Discourse Structure Research Articles

Threat Conceptions in Global Security Discourse: Analyzing the Speech Records of the United Nations Security Council, 1990–2019

Abstract Since the end of the Cold War, the notion of global security, and presumed threats to it, has undergone considerable expansion and diversification. This process has been led by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), where active deliberations concerning “threat(s) to the peace” have taken place among major international actors. Despite a sizable accumulation of scholarly arguments, however, the defining features of the structure and dynamics of the post-Cold War security discourse remain ambiguous. To address these ambiguities, this study investigates the entire body of Council deliberations over the past three decades. Based on an original dataset consisting of policy statements delivered at the UNSC, the study employs quantitative text analysis tools, including word embedding, to examine how council members have conceived the notion of security threat in terms of the various issues and entities discussed. It shows the security discourse at the UNSC to be highly stratified and reveals the persistent and pervasive influence of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which constitute the limited common grounds shared by the Council’s permanent members. These findings caution against the unconstrained use of certain theoretical constructs widely employed in other works, most notably, “securitization” and “interpretative community.”

From Discourse Relations to Network Edges: A Network Theory Approach to Discourse Analysis

In this paper, we argue that discourse representations can be mapped to networks and analyzed by tools provided in network theory so that deep properties of discourse structure are revealed. Two discourse-annotated corpora, C58 and STAC, that belong to different discourse types and languages were compared and analyzed. Various key network indices were used for the discourse representations of both corpora and show the different network profiles of the two discourse types. Moreover, both network motifs and antimotifs were discovered for the discourse networks in the two corpora that shed light on strong tendencies in building or avoiding to build discourse relations between utterances for permissible three-node discourse subgraphs. These results may lead to new types of discourse structure rules that draw on the properties of the networks that lie behind discourse representation. Another important aspect is that the second version of the STAC corpus, which includes nonlinguistic discourse units and their relations, exhibits similar trends in terms of network subgraphs compared to its first version. This suggests that the nonlinguistic context has a significant impact on discourse structure.

Eloquent eloquence in the prophetic discourse

This study sheds light on the eloquence and predominance found in the honorable hadith of the Prophet (PBUH), as well as the understanding of its concept among linguists, grammarians, and rhetoricians. The study falls within the realm of Badi' science and its investigative methods. It employs a non-statistical, analytical, and descriptive approach to reveal the intricacies of overriding within the discourse structure, while highlighting its characteristics and aesthetics. The method of rhetorical overriding takes on various forms, and its study varies according to stylistic phenomena and the rhetorical intentions of the speaker. This study showcases the greatness of the prophetic discourse and the perfection of the Prophet's eloquence, may God bless him and grant him peace. It also demonstrates that the Prophet, may God's prayers and peace be upon him, deliberately utilized the style of overriding abundantly, thereby emphasizing the multitude of its images, patterns, and purposes.

Pragma-Rhetorical Strategies in British Parliamentary Argumentative Discourse


 
 
 
 This study aims at investigating the pragma-rhetorical structure of argumentative discourse in British Parliament. To achieve this aim, Van Eemeren and Houtlosser’s (2002) model of strategic maneuvering is utilized.
 
 
 
 
 Among the important conclusions the study comes up with are: Both figures, i.e. the Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn in British parliament utilize certain pragma-rhetorical strategies either to defend or support their standpoints. Besides, Overstatement extends over the other figures of speech and argumentative appeals in British parliamentary discourse and makes the debates highly rhetorical as a result. Finally, Pathos prevailed other argumentative appeals. This proves that arguers in British parliament resort to feelings and stimulation of the audience’s emotions in making their arguments

Textual Coherence in the Arabic Oration Heritage: The Al-Hajjaj Oration as a Model

Objectives: The objective of this research is to emphasize the importance of textual coherence, which encompasses consistency, a strong plot, and effective message delivery to the receiver. Methods: The researcher initially faced a dilemma in choosing between a quantitative and qualitative approach. Consequently, this paper adopts a qualitative approach first, followed by the application of a quantitative approach to examine a specific standard of textual coherence. Results: The analysis of textual standards elucidated both direct and indirect meanings in the text, highlighted the significance of textual harmony and contextual interpretation, and shed light on the role of the overall discourse structure in revealing the semantics of the text, including its major and minor textual elements. Conclusions: This research comprises eight integral parts. The introduction provides an overview of textual coherence. The second part focuses on observing the coherence standard in the Arab heritage, specifically by analyzing the Al-Hajjaj oration and its contextual characteristics. The third part examines the overall structure and theme of the oration, followed by the fourth part, which explores the major textual structure. The fifth part discusses the organization of the oration, while the sixth part delves into the minor textual structure. The seventh part highlights significant relationships within the oration, and the final part presents conclusions, results, and recommendations pertaining to the topics discussed above.

Rhythm pattern discovery in Niger-Congo story-telling

Description of interactive oral story-telling in West African Niger-Congo languages, “orature” in contrast to “literature”, has traditionally been firmly in the domain of anthropological linguistics. The discourse structures of narrator-responder interaction and call-response chanted interludes and their prosody are an open challenge to discourse analysts, linguists and phoneticians. Two orature examples from related Niger-Congo languages, recorded during fieldwork in Côte d'Ivoire, are analyzed from a macrostructural acoustic phonetic perspective in terms of realtime rhythms, and then compared with other related orature examples and examples of reading aloud. In this transdisciplinary methodology, long time domains of up to 5 min in duration and beyond are studied using long-term spectra and spectrograms of the amplitude modulation of speech. Long-distance timing regularities and their variation during story-telling exchanges are analyzed in detail and explained in terms of Rhythm Formant Theory (RFT), a further development of Speech Modulation Theory, and its associated methodology Rhythm Formant Analysis (RFA).

Moralitas Diskursus Dan Otoritas Wacana Keagamaan Di Media Sosial

The progress of the digital world influences the structure of religious discourse. The development of religious discourse in digital space, especially social media, has run wild without control. One-sided truth claims are getting stronger. So Khaled Abou el-Fadl's offer deserves consideration, namely the morality of discourse as the authority for religious discourse on social media. This research focuses on how the morality of discourse can be used as a basis for the power of religious discourse on social media. This research is descriptive-qualitative, which is a conceptual study using library data. Through a holistic approach, the reference data is analyzed through data reduction and data presentation. The data presented are adapted to relevant perspectives, interpreted based on theories, classified into concepts, and narrated in a new understanding of the phenomenon under study. As a result, discourse morality procedures in the authority structure of religious discourse on social media need to be upheld so that belief in God as the highest authority is not replaced by unilateral claims. In addition, the morality of discourse can also be the basis for government policies to regulate and limit religious discourse discussed on social media.

Capacitating urban governance and planning systems to drive transformative resilience

Urban governance and planning systems are central cornerstones of international research and policy initiatives to advance sustainable development, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction in the context of increasing global environmental change. Yet, the inherent processes and components of conventional governance and planning systems, such as discourses, structures, tools, and practices, must be revised to drive a transition to fundamentally new governance arrangements and planning mechanisms. We present a framework featuring four characteristics for capacitating urban governance and planning systems to accelerate the shift toward transformative resilience: foresight and path-shifting, collaboration and leadership, creativity and agility, and experimentation and embeddedness. The framework addresses the components and processes of present governance and planning systems that must be transformed and highlights the mechanisms required to drive the transformation. These include discourse reorientation, structure reorganization, tool innovation, and practice expansion. The framework also underlines eight significant functional, social, political, institutional, ecological, technological, legal, and financial dimensions that will be used to operationalize the framework in the next step in order to evaluate the associated opportunities and constraints of current planning systems toward transformative change.

Features of educational discourse in the system of institutional discourses

The purpose of the study is to determine the place of educational discourse in the system of institutional discourses and to actualize modern approaches and methods of educational discourse. Unlike some other types of discourse, educational discourse is subject to changes under the influence of extralinguistic factors, including the development of scientific thought and technological progress, achievements of psychology and sociology, transformation of the methodology of the educational process, and others. The article presents the main characteristics of the educational discourse, describes the participants of the discourse and their status roles, postulates the importance of the educational text as a center of communication in educational discourse, and identifies new formats of information transmission in the structure of educational discourse. The variability of the content side of the educational discourse requires the attention of linguistic researchers at each time stage, this determines the scientific novelty of the work. As a result, certain conclusions have been formulated, including that the educational text has such features as factual, conciseness, brevity and others. The texts of educational discourse exist at the levels of teacher—student, teacher—teacher and student—student relations. They are associated with various communication situations within the framework of education. Educational discourse is always purposeful, includes methods of information transmission, is based on an educational text, has a number of precedent texts of certain genres in its structure. The opinion of some linguists on the prospects for the development of this area of scientific thought is given/

The Temporal Relationships between the Pluscuamperfecto andmientras+ Imperfecto

AbstractThis paper analyzes the temporal relationship between a pluperfect verb in a main clause and a following subordinate clause introduced bymientras(‘while’) with an imperfect verb. The specific lexical and aspectual properties of the components lead to clashing expectations concerning the temporal relationship within the structure. The issues are three-fold. First, the subordinating conjunction lexically expresses the co-temporality of the subordinate clause with regard to another eventuality. Second, this may be possible when the pluperfect verb has an eventive reading, but what happens if it asserts a post-state? Third, the widely recognized discourse structural description (coming from DRT) of an imperfect verb is that its location time includes a previously introduced reference time. However, in traditional terms, the reference time involved in the meaning of a pluperfect verb is posterior to the event the pluperfect verb expresses. We address these issues and present a dataset collected from various corpora which underlines that the temporal relationships within the structure show a surprising variability. We discuss the different possibilities in depth, taking Aktionsart and subject reference into account. We also focus on the theoretical issue of the concept of reference time. On the basis of our data, and counter to the traditional approach, we argue that a temporal discourse structure should account for pluperfect verbs by means of secondary reference times.

Corpus-based insights into multimodality and genre in primary school science diagrams

This article presents a data-driven analysis of multimodal genre in a corpus of primary school science diagrams that contains multiple layers of cross-referenced annotations for multimodal discourse structure. The aim is to identify diagram genres in the corpus and describe their multimodal characteristics. To do so, information about expressive resources used in the diagrams and the discourse relations between them is extracted from the corpus, and computer vision is used to approximate the visual appearance of the diagrams. The article also presents a new method for quantifying information about the use of layout space. The resulting description of multimodal discourse structure is processed using UMAP, an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm, in order to identify diagrams that exhibit similar structural characteristics. The analysis allows the identification and characterization of four diagram genres in the corpus, which adopt different rhetorical strategies in combining expressive resources into discourse structures. The analysis also reveals that layout plays a major role in shaping the genre space, which can be further refined using information about the discourse structure. Overall, the results suggest that computational methods can be used to characterize multimodal genre from a bottom-up perspective using low-level information about expressive resources and layout.

Istikṣāf adawāt al-Tamāsuk al-Nahwi wa al-mu’jamī bii’tibārihā buniyah ‘ala insijam al-Nusūs liāyāti al-Tasāmuh al-Dīnī (dirōsatu tahlīli al- Khithōbi fi al-Qur’āni al-Karīmi)

The Qur'an is quite different from most general texts. Among the most prominent differences is that it is said that the Qur’an includes elements of the discourse structure that lead to the harmony and unity of the texts. Therefore, this simple article is written with the aim of describing the textual harmony of the verses of religious tolerance in the Holy Qur’an - which are spread in 7 chapters - by applying the theory of discourse analysis promoted by Halliday & Hasan. In particular, this research aims to explore cohesion tools, whether grammatical or lexical. To achieve these desired goals, the researchers used observations followed by note-taking techniques to collect data. In conducting data analysis, the "padan intralingual" method is used, which he makes use of to connect the linguistic elements. The results of the research show that the signs of cohesion in the verses of tolerance at the grammatical cohesion level are achieved by references, substitutions, ellipsis, as well as a conjunction. As for lexical cohesion, signs of cohesion are achieved through synonymy, antonymy, repetition, hyponymy, and collocation. These tools not only make the texts of the verses coherent but also make them coherent and interdependent. However, there are very few sentences that seem incoherent. In this case, it is not enough to understand the theory of coherence alone, until what is known as the "knowledge of the world" (knowledge of the world) that can be realized through theoretical or applied language sciences is required.

Attribution and the discourse structure of reports

I propose a discourse-level analysis of report constructions. Indirect discourse, mixed and direct quotation, free indirect discourse, and attitude ascriptions are all analyzed in terms of a discourse relation of ATTRIBUTION, connecting two propositional discourse units corresponding to (i) a frame segment (he said, she dreamed) and a (possibly complex, multi-sentence) report (“I’m an idiot”, (that) she was president). I provide a unified semantics for the discourse relation of ATTRIBUTION that invokes a flexible notion of ‘characterization’. A discourse unit may characterize a speech event by reproducing its linguistic surface form (as in quotation) or its propositional content (as in indirect speech and attitude reports), or some mixture of both (as in mixed quotation or free indirect discourse). I formalize this unified discourse-level ATTRIBUTION approach to reporting within the general framework of SDRT, and apply it to direct, indirect, and free indirect reports that extend beyond the single embedded or quoted clause. The resulting account is the first to do justice to the complex internal dependencies within stretches of reported discourse.

FACILITATING THE CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE COLLECTIVELY THROUGH DIALOGIC DISCOURSE: TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES AND PRACTICES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Dialogic discourse is said to aid the social and cognitive aspects of language learning and acquisition and students’ success in second language learning is therefore largely dependent on the interactional opportunities available. Recognising the potential impact of dialogic discourse in enhancing second language acquisition amongst Malaysian students, the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE) provided a large-scale training on dialogic discourse to a group of lower secondary English language teachers. This study explores the perceptions of English as a second language (ESL) teachers on the role of dialogic discourse in affording students’ opportunities for the construction of knowledge and investigates their practices in affording students with the opportunities to construct knowledge collectively through the discourse structure. To understand the role of dialogic discourse in affording students to construct knowledge collectively, five ESL teachers’ dialogic discourse strategies were examined. A qualitative approach was employed, which comprised semi-structured interviews and classroom observations for the data collection. Two of the teachers’ lessons were also examined to illustrate how dialogic discourse created opportunities for the construction of knowledge collectively which supported ESL learning through close discourse analysis of the lesson transcripts. The findings have shown that ESL teachers’ use of dialogic discourse strategies facilitates the construction of knowledge collectively among the students.This study expands our current understanding of how ESL learning occurs through classroom discourse.

Mapping linkages between ecosystem services and agricultural and landscape management using structural topic modeling of scientific literature

This paper provides a systematic overview of existing literature on the interdependence between terrestrial Ecosystem Services (ES) and agricultural landscape management. To this end, we constructed a structured methodological approach that future researchers and other stakeholders may use to explore potential gaps for potential avenues for research. The framework starts with a constructed bibliometric dataset comprising 2478 paper abstracts (and associated metadata) published between 2010 and 2019 that contain references to specific ES classes and case study location references worldwide. Next, the dataset was used to construct a Structural Topic Model (STM), which features marginal effect estimation of metadata covariates on topic prevalence and topic prevalence correlation. The estimated topic graph structure is then used for community detection of interconnected topics via cluster identification, which allowed us to determine the current structure of the academic discourse on the interaction between terrestrial ES and agricultural landscape management. We expect this novel approach to enable identification of research priorities, prioritization of project portfolios for our field of interest, and reusable methodological guidelines that can be employed to target other fields of knowledge similarly.

Towards intelligent policy analysis: A discourse structure parsing technique for Chinese government document

Government document analysis can help organizations to understand key policy points and make right response. To realize intelligent analysis of a volume of policies, we propose a discourse parsing technique for in-depth understanding of Chinese government documents (CGDs). Based on Superstructure Schema and Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), we characterize the stylistic features and macrostructure patterns of CGDs and develop a discourse analysis framework to specify its functional structure and semantic system. A tree schema is adopted to portray the hierarchy of textual fragments in full text and formalize their representations in machine-based parsing, then a multi-head partition self-attention model is constructed to evaluate the discourse analysis framework. Experiment results show that our parsing model embedding with inherent CGD discourse features performs better than baselines. The highest f1-score in span and label prediction tasks researches 0.9209. The parsing model can be migrated to other discourse parsing tasks by considering specific genre features of different documents.

STYLISTIC AND GRAMMATICAL POTENTIAL OF ENGLISH TOURISM DISCOURSE

Purpose. The paper aims at discovering stylistic and grammatical peculiarities in tourism discourse based on VisitBritain.com text corpus; analyzing its application scope and mission; specifying “tourism discourse” as a notion.
 Methodology. Used in the paper are general scientific methods (synthesis, generalization), analysis of the text corpus, method of linguistic analysis.
 Results. The issue of tourism discourse as a separate unit, not a subtype of advertising discourse, remains highly disputable nowadays. The present paper analyses the theoretical basis of notions of “discourse” and “tourism discourse”; determines the levels and communication means in tourism; substantiates the hypothesis on multi-component and multi-modal structure of tourism discourse as a linguistic phenomenon. In the practical part of the research, the author draws special attention to the specifics of the English tourism discourse in terms of typology, lexicology and morphology. The paper concludes by saying that tourism discourse is different from advertising one as well as requires further investigation into the issue.
 Practical implications. The results presented in the article can be used both in theory and applications, i.e., further inquiry into the pragmatic constituent of tourism discourse and its interdisciplinarity; compilation of corpora of tourist texts in the English language; adaptation of the English tourism discourse for present-day realities and addressees’ demands.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Muniba Mazari's Motivational Speeches: Annihilating Conventional Construction of Disability, Gender, Perfection, and Existence

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of Muniba Mazari's motivational speeches, focusing on deconstructing conventional notions related to disability, gender, perfection, and existence. The study combines stylistic analysis, motivational theory, and critical discourse analysis frameworks to examine the uniqueness of Mazari's speeches. Drawing on the theoretical concepts proposed by Leech and Short (2007), Maslow's Pyramid (1943), and Fairclough (2003), the analysis scrutinizes traditional perceptions through language choices and discourse formation. The stylistic analysis section utilizes Leech and Short's (2007) framework to thoroughly explore the literary devices employed by Mazari to convey her message and persuade the audience. In line with Fairclough's (2003) framework, the critical discourse analysis section examines Mazari's language choices and discourse structures, revealing her engagement in a contemporary discourse that challenges traditional binary oppositions and constructs a fresh understanding of gender, disability, perfection, and existence. Maslow's Pyramid (1943) framework investigates Mazari's speeches' psychological and motivational aspects, highlighting how she influences the audience's psychology and motivates them. This research offers new insights that counter conventional notions and promote a novel perception of gender, disability, perfection, and existence, providing an intellectual understanding of Mazari's figurative language and thematic exploration.

Exploring the Recontextualisation of Biotechnological Knowledge in the Plant Biotechnology Course: A Bernsteinian Analysis

The purpose of this study was to explore the recontextualisation of knowledge in a Plant biotechnology course. The goal of the analysis was to understand the structure of the pedagogic discourse which the biology education students were to experience during their training. The aim of any training is to prepare the students for their future profession. In this case the training is aimed at preparing the students for teaching biology in secondary schools in Zambia. Studies have indicated that, to effectively prepare the students to teach biology in secondary schools, the students need to experience a pedagogic practice characterized with both weak and strong framing and a weak classification between the discourses. The analysis will also inform the practitioners of the knowledge to be taught and how the knowledge is to be taught. The research question which guided the study was: How is knowledge recontextualised in a plant biotechnology course? Bernstein’s classification, framing, recognition and realization rules were used to analyze and interpret the findings in relation to the training of the teachers. Indicators were developed to guide the analysis. An inductive approach was used to analyse the document. Atlas ti 8 was used to analyse the document. The findings indicated that the document is strongly framed in the selection and evaluation criteria, weakly classified in the relations between discourses. There was no indication of sequencing, pacing and the hierarchical rules in the document. The findings indicate a weak recognition and realisation of the text.

The Discourse Structure of Morisco Journey Narrative Avoqai Journey – A Brief Narrative of Al-Shihab ila Liqaa’ Al-Ahbab) as a Model

Objectives: This study is dedicated to discussing the discourse structure of the journey as used by Ahmad Shihab Al-Din Ibn Qasim Al-Hajari, a well-known Morisco scholar known as the "Avoqai" or "the lawyer". His journey is titled Naser Eddeen Ala Al-Qawm Al-Kafereen. This narrative serves as a factual historical record of the most critical period experienced by the Moorish community in Andalusia. Following the downfall of Muslim strongholds in 1942 AD, the Moorish people faced severe suppression by the "Spanish Inquisition" and were subsequently forced to leave the land after Philip 3rd issued the expulsion decision in 1609 AD. The author also included the debates he conducted with Christians and Jews during his time as the Saadi ambassador in both France and the Netherlands.
 Methods: The study employed the analytical method to identify the elements of speech within the journey. This was achieved through analyzing the journey's speech, starting from the text thresholds presented in the main title and subheadings of the journey's sections.
 Results: The study highlights the discourse elements that transformed the author's journey from a mere narration of events into a distinctive discourse with an authentic literary identity, thanks to the remarkable prose employed in the text.
 Conclusions: Avoqai's journey is a literary voyage that incorporates various elements, as analyzed by narrative criticism. These elements include the introduction of the text, its chronological and captivating functions, as well as narration and characterization. Furthermore, the study examines the role of the narrator as both a speaker and a character, the abundant use of dialogue, and the inclusion of fantastical elements in the text.