Positive Connotations Research Articles

Humility and Laziness: The Two Faces of the Poor in Paraguay’s Early Modern Jesuit Missions?

Abstract Early modern European monarchies responded to structural poverty with a series of welfare programs while also implementing repressive measures against the poor. Perceived during the late Middle Ages as virtuous Christians accepting their fate with humility, the poor of the early modern period were accused of vagrancy and immoral laziness, thus posing a threat to the social order. In contrast, in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chronicles of the Jesuit missions of Paraguay, hardly any mention is made of the material deprivation of Indians. A catechism of work in Guaraní intended to moralize the Indians’ labor, however, reveals that poverty was at the core of the missionaries’ concerns. Through an analysis of the Guaraní lexicon in connection with poverty, this article demonstrates that destitution in the missions was a daily problem. The article also shows how the term poriahu, glossing the word “poor,” covered only part of the meaning of the same word in Europe, where it had positive connotations, having been passed down by medieval tradition. In parallel, stigmatizing representations of the “bad pauper” were set apart and constructed around particular glosses, such as that of “vagrant” or “lazy.” This separation allowed for the development of an assistance policy that responded to the needs of all missionary Indians and was indispensable for the sustainability of the missions.

The role of developmental ‘buzzwords’ in the international refugee regime: Self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion

Buzzwords play an important role in setting up the scope and direction of aid policies. Alongside the growing focus on development-led approaches in the international refugee regime, three buzzwords – self-reliance, resilience, and economic inclusion – have achieved particular prominence in recent refugee policy-making. Drawing upon a review of policy documents and multi-sited empirical research in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article gives a detailed analysis of how these buzzwords intersect with one another and elucidates the roles they play in shaping development-oriented approaches to refugees. While this trifecta is painted with positive connotations, empirical research shows that developmental approaches underpinned by these buzzwords can have detrimental effects on both refugees and hosts. Building upon this analysis, it offers a theoretical approach to understand the current mainstreaming of developmental support within the international refugee regime from a lens of ‘reframing’, which is a strategy to redefine social problems and thereby control discourses around their solutions. The study shows that as a discursive apparatus, this triad of buzzwords is instrumentalised by policymakers to reframe the absence of solutions for ‘displacement crisis’ as ‘development opportunities’ in order to protect the damaged global refugee system. In so doing, such buzzwords play a crucial role in redefining the responsibility of refugees and their hosts in undertaking neoliberal development, while simultaneously reducing the ambit of responsibility of the international refugee regime. By analysing these popular buzzwords as a set, the article contributes to a deepened understanding of the ways in which these innocuous words are embedded in a broader ‘ideological project’ informed by the political and economic incentives of the global policymakers. It also sheds light on the possible wider consequences of the current mainstreaming of development-led approaches for refugee rights and protection issues.

More is Better: EnglishLanguage Statistics are Biased Toward Addition.

We have evolved to become who we are, at least in part, due to our general drive to create new things and ideas. When seeking to improve our creations, ideas, or situations, we systematically overlook opportunities to perform subtractive changes. For example, when tasked with giving feedback on an academic paper, reviewers will tend to suggest additional explanations and analyses rather than delete existing ones. Here, we show that this addition bias is systematically reflected in English language statistics along several distinct dimensions. First, we show that words associated with an increase in quantity or number (e.g., add, addition, more, most) are more frequent than words associated with a decrease in quantity or number (e.g., subtract, subtraction, less, least). Second, we show that in binomial expressions, addition-related words are mentioned first, that is, add and subtract rather than subtract and add. Third, we show that the distributional semantics of verbs of change, such as to improve and to transform, overlap more with the distributional semantics of add/increase than subtract/decrease, which suggests that change verbs are implicitly biased toward addition. Fourth, addition-related words have more positive connotations than subtraction-related words. Fifth, we demonstrate that state-of-the-art large language models, such as the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT-3), are also biased toward addition. We discuss the implications of our results for research on cognitive biases and decision-making.

Daffodils and Solitude in William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud

PurposeThis study aims to identify the meaning of Wordsworth’s poem entitled I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by analyzing its intrinsic elements. MethodThe present study is qualitative interpretive, focusing on the meaning conveyed in the poem entitled I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud using objective approach by interpreting the poem’s intrinsic elements through repeated reading of the poem as a whole and its details to achieve trustworthy analysis and conclusion. Results/findingsDifferent from general trend in the analysis Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, the meaning of the poem is the experience of recalling the sight of the daffodils, which brought solitude to the speaker of the poem. The poem’s subject was not the daffodils, but the experience of encountering them and its recollection. As a traveler traveling in the countryside, the speaker viewed the sight of the daffodils in a positive tone through imageries of sight, internal sensation, and muscle movements related to good experiences, as well as dictions of natural views with positive connotations. The poem includes simile, personification, metonymy, and symbols to compare the beautiful crowd of daffodils and the solitude they bring to the speaker of the poem’s mind when he was recalling the sight of the dancing daffodils. ConclusionUsing Abram’s objective point of view, the analysis reveals the daffodils as representative of nature become the remedy for human’s loneliness as represented by the speaker of the poem by recalling the experience of seeing them, sending the message that appreciation of nature and the experience with nature should be maintained to create a tranquil life.

АКСИОЛОГИЯ НЕОЛОГИЗМОВ С КОЛОРАТИВНЫМ КОМПОНЕНТОМ (на материале онлайн-словарей)

The purpose of the article is to identify lexical and semantic features of color designation in determining the national cultural specificity of language and speech means. This article illustrates the key characteristics that clearly reflect semantic shifts in vocabulary caused by rethinking axiological components: the frequent use of the green lexeme as part of neologisms; the creation of a new system of values with the help of neologisms with a positive connotation; the emergence of terms naming a person by the professional activity; a significant increase in the group of neologisms associated with economic and environmental discourses; the use of words related to gastronomic culture; interest in the problems of the impact of modern technologies on human life. The study of neologisms as a means of representing values and forming an assessment expands the range of research in the field of axiology and neology.

The Attitude of the Jordanian Media Discourse towards Israel 2017-2021

Objectives: This study aimed to identify the direction of Jordanian media discourse towards Israel.
 Methods: The study used the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method. Articles from opinion writers were analyzed using the newspaper's archive in the "Ideas and Positions" section. The analysis was based on the Meta Data archive database, which contained a total of 5022 articles with their linguistic structures.
 Results: The study found that the word "Israel" was mentioned 1588 times, accounting for 31.62% of the total repetitions. The term had the highest frequency of occurrence in 2017 and 2019, with rates of 8.04% and 9.08% respectively. The research sample also showed a higher frequency of total negative vocabulary and linguistic structures in the years 2018, 2019, and 2017, with rates of 11.43%, 11.05%, and 10.06% respectively. The Jordanian media discourse towards Israel was determined to be 49.14% positive, 36.60% negative, and 10.20% neutral.
 Conclusions: It is recommended to exercise more scrutiny in the use of vocabulary and linguistic structures with positive significance when writing opinion articles for Jordanian newspapers. This is in line with the collective trend of rejecting negative normalization in public opinion. Additionally, caution should be exercised when using the term "Israel" in articles, as it carries a strong positive connotation in the local Jordanian media.

What do you call the political upheaval? the conceptual linkage between revolutions and coups

ABSTRACT What kind of relationship exists between coup d’états and revolutions? Although these two phenomena have conventionally been studied separately, a close and intricate relationship exists between them on a conceptual level. Since “revolution” has a far more positive connotation than “coup,” the organizers and supporters of a political upheaval will attempt to frame it as a “revolution,” while the ousted leader and other opponents will try to frame it as a “coup,” Thus, each involved party uses the two labellings differently in accordance with their political incentives. Based on this understanding, the present article focuses on three types of events – “revolution,” “pure coup,” and “revolutionary coup”– and considers the preferences of various relevant actors –the military, protesters, the ousted leader, international actors, and the media– on how those events are to be labelled. The validity of the argument is tested using a newly constructed dataset on the labelling of political upheavals between 1975 and 2014 and case studies on Portugal (1974), Philippines (1986), and Burkina Faso (2014).

The why, what and how of deep learning: critical analysis and additional concerns

ABSTRACT The concept of deep learning has become a popular and well recognised term in contemporary educational literature and international political documents. Deep learning typically induces positive connotations and represents the learning strategy that educational institutions should adopt in order to assure a sustainable future in modern societies. However, a major challenge with deep learning is the fact that the concept is used in many different scientific fields with a variety of definitions, understandings and applications. Thus, there is an imbalance between the quantity of governing documents in education that endorse the use of deep learning as a main learning strategy and the amount of academic theory and research examining its definitional clarity and related unresolved questions. The aim of the present theoretical analysis is threefold. First, we examine the concept of deep learning in light of the three fundamental questions “why”, “what”, and “how” and make assessments concerning its status in contemporary literature. Second, we discuss the compatibility between the idea of deep learning and the concepts of educational inclusion and adapted instruction. Finally, we make several recommendations for future development and application of the term deep learning in educational contexts.

DRUNKONYMS IN ENGLISH (BASED ON B. FRANKLIN’S “THE DRINKER”S DICTIONARY”)

The article is devoted to the study of drunkonyms in English. “Drunkonym” is a linguistic term used to denote lexical units depicting a person’s alcohol intoxication. There are too many synonymous words and phrases in English for “Drunk.” Such kind of words and idioms exist in all languages, but their number is extremely big in English. There are several dictionaries called “Drunktionaries” in English. In the article one of the most famous dictionaries of this type “The Drinker’s Dictionary” by B. Franklin is scrutinized. The classification of drunkonyms is made according to different criteria (according to their degree of intensity, according to their positive or negative connotation, according to figurative language used in them). The analysis revealed that most of the drunkonyms do not describe positive attributes of character nor desirable states of mind. “Drunkeness” as a concept is of negative character but in English there are some positive lexical units denoting alcohol intoxication. The analysis also showed that many phraseological units depict an intoxicated person’s condition through idiomatic zoonyms. Besides there is a group of idiomatic drunkonyms containing toponyms, phytonyms and anthroponyms. Drunkonyms in B. Franklin’s dictionary may fall into several categories: literary, neutral and colloquial (slangy, vulgar, disphemic). Phraseological Drunkonyms are based on the following stylistic devices: metaphor, metonymy, euphemism, simile and irony.

Characterization of the term "wandering" in dementia research: A scoping review

Background: Dementia is an important public health concern, affecting approximately 50 million people world- wide. The term "wandering" is generally associated with negative behaviours among persons with dementia; however, physical movements of wandering can benefit persons with dementia. Despite its common usage, the term wandering does not have a standardized definition. The aim of this study was to examine definitions of the term wandering in academic literature as it pertains to persons living with dementia and how they compare to one another. Methods: This scoping review of the academic literature used Arksey and O’Malley’s (2007) framework. Papers were identified through a search of seven electronic databases. Papers were included from any year and study design provided they were in English, French, or Spanish and used terms related to “dementia”, wandering”, or “terminology.” Four members of the team participated in screening, reviewing titles, abstracts, and full-text articles. Data was extracted and recorded in an Excel spreadsheet, and a fifth researcher reviewed the extracted data to confirm validity of the extraction. Results: The search identified 106 academic papers, predominantly originating from Great Britain (50%) and the United States of America (45.28%) The term “wandering” began to appear in publications in 1990 and has been increasing since then with different definitions, some even contradictory. The definitions fell into seven domains: aimless walking, normal routine/walking for pleasure, elopement, critical wandering, disorientation in spatial navigation, combination, and other. Conclusion: This scoping review identified that the term “wandering” remains unclear. Definitions across studies are contradictory, vague, and have both negative and positive connotations. With a demographic shift towards older populations and an increasing prevalence of dementia, it is critical to understand the importance of consistent terminology to potentially avoid further confusion, misinterpretation, and stigmatization.

Exploring the referential range of etymologically-related lexical pairs in the language of the Qur’an: A cognitive-semantic approach

The present study conducts a cognitive-semantic analysis of etymologically-related lexical pairs in the language of the Qur’an. Based on objective selection criteria, the lexical pair rīĥ (a singular form literally meaning wind) and riyāĥ (a plural form literally meaning winds) has been claimed to be representative of the final data set, which includes 20 lexical pairs. Building on the theoretical underpinnings of descriptive semantics and frame semantics, the analysis sought to fulfill three main objectives: (a) identifying the referential range of the pair rīĥ and riyāĥ and its central reference point; (b) explaining the way the historical and theological context helps to mark the connotations associated with each sense in the referential range; and (c) sorting the discourse functions communicated through the cognitive frame(s) evoked by such a lexical pair. Findings showed that the central cognitive frame of both lexical items is that of moving air. However, rīĥ has developed, through metaphorical extension, two other senses that are not applicable to riyāĥ: power/predominance and smell. Finally, both lexical items have been proven to have positive, negative, and neutral connotations that have been divinely manipulated to perform various discourse functions.

Social Representations of "Tinnitus" and "Health" among Individuals with Tinnitus Seeking Online Psychological Interventions.

(1) Objective: Social representations theory (SRT) is a body of theory within social psychology concerned with how individuals, groups, and communities collectively make sense of socially relevant or problematic issues, ideas, and practices. SRT has been increasingly sued in the area of health and disability. The current study examined the social representations of "tinnitus" and "health" among individuals with tinnitus who are seeking online psychological interventions. (2) Materials/Method: The data were gathered using a free association task about their "tinnitus" and "health" from 399 individuals with tinnitus. The data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative analyses methods. (3) Results: The responses resulted in 39 and 30 categories respectively, for "tinnitus" and "health". The most commonly occurring categories for tinnitus included: descriptions of tinnitus (18%), annoying (13.5%), persistent (8%), and distracting (5%). The most commonly occurring categories for health included: content (12%), conditions (8%), active (7%), take control (6%), and overweight (5%). The responses to tinnitus had predominantly negative connotations (i.e., 76.9%) whereas a larger proportion of responses toward their health was related to positive connotations (i.e., 46.4%). These frequently occurring items were also dominant in similarities analysis. Prototypical analysis of tinnitus responses identified categories horrible and bothersome to be key items in the central zone. The categories in central zone of health responses included: content, active, healthy, grateful, and overweight. (4) Conclusions: Individuals with tinnitus have very negative view of their tinnitus impacting their psychological status. Tinnitus management should focus on reducing the negative associations toward their tinnitus and strengthen the positive aspects related to their general health.

The Specific Features of Verbal Representation of the Concept of “Insularity” in British English

The humanities demonstrate increasing interest in research into the specific features of various cultures and mentalities and the connections between concepts and cultures. The article deals with the concept of “insularity” as an essential part of British culture. British mentality inevitably finds its linguistic manifestation in British English. The material for the analysis was the article “Brexit may spell the end of the tabloid version of Englishness. Can Labour redefine it?” by A. Beckett, which was published in the newspaper “The Guardian”. The author underlines the peculiarities of words which are part of verbal representation of the concept of “insularity” (positive or negative connotations). These lexical units are also noted to be labelled “disapproving” in authoritative monolingual dictionaries. The analysis of words which are part of linguistic representation of the concept of “insularity” helps us to draw a conclusion about the role the concept of “insularity” plays in British culture. It is highlighted that further research in the field would promote better understanding of British mentality and the peculiarities of British English.

“Model minorities” in the classroom? Positive evaluation bias towards Asian students and its consequences

The fast-growing demographic group of Asian Americans is often perceived as a “model minority.” This paper establishes empirical evidence of this stereotype in the context of education and then analyzes its consequences. We show that teachers rate Asian students’ academic skills more favorably than observationally similar White students in the same class, even after accounting for test performance and behavior. This contrasts with teachers’ lower likelihood of favoring Black and Hispanic students. Notably, teachers respond to the presence of any Asian student in the classroom by widening Black-White and Hispanic-White assessment gaps. This suggests that the “model minority” stereotype can negatively impact other minority groups despite its ostensibly positive connotation.

Тhe cultural concept GOLD/GOLDEN in the poetic works of A.S.Pushkin

The article presents the analysis of the poetic works of A.S. Pushkin in the aspect of using the linguocultural concept GOLD/GOLDEN in them. The relevant theoretical basis for the study of the term concept of this notion in cognitive and cultural terms is considered. The paper uses the methods of continuous sampling of factual material and the method of cognitive analysis. The stages of experimental research of the lingual embodiment of this concept in lexicography and in Pushkin's works are determined. The high frequency of this concept in the poetic texts of Alexander Pushkin determined the relevance of the study. The key word of the concept "gold" has both direct and figurative meaning in the studied texts. The paper analyzes the contexts illustrating both types of values. Analysis of the contextual figurative meanings of the word "golden" made it possible to describe the features of creating positive and negative connotations, to convey the variety of presentation of color lexemes, to characterize their generalized symbolic meaning. Cases of expanding the semantics of color designation, its figurative use, when the color adjective becomes multifaceted and ambiguous, are revealed. Our study allows us to conclude that the concept of GOLD / GOLD, verbalized in the poetic work of A.S. Pushkin, makes a significant contribution to the creation of a generally positive, vibrant atmosphere of his poetry. Key words: Russian poetry, cultural concept, gold, symbol, color image, color semantics.

How Far Does the Diverse Economies Approach Take Us?

How Far Does the Diverse Economies Approach Take Us?

The Communication Presentation of Barack Obama Public Speaking Style

The main idea of this research is to analyse the English modals in Obama's speech semantically. The modal auxiliaries selected for analysis include (Will, Would, Can, Could, and Should). All the modal auxiliaries are interpreted based on the framework of Coates’ (1983) semantic clusters. The qualitative method of analysis is applied into this study. The modal auxiliary of ‘can’ signifying possibility functions to evoke positive emotions and connotations in the mind of all the listeners. It highlights the possibilities that are associated with people's hopes and wishes and reminds all citizens to look on the bright side, and the persuasion form is realized through the motivation on the Obama’s speech modal auxiliaries’ words.
 Keywords: Obama’s, Modality, Function, Speech, Public Speaking

Artificial Intelligence as a Disruptive Technology—A Systematic Literature Review

The greatest technological changes in our lives are predicted to be brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Together with the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and several others, AI is considered to be the most disruptive technology, and has impacted numerous sectors, such as healthcare (medicine), business, agriculture, education, and urban development. The present research aims to achieve the following: identify how disruptive technologies have evolved over time and their current acceptation (1); extract the most prominent disruptive technologies, besides AI, that are in use today (2); and elaborate on the domains that were impacted by AI and how this occurred (3). Based on a sentiment analysis of the titles and abstracts, the results reveal that the majority of recent publications have a positive connotation with regard to the disruptive impact of edge technologies, and that the most prominent examples (the top five) are AI, the IoT, blockchain, 5G, and 3D printing. The disruptive effects of AI technology are still changing how people interact in the corporate, consumer, and professional sectors, while 5G and other mobile technologies will become highly disruptive and will genuinely revolutionize the landscape in all sectors in the upcoming years.

Лингвокультурный аспект цветообозначений в языковой картине мира (на материале английского и русского языков)

The study of the color picture of the world is of interest in the linguistic and cultural aspect, since color is one of the most important means of emotional impact on the reader, color meanings express the author’s view of the world, and are also important for constructing a national picture of the world. There are some patterns that link color values in different cultures of the world. It is worth noting that there are differences in color symbols in different languages. It depends on the historical past of the people, its geographical location, etc. Despite this, we trace some similarities using examples of phraseological units with elements of color designations. An important factor is that color has a psychophysiological effect on a person. In Russian and English, “red” has a positive connotation to a greater extent. This is their common feature, although in both languages there are more or less negative characteristics of this color. The similarity can also be seen in phraseological units with the color component. There are quite a lot of equivalents in both Russian and English. Along with the common symbolic features that still prevail, there are also distinctive features that are associated with Russian and English history and culture.

Is Italian a Sexist Language? “Nomina Agentis” and the So-called Overextended Masculine

Italian is often accused of being a sexist language because the masculine form always prevails; feminine names are always a minority (compared to the masculine ones); very often, one word, used in the masculine form, has a positive connotation, but the same word, in the feminine, has a negative one. There are many kinds of sexism (linguistic, behavioural, political, implicit, and criminal) as well as many ways it can be conveyed in the real world. This paper will focus on the linguistic form. The Italian language makes extensive use of the so-called “maschile sovraesteso” or “universale” (overextended or universal masculine). In sentences where the nouns are all masculine or all feminine, the adjective keeps the same gender in the plural form. However, if nouns have different genders, the adjective follows the masculine plural form. For example: “Ho fatto amicizia con un ragazzo ed una ragazza spagnoli” (I made friends with a guy and a girl, both Spanish). “Spagnoli” is the Italian adjective for Spanish used in the plural masculine form. The gender does not change even if there are five girls and only one guy. The choice for the masculine plural form does not depend on the numerical majority. To prefer the masculine plural form in case of the coexistence of masculine and feminine singular nouns is discriminatory. Using the so-called universal masculine is a sexist way to write Italian.