Parallel Discourses Research Articles

The structural human and semiotic animal: between pride and humiliation

Abstract The main theme of the article, which by genre falls into the area of semiotically influenced philosophy, is a reflection on the relationship between the human and the non-human, using two partial but parallel discourses. The first discourse is the perspective of general semiotics, which is defined in the article on the basis of two distinct forms of rationality that, in different guises, still intervene in debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences today. The first form of this rationality is semiological, which can be classified under the encyclopaedic rubric of structuralism, and which has its main source of inspiration in general linguistics and its continuation in philosophical anti-humanism. The second perspective has its origins in Peirce’s logicist theory of the sign and his pragmatist metaphysics, and opens up thinking about the sign, the human, and the non-human to a non-language-centric view of the world. Despite their demonstrable theoretical and methodological incompatibility, the present text treats them as incompatible but largely complementary perspectives. It is in their mutual exposition that one can see the moments in which the view of modern human as a semiological and semiotic animal takes shape. The text brings this fundamental and founding theoretical schism into focus by examining two images from post/modern art: Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence” and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Averroës’s Search.”

Ends of Life: Forms of Life as the “Ruins of an Enduring Fable”?

This paper addresses the possibility of using the Wittgensteinian conception of “forms of life” (“Lebensformen”) as a potentially transformative philosophical framework that responds to contemporary challenges. These challenges can be understood as resulting from parallel discourses of “ends”: that of “nature” and that of the “human”. These challenges are relevant, especially, for a Cavellian interpretation of Wittgensteinian Lebensformen as an expression of cultural and natural factors. My purpose is to show how Cavell’s elaboration of Wittgensteinian Lebensformen can be maintained against the critical pressures exerted by prevailing discourses of ends.

Enfeoffment to Use, Legalism, and Humanism in Gower's Mirour de l'Omme

Enfeoffment to Use, Legalism, and Humanism in Gower's <i>Mirour de l'Omme</i>

Vulnerable Students, Inclusion, and Digital Education in the Covid‐19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Case Study From Austria

Worldwide, more than 1.5 billion students had to switch to distance learning in 2020. Education took place at home, where parents attended to their children, and teachers taught their students in digital mode, while minors were physically and socially isolated from their peers. Concerning the situation in Austria, several quantitative studies expose two central challenges: First, the comprehensive lack of digital infrastructure disrupted (digital) distance learning. Second, the Covid‐19 pandemic particularly affected vulnerable students and extended educational inequality. The state of the art emphasizes a lack of qualitative studies demonstrating different perspectives on the educational situation of vulnerable students in general and with SEN in particular during the pandemic. This leads to the following research question: How do professional actors map the situation of inclusive and digital education during the Covid‐19 pandemic in Austria? To research this unprecedented situation, four focus groups with diverse stakeholders (teachers, principals, psychologists, and school board employees) discussed their experiences in the school years 2019–2020 and 2020–2021. Data were analyzed according to the Grounded Theory method of the postmodern approach referred to as “situational analysis.” The study visualizes various parallel discourses and voices within the situation of (digital distance) learning during the Covid‐19 pandemic. The theoretical context of the intersection of inclusive and digital education frames the empirical findings. Central findings relate to missing or discriminatory guidelines and policies, a lack of digital infrastructure, and altered professional‐pedagogical support that minimized or disrupted inclusive education during (digital) distance learning.

Classification, Evolution, and Construction: A Parallel Discourse Analysis of Agricultural Outsourcing Policy in China

Political decisions are increasingly based on local innovations. This article aims to reveal the role of argumentation in making a new idea stand out from the competition of a flood of policy ideas for national adoption. It traces the case of agricultural outsourcing in China and identifies the consecutive phases of classification, evolution, and construction. The finding is that a parallel argument structure was formed, which extends the traditional argument structure by constantly referring to an existing national policy, in this case land use rights transfer. The implication is that a more intentional use of argumentation is needed to impress policy-makers.

Dark Degenerations: Life, Light, and Transformation beneath the Earth, 1840–circa 1900

Focusing on Kentucky’s immense and world-famous Mammoth Cave, this essay considers contexts from across the nineteenth century in which subterranean darkness was envisaged as a driving force in the transformation of living things. In fact, the cave was the stage for several allied discourses of “dark degeneracy” that conjured images of both generative and destructive mutability, from the generation of animals without eyes to the apparent disintegration of some kinds of human bodies and minds through exposure to the darkness. In elucidating several parallel discourses of dark degeneracy, the essay offers a distinct contribution to several bodies of scholarship by highlighting an important and hitherto neglected manifestation of an intensifying nineteenth-century focus on the how of natural processes and a growing sense of the transformative significance of the apparent cohesion of malleable bodies with their wider environments. At the same time, it evidences the influence of Mammoth Cave in forging and contributing to late nineteenth-century debates about degeneration and shows how dominant sensory hierarchies framed both popular and scientific understandings of life in the deep darkness.

Representations of Wrigley Field Redevelopment(s) in the Chicago Tribune: Neoliberal Discourse and Urban Politics

Since the concept of redeveloping Wrigley Field became prevalent, theChicago Tribunehas notably constructed a variety of narrative strands on related urban dynamics. Through a framework that connected post-Gramsci insights of hegemony, discourse, and critics of spatial and economic neoliberalism, this study examined how the newspaper strategically assembled discourses in mediatizing urban politics surrounding the Wrigley renovation. First, the newspaper fostered hegemonic consent that endorsed the redevelopment(s) by promoting old tropes of economic development and market growth despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Second, it also produced a parallel discourse that expressed moderate recognition and sympathy to the interest and experience of the community. Without fundamentally challenging neoliberal power, however, such discursive construction was a strategic and instrumental intervention that reinforced the contingencies and boundaries of neoliberal hegemony. Through such investigations, this study shed light on the ongoing rearticulation(s) of the media regime that strategically produced neoliberal rationalities, subjectivities, and discursive antagonism as it assisted to shape urban imageries and political economies of sporting spaces.

A Corpus-Based Study on Metaphor in Ecological Discourses

In response to environmental issues around the world, the United Nation and the Chinese NGO have launched various proposals and policies focusing on the relationships between humans and nature. From the perspective of conceptual metaphor, this study analyses the UN Protected Planet Report 2020, and China Environment Yearbook, edited by the first Chinese environmental NGO, Under the theory of Conceptual Metaphor by Lakoff and Johnson, a corpus-based methodology combining qualitative and quantitative approaches was applied to demonstrate traits of metaphors used in the reports to illustrate the conceptual models in ecological discourses in Chinese and English. This article figured out that conflict, journey, and living organism metaphor can best reflect different ideologies between parallel discourses in the two cultures. It helps to identify characteristics of language use of metaphor in Chinese and English ecological discourses.

A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and American Newspaper Reports on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

ABSTRACT This study adopts a critical discourse analysis approach in comparing the portrayal of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in two English language newspapers, China Daily (CD) and New York Times (NYT). It focuses on how these two influential newspapers employ various discursive strategies to portray the BRI and its various players to unpack the embedded ideologies underlying the news reports. The data comprises 165 news reports on the BRI published between 2013 and 2019. By examining key news features such as headlines, leads and quotes, three contrastive themes were uncovered: BRI as a unifying agent or disruptive force; bolstering support for or casting aspersions on the BRI; and a rising China versus a fading US. These themes coalesce and converge into two parallel but distinct discourses. While CD unequivocally depicts the BRI as a collaborative project that seeks to unify and bring widespread benefits to member countries, NYT presents a more complex picture that discursively constructs China’s BRI as a geopolitical threat to the waning global influence of the US. These divergent discourses are discussed in light of motivated reasoning theory and in relation to the varying ideological standpoints from which the two newspapers operate.

Distributed Energy Systems and Energy Communities Under Negotiation

New decentralized energy-generation technologies have turned economies of scale upside down while becoming more economically viable. At the same time, the increased penetration of information technologies has led to new opportunities to manage infrastructure in a less hierarchical, more flexible way. Together with citizen demands for control over energy, these two converging trends has put energy communities (ECs) on the agenda, potentially advancing the transition towards more sustainable energy systems, despite hindrances encountered on the way. This paper presents a case study of the planning process of a sustainable city district in Sweden, using participatory observations and interviews conducted with included stakeholders. We analyse how the included stakeholders has reasoned about establishing a sustainable energy system in the area, including a microgrid. The discussions on a microgrid comprised two parallel discourses, coexisting but seldomly explicitly confronted. The distribution system operator in the area promoted a distributed energy system (DES) solution, while the property developers opted for a microgrid organized more as a citizen energy community (CEC). We discuss why the CEC proponents so far has lost the battle of creating a community owned smart grid. We conclude that the different models, a DES and a CEC, comprise different values and an increased focus on energy communities could shift the transition pathway towards a more decentralized system involving other prioritise than just economical.

Introducing Open Strategy: Dealing with clashes between the traditional and open-strategy discourse

Most organizations which decide to introduce ‘open strategy’ have a legacy of strategizing exclusively and secretively. While we know that the traditional and open-strategy approaches to strategy development differ quite dramatically, we lack an understanding of how and whether these approaches clash during the introduction of open strategy. Considering that many scholars understand strategy as a particular discourse, we adopt a discursive perspective that allows us to uncover how strategy actors deal with the introduction of an open-strategy discourse in a context in which the traditional strategy discourse prevails. We draw on an extensive data base from a longitudinal, in-depth case study of an international financial company, which introduced an open-strategy discourse by including 20 lower-level employees along a traditional strategy process. We identify three discursive practices which traditional strategy actors enact in response to the changing interplay between the traditional and open-strategy discourse: (1) Paralleling discourses (2) separating discourses, (3) controlled linking of discourses. During strategy formulation, traditional strategy actors parallel discourses to maintain their traditional, privileged position in strategy writing which triggers clashes between contradicting subject positions and discursive principles. In response to these clashes, traditional strategy actors first engage in separating and later in controlled linking of discourses. During strategy implementation, traditional strategy actors re-engage in paralleling discourses to communicate the strategy together with new strategy actors which no longer creates tensions as discourses now designate compatible subject positions and discursive principles. With these findings we contribute to the open-strategy and discourse literature by providing a better understanding of the interrelation of multiple strategy discourses as well as to how strategy actors respond to it.

Crossing boundaries: connecting adaptive leadership and social justice leadership for educational contexts

ABSTRACT This paper connects two (seemingly) parallel discourses in the field of educational leadership: the discourse on adaptive leadership or ‘adaptivity’, which has been appropriated into the field of education, and social justice educational leadership. Without overlooking the real differences between them, the paper identifies four principles central to both discourses. Both leadership types are claimed to be disruptive, dilemmatic, collaborative, and contextual-emergent. A model for connecting the two discourses around these four shared principles is presented. Some key concerns regarding the likelihood of connecting the two discourses will be addressed, particularly by discussing the compatibility of ‘effectiveness’ to ‘social justice’. The paper concludes with a discussion of ‘communities of practice’, as an example of an adaptive-social justice organizational structure that realizes the above four shared principles.

Review: Exterranean: Extraction in the Humanist Anthropocene

Review: <i>Exterranean: Extraction in the Humanist Anthropocene</i>

SEMIOTICS OF GESTURE: PERFORMATIVE CONCEPTUALISM

Problem setting. This article poses the problem of understanding and applying performance as a conceptual model of the functioning of an individual in a modern multi-layered reality. The study presents an analysis of popular actionist practices and the further development of the pure action ontology. The performance serves as an approbation of the dynamism technique and the principle of action in social, digital and artistic actions.&#x0D; Recent research and publications analysis. The assertion of the principle of dynamism and activity in the modern cultural space explains the popularity of performative topics in a parallel scientific and philosophical discourse. At the same time, the bulk of works on performance relates to the field of theory and methodology of art. These are the works of such authors: G. Elshevskaya, E. Krylova, E. Andreeva, J. Kostincova, D. Filippova, Andrey and Yaroslava Artemenko, H. Petrovsky, S. Levitt, H. Downey and J. Sherry, A. Eckersley and C. Duff.&#x0D; G Reingold, M. Cuellar-Moreno and J. Antonio Cubas-Delgado, A. Loskutov, O. Novoselova and E. Kurbanova and others have studied dynamic models of bodily expressiveness in social practices, including in the information space of culture and communication. In turn, the American philosophers J. Butler, J Dean and G. Standing develop the concept of performance in relation to political actionism. They view the gatherings of social rights agents as a performative practice of their relationship to power.&#x0D; Paper objective. The aim of the study is to review and theoretically analyze modern creative practices of the subject's bodily expression in the field of art, politics, law and digital communication, as well as to further substantiate the methodological role of the performative concept in modern culture.&#x0D; Paper main body. Today's popular installations, happenings, flash mobs and challenge explicates the very essence of modern human existence in the world. Art zones and other creative social spaces (workshops) use direct body language in their functioning and, at the same time, are highly attractive and effective in today's youth environment. Silent actions demonstrate the limited possibilities for a person to manifest themselves, despite the large number of rights, freedoms and technical means to improve life. Defective self-presentation expresses the one-sided and limited nature of the subject's existence in the social, legal, political and cultural space today.&#x0D; The natural change of technological structures, cultural eras and political models in the world irreversibly modifies a person, his environment and the possibilities of self-realization in it. The creative space of action allows to express the conceptual ontological principle of modernity – the break between the physical and the semantic, the act and the commentary, the action and the word, the body and corporeality. In a stratified reality, a person cannot maintain integrity. His verbal-symbolic being is separated from the physical (body); they express themselves and communicate autonomously and independently. Desocialization and the dominance of virtuality led to the dismemberment and impoverishment of many human functions, in particular the localization of his speech and actions. Therefore, performance is becoming an irreplaceable alternative way of self-realization of the silent body. While language remains a way of being a person as an agent of the information environment.&#x0D; Conclusions of the research. Thus, the study refers to the art experience of bodily subjects as a manifestation of their anthropological authenticity, social significance, legal usefulness, epistemological activity and political will.

Parallel discourses: leveraging the Black Lives Matter movement to fight colorism and skin bleaching practices

ObjectivesThe ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) movement in 2020 exemplifies efforts to counter prejudices and the colourist narrative. Harmful use of topical skin lightening agents continues worldwide despite interdiction or restricted use under domestic, European and international regulations. Study designCommentary. MethodsNarrative review. ResultsIn this Short Communication, we consider the significance of societal perspectives of skin colour, glocalized whiteness, efforts to attain self-esteem and social mobility through skin lightening practices, and the role of cosmetic products in fuelling this phenomenon. ConclusionsAddressing the inadvertent (or indeed conscious) vehicles of systematic racism and sustaining of skin colour prejudices and stereotypes of fair skin beauty by cosmetic companies is warranted. Targeted health messaging is an imperative.

Functioning of Paired Naming in the Modern Russian language

The article is devoted to the functioning of paired names in modern Russian language - insufficiently studied stable combinations such as небо и земля, печки-лавочки, хлеб-соль, ни ответа ни привета . These units express a single, undifferentiated meaning, consist of two components connected by a compositional connection that belong to one part of speech (most often in paired names are nouns combinations, although there are also adverbs, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, interjections, onomatopes, prepositions and particles). Structural-semantic model, which is built on paired naming dates back to the ancient period of the language, however, continues to be used in XX-XXI centuries. The purpose of this article is consideration of features of the semantics and structure of the paired naming by the material from the resource "National corpus of the russian language". In addition, their frequency is presented in newspaper and oral speech, in parallel texts and poetic discourse, as well as in accentological and educational materials.

Beyond the Prophet’s Heirs: Emergent Trajectories of a new Sectarian Polemic in Contemporary Iran

ABSTRACT Sectarian polemic directed at Sunni Muslims in Iran and elsewhere in the Shi’ite world has traditionally foregrounded the historic conflict over and fallout from the Prophetic succession as one of the primary markers of Sunni difference. In contrast to this precedent, I argue that we are witnessing the emergence of a newly formulated parallel discourse in the trajectory of sectarian polemic that is rooted less in such age old concerns and instead couches difference more as a matter of the supposedly problematic contemporary social behaviours of the maligned community. In demonstrating this, I focus on two elements—efforts to associate the Sunni populations at large with fanaticism and violence, and the construction of Sunni Muslims in Iran as hyper-fertile. Drawing on a mixed methodology of media analysis and anthropologically informed ethnographic fieldwork in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, this paper concludes by pointing to the origins of this rhetoric in a confluence of the weakening of traditional mythopoetic discourse among the youthful middle-class, their replacement by a new ‘nationalist Shi’ism’, and its subsequent receptivity to a globally circulating anti-migrant and nativist ideology.

Neoliberal ideology, discursive paradox and communicative language teaching

This paper deals with the relationship between neoliberalism and communicative language teaching in language-in-education policy. Neoliberalism, or the deregulation of state based on meritocracy, or equal competition, gives rise to paradoxical discourses. On the one hand, sociolinguistic superdiversity shows us the unprecedented mixing and switching of languages by transnational migrants. On the other, language commodification requires us to use standard or monolingual language forms to access high-paying jobs in the global market. Parallel discourses in communicative language teaching pedagogy that distinguish between weak and strong forms also give rise to monolingual and multilingual language practices, respectively. This paper examines how language commodification and sociolinguistic superdiversity relate to the method-related problem of identity, a tension in the literature between the monolingual language practices of weak communicative language teaching, and post-structuralist language learner identities that are delineated by language. By drawing discursive and epistemic links between language commodification and sociolinguistic superdiversity and weak and strong communicative language teaching, I argue that language commodification emerges as a hegemonic discourse in weak communicative language teaching policy precepts, responsible for the method-related problem of identity. I attribute the discursive hegemony to a positivist epistemic framework that imposes preconceived language structures and identities on post-structuralist language learners in second and foreign language learning through monolingualism. This paper discusses important implications of sociolinguistic superdiversity as a counter-hegemonic discourse in superdiverse communicative language teaching contexts, as well as directions for future research.

Towards a new canon? Rewriting the history (and the future) of sociology

In the U.S., over the three past decades, there has been a huge interest in W.E.B. Du Bois and in Black scholars; only recently we are witnessing the proliferation of works on their role as founders of U.S. sociology. While there are differences between them, they all converge in seeing W.E.B. Du Bois as a pioneer of scientific sociology in the United States and a pioneer of public sociology, combining sociology and activism, relevant for contemporary political struggles including the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. Indeed, alongside the scientific debate regarding the history of U.S. sociology, there is a parallel discourse about the objectivity of the social sciences, and both are increasingly attracting attention and controversy. In this note the Author will focus on the role of Du Bois in founding the discipline in the United States, the relevance of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory, the debate on objectivity and neutrality as a pre-condition for science, and the call for a “Du Boisian sociology”.

Vanilla bisquits and lobola bridewealth: parallel discourses on early pregnancy and schooling in rural Zambia

BackgroundAdolescent pregnancy is a complex socio-economic phenomenon ranking high on the global health policy agenda. Early childbearing is associated with early marriage and school drop-out, and is defined as a problem to the health and development of girls. This paper reports from formative research. The formative research aimed to explore socio-cultural and structural dynamics at work behind early pregnancy and school drop out in rural Zambia. The study findings have been used to inform a school based intervention to reduce early pregnancy (RISE: ‘Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of Girls’). Theoretically the study is informed by social constructionism.MethodsA qualitative approach was employed. Semi-structured qualitative interviews (61) and focus group discussions (7) were carried out with girls (in and out of school), boys, parents, teachers, health workers and community- and district leaders in 2014–15. Systematic text condensation was drawn upon in the analysis of the material.ResultsThe study findings indicate that the official Zambian discourse that presents early pregnancy as a serious challenge and schooling as the prime way to confront the problem enjoy substantial support at community levels. However, a parallel discourse on fertility, early marriage and childbearing as social and economic security surfaced and was articulated by the same study participants. The latter contrasting discourse questioned schooling as the only solution to secure a girl’s future arguing that there are many reasons why early pregnancy may emerge as rational.ConclusionsGrasping the complexity of local discourse is vital in planning health interventions. The present study revealed that although delayed child bearing and schooling among girls enjoyed high status and legitimacy in the study area, the social and economic context worked to reward early marriage. Interventions to reduce early pregnancies in rural Zambian communities need to fundamentally address the material constraints that condition and reinforce a culture of early childbearing.