Discursive Role Research Articles

Data as a Contested Commodity

Abstract Data are undoubtedly a contested commodity. On the one hand, data commodification is largely under way including through the operation of law. This is notably visible with the new EU data policy (Data Strategy notably followed by the Data Act, the Data Governance Act) that aims to establish data markets in keeping with European values. On the other hand, this phenomenon is heavily contested based on a wide range of different arguments, which have not been subjected to a systematic clustering. Data commodification is often understood simplistically as a binary and monolithic phenomenon whereby data would be either ‘commodified’ or not. This leads to misunderstandings of this phenomenon and of the ways in which it manifests. For example, many conceptual misunderstandings surround the relationship between ‘data access’ or ‘data sharing’ and data commodification and markets. This paper clarifies the phenomenon of data commodification, by approaching it as a spectrum with degrees following M. J. Radin (Contested Commodities, 1996). Following Radin, the paper clusters the different data governance arguments – or even paradigms – found in the literature along a data commodification spectrum. A specific attention is paid to the importance of market discourses in commodification dynamics, especially on the law. The paper offers a novel systematic synthesis of the data governance normative arguments, including data commons, data trusts, data sharing, data intermediation, against the background of the data commodification phenomenon. This synthesis brings conceptual clarity and allows to bring together different strands of the data literature (especially welfare economics, law and economics, commons, critical data studies, infrastructure studies) comprehensively, while they have until now remained siloed. Data governance normative arguments would greatly benefit from taking into account (conceptual and/or normative) arguments found in other strands of the literature. The paper can also be used to evaluate how data governance arguments or legislations relate to data commodification and take into account the specificities of data, thus enabling for more systematic analysis. The paper finds that data is actually a very contested commodity: The very conceptualization of data as a commodity is ontologically contestable. The framework in which situations are conceptualized – whether as data market ones or not – can indeed play a powerful but often invisible discursive role on commodification dynamics. Finally, the very identification and regulation of ‘data’ alone necessarily brings about certain commodification affordances.

Discourse complex <i>i da</i> ‘and yes’ as a dialogue actualizer in modern Russian speech

The article examines semantic and pragmatic features of the discursive complex i da (“and yes”). The relevance of the research is explained by the active inclusion of i da in contemporary speech practice, various genres and styles over the past decade, which was not observed before. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the element i da becomes the object of linguistic analysis for the first time. This study contributes to the understanding of the discursive complex i da in the context of modern linguistic practices. The findings of this research can be beneficial for further linguistic studies and practical applications. The element i da is not recorded in dictionaries and reference books, which also testifies to the novelty of the material presented in the article, which was extracted from the “National Corpus of the Russian Language”, the electronic media bank “Integrum”. The paper is also based to some degree on the personal observations of the authors. This study provides a fresh perspective on the linguistic element i da, contributing to the existing body of linguistic research. The research was conducted within the framework of the structural and descriptive method using semantic, syntactic, and contextual analysis. As a result, the main discursive role of the complex i da was established, i. e., maintaining the interactive nature of conversation through a ‘delayed response’ mechanism, which allows considering i da as a feedback marker. The discursive complex i da involves a real or potential (in the case of a monologue) interlocutor/opponent in the discourse, performing the role of a dialogic actualizer. The core seme of the complex (‘agreement’) can be explicitly supported by the context, and the addressee of the agreement can be not only the ‘other’ but also the speaker himself. The study reveals the rhetorical potential of i da in monologic speech. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the discursive complex i da, highlighting its role in dialogic actualization and its rhetorical potential in monologic speech. The variants of punctuation design of the complex i da identified during the research indicate the need for its further study and the creation of a theoretical basis for subsequent codification in punctuation guides. The study proposes a hypothesis about the appearance of i da in Russian as a result of calquing English phrases and yes / and yeah, which are of international nature. This research emphasizes the importance of further investigation into the discursive complex i da, its punctuation variants, and its origins in the Russian language.

The discursive role of the label “PC”: Analyzing changes in discriminatory language with the condemnation model

The discursive role of the label “PC”: Analyzing changes in discriminatory language with the condemnation model

Analyzing classroom interactions focusing on IRF patterns and turn-taking

This study aims to analyze patterns of interaction and turn-taking in the context of classroom learning using a classroom discourse analysis approach. This research focuses on understanding the communication dynamics between teachers and students and identifying dominant patterns during the learning process. The method used is qualitative, with data collection through observation using video recorder instruments in class XI SMK Muhammadiyah Mertoyudan. The research participants were a teacher and class XI students of SMK Muhammadiyah Mertoyudan, totalling 24 students, consisting of 1 teacher and 23 students. The data results show the sequences developed from the questions between teacher and student interactions. The results of this study support the view that the discursive role of the Feedback sequence in IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback Sequence) is to develop dialogue between teachers and students. The findings of this study on the IRF pattern are that the teacher dominates the communication in the classroom 63,4% and students 36,6%. The findings indicate that the non-delivery of learning is the main problem of students' lack of understanding of the material, lack of students' ability to think critically, and responsiveness to students. These findings can be used to develop more inclusive and effective teaching strategies that pay attention to a more balanced distribution of talk time and interaction between teachers and students. This research contributes to the literature on Classroom Discourse Analysis by filling the knowledge gap on the classroom's interaction pattern and its implications for teaching practices with feedback in IRF. The results of this study can provide valuable insights for educational practitioners and help improve students' critical communication strategies in the classroom.

Religião e política: embate de sentidos sobre a fé evangélica em posts de pastores no Instagram

ABSTRACT This work aims to reflect on possible meanings for the evangelical faith based on utterances produced by three evangelical ministers in their social networks when they enunciate on themes that are linked, directly or indirectly, to political agendas. Based on the theoretical scope of studies in Applied Linguistics and on Bakhtinian conceptions of language, our analyzes point to three predominant meanings, which mean the evangelical faith as: i) reaffirmation of identity; ii) exercise of otherness and respect to the other; and iii) political practice. Such meanings demonstrate that there are contradictions within the religious discursivity, which allows the beating between hate speeches and respect and empathy ones within the realm of the evangelical faith. Thus, looking for cracks in religious discourse that oppose fundamentalist and authoritarian discourses is an ethical duty of a religious leader who recognizes his social and discursive role as influential in taking positions and, therefore, in the lives of the members of their congregation.

Morphology and semantics of derivational metaphors in Spanish media discourse

The cognitive and pragmatic potential of derivational metaphorical nominations, actively used in the Spanish media discourse, represent a relevant direction of Discursive and Cognitive re-search that requires scientific comprehension.The article is devoted to the study of the linguo-cognitive specificity of derivational metaphors that verbalize new meanings, name new realities and frequently function as nomination-neologisms or occasionalisms. Derivational metaphors perform a pragmatic function, broadcasting an intentionally conditioned vision of the world in modern Spanish media discourse, and implement the intentional and evaluative discourse pragmatics. The objective of the study is to consider the morphosemantics of derivational metaphors and analyse the most frequent word-forming productive models of metaphorical nominations in Spanish media discourse.An integral methodological approach is used to the study of word-formation discursive metaphors, which combines contextual, semantic, interpretive and stylistic analysis methodologically opening up the possibility of a systemic study of the linguo-pragmatics of derivative metaphorical nominations that function in the Spanish media discourse. The most productive morphosemantic models of word formation for creating metaphorical concepts in the Spanish media space are affixation (prefixation and suffixation as well as their combination) and word compounding.The cognitive approach to the study of derivational metaphors through the prism of onomasiological theory allows one to interpret the process of word formation as a way of translating cognitive attitudes and meanings. The metaphorical meaning is generated by a derivational act. The morphological structure of a word change is not identical to the sum of the meanings of the derivational components involved in the creation of a new metaphor. In the discursive space the associative potential relative to the basic meaning of affixes or root morphemes in compound words brings a number of interpretations that vary the metaphorical rethinking of their semantics and integrate axiological evaluation.The discursive role of word-formation metaphors, which have an evaluative potential, lies in the implementation of the pragmatic function of updating meanings, aimed at influencing the consciousness and behaviour of the target audience.

Судебный контроль за процессуальными решениями следователя: сущность и перспективы

Introduction. The article is devoted to a theoretical analysis of the rules governing judicial control in pre-trial proceedings, its regulation, essence and significance, as well as the study of form and content. The effectiveness and appropriateness of judicial control are related to the discursive role of the court in making certain decisions during the preliminary investigation. The procedure for an investigator’s appeal to the court in pre-trial proceedings was examined and the role of the head of the investigative body in coordinating such an appeal and the prosecutor was clarified. The issues of the need for judicial control in pre-trial proceedings regarding procedural decisions of the investigator are considered. In the process of scientific research, scientific ideas about judicial control and its content in pre-trial proceedings are summarized. Methods. To achieve this goal descriptive, formal-logical methods and the method of interpretation of legal norms were used. Results. Based on the results of the scientific research a classification of judicial control according to the content of procedural activities is presented, the main goals of the procedural verification of the legality and validity of an investigator’s application to the court with a petition to carry out investigative and procedural actions are identified and formulated, the prospects for changing control over the production of these actions and the role of the prosecutor in this procedural activitiesare analyzed.

Maintaining the Meritocracy Myth: A critical discourse analytic study of leaders’ talk about merit and gender in academia

The belief in meritocracy – that advancement is based solely on individual capabilities and hard work – remains ingrained in organizations despite evidence that it is a flawed concept perpetuatings gender and other social inequalities. Critical streams of research have highlighted the ideological character of meritocracy discourse, its entrenched nature and acceptance as ‘common-sense’. Less is known about how this ‘meritocracy myth’ is maintained, that is, how this hegemonic discourse retains its potency in day-to-day talk in organizations. We argue that leaders, given their active discursive roles and opportunities to establish and control discourses, play an important but underexamined role in the reproduction and legitimization of this seemingly progressive yet ultimately destructive discourse. We conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA) drawing on qualitative interviews with leaders in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom focusing on their talk about women’s recruitment and progression in academic roles. We identify three discursive interventions through which leaders routinely maintain and reinforce and on occasion challenge the existing system of meritocracy: invisibilizing gender inequality through gender-neutrality; denying constraints through individualization; and problematizing meritocracy to uphold or challenge the status quo. We argue that by uncovering the means through which meritocracy discourse retains its resilience, our paper offers the opportunity to scrutinize and challenge these discursive underpinnings that uphold the ‘meritocracy myth’. We suggest that it is possible to re-imagine what might be considered ‘merit worthy’ in universities, recognizing and centring structural gender and other social inequalities to create more equal institutions.

Re-contextualizing locus of enunciation and linguistic citizenship: a diary analysis of Chinese EFL teachers’ critical intercultural awareness development

ABSTRACT This study navigates the constructive role of English as a foreign language (EFL) as a critical intercultural discourse of locus of enunciation and linguistic citizenship through which teachers in Chinese educational context act as agents of action and social change. Based on a critical discourse analysis of learner diary entries, the study traces the preservice teachers’ development of critical intercultural awareness as a result of learning provided in the course. Findings of this study suggest that relevant EFL teacher education programs should strategically fortify the discursive role of English for contesting hegemonic ideologies in curricular materials and engaging in justice-oriented dialogue through advancing learners’ reflexivity and agency.

Mona-Ancuța Ionescu, The discursive role of adjectives in the translation of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s religious texts

Mona-Ancuța Ionescu, The discursive role of adjectives in the translation of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s religious texts

Grammatical and Pragmatic Aspects of Slovenian Modality in Socially Unacceptable Facebook Comments

This paper investigates the grammatical and pragmatic uses of epistemic and deontic modal expressions in a corpus of Slovenian socially acceptable and unacceptable Facebook comments. We propose a set of modals that do not interpretatively vary in their modality type in order to enable robust corpus searches and reliable quantification of the results. We show that deontic, but not epistemic, modals are significantly more frequent in socially unacceptable comments, and specifically that they favour violent discourse. We complement the quantitative findings with a qualitative analysis of the discursive roles played by the modals. We explore how pragmatic communicative strategies such as hedging, boosting, and face-saving arise from the underlying syntactic and semantic properties of the modal expressions, such as the modal force and clausal syntax.

National Submissions to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee as Constructions of National Identity: Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria

ABSTRACT This article examines the construction of national identity in the context of the post-9/11 counter-terrorism sanctions regime established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373. The study focuses on the written reports of three member states – Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria – arguing that these documents not only serve as inventories of national capacity but also as performances of national identity within a specific historical moment. Two overarching arguments are made. First, constructions of terrorism play a crucial discursive role in demarcating self from other in these reports, consistently portraying terrorism as an external and morally reprehensible threat to national security. Second, despite this relatively consistent framing of terrorist otherness, the reports contain creative and diverse reflections on, or articulations of, national identity and its associated characteristics. In making these arguments, the article contributes to existing literature on the post-9/11 UN counter-terrorism regime by offering an original reading of national submissions to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, focusing on relatively neglected states from the global South, and develops new conceptual insight into the plasticity of terrorism as a form of discursive otherness capable of sustaining diverse representations of national self-identity

Colors as Gender Markers: A corpus based Critical Study of English Novels by Pakistani Female Writers

The present study aims at investigating a discursive role of colors in the construction of gender identities in the selected corpus of English novels by Pakistani females. It focuses on understanding the mechanism which contributes to construe, challenge or reinforce the traditional gender images in Pakistani society. A corpus-based critical approach was employed to demystify the constructed gender structures in the web of texts selected for this study. The research finds a significant relationship between color association and the constitution of gender images. Some colors are presented as permanent features of one gender which cannot be seen otherwise. Some bright colors like pink, yellow, purple, green, orange have been predominantly associated with females and sober and decent ones like brown, gray, khaki have been associated with males. These color connotations are employed to create and reinforce gender identities of the characters, their traits, and their behaviors. The whole process of construction is executed by employing language as discursive and strategic tool in a specific sociopolitical context of Pakistani society.

Roles of engagement: Analyzing adolescent students' talk during controversial discussions

AbstractDialogic talk affords students opportunities to share ideas and co‐construct knowledge while developing various literacy skills such as perspective taking, text comprehension, and argumentative reasoning. In this study, we examine how seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students in four classrooms discuss a controversial topic about changing a National Football League team's controversial name and analyze their discursive roles using thematic content analysis. We provide dynamic profiles of student speakers, including those who take on primary, secondary, tertiary, and periphery roles within discussions. We also discuss how these roles shift and provide implications for teachers who engage students dialogically around controversial, yet essential, topics.

Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan

Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan

Герменевтика и деонтология, или О смысле по-русски. Беседа Н.Н. Шульгина с Л.Т. Рыскельдиевой

In a conversation hermeneutic deontology is discussed as a result of the synthe­sis of the concepts of Sense and Duty. The current situation in the philosophical culture is shows us an undeniable crisis, urgent search for the ways to transfer knowledge, the necessity to respond to technological and information challenges. The question raised about the nature and goals of philosophical activity, about the topology and discursive role of metaphysics, about the relationship between philosophy and creativity. The main points of posing the fundamental for Moder­nity problem of Cogito are from Descartes – Kant – Husserl to the re-actualiza­tion of the transcendental approach to consciousness nowadays. The participants of the conversation talk about possible ways to safely use of “smart machines” that successfully imitate intellectual activity and note that the activity of the Cogito can also be the opposite of comprehension as appropriation, so to speak, making Data mine. The anti-reductionist features of the Russian word “Smysl” (Sense) are noted, which allow us to see Wholeness as the source of all mean­ings, which cannot be included in Data. Such Smysl holds philosophical dis­course together, has a textual expression and deontological status, which can only be guaranteed by the efforts of the participants of the Socratic dialogue. It is noted that Russian philosophy represented by V.S. Solovyev begins not with Cogito, but with Smysl, and this beginning allows this philosophy to be a “moral project”.

Afrocentric analysis of music in political advertisements of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)

In 2009, South Africa saw another landmark with the introduction of political advertisements on television. Literature is littered with studies of political advertisements on television. In these studies, 1) background music is merely an accompaniment to advertisement voiceover and images, rather than an argument itself. Little is known about 2) the discursive role of background political music as a means of conveying political messages in political television advertisements, 3) the underlying ideology and 4) Afrocentric rhetoric in political music used in political television advertisements. Considering the above, this paper interrogates the Afrocentric perspective underlying the rhetoric of background music in the political television advertisements of the South African opposition political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from 2014 to 2021. This study employs the decolonial thought of the Afrocentric perspective as a theory and a research method to interrogate underlying rhetoric in political music. Findings of the paper revealed that the EFF background music is highly political, Afrocentric and inherently rhetorical.

5G and the notion of network ideology, or: The limitations of sociotechnical imaginaries

Transnational communication networks are produced in contestation between and among multinational corporations and nation-states. In the study of the governance of communication networks governance in science and technology studies, traditionally the emphasis has been on sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015) which encapsulate joint futures that produce institutional configurations and the discursive roles in the power tussle between various stakeholders. I argue that next to the studying of power over infrastructures and their governance by sociotechnical imaginaries, there is an increasing need to study how power is distributed and control is exercised through the shaping of the technological materiality of infrastructures, as is happening for instance in the process of standardization. To describe the workings of the distribution of power and the exercising of control through networks, governance, and standardization, I expand the concept of network ideologies (Bory, 2020) to show how several network ideologies are at play in the shaping of 5G networks. I base my analysis on the qualitative analysis of standard-setting processes through document analysis of mailinglist conversations, standards, and policy documents, as well as through the parallel operation of experimental 5G networks. The analysis shows that sociotechnical imaginaries are insufficient to show the political process of the distribution of power and opportunities for control through the production of transnational communication infrastructures. The notion of network ideologies might provide a basis to study the merging of internet and telecommunication infrastructures, their standard-setting, and their governance as well as the excommunication of the user by relinquishing its ability to understand and configure infrastructures.

Neoliberalism and Radical Rights: On the Work and Theory of Law and Organising

This article aims to contribute to scholarship regarding the critique of rights through the examination of the role of rights discourse in the furtherance of what is generally termed ‘community organising’—in particular, tenant organising—in the social and political context of neoliberalism. Conceptions of neoliberalism advanced in the work of David Harvey, Michel Foucault, Wendy Brown, and Bonnie Honig are synthesised to explicate the material and discursive role of law in the maintenance and furtherance of the neoliberal project. The article assesses the left-legal critique of rights presented primarily through the Critical Legal Studies Movement alongside the role of legal practice and legal discourse in countering neoliberalism. The article argues that rights claims concerning collective organisation, such as those commonly afforded to workers and trade unions, present a unique exception to the left-legal critique of rights in providing the means by which oppressive social relations may not only be remedies, but overcome. The works of Chantal Mouffe and of Roberto Unger are instructive in this regard and are placed in conversation with theories of community and labour organising. The article concludes by sketching the application of this conception of organising rights to the problem of housing and tenants’ rights under neoliberalism.

Multioperational Style, Eccentricity, and Valeria Luiselli's Aesthetics of Education

Multioperational Style, Eccentricity, and Valeria Luiselli's Aesthetics of Education Alexandra Kingston-Reese (bio) Is there such a thing as speculative novel form? In the afterword to the English translation of her second novel La historia de mis dientes (The Story of My Teeth, 2015 ), VALERIA LUISELLI proposed a formula. "The formula, if there was one," she muses, "would be something like Dickens + MP3 ÷ Balzac + JPEG."1 Perhaps, maybe, kind of: this formula appears as hindsight, almost as a throwaway comment. The conditional clause weighs heavily: if, if, if. But where flippancy denotes narrative, affective, and political uncertainty, Luiselli's subjunctive grammar is more speculative than specious.2 In 2016, Luiselli adapted the formula, but this time in a short piece for the Financial Times on the twenty-firstcentury novel and the internet: "Dickens + MP3 ÷ Cervantes − Wikipedia = 21st-century novel."3 In solving x for y, y is no longer a specific novel but any novel from this century. For the readers of the Financial Times [End Page 551] (paywalled), Dickens is retained, Balzac is removed, Cervantes added, and Wikipedia makes an appearance in an ambivalent subtracted position. Any such formula is attuned not only to the values included within it (the Dickens, the Balzac, the MP3, and the JPEG) but also to the grammar of the operation: the addition, division, and subtraction signs. Like in mathematics, where operationality describes a process by which values are transformed, so too are Luiselli's so-called values transformed. The three mathematical signs are also grammatical: the + comes to mean adding, listing, accumulating; the ÷ comes to mean bisecting one category with another; and the − comes to mean peeling away parts of the whole. The original site for Luiselli's play with speculation, reification, and abstraction, however, is not her formula but the novel itself. The Story of My Teeth is a story of class mobility in which its central figure and narrator, Gustavo "Highway" Sánchez Sánchez, in his role as an auctioneer, uses financial speculation and stylistic hyperbole to turn dead objects (his own teeth, among others') into commodities to provide access to art. At once a financial and aesthetic speculator, Highway, perhaps a reader of the Financial Times, is eccentrically invested in the pursuit of garnering knowledge in exchange for audacious lies. By dialing up the friction between artistic and financial value, The Story of My Teeth presents itself as an allegory of eccentric aesthetic education, whereby aesthetic education provides the working class access to wealth at the moderate expense of one's moral license. The contention that the more value art has, the less it needs to defend itself, impels not only the novel's style and plot but its material conditions. In 2012, [End Page 552] Luiselli was approached by Magalí Arriola and Juan Gaitán, curators of the private contemporary art collection Galería Jumex in Mexico, to write an entry for the catalog of the exhibition El Cazador y la Fábrica (The Hunter and the Factory).4 Part of the commission instructed Luiselli "to reflect upon the bridges—or the lack thereof—between the featured artwork, the gallery, and the larger context of which the gallery formed part," fictionally.5 Housing the large private Colección Jumex, Galería Jumex was located in 2012 in Ecatepec, just outside Mexico City on the grounds of Grupo Jumex's headquarters and factory. Despite being within the estate, Luiselli notes, there was, "naturally, a gap between the two worlds: gallery and factory, artists and workers, artwork and juice."6 The path that took this commission to the novel La historia de mis dientes was largely a dialogical one: to establish how literature can "play a mediating role" between two opposing but materially entwined worlds must first require acknowledging, in a Bakhtinian fashion, the novel form's discursive role in public life.7 To properly enact this function, Luiselli sent short installments of the novel from New York to a reading group made up of the Grupo Jumex factory workers in Mexico across that year. The factory workers then recorded their conversations and stories for Luiselli to parse over and incorporate into the novel.8 From these discussions...