Discourse Community Research Articles

Imagining alternative climate futures in higher education

AbstractAcross the globe, interdisciplinary and creative approaches to climate change education are crucial at all levels, particularly in higher education. In this article, I draw from insights working with a class at New Mexico State University in the United States. The aim was to examine approaches to understanding, communicating, and representing climate change. Each student was asked to compose a narrative in which they imagined the year 2100 as a time when we have adequately mitigated and/or adapted to the climate crisis. The assignment set the tone for collective action and foregrounded the importance of story and imagination in building just and sustainable futures. The class complemented a public climate change speaker series and, as a second assignment, students suggested which speakers to invite to shape the series in the future. The two assignments opened new spaces to empower, learn with and from, and build connections between university students and academic staff to shape climate discourse and action in communities. Reflecting on what was learned, sharing an example of a climate futures assignment, and presenting views on a collaborative approach to climate change education all add, I hope, to the literature on imagining futures, empowerment, and authentic learning in climate change education.

Lenin, Putin, and Rage Guy: Internet memes in the discourse of a Russian far-right community

ABSTRACT The article addresses Internet memes’ usage in Russian far-right discourse, seeking to evaluate how it corresponds with the basic roles of memes in political communication and the extent to which the Russian far-right memetic vernacular is universally translatable. The article uses qualitative content analysis and multimodal discourse analysis of the “Right-Wing Memes” community on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte. The Russian far-right builds its social identity by filling the floating signifiers of the “left-wing,” “migrants,” and “Russian national state” with relevant meanings through the memetic means of visual humor, bitter irony, and parallel comparison. These construct the in- and out-groups, convey the ideological message, and give voice to the groups excluded from the mainstream. However, although the Russian far-right employs globalized memetic tropes, the content is mainly country-specific, which, together with the language barrier, hinders the formation of a universal far-right memetic discourse.

Structures and functions of lexical bundles in FinTech discourse

Lexical bundles perform a wide range of functions, and present disciplinary variation in written academic prose. However, little is known about the characteristics of lexical bundles used in interdisciplinary domains. Therefore, this study investigates the use of lexical bundles in the field of FinTech, an amalgam of finance and technology, by building a 127 472-word corpus of 114 published research articles related to FinTech. A total of 180 four-word lexical bundles are identified and thereafter analysed in accordance with the taxonomy of structures and functions devised by Biber et al. (1999). The results reveal that (1) the proportion of bundle ending with nouns is twice that of bundles ending with verbs, (2) these identified lexical bundles are dominated by VP-based expressions, and (3) referential bundles account for almost 50% of the 180 instances. The existence of disciplinary variation is once again confirmed in this study, and the discipline specific multi-word combinations may deserve attention in the instruction of EAP writing as they can help students to be more articulate in their academic discourse communities.

Queering ontological (in)security: a psychoanalysis of political homophobia

ABSTRACT Recent advancements in ontological security (OS) derived from Lacan’s psychoanalysis rethink the concept in terms of the subject’s desire for completeness through attempting stabilised and fixed identities. This approach can offer a novel way to examine the rise of political homophobia where power works pervasively. However, the current conceptualisations of ontological (in)security are not theoretically equipped to unpack and examine such violent politics. This is mainly because ontological (in)security has yet to grapple with the concept of power. This article will address this gap and rethink Lacanian ontological (in)security as a framework for critical power analysis. It equips it with two theoretical moves: Queer studies, which advances the understanding of ‘the other’ and ‘othering’, and emotions research, which demonstrates how emotions work in othering, in International Relations. These two theoretical moves enable the framework to examine how emotions do political work to (re)produce binaries such as subject and object, ‘self’ and ‘other’, and ‘normal’ and ‘perverse’ in the subject production process in heteronormative ‘regimes of normal’. Consequently, Lacanian ontological (in)security can help us understand how and why a gendered and sexualised politics is normalised. The argument will be illustrated through analysis of emotional representations of LGBTQI+ communities in the state-level political discourse in Turkey.

“Tweet of the town”: Synthesizing Local and Social Media Discourse on Book Bans

This project explores the intersection of local and online discourse around book bannings. I use the McMinn County School Board’s decision in 2022 to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir, Maus, as a case study for this discourse. Through a combination of interviews with McMinn County residents and data collected from Twitter, I argue that social media has altered local community discourse and responses to book bannings. Interviews with local residents asked them to discuss their experiences when Maus was removed by the school board and to reflect on how the local community responded amidst worldwide scrutiny once the event reached digital spaces via social media. Online discourse on Twitter involved collecting tweets mentioning the McMinn County Schools Twitter account along with tweets discussing Maus to understand the broader online response to the board’s decision. I use Danielle Allen’s discourse flow model as the theoretical framework for this project and in my initial findings, discourse around the Maus ban has traveled as described by Allen. In the age of social media, discourse frequently begins at the local level before traveling online and then back into local spaces. Ongoing data analysis has shown that locally, residents were concerned with not only the board’s decision, but also the perception of their community once news of the banning spread. This is supported by online discourse on Twitter, where initial analysis shows frequent characterization of the McMinn County community in a negative light based on the school board’s actions.

Evaluating forest conservation policies of Bhutan: sensitiveness and responsiveness to gender considerations

Putting gender at the centre of policy analysis is a crucial task, yet one rarely accomplished effectively. Gender research in South Asia has increasingly emphasised the importance of evolving dynamics and balancing the gender participation in forest policy and practice. Efforts have been undertaken to enhance women involvement in local governance including forest conservation through policy measures that include community forestry initiatives across South East Asia as well as in Bhutan. However, this has not led to a more equitable role for men and women in the forestry industry since it has not properly addressed the underlying issues of power dynamics and inequality. This investigation aimed to evaluate the incorporation of gender issues in Bhutan's forest policies over 50 years. In order to gauge the level of forest conservation policy responsiveness towards gender needs and demands, we employed content analysis and discourse analysis based on an analytical framework centred on various dimensions including socio-economic, socio-cultural, political and operational procedures. The results highlight that the policies concerning forest conservation utilized gender-neutral language when referring to the larger discourse of communities. Notably, terms with connotations specific to men outweigh those associated with women. While phrases specifically addressing women were irregularly and inconsistently employed in certain policy documents, discerning distinct trends in their usage remains challenging. The analysis underscores that only a limited number of forest policies in Bhutan display gender responsiveness, necessitating a greater comprehension of gender roles in forest conservation.

The Transition of Scientific Theories into Social Discourse

Abstract This study delves into how the Chinese intellectual community of the early 20th century interpreted scientific ideas, specifically the “theory of evolution” and “theory of relativity.” The conservative publication, The Eastern Miscellany, underwent a transformation during the May Fourth Movement, embracing concepts like “Mutual aid: A factor of evolution” and the theory of relativity in the 1920s. Editors and writers used these scientific concepts to counter radical intellectuals, reshaping cultural and ideological perspectives in journal texts. This reinterpretation aimed to not only adopt modern values but also challenge the dogmatism of scientific discourses in China’s political and cultural context. Scholars associated the mutual help hypothesis with evolutionary studies, aligning it with cultural diversity and opposing centralized political structures. The relativistic theory, connected to anarchism and coexistence within civilization, offered an alternative discourse to radicalism, rejecting a singular modern value system. Their goal was to establish a discourse community reflecting their rationality and principles while restoring traditional values in Eastern civilization. This paper considers this as evidence of how they struggled to maintain conservative legitimacy during the political system’s modern transition and aims to elucidate it through textual analysis of contemporary magazines. Furthermore, the paper aims to remind us once again of the dangers of scientism, which are often overlooked when compared to the absolute nature of science that is still recognized today.

Blending Human-Centred Design and Community-Based Participatory Action Research Approaches: Designing Community Sport and Recreation Provisions for Equity-Owed Communities

Addressing the social and economic disparities equity-owed low-income residents experience that prevent participation in community sport and recreation is complex. Community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) has been utilized to facilitate the participation of equity-owed communities in sport and recreation initiatives. However, in this paper, we discuss how CBPAR and human-centred design (HCD) help engage communities in discourse and action to support innovative social change in the context of sport and recreation for equity-owed low-income communities. This paper compares processes, core principles, and outcomes of CBPAR and HCD. It highlights how they can collectively drive discourse and action to foster innovative social change in sport and recreation for equity-owed communities. The proposed integration, called CBPAR+HCD, is suggested to initiate solutions that address the multifaceted challenges through a social justice lens, placing community-driven social innovation at the forefront. This paper highlights the benefits of combining CBPAR+HCD and acknowledges the inherent challenges in implementing this dual approach. Furthermore, it offers recommendations to support the combined approach, emphasizing the importance of this integrated methodology in promoting social change and addressing inequities within community sport and recreation initiatives.

A Socio-Pragmatic Analysis of Arabic Formulaic Expressions in Literary Texts with Reference to the Difficulties in Translating them into English

Formulaic expressions are strings of words commonly co-occur in natural discourse, they are typically characterized by their high expressivity in holding out intents and their highlighted effects in verbalizing targets. Most formulaic expressions in Arabic have variance interpretations that deliberately assume the intents of the text or the context in which they are accompanied, this is because, they are utilized in combinations with other texts which put them into practice. This, however, constitutes a problem pertaining to their interpretations as the same language formula can be relatedly vitalized and verbalized in terms of the interchangeable accompanied texts which are stemmed in a context. This problem also arguably raises a debatable issue: what would happen in the interpretation when two opposite texts; namely formulaic text and non–formulaic text are met together successively in one textual framework/ setting? Another problem majorly encounters Arabic translators who are non–native to the English language as formulaic expressions are conventionalized sequences of words that belong to a specific language community; whereof achieving a formulaic knowledge via translation would be unattainable for those who belong to another discourse community. Therefore, this study is an attempt to: 1) identify the intent of the formulaic structure in relation to the accompanied text and the role of the formulaic structure in constructing both of the texts' significations. 2) outlining the role of pragma-societal factors in shaping the designation of the texts under the analysis .3) Explicating the challenges faced by Arabic translators in their renditions of formulaic expressions into English; how they deal with these socio-cultural words; and to what extent, they succeed in achieving socio-pragmatic equivalency in replicating these formulaic statuses into English. 4) proposing appropriate pragma-translational neutral procedures for neutralizing these formulas preserving their formulaic statuses into English. Procedurally (6) texts from Arabic drama (قابل للقتل) are chosen to be the data of the study. Participants of this study are (4) Arabic translators who are non–natives to English live in the U.S.A. The study sums up that most of the Arabic formulaic expressions realized inaccurate renditions by socio-pragmatic breakdown, deviation, formulaic loss, nonsenses in English due to socio-pragmatic and cultural incompetency of the translators.

The kids are (not) alright: Teachers’ perspectives on the discourse of youth in social-emotional crisis

In this qualitative study stemming from a discourse community with six elementary teachers in the United States, discourse analysis was used to explore how these teachers discuss the international notion that youth are in a social and emotional crisis. The teachers resisted a deficit narrative that youth are to blame for this crisis and require fixing. Resistance was evident in teachers' discursive strategies such as illuminating students’ strengths, recognizing how “crisis” can emerge from systems operating as intended, and pointing out the contradictory metaphors of movement (stuck in the past, obsessed with progress) that can prevent global transformation in education.

Investigating AVHs narratives through text analysis: the proposal of Dialogic Science for tackling stigmatization

BackgroundAuditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are a significant symptom of various psychological conditions, often stigmatized and misunderstood. Moving beyond traditional psychological, psychotherapeutic and psychiatric approaches, recent research shifts focus on understanding AVHs through community perspectives and the resulting stigmatization. This research approach is crucial for better support and understanding of AVHs, however it still suffers from the lack of a rigorous and shared methodology for studying and reducing stigma.MethodsOur study, part of the Italian “PsicoVoice” project, aims to investigate community discourses on AVHs, in order to observe whether and to what extent they are drivers of stigmatisation processes. Engaging 268 participants with direct (hearers) and indirect (such as relatives and professionals) experiences of AVHs, the research analyzes a corpus of 54,320 instances using MADIT: a text analysis methodology which is both qualitative and quantitative. MADIT allows for an innovative examination of the rhetorical-argumentative structures within narratives, producing an index for measuring the narratives’ practical impact on people’ interactions around AVHs.ResultsThe analysis revealed that the overall community discourses are predominantly shaped by absolute and personal belief-driven modalities. This way of conveying sense, even with non-necessarily-judgmental words, contributes to a stigmatizing environment for individuals with AVHs, cementing a static representation dominated by personal opinions and reducing the potential for more nuanced, diverse interactions about AVHs.ConclusionThe study’s findings underscore the importance of addressing the narrative structures within community discourses. By intervening in these narratives, there is potential to shift towards a less stigmatizing social construction of AVHs. Thus, the article concludes using the results to provide some insights on how to generate these interventions. This approach could significantly impact how communities understand and interact with individuals experiencing AVHs, promoting more inclusive and supportive environments and interventions.

Language, disciplinarity and identity: an autoethnography of an international interdisciplinary doctoral student

PurposeWhile higher education has been encouraging interdisciplinary research, few studies have been conducted to understand how interdisciplinarity shapes the identity construction of scholars, especially doctoral students who may already strive to socialize into academia.Design/methodology/approachTherefore, this study adopts the approach of autoethnography to analyze my lived experience of developing disciplinary literacy and constructing interdisciplinary identity as a Chinese international doctoral student at a North American university. Communication theory of identity (CTI) is the theoretical framework through which I understand the negotiation among my personal, enacted, relational and communal identities while communicating my research through diverse literacy practices.FindingsThis autoethnography reveals that interdisciplinary doctoral students can flexibly use discursive resources from different disciplines and literacy practices in both English and their first language to dynamically create interdisciplinary identities communicable to different discourse communities. Their identities in different disciplines can develop simultaneously, rather than suppressing one for the development of the other as they do interdisciplinary research.Originality/valueThis study first extends current scholarly discussion of disciplinary literacy to a less-investigated setting, i.e. doctoral education in higher education. Second, it adds an additive and current layer of interdisciplinarity to the existing understanding of international doctoral students’ identity construction. Third, it helps to understand how the development of disciplinary literacy can facilitate disciplinary identity construction and how disciplinary identity construction can facilitate the development of disciplinary literacy.

Popularity and discourse in tech-related online communities

Popularity and discourse in tech-related online communities

Jargon in a Discourse Community: An Example in Òfì/Aṣọ Òkè Weaving Profession

This study is the first phase of an ongoing research study that aims to document the processes of making òfì or aṣọ òkè (handloom woven fabrics of the Yoruba) and compile a dictionary of the terms and terminology associated with this traditional occupation of cloth weaving. The data for the study were collected through the master-apprentice model, participant observation, and interviews. The theory adopted for this study is institutional talk, a sociolinguistic approach to the description of the language of a particular group of people who share a communication style or vocabulary. Aṣọ òkè weavers are portrayed as a discourse community and their jargon is categorized into some lexico-semantic classification.

Towards an eco-practical theology: An eschatological horizon of true hope

The ecological crisis in the world necessitates the reconfiguration of the hegemony of modern science, theology, politics, economics and technology – the root cause of a pending ecological catastrophe. The aim is to redress a growing culture of apathy in the context of devastating weather conditions, social and political discord, and unrelenting violent wars. Public theology serves as a conceptual framework with transversal rationality as an interlocutor between the different theological (systematic, ethics, pastoral care and eco-theology), religious and philosophical perspectives. The theological ontology of care is presented followed by the role of communities of critical prophetic discourse. The notion of earth as a community leads to the prospect of a new eco-theology. Finally, the pending ecological catastrophe is reconceptualised in and through Christian eschatology. This is an inter- and intra-disciplinary discussion on the disastrous consequences of modernity and anthropocentric behaviour in terms of the current environmental crisis. Various scholars offer valuable insights into what the problem is, who responsible is for the environmental crisis, and how Christian communities should forge an accountability of care for the earth and vulnerable human beings. The eschatological reality of God’s preferred future remains a constant of hopeful and sustainable life in the Anthropocene age. It is recommended that we change the way we exist by transforming modernity as developed and sustained through theology, socio-political, economic and technological ‘advances’.Contribution: This article focussed on the ecological crisis because of anthropocentrism and distorted theological, political and socio-economic paradigms to serve human interests despite the consequences for the earth. We need to reconfigure interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary scientific approaches to embrace earth as a key scientific interlocutor. The ecological crisis should be conceptualised within the reality of Christian eschatology – Jesus Christ is ultimately, the eschaton.

The Role of Philosophy in Addressing Climate Change

Purpose: The general objective of this study was to investigate the role of philosophy in addressing climate change. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to philosophy in addressing climate change. The study underscored the indispensable role of philosophy in combating climate change by examining its ethical, epistemological, and socio-political dimensions. It highlighted the importance of ethical theories like utilitarianism and intergenerational justice in ensuring climate policies are just and equitable. The study emphasized epistemic justice, advocating for the inclusion of marginalized perspectives to create more inclusive climate policies. It also revealed the interconnectedness of environmental and social justice, calling for holistic climate strategies that address social inequalities. Overall, the study demonstrated that integrating philosophical insights into climate action fosters a more ethical, effective, and sustainable response to the climate crisis. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Utilitarianism, Intergenerational Justice and Epistemic Justice Theory may be used to anchor future studies on the role of philosophy in addressing climate change. The study recommended incorporating a broader range of philosophical theories into climate change research, integrating ethical considerations systematically into climate action plans, and adopting ethically informed policies that prioritize justice, equity, and sustainability. It emphasized the need for ethical leadership, promoting epistemic justice by including marginalized communities in climate discourse, and fostering global cooperation through international ethical standards and strengthened partnerships. These recommendations aimed to create more comprehensive, inclusive, and effective responses to climate change.

Algae, Fungi, Binomial Nomenclature and the Search for “Correct” Pronunciations

The spelling of Latin plurals in words like fungi, algae produces pronunciation variants and spirited arguments over correctness. Because the experts in specialty areas could be considered the arbiters of terminology standards, American and British biologists in several fields were surveyed to determine whether historical standard pronunciations of certain words have been maintained or lost. Results indicate that in some cases traditional pronunciations are still the standard in these discourse communities, while in others North America and the UK have diverged. In addition, newer spelling pronunciations have come into play on both sides of the Atlantic, even among these experts, with older forms threatened with extinction. Binomial nomenclature is also subject to variation as a longstanding debate over the use of anglicized or classical Latin and Greek challenges the need for any standard pronunciation at all.

Exemplification and reformulation in expert linguists’ writings: Elaborative metadiscourse between disciplinarity and individuality

Exemplification and reformulation are key elaborative strategies that empower clarity and argumentation in academic writing. Most research investigating their use in academic writing argues that writers’ choices in terms of frequency and marker type are conditioned by disciplinary variations and the level of expertise of the writers. This has led to an understanding of discourse communities as being homogeneous groups of novice versus expert writers and of separate soft versus hard disciplines. Through the analysis of 90 research articles and book chapters single-authored by six leading linguists, this study shows that these successful authors deviate from the common practices in linguistics and their choices deviate from each other significantly. However, the data does not reveal any steady increasing or decreasing frequencies in the use of exemplification and reformulation throughout their career stages, which makes it hard to claim that the frequency of using the two discourse functions evolves with experience. The study argues that individuality and style preferences within the same discourse community should be acknowledged as an additional variable affecting discursive choices and calls for a more nuanced understanding of disciplinarity and writing expertise.

Virtual Exchange Genres: what Can Genre Theories Inform us about the First Synchronous Session?

Virtual exchange or telecollaboration refers to pedagogical practices that connect geographically distant learners who work together towards a common goal. Despite the growing interest in telecollaborative practices and research, few studies have concentrated on investigating the genres that emerge in such contexts. This study shares the understanding that genres are goal-directed events organized in rhetorical patterns and used by members of a discourse community. It aims to explore the first synchronous session between dyads in a telecollaborative project directed to language learning, Teletandem, from a genre perspective. In particular, this paper describes the rhetorical organization patterns of the genre. Data were selected from MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) and comprise transcripts of ten initial Teletandem Oral Sessions (itos) – the first synchronous encounter – from three learning scenarios, which were held in Portuguese and English and recorded between 2012 and 2015. The research involved analyzing each transcript to describe the genre patterns and discuss the specificities in itos organization relative to the learning scenarios. Results show that itos has a flexible and scenario-dependent structure in which the actions of greetings and introduction, information exchange, negotiation, and saying goodbye are prevalent.

Community Discourses of Language Reclamation through Irish Medium Youth Work

ABSTRACT This article presents community discourses of Irish medium youth work (IMYW) in the North of Ireland as a component of a wider community goal of language reclamation. This is a secondary data analysis of interviews conducted by the author which places the findings within the historical context of colonisation and present-day language reclamation efforts. Gaeilge has been the subject of language reclamation efforts in the North of Ireland since the late 1960s with this form of language activism including social and economic activism. This analysis connects the material and cultural disadvantages that young Irish speakers face with a youth work methodology that is grounded in language and community rights as well as social justice. The findings illustrate that despite governmental commitments to Gaeilge, discriminatory views and decisions remain which in turn inspire this growing community in their project of language reclamation in which young people are at the centre.