Socio-cognitive Approach Research Articles

КАЧЕСТВЕННОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ВИДОВ РЕЛИГИОЗНЫХ НОРМ

Within the sociocognitive approach, the religious norms are determined as the subjective representations of the results of a person’s cognitive processing of the information about the religious phenomena presented in the culture. The religious norms are present within the everyday life language and expressed as the normative judgments reflecting the correctness and preference of social behavior and way of thinking. Certain normative judgments do not exist independently of each other but form the clusters that can be considered as the kinds of social norms. The goal of presented empirical research is to determine the kinds of religious norms expressed as a normative judgment. The study tests a hypothesis about a verbal expression in the form of normative judgments of the enculturated religious experience. As the data-collection method, the author uses the semi-structured interviews method determining the judgments about the norms in the context of the evaluative attitude. The evaluations are expressed in respect of the objects that are the bearers of desired norms or adhere to them. The elements of phenomenography and matrix analysis serve as the method of qualitative data analysis. The study allows speaking about the existence of at least four kinds of religious norms: responsibility attribution norms, social interaction norms, interpersonal interaction norms, and self-introduction norms. Thus, the religious norms form a fragment of the individual psychological reality caused by the patterns of social behavior determining its acceptability and usefulness. Quoted results and conclusions offer the opportunities for the study of confessional differences when determining the types and inner content of the religious norms representations. Moreover, the results of the study highlight the necessity to specify the functions of religious norms representations in the context of social adaptation.

JuriGenT, un banco de datos jurídico neerlandés/español diferente

JuriGenT is a bilingual database of legal Dutch/Spanish, which is being readied for publication in September 2017. As far as translation principles are concerned, JuriGenT relies on the Skopos translation theory of Nord (1997), which implies a «documentary» translation («translation as a purposeful activity»), and on the «receiver-oriented approach» promoted by Sar ? evi ? (2000). Both theories insist on the importance of defining the role of the translator, i.e. to «represent» the source text in the source context, but in another language, as the translation has to be interpreted by the legal expert in the target context. With respect to terminological principles, the approach relies on the communicative theory of Cabre (1999) and the sociocognitive approach of Temmerman (2000). Both authors insist on the need to define the user of the database: in our case the translator and not the lawyer. These theories have led to important decisions regarding the selection of the included terminology and the conceptualization of the terminological record. Finally, JuriGenT devotes attention to user-friendly consultation, allowing easy navigation to broader terms, narrower terms and related terms in both languages.

Creating common ground: The role of metapragmatic expressions in BELF meeting interactions

Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) is gaining popularity in international business and research domains. In the framework of the socio-cognitive approach, this article examines the role of metapragmatic expressions (MPEs) in creating common ground (CG) in BELF meeting interactions. Based on the data from one business meeting drawn from the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English, it is found that the speakers mainly employ four types of MPEs, i.e. commentaries, speech-action descriptions, message glosses and evidentials, as pre-emptive or corrective strategies when they are aware of potential or actual problems or difficulties in interactions. MPEs are intended to activate shared sense (e.g. previous agreement, mutual experiences and company policy) and current sense (e.g. different or new perspectives, evaluations and sympathy) to construct emergent CG of knowledge and emergent CG of affiliation to achieve mutual understanding in BELF meeting interactions.

The Time Factor in Consciousness Construction

Background: The article addresses to an actual problem of the consciousness design. In this connection the role of time factor is examined in the process of cognitive modeling. Methods: The study is conducted on the basis of socio-cognitive approach and methodology of a phenomenological description with the involvement of the principles of constructivism and hermeneutics. The principle of regulating the dynamics of the individual’s consciousness is concretized in the contextual model. It allows considering the complex combination of the cultural forms as a discourse and existential process of the meaning generation in different scenarios of temporality. Findings: The article presents the specificity of sociophenomenological approach to the analysis of cognitive scripts. It is shown in the article that the ontological scenario of the certain communicative practice hides different cognitive models of temporality that conceptually motivate the behavior of the subject. The time factor of cognitive orientation in the process of the personal self-determination and in the construction of the mass consciousness is hidden in an irrational dialogue of the person and symbols. The transition from the dictates of cultural semantics to finding of meaning at the existential level is not fully controlled by the individual or community. The cognitive focus on the “common sense” level within the framework of social time is directed by a formal discourse structure that exists in the inter-subjective space and contains the semantic matrix as a stereotype. The perception of the stereotype in the existential meaning generation scenario implicitly contains the general cultural and perceptual cognitive scripts that regulate the behavior and decision-making which the person does not distinguish at the functional level. Improvements: The conclusions of the article can be used as a methodological basis for understanding the temporality of the mass consciousness and for the analysis of cognitive modeling perspectives in terms of the network society.

Why Cognitive Linguistics must embrace the social and pragmatic dimensions of language and how it could do so more seriously

Abstract I will argue that the cognitive-linguistic enterprise should step up its efforts to embrace the social and pragmatic dimensions of language. This claim will be derived from a survey of the premises and promise of the cognitive-linguistic approach to the study of language and be defended in more detail on logical and empirical grounds. Key elements of a usage-based emergentist socio-cognitive approach known as Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model (Schmid 2014, 2015) will be presented in order to demonstrate how social and pragmatic aspects can be integrated and operationalized in a cognitive-linguistic framework.

Critical Discourse Analysis on Chinese Racial Pride Underlying the Malaysian National Identity in “Proud to be born a Chinese”

The ideology of Chinese racial pride in an online essay “Proud to be born a Chinese” by Dr. Chan-Lui Lee is described and analysed by using the sociocognitive approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA). The research design is based on the notion that Chinese racial pride is a tool to persuade Chinese Malaysians to prioritise their Chinese racial identity over the Malaysian national identity, leading to national disunity and racial fissures in society. This notion runs parallel to the concept of the dynamicity and fluidity of the construction of identity, as explored by Jones, McEwen and Abes in their Reconceptualised Model of Multiple Identities (2007). As the degree to which Malaysians identify with the national identity over other group identities determines the success of national unity (Liu et al, 2002), Dr. Chan-Lui Lee’s essay provides insight into the overall success of national unity in Malaysia. “Proud to be born a Chinese” is analysed through three components: the discursive, cognitive and social components, which not only confirm that the essay prioritises Chinese racial identity over Malaysian national identity using Chinese racial pride, but also that the essay and its strategies are a response to the socio-political circumstances in Malaysia and the creation of neo-nationalist identities in the relatively new nations of Southeast Asia. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, sociocognition, racial pride, racial identity, national identity, national unity, multiple identities, southeast asia, neo-nationalism, socio-politics

Representation Of Muslim Women In E-Media Caricatures

This paper attempts to gain an understanding of the ways in which Muslim women are presented on the E-media in the broader world community by identifying and examining the linguistic and visual signifiers used in the caricatures. The sample selected for the current research work consists of 22 caricatures disseminated on the World Wide Web between years 2012 - 2013. From a theoretical perspective, the socio-cognitive approach to CDA introduced by Van Dijk (1992, 1993, 2000, 2012) on communication of ethnic biases and racial prejudices is combined with the visual semiotic model by Roland Barth (1978). The two approaches are merged to examine linguistic and visual aspects of caricatures for identifying signs which construct certain identities of Muslim women. This paper argues that in the collected caricatures the identity of Muslim women is constructed as distant and different from the (Western) social norm. The iconic images or visual identifiers used, function to transfer all the biased imagery and prejudice about Muslim women to the actual situation. Thus they serve the purpose to authenticate the stereotypical identity. This paper claims that the social caricatures collected, depict racial and ethnic prejudices against Muslim women.

"The Bitter Laughter". When Parody Is a Moral and Affective Priming in Political Persuasion.

Research on socially aware systems requires fine-grained knowledge of the mechanisms of persuasion in order to promote civic knowledge and aware political participation. Within humor studies, political parody is generally considered a simple pleasant weapon for political evaluation, currently explained by referring to the so called “just a joke effect” (Nabi et al., 2007). Indeed the funny side of parody can induce positive emotions, but it also includes a discrediting act that sometimes produces a “bitter laughter.” The present study aims to understand the role played by negative and moral emotions aroused by parody. A parody is defined as a communicative behavior (a discourse, text, body movement, song) that imitates a communicative behavior or trait displayed by some Target by reproducing it in a distorted way, with the aim of making fun of the Target. Based on a socio-cognitive approach, a distinction is made between “surface” and “deep” parody (Poggi and D’Errico, 2013), with the former simply imitating behaviors actually displayed by the Target, and the latter implying a (humorous) re-categorization of the Target. The paper studies the effect of these two different types of parody on persuasion processes. Results show that the deep parody, as opposed to surface parody, triggers more negative emotions, and in particular indignation, that in turn lead to more negative evaluations of the Target. Moreover, the moral priming of parody is influenced by the Target politician’s gender.

Integrating the Analysis of Mental Operations Into Multilevel Models to Validate an Assessment of Higher Education Students’ Competency in Business and Economics

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing indicate that validation of assessments should include analyses of participants’ response processes. However, such analyses typically are conducted only to supplement quantitative field studies with qualitative data, and seldom are such data connected to quantitative data on student or item performance. This paper presents an example of how data from an analysis of mental operations collected using a sociocognitive approach can be quantitatively integrated with other data on student and item performance to validate in part an assessment of higher education students’ competency in business and economics. Evidence of forward reasoning and paraphrasing as mental operations is obtained using the think‐aloud method. As part of the validity argument and to enhance credibility of the findings, the generalized linear models are expressed as multilevel models in which the analyses of response processes are aligned with quantitative findings from large‐scale field studies.

A sociocognitive approach to business ethics: lessons from early industrializing Japan

Understanding transgression of business ethics in developed Western economies is different from that in developing economies where the institutional matrix that frames the market and transactions is in the process of fundamental change. This is particularly so when entrenched historical practices of close business and government interaction continue into the new era. In this environment the study of ethical forbearance may be more illuminating than transgression. Seen from a New Institutional Economics’ perspective on the sociocognitive, our empirical study of Shibusawa Eiichi and Dan Takuma shows that ideology can play an important role in shaping ethical business practice.

Creating meso-contexts: The functions of metapragmatic expressions in argumentative TV talk shows

AbstractMetapragmatic expressions (MPEs) show the speaker’s reflexive awareness of language use. Drawing on an argumentative TV talk show, this article explores the functions of MPEs in the host’s utterances from the sociocognitive approach (SCA). It argues that MPEs are employed to create “meso-contexts” so as to ensure the progression of the interactions as intended. The data analysis indicates that different types of MPEs activate prior contexts conventionally tied to them, and an interplay between prior contexts and emergent actual situations results in the construction of meso-contexts, which adjust the situational salience of relevant senses to direct the ongoing of interaction.

Подходы к психолого-педагогической экспертизе игровых детских площадок

The article is devoted to the problem of the game environment - playgrounds. The article discusses the history of children's playgrounds, analyses the different methodological approaches to their expertise: an ecological approach, socio-cognitive approach, subjective or personal approach, activity approach. Taking into account the latest contemporary foreign researches, the article discusses the facts concerning the link between the types of playgrounds, their equipment and the nature of child behavior. The article provides basic criteria for expertize of game environment: game value of plating objects or game environment in general, landscape features of playgrounds, the elements that trigger risky behavior, etc. The conclusion states that playgrounds must be assessed in terms of their compliance to the needs of children and the age related challenges of their development.

No man lives on an island: habitual agency and complexity in entrepreneurial decision-making

An entrepreneur’s creation of value and moral leadership is primarily an individualized phenomenon. The objective of this study is to develop a socio-cognitive model where an entrepreneur’s enactment of valuable opportunities and a moral awareness for others operate within a complex social setting. We develop a “practiced” concept of habitual agency where an entrepreneur enacts tightly coupled stakeholder exchanges that confirm an entrepreneur’s asymmetric advantage. This habitual agency seeks not only to reduce the “causal ambiguities” surrounding complex stakeholder exchanges, but also to apply repeatedly a generalized moral standard — Golden rule — to an entrepreneur’s tightly coupled exchange partners. This sociocognitive explanation of entrepreneurship appeals to the holistic and interdependent tenets of complex systems where entrepreneurship cannot be examined in isolation of the complexities of their social realities. The implications and contributions of this socio-cognitive approach to entrepreneurship and complexity research are also highlighted.

A Sociocognitive Approach to Explaining Variation in Investor Reactions to Corporate Misconduct

This paper develops a general framework for explaining variation in stock market reactions to corporate misconduct by using insights from sociocognitive perspectives from the management literature....

No man lives on an island: habitual agency and complexity in entrepreneurial decision-making

An entrepreneur's creation of value and moral leadership is primarily an individualised phenomenon. The objective of this study is to develop a socio-cognitive model where an entrepreneur's enactment of valuable opportunities and a moral awareness for others operate within a complex social setting. We develop a 'practiced' concept of 'habitual agency' where an entrepreneur enacts tightly coupled stakeholder exchanges that confirm an entrepreneur's asymmetric advantage. This habitual agency seeks not only to reduce the 'causal ambiguities' surrounding complex stakeholder exchanges, but also to repeatedly apply a generalised moral standard - golden rule - to an entrepreneur's tightly coupled exchange partners. This socio-cognitive explanation of entrepreneurship appeals to the holistic and interdependent tenets of complex systems where entrepreneurship cannot be examined in isolation of the complexities of their social realities. The implications and contributions of this socio-cognitive approach to entrepreneurship and complexity research are also highlighted.

A socio-cognitive approach to assessing speaking and writing: the GEPT experience

A socio-cognitive approach to assessing speaking and writing: the GEPT experience

Connection Cues: Activating the Norms and Habits of Social Connectedness

Staying “connected” has become a societal norm and a personal habit. The goal of this article is to explain how individuals internalize—and activate—social connectedness during daily life. As such, we take a sociocognitive approach to integrate perspectives on implicit societal expectations (connection norms) and automatic individual behavior (connection habits). Based on this framework, we present a model for how nonconscious “triggers” to check a mobile device, or connection cues, affect the flow of communication. The model outlines types of connection cues, factors that moderate sensitivity to connection norms, and activation paths for connection habits. Altogether, connection cues determine when and where individuals “connect” through automatic perception.

Corpus-based Syntactic Analysis of Selected Speeches of President Obama

Abstract This paper examines the manipulative usage of some syntactic structures within selected speeches of the president of the United States, Barack Obama (1). For this purpose, it combines methods and analytical tools from Corpus Linguistics (CL) with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in general and van Dijk’s Socio Cognitive Approach (SCA) in particular. In addition, the study examines how the combination of CDA with CL strengthens the mechanisms of both procedures. The methods of CL, which employ computational tools, add a quantitative dimension to CDA/SCA. At the same time, CDA adds a qualitative dimension to CL. The results reveal that Obama uses discursive strategies that contribute to the formation and activation of intended mental models within the public mind. The results also show that president Obama utilizes more manipulative syntactic structures within his first presidential term than his second one. Moreover, the study depicts a change in the use of some of these syntactic strategies in Obama’s second presidential term. By using such manipulative tools, Obama indirectly influences people’s beliefs, knowledge, opinions and ideologies, consequently controlling their actions.

Les structures ontologiques de l’éditorial socio-politique : une approche socio-cognitive

Ontologic structures in a socio-political editorial – a socio-cognitive approachThe aim of the present study is to analyze the conceptualization of ontological structures in a special type of journalistic writing represented by a socio-political editorial. According to the socio-cognitive approach (Goffman, Langacker), the author discusses the problem of discursive mechanisms related to the persuasive function of language and classification. Therefore, in basis of the gathered linguistic corpus, which constitutes of forty French editorials, treating about university and public service pension reforms, culled from the web pages of different journals and magazines (2007–2008), the author intends to describe the distribution of two semantic roles such as agent and patient (by means of the synthetic scheme presented in this paper) in the context of the persuasiveness of media communication. The way of constructing the semantic roles of participants both influences and modifies the readers’ opinions and their perception of the world.

Election, Politician and Corruption: A Critical Discourse Study of two Indonesian Newsprints Covering the Ruling Party Leader Corruption

The aim of the study is to construe the discursive strategies and to probe for ideological goals behind the two national newspapers text constructions about the former ruling Democrat Party leader, Anas Urbaningrum, corruption case before the 2014 general election The analysis of this study adopts a critical perspective on discourse analysis (CDA) specifically the Teun Van Dijks socio-cognitive approach. The texts are divided and analyzed into three levels, namely: text, socio-cognitive of the text producers and social context surround the discourse production. The study concludes three important points. First, both newspapers were intensively presented news about corrupt politicians before the 2014 general elections. One of which was the ruling Democrat party leader, Anas Urbaningrum (AU) corruption case. Second, Seputar Indonesia daily (hereafter SINDO) texts are defending AU by presenting very systematic and consistent discourse patterns even after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named AU a suspect in corruption and money laundering cases. The patterns are disagreements of the Anas political rivals accusation, exaggerating internal conflict between Anas and his political rivals, attacking others contra opinion and defending AU position through its news texts; while, on the contrary, Jawa Pos daily (JP) emphasizing law enforcement for AU corruption case. It presents accusation and attacking comments from some party senior cadres to AU, pools results about the Democrat Party popularity and electability that dropped significantly because of corruption issue, and it also provides statements mostly from the graft commission about AU case law enforcement.