Legitimate Construction Research Articles

Legalizing Support for Patients with Rare Diseases in the Social Policy System: The Case of Using Legitimation Strategies in Hong Kong

There is a paucity of research pertaining to the discourse-based construction of legitimation within the realms of law and healthcare. To fill this gap, the present study examines the deliberations within the Legislative Council of Hong Kong pertaining to the enactment of legislation recognizing rare diseases (RDs) as eligible for governmental support. Employing van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic approach, we analyzed the debates, revealing four distinct discursive strategies, namely rationalization, morality, authorization, and mythopoesis, employed by the legislators to advocate for RD legislation. Among these strategies, rationalization emerged as the most frequently employed. The legislators’ discourse carries ideological implications concerning humanitarianism. This study not only sheds light on the utilization of legitimation strategies to advocate for the enactment of social policies within a legal context but also provides valuable insights for other regions seeking to advance RD legislation from a linguistic perspective.

Indigenous Linguistic and Cultural Practices as Mediated Resources to Fight Against the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case of a Zhuang-Centered Border Town in China

Previous studies on multilingual crisis communication seem to center on developed countries or cosmopolitan cities. Our knowledge about how linguistic minorities get access to health-related information in peripheral regions remains under-explored in the existing scholarship. Given that China’s border towns are peripherally located and inhabited multilingual and multicultural populations, it is of significance to understand how linguistic minorities overcome their communication barriers in times of crisis. Adopting Emergency Language Services (ELS) (Li, Rao, Zhang, & Li, 2020) as a theoretical framework, this study makes a six-month ethnographic study with Zhuang people on how they mobilize their linguistic and cultural resources to get access to health-related information during the Covid-19 pandemic. Multiple types of data were collected from six Zhuang people of diverse backgrounds in age, gender, education and language through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, field notes and online interactions. Findings demonstrate that traditional Zhuang folk arts including Zhuang Tianqin Plucked Instrument, Zhuang Folk Songs, and Zhuang Clappers constitute important resources to facilitate indigenous Zhuang people’s understanding of public health information. The study also finds that Zhuang people have actively participated in fighting against the Covid-19 pandemic together with the local government by the revitalization of Zhuang language and cultural practices. This study can shed lights on including the indigenous linguistic and cultural resources as legitimate construct to participate in crisis communication and response to local and government policies.

Transnational students' experiences of EMI in Myanmar's borderlands

Based on a large-scale ethnography of Myanmar migrants, the present study examines the experiences of multilingual Myanmar students who received EMI education in secondary schools and universities in Myanmar's borderlands. Data were collected through the use of linguistic autobiography, semi-structured interviews and written materials. Adopting the borderlands theory, the study investigates how Myanmar ethnic minority students encounter and wrestle with the EMI learning challenges in the hybridized border regions. Our findings indicate that Myanmar ethnic minorities appropriate their agentive practices by leveraging their borderland subjectivities to form an assemblage of semioticized resources. Living in an under-resourced EMI context, our participants flexibly deploy their previous multiliteracies, mobilize the local and community resources and maximize the digital and transnational affordances. Our study argues that the successful validation of EMI prospect in the borderlands needs to overcome the essentialist practices and take into consideration sociopolitical power within and cross the border. By revealing the EMI affordances and constraints mediated in the transnational experiences, our study contributes to the knowledge base of EMI inquiry by including the peripheral voices and indigenous practices as legitimate construct and revealing the interplay of multiple forces shaping EMI students' trajectories.

The Construction of Legitimation in Romanian Public Authorities’ Discourses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The global spread of COVID-19 in 2020 has created a wide range of responses from governments, like lockdowns, event prohibitions, social distancing rules, etc. Authorities tried to legitimize these restrictions (including limitations of individual rights) through different strategies in order to obtain people compliance. This paper aims to analyze the discourses of two most trusted Romanian public figures, according to IRES (April 2020), Klaus Iohannis, Romanian President, and Raed Arafat, Romanian State Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, both of whom played key roles in the communication around the COVID-19 health emergency state in our country in March-April 2020. Our goal is to identify how they legitimize their actions by exploring the power relationships between these two Romanian authorities, citizens and other social actors as reflected in their discourses. Our analysis combines van Leuween’s (2007) legitimation strategies with Brown’s (2020) risk features to understand how Romanian authorities managed to respond to COVID-19 crisis. Research showed the two public figures legitimize their actions by using personal authority and that warnings are the most addressed constructions in their discourses. Differences also showed that Arafat was more focused on battling fake news and its effects, while Iohannis was often using good hero’s narratives to explain the decisions implemented to combat the pandemic.

Multimodality in Hong Kong government posters from the 1950s–1980s: an appraisal analysis and the discursive construction of legitimation

Abstract This paper uses van Leeuwen’s (2008. Discourse and practice: New tools from critical discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press) Authority Legitimation framework to examine government posters published in the 1950s–1980s in Hong Kong, which serve as a means of shaping public opinion and legitimate social action. Martin and White’s (2005. The language of evaluation: Appraisal in english. London: Palgrave Macmillan) Appraisal framework is also applied to provide the study with relevant analytical tools by which to construct evaluatively coherent authorial reading positions propagated by the government in the posters as well as aligning viewers with these desired positions. The government posters being studied are concerned with various aspects of social practices in the domain of public health communication. This paper argues that the representations of these social practices are realized as texts – both visual and verbal – in the posters, as part of a broader recontextualization process where legitimate ways of doing things as stipulated in the government guidelines are recontextualized in these posters and conveyed to members of the public. The aim is two-fold: (1) to provide a systematic analysis of how visual and verbal resources construe evaluation in the government posters and the consequent legitimation discourse as viewers are being persuaded to align with legitimate social practices; (2) to highlight various forms of legitimation, namely, role model authority legitimation, impersonal authority legitimation, and conformity authority legitimation, that are realized in these posters through visual-verbal articulation.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WTO DISPUTE SETTLEMENT DECISIONS IN BRAZIL: A CONSTITUCIONAL APROACH

This paper discusses the relation between brazilian constitution and the WTO Dispute Settlement System, stressing out the existing challenges and focusing on possible measures for procedural implementation of these decisions, emanated from an adjudicatory system. Although the selection of the implementation measure is a sensible political choice that impacts a wide spectrum of different interest groups in diverse manners, from a constitutional poit of view, brazilian government shall give publicity and transparency to the selecting process, making possible for interest groups and agents to present their arguments regarding the possible implementation paths and connecting state governance structures to stakeholders, and allowing the collective and legitimate construction of public interest.

Research on College English Teaching Model Based on Decision Trees

English teaching has always attracted much attention. However, the processes of its transmission and acquirement is often divided into two separate parts, which seriously hinders the effective implementation of its objectives. Teachers attach particular importance to the choice of the curriculum structure and teaching material. Students are busy comprehending the assignments their teachers deem important. Under such a scenario, the effective acquisition of knowledge and the development of sustainable comprehensive abilities are ignored. The random forest algorithm in machine learning applications could play important role improving on the current English teaching system. A random forest model is constructed using a decision trees selection method, which focuses on 19 attributes of the English teaching model. Results show, to begin with, that the indigenous teaching plan and environment fail to adapt to the pace of knowledge iteration in the era of big data. Moreover, interactions between teachers and students appear to be shallow with little constructive interaction, causing a decline in the relationship between teachers and students. Last, there is still no signs of any legitimate construction in terms of in-person English teaching, relativity attribute, corpus and platform. Therefore, this paper has proposed a new English teaching model to adapt to the current college English teaching environment. The experimental results show that the method is effective and feasible for the current college English teaching.

Formação e prática docente: sobre a visibilidade das professoras lésbicas.

Este artigo traz reflexões que foram aprofundadas em uma pesquisa qualitativa sobre professoras lésbicas na Educação Básica. De modo geral, a questão que se coloca é: quais são os distintos significados de ser uma professora lésbica na Educação Básica, tendo em vista o tabu que isso ainda representa no meio escolar e as necessidades de uma educação de respeito pela diversidade? Esta consideração é fundamental, especialmente no atual momento vivido em nosso país, em que essa construção legítima de existência está sob ataque.
 Além disso, problematizar a importância dessa questão na própria formação docente, sendo a visibilidade ou invisibilidade construída por essas professoras sempre pedagógica, ajuda a erigir uma série de conhecimentos e impressões sobre a diversidade sexual.

Bullying of emos in Mexico City: an ethnographic analysis

The article describes the beliefs that have fueled violence by various groups against male and female "emos" in Mexico City. This was an ethnographic study from 2012 to 2015 based on 24 in-depth interviews with young students enrolled in public universities in Mexico City in 2008. The study focused primarily on emos (10), but also included young people that described themselves as punks (6), darks (5), and rockers (3). The findings suggest that bullying of emos is deeply rooted in gender beliefs, particularly hegemonic notions of masculinity. The study highlights the fact that bullying is perpetrated not only by other youth, but also occurs in the family and school settings, where the violence is taken for granted as a legitimate construct associated with the idea of discipline in school. The strategies used by these young people to resist bullying suggest reflexive attitudes towards their historical, scholastic, and family contexts. They are able to reaffirm their collective demand for the right to education and diversity in university classes, but the situation calls for policies to prevent bullying, especially in the university community.

Discursive double-legitimation of (avoiding) another war in Obama’s 2013 address on Syria

Abstract This article explores legitimacy-building in United States President’s 2013 Address to the Nation on Syria. Based on a slightly modified version of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) model of the discursive construction of legitimation and with a view of the war in Syria as the super-macro context of the Address, the investigation illustrates how the speech attempts to legitimate the prospect of a direct American military engagement in Syria on the one hand, and to justify avoiding another war that may prove too costly, on the other. Through the illustration of such double-legitimation discursive practices, the study portrays how critical discourse studies can provide the ground for awareness of a delicate aspect of the discourse of politics and the rhetoric of politicians in shaping public consent and projecting an always-legitimate image of even contradictory political positions, decisions, and actions.

Conversation and Voice: Feminist Mentoring for Social and Political Change

Although women have studied and written about their positions in the academy forsome time, it is only through ground-breaking work of Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M.,Goldberger, N. R. & Tarule, J. M. (1986), that we have formally acknowledged thatwomen learn, construct, and process knowledge and events differently from men.They determined that women learned in relation to one another, that collaborativelearning superseded competition, and that females perceived teaching and learningin relation to self. That research in turn has led to further understandings of poweræ power in relation to what is valued as the legitimate construction of knowledgeand what is valued as knowledge per se. Campbell (1997), Gore (1993), Lewis(1993) and others have commented articulately on the need to view women'seducation as different in one way or another, yet recognize that such apperception,if accepted, concomitantly supposes a shift in power relations

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ВІДВЕДЕННЯ ДІЛЯНОК ЗЕМЕЛЬ ІСТОРИКО-КУЛЬТУРНОГО ПРИЗНАЧЕННЯ ПІД БУДІВНИЦТВО

Raising of problem. The further use of territories of the historical-cultural purpose has a very important value and needs considerable attention at the change of their role. Therefore, the question about the increase of free land under appropriate construction at the expense of other categories of land such as especially valuable land arises.Analysis of the last researches and publications. When the lands on territories of the historical-cultural purpose are given up it is necessary to take into account the position of the “Land Code of Ukraine”, the laws of Ukraine "Protection of Cultural Heritage", "Land Management", “The regulation of the City Building Documentation”, the correspondence of the concords and evalnation to the existing legislation.Unsolved parts of general issue. The accordance to the legislation on example of the project of land allotment for permanent use to the Communal enterprise “Chernihivbudinvest” of Chernihiv town council (accordingly to the letter from 03.12.2015 after №01-04/814 in relation to a concord) for building of multistoried dwelling building with the objects of social purpose in Chernihiv at the Kniazia Chornoho Street, 4, at the expense of land of historical and cultural purpose, which was held mandatory State examination of land management documentation.Exposition of basic material. The procedure for the use of lands of historical and cultural purpose is determined in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine on culture and the protection of objects of cultural heritage and is related to the nature of the object under which the relevant land is located, the national or local status and a number of other factors .The Department of Architecture and Urban Development of Chernihiv City Council 07.07.2015 granted urban planning conditions and restrictions on the development of the land plot approved by the decision of the Executive Committee of the Chernihiv City Council, which provided for the construction of two residential buildings and underground parking in the immediate vicinity of Eletsy Uspensky monastery of the XII century which is the monument of history and architecture.Despite all objections of the public and the architectural and historical institutions of Chernihiv, the local prosecutor's office has recognized a legitimate construction permit at the Kniazia Chornoho Street, 4.Conclusions and suggestions. The use of territories of the historical-cultural purpose must take place in obedience to all requirements of legislation, Landed code of Ukraine, consent the envisage establishments and organizations. Further maintenance of architectonically-historical sights for descendants depends on careful attitude of citizens of Chernihiv toward further development of city territory. That is why a question of the use of territories of the historical-cultural purpose must constantly be under intent attention of public.

A Critical Discourse Study of a German Children’s Book Series: Representation of Social Actors and Construction of Legitimation

<p class="1"><span lang="X-NONE">Among practitioners of critical discourse studies (CDS), German storybooks for children are relatively unexplored in comparison with storybooks targeted at the Anglophone communities. In this study, I investigated a German children’s book series called <em>Siggi Blitz</em>. Containing a total of 23 639 words, this series comprises twelve storybooks which were released between 2013 and 2014. Focus was given to the discursive representation of characters and the legitimation strategies used to convey ideologies. Specifically, I would like to explore how female and male characters are represented. To this end, two analytic frameworks from van Leeuwen (1996, 2007, 2008)—the Social Actor Theory and the discursive construction of legitimation—were employed. The findings indicate that gender stereotyping is pervasive in the storybooks. For instance, on the dimension of “categorization,” female characters tend to be represented by reference to their physical appearance (viz., “physical identification”) while male characters are regularly associated with their occupations (viz., “functionalization”). Analysis of the legitimation strategies used demonstrates that “rationalization” is the most frequent form of legitimation. “Rationalization” has two functions in the storybooks: (i) to justify acceptable and/or unacceptable behaviors; (ii) to mark the utility of common artifacts. Furthermore, it was found that “role model authority” is exclusively applied to male characters, echoing the findings regarding gender stereotyping in the earlier part of the study. Given the “socializing” nature of storybooks for children, the present study reveals that awareness in relation to the representation of gender has to be increased among story contributors.</span></p>

Listen to What Doctors Say: Discursive Authority in Two Persian Medical Publications

With a concern for social relations of power and authority and referring to the role of discourse in constructing and legitimating worldviews, perceptions, and practices, this study investigates particular instances of medical discourse in two distinct types of print medical media. Two sets of articles shape the overall bulk of data investigated in this research. The first set comprises 20 articles selected from Salamat medical journal which is a weekly publication aimed at the general non-expert public. The second body of data is shaped by 20 other articles appearing in Pezeshky-e Emrooz, a weekly publication specifically addressing medical practitioners. van Leeuwen’s (2008) conception of ‘the discursive construction of legitimation’ was adopted as the general guiding framework. His particular category of Expert authority – as the type of legitimation that is based on expertise which may be explicitly stated or may be taken for granted if the expert is recognized in a particular context – was used to code the data in search of themes that represent this kind of authority within the two categories of discourse. On this basis, varying degrees of legitimation appears to be practiced within the discourse of medical professionals in these two distinct discursive arenas.

Implementing decisions of the WTO Dispute Settlement in Brazil: is there a place for transparency and participation?

This paper aims to discuss the democracy gap in the implementation process of decisions of the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement System in Brazil and possible measures to increase its transparency and accountability. Although the selection of the implementation measure is a sensible political choice that impacts a wide spectrum of different interest groups in diverse manners, government shall give publicity and transparency to the selecting process, making possible for interest groups and agents to present their arguments regarding the possible implementation paths and connecting state governance structures to stakeholders, and allowing the collective and legitimate construction of public interest.

Authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation: legitimizing acupuncture in Hong Kong's newspapers

ABSTRACTHong Kong has always been regarded as a critical region of Cultural China. Surprisingly, traditional Chinese medicine has not yet been accepted as legitimate in the city. This study uses acupuncture as a case to investigate the way media texts work to organize a field of knowledge and practices about health in a post-colonial society where contrasting perspectives and hybrid ideas rooted from the East and the West intermingle. Acupuncture is conceptualized as socially constructed health knowledge that has become increasingly legitimate in media discourse. Through a mixed-method approach that combines discourse and content analysis, a total of 666 news articles related to acupuncture published in two Hong Kong newspapers over a 10-year period were analyzed. Three major forms of discursive construction of legitimation – authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation – were identified and elaborated in association with the texts and the social contexts. This study reveals a complex process of generating legitimacy for health knowledge through news narratives.

Overactivity in chronic pain: is it a valid construct?

Overactivity is a frequently used term in chronic pain literature. It refers to the phenomenon whereby individuals engage in activity in a way that significantly exacerbates pain, resulting in periods of incapacity. Overactivity, as a construct, has been derived solely from patients' self-reports, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the construct. Self-reported overactivity reflects an individual's "belief," collected retrospectively, that their earlier activity levels have resulted in increased levels of pain. This may be different to an individual actually engaging in activity in a way that significantly exacerbates pain. In this study, a 5-day observational study design was used to investigate the validity of overactivity as a construct by examining the relationship between a self-report measure of overactivity, patterns of pain, and objectively measured physical activity over time. A sample of 68 adults with chronic pain completed a questionnaire investigating self-reported habitual engagement in overactivity and activity avoidance behaviour, before commencing 5 days of data collection. Over the 5-day period, participants wore an activity monitor and recorded their pain intensity 6 times a day using a handheld computer. Associations were found between (1) high levels of pain and both high overactivity and high avoidance, (2) high levels of overactivity and more variation in pain and objective activity across days, and (3) high levels of overactivity and the reoccurrence of prolonged activity engagement followed by significant pain increases observed in data sets. These results offer some preliminary support for the validity of overactivity as a legitimate construct in chronic pain.

Predictive value of serial measurements of quality of life on all-cause mortality in prostate cancer patients: data from CaPSURE™ (cancer of the prostate strategic urologic research endeavor) database

IntroductionHealth-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a legitimate construct for evaluating treatment and its side effects. Recently, predictive value of HRQOL on survival also has been of interest. In light of the longer survival in patients with prostate cancer and importance of quality of life, we seek to evaluate the association between HRQOL and survival using traditional and novel techniques.MethodsPatients from CaPSURE (Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor) who were treated within 6 months of diagnosis and had pre-treatment and sufficient post-treatment follow-up information constituted the study population. A sample consisting of 2,899 patients met the study criteria. SF-36 domains were used to measure HRQOL outcomes. Categorical variables were created for HRQOL based on the baseline distribution of the lower 10th percentile and the remainder of the patients. Association between HRQOL and survival (defined by all-cause mortality) in patients with prostate cancer was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards models controlling for age at diagnosis, type of treatment received, clinical risk classification, and number of comorbidities. Sequential bootstrap resampling was implemented to evaluate stability of the model. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were fit using various time points over the course of follow-up.ResultsIn the analysis looking at association of HRQOL baseline measurements, higher levels of physical function and general health were significantly associated with better survival (HR 0.49 95% CI 0.32–0.78 and HR 0.51 95% CI 0.35–0.75, respectively). Post-treatment analysis demonstrated similar results. In time-dependent analysis, higher levels of physical function, role physical, and general health were significantly associated with better survival (HR ranged from 0.57 to 0.65). In addition, analysis looking at change in HRQOL scores demonstrated an association between higher scores on physical function, role physical, vitality, social function, and general health and longer survival (HR ranged from 0.56 to 0.63).ConclusionThis study demonstrated that several domains of HRQOL were significantly associated with survival in a large group of patients with localized prostate cancer. This association was maintained over the course of disease regardless of the time of the assessment. Results from our study have both research and clinical relevance. They could provide information that enable us to not only improve communication with patients and families, but also to develop interventions and treatments best suited for the patient.

Assessment and Decision-Making in Early Childhood Education and Intervention

Assessment within the fields of early childhood education and early childhood intervention is guided by the deductive-psychometric model, which is a framework for legitimizing constructs that arise from theories. An alternative approach, termed the inductive-experimental model, places significantly more restrictions on what constitutes a legitimate construct. In this paper, the utility of these two assessment models, one more generative and one more restrictive, are evaluated within the context of a Head Start setting. Given the pragmatic goal of informing instruction, we argue for the superiority of the more restrictive approach. Implications for early childhood intervention are also discussed.

Towards an Aesthetics of Navigation

Towards an Aesthetics of Navigation