Discursive Activity Research Articles

Space Making in the Global South: Lessons from the GCC-Mercosur Agreement

Abstract This article proposes a revised approach to the mainstream definition and understanding of the term ‘Global South’ by anchoring its meaning in a relational view of space. Secondly, it presents the GCC-Mercosur agreement as a case study that illustrates the obstacles involved in the making of spaces in the Global South. The main research question addressed here is: Why has the GCC-Mercosur framework agreement failed to materialize into a meaningful economic space? This question will be answered through David Harvey’s theoretical insights and Doreen Massey’s relational approach to space, as well as post-structural geography. This article argues that the promise of increased trade and investment was the basis on which the GCC-Mercosur economic space was designed, but the narrowness of the framework agreement’s scope and the socio-political relations organized around it have not been able to sustain or strengthen this Global South space. This study employs discourse analysis as its main methodological technique, grounded on a Foucauldian understanding of the empirical properties of discursive activities. It concludes by advocating for the need to incentivize a broader engagement of civil society in the processes of Global South space making.

Using discourse markers to negotiate epistemic stance: A view from situated language use

In this paper, I analyse the usage of a discourse marker =mari, belonging to the epistemic paradigm attested in Upper Napo Kichwa (Quechuan, Ecuador). I show that the use of =mari indicates that the information is known well to the speaker, but also to some extent familiar to the addressee. In situated language use, the marker contributes to creating a knowing epistemic stance of the speaker. The analysis presented here is based on a 13-h documentary corpus of interactive Upper Napo Kichwa discourse, recorded on audio and video. For the purpose of the paper, the relevant utterances are analysed in their broad interactional context, including not only the surrounding text, but also relationships between the interlocutors, their shared life experience and possible shared knowledge derived from other sources. First, I analyse the semantic and pragmatic contribution of =mari to the conversational turn it occurs in, drawing on conversations extracted from the corpus. Following on from that, I show how tokens of =mari are situated in interactional sequences, and examine how the semantics/pragmatics of the clitic contributes to the discursive actions achieved by the turns which contain it.

Review of "Rhetoric of health and medicine as/is: Theories and approaches for the field by Lisa Melonçon, S. Scott Graham, Jenell Johnson, John A. Lynch, and Cynthia Ryan," Melonçon, L. Graham, S.S, Johnson, J., Lynch, J., & Ryan, S. (Eds). (2020). Rhetoric of health and medicine as/is: Theories and approaches for the field. The Ohio State University Press. https://doi.org/10.26818/9780814214466

The foreword, written by Judy Z. Segal, begins with a brief dialogue between a patient and a nurse that illustrates the effects of discursive actions on health and medicine. It is a dialogue between a patient and a nurse, reminiscent of stories of ancient cartographers who mapped their changing and uncertain worlds through stories, discovering ever new riches in a world that wasn't flat. In the same way, contemporary thinkers in health and medicine are discovering the treasure in exploring rhetoric and technical communication across traditional boundaries. These authors move through previously uncharted territory with story and new questions that extend the boundaries of our individual bodies. They explore important questions of individual human agency and how that intersects with social and rhetorical theory. Critical questions new to medicine in the twenty-first century, such as resistance, power of representation, and where advocacy for health justice lies, are topics explored through a variety of lenses in this collection.

In search of cognitive and linguistic methodology for discourse studies

This work is devoted to the study of theoretical and methodological problems of modern discourse open for discussion. Being an object of interdisciplinary interests, discourse studies profess various methodological principles and theoretical categories. Taking into account the positions of different humanities using the discourse category, the authors of the article consider the methodological primary basis of discourse-analysis to be the identification of communicative-cognitive correlation of a literary text’s speech meaning and discourse forming concepts as the basis of author’s and reader’s thought code. The category “discursive activity” introduced and interpreted by the authors correlates with linguistic activity: the four-element model of cognition and communication. It is proved that discursive activity is built not on the traditional three “whales”, but four. A communicative event is projected by: 1) object realities; 2) sensual perception of realities in the form of objective and previously stored in memory phonetic representations; 3) a discursive model of the future (supposed) text, which is constructed by ideal phenomena — concepts; 4) such ideal units as “internal words”. This allows for the interpretation of discourse as a schematic means of mentally constructing a communicative situation in the aggregate of its verbal/non-verbal elements. The developed discourse analysis in the work is based on the interpretation of a system of concepts, which are a cognitive substrate of a discursive situation and serve as the pre-text model of the event experienced by communicants as a real fact. An adequate interpretation of semantic relations between keywords and basic concepts is important in the developed cognitive-linguistic methodology of discourse analysis. The contextual interpretation method and discourse analysis were used in the work.

Profesores adolescentes: Herramienta didáctica para Lengua y Literatura Española

The high school classroom is a space open to linguistic speech. Therefore, the development of these skills is essential in school life to: learn to learn, explore the most creative side of language from literature, question and reflect on one's own ideas and those we receive from others. Given this paradigm, we generated a proposal for educational improvement in order to activate motivation, integrate learning about the literature selection from the first course of Bachillerato and improve their oral communication skills. Our case study presents the implementation of this proposal with three mixed groups from a public school (68 students in total). The results of this discursive activity show that students in these educational levels (16 or 17 years old) integrate linguistic and curricular skills more efficiently if they are allowed to become speakers. The case study intends to be an invitation for teachers to integrate the educational potential of giving space and time in the classroom for the student to become a communicator and the protagonist of their own learning.

ФРАЗЕОЛОГИЗМЫ С КОМПОНЕНТОМ-ЗООНИМОМ В ДИАЛЕКТНОЙ КАРТИНЕ МИРА ЖИТЕЛЕЙ КУБАНИ: МЕХАНИЗМЫ КОГНИЦИИ

The article examines cognitive mechanisms of Kuban region set expressions origin, which include animalistic vocabulary and which represent a significant part of dialect picture of the world. The material for the research was taken from regional printed and handwritten lexicographical sources on a subject of Kuban sub-dialects, as well data was collected during long-term dialect expeditions. The results demonstrate the variety of these mechanisms, which are based on actual observations by the sub-dialect speakers on behavior, peculiar appearance, voice, smell of animals and human actions in regard thereto. The amount and variety of selected tokens prove the significance of zoomorphic code in the Kuban region inhabitants’ world view. Ethnocultural conjoinings of set expressions were found, which provide insight into the unique nature of the villager’s world view. The analysis of discursive sources of origin of phraseological units with a zoonym component enabled to trace the birth of a new cognitive structure as a result of conceptualisation of human knowledge. It was demonstrated, that meanings of Kuban phraseological units, being the product of cognitive and discursive activity of sub-dialect speakers, unite the results of sensuous impressions and pragmatist perception of the world around us.

Public contestation practices in Russia in 2000–2020

The article analyzes the influence exerted by the limitation of legal opportunities for public contestation in the 2000s on the scope of mobilization and the repertoire of public contestation practices. The term ‘public contestation’ is used to describe forms of individual and collective political activity focused on criticizing, denying and resisting the current government project, including by introducing alternative projects. The public contestation includes constructive actions of political actors not related to causing damage or disposing of political opponents. The paper is based on political and legal analysis and on some elements of event analysis. In the 2000s, the scale of public contestation on discursive and protest platforms was smaller than over the next decade, which did not create any needs for detailed regulation of such activities. At the same time, changes in political and legal opportunities in the electoral and party field were quite intense throughout 2000–2020. The most popular forms of public contestation were public events (in 2011–2018), as well as discursive activity on the Internet and in mass media (after 2018). During the above mentioned period, we see the biggest changes in legal opportunities in this field and increasing penalties for respective violations. The electoral field shows the pendulum dynamics: decreasing and increasing opportunities in 2000–2011 and 2012–2019, respectively. A meaningful factor of narrowing legal opportunities for public contestation is the potential financial, organizational and information support of public contestation practices by foreign entities.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ADVERTISING TEXT AS A DISCURSIVE PRACTICE

The article is devoted to the study of approaches to the concept of discourse and discursive practice. In the course of the research, the author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to address typical, routine, unproblematic, and therefore unnoticed discursive actions and events that are also part of the discourse. In this article, advertising is considered as one of the trends in consumer culture. The article reveals the nature of the impact of advertising on a person, the features of the moral content of advertising and the role of advertising in consumer society. The conclusion is made about the predominantly destructive influence of advertising on public culture. Ways to influence the advertising discourse to neutralize its negative potential are outlined. The concept of discursive practice in the aspect of linguistic analysis is considered. The basic principles of description are defined. The research focuses on the interaction of discourses and the formation of new discursive practices.

A gramscian perspective on field dynamics. The case of the privatization of Italian steel industry

Institutional fields are not static, they undergo times of fragmentation and times of settlement. Neo-institutional research has long explained the settlement of fields as either the effect of political manoeuvring of actors, or of discursive activity influencing cultural codes, narratives and symbols. But can these processes really be considered in isolation? In this paper, we propose to adopt a comprehensive view on fields’ dynamics, one that embraces the interaction of political and discursive manoeuvring to explain how fragmented fields manage to settle. To do so, we build on the Gramscian concept of hegemonic practices as discursive and political processes that integrate cultural equivalence among actors with political alliances based on aligned interests. Hegemonic practices align actors in a new historical bloc (a new settlement). Through this lens, we interpret the case of the Italian State steel privatization (1984–1995) and propose a process model explaining what yields fields’ dynamics from fragmentation to settlement. The model highlights the action of diffused agency in field dynamics, thus overcoming the obsolete challenger/incumbent view, and the need of becoming a historical bloc for alliances to stabilize a field.

From community of practice to epistemic community - law, discipline and security in the battle for the legalisation of medical cannabis in Poland.

Although public debates on cannabis are ongoing in many countries, there are currently no EU-wide rules for either medical or recreational use of cannabis. Numerous studies have illustrated that creating such rules is a complex challenge. The battle over the legalisation of medical use of cannabis in Poland is a good example for analysing the mutual impact of the social practices that various actors perform through and by the discourses in the field of health care: how they discursively create their own roles and take positions and how they shape the coalitions and opposition in trying to achieve their strategic goals. This article aims to reconstruct and explain how different types of knowledge are discursively used to sustain or question power relations in the healthcare field. The dispersed knowledge-power influences social actors, who try to define or redefine social practices and aspire to guide them in the healthcare field. The presented approach allows authors to go beyond the social actors' perception vs institutional regulations and to analyse discursive actions as elements of the complex networks of meanings activating various type of resources. Those dynamic networks, involving the different (and sometimes the same) actors in the different actions, open the new fields of rationality. Starting by identifying the crucial actors and their discursive actions visible in the mainstream press discourse, we will reconstruct three types of groups related to medical cannabis. We will then investigate three types of dispositives - law, discipline and security - to investigate the relations between discursive and non-discursive elements. The proposed analysis belongs to the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm and includes investigation of the media discourses and in-depth interviews with the identified actors.

Differences between how Undergraduate Students Define Geometric Solids and what their Lecturers Expect from them through the Lens of the Theory of Commognition

Undergraduate students’ engagement with mathematical discourse when defining geometric solids is analysed and compared with what their lecturers expect them to do. The theory of commognition is adopted as the theoretical framework, which permits the characterisation and comparison of their discursive activities, and may lead to the identification of potential commognitive conflicts. The participants were forty-five undergraduate students (primary pre-service teachers) and their lecturers. A worksheet with questions about defining geometric solids was used as a data collection instrument. The students, in small groups, had to discuss and write their answers, and the lecturers were asked what they expected from their students. Results show three main areas of mismatch between students’ engagement in mathematical discourse and what their lecturers expected from them. There is no clear consensus across the students on how to define or on what a definition is or on which criterion to use when selecting a definition.

Argumentation and language acquisition

O presente artigo tem por tema o desenvolvimento da argumentação através do estudo de caso, investigando as características dos argumentos produzidos pela criança durante seu desenvolvimento, bem como as ações discursivas produzidas pelos adultos. A argumentação é compreendida enquanto ação discursiva que surge a partir da oposição entre pontos de vista, possibilitando a ponderação de ideias. Como método, foram realizadas análises de registros videográficos de estudo de caso de uma criança, G., um menino monolíngue brasileiro, entre os 3 e 7 anos de vida da criança, em sessões de 1 h, durante momentos de interação cotidianos. A partir da análise dos episódios argumentativos, foi possível identificar como adultos e a criança fazem uso do humor, ironia e questionamentos para lidar com a assimetria de papeis na interação. Do ponto de vista do desenvolvimento infantil, observamos também episódios de antecipação do argumento adultos pela criança, bem como estratégias de negociação de conceitos para manter seu ponto de vista inicial. Como conclusão, foram sugeridas adaptações de ações argumentativas do adulto para o contexto da educação infantil, tais como modalizações do seu papel de autoridade e uso de contextos lúdicos para proposição de deslocamentos dos lugares discursivos durante a argumentação, possibilitando seu desenvolvimento.

議論における合理性と有効性の相克 - 岡倉天心著『東洋の覚醒』における感情への訴え -

Based on argumentation theories, this study attempts a consideration of competitiveness between reasonableness and effectiveness in argumentation by taking as an example Okakura Tenshin (18631913)’s The Awakening of the East. The reasonableness and effectiveness are both supposed to be realized through argumentation, that is, a discursive activity whereby an arguer increases an audience’s adherence to claims being advanced. Either of those two vectors is presumably overridden by the other; the appeal to emotions is the occurrence of this disequilibrium. The examination of The Awakening of the East in the light of the rhetorical perspective, however, affirms the possibility that the appeal to emotions contributes to the realization of the effectiveness aided by the reasonableness in argumentation. This synergy is substantially attributed to the affinity of rhetorical argumentation for human nature, namely its inclusion of the range of ethos and pathos into argumentation, and acknowledgment of value pluralism.

Los géneros del discurso como dispositivos enunciativos de las prácticas sociales: una mirada teórica y práctica

Este artículo de carácter didáctico explora el concepto de género discursivo desde la perspectiva de su relación con las prácticas sociales y su potencial didáctico, presentándolos teórica y prácticamente, presentando incluso un análisis. El artículo se basa en la perspectiva de la Análisis Dialógica del Discurso (ADD) de Bajtín y el Círculo. Se trata de una perspectiva que considera tanto las estructuras lingüísticas y textuales cómo las huellas que, venidas de la situación de producción de sentidos, de la enunciación, son dejadas en el texto resultante de la actividad discursiva.

VERBAL MEANS AND WAYS OF HUMOROUS AND COMIC EFFECT ACTUALIZATION IN AMERICAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

The article is devoted to the problem of linguistic actualization of humorous and comic effects in American political discourse. Humour is a complicated and wide-spread phenomenon of our life, and that is why it is studied in different branches of science: psychology, philosophy, sociology. Linguistics also has made a great contribution to humour research focusing on different aspects and on cognitive one in particular. Using such notions of cognitive linguistics as schemes, frames, scripts, cognitive models makes us understand mental processes of humour, particularly its formation during our brain identification of cognitive structures. Just cognitive abilities of a person enables them to comprehend and create the comic, and these abilities are based on memories, associations, comprehension of metameanings. Being a multifaceted category humour cannot exist beyond a communicative situation created by a person that is why discourse as a process of natural human communication has become an object of thorough research in modern language studies. One of the widespread ways of humour actualization is creating speech structures which, on the other hand, show the result of a person’s discursive activity. At the same time they make it possible to appraise the individual peculiarities of their сreator communicative competence, their latent processes of language consciousness. Verbal ways of making the humorous in the above-mentioned type of discourse are different and the effect is produced by using these ways at different language levels (lexical, phonetic) as authors do their best to produce a powerful effect. The сommonest means of producing comic and humorous effects in American political discourse are: 1.figures of speech (metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole) 2.using comparison 3.using phonetic means.

Fostering the trustworthiness of researchers: SPECS and the role of ethical reflexivity in novel neurotechnology research

The development of novel neurotechnologies, such as brain-computer interface (BCI) and deep-brain stimulation (DBS), are very promising in improving the welfare and life prospects many people. These include life-changing therapies for medical conditions and enhancements of cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities. Yet there are also numerous moral risks and uncertainties involved in developing novel neurotechnologies. For this reason, the progress of novel neurotechnology research requires that diverse publics place trust in researchers to develop neural interfaces in ways that are overall beneficial to society and responsive to ethical values and concerns. In this article, we argue that researchers and research institutions have a moral responsibility to foster and demonstrate trustworthiness with respect to broader publics whose lives will be affected by their research. Using Annette Baier’s conceptual analysis of trust, which takes competence and good will to be its central components, we propose that practices of ethical reflexivity could play a valuable role in fostering the trustworthiness of individual researchers and research institutions through building and exhibiting their moral competence and good will. By ethical reflexivity, we mean the reflective and discursive activity of articulating, analyzing, and assessing the assumptions and values that might be underlying their ethical actions and projects. Here, we share an ethics dialog tool—called the Scientific Perspectives and Ethics Commitments Survey (or SPECS)—developed by the University of Washington’s Center of Neurotechnology (CNT) Neuroethics Thrust. Ultimately, the aim is to show the promise of ethical reflexivity practices, like SPECS, as a method of enhancing trustworthiness in researchers and their institutions that seek to develop novel neurotechnologies for the overall benefit of society.

Perceived Media Bias and Intention to Engage in Discursive Activities for Mental Health: Testing Corrective Action Hypothesis in the Context of Mass Shooting News

ABSTRACT The current study tested the “corrective action hypothesis” by analyzing intentions to engage in discursive activities for mental health in response to news coverage of mass shootings. Hypotheses were proposed regarding how involvements with the news influence on people with mental health issues moderate preexisting attitude toward people with mental health issues in predicting perceived media bias, and how perceived media bias predicts intention to engage in discursive activities for mental health. Two hundred nighty eight respondents were surveyed through Qualtrics national research panels. The results suggested participants would not be motivated by their prior attitude toward mental health to take part in discursive activities unless they are highly involved with the news issue and in the meantime perceived mass shooting coverage is biased against people with mental health. The results extended the discussion of corrective action hypothesis to the context of media coverage of mass shooting – a significant issue nowadays that intertwines with public health concerns. The results also provide a basis for the discussion of the potential benefits of employing perceived media bias in educating the public by appealing to individuals’ outcome concerns and value systems.

Framing the role of the school leader in OECD documents: A critical analysis

ABSTRACT This paper explores the OECD framing of the role of the school leader in a series of its publications, drawing on role theory, using critical analysis of how school leaders’ roles are represented in a body of OECD texts. The research findings provide insight into the multi-faceted portrayal of the ‘ideal’ role of school leadership as framed by the OECD. The findings also show the dominance of classic scientific management ideas in the framing of the role of school leadership by the OECD. The study demonstrates how adopting role theory can provide a deeper understanding of how OECD discursive actions redraw new roles for those working in education.

Sink or swim? Responsible situated agency constructed by socioeconomically underprivileged students of English in neoliberal Brazil

This article discusses the results of a four-year investigation on the neoliberal challenges faced by socioeconomically underprivileged students in Brazil who were majoring in English teaching. It is a qualitative study that employs the concept of language as a sociocultural and dialogical practice as well as the concepts of responsibility and agency; it also examines the relationship between these students’ experiences and neoliberalism as seen in language education. The data generated by questionnaires, students’ essays, and semi-structured interviews reveal that the participants’ initiatives to engage themselves in outside classroom interactions acted as counter-centralizing forces. By exercising their responsible situated agency towards their English language appropriation process, these participants react against neoliberal challenges viewed here as hierarchical centripetal forces that constrain their access to different kinds of capital. The study participants are also guided by the agency of spaces promoted by discourses marked by decolonial thinking; however, though these students find different ways to negotiate neoliberal challenges, it is still crucial that the faculty in charge of the investigated context build on existing decolonial practices in the classroom. In doing so, more students can become part of “discursive actions” that foster their responsible situated agency towards a more egalitarian society.

Lifeworld Discourse, Translingualism, and Agency in a Discourse Genealogy of César Chávez’s Literacies

Translingual scholarship emphasizes the temporal dimensions of language use, and frame language practices as emergent phenomena shaped by repertories of discursive activities sedimented through prior experience. This essay adapts Gee’s concept of lifeworld Discourse in order to theorize (1) how Discourse competencies are cultivated through the sedimentation of discourse practices over time, and (2) how actors occupy thresholds or dwell on borders while they draw on repertoires sedimented through prior experience in response to emergent rhetorical situations. I activate the lifeworld Discourse conceptual framework in an analytical approach that I call a Discourse genealogy in order to trace out the palimpsestic emergence and blending of Discursive competencies throughout labor and community organizer Cesar Chavez’s life. The argument focuses on the archival record of Chavez’s literacy practices in order to understand his emergent lifeworld Discourses from birth in 1927 through the late 1950s, up to the point at which he began to organize the migrant farmworkers under the auspices of the Community Service Organization in Oxnard, California (1957-8). Using textual analysis of Chavez’s writings and oral history records, the following essay shows how one thread of Chavez’s lifeworld Discourse – responding to social injustice – binds together a number of Chavez’s varied Discursive repertoires. My central argument is that when we occupy thresholds that connect Discourses, our repertoires of practice may be blended with new practices to form emergent potentials for responding to rhetorical situations. The thread of repertoires sedimented throughout a lifetime bind together the various social Discourses we encounter and engage with in our public lives.