Rational Discourse Research Articles

Communicating intergenerational justice and climate change: a study of youth-generated environmental discourses

Abstract Awareness of climate change as an intergenerational issue with inequitable risk burden for younger generations is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, youth activists have already managed to come to occupy a meaningful role in climate advocacy. Accepting the invitation to search for positive new discourses to live by, this paper applies a positive discourse analytical lens to the study of the online discourses produced by the youth climate activists of Generation Climate Europe (GCE), the largest coalition of youth-led networks on climate and environmental issues at the European level, examining how GCE newsletters and podcasts use discursive strategies and multimodal resources to communicate their message. The (corpus-assisted) positive discourse analysis of this GCE-produced content revealed that the youth activists designed a complex virtual space brimming with cross-references, intertextuality, and options for its audience that projected an identity for the coalition as a productive, solution-oriented, and agentive organization. The discourses produced by GCE were carefully tailored to a specific interpretive community and they aimed to both claim and impart authority and expertise. GCE’s interactional practices strove to generate wiggle room to resist the status quo and advocate for critical issues such as intergenerational justice and institutional transparency. In disclosing these results, the authors hope to have contributed to understandings of how sustainable climate advocacy is currently being enacted by youth within digital communication across platforms.

Dismantle the monster: teachers, parents, and others position themselves figuratively vis-à-vis the Israeli education system in times of crisis

ABSTRACT This article explores the characteristics of naturalistic digital forum conversations, focusing on the Israeli education system in times of crisis. The existing professional literature suggests that (1) There have been numerous attempts to change this system, but they have not been successful; (2) Discourse analysts have often used micro and macrolevels of analysis to explore professional life and the construction of individual or group positioning in digital discourse; (3) Figurative language (e.g. metaphors, similes and metonymies) often organises the essence of the text. This article shows that the naturalistic digital forum enabled the study’s participants (teachers, parents, and others who care about education) to vent their feelings and thoughts, as well as to use organising figurative language to highlight how the teachers positioned themselves and how they were positioned by the parents. Finally, the article underscores the need to bring about a radical change in the Israeli education system.

‘Agency, voice and choice’: reflecting on assisted reproductive technologies through select Indian films

ABSTRACT The article examines the contested aspects of neoliberalism through cinematic narratives, addressing the issue of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in India, a debated subject in socio-legal spheres. Existing literature extensively discusses the biopolitical and bioethical dimensions of commercialization and commodification, particularly concerning organ, egg, sperm donations, and gestational commercial surrogacy. This research endeavors to scrutinise and appraise the ethical quandaries emanating from the technological transformation of motherhood, as portrayed in fictional representations. These narratives shed light on the difficult situations faced by surrogates and egg donors, who are often driven by familial or socio-economic pressures to provide their reproductive services. Consequently, they become commodified within the context of India's In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) industry. Ergo, through the films I Am (2010) and Mimi (2021), this article probes into the intertwining socioeconomic situations of the large percentage of infertile women and claims that the positive discourse around the ‘new Indian women’ is inherently diluted and undermined. Additionally, the research emphasizes that ART—and more importantly, a new agency for single women—is reiterated within the political and socio-historical contexts of the films discussed.

Ideological Positioning in War Discourse: A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Selected American and Syrian Political Speeches on the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War

Ideological Positioning in War Discourse: A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Selected American and Syrian Political Speeches on the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War

(Im)Possibilities of Development: Women and the Paradox of Growth in the Malaysian Novel

Abstract: Though women figure prominently in the discourses of postcolonial nations that concern development, these discourses position women in a way that vacillates between tradition, which needs to be preserved, and modernization, essential for "catching up" to the developed or so-called first world. This article approaches the ambivalence surrounding the question of women and development through the lens of literature. It turns to two turn-of-the-century novels, Chuah Guat Eng's Echoes of Silence (1994) and Yang-May Ooi's The Flame Tree (1998), to problematize the depiction of the "Third World" woman and development in colonial and postcolonial Malaysia. The article explores the coloniality embedded within narratives of growth of the women protagonists against the backdrop of the developing nation—and highlights when the conditions for women underwent far-reaching changes, for instance, at the end of colonial rule, when women became a part of an independent social and political nation, and persistent structures of marginalization and discrimination resulted in decreased opportunities for women. The article's focus on Malaysian Chinese writers foregrounds the colonial constructions of race and gender that Malaysia inherited from the colonizers, which continues to shape the lives of postcolonial subjects. The two novels provide a glimpse of the problems underlying the developmental agendas in postcolonial nations and call for a shift in the understanding of development—from a prescriptive sense of "how it should be for the third-world women" to a consideration of national and global frameworks of development that limit the choices and agency of women.

Gender and the public realm in Nigeria: Hannah Arendt‘s perspective

Hannah Arendt, renowned for her insights into political philosophy, particularly in "The Human Condition" and "On Revolution", delineates the dichotomy between the public and private realms. In her analysis, the public sphere represents a space of political agency and rational discourse, crucial for the realization of human freedom and equality. Conversely, the private realm, characterized by necessity and domesticity, traditionally excludes women from active participation in public affairs. This study explores Arendt's theories to analyze gender exclusion in Nigeria's public realm. Historically, Nigerian women have faced systemic marginalization, confined to the private sphere, hindering their political participation. This research aims to evaluate women's representation in Nigerian politics, the impact of colonial and post-colonial policies, and the role of patriarchal structures. Integrating Arendt's framework with gender theory and social exclusion, the study underscores the need for constitutional amendments and cultural shifts to enhance women's political agency. This research proposes multifaceted solutions. These include legislative reforms to promote gender equality, educational initiatives to empower women politically, and cultural shifts to challenge stereotypes and biases against women in leadership roles. Such interventions are crucial for dismantling existing barriers and fostering a more inclusive public sphere where women's voices are heard and their contributions are valued. This research uniquely applies Arendt’s political theory to the contemporary issue of gender exclusion in Nigerian politics, providing a comprehensive analysis that links historical, cultural, and structural factors. It offers actionable recommendations to improve women's political representation and participation, fostering women's education, political advocacy, and cultural change to achieve a more egalitarian society.

Gendering, Jeering, and COVID-19: A Feminist Critique of Social Media Humor

This study aims to shed light on the stereotypical gender identities presented in the online humor regarding Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Pakistan. To uncover gender stereotypes, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis provided a theoretical background for this study.The data consisted of 42 posts from social media (Facebook and WhatsApp)that were collected through purposive quota sampling during the lockdown period in Pakistan. These posts were divided into twleve thematic categories. A culturematic content analysis of the posted jokes revealed that Corona related social media humor is unanimously dedicated to creating a face-threatening image of females, especially wives. This article argues that wives are being constructed as callous, impatient, and materialistic beings through corona joke-posts.The study provides an insight into how jokes are ascribing gender identities of women, especially wives in a destructive persona.Such consistent negative representation of particular identities may result in severe emotional and psychological effects on both genders and increased marital conflicts. The study suggests that there should be balanced and positive discourses onmedia and other institutions to foster positive attitudes towards gender and marital identities in Pakistani society in specific and the world over in general.

Discourse Implementation of “New Sincerity” in Communicative Space of Media

The article represents the peculiarities of “new sincerity” discursive representation in a media text. The research into this phenomenon from sociocultural angle presupposes conducting a multifaceted analysis, in particular, in communicative-and-cognitive and communicative-and-discursive perspectives. It is shown that the willingness of a linguistic personality to share their own thoughts and feelings in the public space is manifested in the generation of media discourse of “new sincerity”. The referential aspects of the “new sincerity” are revealed. The author establishes a repertoire of denotative-identifying reference (concrete, abstract referents, referent event), and a set of subject-marked text reference (emotive, evaluative referents). The explication of “new sincerity” is proved to become a tool of linguistic creative activity, as a result of which discourse scenarios are generated. They are focused on influencing the addressee (explication of personal significance, hypersensitivity). The macrostructural positions of the radio discourse of the “new sincerity” are revealed: lead, detailing, evaluative, emotionally oriented parts. Thematic dominants that form the discursive field of “new sincerity” are identified: “everyday life”, “life’s troubles”, “demonstration of weaknesses, inability”, “personal achievements and failures”, “personal preferences, secrets, qualities, interests, habits”, “fears and phobias”, “desires and dreams”, “details of personal life”. The television and radio discourses are rich in emotionally and personally oriented topics and concepts of sincerity, which leads to a change in the status of sincerity and sensitivity from peripheral phenomena to discourse-forming ones. It determines significant functional, qualitative changes in television and radio discourse.

Характеристика свободи волі працівника і роботодавця при зміні трудового договору під кутом комунікативної раціональності

The article aims to characterize the freedom of will of the employee and the employer when changing the employment contract from the perspective of communicative rationality. The author notes that the employee’s labor process during the exercise of his right to work at the employer’s enterprise, institution, or organization inevitably involves communication between the parties to the employment contract. Attention is focused on the development of legal regulation of relations with the realization of the right to work, which, with the development of society, was able to cover numerous collectives, uniting workers, and using work as a means of joint activity. It is proven that by being equal at the stage of concluding an employment contract and freely expressing their will, the employee and the employer do not lose this equality and this right to be in a legal relationship according to their will. This morality has acquired normativity thanks to the design of the modern content of the norm of Article 32 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine. It is concluded that the communication of the parties to the employment contract, which takes place during the production process, allows the employee and the employer to decide on further actions, to understand what is needed both to continue the efficiency of the enterprise and to open a new potential of these relations, and to direct the change of the employment contract precisely to it. Due to the manifestation of the free will of the parties to the employment contract, the boundaries of which are defined by the norms of the current legislation, built considering the moral-normative substance, identification of one’s place in the given legal relationship or outside of it for the nearest period takes place. The apparent meaning of the agreement as an agreement of the parties, which is the basis of the employment contract, determines the directions and algorithms for possible changes to the latter: with the consent of both parties, in the case of agreement of the conditions covered by the content of the employment contract, but not against the will of the other party, forcibly. Keywords: freedom of will of the parties to the employment contract; change of employment contract, employee, employer, labor relations, work, labor contract, parties of labor contract, transfer, transfer, change of essential working conditions, right to work.

Rationalising the Digital Public Sphere

This paper explores the suitability of Jürgen Habermas' concepts about the rationality of communicative actions in relation to the Internet and social media. The paper investigates the contemporary digital realm, analysing whether it functions as an expansion of the public sphere classic conceptualised by Habermas, with the aim of improving the level of rational communication. To accomplish this, the paper analyses the characteristics of the digital era, exploring Habermas's stance on social media and contemporary media. The paper analyses Habermas's concepts about the rationality of communication and supports the arguments with relevant literature to investigate the impact of current communication tools, including the Internet and its applications, on enhancing the quality of rational discourse. In order to accomplish this, it is important to thoroughly examine the key subjects pertaining to Habermas's philosophy of communication and assess its relevance to the modern virtual public sphere.

Influential factors on academics’ digital hoarding behaviours: an exploratory PLS-SEM research

ABSTRACT The transition to digital mediums among instructors, who are instrumental in shaping the higher education, streamlines and diversifies the instructional methodologies. Yet, it concurrently elevates the concern of digital hoarding behaviours to a prominent position in scholarly discourse. In view of digital hoarding’s detrimental outcomes, the current study initially undertook a descriptive scrutiny of the digital hoarding behaviours among academics, subsequently correlating these tendencies with diverse factors. In addition, the study formulated and empirically tested a theoretical framework for understanding digital hoarding predicated on the employment of digital resources in academia. The research engaged 213 academicians voluntarily, with empirical evidence substantiating 13 of the 27 postulated hypotheses. The data indicated a predominant accumulation of text files among academics, alongside a tendency towards digital hoarding that surpasses the average. The outcomes of the PLS-SEM analysis, conducted to elucidate the justifications for digital hoarding, suggest that the level of experience of academics and the obstacles to digital data elimination exert a profound influence. It is imperative for the cultivation of a robust digitalisation culture within institutions, as well as the formulation and execution of data governance strategies, to involve all stakeholders, especially those within the academic sphere.

‘Hosting refugees is the most rewarding experience’: migrant identity and affective positioning in curated NGO stories

ABSTRACT This study explores positive migrant storytelling in non-governmental organizations’ advocacy campaigns. We focus on the practices and implications of leveraging storytelling towards charity organizations’ institutional goals. Drawing upon critical discourse studies and narrative studies, we propose a critical storytelling approach that pays attention to the specific nature of storytelling as a discourse practice in itself. We focus on a UNHCR human-interest story of refugee displacement and subsequent integration into the UK. We employ the heuristic concept of positioning that calls for analysis at different, though interrelated levels of narrative activity, to explore how affect is mobilized and the specific identity categories and affect types that are created for migrants and their hosts. We then situate these identity positions in wider dominant discourses of migrant integration. We show that the story foregrounds emblematic refugees, worthy of hosts’ support as well as relationships of dependence between migrants and the host society as requisites to successful integration. We argue that the ways in which an individual refugee story gets mobilized as an exemplary story reveals canonized forms of positive migrant storytelling emerging in the UK context that end up invoking dominant power asymmetries in relation to migration and British integration.

Adapting Habermas’ construct of communicative rationality into a framework for analyzing students’ statistical literacy

This study argues that the works of philosopher Jürgen Habermas can provide useful directions for mathematics education research on statistical literacy. Recent studies on the critical demands posed by statistical information in media highlight the importance of the communicative component of statistical literacy, which involves students’ ability to react to statistical information. By adapting Habermas’ construct of communicative rationality into a framework for statistical literacy, a novel analytical tool is presented that can provide theoretical insights as well as in-depth empirical insights into students’ communication about statistical information. Central to the framework are the four validity claims of comprehensibility, truth, truthfulness, and rightness which interlocutors need to address to engage in statistical communication. The empirical usefulness of the framework is shown by presenting the results of a study that examined Grade 5 students’ responses to fictional arguments about the decline of Arctic sea ice. The Habermas-based framework not only reveals that complex evaluations of statistical arguments can take place even in Grade 5 but also shows that students’ evaluations vary greatly. Empirical results include a content-specific differentiation of validity claims through inductively identified sub-categories as well as a description of differences in the students’ uses of validity claims.

Research on the Construction of China's Image in the "Belt and Road" News Discourse Based on Positive Discourse Analysis

Research on the Construction of China's Image in the "Belt and Road" News Discourse Based on Positive Discourse Analysis

A Positive Discourse Analysis of Reports on “Gansu Earthquake” from the Perspective of Appraisal Theory

From the perspective of the appraisal theory, this paper conducts a positive discourse analysis on the news related to the "Gansu Earthquake", aiming to explore the characteristics of attitude resources’ distribution in relevant news and the characteristics of the national and social image constructed by them. The research results indicate that judgment resources appear most frequently among the reports, followed by appreciation resources, and finally, affect resources. These resources collectively construct a positive image of the country and society. It is united and helpful, efficient and responsible, people-oriented, actively responding to crises, and possessing social cohesion and emergency response capabilities. This study helps to enhance Chinese people's sense of identity and belonging to the country.

Subjektų nuotaikų, susijusių su kuro kainų padidėjimu, analizė Indonezijos internetinėje žiniasklaidoje, naudojant „Netray“ stebėjimo įrankį

Introduction. This study aims to find the sentiment in Indonesian online news media surrounding the government’s decision to increase fuel prices on September 3rd, 2022. Additionally, this study investigates the discourses of situational crisis communication strategies (SCCT) around the critical entities in each positive and negative sentiment. Method. The researchers conduct entity sentiment analysis by collecting news data, identifying the primary entities, and analyzing the sentiment using the Netray monitoring tool. The researchers employ critical discourse analysis to find how the media portrays the SCCT strategies surrounding the key entities in positive and negative sentiment news. Analysis. The dominant strategies for positive sentiment are rebuild and bolstering strategies, whereas for negative sentiment, diminish strategies prevail. Results. At the outset, the discourses reflect the strategies positively encompassing the primary entity “price” as the representation of government policy. The subsequent discourses depict the strategies negatively, focusing on “Pertamina” as responsible for the policy’s operational aspects. Positive discourses for “Pertamina” are consistently distributed, adeptly constructing a positive image in the news. The discourses highlight the “fishermen” as a prominent group to convey both positive and negative sentiments. Conclusions. The government and PT Pertamina should monitor the narrative surrounding primary entities as it can enhance or harm their reputation.

Political Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Rhetoric: A Linguistic Study of Cognition and Discursivity

To elucidate the deliberate use of Islamophobia in the political sphere, this study carefully examines Donald Trump's presidential campaign speeches using political discourse analysis (PDA). Trump’s Islamophobic position in political discourse has sparked a global discussion. His divisive political language during the 2016 elections contributed to an overall rise in incidents showing hatred for Muslims in the America by painting a poor picture of the Muslim world. The present study employs the theoretical framework of Van Dijk (1998) to examine the socio-political contexts of the discourse: participants’ insight (their goals, relevant knowledge and their belief system), group organization, power dynamics, as well as favourable and unfavourable perceptions of “us” against “them”. The purpose of the work is to highlight the processes by which Islamophobia is created, propagated, and normalised in public discourse. The nature of the current investigation involves heterogeneous techniques. It analyzes the text using PDA methods. Additionally, it computes word frequency to determine the proportion of positive to negative terms in Donald Trump's political speech. The analysis reveals that political leaders use language as a tool to serve their own political ends. This study focusses on understanding the complex interplay between language, power, and ideology in contemporary political communication. By shedding light on the pervasive influence of Islamophobia as a political strategy, it underscores the imperative of critically engaging with political discourse to challenge hegemonic narratives, and to foster all-inclusive and democratic societies. Political leaders frequently employ language as a weapon to further their agendas. This research work highlights the necessity of critically interacting with political discourse to challenge dominant narratives and promote inclusive and democratic societies by bringing to light the pervasive influence of Islamophobia as a political strategy.

“Be Yo’self. It’s Just a Show”: Performing Community through the Comic Grotesque in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Neighbors

Abstract Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Neighbors, which premiered at the Public Theater in 2010, explores the history of Black representation in the theater and, subsequently, the performance of Black identity in the US through its depiction of a complex and contradictory minstrelsy that cannot easily be classified as satirical or subversive. Generating what Jacobs-Jenkins has called “wrong laughter” through contradiction, ambiguity, and ambivalence, Neighbors engages the unstable space of the comic grotesque in order to open up pathways for something new to emerge. In this play, the figure of the clown – a grotesque outlaw who moves between, within, across, and beyond boundaries – becomes a key destabilizing figure as the grotesque body becomes a site for transformation through its contradictions, oozing inconsistency and excess, and allowing a potential space for regeneration and renewal through instability and failure when the stable and the rational have failed. In its embrace of clowning and the comic grotesque, Neighbors questions the stable notion of “community,” particularly in terms of racial and historical identity, and exposes the contradictions of closed constructions, creating a space beyond the boundaries of rational discourse that may begin to engage a more complex reality.

Discourse Analysis of COP28 News Reports from the Perspective of Attitude in Appraisal Theory

Conference of the Parties is the world’s largest and most important annual climate-related conference. Taking the attitude system of Martin’s Appraisal Theory as the theoretical framework, this study collects news reports on the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties from China Daily as the corpus. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of the corpus, this study explores the distribution pattern and realization of attitudinal resources in these news reports, aiming to reveal the attitude and stance of China Daily towards COP28. According to the study, attitudinal resources consist mostly of appreciation resources, which comprise over half of the total. Affect and judgement resources follow, with a greater proportion of positive than negative resources. Additionally, China Daily frequently adopts a positive viewpoint regarding COP28 through the use of attitudinal materials. This research aids in the efficient comprehension and expression of attitudes and positions in discourses.

The Dataveillance and Care in Teachers’ Work with Early Warning Systems

It has now become a widespread practice in both public and private organisations to analyse data collected through digital systems and tools. Datafication in schools has resulted in additional work tasks for teachers and an increased level of accountability on their part. One of these data-work-related tasks of teachers is to proactively recognize students who may be at risk of dropping out of school and help them. Machine learning holds significant promise in the creation of advanced early warning systems (EWS) for predicting such student dropouts. Such systems are in line with a positive discourse supporting teachers’ effective decision making and a deeper understanding of student behaviour. In contrast, critical scholars raise concerns about the impact of data-driven practices in education on the teaching profession. This study adds to this body of literature by exploring how teachers are regulated by and regulating EWS as part of their work practice.In this study as part of a larger working life funded project, we focus on one digital tool used in Swedish upper secondary schools called StudyBee, integrated with Google Classroom and connected to the Swedish National Agency for Education. We conducted a combination of ethnographic methods such as desktop research of application’s website and social media posts to gain a deeper knowledge on the StudyBee’s Graphical User Interface, interviews with teachers and principals, as well as go-alongs with teachers to understand their interactions with EWSs. Based on Decuypere’s (2021) topological framework, we analyse what is happening on, with, behind, and beyond EWS.To argue that teacher work is shaped by accountability mechanisms, we use a critical perspective on teacher work within the digital platform/accountability discourse, aiming to reveal underlying power dynamics. We apply the concept of dataveillance (datafied surveillance, Clarke in Lyon, 2022) to illustrate how power operates, encouraging teachers to self-regulate in alignment with school accountability. Furthermore, we utilize the concept of care (Zakharova & Jarke, 2022) to understand technology-related aspects and care for students.