Linguistic Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Easy read health information for people with intellectual disabilities: A linguistic discourse analysis. What happens to language when it is simplified?

Easy Read health documents prepared for people with intellectual disabilities are often generated from Standard Texts. Language in Easy Read versions is typically assumed to be simpler. However, simplification of language may have unintended consequences. This study aimed to explore the differences in language used between Easy Read health material and the Standard Text versions of the same material produced for the general population. Five Easy Read/Standard Text pairs were sampled and analysed using Systemic Functional Linguistics. This addressed: how people with intellectual disabilities and others were represented by language, the author stance in relation to the reader and the overall organisation of the text. The Easy Read versions often used language that was less empowering and inclusive. Increased awareness of author power and better knowledge of the impact of language choice could help to redress these issues.

W poszukiwaniu przyczyn wyrażania niechęci wobec dzieci w internecie

The article aims to highlight the phenomenon of adults expressing resentment towards children and to try to reach its causes. The subject of the study consists of the statements of internet users perceived through the prism of linguistic discourse analysis. The author distinguishes three groups of causes: cultural (individualism, freedom in way of life, egocentrism), social (child-centrism vs. loss of social contact with the child) and psychological (individual). Cultural reasons relate to the fact that people nowadays value freedom and don’t want to make sacrifices for children who they consider a disturbance to their orderly, ideal way of life and individualistic mindset. Social causes come in the form of two seemingly opposing ideas. The first is about protest against pressure to have and to like children, alongside the priority given to families with children. The second is about the loss of social contact with the child, caused by the change in the family model and the privatization of motherhood. Psychological causes are of an individual nature; they may be related to trauma and various hypersensitivities and often manifest in expressions of disgust towards children. The author draws attention to the normalization of rude language behavior and the escalation of expressed resentment, which raises questions about the possibility of age discrimination.

Linguistic discourse analysis of lexico-grammatical features of moves in the research abstracts of medical students in a Ghanaian university

Writing a quality research abstract is crucial for a scholarly report. An abstract should be information and lexically dense, formal, and have a professional tone. This requires precision, objectivity, logicality, technicality, and comprehensiveness. However, writing a good-quality research abstract is a hurdle for novice and inexperienced undergraduate students who study English as a Second Language (ESL), that is English language learners worldwide. This article interrogates the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students who also studied English Language at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, Ghana. A qualitative-quantitative approach, guided by Hyland’s (2000, 2004) five-move model, was used to analyze the lexico-grammatical features in the rhetorical moves of the research abstracts written by these students. A corpus of 23 extracts representing a quota of sample tenses, hedges, boosters, and nominalization were analyzed. The data were coded manually and presented as frequency counts and percentages in tables and graphically. The results revealed that rhetorical moves in the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students of UHAS in Ho, Ghana were replete with simple past, simple present, and perfect tenses, and lexico-grammatical devices such as hedges, boosters, and nominalization to a greater or lesser extent. The study concludes that the research abstracts written by undergraduate medical students of UHAS follow Hyland’s (2002, 2004) five rhetorical move model, and are constituted by specific lexico-grammatical features. The pedagogical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.

When Yesterday’s Enemy Becomes Today’s Friend: A Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of Arabs in the Israeli ‘Jerusalem Post’

Media is considered a reflection of society and at the same time, it uses language as a power. The present study investigates the representation of Arabs in the Israeli newspaper, ‘The Jerusalem Post’, which is published in English. In other words, this study seeks to show how the Israeli press represents Arabs to the world, especially the West. Accordingly, we chose the Jerusalem Post since it is one of the most popular Israeli newspapers. Moreover, this study focuses on the articles that contain the word ‘Arab*’ and its variants from January 2017 to December 2021; this period represents the time span before and after the recent official normalization of relations between some Arab governments and Israel in order to shed light on the change of Israeli representation of Arabs during this period, if any. We draw upon a corpus of over 22 million words to conduct this study. Both corpus linguistic and critical discourse analysis are used to achieve the study goal. The analysis has shown that Arabs are negatively represented in pre-normalization period, and although the second period (2020-2021) witnessed the official normalization of relations between some Arab governments and Israel, Arabs are still represented negatively in the newspaper.

Nomination and Predication as Profiling Tools in Media Discourse

The article concerns the phenomenon of profiling as a cognitive concept and a research paradigm implemented in German discourse linguistics and used successfully in the linguistic discourse analysis. The contrastive analysis is carried out based on the Polish and German-language research corpus. The analysis aims to reconstruct the profiles of the controversial biographers in the press – Artur Domosławski (author of Kapuściński’s biography), and Gerhard Gnauck (author of Reich-Ranicki’s biography). In this approach, profiling in the media discourse is understood as a dynamic process, pointing to journalists’ competing and mutually combating positions and points of view, embedded in different cultures. Based on the theoretical assumptions and the specificity of the corpus, important questions arise about who profiles whom, what perspective they adopt and what linguistic practices they use. The analysis will examine nominations (referential forms) and predications (predicative forms) in the context of their potential for profiling discourse actors. The selected tools will allow us to reconstruct the culturally specific profiles of both biographers.

Diskurspoetik

This discourse linguistic short paper focuses on the heuristic concept of discourse poetics within a discourse linguistic framework. The goal is to integrate poetological considerations related to the concept of poeticity into the context of linguistic discourse analysis. From this standpoint, it explores the concept of poetics of knowledge, emphasizing the correlation between the specifics of linguistic expression and the epistemic objects they may refer to. Building upon this, discourse poetics that functions as a discourse linguistic epistemology is characterized by its focus on the poetic function of language use corresponding to the category of poeticity as a linguistic marker within discourse. It is assumed that linguistic phenomena falling under this category, can be observed and interpreted transtextually, using corpus pragmatic and hermeneutic approaches. This is illustrated by examples taken from the analysis of music discourses based on a corpus of 13,499 contemporary music reviews, previously presented by the author.

ЛИНГВОПРАГМАТИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ МЕДИАТЕКСТА

The study delves into the linguopragmatic aspects of media texts, emphasizing their significance in shaping public opinion and cultural norms. Media texts are dynamic communication forms that convey messages within specific media formats and genres, necessitating precise semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic accuracy. This article explores key approaches to the linguopragmatic analysis of media texts, identifying their unique characteristics and practical applications. The methods employed include linguistic analysis, discourse analysis, cognitive analysis, and psycholinguistic analysis, aimed at uncovering the interaction between language elements and social contexts. The findings highlight the importance of headlines, rhetorical devices, and interactive elements in engaging audiences and enhancing the pragmatic effect of media texts. The study also underscores the emotional and cognitive impact of media texts on audiences, influencing their perceptions and behaviors. Future research may focus on detailed analysis of specific media text types and their interaction with diverse social and cultural contexts.

LINGUISTIC AND SUGGESTIVE TECHNOLOGIES OF INFORMATION WARFARE (TO THE DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPT)

The study of suggestive technologies of information warfare has only recently become a topic of linguistic research in Ukraine. Russian propaganda employs these techniques in the context of information warfare, which has accompanied Russia`s full-scale invasion of our country. The objective of this warfare is to achieve a number of strategic goals, including the disintegration of communications, the primitivisation of reality, the conceptualization of lies, the creation of fake realities, the formation of desired behavior, the levelling of national conceptual pictures of the world, the replacement of these pictures with the idea of the "Russian world"; the changing of forms of self-determination (national, religious, value). The concept of linguistic suggestive technology remains a contested notion within the field of linguistics, with no consensus emerging on an agreed definition. The objective of this article is to propose a definition of the concept of linguistic suggestive technology based on an analysis of existing approaches to suggestive technologies; to prove the hierarchy of the concepts of linguistic suggestive technology and linguistic suggestive technique; to demonstrate the possibilities of linguistic analysis of multimodal discourse of information warfare based on the separation of linguistic suggestive technologies and tactics. A systematic study of linguistic suggestive technologies and techniques is a pressing necessity, as it enables the professional debunking of enemy propaganda and the development of proactive counter-suggestive influence. The author proposes that linguistic suggestive technology be defined as a set of methods (techniques) for processing, producing, and disseminating multimodally organized content with the goal of reducing the consciousness and criticality of target audiences when perceiving the suggestive content, shaping their desired behavior, and changing their system of values. Linguistic suggestive technique, in turn, can be defined as a certain way of processing, producing, and disseminating suggestive content. The set of linguistic suggestive technologies may vary depending on the purpose, objectives and target audiences of the information influence. The linguistic suggestive techniques that implement the technologies can be summarized by 14 "Sleight of Mouth", proposed by R. Dilts.

Exploring Narcopolis as a Postmodern Narrative and Semiotic Text

Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis (2012), inspired by his own experience as an opium and later heroin addict, paints a vivid picture of the seedy underbelly of 1970s Bombay. The novel features a multitude of characters from the opium dens of Bombay and threads multiple narratives, subversive and carnivalesque, to create a postmodern chronicle of the city. This article analyzes the narrative techniques in Jeet Thayil's novel Narcopolis (2012) to explore traits of postmodernity. It contends that the occurrence of multiple narratives, whose reliability is questionable, indicates a Barthian death of the author, encouraging the readers to give meaning to the text. Also, an inquiry into the novel’s commentary on its own narrative style indicates self-reflexivity. A study of the chronotope will be undertaken to decipher the temporality in the novel. Besides, the article will look out for possibilities of embedded narratives, plot digressions, and intertextuality. It also intends to scrutinize the novel using the tools of social semiotics. Linguistic analysis of discourse entails a monolithic approach, wherein it considers language as the only mode of interpretation of a text. Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen suggest that this limitation can be overcome by social semiotics, which studies a text in its multimodality. Signs, linguistic as well as nonlinguistic, are apparent through multiple modes, such as language, sound, visual, and so forth. The incorporation of certain pictures, changes in typography of certain pages as well as the book cover of Narcopolis poses a rich possibility of the semiotic understanding of the text through visual mode. Lastly, this article will aim to establish a connection between the narrative techniques and the semiotic interpretation of the text.

Функционирование реактивных прагматических моделей в непрофессиональном интернет-дискурсе

The response pragmatics in political Internet discourse is one of the most interesting and understudied aspects of modern virtual communication. This research featured a model of non-professional Internet discourse in the genre of political Internet commentary and its pragmatics. The resulting models correlated with the general model, which was based on the communicative intentions of the authors of political Internet comments. The empirical material involved feedback lines from readers of the RIA Novosti news agency. Determining the textual entity by its sender’s macrointension, the authors established the genre of Internet commentary as reactive. The pragmatic options for response patterns were based on the addressee’s communicative role and the reactive macrointension implemented in non-professional Internet discourse. The paper describes two reactive models of non-professional discourse: 1) reaction to a political event; 2) reaction to a pragmatic context. The method of linguistic and pragmatic discourse analysis revealed that the reactive models contained the following types of reaction: positive, negative, and twofold. However, the Internet comments also included an interpretative component. The reactive intention of the subjects of non-professional Internet discourse was combined with their intention to introduce a fragment of personal experience.

Structural and semantic analysis of the concept union in political media discourse (comparative study of the English, German and Russian languages)

The article analyzes the semantic structure of the concept union by comparing its semantic markers for different European languages within the media discourse. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of individual meanings expressed through semantic markers in the media discourse of these languages and reflecting the uniqueness of the implementation of the concept union in semantic terms. When considering the features of meaning, semantic markers associated with the central concept are established; patterns of their frequency of use in the languages under study and factors influencing the transformation of semantics are determined. The interrelation of situations of communicative interaction and its influence on the realization of the specific meaning of the concept union indicate the high relevance of the study.The choice of linguistic means of implementing the concept and the role of the communicative situation in this process has a significant impact on the negative or positive assessment of the phenomenon itself. The research methodology includes elements of system analysis, linguistic description method, discourse analysis, semantic and component analysis. The study uses statistical data extracted from the corpus corresponding to the declared languages by automatic sampling according to the specified parameters.The authors conclude that the semantic structure of the concept is realized depending on the communicative situation by various semantic markers, which, with the similarity of structures in the course of historical development and various social experiences, have a divergence of meaning, which may later serve as a space for various kinds of semantic manipulations in modern media discourse. The peculiarities of the use of the concept union in politically oriented texts of the studied languages are also of interest.

Snyder and Habermas on the war in Ukraine: a critical discourse analysis of elite media discourse in Germany

ABSTRACT This article presents a critical qualitative study of two opinion articles, written by two eminent scholars (Jürgen Habermas and Timothy Snyder), on the German government’s hesitant arms supply for Ukraine during the first phase of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. The main aim of the article is the uncovering of the discursive practices of critique performed by two major public intellectuals. This case study thus allows insights into the simplistic representation of the Russo-Ukrainian war in German elite media discourse. The analysis focuses on actor representations and topic limitations and manipulations in the two op-eds. It is shown that both Habermas and Snyder use characteristic ways of social actor representations in their texts which exhibit their allegiances. Furthermore, both of them limit and change topics at the meso- and macro-levels of their texts in order to make their arguments sound. In closing, the critical potential of linguistic discourse analysis is shortly addressed by arguing that the context sensitive application of the categories for analyzing discourse can uncover the internal norms to which authors orient which makes them open for a critical analysis.

»Vi ser att [eleven] har behov av särskilt stöd» Om kunskapsbildning och informationshantering i skolans elevutredningar

This study engages with the discursive construction of knowledge in school documents concerning pupils in need of special pedagogical support. In these texts, information from various voices is represented and recontextualized, meaning that images of pupils are negotiated and outlined, and ultimately knowledge about pupils and their learning is constructed discursively. The aim of the study is to investigate practices of knowledge construction in these texts. The data consist of 27 documents written by teachers who teach in lower secondary school (7th–9th grades). Drawing on linguistic discourse analysis, lexico-grammatical features are analyzed from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. The study shows how information originating from various voices is managed and framed by linguistic means in qualitatively different ways, and how the framing of information contributes to construction of several kinds of knowledge. In the analysis, five forms of framing are identified, along with six different types of voices. By quantifying the forms of framing as related to various voices, the study maps out the legitimization and delegitimization of various voices via the construction of different kinds of knowledge. Even though information from several voices is represented in the texts, it is primarily information from either the writer him/herself or written sources, such as previous documentation about pupils, that is legitimized by the writer.

Green Consumerism: A Cross-Cultural Linguistic and Sentiment Analysis of Sustainable Consumption Discourse on Twitter (X)

Green consumerism research suffers from a paucity of comprehensive, cross-cultural investigations and lacks insight into the interplay of sustainability dimensions and human values. This study examined sustainable consumption-specific tweets (N = 72,000) in the United States, Switzerland, and India. Findings indicate that consumers in India (i.e., the non-Western culture) emphasized the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability as well as the biospheric and altruistic values in their tweets. The two Western cultures focused more on egoistic values and the economic aspects of sustainability. Indian and Swiss consumer sentiments were largely positive, whereas the American consumers expressed more negative sentiments. Results can offer important culturally informed and contextually sensitive recommendations to marketers and policymakers for sustainability communications.

Dealing with risk in stakeholder dialog: identification of risk indicators in a public service media organization's conversation and discourse with citizens

PurposeThis study operationalizes risks in stakeholder dialog (SD). It conceptualizes SD as co-produced organizational discourse and examines the capacities of organizers' and stakeholders' practices to create a shared understanding of an organization’s risks to their mutual benefit. The meetings and online forum of a German public service media (PSM) organization were used as a case study.Design/methodology/approachThe authors applied corpus-driven linguistic discourse analysis (topic modeling) to analyze citizens' (n = 2,452) forum posts (n = 14,744). Conversation analysis was used to examine video-recorded online meetings.FindingsOrganizers suspended actors' reciprocity in meetings. In the forums, topics emerged autonomously. Citizens' articulation of their identities was more diverse than the categories the organizer provided, and organizers did not respond to the autonomous emergence of contextualizations of citizens' perceptions of PSM performance in relation to their identities. The results suggest that risks arise from interactionally achieved occasions that prevent reasoned agreement and from actors' practices, which constituted autonomous discursive formations of topics and identities in the forums.Originality/valueThis study disentangles actors' practices, mutuality orientation and risk enactment during SD. It advances the methodological knowledge of strategic communication research on SD, utilizing social constructivist research methods to examine the contingencies of organization-stakeholder interaction in SD.

Discourse, digitisation and women’s rights groups in Nigeria and Ghana: Online campaigns for political inclusion and against violence on women and girls

This study examines aspects of online activism by women’s rights groups in Nigeria and Ghana, especially by exploring their online campaign approaches. Applying the new social movement theories and methods in linguistic pragmatics and discourse analysis, the study examines and analyses how gender issues such as political participation and violence against women and girls are mediated discursively. The study further assesses the roles of social media in the campaign programmes of the women’s rights groups. Two groups each from Nigeria and Ghana are selected for the study. These are among the most active ones in the two countries with an efficient online presence. Findings show that the women movements adopt discourse-pragmatic acting strategies such as reporting, directing, demanding and identifying with women’s rights to seek redress to perceived gender injustice.

Role-theoretic discourse analysis of German security policy: a case of German parliamentary debate on the mission in Afghanistan.

This article combines linguistic discourse analysis with role theory to create a role-theoretic discourse analysis framework for German security policy. To illustrate this, we employ topos analysis on 30 plenary minutes of parliamentary debates regarding the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan, conducted by German Members of Parliament between 2001 and 2014. We interpret their perception of Germany's roles in light of key behavioral norms related to German security policy. The parliamentary discourse, shaped by topoi, sets the stage for decisions on German military operations abroad. The use of topoi is influenced by dominant thought patterns, particularly the perspective on Germany's role in security policy held by the political elite. Political decisions, in turn, reflect behavioral preferences guided by these viewpoints. Our research reveals how changes in German security policy are mirrored in the discourse. This discourse is structured around five categories of topoi for legitimizing or delegitimizing military operations abroad: necessity, obligation, self-interest, capability and preparedness, and solution. An evaluation of the use of topoi through the lens of role theory indicates that perceptions of Germany's role have evolved over time, encompassing roles such as a "civilian power," a "normal state," and an "agenda-setting role" in sync with its foreign military engagements.

A Study of Mainstream Media Communication and Audience Participatory Culture Based on Multimodal Analysis Approach

Abstract This paper analyzes the network expression and audience participatory discourse system under the mainstream media communication mode, combines the audiovisual multimodal audience cognitive participation and the multimodal features of the mainstream media, and proposes a multimodal deep learning model based on mainstream media communication. Based on the picture vision and human emotion migration methods, the picture vision feature migration module and the text emotion migration module are constructed respectively, and the multimodal feature fusion model is built by applying the gradient enhancement decision tree. Linguistic modality analysis of mainstream media communication discourse is carried out by analyzing the development characteristics of audience participatory cultural communication modes. The influence of different mainstream media communication discourses on the audience’s participatory culture is examined through logistic regression analysis while screening network discourse access. The regression analysis shows that the mainstream media communication modes represented by social software and microblogging have a significant impact on the development of the audience’s participatory culture, with p-values of 0.0452 and 0.0068, respectively, and thus the mainstream media need to strengthen content innovation, focus on specific audience groups, and make full use of new media platforms to provide audiences with richer, more accurate and professional news services.

ԴԻՎԱՆԱԳԻՏԱԿԱՆ ԴԻՍԿՈՒՐՍԻ ԼԵԶՎԱՀԱՂՈՐԴԱԿՑԱԿԱՆ ԱՌԱՆՁՆԱՀԱՏԿՈՒԹՅՈՒՆՆԵՐԸ / LINGUO-COMMUNICATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIPLOMATIC DISCOURSE

The purpose of the presented article is to give a linguistic description of diplomatic documents. Currently, the interest in the study of diplomatic discourse from a linguistic point of view is growing more and more, because its linguistic features are important for the study in terms of developing effective international interaction. The importance of the linguistic analysis of diplomatic discourse in all spheres of international relations is undeniable, and the task of forming a common diplomatic culture in the conditions of globalization is more relevant today than ever. To achieve this goal, the following research tasks were set: to classify and describe the features of discursive genres of diplomatic documents; to analyze the linguistic features of diplomatic documents. The objectives of the study and the specifics of the analyzed material determined the choice of the following research methods as the main ones: the method of direct observation of the material, followed by analysis and generalization of the results; contextual-interpretive method; intent analysis method; content analysis method. The main conclusion made within the framework of the study is that the style of diplomatic writing varies depending on the language and traditions of different countries, but is still subject to some general rules that are defined by international practice and conventions. Diplomatic documents must convey the state's point of view and insufficient attention to language can seriously damage the relationship between the countries.

The Digital Deception: Linguistic Framework and Discourse Analysis of Crime Communications

This paper deals with understanding the crimes that are happening in internet culture in different fields in online communities. There are many reasons behind these crimes: follows phishing, hacking and piracy etc., In every culture and subculture language plays a major role and it forms the base of the community. Apart from that, the language has many characteristics, it also has a connection with emotional and psychological wellbeing of a person. There are many types of crimes happening online but this research mainly focuses on the crimes that are happening through online communities. The important reason that the victims are trapped, is through the language and words which are used to trigger or attract the victim towards the target by the offender. It is easy to attract or trigger someone in person through effective communication when they have a good connection with each other, by understanding the emotional and psychological stand of each other. But in online culture it is hard to make a trap for people through communication when they don’t know each other. But this happens when we select the appropriate language and words to trigger a person. When the offender chooses the language and the words for the communication, he should be very wise and careful because it is not only for the single person, it is for a different number of people who have different physical, psychological, mental and emotional background. So, a language plays a major and important role. Even after the crime, language is the only thing that has a major role. The offender after the crime or after achieving his targets, he has a set or collection of words and language to handle the aftermath of the crime.