Linguistic Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Representing Behavioral Pathology: The Importance of Modality in Medical Descriptions of Conduct, ADHD as Case Study

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of modality resources (e.g. “may,” “often”) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in representing behavioral pathology focusing, in particular, on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD diagnosis requires reports of non-practitioners (e.g. carers and teachers); an effective understanding of behavioral descriptors by the lay community is thus of paramount importance. The study combines qualitative linguistic discourse analysis and a corpus approach to study the presence and functions of modality, adopting a Systemic Functional perspective toward language. The study argues that in the DSM-5 modality is an important linguistic resource for conveying clinical significance, inferred from graduations of recurrence and probability. However, adopting features of professional discourse in representing behavioral pathology for non-experts, especially when those resources are inherently evaluative, stresses the need of health literacy among the lay social community and accessibility in health communication materials, particularly when non-practitioners are involved in the diagnosis practice.

Linguistic Variation, Discourse Analysis, and Deaf Education: Case Studies from ISL.

Variation in language has been acknowledged as central to the characterization of spoken and written discourse. Speakers' ability to change and adjust language according to the communicative circumstances is a prominent factor that demonstrates their linguistic literacy and skill. Nonetheless, few studies have explored the characterization of discursively motivated variation in sign languages, and little is known about the topic. The purpose of the current study is to present features of variation in Israeli Sign Language as they appear in two discourse types-narrative versus expository texts. We present this aspect of linguistic literacy as it is expressed in two case studies of two adult signers in two domains: sign parameters and the use of signing space. The findings reveal a discourse type effect on the way that these aspects are expressed and highlight the importance of discourse and linguistic knowledge to educators of deaf students.

Words that Archaeologists Choose

Writing is the means by which archaeological knowledge is produced, shared and negotiated, which is why, as part of a wider reflexive archaeology, writing within the discipline has come under scrutiny. When writing, archaeologists make choices about what words to use to express their ideas about the past (even if these choices are sometimes subconscious). This study examines such choices via the application of methods from two linguistic subdisciplines, corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, to a case study of Maltese archaeological texts and terms for a specific yet problematic type of Maltese artifact (axe-amulets/pendants). Using these methods, we connect political and theoretical shifts to changes in English-language use and terminology across three periods of Maltese archaeological history, demonstrating how authors choose words that reflect the broader assumptions and understandings that inform their work. In sum, this paper contributes to an increasingly critically aware understanding of the history of colonial and postcolonial archaeology in Malta and other Mediterranean islands and encourages writers to have a heightened awareness of the taken-for-granted but fundamental part that language plays in their poetics and politics.

ПОЭТИЧЕСКАЯ ТЕОРИЯ СВЯЗИ ЕЛИЗАВЕТЫ МНАЦАКАНОВОЙ

This article is devoted to the study of communication strategies in the poetry of Elizaveta Mnatsakanova, one of the main Russian-speaking poets of the second half of the 20th century. Using the principles of working with sound and experimental musical composition, the author creates a very special poetic language that is typologically close to the so-called spectromorphology, an approach developed by the composer Denis Smalley in the 1980s. The author of this concept made a great contribution to the development of the theory of sound art, as he proposed a kind of grammar for electro-acoustic music. Elizaveta Mnatsakanova also creates a kind of spectromorphological worlds on the territory of poetry, organizing a series of words, decomposing words into separate elements and thus setting complex sequences of semantic metamorphoses. This poetic technique, outwardly resembling the practices of the avant-garde, differs radically from them, and this difference lies in the communication strategy used by Mnatsakanova. The fact is that it creates a special double addressing: poetic texts are simultaneously addressed to both the subject and nature itself. Thus, this poetry itself becomes a dynamic boundary between, in the words of Walter Benjamin, “the language of men” and “the language of things”. Through the practice of complex translation, the poet offers her own theory of communication, linguistically rethinking not only the relationship between the subject and the environment, but also the relationship between the interlocutors, even if they are separated in space and time. The material of this article was not only the poetry of Elizaveta Mnatsakanova, but also her essays on theoretical issues and practices of other authors. Poetic texts are considered in the article in the light of linguistic poetics, sound theory, translation theory and discourse analysis.

Pedagogical and epistemic uncertainty in collaborative teacher learning

Studies of teacher learning often focus on individual teacher uncertainty as a source for reflection and inquiry. This study examines the emergence of group uncertainty during practice-based professional development, and the ways participants manage it. Through linguistic ethnographic discourse analysis, we examine two contrasting teacher discussions about the concept of feedback in one teacher meeting. In our analyses, we distinguish between pedagogical uncertainty and epistemic uncertainty and explore the strategies participants employ to navigate them. Specifically, we highlight the importance of examining socio-epistemic positioning and epistemic moves to better understand how participants respond to group uncertainty.

A Systemic Functional Linguistic and Critical Discourse Analysis of A Selected Speech on COVID-19

This paper displays a Systemic Functional Linguistic and Critical Discourse Analysis of Boris Johnson’s first public speech on COVID-19. Covid-19 is a very dangerous infectious disease caused by the last discovered virus of the Coronavirus strain. This virus began in Wuhan’s Chinese city in December 2019. COVID-19 has spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world. It has now turned into a pandemic affecting the whole world. Halliday’s (2004) model of systemic functional linguistics (meta-functions), relying on interpersonal and ideational metafunctions, and Van Dijk’s ideology and discourse (2000) model depending on the argumentation categories, are the adopted models of analysis. The paper’s main objectives are to analyze the speech of Prime Minister Boris critically to uncover the used ideologies to advise, persuade and control the people’s beliefs and actions. In addition, this paper aims to identify the interpersonal and ideational meta-functions in the selected speeches of the chosen figure stating their frequencies, then finding out how these features uncover the ideological strategies used to affect all people; Finding the argumentation categories that are used by the prime minister to support the ideas and actions presented. The paper presents a theoretical background of discourse, Critical discourse analysis, dominant, and ideology. Explains the adopted models; Analyzes the speech critically.

Verbal and Nonverbal Discourse of Male Characters in Animated Movies

An observation on gender discourse (verbal and nonverbal communication) is the main concern of various scientific studies. Verbal communication serves to express one’s own views, information and ideas in the form of sound and words. The spoken language involves face-to-face communication, while nonverbal communication (also known as silent language) is the transmission of messages through eye contact, facial expressions, gestures and spatial relationship between the sender and the receiver to convey a message. Researchers have substantiated in earlier studies that verbal and nonverbal communication patterns of men and women are quite different (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Kring & Gordon, 1998). The goal of the manuscript is to observe and analyse discourse (verbal and nonverbal) of male mice characters in two animated movies (American – “The Great Mouse Detective” and Georgian – “Tsuna and Tsrutsuna”). Observation and qualitative research methods, as well as typological analysis are used during the study. Consequently, two animated movies (“The Great Mouse Detective” (American) and “Tsuna and Trutsuna” (Georgian) have been selected for farther analysis where the main heroes represent mice and rats.The study based on the observational research has revealed the fact that animated movie characters act in similar way male and female gender perform in various situations. Observation on movie characters implies the deep social and linguistic analysis of verbal and non-verbal discourse which is expressed in their actions and interrelations towards each other.

CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN POLITICAL MEMOIRS

This article explores the links between the processes of identity construction and attributes of political memoirs as a particular type of text embracing a set of inherent characteristics that are derived from political discourse on the one hand, and memoiristic literature on the other. The research is based on the contextual and linguistic analyses and discourse analysis of such American autobiographical memoirs as An American Life by R. Reagan, My Life by B. Clinton, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope by B. Obama. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, we prove that it is necessary that political memoirs be classified as a subgenre of memoiristic literature in terms of literature studies or a type of text in terms of text linguistics. Second, we pinpoint that political memoiristic writing produces particular versions of identity, framed by social context and relations of a private personality. Third, the friend and foe agonistic pattern of politics is outlined as determinative of the physical author’s self-perception and identification in political memoirs.

Economic texts as a reflection of the social reality of the transition period in Latvia and Russia

The goal of the study is to compare the reflection of Latvias and Russias transition to the market economy in economic texts. The object of the research is Latvian and Russian textbooks on economics (N = 61) of three generations (1990s, 2000s and 2010s) in the Daugavpils University library. The first such textbooks were published in 1993, and the last ones - in 2015. Although the starting point of the analysis is the translation of Samuelsons textbook (1964), which is beyond the time scope of the research, this book is necessary for a deeper analysis of the textbooks on economics. The research was conducted with the descriptive analysis and case study method applied in the framework of the linguistic discourse analysis based on Webers methodology of cultural determinism. The results of the research showed that in the 1990s, the economic discourse of the USA was actively borrowed in Latvia and Russia; however, the business culture of the USA differs significantly from the business culture of our countries. The linguistic discourse analysis allowed to reveal the conceptual challenges of the contemporary economic science in Latvia and Russia: despite as if the existence of some general economic theory, in reality even basic economic processes are often explained in different conceptual systems depending on the beliefs of the economic texts authors. Considering the social-economic transformations in the past thirty years and earlier periods, the authors emphasize the special importance of critical thinking in the creation, translation and perception of economic texts. This is especially important since there are no reasons to believe that in the 1990s, the cultural component of the economic discourse of Latvia and Russia changed significantly to the market-oriented. Today readers of economic texts have difficulties in their critical assessment, especially of those texts whose authors use emotional terminology.

MEDIA IMAGES OF DEPRESSION: TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE, INTERACTION, SELF-EXPERSSION

Depression is a common illness worldwide. According to the data of WHO, approximately 280 million people have depression. As a consequence, the illness is present in the media discourse in Germany for years. This paper discusses the strategies different media use to create a specific image of this mental disorder: German mass media, the so called quality media (Der Spiegel) as well as social media (Instagram*). The focus of the analysis is the use of different semiotic codes such as written language, static pictures, and typography in order to create a multimodal image of depression. Methodically, the paper is based on Linguistic Discourse Analysis as it is used in the German Linguistics, whereas the term Discourse is used according to Foucault’s concept. Some aspects of the DIMEAN model by [Spitzmüller, Warnke 2011], for example concerning the metaphor in discourse will be critically discussed. The textual analysis seeks to explore how the individual experiences of people with depression are presented in language and picture. Moreover, the transfer of knowledge in the mass media discourse well be treated. For this reason, the terms expert knowledge and lay knowledge will be reflected. In the context of Social Media, especially on Instagram*, the interaction between the users is in focus of discussion, as well as the use of colours for the strategies of self-expression. Both are relevant for the creation of the specific media image of depression.

РОЛЬ ОФШОРОВ В СОКРЫТИИ АКТИВОВ КОНТРОЛИРУЮЩИМИ ДОЛЖНИКА ЛИЦАМИ В ПРАВООТНОШЕНИЯХ НЕСОСТОЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ (БАНКРОТСТВА)

This article outlines the role of offshore companies in the rela- tions of the parties in the field of insolvency (bankruptcy), the issue of finding legal methods of disclosing the connection between the actions of beneficial owners (individuals controlling the debtor) that are aimed to conceal the assets of the debtor in offshore zones and to bring those individuals to responsibility in order to compel them to return the funds withdrawn from the Russian Fe-deration and to pay the debt of their controlled enterprise in favor of the bona fide creditors. The concepts and norms of the Russian Codes: Civil, Tax and Criminal, Laws of N 127-FZ and N 115-FZ are analyzed. Two ways of solving that issue are proposed. The first is to include in Federal Law N 115-FZ a norm providing for the liability of beneficial owners for the withdrawal of assets to accounts in foreign banks, which entailed the insolvency and bankruptcy of the organization. The second method involves a comprehensive legal, technical and linguistic discourse analysis of key terms and concepts used in basic codified Russian laws in order to unify and differentiate its key legal concepts.

SERBIEN IN DER OPFER- ODER TÄTERROLLE? ARGUMENTATIONSANALYSE AM BEISPIEL DER CHARAKTERISIERUNG IM MAGAZIN DER SPIEGEL 1999

The paper analyzes the reporting and the image of Serbia in the articles of the German magazine DER SPIEGEL, which thematize the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 from the aspects of linguistic discourse analysis. The paper is theoretically based on the analysis of argumentative patterns or topos, established by the German linguist Wengeler (2007). The goal of topos analysis is the reconstruction of standardized knowledge, hence the empirical part determined what kind of knowledge or the arguments of certain positions are constructed in the selected speech community. Through the performed analysis, two lines of argumentation were established within the framework of the research question: the image of Serbia as the culprit for the NATO bombing and as the victim of aggression. The results of the corpus analysis are presented qualitatively, as well.

Venezuelan migrants in Spain

Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented exodus as a result of ongoing political, economic and humanitarian crises. While the majority of emigrants remain in neighbouring Latin American countries, the US and Europe are also among the preferred destinations. The way migrants are covered in the media shapes public opinion and has an impact on their integration into society. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the coverage of Venezuelan migrants in the Spanish press in a timeframe from 2015 to 2020. For this purpose, a linguistic discourse analysis is conducted. The results contrast with the current state of research. With the help of the sociological "othering"-theory and the concept of the so-called "aporofobia", it is possible to explain how the image of good (and "bad") migrants is discursively constructed.

TILSHUNOSLIKDA YURIDIK DISKURS O‘RGANILISHI: MAQSAD VA VAZIFALARI

This article is devoted to the legal discourse and its study in linguistics, and contains essential information on the stages and approaches to the study of legal discourse. In fact, although this type of institutional discourse, considered a subject of forensic linguistics, has so far been examined by many foreign linguists and lawyers, it is not yet studied in Uzbek linguistics based on a pragmalinguistic approach. Indeed, this shows the relevance of the topic. Therefore, the article initially provides examples of the study of legal discourse within the framework of three approaches, as well as an overview of its goals and objectives, which are different aspects from other types of discourse. Undoubtedly, the linguistic analysis and scientific resesarch of legal discourse is of great importance today since it covers all aspects of life. Thus, the study of the relationship between language and law has become a subject of research in many fields, including linguistics. Legal discourse is a kind of institutional discourse, which consists of all legal structures; both oral and written legal texts applied within them and their specific professional terms, and follows all the rules and norms of legal language and legal speech.

Linguistic approach to axiological particularities of PR discourse study as an interdisciplinary field

The topicality of this research is explained by the increased interest in public relations (PR) discourse as a response to the challenges of the present. The main objective of the research is linguistic study of PR discourse from the standpoint of interdisciplinarity. It is important to examine not only the peculiarities of PR pragmatics aimed at achieving the hearts of people, but also the linguistic means employed by PR managers in their practice to influence and control public opinion. Linguocultural research as part of an interdisciplinary approach to PR discourse implies its anthropocentric-communicative interpretation to carry out an integral linguistic analysis of PR discourse that forms its interdisciplinary core as well as its genre-stylistic particularity. The results and discussion given in the body of the article show that PR is a three-faceted entity, including the professional communication, multi-disciplinarity of knowledge required for PR experts as well as professional tools and skills. Linguistic expression of axiological aspect of PR discourse dealing with companies’ positive reputation is given special attention in this paper. The authors come to the conclusion that interdisciplinary knowledge transfer is of growing demand as it enriches the theoretical and practical spheres of human activity.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA IN FOREIGN ARTISTIC AND MASS MEDIA TEXTS: UNJUSTIFIED WAR OR JUSTIFIED INTERVENTION?

In addition to scientific and historical accounts, artistic and media texts also construct stories of significant events, thus constructing ideologically charged narratives of present and past events. These narratives can become official versions of the past that shape collective memory and identity. Unlike history books, which are written with a greater time distance, media and artistic texts directly influence the formation of narratives about current events and therefore the self-confidence and self-understanding of the collective. Based on an interest in the question of how identity is formed in today's Serbia, this article deals with media and artistic texts that speak about one of the most significant events in Serbia’s recent history - the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Opinions about this event are divided, and the totality of information about the bombing seems unknowable. To establish a more objective approach to this issue, the images of the bombing created by foreign media and artists are analyzed from the point of view of Memory Studies and through theories of arts and media (Assmann, Hartman, Felman, Laub, Kuljić), primarily using content and linguistic discourse analysis (Foucault, Spitzmüller, Warnke). The analysis has shown that most of the analyzed media texts justify the bombing, while all artworks criticize and condemn it. This has led us to the conclusion that that the bombing wasn’t justified, and that media texts on the subject served as political propaganda. In other words, artistic texts have a greater potential for social and political criticism than the media.

From Disruption to Dialog: Days of Judaism on Polish Twitter

While social media platforms afford visibility to marginalized voices and enable dissemination of alternative narratives, their own “power laws” can make few users responsible for most of the attention. New power users can redirect discussion away from those who initiate a conversation. The aim of this study is to examine relations between the network “gatekeepers” and “gatewatchers” following the announcement of the Days of Judaism celebrated by the Polish Episcopate every January. Two methodological approaches were taken over two consecutive years: social network analysis (SNA), and linguistic analysis of social media discourse. The linguistic analysis confirmed importance of classical rhetoric effects on Twitter. The social network analysis revealed that a balanced, personal statement given by users with high network standing outside of the Twittersphere can ignite constructive dialogue in the spirit of the inter-religious exchange that the idea behind Days of Judaism stands for. Our conclusion is that a careful social media policy of the Church, a controlled engagement in the public conversation, possibly by lay sympathizers of high standing in the real public life, have the potential for dispensing with the infamous toxicity of Twitter, and for turning conversation on any topic, even the most controversial, into positive exchange within the community of believers.

Linguistic ambivalence amidst suburban diversity: LGBTQ2S municipal ‘social inclusions’ on Vancouver’s periphery

Social inclusion frameworks to enhance ‘diversity’ inform late neoliberal municipal governance in North American metropolitan areas, especially in central cities, but suburban LGBTQ2S constituencies are neglected by researchers. This paper, therefore, uses linguistic discourse and content analysis of an LGBTQ2S-inclusion archive of municipal public-facing communication in the Canadian peripheral municipalities of Burnaby, New Westminster, and Surrey, in the Vancouver city-region to trace the micro-patterns of linguistic ambivalence shaping suburban sexual citizenship. It demonstrates municipal variance in vernacular vocabularies of LGBTQ2S social inclusion that signals equivocation within divergent local linguistic political opportunity structures for suburban sexual and gender minorities. It concludes with a typological narration that details varied gradations of linguistic obfuscation, revealing patterns of civic ambivalence towards LGBTQ2S social inclusion amidst suburban diversity. Across a shared regional geography, the paper shows that LGBTQ2S populations are infrequently referenced relative to other marginalized social groups and that their presence in social inclusion frameworks is dictated by the extent to which they align with civic priorities, particularly festivalization and marketization, but also safety, welcoming newcomers, integrating seniors, and anti-discrimination initiatives.

Climate change lifestyle narratives among Norwegian citizens: A linguistic analysis of survey discourse

AbstractThe present study proposes an analysis of climate change (CC) narratives in answers to an open‐ended survey question, where we ask what a climate‐friendly lifestyle may imply. The representative survey has been conducted online by the Norwegian Citizen Panel/DIGSSCORE, located at the University of Bergen. The survey provided 1,149 answers from respondents across Norway. The analysis combines a lexical and a text linguistic approach (Fløttum & Gjerstad, 2017), based on Adam's (2008) analysis of the narrative text sequence (initial situation–complication–(re)action–resolution–final situation), and inspired by the Narrative Policy Framework's (NPF) notions of plot and narrative characters (Jones et al., 2014). Our analysis identified four main topics: consumption, transportation, politics, and energy, while the cast of characters is dominated by the first‐person singular, frequently portrayed as hero, and the first‐person plural in a predominantly villainous role. The frequent use of negation and argumentative connectives reflects the contentious nature of the issue.

Linguoaxiosphere of Society and Personality in American Drama Discourse

The article presents the results of the study devoted to the linguistic axiological analysis of the XXI century American drama discourse. Contemporary drama discourse, due to its special linguistic status, is a space for verbal representation of characters’ individual axiological trajectories, the analysis of which contributes to determining the values, which are relevant for society as a whole. The aim of the study is to systematize the dynamic structural and content elements of drama characters’ personal axiological spheres and to define their involvement in the piece of social value paradigm, which has its linguistic reflection in modern American drama. The empirical research is based on the texts of the plays written by American playwrights in 2015-2020. Individual linguistic axiological spheres are examined in terms of flexible hierarchical structures, the dynamism of which is determined by the characters’ life experience. The method of linguistic axiological interpretation based on the combination of axiological analysis and discourse analysis is applied to show that the structure of individual linguistic axiological spheres presented in the contemporary American drama discourse is a simplified version of the social linguistic axiological sphere; it has fewer value dominants and evaluative vectors while preserving the diversity of linguistic means of evaluative representation. Linguistic marking of characters’ individual axiological spheres occurs with the help of evaluative utterances, which include evaluative lexemes. Their frequency is characterized by quantitative and qualitative fluctuations in the speech of different communicants and is predetermined by the evaluative potential of the word semantics. In American drama discourse, the individual axiological sphere has a linguistic representation not only in personal evaluative remarks, but also in the personage’s reaction to other people’s value judgments, as well as in the utterances where the object of evaluation is the character himself/herself. The discrepancy between the content-based evaluative vectors or the difference in the position of personal value dominants within individual linguistic axiological hierarchies can lead to communication failures. As a result of the linguistic axiological interpretation of individual linguistic axiological trajectories, represented in American dramatic discourse of the XXI century, a fragment of the current American social linguistic axiological sphere is identified, and the central value dominants are highlighted.