Space For Discussion Research Articles

TYPES OF INTERACTION OF THE MODUS CATEGORY "EVIDENTIALITY" WITH OTHER MODUS CATEGORIES

This paper studies the development of the category evidentiality in the language. The authors provide the definition of the term and specify the features of the linguosynergetic approach to the study of evidentiality in a discursive context. The expediency of turning to discursive analysis in the framework of the study of evidentiality is argued. In addition, a synergistic evidential model is described. Further, the peculiarities of the linkage of evidentiality with the categories of authorization, personality, temporality, perception in the space of mass media discourse are studied. Possible types of interaction of evidentiality with the indicated modus categories are analyzed, based on the implementation of the principles of complementarity and interpenetration of modus meanings in a discursive evidential context. Attention is focused on such important elements as the nodal and intermediate area of the evidential context deployment. The specificity and conditions for the implementation of polymodal modus semantics in the discursive space are investigated. The possibility of simultaneous actualization of the identified types of interaction of modus categories is noted. The previously described linguosynergetic evidential model is specified. The necessity of conducting a thorough linguosynergetic analysis of modus values is substantiated. The author examines evidential discourse contexts, taken from the website of the British magazine The Economist, obtained by the method of continuous sampling. At the same time, in the course of analyzing the examples, the author relies on the previously developed classification of evidential operators, data from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, as well as previous studies of modus categories. Summing up, the author comes to the conclusion that the appeal to the principles of complementarity and interpenetration of modus meanings is associated with the need to exert a certain influence on the addressee / reader, conditioned by the communicative intentions of the author of the studied context and the peculiarities of the discourse.

Opportunities and challenges with the German act for the protection of children with variations of sex development

In May 2021, the German parliament passed a long-debated law to protect children with variations of sex development/sex characteristics from medically unnecessary surgeries until they are old enough to decide for themselves. This law joins similar laws passed in other countries in recent years and recognizes the rights of people with variations of sex development to self-determination and bodily autonomy. In this article, we discuss the notion of bodily autonomy and examine details of the German legislation in the context of psychosocial care. We focus on the following questions: (1) How may the law help to preserve the genital integrity and future bodily autonomy of newborns with variations of sex development (VSD)? (2) What are the opportunities and challenges of this law? (3) What strategies are needed to implement the law in ways that include medical professionals’ knowledge and skills, parental cooperation, and protection for the genital integrity as well as the future genital autonomy of newborns with VSD? We make two main arguments. On the one hand, this law has created a space for a new discourse and discussion on VSD in German society and enables the “wait and see” approach. This approach challenges the traditional “psychosocial emergency” policy aimed at quickly “repairing” atypical genitalia. On the other hand, the law is characterized by significant challenges. For example, it does not address the meaning of bodily autonomy in the context of newborns and their families with VSD, and it overlooks the important distinction between genital appearance, genital function, and gender identity. We offer various educational strategies that can be implemented with different target groups in Germany to meet these challenges and ensure the adequate implementation of this law.

Beyond Needle and Thread

Beyond Needle and Thread

The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos by Vrasidas Karalis

Reviewed by: The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos by Vrasidas Karalis Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou (bio) Vrasidas Karalis, The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2021. Pp. x + 207. 24 illustrations. Cloth $135.00. Vrasidas Karalis’s monograph The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos, published by Berghahn in 2021, is an important addition to the scholarly study of Greek film. Firstly, it investigates Theo Angelopoulos’s work in terms of the filmmaker’s biographical context, largely avoiding the established Brechtian methodological framework for discussing his films. Secondly, despite an abundance of journal articles, only a few books exist in the English language that deal with the work of Angelopoulos. Since Andrew Horton’s seminal books The Films of Theo Angelopoulos: A Cinema of Contemplation (1997a) and The Last Modernist: Theo Angelopoulos (1997b), David Bordwell’s Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (2005), and Irini Stathi’s edited collection Theo Angelopoulos (2000), Karalis’s monograph is the first serious effort to reopen and recreate a space for academic discourse on Theo Angelopoulos’s cinema internationally. Within the field of film studies, much attention has been given to Angelopoulos’s distinct cinematic language, and the wider Greek and international literature is rife with studies analyzing and exploring his Brechtian cinema. In The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos, however, Karalis discusses the filmmaker’s work differently. Using mainly philosophical but also art-critical discourse analysis and occasionally Freudian terminology, he situates Angelopoulos’s work within biographical and sociopolitical contexts as he explores the ways in which the filmmaker experimented with his work throughout his life, constantly inventing and reinventing himself as a global auteur consciously attempting to create a global cinematic language. Karalis argues that the dominant mode of reading Angelopoulos’s films through a Brechtian lens is misleading and has restricted the study of his films. While acknowledging Brechtian elements in Angelopoulos’s early films, he sees a change toward Aristotelian catharsis and empathy after 1977. Moreover, after Alexander the Great (Megalexandros, 1980), Angelopoulos completely abandoned his epic mode to adapt a “fluid visual lyricism” (42). Karalis attributes these changes to Angelopoulos’s political, existential, and personal meditation, his self-questioning and self-redefining. As Karalis sets out to examine the continual evolution of Angelopoulos’s approach to his films, one of his first tasks is to present the reader with a brief chronological overview of the filmmaker’s life and work—including his collaboration with his longtime friend Vasilis Rafailidis when they co-founded the [End Page 484] journal Contemporary Cinema (Synchronos Kinimatografos) in 1969—together with details of his films’ production and reception. Karalis provides evidence of Angelopoulos’s director of photography (DoP) Giorgos Arvanitis’s contribution to his cinematic universe, crediting Arvanitis for introducing an anti-illusionist style of minimalistic filming. Situating Angelopoulos and Arvanitis’s images within the category of the Deleuzian “planes of immanence,” non-referential images that exist within themselves and in themselves (Deleuze 2001), Karalis contends that their collaboration created an emotional cinema because of the Deleuzian completeness and singularization of their visual images. This is what differentiates Angelopoulos’s earlier films from the later films in which he worked with DoP Andreas Sinanos, a collaboration that resulted in a lyrical and fluid cinema. Karalis also attributes some of the changes he discerns in Angelopoulos’s work to Eleni Karaindrou’s post-1984 musical contribution to Angelopoulos’s cinema: her scores are non-diegetic and her emotional melodies rectify Angelopoulos’s narratives, the distanced performances in his films, and their overall visual style. Karalis recognizes four stages in Angelopoulos’s work, which he eloquently calls a polyptych, borrowing a term from painting and art history. Referring to the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard’s ethical and religious teleological stages of human life (Kierkegaard 1992), he argues that Angelopoulos seems to have gone through these stages in a reverse order: from knowledge and strong political ideology to doubt, from doubt to introspection, from introspection to redemption through aesthetics, eventually (in his last films) reaching nihilism and emotionalism. Abandoning Brecht and the Brechtian acting mode in 1977, Angelopoulos became more interested in poetry in his quest for what Karalis calls “the cinematic sublime” (148). His...

Contemporary Visions of Heaven and Hell by a Transylvanian Folk Prophet, Founder of the Charismatic Christian Movement The Lights

Abstract I conducted anthropological fieldwork (2010–2018) in a charismatic Christian new religious movement the Lights founded by a Transylvanian contemporary folk prophet in 2008. The new religious movement (NRM) has local hubs in North Serbia, Romania, and Hungary. After offering insight into the techniques of how the prophet receives his visions of heaven and hell (as answers to the existential dilemmas of death and the afterlife), I analyse the role and reception of these visionary journeys. I combine interpretive anthropology with the genealogical way of discourse analysis introduced by Michel Foucault. I conceive of complex roles for the narratives about the prophet’s visionary journeys and his theory of reincarnation. These narratives attract people who encounter the prophet and inspire them to participate in the NRM’s religious events. The group wanted to legitimate the prophet with the visions’ moderate style and the relative correspondence with the Bible. Nevertheless, the prophet and the group recognized the divisive nature of these narratives. They found that they could manage their evangelization by creating graduated access to information to avoid preconception judgements. Between 2012 and 2014, the core group of this NRM (lights and the prophet) worked out a multi-level discourse space in the group: a gradation where access to knowledge is based on status. I called this balanced and long-term initiation process the system of threshold narratives.

К вопросу о жанровой системе англоязычного массмедийного нутриционального дискурса

The article is devoted to the analysis of the genre system of the mass media nutritional discourse with a special emphasis on texts dealing with the problem of healthy nutrition. The relevance of this study is due, on the one hand, to the significant growth and development of information technology and the significant role of modern media that influence all areas of society life, and on the other hand, the popularity of ideas and principles of proper nutrition. The purpose of this article is to consider the specifics of the genre space of the English mass media nutritional discourse, as well as to analyze the linguistic features of texts on healthy nutrition. The research material is texts on healthy nutrition published in English journals and posted on the Internet. Based on the results of the analysis of 1,500 mass media texts, and taking into account the subject of discussion, the pragmatics of messages, as well as the way information is represented, the author speaks about the existence of analytical and imperative genres within the mass media nutritional discourse. Analytical genres, which include reviews (food and dishes, cooking methods, etc.) and reports (results of scientific research, experiments, etc.) make up 43.5% of the sample material, they contain an analysis of a phenomenon, its justification and commentary. In turn, imperative genres represented by instructions, primarily culinary recipes, which account for 56.5% of the sample material, are characterized by a special nature and contain a clear algorithm of certain actions necessary for implementation. According to the results obtained, complex sentences, nominal forms and specialized vocabulary (terms, professionalisms, etc.) are common in analytical genres of mass media nutritional discourse, in turn, imperative genres are characterized by the frequency of use of verbal forms, emotional-evaluative vocabulary and expressive language means.

Peace Conceptual Metaphor Analysis in the Afghanistan Peacemaking Process - Case Study: Afghanistan Peace Map

In this research, we have used the descriptive-analytic method. The main purpose of this paper is to show the reflection and perception of the peace conceptual metaphor in Afghanistan's discourse space on the basis of "conceptual metaphor theory." Humans typically reflect on concrete or more physical things, according to this linguistic theory. The findings of this study show that the country's peace-making operatives reflected the abstract and nonphysical concept of peace on a variety of concrete and physical things. For example, on the basis of the "Afghanistan Peace Map" context, the peace abstract concept is reflected on the experimental and objective concepts, like: "journey", "structure", and "live objects." Therefore, the conceptual metaphors of "peace is journey", "peace is structure" and "peace is live objects" are the three more prevalent concepts that are reflected in this context. These metaphors are not only more prevalent and user-friendly in the context of the "Afghanistan peace map," but research into published contexts in the Afghanistan peace-making process reveals that these metaphors flowed in the substructure of all peace contexts.

Representation, Inter-construction, Production: Feminist Theory and Practice in Chinese Urban Films

As a social trend of thought, feminism can be directly expressed through social movements, and it can also be appropriately spread through the media through art. As a theory and practice, feminism has an intriguing relationship with art, media and reality. This paper examines the theory and practice of feminism in film, and discusses the dimensions of screen space, media space, and real space, including the emergence of female consciousness, the construction of gender politics, and the new pattern of female discourse space, that is, to examine representation, mutual construction and production status.

The Ancient Greek Symposion as Space for Philosophical Discourse: Xenophanes and Criticism of the Poetic Tradition

The aim of the present article is to discuss relations between archaic Greek philosophy and poetry through the example of Xenophanes of Colophon (sixth century BCE), the poet best known for a critique of traditional religion using anthropomorphic imagery. The initial problem lies in understanding the performative aspect in Xenophanes’ elegiac poems; analysis of fragments 1W and 2W has revealed that his literary output can be situated within the framework of the aristocratic symposium. This sympotic context determines the second question: how the poetic fragments fi t with those compositions in which Xenophanes attacks traditional beliefs and poetic ideas of Homer and Hesiod. As I suggest, the critique of traditional mythical narratives, and undermining other poets’ authority, can be interpreted as an expression of performative practices functioning at symposia of the archaic and classical epochs. By removing the division between “philosophy” and “poetry”, different aspects of Xenophanes’ fragments begin to coincide with the phenomenon of the ancient symposium, understood as a space for intellectual competition.

Ecological reflection and its verbalization in the Russian, English and French media discourse space: a comparative approach

The article covers the problem of ecological reflection and the ways of its linguistic realization in the Russian and foreign media discourse space at the present epoch of digitalization and sustainable development. The main goal of this research is to characterize the key linguistic ways of expressing ecological reflection at its individual and collective levels of information perception by human consciousness in Russian, English and French media discourses. The study contains a comparative approach towards the analysis of the language units that express ecological reflection in the media discourses of different language domains. This method helps define the relevance of the study, which is primarily explained by the increasing number of interactive media materials focused on the environmental issues of the third millennium. The results of the study demonstrate a different degree of the language expression of ecological reflection (evolutionary, mediative and radical) by means of a particular choice of linguistic instruments specific for a certain language media space. In the end, one common principle is identified in the expression of ecological reflection in the Russian, French and English media discourse space. Despite almost opposite linguistic approaches towards the implementation of ecological reflection in the Russian, English and French media, there is one common challenge that unites them all, and this is the survival of the planet as well as its further sustainable development. Thus, at this stage the language choice for the promotion of eco-reflective ideas becomes convergent for three media discourse space of Russia, France and the English-speaking world.

Hybrid discourse spaces: A mixed methods study of student engagement in U.S. science classrooms

In this mixed methods study, we applied engagement and sociocultural (hybridity) frameworks to understand the nature of historically underserved students' participation in science discourse. We analyzed videos from seven U.S. urban middle school science classrooms to examine features of hybrid discourse spaces (where students’ everyday and academic discourses are integrated) as students engaged in science talk. We also examined the relationships among instructional practices and science engagement (N = 101 students) using bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling (bESEM). Findings showed that science discourse occurred primarily in traditional spaces and was largely directed by the teacher. Within the smaller subset of hybrid spaces, small group discourse formats and shared or student-directed agency were more prevalent compared to traditional and everyday spaces. Qualitative themes displayed student agency, identities, and knowledge bases across lived worlds co-existing in hybrid discourse spaces. The bESEM showed that instructional practices associated with high quality and equity-focused instruction relate differentially to specific dimensions of engagement, demonstrating most consistent relationships with affective engagement. The variable representing funds of knowledge connections was only related to cognitive engagement. The integrated findings demonstrate the potential of hybrid discourse spaces for supporting equitable student engagement in science talk. Implications for practice and lines for future research are discussed.

Proximization and dialogue in Internet news texts and comments

AbstractThe paper presents the results of an empirical study on proximization approached as a dialogue between journalists and readers of Internet media texts and online comments. In this way the paper shows a practical application of the research programme, whose tenets I presented elsewhere (Kowalski 2018), in relation to Polish and Romanian reciprocal media coverage on the winter 2016/2017 protests in the two countries, and follow-up online comments. The analysis shows that participants used proximization for different communicative purposes (descriptive or evaluative), for which they employed different reportoires of proximization strategies (categorization, domestication, construing hybrid IDC/ODC worlds, historical analogies, and references to cultural stereotypes). As a result, there was no consensus on a shared Discourse Space, and alternative Discourse Spaces were negotiated in the online dialogue.

Целеполагание как психолингвистический механизм и его реализация в современном англоязычном медиадискурсе

The purpose of the research is to provide insight into the specifics of functioning of goal setting as a psycholinguistic mechanism in the construction of the English-language media discourse. Scientific novelty of the research lies in considering goal setting as a psycholinguistic mechanism that is an integral, strategically significant component of the functioning of the English-language media discourse determining the vector of its further evolution. As a result, it has been proved that the final “product” of a goal-shaping event is implemented in new mental attitudes, behavioural patterns, special emotional states and updated linguistic habits among the participants of media communication who are actively integrated in the English-language media discourse space.

How is People's Awareness of "Biodiversity" Measured? Using Sentiment Analysis and LDA Topic Modeling in the Twitter Discourse Space from 2010 to 2020.

The importance of biodiversity conservation is gradually being recognized worldwide, and 2020 was the final year of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets formulated at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) in 2010. Unfortunately, the majority of the targets were assessed as unachievable. While it is essential to measure public awareness of biodiversity when setting the post-2020 targets, it is also a difficult task to propose a method to do so. This study provides a diachronic exploration of the discourse on “biodiversity” from 2010 to 2020, using Twitter posts, combined with sentiment analysis and topic modeling, commonly used in data science. Through the aggregation and comparison of n-grams, the visualization of eight types of emotional tendencies using the NRC emotion lexicon and supplemental comparison with the machine learning model, the construction of topic models using Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), and the qualitative analysis of tweet texts based on these models, the analysis and classification of these unstructured tweets have been performed effectively. The results revealed the evolution of words used with “biodiversity” on Twitter over the past decade, the emotional tendencies behind the contexts in which “biodiversity” has been used, and the approximate content of tweet texts that have constituted topics with distinctive characteristics. While searching for people’s awareness through SNS analysis still has many limitations, it is undeniable that essential suggestions can be obtained. To further refine the research method, it will be crucial to improve analysts’ skills, accumulate research examples, and advance data science.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42979-022-01276-w.

Constructing Spaces of Discourse and ‘Regroupment’: The Case of Women’s Self-Reliant Groups in Scotland

AbstractIn liberal welfare systems, social security policy has been increasingly shifting towards conditionality and individualisation (Knotz, 2019). It is within this context that failure to meet the set conditions becomes personal rather than systemic. This has been enabled by policy discourses that construct poverty and unemployment as the result of personal failure and poor social behaviour. While this area of study over emphasises ‘the constraints imposed by discourse’ (Bacchi, 2000: 55), alternative discourses are often developed. This paper draws on ethnographic research investigating the development of self-reliant groups (SRGs) in Scotland. SRGs are small groups of women supporting each other in creating opportunities for personal development. We find that the process of involvement and sharing of experiences between women at the forefront of welfare reform led to the development of a counter public sphere. Yet, the experience doesn’t move fully towards actions for transformative social change.

RELIGIOUS VOCABULARY IN THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The article highlights the research methodology of religious vocabulary in American presidential discourse. The relevance of the work is due to the priority of communicative-pragmatic approach to the study of discursive formations of different genres and formats in modern linguistics. The study of discourse is an important area in modern linguistics in connection with the change of scientific paradigm that has taken place in linguistics, namely: the dominant system-structural and static paradigm has been replaced by the anthropocentric one. Religious vocabulary functions in both domestic and institutional communication in three main forms, namely: general religious vocabulary, biblical (set expressions, phraseology) and quotations from the Scriptures. This tendency is observed both in the political discourse in general and in the presidential discourse in particular, which emphasizes the relevance of our work. The search for effective ways to analyze and describe the semantics and functions of religious vocabulary in American presidential discourse has led to the choice of basic approaches to the object of study. Regarding the genre space of presidential discourse as a kind of political discourse, we note that it is determined by the general political system of the country, historical and political traditions of the presidency, socio-cultural conditions of political discourse. The methods used in linguistic studies involve the implementation of a system of procedures for studying the object and verification of the results. Typical guidelines for systematic philological analysis include attention to the semantic side of the text represented by textual categories, and the communicative immersion of the text in discursive reproduction. For systematic analysis, the following methods are used in the work, which take into account the communicative essence of the discourse text, reflect the significance of the text in the light of its generation and interpretation. That is why the work uses both general and special research methods.

Pre-service teachers’ professional vision and agency emerging in orchestrating language learning in a hybrid space

This study is situated in the context of a design-driven master’s-level course at a Finnish university where pre-service teachers (PSTs) planned and carried out an online English learning project for 11- to 12-year-old pupils in two schools. During the working process, the PSTs needed to rethink their perceptions of technology-mediated language education and look for new ways to organise pedagogical activities for the children. The study explores how the PSTs’ professional vision and agency emerged in a hybrid space when orchestrating pupils’ participation online. Diverse materials from orchestration sessions were examined through nexus analysis. The findings highlight the PSTs’ professional vision and agency arising from interactions with the following activities while orchestrating language learning: 1) coordinating action and establishing continuity in design; 2) monitoring action and attending to emerging needs; and 3) attending to pupils’ engagement with the designed activities and revising the design during action if necessary. The setting allowed collaborative problem solving and sense making which advanced a balanced interaction order. This made space for new experiences and discourses contributing to the development of the PSTs’ professional vision as language teachers. The study has implications for language teacher education and language teaching in hybrid spaces.

From Islamic Modernism to Traditional Islam: The Impact of Conflict on the Shifting of Religious Authority in Aceh

<p class="06IsiAbstrak"><span lang="EN-GB">This article discusses the impact of conflict on the shifting of religious authority in Aceh. It aims to complement the limitation of current studies, which emphasize conflict as a struggle for natural resources, a means for regional identity, and an effort to develop central-regional power relations. However, the conflict also generates the shift of religious authority, in particular, from modernist Islam to traditional Islam. Data were collected from literature and other related secondary sources. This study found that religious contestations, between the modernist and the traditional Islam groups, have begun in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. It used to be a space for religious discourse; hence, it turned into a protracted social and armed conflict. It began with a social revolution, which led the modernist scholars in charge. Nevertheless, the involvement of the modernist <em>ulama</em> in the Darul Islam rebellion affected their influence. The shift in authority began to emerge by the raising of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebellion. During post-Darul Islam, traditional <em>ulama</em> occupied rural communities, and they confronted the GAM in society, as they were involved in bureaucracy. The modernist Islam groups strengthen their position in bureaucracy or seek input from other modernist Islam groups. </span></p>

Interviews Instead of Concerts: Updating Mentative Interviews with Musicians in the Pandemic Times

In the non-concert period of 2020, interviews with famous musicians on the СlassicalMusicNews portal show strengthening of the trend identified and described by the author in the previous publications. The traditional narrative interview disappears, since the event chronotope of musical events is temporarily lost, the emerging niche is occupied by the mentative interview. The author describes the phenomenon of such type of interviews, introduces the distinctive features of mentative and narrative interviews, proposes the concept of a grid of questions for mentative interview, describes the methodology for analyzing interviews from this perspective. The interpretation of the tendency of actualizing the mentative interview is developed along four lines: the influence of extralinguistic factors on the discourse space, the transformation of reference and the modification of the text, the place of the mentative in the history of literature and the pattern of its actualization, the degree of mastery of the narrative and the mentative in the discourse of our time.

STRUCTURAL AND TYPOLOGICAL FEATURES UNITS OF THE RUSSIAN TERMINOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

هذه المقالة مكرسة لوضع تصنيف غير نمطي على أساس المبدأ النوعي والبنائي لوحدات نظام المصطلحات الروسي الداخلة ضمن صناعة النفط والغاز وخصوصيات عمل المصطلحات في مختلف أنواع الخطاب. ونتيجة لذلك، نقدم للقاري المتلقي تصنيفاً لمصطلحات النفط والغاز، وتقدم أمثلة تعكس سير المصطلحات في المجال الإعلامي للخطابات العلمية ووسائط الإعلام.