Objective Stance Research Articles

Life and Death in Yu Hua’s Novels——Taking To Live and The Seventh Day as Examples

Yu Hua’s works have consistently excelled in exploring the fundamental meaning of life within tales of hardship and tragedy. Through a series of books such as To Live and The Seventh Day, Yu Hua has crafted multiple tragic stories featuring characters from different historical periods and with diverse personalities, thereby expressing his unique perspectives on life and death. The existing studies mostly analyze the life and death plot in isolation and lack an analysis of the influence of traditional culture on the formation of their concepts. This paper will take the original texts of the novels To Live and The Seventh Day as the basis, and use the method of textual analysis to analyze the views of life and death in the novels. Through the study, it is found that Yu Hua’s works present a unique new style of death aesthetics and life philosophy concepts. Through the research, it is discovered that Yu Hua’s works exhibit a unique new aesthetic of death and philosophy of existence. Yu Hua, a trailblazer in avant-garde literature, integrates traditional views on life and death with contemporary societal concerns. Through an exploration of the fragility of human physiology and the resilience of the human spirit, Yu Hua’s works offer a fresh perspective on life and death for individuals grappling with existential uncertainties. This aids in guiding individuals to seek the significance of their own lives and adopt an objective stance towards mortality.

Analyzing `Language Features of Construction Contracts from The Multi-Dimensional Perspective

In recent years, China’s active participation in the international construction market has led to a greater demand for the comprehensive demystification of construction contracts from the language perspective. Nevertheless, scarcity can be felt concerning that perspective. This study aims to explore language features via the multi-dimensional approach proposed by Biber. A corpus-driven method was adopted on the basis of five real construction contracts. The salient language features were uncovered statistically by adopting the Multi-dimensional Analysis Tagger (MAT), and a series of visualized results displaying lexico-grammatical features and general genre features of construction contracts from different dimensions were also output. The results revealed that nouns and normalization were densely employed in construction contracts. Meanwhile, language variables like phrasal coordination, predicative modals, passive voice, and suasive verbs were excessively employed. The results also uncovered that adverbs and be as the main verb were counted as underused. As to the general genre features, the results suggested that the contracts were written documents with informational, non-narrative, context-independent, self-assertive, and abstract features. Those features stem from the communicative purposes of construction contracts, rendering construction contracts the formal style, explicit communicative purposes, objective stance, and authoritative position. Though with limited language features, we can still obtain an insight into the interpretation and teaching of construction contracts.

Validating the Influence of School Learning Environment on Students’ Academic Performance in Selected Universities in Central Uganda

The global demand for higher education has been steadily increasing, leading to a rise in student numbers. This surge in enrollment has significant implications for students' learning environment, including factors such as class size and the availability of lecturers. The study was purposely to validate if the learning environment influences students’ academic performance in universities in Central Uganda. The study used 381 final-year undergraduates and 19 lecturers from Nkumba University and Kyambogo University, using a convergent parallel mixed methods research design. The study took both a subjective and objective epistemological stance. Data were collected using a five-point Likert scale structured questionnaire, interview guides, and findings corroborated with a documentary review. The correlation analysis revealed a positive and significant relationship between students’ learning environment and academic performance in the selected universities in Central Uganda (r=.457, p=.000<0.05), and regression analysis showed that all the constructs of students’ learning environment explain 26.7% of the variation in students’ academic performance (R²=0.267). Findings from the study may direct evidence-based policy reform in Uganda’s higher education. The limitations of the study included the selection of a small sample of only two universities which cannot be generalized to all universities in Uganda. The study recommends that policymakers and university management focus on improving the learning environment in universities in Central Uganda.

A Research on Interpersonal Meaning of Belt and Road initiative in News Discourse Based on Attitude System

Based on the attitude system of the appraisal theory, this study constructs a corpus by taking news reports related to the Belt and Road initiative from the China Daily website between September 2013 and December 2022. By marking and analyzing the subsystems of the attitude system and combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study explores the strategies of utilizing attitude resources in those news reports and the interpersonal meanings reflected. The research findings are as follows: (1) Authors of news reports widely employ positive attitude resources, following the distribution pattern of "judgment resources > appreciation resources > affective resources," indicating their objective stance when reporting on the development and impact of the initiative. (2) The extensive use of judgment and appreciation resources demonstrates the recognition and participation of multiple countries in the Belt and Road initiative, showcasing China's commitment to global development and its positive image of actively assisting and driving other countries for mutual benefits. (3) By studying the distribution of attitude resources and the interpersonal meanings in news discourse, this study helps news media better shape the national image.

Neural machine translation and human translation

Abstract By comparing the Chinese, English and French versions of “Exhortations of Learning” and “On Building a Human Community with a Shared Future,” translated by human translators and the neural machine translation systems respectively, this essay finds out that human translators have addressed the political and ideological factors more tactfully while the working mechanism of the neural machine translation system lacks the formers’ judgment, consideration, flexibility and subjectivity. Moreover, unlike human translators, the neural machine system is not capable of activities such as summarizing the source texts, making comments or annotating. But on the other hand, the neural machine translation system has the advantages of its own. Not affected by bias like human translators, it could perform the translation faster and with a rather objective stance. All in all, there is still a long way to go before it can reveal the political and ideological factors in ways as human translators can achieve.

Engaging with “Fringe” Beliefs: Why, When, and How

AbstractI argue that in many cases, there are good reasons to engage with people who hold fringe beliefs such as debunked conspiracy theories. I (1) discuss reasons for engaging with fringe beliefs; (2) discuss the conditions that need to be met for engagement to be worthwhile; (3) consider the question of how to engage with such beliefs, and defend what Jeremy Fantl has called “closed-minded engagement” and (4) address worries that such closed-minded engagement involves problematic deception or manipulation. Thinking about how we engage with irrational emotions offers a way of responding to these concerns. Reflection on engagement with fringe beliefs has wider implications for two distinct philosophical discussions. First, it can help illuminate the nature of beliefs, lending support to the view that not all states which are deeply resistant to evidence thereby fail to be beliefs. Second, an implication of the view I put forth is that it need not constitute a lack of respect to adopt what Peter Strawson called “the objective stance” in relationships.

Teaching Through Digital Media: Acceptance and use of Technology Among the High School Teachers for Inclusive Education in Kerala During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Objective: The present study applies the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology to assess the user intentions and subsequent use of digital media among high school teachers to provide inclusive education in Kerala during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: An online survey was conducted using purposive sampling; 394 responses were collected from high school teachers at various levels and age groups, who were mostly reported to be utilizing Google Meet, WhatsApp, Zoom, and Skype for teaching. As the data were not normally distributed, non-parametric tests, including the Mann- Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H test, were performed to investigate the extent of digital media use among high school teachers across categories of gender, age, type of school, average monthly income, locality, and relationship status. Spearman’s Rank Order correlation coefficient was calculated to examine the relationship between various components of digital media use among the participants. Findings: The study explored that most teachers are using digital platforms extensively for online teaching, depending on the available digital facilities and digital literacy of the teachers and the students and the availability of IT support from the schools. Descriptive measures demonstrated that the most commonly used digital media app among high school teachers is Google meet (87.1%) followed by WhatsApp (79.7%). Pairwise comparisons significantly higher PE, EE, UB, SI, FC, and total technology use among participants below 39 years (p<.01). Government school teachers were found to have higher scores for UTAUT variables; except for BI, which was higher among unaided school teachers (p<.01). Engaged participants were found to have higher UB and total digital use when compared to married and single participants (p<.01). Spearman’s rank-order correlation suggesteda significant positive correlation amongst the UTAUT variables; total digital use was positively correlated with all the components (p<.01). Novelty: The study has incorporated the Unified Theory of Acceptance (UTAUT) in an attempt to uncover the role of digital media in facilitating inclusive education during the covid-19 pandemic. Both descriptive and inferential statistical measures are employed to provide an objective stance on the education trends and educator practices brought in by the ‘new normal.’ Keywords: COVID19; High School Teachers; Inclusive Education; Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT); Digital Media

Использование вербального и невербального кодов для создания модальности в кинематографическом тексте

This empirical study focuses on stance representation in a cinematic text, which is treated as a semiotically complex construct. The stance is viewed as the manifestation of the author’s feelings, attitudes and values. Studies on stance to date have largely examined its expression in linear texts based on the natural language. However, the way stance is marked in multimodal texts, specifically in cinematic ones based on the interaction of verbal and non-verbal modes, remains an underexplored area. To fill the gap in scholarship the present research aims to identify linguistic, paralinguistic and non-verbal markers of stance in a film dialogue. The film “The Man who Knew Infinity” serves as the material for analysis. The study employs the stylistic and contextual analyses as well as the Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The research shows that stance is expressed verbally both on lexical and grammatical levels and is supported by paralinguistic and non-verbal means. The main linguistic means used to express objective stance in the sample multimodal text is the morphological category of mood. The subjective stance, on the other hand, is mainly marked with the help of various lexical items. In reference to stance expression, syntactic means proved to have very limited use in the cinematic text. It can be explained by the colloquial nature of a film dialogue, which makes it syntactically simple. The research elucidates the way the interaction of verbal and nonverbal modes, that include gestures and facial expressions, affects stance building in a cinematic text, which opens avenues for further studies of marking stance in other types of multimodal texts.

Türkçe Araştırma Makalesi Özlerinde Kendini Anma ve Tutum Belirleyiciler

Metadiscourse markers are analyzed in many different languages in detail. This study focuses on two interactional metadiscourse markers: attitude markers and self-mentions in Turkish RA abstracts. In the study, two different scientific area, namely social sciences and natural sciences are compared regarding the use of attitude markers and self-mentions in RA abstracts. There are two questions to answer. The first one is related to the features of abstracts defined in the literature. Since RA abstracts are defined as an objective summery of an article, it is expected not to encounter attitude markers and self-mentions frequently. Because these two markers have the two main functions of reflecting the writer’s attitude towards the topic of the study and to adjust the level of intimacy with the reader. Thus, this study questions whether RA abstracts are like how they are defined in terms of objectivity. Also, it searches whether there is any difference between social sciences and natural sciences related to the use of attitude markers and self-mentions. It is found that Turkish abstracts generally protect their objective stance by avoiding especially self-mentions. However, it is also discovered that social sciences show a more flexible attitude in this regard and use more attitude markers and self-mentions compared to natural sciences.

Japanese L2 learners’ subjective construal: an analysis of expressions of emotion and evaluation in written storytelling found in I-JAS data

Abstract Japanese is considered to be a language in which speakers tend to take a subjective stance by locating themselves within the situation they construe. Previous research indicates that in storytelling, Japanese L2 learners employ fewer expressions of viewpoint than L1 speakers do, and viewpoint tends to shift from character to character. Do Japanese L2 learners, then, typically take an objective stance, or do they use other devices to take a subjective stance? The present study compared Japanese L2 learners’ subjective construal with that of L1 speakers in two types of storytelling. The results indicated that while Japanese L1 speakers typically used passive voice to maintain a viewpoint, L2 learners employed a variety of expressions related to emotion and evaluation to subjectively describe the given events throughout each story. The study suggests the existence of interlanguage in that L2 learners use vocabulary-based devices instead of grammatical devices for subjective construal.

The elephant in the room – Becoming a Sikh dramatherapist: An a/r/tographic journey of utilising an intersectional feminist approach with Landy’s role method to challenge power and privilege in dramatherapy

This critique is an arts-based, a/r/tographic research inquiry, focusing on my experiences of racism and oppression through my identity as a Brown, Amritdhari (initiated) Sikh woman. This piece will offer insights into how, over an 8-month period, my 20-minute performance was devised, a process intensified through two characters concerning embodied role-play. To aid my research I considered an Intersectional Feminist Approach, which recognises how a person can experience oppression through complex intersects of identity. The conflicts I experienced were contained through roles and enhanced by Landy’s Role Method to provide dramatic distance from the subject. This also offered an objective stance through the nature of relational inquiry, a concept intrinsic to the a/r/tographic process. Through this, I was able to consider and validate the suppressed parts of myself and bring my shadow to consciousness. In addition, Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques were utilised to deepen the revelatory journey. Consequently, I recognise how power and privilege can be acknowledged and challenged in the therapeutic relationship through the use of embodied role-play. They can offer containment for shame and internalised oppression, helping to shift the self’s narrative. As a result of this exploration, I feel more equipped to work from an anti-oppressive and de-colonised stance in clinical practice.

Persisting Effects of Ayahuasca on Empathy, Creative Thinking, Decentering, Personality, and Well-Being.

Background: Naturalistic and placebo-controlled studies have suggested that ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian beverage, could be helpful in the treatment of psychopathologies like depression and anxiety disorders by changing otherwise disturbed cognitive and emotional processes. To better understand its full therapeutic potential, one way is to study the effects on processes like flexible thinking, empathy, and well-being, which are normally compromised in stress-related psychopathologies. Materials and Methods: Volunteers attending ayahuasca ceremonies were asked to complete a test battery at three separate occasions: baseline, the morning after, and 1 week after the ceremony. We included the constructs of creative thinking (measured by Picture Concept Test), empathy (Multifaceted Empathy Test), satisfaction with life (Satisfaction with Life Scale), decentering (Experiences Questionnaire), and personality (Big Five Inventory) into the test battery. Additionally, the psychedelic experience was quantified with the Persisting Effects Questionnaire, the Ego Dissolution Scale, and Visual Analogue Scales. Results: In total, 43 attendees (males = 22; females = 21) completed parts of the baseline assessment, 20 (males = 12; females = 8) completed assessments in the morning after the ceremony, and 19 (males = 14; females = 5) completed assessments at the 1-week follow-up. At one and 7 days post-ceremony, cognitive empathy, satisfaction with life, and decentering increased, while divergent thinking (Fluency corrected for Originality) decreased, when compared to baseline. Implicit emotional empathy increased at 1-week follow-up, whereas ratings of the trait neuroticism decreased. Conclusion: The study suggests that a single ingestion of ayahuasca in a social setting is associated with enhancement of subjective well-being, an enhanced ability to take an objective and non-judging stance towards the self (decentering), and the ability to correctly recognize emotions in others, compared to baseline, lasting up to 1 week post-ceremony. To understand the therapeutic potential related to these effects, further research with clinical populations is needed in which these effects can be assessed, including its link with therapeutic outcomes. Together, this will increase our understanding of the effectiveness and breadth of future therapeutic options.

The objective stance and the boundary problem

AbstractThis paper investigates some unexplored ambivalences of Strawson's distinction between the participant stance marked by reactive attitudes and the objective stance in which such attitudes are deemed inappropriate. First, a distinction between recipient‐oriented and agent‐oriented reasons for taking the objective stance is introduced. These are both practical reasons rooted in the agent's position. The former category of reasons refers to the recipient's capacities for moral agency, and the latter to the agent's interests and concerns. Second, it is shown that taking the objective stance for recipient‐oriented reasons (a) is a moral move, which alters one's normative relation to others; and (b) it may have severe disempowering effects on others. Third, departing from current debates, this investigation refocuses on cases in which the objective stance is grounded on self‐defensive or adversarial reasons. The examination of such cases shows that the objective/participant divide stands behind and organizes the complex dynamics through which moral membership is negotiated. Once agent‐oriented reasons are brought into focus, it appears that the divide is contestable and renegotiable: the boundaries of the relevant community can be alteredbyclaiming and reclaiming responsibility. Correspondingly, reactive attitudes should be acknowledged as means and drives of the struggle for moral and political recognition.

Chinua Achebe’s Objective Stance in Depicting Socio-Cultural Issues of the Igbo in the Novel Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe’s Objective Stance in Depicting Socio-Cultural Issues of the Igbo in the Novel Things Fall Apart

Tika Tonu AD2020: creating a virtual exhibition of Design artwork in response to the COVID-19

The year 2020 was marked by the economic and social challenges originating from the COVID-19 pandemic; measures were introduced to enforce social distancing in a battle against community transmission. Places like universities have been profoundly affected, forcing the adoption of new forms of delivery, where human contact was replaced with online classes on Blackboard. The industry was particularly affected, and many small offices and companies were forced to shut down, reducing the already-scarce professional work experience for students in the creative field. This industry component is part of the brief for Design students, and an essential part of the degree, offering opportunities for students to apply their learning in an authentic context.&#x0D; This project emerged, firstly, from a scenario without abundant opportunities for students to complete their 60 hours of professional experience, a year-3 component of the Bachelor of Communication Design. Secondly, the project functions as a contextual response to the current context of uncertainty attached to the year of 2020.&#x0D; In this sense, the main task for the research team was naturally decided to be the creation of a virtual exhibition, maintaining the tradition to have an annual graduation exhibition for the Communication Design cohort from AUT University. The goal of the project was to create an experience to satisfy the students’ need to exhibit their work in a world that has been transformed by restrictions due to the pandemic, added by the uncertainty produced by constant change in alert levels. The initial hypothesis is that the combination of a Human-Centred Design approach, Mixed Methods and Agile Prototyping could create the ideal environment for collaborative models that can be applied to complex problem-solving models in a rapidly changing world.&#x0D; The paradigm selected by the researchers determines the methodology, and this project connects to post-positivist paradigm, where the inquiry is concerned with the subjectivity of reality and moves away from the purely objective stance adopted by the logical positivists. The great challenge was to organise a collaborative model for tasks which overlap multiple roles and actors to create a technology product. This process is followed by a thorough review of the contextual knowledge, providing insights about strategies that informed the development of the virtual exhibition, including case- studies of previous examples in the field. Agile sessions were conducted to explore Mind Mapping, Canvas and Prototyping (analogue and digital) techniques. Project planning was presented and implemented while usability tests and surveys were conducted to verify if the goals were achieved. The (exhibition name – blind review) exhibition facilitated the option for users to engage in a virtual tour of the design work, which may be experienced beyond the launch date. The researches process was documented in the form of an exegesis and an oral presentation in the international conference.

The Adaptation Differences in Terms of Gender on Students in Ulumul Qur'an Stabat Islamic Boarding School

This research aims to adjustment see the difference self in terms of gender performed by students of boarding schools, where good adaptability are in case there is no excess, no emotional obtained psychological mechanism, a feeling of frustrated personal, ability to learn, the utilization of the experience of the past, realistic and objective stance and rational considerations and direct self. Where the subject of the research is male and female students Class VII MTs ulumul qur'an Stabat that add up to 60 students using simple random sampling technique. Measuring instrument used is liket scale consisting of 64 item and after do try out at 40 students, a valid item becomes 55 item. Based on the data analysis noted that: there is a significant difference in adaptability on student boarding schools in terms of gender, the results of data analysis with the correlation of the T-Test revealed differences with the coefficient of T-Test, F = 1,377 with P = 0000 &lt; 0050. It is declared that the adaptability of male students is higher than female students. Females students having adaptability which are with the empirical mean 145.17 and hypothetic 137.5. Based on the analysis of the data, then the hypothesis presented in this research were declared admissible, namely distinction adaptability according to the gender in which conformity to higher male than female.

Responsibility, Determinism, and the Objective Stance: Using IAT to Evaluate Strawson’s Account of our ‘Incompatibilist’ Intuitions

People who judge that a wrongdoer’s behaviour is determined are disposed, in certain cases, to judge that the wrongdoer cannot be responsible for his behaviour. Some try to explain this phenomenon by arguing that people are intuitive incompatibilists about determinism and moral responsibility. However, Peter Strawson argues that we excuse determined wrongdoers because judging that someone is determined puts us into a psychological state – ‘the objective stance’ – which prevents us from holding them responsible, not because we think that determined wrongdoers cannot be responsible. Two studies were completed to test the claim that the objective stance prevents us from judging wrongdoers responsible. Implicit association measures revealed that participants primed in the objective stance appraised a wrongdoer more positively, but as no less blameworthy, than those neutrally primed. These findings raise doubts about Strawson’s explanation of our tendency to excuse determined wrongdoers.

Self-mention Markers and their Rhetorical Functions in Dentistry Research Articles: A Corpus-based Study of Intradisciplinary Variations within Seven Dentistry Subdisciplines

Research on intradisciplinary variations in self-mention marker use in research articles (RAs) in dentistry subdisciplines is lacking. The present study investigates self-mention markers used in each of the seven dentistry subdisciplines (oral sciences, periodontics, endodontics, pediatrics, prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and orthodontics), sections of RAs that employ more self-mention devices in each of the seven dentistry subdisciplines, and common rhetorical realizations of first-person pronouns in the seven dentistry subdisciplines. The analytical framework was primarily based on Hyland’s (2003) four rhetorical functions of self-mentions in RAs. The findings showed the lack of qualitative and quantitative intradisciplinary variations across six of the seven dentistry subdisciplines. The first-person plural pronouns “we” and “our” were the most frequently employed self-mention devices in the Discussion section of RAs. Authors in the periodontics subdiscipline preferred to retain an objective stance through the use of passive constructions, abiding by the conventional norms of academic writing that restrict them. The findings also revealed that explaining a procedure and stating findings/claims were the most frequent realizations associated with the use of self-mention devices, with the exception of periodontics RAs that employed passive constructions instead. The findings contribute to the fields of discourse and genre studies as well as ESP/EAP courses. They may have implications for dentistry RA writing and teaching. An awareness of more frequently used self-mentions in dentistry RAs and their rhetorical functions can help English dentistry scholars successfully produce RAs in line with the academic writing norms of each subdiscipline.

De bemoedigende houding

Abstract The Nurturing Stance. A critical addition to Strawsonian theories of responsibility. In this paper I provide an important addition to Strawsonian theory. In the first section I briefly discuss the Strawsonian approach to responsibility. Then I discuss in some detail the stance we, according to Strawsonians, take towards people who lack the abilities to comply with moral norms. This ‘objective stance’ is inconsistent with the stance that is considered typical and desirable in psychiatric contexts and care-relationships more generally speaking. In order to resolve this conflict I formulate an additional stance that allows Strawsonian theory to account for this.

Commentary: Paradigms, Axiology, and Praxeology in Medical Education Research.

This supplement includes 11 research papers accepted by the 2018 Research in Medical Education Committee. In this Commentary, the authors draw the attention of medical educators and researchers to questions about the researcher's philosophical paradigm. Such questions fundamentally guide research-the choice of conceptual frameworks, methods, and methodology. The authors provide a brief overview of research paradigms and the related concept of axiology and praxeology in medical education research. The authors map the 11 accepted research articles, describing the researchers' stated or implied worldviews and the impact on chosen methods. The authors close by encouraging researchers to state the research paradigm behind their research, comment on how they ensured that the methods used displayed consistency with that paradigm, and highlight the value the research adds to everyday education.