Public Speech Research Articles

Отношение носителей русского языка к его нормам: динамический аспект

Different historical periods are characterized by different attitudes of native speakers of the Russian language to its norms. Russian history during the Soviet period was marked by the struggle for the purity and correctness of the Russian speech. The process of protecting the Russian language was filled with deep ideological meaning, since the Russian language acts as a single means of communication for the multinational population of the USSR. The period of perestroika is characterized by the struggle against Soviet officialese, which took the form of the democratization and vulgarization of speech, the abolition of censorship in the media. This resulted in a stream of substandard and non-literary vocabulary penetrating into public speech, a special literary-jargonizing type of speech culture being formed in the journalistic environment. The second and third decades of the 21st century demonstrate an easy attitude of native speakers of the Russian language to its norms, the decreasing concern about the form of thought expression, the active penetration of colloquial speech into other spheres of communication. Digitalization of communication leads to a decrease in the level of speech culture, the development of clip thinking and the predominance of “point” attention (this is especially noticeable among adolescents and young people). Globalization of the most important spheres of society, on the one hand, contributes to the expansion of the morphemic and lexical repertoire of the Russian language, the development of the meanings of its lexemes, on the other hand, it brings about a fashion for anglicisms and a focus on foreign speech culture. Nowadays, protecting Russian literary language standards is becoming one of the most important national tasks; finding an effective solution will help preserve the Russian culture.

Decoding imagined speech with delay differential analysis.

Speech decoding from non-invasive EEG signals can achieve relatively high accuracy (70-80%) for strictly delimited classification tasks, but for more complex tasks non-invasive speech decoding typically yields a 20-50% classification accuracy. However, decoder generalization, or how well algorithms perform objectively across datasets, is complicated by the small size and heterogeneity of existing EEG datasets. Furthermore, the limited availability of open access code hampers a comparison between methods. This study explores the application of a novel non-linear method for signal processing, delay differential analysis (DDA), to speech decoding. We provide a systematic evaluation of its performance on two public imagined speech decoding datasets relative to all publicly available deep learning methods. The results support DDA as a compelling alternative or complementary approach to deep learning methods for speech decoding. DDA is a fast and efficient time-domain open-source method that fits data using only few strong features and does not require extensive preprocessing.

New Political Phraseology in Bulgarian Public Speech

This text explores the potential for updating the phraseological fund of the Bulgarian language in the Bulgarian public discourse and examines the influence of different types of updates on the specifics of the functioning of the given phraseological units in public speech. The most visible updates are those that clearly introduce new elements into the meaning of the original sustained phrase, but at the same time retain the obvious connection to the original language unit. Phraseological units, which are generally distinguished by semantic indivisibility, stability of their lexical composition, invariable structure, imagery, emotionality and expressiveness, are subject to dynamic changes occurring in Bulgarian language in recent years. We direct our interest to stable expressions, in the composition of which a new component appears as a manifestation of lexical dynamics, which replaces an already established one, or an additional element appears in the structure of a phraseology, i.e. our attention will be directed mainly to the so-called lexical updates of the phraseological fund. In the text, we trace the change (structural and semantic) in a number of phraseological units in the Bulgarian language, in which the entry of the lexical component kopeyka is observed. The excerpted material is from two corpora – CLASSLA-web.bg (Bulgarian web) and the corpus of parliamentary speech ParlaMint corpus: https://www.clarin.si/ske/#concordance. The examples extracted from the corpora are relevant for tracking the changes we are interested in in the phraseological fund of the modern Bulgarian language.

Hate Speech in American Political Discourse: A Functional-Linguistic Analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyse how the concept of hatred is represented in American political discourse. The problem of intensified hate speech requires thorough linguistic investigation as political discourse is becoming more openly conflictual. The empirical material of this study comprises public speeches by American politicians, politically themed analytical articles in the press, and posts and statements of politicians in social networks. The main method used in the analysis is the functionallinguistic analysis of discourse. The author analyses confrontational communicative tactics, e.g. discrediting, scorn, insult, accusation, mockery, etc. The objects (or victims) of such rhetoric are political opponents of the subject of speech, who may have different points of view, religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds and social status. Hate speech, which is an extreme form of how the concept of hatred can be verbalized, may be directed against confessional and ethnical groups. The paper places a special emphasis on the communicative goals and intentions of discourse participants who resort to hate speech. Usually it is the desire of the subject of speech to publicly demonstrate disrespect, mock, belittle the authority of opponents and favourably represent oneself in the eyes of the audience. The rhetoric of hatred comprises such typical means as negative and offensive epithets and metaphors; hyperbolic, comparative, rhetorical and lexical constructions with the pragmatical meaning of irony. In situations when the subjects of speech emphasize the difference between them and their opponents (national, religious, social etc.), the functional fields of the concept of hatred and the “in-group/out-group” concept may overlap. In these cases, the communicative goal of the speaker is to alienate political opponents and emphasize their dissidence in a negative way.

Taking sides: Corporate social responsibility and political ideology

AbstractIn the United States and other countries, large private firms are increasingly more likely to take public political stances on controversial issues. Firms behave as ideological actors when they take sides in large public debates on social and economic issues. These stances may involve public speech, changes in the terms of service, or in internal reorganization and intrafirm actions. Despite the increase in firms' political actions, firms' ideological orientations remain unexamined. To answer this question, we collect corporate social responsibility statements from Fortune 1000 firms. Using semisupervised topic models, we identify topics that reflect stances on environmental and social issues. We then examine if firms are more likely to take stances on political issues due to pragmatic or ideological factors. We find that while pragmatic considerations play a role, firms' political stances are more driven by the ideological orientation of employees and managers. This research contributes a novel measure of firm ideology and sheds new light on the determinants of corporate political activity.

Methodological potential of digital educational resources in the aspect of teaching students public foreign language speech

Methodological potential of digital educational resources in the aspect of teaching students public foreign language speech

Semiotic Functions of Indexicality

By exploring how indexical signals interact with other semiotic components, as well as how social context affects their interpretation, this study fills a research gap and examines the complex function that these signs play in influencing meaning-making within communication. The present study employed theme analysis to look at public speeches, social media posts, and ads that promoted environmental awareness and community involvement. Themes about social action and environmental responsibility evolved, along with the identification of indexical signals. A comparative examination showed that although basic themes were shared across societies, how particular indications were interpreted differed according to social and cultural situations. Indexical signals interact with other semiotic components to create meaning, as demonstrated by semiotic analysis. This study underscores the significance of indexicality in communicating complex concepts and the necessity of employing culturally sensitive communication techniques. These results might be useful in developing messages that effectively encourage global community involvement and environmental awareness.

The Features of René Lévesque’s Political Discourse in the Context of the Struggle for Quebec Identity

This article considers the political discourse of René Lévesque (1922–1987) in the context of his fight for Quebec identity. In our opinion, he was the most brilliant Quebec leader during the second half of the twentieth century. A selection of his public speeches and most notable interviews from the work La voix de René Lévesque (Québec 2002) were used as the source material for analysis. As a media and mass communication researcher, the author does not aspire solely to linguistic analysis. We consider René Lévesque’s political discourse in view of his ability to communicate with different audiences supporting Quebec identity. It was therefore vital to determine who these target audiences were and highlight the principal methods employed by Lévesque to influence them. The speeches of Lévesque the politician reflect his experience as a TV journalist (the habit of presenting information in spoken, rather than in written, form), and this is where some of its “coarseness” – the repetition of individual words and phrases, the use of interjections, the absence of stylistic excesses, etc. – comes from. One of the conclusions made is that all of Lévesque’s public speeches demonstrate, step by step, his consistent programme for preserving Quebec identity in its English environment (the change of self-designation into “Québécois (Quebecers)”; the proclamation of French as the only language of the province; the attempt to secure the support of France, its former metropole; referendum on province independence; declining the federal offer to sign “patriated” Canadian Constitution without recognizing Quebec as “a distinct society” and others). However, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, his federal opponent, considered René Lévesque an ambitious person, who wanted to split united Canada. Unfortunately, La voix de René Lévesque did not include the internal Parti Québécois discussions on the province’s independence, which were the reason he abandoned the Parti Québécois and his post of Prime Minister of Quebec. The author argues that political discourse of René Lévesque was a form of social action, which served as a prerequisite for recognizing the Parti Québécois Nation by the Parliament of Canada in 2006. Today, the Parti Québécois continues to successfully build on and develop René Lévesque’s political legacy, and the issue of Quebec’s independence is still on its agenda. The research shows that further research is needed on the political discourse of the leaders of small nations, people like René Lévesque. The context of the modern world gives us many other similar regional situations.Transl.: Ovcharenko E. F. 2022. The Features of René Lévesque’s Political Discourse in the Context of the Struggle for Quebec Identity. Linguistics & Polyglot Studies. 8(2). P. 112–125. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24833/2410-2423-2022-2-31-112-125

Gaming Equity: Women, Videogame Companies, and Public Discourse

It is by now well documented and widely acknowledged that the videogame industry has since its inception been a bastion of hegemonic masculinity. Only more recently, however, with events like Gamergate, #metoo, and the public accusations of workplace toxicity and sexism brought against prominent AAA giants like Riot and Activision Blizzard King, have game companies initiated policies and processes for change—or at least what looks like change, based on company websites and interviews with female employees. Does this mean women are being heard, at last? These are turbulent times for the industry, with legal actions, policy shifts, personal callings-out and billion-dollar corporate mergers and restructurings. What has changed and what is changing for women in games? How, and by whom, is that change being made? This paper begins with a closer look at what women have said since these events, about their experiences, expectations and frustrations working in the industry. Has the public scrutiny turned upon the games industry, post-gamergate and beyond influenced what women have to say about their conditions and experiences working in games? Are they better supported in taking the risks and shouldering the costs of speaking up? What workplace changes in policy or practice may have resulted from women giving public voice to their experiences? Building upon an earlier study of public speech by women about their experiences in the videogames industry (de Castell & Skardzius, 2019), this study both updates and extends its database, and deepens its analysis, by looking explicitly at a speech event’s context of elicitation: who elicits the “event” of public speech, on what topics, with what purpose? Through that dialogical lens we can make more visible and explicit how minority self-representation and marginalized identities and voices are deployed to bolster business as usual, even as they are still expected to lead the charges and fight the battles for a just and inclusive working life in games.

Sarcasm or sexism? Media framing of Duterte’s misogynistic speeches

ABSTRACT This article examines the media framing of authoritarian leaders’ misogynistic speeches from the case of former President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. Existing literature has discussed Duterte’s strategic use of misogynistic language and women’s responses to his speeches, but little research has examined how the news media framed his behavior. We conduct a qualitative media content analysis of 265 reports from seven domestic news media outlets about three incidents of Duterte’s public speeches: fantasizing about raping an Australian missionary woman, threatening to attack female rebel soldiers’ vaginas, and denying women’s eligibility for the presidency. We find that the news media tends to underreport the incidents despite variations across different media. In particular, the media tends to frame Duterte’s speeches as (1) feminist issues rather than human rights issues, (2) sarcastic jokes rather than genuine misogyny, and (3) individual deviation rather than structural problems. As the first systematic study of variations in news reports on Duterte’s misogynistic speeches, this article expands the literature on media representations of political leaders’ misogynistic behavior in consideration of local contexts from non-Western societies.

Пресуппозиции и аксиосфера лидера в профессиональном и медийном дискурсах

The article examines the problem of modern leadership as a socially significant phenomenon caused, firstly, by the importance of finding effective speech tools for the persistence of discourse and, secondly, by the need to establish value parameters. This problem is solved by analyzing the discursive practices of the leadership personality. The material for the analysis was the recordings of psychological trainings devoted to the formation of leadership qualities in clients, as well as public speeches by business leaders, famous creative figures, politicians, and athletes. In line with the cognitive-discursive methodology based on the recognition of axiological parameters of discourse that determine cognition, the authors identified value components that are represented as “secrets of success” and as part of the presuppositional foundation of the leader’s personality. It was found that the qualities of the discursive personality of the leader belong to the highest level of the cognitive structure of the personality – its “orientation”, which includes the value orientations of the subjects focused on their goals, plans and dreams, hardworking, open to everything new and considering creative activity for the benefit of society as their mission. The axioms of consciousness are attitudes that allow to maintain faith in success with strong-willed efforts during stressful periods or periods of uncertainty, as well as to maintain the necessary level of optimism. Thus, we can talk about the possibility of identifying a special type of verbal activity of the leader – a linguistic personality that activates its cognitive-linguistic potential in a particular communicative situation.

Attitudinal Analysis of Business Executive’s Public Speeches in English and Central Kurdish

Attitudinal Analysis of Business Executive’s Public Speeches in English and Central Kurdish

Strategies for Anticipating Speech Production Errors in the Public Speaking Context: Psycholinguistic Analysis and Improving Public Speaking Ability

This research explores and analyzes various aspects related to public speaking and speech production errors in real life contexts. Through a literature review, this research explains the types of speech production errors, their causes, and strategies to anticipate these errors. This research also links speech production errors with public speaking, highlighting the importance of psycholinguistic understanding in this regard. The research results show that anticipating speech production errors is the key to improving public speaking skills. Anticipation strategies include preparing the topic well, maintaining composure, focusing, and using familiar vocabulary. Speech production errors can disrupt the flow of a presentation, so a deep understanding of these aspects is very important in public speaking.

The Use of Persuasive Strategies In Academic Discourse

As the key component of success and achievement, persuasive strategies are used in academic discourse. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how persuasive strategies are employed in academic discourse for achieving development and success. In this research, a mixed-method is used to collect data, and the researcher adopted Connor and Lauer's (1985) theory to analyze the data. The data of this paper consists of three public academic speeches, delivered on the same occasion 'Graduation Ceremony' by the rectors of three top universities; Dr Muslih Mustafa previous president of Soran University, Dr Bruce W. Ferguson president of American University of Sulaimani and Dr Dawood Sulaiman Atrushi president of Duhok University, in Kurdistan Region, ranked as first, second and third, according to UniRank (2021). Despite facing some challenges, the findings of this study demonstrated that the three rectors have a positive attitude towards the use of persuasive strategies. That is, they employed persuasive strategies, but they treated them differently in their speeches, as significant tools for encouraging their university staff to do more research with high quality and having considerable citations which in turn resulted in having topped the identified universities via meeting the UniRank selection criteria during the academic year of 2020-2021.

Towards a ‘synergy’ of text mining and critical discourse analysis: a corpus-assisted discourse study of imagining China in Hong Kong political discourse

Abstract This study proposes to incorporate text mining into critical discourse analysis (CDA) to give a corpus-assisted discourse study of the particular ways of imagining Hong Kong’s relations to China in the public speeches of three former Chief Executives in the two decades after its handover. With the computer-assisted text-mining tool KH Coder, this study combines the methods of quantitative text mining and qualitative discourse analysis to examine their preferential ways of imagining China at different levels of discourse: (1) topics/themes, (2) discursive strategies, and (3) linguistic means and realizations. It generates illuminating findings concerning their preferential ways of imagining Hong Kong’s relations to China as well as the analytic potential of incorporating text mining into CDA. It is expected that it can lead to more studies towards this endeavour.

Юрислингвистика в Беларуси: специфика и перспективы развития

The article is aimed at research of the current state of legal linguistics as a branch of linguistics in the Republic of Belarus, which is characterized by polyparadigmality and the formation of its own methodological system. The purpose of the scientific work is to determine the specifics of legal linguistics in Belarus and outline a range of promising areas that require fundamental development. The material for the study was the scientific works of Western and Russian scientists who had the greatest influence on the formation of the subject area of legal linguistics. The methodology of the research included general scientific methods of generalization and systematization, as well as descriptive, analytical and comparative methods.The specifics of the subject area of scientific research is manifested in all spheres of legal linguistics developing in Belarus. For example, within the framework of linguistic controlling, the text of a legal act is evaluated for compliance with the norms of both Russian and Belarusian literary languages. Judicial rhetoric defines the requirements for the range of subjects of public speeches in accordance with the procedural legislation. In line with legal terminology, the unique units of the terminological system of Belarusian law are studied. Within the framework of linguistic expertise, tools are being developed that allow for the proper correlation of signs of speech offense, the composition of which is reflected in the Belarusian legislation, with appropriate linguistic markers.The conducted research shows that the development of Western and Russian scientists had a significant impact on the formation of the subject area of domestic legal linguistics, however, some areas of the integrative industry still have not found proper development. Promising areas for the development of legal linguistics in Belarus are the establishment of the authorship of the text, the fight against plagiarism, the study of trademarks (service marks) and advertising slogans for the coincidence of designations.

The Foreign Policy of the President of Lithuania towards Poland in the context of security in 2019–2023

ObjectivesThe aim of this article is to analyse the Lithuanian foreign policy pursued by the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausda, towards Poland in the years 2019–2023 and to attempt to assess the main directions of its activities in this aspect.MethodsThe use of scientific publications, expert reports, official statements, public speeches and previously published interviews in the Lithuanian or foreign press.Resultsl. Firstly, the actions of President Nausėda and Duda resulted in the mobilization of other countries to act on behalf of Ukraine and the development of a common position on further actions against the Kremlin in the form of sanctions; 2. Secondly, thanks to the diplomatic means of Nausėda, Lithuania. Poland gradually freed itself from the Russian energy dictatorship, contributing to the political independence of the region; 3. Thirdly, thanks to the same diplomatic measures of Nausėda and Duda, during the NATO summit in Vilnius in 2023, an agreement was reached on the new regional defence plans of the Alliance, fully meeting the expectations of the Baltic states and Poland.ConclusionsThe four years of Nausėda's presidency were full of challenges, including: extraordinary circumstances related to the migration crisis as a hybrid attack by the Belarusian regime in 2021, Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2022 or the energy price crisis in 2021–2022 and the stationing of the Wagner group in Belarus, which prompted Nausėda to look for new directions in Lithuanian foreign policy - which explains the search for a new path with the countries of the region, especially Poland.

Phraseologigal Units with an Evaluative Component in Public Speech of Modern Politicians

Under the conditions of modern realities, among linguists, there exists an interestingness in studying political texts. By transmitting the abundant information to millions of people, it is possible to have a significant impact not only on public opinion, but also to influence everyday life, relationships between individuals, and shape the behavior of a society. Phraseological units functioning in political communication are able to express a thought most vividly, carry an evaluative meaning, and have a manipulative effect on an addressee. The relevance of the study is due to the relatively weak coverage of studies of phraseology as a component of the political discursive and communicative space based on the comparative material of speeches by Russian and Kazakh politicians. The purpose of this study is to examine the phraseological units of public speech, containing an evaluative component, delivered by politicians of the two countries. The study uses a continuous sampling technique, content analysis, as well as a descriptive and analytical method. The result of the study is an analysis of distinctive features, a comparison of the appliance of political phraseology in the political space of Russia and Kazakhstan. However, it should be noted that there has not been formed a unified classification of evaluative phraseological units in political discourse. The authors of the article distinguish the regularity of separating phraseological units into negative and positive contexts, and political phraseology is most often provided in the form of the opposition good - bad // self - other . Special attention is drawn to the analysis of proverbs and sayings in political speech. The authors marked the tendency self - other opposition in political speech on a rigid axiological basis, which is associated with the opposition of good - bad . In the course of the study, we noted that Kazakh politicians are less likely to turn to the categorical assessment of others, and do not use specific subjects of political activity as opponents. The description of the methods of transformation of phraseological units on the material of public speeches makes it possible for the addressee to formulate a point of view on any subject or phenomenon, evaluate it or give it a new stylistic nuance.

Planting the Republic: State Regulation of the Discourse on Food Shortages in Public Communication in Early Czechoslovakia (1918–21)

Abstract Czechoslovakia as a victorious, yet still fragile post-imperial state, considered censorship and state propaganda to be a necessary tool to secure its legitimacy at home and abroad. From the very beginning, Czechoslovakia defined itself as a democracy with freedom of speech as its basic principle, yet at the same time, it had to deal with inner fragility and outer vulnerabilities. The strategic agenda of people's nutrition, which was closely associated with the perceived competence of state institutions, serves as a litmus test for the state's regulation of press and public speech and the implementation of republican practices and acceptable limits on public discourse. This study analyzes how the new republican state regulated information on food supply shortcomings in the press and at public gatherings. It argues that Czechoslovakia maintained the prewar Habsburg practices of censorship; however, instead of the vaguely defined public interest of the multinational monarchy, it was now used to protect the public interest of “the national state of the Czechoslovaks.” This study analyzes how the government thought about the consistency of its communication during the postwar (supply) crisis, and thus also options of how to shape a clear and positive brand of the state.

Functional-Systematic forms in Public Speeches of Politicians

Functional-Systematic forms in Public Speeches of Politicians