ABSTRACT This article explores Black lesbian vulnerability, visibility, and resistance in post-apartheid South Africa through the works of Beverley Palesa Ditsie and Zanele Muholi. Through an examination of Simon & I (2002), Difficult Love (2010), and Faces and Phases (2012), it analyzes how Ditsie’s activism and Muholi’s visual storytelling contest heterosexist and racialized exclusions. Positioning vulnerability as a political strategy, the article reveals how queer individuals navigate township and urban spaces shaped by both violence and resistance. Engaging with theorists such as Gqola, Matebeni, and Imma, it argues that Black lesbian subjectivities disrupt heteronormativity through visibility, performativity, and spatial reclamation. Furthermore, it asserts that vulnerability operates as a radical mechanism to expose institutionalized discrimination and advance intersectional queer liberation in postcolonial African contexts.

Pragmatic competence in EFL classrooms: A descriptive study of university English teachers’ speech acts and politeness strategies in Yemen

ABSTRACT The death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 sparked one of the most significant protest movements in Iran’s recent history, marked by the global rallying cry #WomenLifeFreedom. This paper investigates the role of Twitter (now X) in shaping the most popular and high-engagement discourse during the Mahsa Amini movement. We analyze 78,088 popular Farsi tweets (>1000 likes) from 10,308 users and examine the political orientations, user types, tweet tones, and content strategies that characterized the movement’s digital discourse. The findings reveal a dynamic interplay of anti-regime, reformist, and pro-regime actors, with diverse engagement patterns ranging from personal storytelling to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. While anti-regime activists utilized Twitter to mobilize support and amplify dissent, pro-regime entities employed sarcastic and hostile tones to undermine the movement. The study highlights the dual nature of Twitter as both a tool for grassroot resistance and a site for state propaganda and surveillance. This research contributes to understanding digital activism in authoritarian contexts by exploring how Iranian users navigated repression and censorship to sustain momentum. This movement underscores the transformative potential and inherent challenges of social media as a battleground for political resistance and systemic change.

This study examines gender differences in language use among EFL students from a sociolinguistic perspective. The research aims to explore how male and female students differ in their interaction patterns, politeness strategies, levels of formality, and the influence of social and cultural norms in English classroom communication. A descriptive quantitative research design was employed, using a questionnaire as the primary instrument to collect data from third-semester students of the English Language and English Education Study Programs. The data were analyzed by categorizing responses based on gender and conducting a comparative analysis to identify patterns of language use and sociolinguistic variation. The findings reveal that both male and female students actively participate in English classroom interactions; however, notable differences emerge in their communication styles. Male students tend to demonstrate higher confidence, more direct speech, and greater dominance in classroom discussions. In contrast, female students generally employ more indirect language, higher levels of politeness, and greater use of mitigating expressions to maintain social harmony. The results also indicate that students adjust their language use according to interlocutors and social context, particularly when interacting with lecturers versus peers. Furthermore, cultural values and social norms play a significant role in shaping students’ language choices and interaction strategies, sometimes exerting a stronger influence than gender alone. Overall, the study concludes that language use among EFL students is not solely determined by linguistic competence but is shaped by a complex interaction of gender, sociocultural norms, and contextual factors. These findings highlight the importance of integrating sociolinguistic awareness into EFL instruction to foster more inclusive and effective classroom communication.

ABSTRACT This article examines how four contemporary Indonesian women's travel narratives, The Naked Traveler by Trinity (2014), The Jilbab Traveler by Asma Nadia (2012), Perempuan Merah Putih by Nungky Irma (2011), and London: Angel by Windry Ramadhina (2013), function as sites of political intervention during Indonesia's post-Reformasi democratization under the “Million Friends, Zero Enemies” foreign policy. Through postcolonial feminist literary analysis, this study reveals three interconnected political strategies these narratives employ to contest global hierarchies and reimagine belonging. First, the texts expose passport discrimination and racialized beauty standards, deconstructing colonial legacies in contemporary mobility regimes while acknowledging multipolar power dynamics beyond Western dominance. Second, the narratives reconfigure cosmopolitanism through Islamic ethics and spiritual counter-mapping, negotiating both global hierarchies and domestic patriarchal structures. Third, the authors deploy hybrid resistance strategies to articulate alternative political agencies. The analysis reveals that these narratives articulate complex, contradictory relationships with multiple power centers. This study shows how Global South travel narratives articulate nuanced political subjectivity beyond binary frameworks while acknowledging the limits of individual resistance in transforming mobility regimes.

ABSTRACT British Columbia implemented three large forest carbon projects between 2009 and 2015, all initiated and operated by First Nations in what is now called the Great Bear Rainforest. These projects are embedded in a complex web of reconciliation negotiations, climate policies, and fluctuating carbon market dynamics. This article analyzes these three factors of forest carbon embeddedness by drawing on the fundamental changes in land and resource decision-making strategies, regional, supra-regional, and national climate policies, and voluntary and compliance market dynamics. This paper argues that the commodification of forest carbon offsets (1) goes beyond the mere aim for environmental protection but is intrinsically connected to the colonial history, disputes over land and resources and aspirations of reconciliation, (2) depends not only on one policy but faces a complex assortment of political strategies, and (3) is highly interrelated with unstable market setups – both on the voluntary and compliance market. This study advances the relatively small body of literature about the embeddedness of forest carbon credits in the Global North. Key policy insights When implementing carbon mitigation projects, the land on which the carbon credits are to be produced should be understood as a complex web of the local population, history, ecological condition, and knowledge systems in which many stakeholders (human and non-human) play their part. To reflect this perspective in the political process, it is paramount to involve this plurality in the project(s)'s approach and make the stakeholders the leaders in the creation and implementation process. Carbon Credits can be transferred and traded far beyond the ideal-typical ETS, positively impacting the environment and the local population's economic situation. Therefore, it is recommended that novel and unconventional market schemes catering local circumstances be envisioned to realize respective projects. Market developments have the potential to undermine environmental policies and vice versa. Therefore, policies should allow for correction and adjustment.

This study investigates how cultural background influences the interpretation and use of pragmatic meaning among university students specializing in semantics and pragmatics, all of whom are preparing for careers in teaching English as a foreign language. While these students possess foundational linguistic knowledge, there remains a gap in understanding how cultural variables affect the interpretation of indirect speech acts, politeness strategies, implied meanings, and figurative expressions. A total of 52 participants engaged in this mixed-method investigation conducted over four classroom sessions. Data collection involved Likert-scale self-assessments and performance-based multiple-choice tasks designed to assess both confidence and competence in pragmatic interpretation. Results showed that while students expressed moderate confidence, their actual responses revealed challenges in recognizing culturally embedded pragmatic cues. These findings highlight the importance of integrating explicit, culturally informed pragmatic instruction even in advanced linguistic programs. The study concludes with recommendations to better prepare future English teachers for cross-cultural communication challenges in their classrooms.

The 2018 Zimbabwean elections marked a significant moment in the country’s political history, as they were the first to be held without former president Robert Mugabe, who had been in power for over 30 years. This article investigates the political rebranding strategies employed by Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in the 2018 elections, specifically focusing on their use of social media. The research analyses a selection of Twitter (X) posts made by Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in the run-up to the elections and during the election campaign itself. The article demonstrates that President Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front employed a range of political rebranding strategies in their Twitter (X) posts. One key strategy was to emphasise their commitment to transparency and accountability, particularly in relation to the management of the economy and the fight against corruption. This was reflected in posts that highlighted the government’s efforts to attract foreign investment, create jobs and improve public services. Another key strategy was to portray or position President Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front as agents of change, who were committed to breaking with the past and creating a more democratic and inclusive Zimbabwe.

The study investigates remedial strategies for mitigating face-threatening acts in disagreement speech acts between friends in Chinese and Japanese, using a contrastive pragmatics framework and natural conversational corpora. Key findings show that both languages frequently employ compound politeness strategies characterized by “surface agreement + substantive disagreement,” with Chinese speakers favoring combinations of positive politeness strategies, while Japanese speakers prefer layered negative politeness strategies. Chinese constructs “alliance relationships” through explicit pronominal systems, whereas Japanese achieves “indirect negation” via subject omission and syntactic generalization. This reflects divergent communicative paradigms: Chinese “explicit solidarity” versus Japanese “implicit harmony,” and offers implications for cross-cultural pragmatics and business communication.

The goal of this research is to describe usage of polite and impolite language in the film Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, as a means of persuasion. Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness and Culpeper and Hardaker’s theory of impoliteness was used as the foundational theory of this study. Dialogue and character action from four scenes were analyzed with the qualitative descriptive method to explain how the first party tried to get the second party to do what was asked of them. Results indicate that a varied mix of politeness and impoliteness are utilized as a means of persuasion. Multiple times the first party would often start with polite strategies such as noticing the second party’s interests and quickly devolve into impoliteness such as the bald on record impoliteness superstrategy like. threats as a way to expedite the negotiations with the second party. This shows that a speaker that can adapt strategy usage to the mood of the situation is pivotal to the persuasiveness of the speaker, even if impoliteness like the promise of violence is part of said strategy. This also shows that negotiations can happen as a one sided persuasion battle or a two sided conversation with mutually exclusive goals. Thus this research adds to the body of previous research into how politeness is used as a tool of persuasion, while also offering new insight into how mixing politeness and impoliteness can be critical to persuasion. Keywords: Politeness, Impoliteness, Persuasion

This research in cross-cultural pragmatics investigates politeness towards the second person in Japanese and several European languages with the Tu/Vos (T/V) distinction. The study draws parallels between Japanese politeness strategies and the power-solidarity model and compares the usage of polite forms (mainly desu/-masu) based on multilingual texts in Japanese and European languages with T/V distinctions. A comparison is also drawn between the use of polite forms in the original Japanese text and in a text translated into Japanese, focusing on differences associated with speakers’ gender. Particular attention was given to the use of hortative and presumptive forms, which, as noted by some scholars, tend to be realized in addressee politeness even without evident rank or distance prerequisites.

An increasing number of countries are adopting strategies aimed at ending the tobacco epidemic. The key political initiatives, strategies, and endgame measures were detailed in the first two parts of this study. The present article analyses how tobacco endgame strategies are implemented within national legislative frameworks, identifies the principal barriers to their adoption, and discusses the prospects for achieving the stated goals.

This paper explores the use of male Kuwaiti Arabic (K.A.) address terms in Kuwaiti podcasts through the lens of Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. Specifically, the study analyzed how different terms correspond to different politeness strategies. This was achieved by listing common male address terms in K.A. and counting instances of their usage in discourse. The analysis of three long-form public interactions showed how K.A. face-work is managed in naturalistic, high-stakes conversations. The findings suggested that address terms function as flexible social resources where politeness qualities emerge from contextual information like timing and repetition in Kuwaiti Arabic podcasts.

Political decisions made under geopolitical conditions significantly influence global digital‎ ecosystems, as illustrated by the U.S. ban on TikTok and Germany’s withdrawal of advertising from the‎ platform X (formerly Twitter). This study identifies and predicts patterns of digital platform fragmentation ‎emerging from such politically driven interventions. By integrating social network analysis, sentiment ‎analysis, and predictive modelling, the research connects regulatory behaviour, public sentiment,‎ and predictive scenarios to demonstrate how political and corporate strategies jointly reshape global‎ communication structures. The findings reveal deep polarisation of public opinion on digital regulation, ‎while predictive results suggest that ongoing fragmentation may accelerate the formation of regional‎ platforms and increase digital isolation. The paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers to‎ develop adaptable legal and governance frameworks capable of addressing the geopolitical complexity ‎of contemporary digital environments.‎

Politeness is not merely a pragmatic strategy in interpersonal communication but also a discursive practice shaped by power relations, ideology, and social context. This study examines politeness as a discursive practice in the film “Dear John” (2010) using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. The goal of the study is to reveal how politeness strategies are constructed, negotiated, and contested through language in intimate relationships portrayed in the film. Employing a qualitative descriptive method, the data consist of selected dialogues between the main characters, John and Savannah, which contain politeness-related expressions. The analysis integrates Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory with Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA: textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. The findings show that politeness strategies in “Dear John” function not only to maintain interpersonal harmony but also to reflect unequal emotional power, moral positioning, and ideological assumptions about love, sacrifice, and gender roles. Positive politeness dominates the interactions, while negative politeness and off-record strategies emerge in moments of conflict and emotional distance. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of politeness theory and CDA to demonstrate how politeness operates as an ideological and discursive resource within romantic narratives. This study contributes to discourse studies, pragmatics, and literary discourse analysis.

This article examines the misunderstood role of the Falklands War in reshaping Anglo-Irish relations at a critical moment in the early 1980s. Rather than setting Anglo-Irish relations on a new trajectory, it argues that the crisis consolidated and deepened divisions that had emerged during the 1980–81 hunger strikes, closing the pathway towards an intergovernmental settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict. It shows how Haughey’s Falklands-era diplomacy was not anomalous but formed part of a domestic political strategy: he sought to use Anglo-Irish relations—and Northern Ireland in particular—as a lever to stabilise a precarious minority government and secure a governing mandate. Thatcher interpreted the Irish Government’s actions during the crisis as confirmation that Dublin was a high-risk partner. 1 Haughey’s efforts to assert Ireland’s sovereignty and political relevance therefore placed strain on Anglo-Irish relations, while reinforcing Thatcher’s instinctive reluctance to pursue far-reaching political engagement. It demonstrates that the Falklands War marked a turning point in British and Irish thinking about Northern Ireland. By hardening mistrust and legitimising a cautious, security-first approach to intergovernmental cooperation, the crisis foreclosed the prospect of an ‘agreed Ireland’ between the two governments and helped shape the narrower framework of Anglo-Irish diplomacy that followed.

This article explores how politainment and influencers shape political opinion among Generation Z in the contemporary digital communication landscape. The study departs from the rapid migration of political discourse into social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, where political messages are increasingly packaged in entertaining, visual, and emotionally engaging formats. The purpose of this research is to analyze politainment as a political communication strategy and to explain the contribution of influencers in mediating and framing political messages for Gen Z audiences. Using a qualitative literature study, the article synthesizes national and international research on TikTok-based politainment, fandom politics, influencer framing, hybrid media systems, and the digital political engagement of young voters. The findings show that politainment simplifies complex political issues into short, aesthetic, and emotionally charged content, while influencers act as trusted intermediaries who reframe politics through humor, storytelling, personal branding, and relatable everyday narratives. Algorithmic amplification reinforces repeated exposure, creating affective publics and opinion formation that are driven more by emotional resonance, identity, and viral trends than by rational policy evaluation. The study concludes that politainment and influencers constitute a powerful, yet ambivalent, force in shaping Gen Z political opinion and recommends that political actors, educators, and influencers employ more ethical, substantive, and literacy-oriented strategies in order to support healthier and more reflective democratic participation among young citizens.

ABSTRACT No other political movement in Germany has engaged with literature as intensively in the twenty-first century as the New Right. Its protagonists publish and review fiction texts in various publishing houses, magazines, and blogs; devote supplements, podcasts, and videos to literature; and organize their own literature fairs and present themselves as a whole as a “reading movement.” The article presents the literary politics of the German New Right in four steps: It first (1) focuses on the concept of metapolitics, then (2) analyzes the most important literary political strategies—with (3) a closer look at the New Right’s reception of Ernst von Salomon’s novel Der Fragebogen (The Questionnaire, 1951)—and finally (4) demonstrates how literary and party politics are increasingly merging between the New Right and the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was founded in 2013.

From the perspective of intersubjectivity, this study examines English general extenders in interpersonal interaction and their implications for cross-cultural communication. Based on spoken language corpora from existing literature and by integrating politeness strategy theory with the Gricean Cooperative Principle, the research findings reveal that general extenders exert pragmatic functions guided by politeness strategies, which are rooted in intersubjectivity and closely related to the addressee's self-image, covering both positive and negative politeness. Specifically, conjunctive extenders enhance social closeness through shared experiences (positive politeness) and perform a hedging function regarding informativeness in line with the Quantity Maxim; disjunctive ones mitigate tone via alternative possibilities (negative politeness) and maintain caution about information accuracy based on the Quality Maxim. Their intersubjective function relies on the subjectively assumed shared knowledge, experiences and conceptual frameworks between communicators, enabling information omission and listener inference. Mastery of these extenders facilitates smooth cross-cultural communication by negotiating shared knowledge, and the research findings provide solid theoretical and practical support for cultivating socio-pragmatic competence in EFL teaching.

In the modern world, intercultural interaction in the medical sphere is gaining particular significance, which requires taking into account culturally conditioned norms and politeness strategies in the doctor–patient communication. This article compares the features of the realization of the politeness category in American and Russian medical discourses. The subject of the study is a comparative analysis of models of medical interaction in American and Russian linguistic cultures. The aim of the work is to identify and systematize the universal and unique aspects of politeness strategies. Special attention is paid to the ways of building trust between communication participants under conditions of institutional asymmetry. The study material consisted of sociolinguistic survey data (n=100; respondents from Russia and the USA), reflecting normative perceptions of polite behavior of doctors and patients, as well as a comparison with data from previous studies. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive reconstruction of American and Russian politeness models in medicine, the identification of their culturally conditioned differences, and the justification of the role of a multi-level mechanism coordinating professional, interpersonal, and value-related parameters of medical communication. The study employed methods of thematic classification and systematization of empirical material, discursive, pragmatic, and linguоcultural analyses, as well as a quantitative method for data generalization. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of applying the results to develop recommendations for intercultural training of medical professionals, improving standards of polite medical communication, and enhancing the effectiveness of doctor–patient interaction. The comparative analysis showed that American and Russian models demonstrate different balances between professional control and attention to the individual needs of the patient, reflecting culturally specific strategies for maintaining politeness and building trust. Politeness strategies in both models are based on universal principles of respect and cooperation, but their specific implementation depends on the organization of interaction and cultural expectations, which influence the formation of trustful relationships and the effectiveness of doctor–patient communication.