Speech Norms Research Articles

Overcoming Aggressive Monolingualism: Prejudices and Linguistic Diversity in Russian Megalopolises

AbstractThe study deals with linguistic prejudices of citizens of the two main Russian cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, toward speakers of foreign languages. It aims to reveal possible recent changes in the language ideology dominating Russian society. Monolingual and linguistically normative orientations rooted in the Soviet ideological approach are being challenged nowadays by global processes of migration and cultural diversification, which influence the everyday reality of Russian megalopolises. The research is based on the analysis of two sets of data: (1) meta-discourse on language attitudes derived from interviews with labor migrants and native Russian speakers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and posts and comments on issues of language, migration, and linguistic landscapes, collected from websites and social media and (2) linguistic landscape data collected in 2016–2019, mainly in St. Petersburg, which reflect recent changes in attitude toward linguistic diversity in public space. These data show, on the one hand, that most city dwellers still relate to monolingual speech norms and try to implement control over public space; on the other hand, that the tolerance toward multilingual communication has been increasing over the years. The study suggests that these “first cracks” in monolinguals facades of Russian cities could eventually lead to the establishing of a less rigid language regime.

Intercultural and Interethnic Communication as the Basis for Training College Students Majoring in Linguistics for Intercultural Dialogue

Mastering a foreign language as a cultural code is a necessary, but not the only part of col-lege-level training of future linguists. The purpose of the article is to consider certain concepts of intercultural and interethnic communication in the context of professional, pedagogical, and anthropological problems of a linguist’s education, with a focus on the ethno-cultural factor of communication, in order to prepare students for successful intercultural dialogue. The authors posit the following hypothesis: analyzing concepts of cross-cultural and interethnic communication and identifying their essential relationship would enable us to implement the anthropological principle of cultural conformity in preparing college students majoring in linguistics for intercultural dialogue, thus improving the quality of their training. In international and domestic practice of linguistic education there is a trend towards increased attention to the anthropological nature of language learning, cultural activity and functions, as well as growing importance of such concepts as “communication,” “understanding,” “communication,” “meaning,” and “dialogue” along with mastery of language as an instrument of communication. The research materials reveal theoretical patterns within the relationship between intercultural and interethnic communication that are necessary for developing intercultural dialogue. The authors employed such research methods as structural and functional analysis, literature review, and formalization based on theoretical analysis. As a result of the study, it was found that the most important result of preparing future linguists for intercultural dialogue is their ability to identify ethnocultural features and norms of speech in any given situation. For successful ethno-cultural identification, a linguist must master historically established rules and norms that regulate the processes of communicative interaction between representatives of a given ethnic group, social mechanisms that inform the common outlook of this ethnic group, and the regulatory principles of intra- and inter-ethnic relations. Thus the content of the professional training of linguists should include knowledge of ethno-cultural stereotypes, symbols, traditions, customs, and rituals that form the core of the way of life of native speakers of a given language. Traditional forms of communication fixed in the way of life of the people acquire the character of etiquette prescriptions that operate not only in everyday interactions, but also in business communication, which gives them a stable, universal character.

The conceptual environment of the frontier discourse in humanities

The concept of frontier has been formed for a long time and in different directions. The main characteristics of a frontier - its flexible borders, a zone of space development characterised by uncertainty and instability - have proved their importance for understanding and describing the current state of the environment with regard to its social, cultural, communicative and linguistic indicators. The interdisciplinary (transcendental) potential of a frontier is realised in a complementary combination of natural-scientific and humanitarian scholarship. The aim of the present paper is to justify the scholarly integrity of the term frontier discourse the conceptual milieu of which is created through two overlapping multi-layered phenomena: frontier and discourse. The paper names the vectors of expanding the interdisciplinary possibilities of a frontier under the conditions of a discourse approach. Frontier as a flexible border is presented in the Internet communication, the socio-cultural space of the modern city, in the daily behavioural norms of the elite, in the family relations and in many other conceptual spheres the list of which remains open based on the ontological features of a frontier. Based on the examples from Russian and foreign literature, the author demonstrates the role of the frontier modus in the interpretation of literary texts whose plot, style and images are projected onto national history, culture, mentality in the by-border characteristics. Such frontier features as instability, its ability to create an interaction zone, which, under certain conditions, can lead to integration, are important for understanding the problems of modern language, speech and genre norms. The byborder territory is a place accumulating violations of traditional norms and providing the material which is necessary in order to anticipate the arising norm changes. The transformation of traditional genres and the formation of new ones also take place on frontier territories. It is concluded that frontier discourse ensures the understanding of norm movements in genre-stylistic characteristics.

Особливості розвитку норми літературної німецької мови. Фонетичні аспекти

Linguists emphasize the importance of a structural-systematic approach to language learning, which helps to increase interest in solving the problem of language normativeness. The term “norm”, like many other terms in linguistics, is polysemous. At the same time, an important and still insufficiently disclosed aspect of the study of language norms is the definition of its essence in nationally heterogeneous languages, in particular in German standard language, which actualizes the study of autonomous norms of national variants of German, their identical and nationally specific features. Understanding the uniqueness of the codification of phonetic realities in the German language is relevant in the context of the traditions of Western European lexicography and the process of globalization and increasingly affects the linguistic spheres. The article is dedicated to the study of the notion of German orthoepic norm, the problem of its definition and mechanisms of its formation. The notion of the norm is rather ambiguous and its different aspects are usually highlighted by scientists when giving its definition. Generally they mark out two principal dimensions in the notion of the norm: the objective norm and the subjective norm. In conditions of community development, continuous linguistic and social changes, interdependent and interacting, the norm is a fundamental regulator of speech activity. It is clear that normative speech is the obligatory sign of well-educated, cultured person and the culture of sounding speech is an important aspect of national culture such as the culture of written word, communication or social life in general. The orthoepic German norm has been evolved in the process of Germanlanguage development. It is absolutely related to historical, social and culture processes. The norms are not invented by philologists, they reflect a certain stage of literary language development. In the article the role of the norm and its place in the language is defined and norm evolution in the process of language establishment and development is considered

Sports Diplomacy at its Tipping Point: Can NBA China Survive a Culture Clash over Free Speech Norms?

For the past twelve years, the Chinese government has been an active participant in the joint venture of NBA China — a business venture that has allowed the National Basketball Association to host exhibition basketball games in the People’s Republic of China (“China”), broadcast basketball games on Chinese television networks, and operate a Chinese-approved Internet website. Nevertheless, the future of the NBA China joint venture was called into doubt last year when an NBA team employee, on his personal Twitter account, shared an image bearing the caption “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong” — a message that both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments regard as supporting a civil insurrection. This article explores the future of sports diplomacy between the U.S. and China in the aftermath of this October 2019 conflict over an NBA employee’s tweets about the Hong Kong protest movement. This topic is important not only to the study of freedom of speech, but also to the generalized study of political relations between the U.S. and China and the role that sports diplomacy plays in improving international relations between these two countries. Thus, any potential demise in collaboration between Chinese and American citizens in the realm of sports business could mark further separation, if not isolation, of these two countries within their respective spheres of influence.

Going Overboard: How Ironic Group Style Becomes Political on an Anonymous Imageboard

Anonymous online groups such as imageboards have increasing cultural influence. Recently, they have been connected with far-right political movements. This mixed-methods study investigates politics on Overboard, a Finnish imageboard. We use a convolutional neural network to learn linguistic features of the community’s own understanding of politics, studying two large text corpora, collected in 2014–2015 and 2018–2019. This enables us to find political messages in nominally non-political subforums and discount non-political “noise”—finding the “needles in the haystack.” We quantify the prevalence of political talk on Overboard, assess its themes using topic modeling, and evaluate changes in their popularity. Finally, we qualitatively analyze the style of Overboard. We find that around one-tenth of messages on Overboard are identifiable as “political.” Often, but not univocally, they voice far-right opinions, usually somewhat ironically. The prevalence of far-right themes has increased, likely because of importing global imageboard culture and in parallel with the increased popularity of nationalist-right politics in the broader Finnish public sphere. In terms of group style, the strong boundary between members and outsiders, together with the ironic and cynical speech norms, creates a bond between members. Such a group style lends itself to politicizing the collective.

Rescuing Liberalism from Silencing

In this paper, I criticize two recent and influential arguments for no-platforming advanced by Robert Simpson and Amia Srinivasan and by Neil Levy, respectively. What both arguments have in common is their attempt to reconcile no-platforming with liberal values. For Simpson and Srinivasan, no-platforming does not contradict liberalism if grounded on the distinction between norms of free speech and norms of academic freedom; for Levy, those who defend the practice need not be accused of promoting paternalism. I argue that neither view succeeds: these authors’ views are in strong tension with core tenets of liberalism. I proceed as follows: after introducing some basic liberal principles, I explain Simpson and Srinivasan’s argument in more detail and argue that it is too strong for some their stated purposes; then I proceed to show that both Simpson and Srinivasan and Levy’s arguments would justify extremely closed universities; finally, after arguing that Levy’s stance does not circumvent paternalism, I present some evidence that no-platforming would be captured by censors and probably threaten the very academic freedom that the authors want to protect.

ЛИНГВОЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ПРОБЛЕМА В СМИ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ ПЕРИОДИЧЕСКИХ ИЗДАНИЙ МОСКВЫ И САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГА)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the modern linguoecological situation in the mass media. From the articles of popular periodicals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the author gives examples of the most common speech errors, explains their nature, referring to authoritative dictionaries. At the end of the article, a conclusion is made about a high degree of violation of speech norms, the presence of various speech errors. The author suggests to think seriously about preserving the purity of the language environment as an indicator of speech and General culture.

El texto disertativo-argumentativo del Examen Nacional de la Enseñanza Media (Enem) 2017

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar redacciones ejemplares del Examen Nacional de la Enseñanza Media (Enem), hechas en el año de 2017, con la finalidad de discutir las posiciones socio evaluativas como respuesta a la propuesta de producción de texto disertativo-argumentativo. El objetivo central es discutir las formas del discurso del otro que están presentes en las citas del candidato para desarrollar sus argumentos sobre el tema propuesto. El resultado presentado en el documento oficial del Ministerio de Educación acaba por mantener un discurso excesivamente normativo de la lengua y del discurso, y tenemos como consecuencia la ilusión de que los pocos alumnos de la enseñanza media que obtienen nota máxima en la prueba de redacción escriben un texto disertativo- argumentativo citando el discurso del otro con el conocimiento lingüístico y discursivo aprendido de memoria y listo para exponerlo.

Patient‐Reported Quality of Life After Resection With Primary Closure for Oral Tongue Carcinoma

For early-stage oral tongue carcinoma and carcinoma in situ (ESOTCCIS), we evaluated patient-reported quality-of-life (QOL) outcomes following resection with primary closure (R-PC). Retrospective review at an academic cancer center. Thirty-nine ESOTCCIS patients (Tis, T1, T2) who underwent R-PC without radiation completed the University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire Version 4 (UW-QOL) at least 6 months since R-PC (mean = 2.39 years; range = 0.5-6.7 years). We compared UW-QOL scores for pain, swallowing, chewing, speech, and taste to established normative population scores. Multivariable regression analysis evaluated factors associated with QOL impairment. ESOTCCIS patients who underwent R-PC in comparison to the normative population reported significantly worse mean speech (87.7 vs. 98, P < .001) and taste (85.6 vs. 95, P = .002) scores and no significant differences in mean pain (91.7 vs. 86, P = .96), swallowing (100 vs. 98, P = .98), chewing (97.4 vs. 94, P = .98) scores. For speech and taste, 59% (23/39) reported no postoperative change from baseline, whereas 41% (16/39) and 35.9% (14/39) reported mild impairment, respectively. Overall, postoperative QOL was reported as good, very good, or outstanding by 87.2% (34/39). Higher American Society of Anesthesiologists class, cT1 compared to CIS, and ventral tongue involvement were independently associated with worse speech. Age < 60 years was independently associated with worse taste. ESOTCCIS patients who undergo R-PC without radiation can expect long-term swallowing, chewing, and pain to be in the normative range. Although a majority of patients can expect to achieve normative speech and taste outcomes, R-PC carries the risks of mild speech and/or taste impairments. 4 Laryngoscope, 131:312-318, 2021.

TEXTOS QUE VUELAN: PRODUCCIÓN Y TRAYECTORIAS DE REPORTES ESCRITOS SOBRE LA MIGRACIÓN DE LA MARIPOSA MONARCA

RESUMEN Los registros y reportes escritos de participantes en programas de ciencia ciudadana han sido valorados a partir de criterios de confiabilidad y validez científica que a menudo invalidan la naturaleza contextual de su escritura. Desde una perspectiva etnográfica basada en los Nuevos Estudios de Cultura Escrita analizamos los procesos de producción y las trayectorias textuales de reportes de dos ciudadanos en un programa de ciencia ciudadana que monitorea la migración de la mariposa monarca en México poniendo atención a la forma como los participantes elaboran sus textos, los recursos materiales y lingüísticos a los que tienen acceso, la manera como están construidos sus escritos, así como la concepción de los autores sobre su elaboración. Reconstruimos la trayectoria de cada texto siguiendo los escritos desde su producción, las actividades sociales que los autores realizan con estos materiales, la forma como se movilizan y modifican de un contexto a otro, los actores involucrados en estos procesos y los significados alrededor de su producción y trayectoria. A través de tres categorías (textos ideales, textos puente y textos globales) mostramos que en su producción y trayectoria textual está muy presente un Discurso normativo (Gee, 2007) sobre lo que es la investigación y el conocimiento científico, y que en consecuncia impacta en la forma de escribir sobre la migración de la mariposa monarca.

The Use of Rhetorical Techniques in the Process of Teaching Speech Norms

The article is devoted to the problem of teaching the norms of the modern literary language at school. The aim is to show the features of implementing rhetoric techniques in the process of teaching the basic language norms. It is shown that high-school graduates demonstrate a low level of speech culture. Reasons for a large number of errors made by senior students in oral speech are determined along with possible approaches to improving the situation. Particular attention is paid to the principles of selecting language material for classroom activities, the formulation of teaching tasks and the peculiarities of the methodological process. Original exercises and recommendations to teachers on their implementation in Russian language lessons are presented. The results of the study confirm the efficiency of these exercises in term of improving the level of students’ speech culture and their readiness for the final qualification test in the Russian language, including an oral interview.

The Russian Language: Current Status and Academic Studies

The author reflects upon the place of the Russian language in modern Russia, its distribution in the world, the importance of basic Russian studies for the development of science and Russian society, and the activity of the Russian Academy of Sciences in maintaining the stability of linguistic norms and the culture of Russian speech. On the one hand, scientific research in the field of the Russian language is oriented at obtaining basic theoretical knowledge, which favors comprehensive study of man and society. On the other hand, there is a social order, which is formulated by society proceeding from the need to document language resources and adapt them to topical communicative requirements. The Russian Academy of Sciences carries out expert assessment of speech innovations and codification of the norms of the literary language in normative dictionaries, grammars, and reference books on the culture of speech. The current state of research on the Russian language is analyzed, special attention being paid to problems of the codification of the norms of Russian speech and related tasks.

Связь психологического развития дошкольников, имеющих речевую патологию, и уровня развития эмоционального интеллекта родителей

The article reveals the features of emotional and cognitive development of preschool children with speech pathology, and their relationship with the level of development of emotional intelligence of parents. The relevance is caused by a marked increase in the number of children with speech pathology and insufficient study of the problem. The study involved 79 child-parent pairs, of which 51 children aged 4-5 years have speech disorders, and 28 children of the same age range are characterized by normative speech development. Found that children of the experimental sample statistically significant differ from their peers in the control group in the development of both cognitive and emotional spheres. The connections between the development of cognitive and emotional spheres of preschool children and the level of development of emotional intelligence of parents, as well as the style of emotional education implemented by them, are revealed. Parents of children in the experimental group have significant differences in the level of development of such components of emotional intelligence as interpersonal and intrapersonal emotion management, control of external manifestations of emotions, integrative indicators of interpersonal emotional intelligence and emotion management. Parents of preschoolers with speech pathologies are more likely to implement a disapproving style of emotional education, do not show interest in forming a child's ideas about emotions.

РОЛЬ И МЕСТО СОВРЕМЕННЫХ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫХ ТЕХНОЛОГИЙ НА ЗАНЯТИЯХ ПО КУРСУ «РУССКАЯ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА» В ИНОСТРАННОЙ АУДИТОРИИ

The article provides a survey of modern educational technologies used while teaching the discipline “Russian Fiction” to foreign students. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the necessity to raise foreign students’ motivation for studying the Russian language and literature, to promote the development of the students’ Russian normative speech skills. Modern educational technologies help to raise the foreign students’ interest in reading fiction not only in Russian but also in the native language, promote the formation of the learners’ communicative, speech, linguo-cultural, crosscultural and thematic competences.

Developing Communicative Competence: An Evaluative Study of Request and Apology in English Language Textbooks in China

China’s modernization and sustained economic development have made increasing demands on English language education to produce English learners who can function adequately in all sectors of cross-cultural communication. English major students who are immersed in intensive English programs in institutions of higher education are nurtured to meet this need. English language textbooks, as the main source of language input for English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners in China, play a critical role in developing leaners’ communicative competence. Therefore, it is significant to examine to what extent the textbooks currently used by English major students facilitate their acquisition of communicative competence. To evaluate pragmatic teaching in the textbooks, this study focuses on five speech acts and surveys the relevant pragmatic input and pragmatic tasks available for these speech acts in four sets of textbooks that are widely used by English majors in China. Both oral-English textbooks and integrated-skills textbooks have been selected to explore if there are skill-based differences in pragmatic teaching. Content analysis has been employed to scrutinize pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic input as well as pragmatic tasks provided in the focal textbooks. The quantitative and qualitative results show that the textbooks do not provide sufficient conditions for the development of communicative competence. The analysis of pragmalinguistic input, which focuses on the speech act strategies and modification devices included in the textbooks, reveals that the distribution and presentation of these strategies and devices do not reflect naturally occurring speech. As for sociopragmatic input, the textbooks present inadequate contextual information and give little attention to sociocultural norms for speech act performance. Finally, the oral-English textbooks and integrated-skills textbooks do not differ systematically in their treatment of pragmatics in terms of pragmalinguistic input, sociopragmatic input, and pragmatic tasks. The findings of the present study not only provide useful information for further textbook development but also have important implications for textbook use in the classroom.

Power Dynamics in Supreme Court Oral Arguments: The Relationship between Gender and Justice-to-Justice Interruptions

We examine how gendered norms of professional speech affect the ability of female Supreme Court justices to exercise power in oral argument. In this unique dialogue setting, the justices vie for chances to speak. We argue that gender is an embedded characteristic of oral arguments, and implicit assumptions about gender roles lead to disparities in the balance of authority on the Court. Our results show that women are interrupted more than men, which compromises their ability to achieve their goals during oral arguments. This inequity is compounded by the fact that interruptions of female justices by male justices are associated with lower word counts for the interrupted female justices in ways that interruptions by other women are not. The results corroborate conversational and power dynamics previously explored by sociolinguists, but also extend those findings to accommodate the characteristics of more formal, high-stakes discussions involved in the creation of public policy.

Making Choices: Social Media Platforms and Freedom of Expression Norms

Social media platforms make difficult decisions about the speech that they permit, and the speech they remove from their platforms. They permit heads of state to propagate ideas that are blocked when expressed by ordinary citizens. They censor activists’ demands for independent states, flagging them as hate speech or terrorist content. Since the social media platforms play a central role in public discourse, their self-regulatory norms matter. Through the architecture of the platforms and powerful algorithms, social media companies control how users engage with each other and with the platform. The architecture enables them to set the terms for engagement, from how users respond to arguments, to how they share photographs, or report abusive content. The algorithms enable fine distinctions of content-moderation, with different content being seen in different jurisdictions, content that cannot be shared at all, and content that will be online but down-ranked so it loses visibility. This power that the social media companies wield over speech online, and therefore over public discourse more broadly, is being recognised as a new form of governance. It is uniquely powerful because the norms favoured by social media companies can be enforced directly through the architecture of the social media platforms. There are no consultations, appeals or avenues for challenge. There is little scope for users to reject a norm enforced in this manner. While a blatantly illegitimate norm may result in uproar, choices made by social media companies to favour existing local norms that violate international human rights norms are common enough. This chapter is about the role of social media platforms. It discusses the role and influence of private companies, especially social media companies, in creating norms affecting freedom of expression. Towards this, it begins with an introduction to the role of the Internet in public discourse, followed by a discussion of how the architecture of the internet enables social media companies to influence speech norms. The paper then discusses the factors that influence the speech norms created by platforms and ends on a cautionary note about how the international human rights norm of freedom of expression may being threatened by the platforms’ self-regulatory norm-setting for online speech.

Lügen und Redefreiheit

Can a person rely on her right to freedom of speech when she is lying in public? First of all, the author defends the thesis that freedom of speech is constrained by fundamental norms of speech. His next step is to analyse the claim – famously made by Kant – that the prohibition against lying fulfills the criteria of such a norm. This view has at least two problems: The epistemic problem that a lie can never be proven without a doubt, and the moral one that there are cases, both real and hypothetical, in which an act of lying seems to be justified or even required. The author concludes that, on the one hand, lying is sometimes justifiable and compatible with freedom of speech. On the other hand, losing respect for honesty altogether leads to negative consequences for any society.

Practical Moore Sentences*

AbstractI discuss what I call practical Moore sentences: sentences like ‘You must close your door, but I don't know whether you will’, which combine an order together with an avowal of agnosticism about whether the order will be obeyed. I show that practical Moore sentences are generally infelicitous. But this infelicity is surprising: it seems like there should be nothing wrong with giving someone an order while acknowledging that you do not know whether it will obeyed. I suggest that this infelicity points to a striking psychological fact, with potentially broad ramifications concerning the structure of norms of speech acts: namely, when giving an order, we must act as if we believe we will be obeyed.