traditions may come together to complement one another. This foundation lays the groundwork for practical application in discursive analysis, with a flexible analytical structure proposed and examples provided to illustrate its implementation. It is hoped that the article can stimulate further discussion around how DT, CDS and CL can be brought together to harness their strengths.

The role of political hate speech in promoting extreme ideologies and manipulating public discourse for social approval in Pakistan

AbstractThe proliferation of politically motivated hate speech towards rival politicians has been rapidly increasing in Pakistan. However, the literature on political hate speech and its association with extreme ideologies is under‐theorized in the Pakistani context. We have utilized van Dijk's manipulative discourse and Walther's social approval theory to structure political hate speech and its consequences. The data was based on two Pakistani mainstream politicians’ public speeches and partisans’ comments available on YouTube. Findings reveal that politicians commonly exploit discursive categories, such as name‐calling, offensive metaphors and sarcasm, in their hate speech to dehumanize, ridicule and threaten their rivals. Their hateful slurs showcase extreme ideologies, such as polarization, intolerance, threat and violence. They use the hateful epithets to manipulate partisans, to sell fear of being betrayed and enslaved to the military and foreign powers, and to obtain, in exchange, audience and consent. The study theorizes that Pakistani mainstream politicians deliberately sensationalize hatred in their public speeches to harangue their rivals and foment extreme ideologies for the purpose of increasing their audience.

Are there independent effects of constraint and predictability on eye movements during reading?

Evidence of processing costs for unexpected words presented in place of a more expected completion remains elusive in the eye-movement literature. The current study investigated whether such prediction error costs depend on the source of constraint violation provided by the prior context. Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read predictable words and unpredictable alternatives that were either semantically related or unrelated in three-sentence passages. The passages differed in whether the source of constraint originated solely from the global context provided by the first two semantically rich sentences of the passage, from the local context provided by the final sentence of the passage, from both the global and local context, or from none of the three sentences of the passage. The results revealed the expected processing advantage for predictable completions in any constraining context, although the relative contributions of the different sources of constraint varied across the time course of word processing. Unpredictable completions, however, did not yield any processing costs when the context constrained toward a different word, instead producing immediate processing benefits in the presence of any constraining context. Moreover, the initial processing of related unpredictable completions was enhanced further by the provision of a supportive global context. Predictability effects therefore do not appear to be determined by cloze probability alone but also by the nature of the prior contextual constraint especially when they encourage the construction of higher-level discourse representations. The implications of these findings for understanding existing theoretical models of predictive processing are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Environmentalism for Nature to Environmentalism for Profit

This research discusses the discourse related to the mining of andesite stone for the construction of the Bener Dam in Purworejo, Central Java, as part of the National Strategic Project. The discourse constructed among actors is highly diverse. The dominant discourse is led by the government, which views the use of the forest for environmentalism for profit, while local residents see the forest as environmentalism for nature. Michel Foucault's discourse theory on the production of knowledge and power underscores the discourses brought forth by the government, the community, and NGOs. Meanwhile, Anja Nygren's concept of environmental discourse complements the various discourses that have emerged. The objective of this research is to observe the dynamics and discourse constructed by pro and contra actors regarding the construction of the Bener Dam. The research utilizes both primary and secondary data, with primary data obtained through direct interviews with sources such as Indonesian Forum for the Environment of Yogyakarta, Community Movement for Environmental Care in Wadas Village (GEMPADEWA), and Legal Aid Institute of Yogyakarta. The conclusion drawn from this research is that the dominant discourse constructed by the government can influence public opinion, especially through negotiations that lead to mutually beneficial agreements.

Inclusion for STEM, the institution, or minoritized youth? Exploring how educators navigate the discourses that shape social justice in informal science learning practices

AbstractUnderstanding equitable practice is crucial for science education since science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and STEM learning practices remain significantly marked by structural inequalities. In this paper, building on theories of discourse and situated meaning developed by Foucault, Gee, and Sedgewick, we explore how educators navigated discourses about social justice in informal science learning (ISL) across four UK sites. We draw on qualitative, multimodal data across 5 years of a research–practice partnership between a university, a zoo, a social enterprise working to support girls and nonbinary youth in STEM, a community digital arts center, and a science center. We identify three key discourses that shaped social justice practices across all four practice–partner sites: (1) “inclusion” for STEM, (2) “inclusion” for the institution, and (3) “inclusion” for minoritized youth. We discuss how educators (n = 17) enacted, negotiated, resisted, and reworked these discourses to create equitable practice. We argue that while the three key discourses shaped the possible meanings and practices of equitable ISL in different ways, educators used their agency and creativity to develop more expansive visions of social justice. We discuss how the affordances, pitfalls, and contradictions that emerged within and between the three discourses were strategically navigated and disrupted by educators to support the minoritized youth they worked with, as well as to protect and promote equity in ISL. This paper contributes to research on social justice in ISL by grounding sometimes abstract questions about power and discourse in ISL educators' everyday work.

Comparative Study of Hate Speech in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections in Three Selected Newspapers in Nigeria

The recent trend in journalism malpractice in the country is the dissemination of hate speech and vulgar language. Within this context, the paper analyzed the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in the Daily Trust, The Nation, and The Guardian newspapers. The variables of frequency, location, direction, as well as a journalistic genre were used to examine the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections by the selected newspapers. Stratified random sampling by days of the week was used to select the editions in the newspapers. The Functional Theory of Campaign Discourse and Critical Race Theory was used as the theoretical framework. Based on the findings, to table the manifestation of hate speech was more frequent in 2015 than in the 2019 general elections by the selected newspapers. The findings reveal that the manifestation of hate speech by the selected newspapers in the 2015 and 2019 general elections was significantly high in the inside pages than in the front and back pages. The study found that the manifestation of hate speech by the selected newspapers was in a negative direction in 2015, and in a neutral direction in 2019. The study discovered that the manifestation of hate speech was on political news by the selected newspapers in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the manifestation of hate speech in the 2015 and 2019 general elections in Nigeria was significantly high, and this constituted a major problem in the 2015 and 2019 general elections.

A MINHOCA AGREDIDA E A ROSA DESPEDAÇADA: A NATURALIZAÇÃO DO ABUSO E DA VIOLÊNCIA CONTRA A MULHER NOS DISCURSOS DAS CANÇÕES INFANTIS

In Pecheutian Matrix Discourse Theory, innate theories are not defended. Language is not a matter of heredity: it is something to be learned. Language is not only logical or biological and, therefore, one cannot ignore the pathological, historical and cultural problems it presents. However, we are subjects of/in language, crossed by the unconscious. Thus, in this work we seek to analyze some discourses that, in their fragmentation, circulate in children's songs, reorganizing social practices from an early age. Songs that echo, resonate in history, imposing ways of behavior on children, segmenting the male and female binary. A social memory that structures, reestablishes and also represents the reality and its force field of social relations for change or its conservation. The worm, the rose, the worm and the harpsichord discursive meanings of social practices.

Can't Believe It Went By So Fast

This autobiographical sketch starts with my arrival as a PhD student at UCLA in 1965. It focuses on the most prominent line of my intellectual development, from work in Priorean tense logic for my dissertation and essays intended to fit within the framework of Montague Grammar to the discourse-oriented framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) and eventually to the unequivocally cognitive approach of Mental State Discourse Representation Theory (MSDRT), which is the core of my present view and work.

Meaning and Language based on a poststructuralist approach to Discourse Theory

This paper specifically develops a discussion on how, based on the Discourse Theory, initially developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, we can articulate the notions of meaning and language as instituting the real through discourse. For this, through two sections we develop an argument that considers reality as always being mediated by language and we also emphasize how the category of discourse is understood as a privileged space in which the processes of meaning of this same reality take place. This approach is part of a sometimes heteroclite theoretical framework, which approximates philosophical contributions considered, in general, as poststructuralists and postfoundationalists, provoking us to think that, in the impossibility of being a fundamental thought, philosophy becomes an intrinsically political thought.

Testing Right Frontier Constraint on Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

This paper focuses on Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven as a case study to examine the narrator's conscious experiences and the challenges of interpreting coherence relations within this domain. It examines the concept of Right Frontier Constraint (RFC) from the Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) and discusses its relevance in the context of The Raven. It further addresses the challenge of clarifying poetical effects through the lens of coherence relations and acknowledges the diversity of reader responses. This paper draws from the work of various researchers who have explored discourse segmentation and coordination, and applies global and micro analysis to further examine the themes of The Raven, and Poes use of poetical effect through the poems ambiguity and symbolism. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the intricate web of coherence relations within literary works such as The Raven while also offering potential avenues for future research to probe into the interpretation of coherence relations in conscious experiences.

Keystone theories of postcrisis discourse: Communication Theory of Resilience and Discourse of Renewal

AbstractTheories of resilience are keystones for understanding how individuals, small groups, organizations, and communities arrive at collective meaning, resolve uncertainty, and respond to crisis events. In response to a crisis, organizations can pursue three goals: Returning to the prior equilibrium, creating a new equilibrium with new processes and policies, or a combination of the two. Theories of resilience and renewal address these responses. Resilience has been applied in a diverse set of academic fields as well as in public policy discussions and in popular culture. This broad application, however, has resulted in conceptual confusion and conflicting interpretations. We explore the origins of resilience and its characteristics. We then review two discipline‐specific postcrisis theories, The Communication Theory of Resilience and Discourse of Renewal. We ask, how can these theories enrich understanding of postcrisis adaptive processes and create for a more comprehensive picture of how individuals and organizations respond to crises? Taken together, they provide a broader framework for understanding the role of postcrisis discourse and informing practitioners in the enactment of responses.