Negotiation Of Meaning Research Articles

Social cartography as a participatory process for mapping experiences of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship: an account of the design

ABSTRACT This article describes the design process for a cartographic room as an effective tool for mapping Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) initiatives. This process formed part of a participatory action research project (PAR), aimed at identifying and recognizing ESDGC experiences in schools, as well as creating collaboration networks. The construction of the cartographic room complied with all PAR phases and requirements, as well as those involved in a collaborative social mapping process, highlighting the evident connection between both methodologies and with the ESDGC philosophy regarding the consciousness and critical understanding and transformation of social reality. In this sense, the cartographic room design and implementation was a reflexive and collaborative action, including processes of problematization and negotiation of meanings in order to create a shared narration. The article shows how the resulting room, its content, format and applications, allow for mapping ESDGC initiatives and also favour reflection processes. The data collected by mapping defines ESDCG initiatives in schools, their goals, topics and competences, methodologies and assessment; making these projects more visible as well as inspiring for other teachers. Thus, the final product in the form of a map can contribute to advancing and strengthening the field of ESDCG.

If it had been conducted with a larger database…: A comparison of If-constructions in Chinese L2 learners' theses and published research articles

If-constructions, with functional versatility, are of great importance to academic writing. While considerable literature has been published on If-constructions in research articles and naturally occurring discourse, relatively limited attention has been paid to how If-constructions are used in L2 learners' academic writing. To address this gap, a comparative study on the use of If-constructions is reported in this paper with regard to the overall distribution and meaning negotiation in corpora of Chinese L2 learners' theses and published research articles in applied linguistics. We draw upon Warchał's (2010) typology of conditional clauses and Martin and White's (2005) notion on writer-reader meaning negotiation and examine propositional and pragmatic meanings, monoglossic and heteroglossic If-constructions used in the corpora. We also discuss the major reasons for the differences and similarities in the overall distribution and meaning negotiation. From this case study, we conclude that If-constructions are one of the key options from the academic writers' rhetorical toolkit, allowing them to make propositional and pragmatic meanings and to negotiate a dialogic space in academic discourse.

Toward a systematic conflict resolution framework for ontologies

BackgroundThe ontology authoring step in ontology development involves having to make choices about what subject domain knowledge to include. This may concern sorting out ontological differences and making choices between conflicting axioms due to limitations in the logic or the subject domain semantics. Examples are dealing with different foundational ontologies in ontology alignment and OWL 2 DL’s transitive object property versus a qualified cardinality constraint. Such conflicts have to be resolved somehow. However, only isolated and fragmented guidance for doing so is available, which therefore results in ad hoc decision-making that may not be the best choice or forgotten about later.ResultsThis work aims to address this by taking steps towards a framework to deal with the various types of modeling conflicts through meaning negotiation and conflict resolution in a systematic way. It proposes an initial library of common conflicts, a conflict set, typical steps toward resolution, and the software availability and requirements needed for it. The approach was evaluated with an actual case of domain knowledge usage in the context of epizootic disease outbreak, being avian influenza, and running examples with COVID-19 ontologies.ConclusionsThe evaluation demonstrated the potential and feasibility of a conflict resolution framework for ontologies.

When Wor(l)ds Collide: Negotiating and Renegotiating Meaning in Interorganizational Relationships

An integral feature of organizational enactment is the social construction of meaning. Over time, organizations create an often implicit canon of meaning, which is an essential ingredient for the social construction of what is collectively perceived to be valid and true. This interpretation-guiding, idiosyncratic canon of meaning can be challenged, however, when organizations form interorganizational relationships and the interpretive worlds of two organizations collide. In this paper, we investigate the partners’ continuous efforts to negotiate and renegotiate meaning by examining the extent to which meaning manifests in contractual definitions which we understand as explicit outcomes of meaning (re)negotiations. Taking a socio-cognitive perspective, we suggest that the partners more likely strive for explicit definitions the larger their social and technology overlaps because overlaps (1) unleash the ability for explicit definitions and (2) establish mutual esteem of explicit definitions. We also argue that when uncertainty is high, the impact of social overlap on explicit definitions is stronger, while when uncertainty is low, the impact of technology overlap is more pertinent. We test our conceptual model on a longitudinal dataset of 1,672 interorganizational relationships in the biopharmaceutical industry and find general support for our predictions. Our paper contributes to research on interorganizational sensemaking and the literature on contract design and adaptation.

‘We will take care of you’: Identity categorisation markers in intercultural medical encounters

Ethnomethodology research has systematically investigated discursive practices of categorisation, looking at the various ways by which social actors ascribe both themselves and others to identity categories to accomplish various kinds of social actions. Drawing on a data corpus of oncological visits collected in an Italian hospital, involving both native and non-native patients, the present work analyses how participants in these intercultural medical encounters invoke and make relevant social identity categories by the marking of collective pronouns in their talk. Our results showed that whilst institutional identities (e.g. those of the doctors, the local hospital or the Tumour Board) prevailed, categorial formulations related to cultural or linguistic identities were rarely displayed in interactions with non-native patients. Conversational participants made very little of their linguistical or cultural background and when they did so, their cultural and linguistic identities were deployed for rhetorical and pragmatical aims, such as testing and negotiating common knowledge and epistemic authority. This study shows how even speakers’ minimal lexical choices, such as marked pronouns, impact the negotiation of meanings and activities in life-saving sites such as oncological visits.

When the Peace Generation is a Hundred Years Away… Youth, Citizenship, and Democracy in Times of Transition to Peace in Colombia

Efforts to consolidate a democratic citizenry are salient in societies transitioning to peace. These endeavors have spawned educational approaches to promote democratic skills, behaviors, and values in young citizens. Yet normative civic framings do not always align with students’ lived experiences, nor with their everyday decisions and expectations. Drawing from in-depth interviews with students in Leticia, Colombia, this study discusses youth understandings about citizenship in relation to the current political process. Findings provide a textured view of how young citizens participate in their civic subjectification through negotiated meanings and values they grant to the peace process and the prospects for sustained peacebuilding. Students’ perspectives prompt us to consider more comprehensive civic practices and frameworks that resonate with their everyday lives and the increasingly challenges of disrupting protracted violence and its legacies.

Böndernas agerande inför och anpassning till storskiftet i sydvästra Finland

This article examines peasants’ goals and means of negotiation in the reallocation of land or enclosure reform called storskifte in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Southwest Finland. It stresses the agency of peasants and their actions in the quest for best practices. The study is based on the meeting minutes of the storskifte reform of 230 villages with mainly freeholders or crown tenants as stakeholders. This article shows how peasants balanced between individualism and collectivism in their decision making because their goals were opposite. They aimed to increase the freedom of work and decision making in the household economy. At the same time, the cooperation with neighbours was an important method of decreasing the workload and costs of farming. Sources indicate that peasants made agreements with each other so they could combine both goals. They achieved independence as farmers as well as low costs by combining consolidation of land with mutual agreements about cooperation in specific issues, but they allowed each other to do individual decisions, too. This kind of flexible solution-seeking behaviour provides a new perspective on the discussion about peasants and agricultural change.

Pragmatic Functions of Questions in Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

Questioning is an instructional process that is not only central to verbal interaction in the classroom but also essential to negotiation of meaning in discourse. Existing studies dealing with functions of questions have only identified few functions which questions perform in discourse probably because the scholars who worked on them have not explored varied situations and contexts which necessitate asking questions whose functions are totally different from the ones already identified in the literature. Hence, the current research investigates the pragmatic functions of questions in Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. The major advantage of using this source of data is that, it, unlike previous studies which investigate data from premeditated sources, this source provides rich and varied naturally-occurring contexts for asking different questions which perform different functions. The study is driven by insight from the concept of pragmatic competence. On the whole, the research identified nine novel pragmatic functions of questions which have not been documented in the literature. These include questions to indicate annoyance, questions to foster interpersonal relationship, questions to persuade somebody to do something, questions for showing disapproval and so on. These findings implicate that in a bid to build on a learner’s competence in a particular language, such a learner should be introduced to the importance of contexts in determining the function which a particular question is meant to perform in any communicative encounter.

Peer Interaction in the L2 Classroom: A Study among Malaysian ESL Learners

Adopting a cognitive-interactionist perspective, this study focused on peer interaction in the L2 classroom. It explored types of peer interaction in terms of Negotiation of Meaning (NoM), Language-related Episodes (LRE) and Uptake of Recast that tend to prevail during task discussions in the L2 classroom. This study also assessed whether task complexity and task condition influenced L2 peer interaction. Thirty-six (N=36) Malaysian university students learning English as a second language participated in this study. The tasks were designed at two levels of cognitive complexity, namely, simple tasks with two causal reasoning demands and complex tasks with six causal reasoning demands. Each participant was involved in peer discussion sessions of simple and complex tasks in dyadic and triadic groupings. The findings revealed that clarification requests during the NoM were the most prominent feature of the peer interaction. A paired sample t-test showed that statistically significant difference was detected between the dyadic and triadic settings for the comprehension check feature (NoM), the incorrectly resolved episodes (LRE) and the unmodified uptake of recast. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and pedagogical implications from these findings.

La “Tertulia Critica Dialogica”: una proposta metodologica per promuovere il pensiero critico e la trasformazione sociale

In this article, we present an experience of critical dialogic tertulia as an opportunity to learn to look at things from another perspective, promoting the collective construction of knowledge and theoretical investigation based on contextualised knowledge. In the tertulia, people meet to talk about a specific topic, and through dialogue and active listening different contributions are shared, generating an enriching exchange that allows a deeper understanding of the topic of discussion, in some cases there are revision of their positions, change and self-change, promoting the construction of shared knowledge and the negotiation of new meanings, which can all have an impact on our way of acting in the world. Activating the critical thinking that implies a permanent critical approach to reality.

Multimodality and translanguaging in negotiation of meaning

AbstractThe present study examines the role that multimodality and translanguaging play in scaffolding oral interactions during language‐related episodes (LREs) involving meaning negotiation. The oral tasks carried out using synchronous video‐based computer‐mediated communication were part of a tandem virtual exchange (Spain, Canada). The participants, 18 dyads of English and Spanish college‐level learners, conducted three oral interaction tasks in pairs online. LREs were identified and transcribed and data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, including all instances of translanguaging and uses of multiple modes of meaning‐making. Quantitative data revealed that translanguaging involved not only English and Spanish, but also other shared languages and occurred mostly during meaning negotiation. Additionally, the use of multimodal elements, including gestures, postures, gaze, multiple digital and physical devices (mobile devices, computers, props, notes) was examined. Qualitative data analyses revealed the interplay between multimodality and learners’ multilingual repertoires which reinforced and complemented meaning‐making during these episodes.

Expectations and interpretations of conversations using aided communication

Background: Reaching mutual understanding can sometimes be challenging in interactions involving communicators using aided communication. This explorative qualitative study offers insights into some of the features of utterance interpretation and meaning negotiation in interactions using graphic communication systems. Method: Relevance theory was applied as a framework for analysis of conversations between a non-speaking child using a communication aid and her communication partners using natural speech. Results: Through analysis of a series of videotaped conversations, several assumptions and contextual implications affecting the interpretation processes were identified. A tendency to organize interpretations according to contextual expectations and scripts emerged as a central explanatory factor in co-constructing meanings from available graphic utterances. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of understanding factors that may affect the interpretation processes of all participants in interactions involving aided communication.

Journalism as Usual? Managing Disruption in Virtual Newsrooms during the COVID-19 Crisis

This study focuses on managerial responses to disruption and, specifically, how news executives implemented journalistic practices and processes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the lens of Harvey’s (2006) theorization of space, the concept of Collaborative Virtual Environments, and the model of communities of practice, I explore management’s roles in virtual newsrooms. The method is based on semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 17 news managers in Spain. The findings presented here underline managerial performance in virtual newsrooms considered as communities of practice. Virtual spaces reconfigured relationships among colleagues and increased collaboration, shaping news practices and communication protocols. Management implemented strategies to control the negotiation of meaning, the building of trust and cooperation, and the power dynamics within their professional communities. Journalistic production during the COVID-19 pandemic also raised problematic issues such as work overload, psychological distress, and job insecurity.

The Impact of Image on Translation Decision-Making in Dubbing into Arabic – Premeditated Manipulation par Excellence: The Exodus Song as a Case Study

Abstract The emblematic connotations and ideological values of images affect the way iconographic and visual codes are interpreted in dubbing. Religion, culture, and politics are all primary variables that communicate evaluative views of the world, but also impose pressure on the translator when they stand in conflict with his or her attitudinal positioning and ethical judgement. Thus, this article aims to examine how the interplay between iconographic and linguistic codes of the visual sign in the musical animation This Land is Mine impacts translational decision-making in dubbing into Arabic. Simultaneously, the aim of this article is to evaluate how religious, cultural, and ideological dissonances between source text and target audience result in acts of manipulation and negotiation of meaning in the target text that explicitly channels the voice of the translator. We employ a dual theoretical approach combining narrative theory and appraisal theory in order to evaluate patterns of manipulation within a scaled system to provide graded analysis that exposes the ideological stance and bias of the source text’s producer/animator in representing reality via visual narrative.

Investigating Strategies to Improve English Oral Communication Skills Among Undergrads at Mehran UET, Jamshoro

An Oral Communication (OC) plays a significant role in our day-to-day life. It has been considered as a life changing tool of the conversation. In academia,it is given a primary importance. (OC) is a two-dimensional work and it includes both listening and speaking simultaneously. This paper aims to investigate strategies, impacting students’ oral English communication performance and to make them effective and fluent speaker of English language.In this thesis, the researcher introduced many strategies to help students to improve their speaking skills of English language which actually comprises oral communication. First the study attempted to develop the questionnaire for statistical analysis named strategies for oral communication which was then classified as strategies for speaking skills. There were nine strategies of speaking. The research project was based on close-ended questionnaire for speaking and composed in a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 strongly agree (SA) 2 agree (A) 3 Neutral (N) 4 strongly disagree (SD) 5 disagree (D).The target population for this study were the 132 students of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh. The research contains sequential mixed method for the collection of data that is based on both quantitative data, that was collected from students through questionnaire and the qualitative data that was collected from 5 English language teachers of MUET, Jamshoro. The data was analyzed in grand percentage, mean and standard deviations. To validate the use of the instrument, participant reports on the Strategy for oral communication were compared with the result of the OCS. It was revealed that students with high or low oral proficiency tended to use these particular strategies, such as social affective strategies, fluency-oriented strategies, negotiation of meaning and etc.Some of these strategies can directly influence their effectiveness of learning communication skills of English, but some do not have direct influence on oralcommunication skills of English. Understanding these strategies and their impact would enable both instructors and students to improve their teaching, learning environment as well as methodology. Keywords: Communication Strategies, survey research (sequential mixed method), speaking skills, high proficiency, and low proficiency. Investigating Strategies to improve English oral Communication skills among undergrads at Mehran UET, Jamshoro DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/79-05 Publication date: May 31 st 2021

Levels of Engagement in Task-based Synchronous Computer Mediated Interaction

Investigating task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) interaction has increasingly received scholarly attention. However, studies have focused on negotiation of meaning and the quantity, focus and resolution of language related episodes (LREs). This study aims to broaden our understanding of the role of audio, video, and text SCMC conditions by additionally examining second language (L2) learners’ levels of engagement during the production of LREs as a result of interactive real-world tasks. We tested 52 dyads of L2 Spanish intermediate learners who completed a decision- making/writing task. Our main analysis revealed that dyads in the audio SCMC condition engaged in more limited LREs vis-à-vis the text SCMC group, and audio SCMC dyads also showed a trend of engaging more in elaborate LREs. The findings imply that interactive SCMC conditions can place differential demands on L2 learners, which has an effect on the ways in which L2 learners address LREs during task-based interaction.

Negotiation of Meaning of Indonesian EFL Learners in Casual Conversation: An SFL Study

Communicative interaction is demanded by all levels of EFL learners. To prepare them to comply with this purpose, engaging them to deal with the real-life conversation using the target language may have beneficial effects on their second language acquisition process. However, the way learners negotiating meaning in an understandable way and how they position themselves as the appropriate role of the speakers are still rarely studied, especially in the Indonesian teaching and learning context. This study aims to reveal what type of commodity is being exchanged by graduate learners (3 females and 1 male) when they are assigned to have an unplanned casual conversation. The study further analyzes the nature of the exchange structure of EFL learners’ casual conversation seen from the Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective. The data were taken from audio recordings of casual conversations and then transcribed as the written data. The conversation was then divided into clauses as the unit of analysis. In employing a spoken discourse analysis framework, interactive analysis was implemented to discover exchange structure. The results show the exchanged commodity is information through statements. It indicates that as magister students, they always show their knowledge off, and intimacy sometimes matters as the reason for informative conversations. The speakers’ role also has been successfully achieved by the speakers since their ability to position themselves as initiators or responders to keep the conversational flow.

Fast and slow thinking as secret agents behind speakers’ (un)conscious pragmatic decisions and judgements

In this article I discuss and explore how two cognitive systems –fast and slow thinking– may affect our pragmatic decisions and judgements. I draw on Kahneman's (2011) description of mental life by the metaphor of two agents, System 1 and System 2, which respectively produce fast and slow thinking. The capabilities of System 1 include –among other things– mental, linguistic and sociopragmatic activities, all of which have an effect on people's relational work (Locher and Watts 2005). Research in psychology (cf. McGuire and Botvinick 2010; Simon 1992; Klein 1999) suggests that the ‘intuitive’ System 1 is frequently more influential than the ‘rational’ System 2, the former thus being the secret author of many of human beings' choices and judgments, including those speakers make in discourse.My approach in this study is therefore multidisciplinary. Drawing from Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Pragmatics, Functional Linguistics, (Socio)pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, I theoretically explore how the systems of fast and slow thinking participate in our discourse-pragmatic decisions and activities. I also analyze different examples of statements and short narratives where the (un)conscious exploitation of the interplay between these two systems (for the negotiation of pragmatic meanings) can be appreciated.

Legitimizing private school policy within a political divide: the role of international references

ABSTRACT Researchers are increasingly emphasizing the importance of international actors’ influence on defining education policy in different contexts. The article argues that referencing international organizations is a way of legitimizing changes to private school policy. Using Norway as an example, the article investigates how international references are used by the political divide: first, a centre-right government liberalized private school policy. This was reversed by the successive centre-left government, before the successive centre-right government again liberalized private school policy. The study draws on content analysis of policy documents from 2002 to 2018. The analysis displays the eclectic nature of how international references are used to (de)legitimize private school policies. Different governments have used similar international references either to legitimise the liberalization of private schooling policy, or to delegitimise such policy. However, the analysis also shows that concepts like free choice, diversity and competition are central in legitimising private school policy. The study of international referencing in the education field indicates several consequences for the Norwegian education welfare state ideal, such as emphasising a stronger market-orientation. This study shows that analysing how actors position political arguments is important when understanding how nation states, as proactive entities, negotiate meaning and evidence from international references.

USING NARRATIVE INQUIRY TO EXAMINE TEACHERS' IDENTITY VIA FACEBOOK NARRATIVES

Identity is the result of one's personality, upbringing, learning and working experience. This article presents the results of a research on the personal identity of a lecturer teaching English at a university in Vietnam. The article analyzes the teacher's shared narratives on Facebook about his life and teaching experiences. In-depth interviews were conducted over a one-year period following narrative inquiry procedure. The paper shows the complexity of the participant's four intertwined identities as well as the potential of Facebook as an online platform to share and reflect on personal experiences, thereby allowing readers to engage in a dual process of identification and negotiation of meanings ​​in identity formation. Social networks have the potential to mitigate the isolation of teachers in their pursuit of professional development activities and to promote the formation and development of professional communities.