Our societies are experiencing an epistemic drift, that is a changing understanding of what it means to be "honest" and how to arrive at "truth". This drift has increasingly replaced reliance on evidence and facts during truth-seeking with reliance on beliefs, feelings, and intuitions alone. This is especially important in civic discourse about science, which by its very nature relies on evidence over intuition and feelings. We posit that the role of epistemic drift in civic discourse about science is observable in online discussions and can be analyzed through their digital traces. Building on observational and experimental work, we propose a model in which epistemic drift fuels low-quality information sharing through its interplay with emotions. In this view, epistemic drift also drives online toxicity, which creates apparent polarization and erodes the quality of online civic discourse on scientific topics like health and climate change.

The 2018 ‘gene-edited babies incident’ in China catalysed intense global debate, highlighting the critical need to understand public discourse surrounding major techno-ethical controversies. This study investigates the characteristics of Chinese public discourse in response to this event by analysing 3692 comments from the social-media platform Weibo. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining latent Dirichlet allocation topic clustering and grounded theory, the research reveals a hierarchical thematic structure in public discussions. Such discussions are categorized into three types of discourse: (1) event-specific discourse, focusing on the incident itself, the individuals involved, subjects’ rights, the experimenter's ethics and the immediate ethical risks of the technology; (2) societal-context discourse, extending to broader societal issues reflected by the event, including techno-governance, the rule of law, international competition, science communication and popular-science education; and (3) future-oriented discourse, which adopted a macro-perspective to explore the necessity and historicity of technological development and its relationship with ethical constraints. While demonstrating diverse engagement, the analysis also identified prevalent issues in public cognition, such as superficial scientific understanding, pronounced emotional responses and a reliance on monolithic cultural logics. These findings underscore the importance of strengthening research on public techno-ethical cognition. The study advocates for the integration of public perspectives into techno-ethical governance frameworks to complement elite, unidirectional communication, thereby enhancing the inclusiveness, responsiveness and practical effectiveness of science governance in the face of rapid technological advances.

This study explores the stylistic features of legal discourse in Pakistani criminal law, specifically through a register analysis of Supreme Court verdicts. The use of special vocabulary, sentence constructions and style of writing has been seen to make the legal language complex, rigid and closed-ended. Such complications in Pakistan impact transparency and accessibility since most of the English-written legal texts in the country are dominated by the Islamic and British traditions of law. The paper analyses the role of language in the formation of legal authority, the impartiality of the court, and the clarity of interpretation in Supreme Court of Pakistan decisions. The theoretical framework is premised on the stylistic and register analysis model by Halliday (1978) and Fairclough (1995), which aids in explaining how the social context and legal role influence language. The qualitative analysis focuses on the review of 12 verdicts of the English Supreme Court that can be regarded as the best examples of formal legal language in Pakistan because of their judicial authority and thoroughness. The selection of these judgements was due to the reason that they represent the most institutionalised and formal legal language in Pakistan. The results indicate that epistemic certainties, depersonalised agents, and integrations of verdicts into a network of intertextual precedents can be predicted by stylistic choices as a means of supporting the validity of judicial rulings. The research paper adds to the analysis of legal discourse through illustrating the use of register as an authority-making mechanism in postcolonial legal settings. The paper finds that the stylistic devices used are no longer ornamental but functional: they convey legal meaning, organise judicial reasoning, and promote the interpretation clarity of complex legal terms.

Abstract This study investigates internal linguistic variation in the instructional discourse of international teaching assistants (ITAs) by segmenting their mini‐lecture performances into four discourse types: introduction, lecture, conclusion, and audience interaction. Using an additive multidimensional analysis (Berber Sardinaha et al., 2019), the study analyzes 329 segmented texts from ITA assessments to examine how linguistic features shift by instructional purpose, whether distinct discourse profiles emerge, and how these patterns relate to their English proficiency. The results show systematic variation across segments, with introductions and interactions marked by more involved and persuasive language, and lectures and conclusions characterized by more informational and elaborated discourse features. A k‐means cluster analysis identified three functional discourse profiles, which differed by discourse type and ITA proficiency level. Regression analyses revealed that more involved language in conclusions and narrative features during audience interactions was positively associated with ITAs' test scores, though overall predictive power was limited. These findings highlight the need for discourse‐sensitive assessment and training practices that reflect the functional demands of real‐world teaching. The study underscores the pedagogical and validity implications of recognizing instructional discourse as a dynamic, segmented event rather than a monolithic performance.

With the rapid growth of China’s domestic tourism and its rising international status, English tourist spot introductions have become vital information carriers for cultural output. While many scholars examine tourism texts through vocabulary and syntax, few focus on the discursive mechanisms of cohesion and coherence. This paper analyzes English-translated tourist spot introductions based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It first explores the linguistic features of tourism discourse, emphasizing its persuasive and descriptive nature across lexical, syntactic, and textual levels. Then, it investigates the practical application of cohesive devices—including reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion—through specific examples such as the Forbidden City and Xinjiang Tianshan. The study reveals that a strategic reorganization of cohesive ties is essential for achieving textual coherence and functional equivalence in translation. Finally, the paper provides optimization strategies for the writing and translation of tourism texts, aiming to enhance readability and cross-cultural communication efficiency.

ChatGPT offers second language writers’ limitless opportunities for engagement with this technology. This exploratory study focuses on Gen-AI academic plagiarism in the context of unsupervised written assessment and pursues the concept of opportunity in traditional academic fraud theory, in an attempt to evaluate its applicability to Gen-AI academic plagiarism. The research questions aimed to gather perceptual and textual observations by departmental faculty regarding their students’ unpermitted use of ChatGPT in written assessments. Thirteen experienced faculty members in the English and Translation Department at a publicly funded university in the Sultanate of Oman completed a questionnaire asking them to identify clues of plagiarism evident in their students’ written work. Additionally, assessment artefacts in the form of 15 student-authored literature reviews were examined in search of these clues. Using an inductive, mixed-methods approach, the analysis drew on faculty members’ growing understanding of the affordances of large language models, coupled with their situated knowledge of their students’ writing abilities in terms of the lexico-grammatical and discoursal features characterising their submitted texts. The findings were summarized in a model which highlighted the interrelationships amongst the various factors leading to writer disengagement principally manifested through language, subject-matter, and behavioural clues. The paper concludes by adopting a utilitarian, pragmatic perspective on academic plagiarism, with a view to transforming these limitations into opportunities for writer engagement and, ultimately, learning.

The article characterizes accuracy, imagery, and expressiveness as communication features of sports discourse. The sources of the material are Ukrainian TV channels, sports websites, and blogs. It is stated that the functional potential of linguistic means in sports communication is determined by the specific, pragmatic orientation of each situation during sports competitions or during sports programmes with competition analysis. Linguistic constructions are produced primarily to reproduce the objects and concepts of sports and to influence the emotional sphere of the spectator-fan.

The relevance of this scientific article is due to the need to study the language of the mass media, newspaper discourse particularly, as a means of providing a speech impact on public consciousness in the process of constructing the image of law enforcement agencies. The authors describe the characteristics of the mass media discourse as one of the tools for the implementation of public power, the organization of political and social institutions and the formation of an image. In the process of producing the text of a newspaper message, a certain model is created that contributes to the understanding and interpretation of information. Such models are constructed by the authors using an appropriate choice of verbal means of representing the material and taking into account the value orientations of the addressees. The impact of newspaper discourse is rather indirect and hidden rather than direct and open, and the category of evaluation can be intellectual and emotional, reasoned and undocumented, social and personal. The assessment expressed in newspaper texts is often determined by social and ideological factors. It is the category of evaluativeness that will determine the nature of the functioning of the newspaper’s language at the lexical, word-formation, morphological, and syntactic levels. Verbalized with the help of various carefully selected communicative and pragmatic means, purposefully used by the addresser in media texts, the components of the Police image (“unprofessionalism”, “arbitrariness”, “brutality”) create a negative socio-psychological attitude in the perception of the Police service and its employees, as well as the recognition the legitimacy of this social institution by the population. The material of the study was 246 contexts presented in such opposition newspapers as “The Novaya Gazeta” and “The Kommersant” representing information about the law enforcement structure activities. It is concluded that these components and auxiliary nominees (“bias”, “forgery”, “lawlessness”, “corruption”) of the image of the police are actualized in contexts using verbs and verbal phrases with negative evaluative meaning, negative evaluative nouns, adjectives and adverbs, colloquial and pejorative vocabulary.

The interaction of teachers and students in the classroom in the Indonesian Senior High School 2 Baubau Is a research in the study of discourse studies, namely spoken discourse. This study aims to: 1. Describe and explain the structure of the teacher's oral and students in the class in the teaching and learning process, 2. Describe and explain the functions of language in teacher and student acts, 3. Mendeskripikan and explained that spoken discourse particles in teacher and student interactions in the classroom during the teaching and learning process. The research of oral discourse analysis between teachers and students is qualitative research, namely conducting research on the background natural or context from a integrity, the researcher himself or with the help of others to collect the main data. This research is descriptive, because the data collected is in the form of oral speech that occurs when the interaction of the teacher and students in the classroom. This research is also an analysis of the contents which are a research technique to describe the contents of communication that are clearly objective, systematic and qualitative. Data in this study is the verbal speech of teaching and learning interaction in the classroom between teachers and students observed, recorded and recorded and described in the form of text. The data source is three Indonesian teachers and students in class. The analysis of the spoken discourse of teacher interactions and students in the class, regarding what will be analyzed is: 1. The discourse structure in the class to be analyzed using Sinclair and Coultrad theory, there are 21 speech acts according to the structure, 2. The analysis of language functions in spoken discourse interactions using the MAK Haliday and 3 theory. Regarding oral discourse particles using the theory stated by Stubs via Linke, Nussbaumer, Portmann. Data collection techniques using read and proficient techniques. Based on the results of the analysis and discussion, it can be concluded that the interactions of teachers and students in the refer class of the compressive exchange pattern, although the results for oral discourse structure can be seen that teachers still dominate in interacting in the class, students can speak if there is an opportunity given by the teacher or want to convey something. In addition, communicative languages make it easier to deliver information both teachers and students. The characteristics of spoken discourse in class are marked by a context outside the speech of teachers who quite influence their speech meaning such as: place, time, atmosphere, subject, topic, purpose and tone of speech. The form of teacher tongue discourse and students in class is also determined by the language functions used by both teachers and students in general, language functions are used as a communication tool. The results show language function as: 1. Instrumental function, 2. Regulatory function, 3. Representation function, 4. The interaction function, 5. Individual functions, 6. Heuristic and 7 functions. Imaginative functions. Imaginative functions are not discovered during research, because these functions are often used in literary works. Particles are essential in oral interaction, especially during conversation change, in the analysis of teacher and student interactions in the classroom, several particles used by both teachers and students when communicating, these particles are as follows: 1. Tegun form, 2. Forms of reduction in exchange rate, 3. Opening talks, 4. Speaker's cues, 5. Partner cues spoke, 6. Greeting, 7. Greeting, 8. Call, 9. Acceptance and 10. Rejection

The purpose of this study is to examine the conceptual framework of resilience within rural territorial communities in the implementation of sustainable development principles. The article investigates the conceptual underpinnings of resilience in sustainable rural development under conditions of escalating global and national challenges, including environmental, energy, demographic, food security and military crises. It is substantiated that the contemporary paradigm of sustainable development, enshrined in international documents and integrated into Ukraine’s strategic planning framework, requires supplementation by the category of resilience, understood as the capacity of socio-economic systems to withstand shocks, adapt and transform without losing their core functions and values. The evolution of scholarly approaches to the interpretation of sustainable development in American, European and postcolonial traditions is analysed, alongside the specific features of the Ukrainian discourse, which combines global principles with wartime realities and European integration priorities. Approaches to defining resilience are synthesised as a multi-level attribute of both individuals and communities, manifested through the capacity to mobilise resources, learn, self-organise and engage in collective action. The key factors enhancing the resilience of rural communities are systematised, including diversity of responses, network linkages, a culture of learning, polycentric governance, the development of social capital, leadership, the acceptance of complexity, local self-governance, and the availability of communication infrastructure. The role of institutional robustness, economic specialisation, support for innovation and digitalisation is identified as a strategic component in strengthening the capacity of rural territories for recovery and long-term transformation. It is argued that resilient sustainable development requires an integrated approach that combines economic, social and environmental dimensions with crisis management, adaptability and the harmonisation of the interests of present and future generations. The study concludes that the conceptual framework of resilience should be embedded in the strategic planning practice of rural territorial community development in Ukraine, taking into account institutional capacity and the principles of local democracy. Keywords: sustainable rural development; resilience of rural communities; community-led development; social capital.

This study investigates the linguistic register used in TikTok Shop, focusing on how language varies in online commerce compared to everyday communication. This study aims to identify both the linguistic forms and meanings of registers commonly used in this context. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, data were collected from TikTok Shop interactions, including product listings, status updates, and comments. The analysis revealed various linguistic forms, such as nouns (eight items), verbs (five items), adjectives (two items), compound words (five items), abbreviations (five items), and phrases (five items). In terms of semantics, this study identified 11 examples of lexical meaning and 19 examples of contextual meaning. The findings highlight how specific linguistic features of online shop discourse reflect the dynamic and adaptive nature of language on digital marketing platforms.

This study investigated how reading medium (print vs. digital) and communicative purpose (informative vs. persuasive) shape writing processes and outcomes in integrative academic tasks. Eighty-one university students read three source texts in print or digitally and, after random assignment, produced either an informative or persuasive synthesis within a 2×2 between-subjects design. Keystroke logging recorded pausing across three writing stages, indexing planning, translation, and revision. Text quality was scored with holistic rubrics capturing discourse features and integration of sources. Reading medium significantly influenced pausing: students who read in print paused longer during writing, yet medium had no effect on overall text quality. Task purpose mattered: persuasive tasks yielded higher-quality formal writing, whereas scores reflecting level of source integration did not differ. No interaction between reading medium and task purpose emerged. When controlling for reading comprehension, working memory, and planning ability, the main effects of medium and task purpose remained, but period-specific pausing effects were no longer significant. Findings highlight distinct roles for reading medium and task purpose in shaping writing behavior and performance. The results support cautious causal interpretations and suggest that incorporating digital reading and varying task types may enhance academic writing in higher education, informing curriculum design and assessment.

Introduction. The article presents a generalized overview of foreign scientific literature devoted to the scientific discourse research. The relevance of the analytical overview is explained by the increasing attention to discourse not only as a system with stable characteristics, but also as a dynamic process subject to change under the influence of external factors. The purpose of the paper is to present the main directions and concepts of applied linguistics, which explores scientific discourse, to identify gaps in existing research and to identify prospects for further study. Methodology and sources. The paper analyzes the content of scientific publications of foreign scientists devoted to the study of scientific discourse. The sources are peer-reviewed journals and academic databases. The methodology is based on the systematization and comparative analysis of various linguistic concepts and theoretical approaches. Results and discussion. The conducted review showed that despite the existing wide body of research on scientific discourse, the evolution of scientific communication is insufficiently studied. It is concluded that among the works devoted to the study of scientific discourse, there are works that either focus on analyzing the discourse features of scientific communication in a synchronic context, or emphasize a limited time period. However, to understand how scientific communication adapts to new requirements and circumstances, it is important to take into account not only static characteristics, but also the processes of evolution. In this regard, the study of scientific discourse in its dynamic development acquires special significance and novelty. Conclusion. The conducted analytical overview opens up new perspectives for studying scientific discourse through the prism of a dynamic approach. The study of scientific discourse from a historical perspective is valuable in terms of identifying key socio-cultural factors influencing the transformation of textual realizations of discourse categories and features in different eras. This allows us to identify the specific discourse features typical for each specific historical period of the discourse existence.

This scoping review synthesizes scholarship on gender-inclusive assessment design (GIAD) in UK higher education and transnational education, (TNE), with a focus on authorial stance/voice, assessment genre (essay vs report), and lecturer positionality. Using a PRISMA ScR–aligned approach and a Population–Concept–Context (PCC) frame, searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCO (1998-2025) identified 504 records; 41 sources were included for analysis. Consistent with scoping review aims, no study quality appraisal or meta-analysis was undertaken. Literature consistently reports gendered discourse features in student writing (e.g., first-person usage, hedging, stance adoption) and suggests possible effects of marker expectations yet rarely translates these insights into operational assessment choices that could mitigate gendered disadvantage. Notably, it was found that no recent comparative studies evaluate performance consequences of essay vs report formats by gender, underscoring a critical evidence gap in prevalent genres. First-person permissions emerge as a plausible equity lever where third-person conventions dominate, particularly in business/management programmes. To address these gaps, the review consolidates prior work into five GIAD design levers: genre clarity and stance permissions; outcome sequencing (conclusions first vs last); first-person allowance; brief translation with structured peer feedback cycles; and transfer oriented prompts. The review offers theoretical consolidation, a methodological agenda for quasi experimental and multi-site trials, and practical quality assurance artefacts implementable within routine assurance of learning cycles across home and branch campus delivery.

This research paper examines the distinctive features of official and unofficial discourses within the field of urban development. It is established that lexical units in official discourse predominantly possess positive or neutral connotations (construction, design, modern, infrastructure). Such vocabulary positions urban development as a symbol of progress and qualitative transformation. Conversely, unofficial discourse is dominated by critical, emotionally charged, and negatively evaluative lexemes (demolition, congestion, dust, obstruction, concreting). This indicates the presence of a certain level of public dissatisfaction and concern regarding urban construction processes.

ABSTRACT As part of an endeavor to implement cultural confidence policy within foreign language education after the President Xi’s assumption, English textbooks for Chinese senior students used for 18 years initially underwent an overhaul in 2022 and 11 Chinese culture short videos were integrated. A semiotic framework is shaped by modeling cultural confidence as evaluative attributes and is applied to uncover how they are built by multimodal resources. The analysis uncovered that these videos mobilized three major themes: cultural continuity confidence, cultural reputation worldwide confidence and sci-tech innovation confidence. They jointly envisioned for youth a ‘shared and usable past’. These features of cultural confidence discourse reflect China’s policy changes in curricula implementation and the digital communication of national culture.

This study investigates the discourse features of the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah through an integrated application of Halliday’s Functional Model of Language and Austin’s Speech Act Theory. By analysing the treaty as a diplomatic and religious historical text, the research demonstrates how linguistic choices facilitated negotiation, conflict management, and the establishment of mutual recognition between the Muslim and Quraysh delegations. Halliday’s seven functions of language reveal how the treaty’s discourse simultaneously fulfils instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, representational, heuristic, and imaginative roles in shaping the communicative environment of the agreement. Austin’s speech act framework further uncovers the illocutionary forces embedded in the treaty, including commissives, directives, declaratives, and assertives that advanced peace-making objectives. The synthesis of both frameworks shows that the treaty’s language is not merely descriptive but performative, strategically mobilised to secure peace and manage face concerns within a sensitive socio-religious context. Findings show that the treaty’s linguistic structure was strategically constructed to promote conciliation, minimise conflict, and affirm legitimacy. The study contributes to Islamic discourse analysis by highlighting the centrality of language in early Islamic diplomatic practice and offering insights for contemporary peace linguistics and intercultural communication.

The paper studies the motivational component of distance learning discourse, which is aimed at encouraging students to act in order to achieve certain learning goals. The author of the paper established that motivational influence on the addressee (learner) in distance learning discourse can be exerted through various types of motivational messages included in online lesson summaries, pop-up hints within interactive reference notes, and elements of emails that online teachers or online apps send to students. The study focused on the messages received by users of the popular language app Duolingo, renowned for its motivation system. The texts were obtained from a focus group consisting of students of the Department of Translation Theory and Practice, Kuban State University, who were instructed to install the Duolingo app on their mobile devices and over the course of a month with both active and inactive use monitor how Duolingo “communicates” with its users. The author analysed the verbal linguistic techniques of motivational and manipulative influence found in messages and notifications from Duolingo, as well as comments about the app received from the students and user reviews posted on the iRecommend, RuStore and Otzovik websites. It was established that the addresser of a distance learning discourse, represented by Duolingo, exerts a pronounced motivational and manipulative influence on the addressee (learner). This allowed the author to conclude that distance learning discourse possesses the qualities and characteristics of motivational discourse.

Recent Transformer-based language representation techniques have commonly adopted a straightforward approach to modeling textual context as a linear sequence of successive tokens. However, this sequential modeling strategy falls short in actively exploring intermediate structures present in natural languages and does not account for the rich interactive relationships between sentences. To overcome these limitations, we propose a discourse-aware framework that bridges the gap between sequential contextualization and the interactive nature of conversational reading comprehension. Concretely, we first divide the context into elementary discourse units (EDUs), ensuring that each unit contains precisely one condition. Then, we systematically explore three instantiations for modeling discourse features: sequential EDU encoding, discourse-aware masking, and discourse graph network. These techniques allow us to capture the nuanced interactions within the discourse. To assess the efficacy of our methodologies, we perform experiments on three conversational reading comprehension tasks: multi-turn response selection, conversational question answering, and conversational machine reading. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed approach. Moreover, analysis reveals that the discourse-aware approach enables the model to effectively capture intricate relationships within the context and fosters reasoning interpretability. Additionally, our method exhibits efficacy across various backbone PLMs and diverse domains.

Aim. To determine the place and role of background knowledge in the language training of translators in the field of professional communication through the program of supplementary education at a military aviation university. Methodology. The works of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of cultural studies, linguoculturology, sociolinguistics, linguistics and methods of teaching foreign languages were used as a theoretical base. The provisions of competence-based, linguo-cultural, sociolinguistic, and cognitive approaches, as well as methods of systemic, semantic, and contextual analysis, have become the most significant for the study. Methods of theoretical analysis and synthesis, comparison and interpretation, generalization of pedagogical experience were used. Results. The importance of background knowledge for effective intercultural interaction and adequacy of translation in the field of professional communication is justified, which makes it possible to consider mastering background knowledge as one of the objectives of training translators. The concept of “background knowledge” has been clarified, which implies in a broad sense knowledge of realities of communication participants, and in linguo-didactics and translation studies – vocabulary with sociocultural component, the understanding of which guarantees communication between representatives of different cultures. The classification of background knowledge of a military translator in the field of professional communication is proposed; the language features of the background knowledge of military discourse are described. A system of exercises for the development of background knowledge by military translators and the formation of the necessary translation skills and abilities in them is presented. Research implications. The results obtained can be used in further study of the role of background knowledge in the preparation of translators for another field of activity. The practical significance of the study is explained by the implementation of the developed system of exercises for the formation of background knowledge of military aviation orientation in the creation of original teaching aids and in the practice of teaching translation disciplines at the Department of Foreign Languages, Air Force Institute for Pilots as part of the program of additional education “Translator in the field of professional communication”. Conclusions. Mastering background knowledge is recognized as an important component of training military interpreters in the field of professional communication, and therefore should be integrated into the educational process and used to form a multilingual, multicultural personality that forms a certain level of foreign-language professional communicative competence. In addition to mastering language phenomena, adequate communication and translation requires a large amount of nonlanguage information, the so-called background knowledge, among which special attention should be paid to language realities that do not have an exact correspondence in their native language. In the scientific community, lexical units with national-cultural semantics and the ability to use them in situations of intercultural interaction are called linguistic competence. To provide methodological support for the development of this competence in future translators, firstly, the most characteristic linguistic features of military discourse were selected and described and, secondly, a system of exercises was proposed for mastering background knowledge by military translators and developing the necessary translation skills and abilities. The study done will contribute to increasing the effectiveness of the educational process in the additional education program “Translator in the field of professional communication.”