Unique Discourse Research Articles

Marketing a culture of achievement to Black and Brown students: TNTP and neoliberal multiculturalism

ABSTRACT Neoliberal multiculturalism is a global racialization process that works as a unifying discourse for the rationalization of neoliberal policies within U.S. global ascendancy and capitalist development. Invoking state multiculturalism, e.g. ‘diversity’ or ‘equity’, neoliberal multiculturalism is officially antiracist. Official antiracism portrays multiculturalism as being at its core while limiting discussions of race and racism to sanctioned racial discourses. Using neoliberal multiculturalism as a framework, this paper presents a critical analysis of the racial ideology presented in TNTP’s founding teacher training curriculum designed specifically for its Teaching Fellows. The analysis demonstrates how official antiracism can function in curriculum designed to train fast-tracked selective alternative route program teachers to teach predominantly Black, Latino, and immigrant students in lower-income neighborhood public schools.

Phenotyping sleep disturbances in ADHD and identifying harmonised outcome measures

AbstractAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a widespread neurodevelopmental disorder. Currently, the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in children and adolescents is primarily centred on daytime functioning and the associated impairment of academic performance, although disrupted and restless sleep have been frequently reported in individuals with ADHD. Further, it has been recognised that sleep disorders not only intensify existing ADHD symptoms but in some cases can also mimic ADHD symptoms in the paediatric population with primary sleep disorders. Under the title ‘The blind spot: sleep as a child’s right issue?’, professionals from diverse disciplines, including medicine and social sciences as well as individuals with an interest in ADHD and sleep medicine, including laypeople, have initiated a unifying discourse. The objective of this discourse is to improve our understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and disruptive behaviours and to develop personalised and precision medicine. Research has shown that the existing, primarily descriptive and categorical diagnostic systems do not capture the heterogeneous nature of youth with attentional and behavioural difficulties and the phenotypic expressions thereof, including nighttime behaviours and sleep. New strategies for clinical phenotyping and the exploration of patient-reported behaviours are necessary to expand our understanding and develop personalised treatment approaches. In this position paper, we outline gaps in the clinical care of ADHD and related sleep disturbances, review strategies for closing these gaps to meet the needs of individuals with ADHD, and suggest a roadmap for escaping the one-size-fits-all approach that has characterised ADHD treatment algorithms to date.

Reconstructing solidarity discourse through conference interpreting at the general debates of the United Nations (2008–2021)

ABSTRACT While reconstructing political discourses in interpreter-mediated international conferences has attracted research attention, reconstructing solidarity discourse as a major theme for UN discourse in conference interpreting has not been studied. This study investigates the reconstruction of the solidarity discourse produced by Chinese heads of state and high-level government officials in Chinese-English conference interpreting at the UN’s General Debates (2008–2021). The corpus-based critical discourse analysis reveals three patterns in the discursive reconstruction done by interpreters: (1) the (re)grouping discourse for the common-collective-Self and common-threat-Others is emphasised; (2) the commissive (promising) discourse for China’s delivery of common goals is accentuated; and (3) the discourse of an inclusive ‘global-we’ with ‘our obligations’ is strengthened. The overall amplification of the solidarity discourse reproduces global consolidation as an upgraded form of international cohesion. Focusing on the prominent theme of solidarity discourse in the UN, this study highlights conference interpreters’ ‘editing’ of linguistic realisations that de facto constitute ideological intervention at interpreter-mediated discursive events.

From Argentina to Zimbabwe: Exploring the global appeal of the International Baccalaureate

This paper presents the third stage of a larger research project examining perceptions of the International Baccalaureate (IB) to better understand its growing influence on education systems around the world. The first two stages involved a synchronic and diachronic analysis of IB discourse in a 27 million word specialized corpus of global press articles, created as an unsolicited window into public opinion (Mautner, 2008). The present study uses the same corpus to explore how the IB is represented in different countries, what values and attitudes may be associated with it, and how it interacts with other global education actors. Bottom up and top down methods from corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) were used to analyze 34,104 newspaper articles from 56 countries. Frequency, collocation and concordance analyses revealed four dominant discourses of deficiency connected to national education systems in countries across the ideological spectrum that helped to legitimize the inclusion of private actors in the provision of education. Results also showed unique discourses associated with the IB in North America, thereby highlighting the key role that this region plays in the IB world.

Discourse analysis of knowledge-based live streaming: a case study of East Buy streamer Dong Yuhui

Abstract Live streaming e-commerce is not only an important part of China’s digital economy but also the preferred way of purchase for many Chinese, especially the young. Since 2022, a new model initiated by East Buy has emerged, quickly becoming known as knowledge-based live streaming. The most famous streamer from this novel type of live streaming is Dong Yuhui, a former English teacher of the New Oriental School. As a top Internet influencer with millions of followers, Dong Yuhui has become a conspicuous social sign of the rising China that is undergoing fast technological, economic, and cultural changes. This study thus takes Dong Yuhui as an example to examine the typical discourses of the knowledge-based live streaming. Through a triangulation of case study, discourse analysis, and sentiment analysis, it finds that Dong Yuhui mainly employs the strategies of disseminating encyclopedic knowledge, telling intriguing stories, and using poetic language in his live streaming discourse. This unique discourse has the main function of fulfilling customers’ intellectual, emotional, and psychological needs. As such, it is warmly received by customers, whose comments are centered on the talents of the streamer rather than the attributes of the commodity.

The (un)tenable flaneuse: an inquiry into the politics of women walking in war-entrenched Kabul

ABSTRACT The article will trace the interrelations between Kabul’s constructed spatiality and the implications of women’s walks through the landscape in two primary texts – Taran Khan’s Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul and Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five in the Afternoon – to trace the unique discourse and modalities of women’s resistance that they generate against oppressive state-sponsored narratives of history. The first part of this article will attempt to delineate the changes in the spatio-geographical landscape of post-2001 Kabul, which I argue was a twofold project of both architectural and epistemic violence. The subsequent sections will interrogate how the walks of the female protagonist in the texts become an agential assertion of resistance against this project of cultural effacement, as they attempt to reinscribe the history of Kabul in manifold different ways which radically challenge state-sponsored authoritarian narratives. Finally, I will argue how both these women, through their urban presence and walks, inhabit as well as set into motion a ‘third space’, after Bhabha’s theorisation of the same, which repurposes existing spatio-ideological markers and multiplies them with new meaning and radical potentialities.

Customized financial literacy: a boon for universal financial inclusion of PWDs post COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries

PurposeCurrently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachSmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.FindingsThe results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.Practical implicationsThe findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.

Illiberal Peacebuilding in UN Stabilization Peace Operations and Peace Agreements in the CAR, the DRC and Mali

ABSTRACT Researchers have shown how UN stabilization peace operations mix liberal and illiberal goals and strategies. Yet, further research is needed to theorize and comprehend illiberal peacebuilding features of stabilization operations. This article fills this gap by demonstrating how UN stabilization operations wield illiberal peacebuilding practices. Building upon previous scholarship, we understand illiberal peacebuilding both as an approach and outcome which is oriented by and helps diffuse illiberal norms in the societies where illiberal peacebuilding is instrumentalized by local, regional and international actors. We frame UN stabilization operations in the CAR, the DRC, and Mali as illiberal peacebuilding processes infused with illiberal strategies and show that liberal actors can engage with illiberal strategies for peace promotion. We also analyse peace agreements that accompany these missions as illiberal peacebuilding outcomes and show how these are shaped by illiberal norms. Our key finding is that a set of illiberal norms – exclusion, violence, power inequality and authoritarianism – are central for both UN stabilization operations and peace agreements signed in CAR, DRC and Mali. Therefore, we challenge the UN discourse that stabilization is a needed first step towards liberal and inclusive peace agreements.

Sobre incompatibilidade e estranhamento: o enunciado da cristofobia e suas escalas de sentido em charges online

ABSTRACT In this article, I propose a dialogical analysis of five online cartoons which reverberate the discourse of the former president of Brazil (2019-2022) at the UN in September 2020, when he called the international community to combat Christphobia. Named after the same term, the cartoons present a framework of interdiscursive antagonism between Christian and the former President of Brazil’s fanatic followers’ positions. Assuming that cartoons are a privileged discursive genre for understanding the dialogical resonances between interlocutors and discourses, this work approaches Christphobia as a responsive utterance in terms of scales of meaning. From the analysis, one can see a discursive game of incompatibility and estrangement, that makes room to a Christophobic “Other” in opposition to a persecuted “minority us,” as once presented during the UN discourse. There is an emphasis on a perception of religious intolerance as a result of the political agenda of the former president of Brazil’s religious-ideological alignment.

UN DISCOURSE AND ITS FEATURES

At the current stage of the development of linguistics, the focus of attention of scientists working in various fields is language identity in all its styles and forms. The need for communicative practice to focus on its optimization and identification of the factors that represent the success of communication has predetermined the growing interest in discourse and its components. This article focuses on identifying the distinctive features of the official UN discourse. The theoretical framework of discourse analysis includes various fields of social sciences such as sociology, psychology, linguistics, media and political science. Each of these fields uses discourse analysis based on its own perspective and scientific methods and creates its rules for discourse analysis. The need for communicative practice to focus on its optimization and identification of the factors that represent the success of communication has predetermined the growing interest in discourse and its components.. This article, respectively, focuses on identifying the distinctive features of the official UN discourse.

Care and Constraints in the Climate Crisis: An Intersectional Rhetorical Analysis of News Comments about the El Dorado Fire

In September 2020, a gender reveal party started the El Dorado Fire in southern California. We analyzed comments on news coverage of the fire from two outlets with different political leanings to evaluate how the rhetorical process of assigning guilt is influenced by interlocking systems of power, making an intersectional lens useful for analyzing responses to environmental crises. Some comments evoked scapegoat ecology, which is a response to guilt that narrows the scope of climate change to the igniters of the wildfire. Other comments evoked what we call ecological transcendence, which replaces scapegoating with attention to systems-level concerns. In analyzing ecological transcendence, we outline differences between collective action mobilized by inclusive care and seemingly unifying discourses of selective care that foster marginalization and oppression. We contribute to environmental rhetoric and feminist studies by emphasizing the importance of attending to intersectionality in analyzing rhetorics of guilt in ecological contexts and through our proposal of ecological transcendence as an alternative to scapegoat ecology.

Peirce’s three-dimensional notion of vagueness

My aim in this paper is to provide some introductory coordinates aiming at orienting a unified discourse on the doctrine of vagueness in Peirce. After tracing some of the stages in Peircean scholarship that have brought the concept of vagueness into focus, I will show that vagueness, as it appears in Peircean philosophy, is a three-dimensional concept. Thus, while vagueness is a concept that appears in a logical-semiotic dimension – and more specifically as a problem related to the quantification of the subject within the propositional context – it is also articulated in an epistemological and metaphysical dimension. Here I focus primarily on the semiotic dimension and suggest how an account of vagueness might hold together the epistemological and metaphysical consequences of the notion of vagueness.

The View From Beijing on Black Lives Matter: Why do Black Lives Matter for Beijing?

Why and how has China covered the Black Lives Matter (BLM), a movement with emerging themes closely related to its domestic issues? To what extent does the Chinese media build a unified discourse on sensitive themes that underpin the BLM? These are important questions given China's complicated history with ethnicity, race, and protests. This article argues that Chinese media uses BLM as a multi-faceted propaganda tool to foster cohesion at ideological level. NVivo-powered coding and thematic media analysis show that mainstream media, including official, semi-official and commercial media, and we-media do not present a uniform discourse on BLM. While they generally converge on criticism towards “protests” and “police” action, they display a nuanced “anti-US” and “Greater China” discourse. Moreover, the BLM coverage is used to undermine the US and strengthen by comparison the party-state's legitimacy. In the absence of a reflective discussion on race, racist undertones emerge in Chinese we-media.

Analysis of the Changes in the Characteristics of Diplomatic Discourse between China and Cuba (1960-2022)

For more than sixty years since diplomatic ties between China and Cuba, the exchange discourse between the foreign ministries and the press releases and treaties signed also contain discourses that convey to the world the cordial ties between the two nations. Based on five joint statements and documents signed between 1960 to 2022, the study focuses on the Chinese and Cuban diplomatic discourse through textual and paradigmatic analysis and explores the reasons for the changes. The paper takes a positive view of the future of the relations between China and Cuba. The diplomatic ideas and concepts of the Chinese Communist Party have been externalized into Chinese diplomatic practice through cooperation, along with Chinas high-quality and efficient development. In light of the recent modifications to the current worldwide scene, China and Cuba have fully developed in all aspects. The two countries have developed a harmonious and cooperative diplomatic concept based on shared interests. They have proposed a new diplomatic strategy sufficient to build a unique discourse of diplomatic exchanges and cooperation.

Unveiling the Art of Food Vlogging: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Food Review Vlogs

Vlogs are among the videos with the biggest viewership on different social media sites, which led to academic interest and analyses. This study aims to identify the speech acts used by popular food vloggers in their food vlogs and investigate how the various modalities they used create a perlocutionary effect on the audience in the form of reactions. Furthermore, the study looked into how the modalities observed shape the discourse of food vlogging. This descriptive study explored the genre’s apparent unique discourse community through the food vlogs by Mikey Chen, Mark Wiens and Luke Martin in Binondo, Philippines. The corpora which were specific videos and vloggers were chosen through purposive sampling. The linguistic aspect of the data was analyzed by categorizing the utterances into different speech acts, whereas the types of multimodalities present in each of the vlogs were also examined. Results of the study revealed that food vlogs share a common goal of describing food and enticing curiosity of viewers. It was also found that food vlogs thrive in modes and languages that are exclusive to the food vlogging community. Food vloggers encourage interaction via the comment section. Moreover, food vlogging has a unique genre with specific lexis that includes food, culinary and complimentary terms. Most importantly, food vloggers and viewers in specific food vlogs contribute to the expanding food vlogging community that has its unique discourse that is shaped by its distinctive modalities and structure.

Ecological Discourse Analysis of UNICEF Environmental Reports

This research is an ecolinguistic study of UNICEF Environmental Reports “Nutrition in Emergencies” (June, 2018) in relation to the Sustainable Developmental Goals. It serves to identify the linguistic structures that highlight the role and responsibility of universal organizations and institutions in shaping the public’s views that are at the heart of sustainable development, and how one can be more socially involved. This research tackles potential influences the study of ecolinguistics can have on significant real-world issues, and how linguists can involve themselves in attending at these issues for a ‘sustainable future’. This research follows Stibbe’s (2015) model of analysis, namely, the framing technique. It attempts to reveal the frames used by UNICEF (June 2018) discourse via identifying the triggering words and then derive the source frames and their target domains. Accordingly, six texts are analyzed and the results show that there are many framings reflected by UN discourse that try to shape the worldview in relation to this report and that these texts are positive and beneficial since they are aligned with the ecological philosophy and ethical consideration to the lives and wellbeing of other species.

Analysing eco-art installations for their value in affecting change

A distinctive form of environmentally driven art and design practice has emerged in urban contexts over the last few decades. This practice has developed a unique discourse aiming to inform and rally the public to action. The global eco-didactic direction of this artwork not only demonstrates an alignment with pressing ecological issues but is driven by an urgent need to explain unsustainable anthropocentric practices. Adopting the public realm as an audience is key for these works, since this enables human encounters with the issues collectively, contributing to the potential of ‘public space as a political forum’. This article poses the question ‘are these works a means of revealing the Anthropocene?’ A series of art and design installations are examined along with a discussion of the what these works aim to accomplish and how this can be achieved.

A discourse and content analysis of representation in the mainstream media of the South African National Health Insurance policy from 2011 to 2019

BackgroundMedia is a crucial factor in shaping public opinion and setting policy agendas. There is limited research on the role of media in health policy processes in low- and middle-income countries. This study profiles South Africa as a case example, currently in the process of implementing a major health policy reform, National Health Insurance (NHI).MethodsA descriptive, mixed methods study was conducted in five sequential phases. Evidence was gathered through a scoping review of secondary literature; discourse analysis of global policy documents on universal health coverage and South African NHI policy documents; and a content and discourse analysis of South African print and online media texts focused on NHI. Representations within media were analysed and dominant discourses that might influence the policy process were identified.ResultsDiscourses of ‘health as a global public good’ and ‘neoliberalism’ were identified in global and national policy documents. Similar neoliberal discourse was identified within SA media. Unique discourses were identified within SA media relating to biopolitics and corruption. Media representations revealed political and ideological contestation which was not as present in the global and national policy documents. Media representations did not mirror the lived reality of most of the South African population. The discourses identified influence the policy process and hinder public participation in these processes. They reinforce social hierarchy and power structures in South Africa, and might reinforce current inequalities in the health system, with negative repercussions for access to health care.ConclusionsThere is a need to understand mainstream media as part of a people-centred health system, particularly in the context of universal health coverage reforms such as NHI. Harmful media representations should be counter-acted. This requires the formation of collaborative and sustainable networks of policy actors to develop strategies on how to leverage media within health policy to support policy processes, build public trust and social cohesion, and ultimately decrease inequalities and increase access to health care. Research should be undertaken to explore media in other diverse formats and languages, and in other contexts, particularly low- and middle-income countries, to further understand media’s role in health policy processes.

<p><em>It’s Not About the Burqa</em>: Transversing Heterotopia and Hypomnemata in Muslim Women’s Life Narratives</p>

Muslim women who are forcibly displaced from their homophobic parent culture are further oppressed within the structures of Islamophobia in the host culture. Discursive re-imaginations based on their Islamic authenticity have skewed them as either veiled or unveiled women from other homogeneous ethnic cultures. Such cursory representations have cemented perceptions about them as outsiders and so a source of constant threat. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to aid discursive reconfigurations of partial representations affecting transculturally or forcibly displaced Muslim women at the intersections of racial, gender or religious persecutions.
 Through a reading of the life-narratives by similarly displaced Muslim women in the anthology It’s Not About the Burqa, this article examines two key questions: 1) How do these women negate discursive conceptions of single stories? 2) How do they reach a unique discourse that addresses such partial representations? The article proposes heterotopia and hypomnemata as two transversal possibilities. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds which mirror what is outside. They can contain differences and undesirable bodies. Whereas hypomnemata refers to personal notes used for later reading and meditation. There has been little work bringing together the transcultural and the transversal. While the transcultural is a system of thought that conceives of cultures as an ongoing flux of confluences,[1] transversality endorses plural possibilities. It offers tools to deterritorialize closed logics.[2] This article therefore calls for revisiting the collaborative dynamics of these concepts as contested through the life-narratives of displaced Muslim women.
 
 [1] Arianna Dagnino, ‘Manifesto for a Transcultural Humanism’, (2014) <https://blogs.ubc.ca/ariannadagnino/research/manifesto-for-a-transcultural-humanism>
 [Accessed 27 May, 2022].
 [2] Gary Genosko, Felix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction (London: Continuum, 2002), p.55.

Piccolo Mondo de Fanny Romagnoli e Silvia Albertoni: um estudo sobre a produção, circulação, materialidade e conteúdo (1901-1938)

ABSTRACT Between the last two decades of the 19th century and the first three of the 20th, it is possible to find signs of distribution and circulation of Italian books among immigrants and their descendants. This article aims to understand the production and circulation of reading books by Fanny Romagnoli and Silvia Albertoni, authors of Piccolo Mondo, approved to be adopted in elementary schools on the Peninsula and in Italian schools in Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century, and then analyze one of the volumes, the Sillabario, intended for first-class use. Anchored in the contributions of the History of Education and Cultural History and having the documental analysis as the adopted procedure, the present text takes as a privileged source the Piccolo Mondo reading book, in addition to Ministerial Circulars, a biobibliographic dictionary and newspapers. It also operates with the transnational category as a methodological approach in the History of Education. Books are considered cultural artifacts that are situated in the articulation between the prescriptions imposed by official programs and the unique discourses of teachers. For the process of internalizing the idea of the Italian Nation, a political-pedagogical project capable of bringing together the notions of nation, state and moral education in a single virtuous process was necessary. It can be said that Piccolo Mondo joined the project of creating a “new man”, a citizen of a Nation capable of leading the Nation to the conquest of modernity.