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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using procedural scaffoldings in fostering students’ group discourse levels and learning outcomes in a paper-plus-smartphone collaborative learning context. All participants used built-in camera smartphones to learn new knowledge by scanning Quick Response (QR) codes, a type of two-dimensional barcode, embedded in paper-based learning materials in this study. Sixty undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at a four-year university in southern Taiwan participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned into two different groups, using procedural scaffoldings learning and non-procedural scaffoldings learning. The learning unit about the Long Tail, an important concept used in products sales, was the learning task that participants were expected to complete. During the experiment, pretest–posttest and the completed group worksheets were used to collect data. The researchers applied content analyses, chi-square test, t-test, and ANCOVA to answer research questions. The findings indicated that participants in the experimental group using procedural scaffoldings achieved better learning outcomes than their counterparts in the control group in terms of group discourse levels, group learning, and individual learning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Corpus studies suggest that verb tense is a differentiating feature between, on the one hand, text pertaining to experimental results (involving methods and results) and on the other hand, text pertaining to more abstract concepts (i.e. regarding background knowledge in a field, hypotheses, problems or claims). In this paper, we describe a user experiment that investigates whether for biological readers, this tense correlation has a psychological correlate. To study this, we defined seven distinct discourse segments types and modified them either by changing the verb tense/mood (for all segment types), negation (for Problems), or presence of an epistemic matrix clause (‘These results suggest…’) for Implications. Regardless of the original segment type, we found that for Facts, Results and Hypothesis segments, present tense yielded more Fact classifications, past tense more Result interpretations, and modal auxiliaries more Hypothesis interpretations. Methods statements were less sensitive to verb form. Problem segments required negations to be recognized, while Implications required introductory matrix clauses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This rhetorical study investigated the employment of interpersonal metadiscourse in applied linguistics articles written in English by Anglo-American and Iranian academic writers. To this end, a representative sample of 60 conclusion sections written by the two groups of writers was selected as the corpus. The two groups of writers were compared in terms of their use of “hedges”, “emphatics”, and “attitude markers” in the extracts. The interpersonal categories were also broken down into subtypes depending on the linguistic items used, and analyzed for distribution in the conclusion sections. The functional–contextual analysis shows similarities and differences in the rhetorical behaviour of these authors in their use of interpersonal metadiscourse. There was a remarkable tendency by both writer groups towards hedging their propositions. Pronounced differences were mainly in the higher use of emphatics and attitude markers by Anglo-American authors. High certainty avoidance and abstinence from attitudinal language was noticeable amongst Iranian experts. The differences are attributed to the degree of rhetorical sensitivity to and awareness of audience, purpose, cultural leanings, and the proclivities of the disciplinary genre. The implications of this study can be helpful in academic writing, EFL writing instruction, and genre analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper deals with the division of pragmatic labor between two types of wh -interrogatives in Marzahn German (MG). Use of the first type, marked by the enclitic particle n ([ n - int ]), is near obligatory for and confined to canonical, i.e., information-seeking question acts. The second type, lacking n ([∅- int ]), has to be employed in non-canonical questions, such as rhetorical ones. This pattern of apparent markedness-reversal challenges the pretense-based approach to exam questions by Plunze and Zimmermann (2006) (Section 2) and plausibilizes an approach to information-seeking questions in terms of social cost in the sense of Levinson (2012) (Section 3.1). Overall empirical evidence, however, favors an account of n -marking as reinforcement of question act defaults in line with Farkas (2022) (Section 3.2). Section 5 offers a formulation of reinforcement in terms of the "table model" of discourse (Farkas 2022), such that the peculiar status of MG [ n - int ] follows from the prohibition of contextually overriding "basic conventional discourse effects". In the course of the above discussion, we will scrutinize different notions of interrogative sentential force (Sections 1, 2, 5), illustrate the form and workings of several types of non-canonical questions (guess, rhetorical, echo etc.), and analyze question use in the light of institutional settings and interpersonal effects (3.3). • Division of pragmatic labor for [± n ]-marked wh -interrogatives in Marzahn German. • Particle n reserved for information-seeking questions. • Reinforcement of question act defaults with advantages over recording social costs. • Ban on contextual overrides as the special conventional discourse effect of n. • Evidence from exam questions against pretense-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrative forms in Cebuano are highly versatile and, as often seen crosslinguistically, can serve discourse deictic, discourse marking, and placeholding functions. Some of the demonstratives have also developed into speaker stance markers. Using data from spontaneous conversations, this paper examines how Cebuano demonstratives, especially the form kanάng , have extended their use from the referential domain to the non-referential (in particular, pragmatic) domain. The demonstrative form kanάng , spoken with a tone of uncertainty, is often used as a repair marker and filler, as a topic marker and mental staging device for upcoming information, as well as a hedge when a speaker is dealing with sensitive or awkward topics. This study also compares kanάng with other stance markers, in particular negation markers and interjectory particles that are likewise recruited in clause-initial position to mark varying stance intensities, with results indicating that kanάng expresses the mildest stance, hence its frequent use as a politeness marking device. • Demonstrative forms in Cebuano are highly versatile. • Cebuano kanang is used as a hedge for dealing with sensitive or awkward topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Placed at the intersection of semantics and pragmatics, the concept of semantic prosody has been associated with various notions including evaluative meaning, attitudinal meaning and connotations, and there is no agreement among researchers as to its definition and operationalization. In this critical-reflection theoretical paper, we provide an overview of collocational and discoursal approaches to semantic prosody, which we treat as distinct and, at the same time, complementary. Furthermore, we suggest that the semantic prosody can be conceptualised as an interaction between a source and a target term, where the target term has a descriptive semantic content, and it receives its evaluative meaning from the source term, which can be either only evaluative (thin) or both evaluative and descriptive (thick). Next, we propose that the source of semantic prosody can be accounted for in terms of value judgments. In particular, a value judgment that a speaker ascribes to the factual content of a term is always relative to a certain kind of standard. Thus, our proposal supports the view that the speaker's stance, manifested in value judgments that they ascribe to terms, can be considered as a source of semantic prosody. • We propose a new theoretical reading of semantic prosody grounded in the philosophy of language. • We argue that semantic prosody arises as a result of interaction between thin and thick terms. • We argue that the semantics of expressions that have semantic prosody can be understood in terms of value judgments. • We argue that value judgements ascribed by speakers to expressions are relative to a culturally-marked kind of standard. • Our proposal supports both the collocational and discoursal views of semantic prosody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we look at the role that macrostructures in discourse have to play in the study of swearing. While studied in isolation, such macrostructures have not yet been studied comprehensively and the range of macrostructures studied has been small. By contrast, work on microstructures is much better developed. In response to this, using spoken corpus data from the BNC2014, we take two approaches to studying discourse in this paper. In the first approach, we explore spoken data which has been annotated with a functional discourse coding scheme that shows, across the corpus, the distribution of a set of macrostructures, discourse units, that generally characterise conversation. Our goal is to see how swearing distributes according to discourse unit function and to account for any observations made. Following from that, we explore a single macrostructure of discourse - narrative, including its sub-elements - to see whether swearing interacts with this macrostructure and its component parts. We conclude by arguing that discourse is an important dimension along which the use of swearing may vary, that such variation is likely to relate to emotion, and that the different perspectives on macrostructure taken in the paper are complementary. • The need for swearing research to shift to consider macrostructure as well as microstructure. • Functional views of discourse and swearing. • Discourse unit and narrative annotation of conversational data. • Nesting of macrostructures in discourse. • Swearing, emotion and macrostructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the information structural properties of so-called premise (also factual) conditionals, conditional sentences whose antecedent repeats previously evoked content. We argue that, semantically, premise conditionals are hypothetical conditionals, with two pragmatic properties: their antecedent is echoic and thematic. We show that some of the differences identified in the literature between hypothetical and premise conditionals follow from the informational status of the antecedent. While the antecedent of a premise conditional is thematic, the antecedent of a hypothetical conditional can also be rhematic. Rhematic conditionals happen to be compatible with all the characteristics that stand out as incompatible with premise conditionals. Additionally, we argue that echoicity is a definitional property of the premise reading of indicative conditionals. • Premise (also called factual) conditionals are not a syntactic/semantic object on their own. • They are just a possible interpretation of an indicative conditional given the right discourse conditions. • We define them as thematic and echoic; the antecedent need not be Common Ground. • Thematicity explains previously observed characteristics of premise conditionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theory of interpreting argument types as an integral part of a systematic and comprehensive 'hermeneutics of persuasive discourse'. It first explains how such a hermeneutics can be developed based on pragmatic insights about the use of language for persuasive purposes expressed in the philosophy of argument. Then, after having provided an overview of the main hermeneutical stages involved in interpreting persuasive discourse, the paper focuses on the stage of argument type identification. It formulates a 'hermeneutics of argument type' in terms of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA), an argument categorization framework systematizing existing accounts of arguments in the broad sense of the term (topoi , loci , argument schemes, fallacies, means of persuasion). For each of the three parameters within this framework, 'argument form', 'argument substance', and 'argument lever', the paper describes how to determine their value by analyzing several examples of natural arguments. • Offers detailed pragmatic insights about the use of language for argumentative or persuasive purposes. • Provides a general overview of the hermeneutical stages involved in interpreting argumentative or persuasive discourse. • Contains an explanation of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA) and its application to analyzing argumentation in the wild. • Provides clear guidelines for annotating corpora of argumentative or persuasive discourse. • Can be used to design empirical cognitive psychological research into how people process persuasive messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In action exchanges what is at stake is the responsibility for performing an action. • Interlocutors negotiate their responsibilities on a move-by-move basis. • The possible choices available for a move are constrained by their functions in exchanges. This paper offers a responsibility-based model of the move system as an alternative to the current speech-functional model in discourse semantics in Systemic Functional Linguistics, particularly for exchanges revolving around the giving and demanding of goods-&-services. It argues that at move rank speakers have at their disposal the choice between positioning and not positioning each other. When positioned, the speaker may or may not be positioned as responsible for carrying out the negotiated action; and at the same time, the addressee may or may not be positioned as responsible. Drawing on simple examples mainly from TV programmes, the paper shows how certain options in the move system are preselected and activated by different structural functions in an action exchange. The responsibility-based model proposed in this paper sheds light on a number of problems identified in the current speech-functional model of the move system in discourse semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of experts in implementing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives at the national level and explores the performative politics and power dynamics involved. Original research conducted in Malaysia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, where REDD+ efforts were underway, provides the empirical basis for the study. The findings reveal tensions between the official win-win narrative of REDD+ and the reflective perspectives of experts based on their empirical knowledge and unique positionalities. These tensions raise questions about the underlying norms and values associated with REDD+. However, the pursuit of professional development within the international development and conservation sector, reliant on donor funding, impedes constructive reflection. The alignment of experts with donor visions for career advancement contributes to this obstacle. Therefore, the paper argues for creating space for a more reflexive approach among scholars and practitioners to foster comprehensive reflection and a fundamental rethink of the future of REDD+. • Examination of REDD+ experts' discourses at the national level reveals another operational challenge for REDD+. • Empirical observations and past experiences of REDD+ experts raise doubts about the core norms and values of REDD+. • The lack of emphasis on this empirical knowledge in international policy processes hinders REDD+'s progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper examines wildlife conservation discourses promoted by hunting companies. • Considers the significance of technology for four hunting companies in the U.S. • Analyzes discourses of technology promoted on company websites. • Finds companies emphasize trophy animals, neoliberalism, and exclusionary politics. • And argues environmentality studies should explicitly consider discursive absences. Understanding dynamics around the neoliberalization of conservation is an important direction within current scholarly research. In this paper, we contribute to these discussions by examining how companies within the hunting industry engage in practices that are reflective of neoliberal environmentality. We conduct a Foucauldian discourse analysis of four companies' websites to interrogate what discourses of technology companies promote to hunters and anglers, how they mobilize these discourses, and how these discourses function to reproduce wildlife conservation-minded subjects and maintain particular beliefs, identities, and practices about both wildlife conservation and conservationists that uphold state conservation objectives. Through our discourse analysis, we find that companies within the hunting industry construct hunter/angler wildlife conservation-minded subjects by educating consumers, legitimizing trophy animals, using identity politics, positioning technology as a conservation(ist's) tool, and through wearing camouflage. Subsequently, we argue these companies present a view of wildlife conservation that problematically privileges neoliberal values, trophy animals, and exclusionary politics, illustrating how discourses of technology function to obscure such issues. Examinations of environmentality must therefore more explicitly consider discursive absences and other hidden aspects of conservation as well as potential consequences of failing to address oversights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show how topoi warrant inferences for interpreting and producing dialogue contributions, particularly in the case of enthymemes where the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. We situate our theory of topoi in the context of pragmatic theory by relating it to other theories of inference and coherence. Through detailed analysis of a single dialogue, we show how dialogue participants can incrementally entertain and resolve mismatching interpretations of an enthymematic utterance. We discuss how the notions of topoi and enthymemes can add to a generalisable model of coherence in dialogue. • We argue that topoi are relevant to the production and interpretation of utterances in interaction. • Whether or not arguments in discourse are seen as valid depends on the topoi one is willing to accept. • Misunderstandings in dialogue may be related to a mismatch of topoi between speakers. • We present a model of how agents can entertain and resolve mismatching utterance interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conjectural questions are questions that do not expect an answer, but only express the speaker's curiosity about the issue. This paper proposes an analysis of conjectural wh -questions in Cuzco Quechua and argues that the conjectural = chá makes the same kind of contribution in interrogatives as it does in declaratives. First, it adds the condition that the evidence holder's (the speaker in declaratives, the addressee in interrogatives) reasoning bears on the issue under discussion. Second, while canonical assertions and questions expect that the addressee will commit to either the proposition expressed by a declarative or to one of the possible answers denoted by an interrogative, their conjectural counterparts do not have this expectation. The proposed analysis of the conjectural is couched within an extended version of the commitment-based discourse framework of Farkas and Bruce (2010). It differs from previous analyses of conjectural questions in analyzing the conjectural condition as a speaker commitment about the current context rather than a constraint on possible responses by the addressee. • The Cuzco Quechua conjectural encodes that the evidence holder is able support the at-issue proposition by reasoning. • The evidence holder is the speaker in declaratives and the addressee in interrogatives. • Interrogatives with the conjectural are interpreted as conjectural questions, they do not expect an answer. • These claims and observations can be captured in Farkas and Bruce's (2010) discourse framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a discursive change in the representation of urban-rural mobilities in the Austrian public media. Before the pandemic, a narrative of 'rural decline' had dominated the media discourse. Media have since changed this narrative to one of counterurbanisation as a result of the (perceived) effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on residential location choices. However, in contrast to media perceptions, scientific debates were more reluctant to identify a Covid-induced counterurban movement. In this paper, we take the opposition between the media representation and the scientific evidence as a starting point for a critical investigation of the media representation of counterurbanisation in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the approach of discourse coalitions, we investigated the actors and the coalitions they had formed to promote a Covid-induced 'counterurbanisation story'. We could identify two coalitions that created two variations of the Covid-induced 'counterurbanisation story': a prudent and an idealised discourse. These two discourses were promoted by different actors with different interests. Through our findings, the paper adds another layer to study of the construction of a 'counterurbanisation story'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Digital technologies are transforming corporate banking relations. • A Cultural Economy lens offers granular, relational accounts of platform finance. • Banks' discourse on digitization combines tech with banking sector repertoires. • Banks' digital strategies reveal economic and technological path dependencies. • Economic geographic shifts are figured as topological/topographical entanglements. Recent economic and financial geographical literatures on Fintech have queried how financial incumbents' operational and business models are changing with digital technologies. Providing financial services that enable firms to operate and internationalize, corporate banking is a key part of Advanced Producer Services (APS) where such transformations are underway. This paper contributes to geographical literatures on Fintech and APS change by developing a Cultural Economy approach to digital transformation in corporate banking at two large European banks - BNP Paribas and ING. Through a focus on discourse, processes and materialities, a Cultural Economy lens can help producing more nuanced geographies of digital transformation at incumbent banks. Building on Investor Relations materials where digital strategies are discursively articulated for investors, the paper explores two tropes marking these discourses: 'customer experience' and the 'digital platform'. Exploring these in depth, the paper contributes two main insights. First, where the trope of customer experience entails a folding of banking into customers' spatiotemporalities, banks' discourse reveal key entanglements between this topological digital space and a shifting topographical space of branch networks, established and emerging financial and service centres and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Second, incumbent banks' discourse on digital transformation manifest, and is shaped by key path dependencies which are economic, technological, and geographic. Notably, questions of legacy IT systems, as well as economic and organizational restructuring following the 2008 financial crisis mark the distinctive ways in which incumbent banks are disputing the discursive field of digital financial re-intermediation vis-à-vis technology and Fintech companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies are expected to contribute significantly to climate abatement, but the technologies have not been widely adopted and remain relatively unfamiliar to the public. Public opinions and attitudes can contribute significantly to the deployment of technologies and can be studied through discourses. Discourses can reveal underlying attitudes from widespread narratives. This paper investigates the attitude atmosphere around CCUS technologies through Finnish media discourses, building on 51 articles from 13 different national newspapers or news media sites. The findings of this research confirm that CCUS technologies are fairly unfamiliar to the public but indicate positive attitudes particularly towards carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. However, information provision to the public does not necessarily translate towards increasingly positive attitudes. Communication should be genuine and focused on interaction instead of persuading the public of the benefits of the technologies. Methodologically, this paper points out that media discourses can provide possibilities to assess attitude atmospheres around unfamiliar technologies, such as CCUS. • Public opinions can have significant impact on the deployment of technologies. • Exploring attitude atmosphere around CCUS technologies. • Media discourses can unveil the opinions of the public. • Information provision should be genuine and participatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse parsing for multiparty dialogue aims to detect the discourse structure and relations in a dialogue to obtain a discourse dependency graph. Existing models for this task have proven the effect of speaker information. However, no model explicitly learns representations of the speaker for parsing the discourse structure of dialogues. In this paper, to further exploit the effect of speaker information, we propose a novel model HG-MDP , which uses a heterogeneous graph neural network to encode dialogue graphs and we use an iterative update for the aggregation of speaker nodes and utterance nodes. Finally, we adopt updated utterance nodes to predict discourse dependency links and relations using the biaffine module. To validate our HG-MDP model, we perform experiments on the two existing benchmarks STAC and Molweni corpus. The results prove the effectiveness of the speaker modeling module on two datasets and we achieve the state-of-the-art on the Molweni dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of studies describe the many different functions of polyfunctional discourse markers like well in different contexts and from different theoretical perspectives. In the current paper, we propose to systematize the many different uses identified based on their position with respect to the discourse units they are associated with. Not only can previous findings on well be integrated into a single coherent representation of its uses and functions, but the positions with respect to the discourse units can also be associated with specific functions, thus shedding light on how the polyfunctionality of well is brought about. • This paper explains and relates the polyfunctionality of the English DM well. • Functions are correlated with their position in different discourse units. • Previous findings on well, integrated into a single representation of positions∗DUs. • Discourse positions correlate with pragmatic functions: modal, textual, interactive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the semantics of demonstratives is in a stalemate between those positions attributing some referential significance to a speaker's referential intentions and those not doing so. The latter approach is supported by cases driving the non-intentional intuition in which the speakers mistakenly point at objects other than the ones they intend to refer to. The intentionalists, such as Martin Montminy, reply that once we think of potential extensions of such cases in which the speaker explains to the hearer what her referential intention was, it is the intentionalist intuition that prevails. In this paper, I develop a semantics for demonstratives whose task is to accommodate both of these seemingly contradictory intuitions within the general non-intentionalist framework. The proposed idea is that the reference of a use of a demonstrative can change over time, as the discourse develops. This idea is handled formally by the addition of a parameter of the index of evaluation that represents the referentially relevant aspects of the state of the discourse. Also, I provide reasons for preferring my view over two rival positions: one by Palle Leth, and one that I adjust to the demands of the semantics of demonstratives from the theory that Kai von Fintel and Anthony Gillies offer for epistemic modals, and from Laura Delgado's polyreferentialism for proper names. • The reference of uses of demonstratives might change as the discourse develops. • There is a way to incorporate intentionalist and conventionalist intuitions about demonstrative reference into one view. • A view able to do so is preferable over the no-reference and polyreferentialist views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Extraction based dialogue state tracking model that utilizes the syntactic structure of utterances. • Syntactic Discourse (SD) graph enables encoding syntax information and discourse flow. • Graph Attention Network (GAT) produces syntactic and discourse-aware embedding. • Experiments on multiple datasets verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. Dialogue state tracking is a key component of a task-oriented dialogue system. Recently, pretrained language models are widely used to track a dialogue state by generating or extracting values from a dialogue. These models have a shortcoming that they can explicitly encode contextual information of a dialogue. In this paper, we present a Syntactically ENriched Discourse Dialogue State Tracking model (SEND-DST) that fully leverages the discourse and syntax information of a dialogue. Our model consists of two parts: a dialogue encoding module and a slot-value extraction module. To provide a model with syntactic structures of utterances and the discourse flow of a dialogue, we devise a Syntactic Discourse (SD) graph using the dependency trees of the utterances. Experimental results show that SEND-DST achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple datasets, such as MultiWOZ 2.1, demonstrating its effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claiming and representing "True" Islam has been a major preoccupation among the Muslim groups in Kerala in recent times. In a way, this has augmented the Muslim public sphere in which active debates happen, and also breaks with the general understanding of Islam as monolithic in its ideology and practice. This paper attempts to bring precisely this dynamics of Muslim public sphere in Malabar where prominent groups like the Sunni, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen debate constantly over the representation and following of what is called "True Islam." The claim towards a true Islam is done by each of the groups by claiming authenticity over what they preach and practice. This paper highlights these debates in the context of the academic debates over "True" and "Authenticated" Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the analysis of topic shifters from a contrastive perspective, using a pragmatic approach based on conversational logic, theories of relevance and coherence/cohesion studies. Discourse markers and topic shifters in French have been widely investigated, and provided a description of the core values and a typology of uses; a comparative perspective is expected to highlight new semantic values, a better understanding of their pragmatic role and even to establish new typologies. As far as Romanian is concerned, the research on topic shifters is still incipient, and the parallel corpora used so far have provided only a small number of equivalents (de asemenea, de altfel, de altminteri, ȋn plus, pe de altă parte). Moreover, the study of the Romanian correspondents of French topic shifters has shown that the same marker often combines two functions, depending on the discursive strategies developed and on the context, which makes its semantic interpretation even more difficult. A systematic investigation aiming at an exhaustive inventory of these markers is therefore motivated, requiring a thorough analysis of different types of corpora (written and oral), involving various discourse types. In order to identify a wider range of topic shifters in Romanian, besides bilingual corpora provided by the Linguee and Reverso online dictionaries, I consulted a number of modern and contemporary translations from French into Romanian, seeking to assign each unit a specific value or sub-type of topic shifting, such as sharing the same argumentative orientation or the introduction of a new perspective on the topic in question, etc. • The paper identifies a series of linguistic forms (originally manner adverbs or space adverbs) that can function as topic shifters in contemporary Romanian. • The analysis of the Romanian equivalents of the two French Topic shifters (par ailleurs and d'ailleurs) shows an important difference in the way the two languages encode topic shifting. • While d'ailleurs is mostly translated in Romanian as de altfel "moreover", which has the same argumentative function, par ailleurs is translated by a wider range of markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong literature which examines how the ways that peripheries are discursively constructed impacts on the processes of Peripheralisation. For example, Bürk et al. (2012) discuss how some discourses 'stigmatise' regions, harming future development and reproducing peripherality. This paper speaks to concerns over how to address this. It asks whether examining peripheral regions as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) can help to find ways to operationalise the agency of people in individual peripheries, thereby challenging peripheralising discourses. In the following study the paper examines Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) for the tools that they offer to address peripheralising processes. It uses this as a means to examine the strategic discourses utilised in two peripheral rural regions; the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission area in South West Virginia, USA, and Cornwall in the South West of the UK. This analysis makes visible gaps in the ways that knowledges flow and are shared around the regions with regards to changes in the economy. In this example, communicating skills gaps might offer a means to incorporate the general public to help to develop new narratives which can challenge peripheralising ones. • Peripheries can be imagined as evolutionary complex adaptive systems. • Imagining peripheries as complex systems makes visible processes through which peripheralising narratives become reproduced. • It is important to develop mechanisms which allows new knowledges to be shared around peripheries. • To understand how regional economies evolve, we need to consider how the public can learn about how economies have changed. • To better share information about changing rural economies, members of the public need to be made aware about skills gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent escalation of the farmer-pastoralist conflicts in Nigeria has seen a resurgence in the scholarly inquiry into the conflicts. Discourse analysis approaches to the study of the conflicts have emerged, but existing studies have not examined the transformation and adaptation of the conflicts' discourse. This study uses constructivist grounded theory to examine the transformation and adaptation of the farmer-pastoralist conflict discourse based on interviews in the Benue Valley of Nigeria's Middle Belt region. In addition, it develops a novel and sophisticated analytical framework to explicate this process, which previous studies have not done. Thus, this paper advances the existing studies of farmer-pastoralist conflict discourse by explaining how discourses interlink, transform and adapt to various social conditions. It shows how Islamization discourse external to farmer-herder conflict discourse assemblage becomes integrated into the resource competition discourse of the latter through relations of exteriority, transforming the discourse and adapting it to reflect the socio-political conditions of wider Nigerian society. It explains this articulation of Islamization discourse through a novel framing of relations of exteriority, where elements are transferred between discourse assemblages without detachment. It transforms the farmer-herder conflict discourse by retaining the element of land grabs within the resource competition discourse while disarticulating other elements. The paper demonstrates this by conceptualizing discourses as dynamic and interconnected, drawing on articulation and assemblage thinking concepts. The territorialization and deterritorialization of elements from different discourse assemblages, desires, and narrative framing contribute to this transformation and adaptation of the discourse process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the environment of open science, the transformation of scientific exchange and research paradigms urgently needs diversified and open scientific evaluation. This study aims to advance the construction of academic journals, reform the quantitative evaluation mechanism, and provide references for promoting the international discourse power of Chinese academic journals. It also aims to enrich and improve the indicator system and evaluation theory of the discourse power of academic journals with Chinese characteristics. Firstly, this paper analyzes the fundamental concerns of the discourse power evaluation of academic journals, drawing on the theory of evaluation science, discourse power theory, and communication theory. According to the characteristics and connotation of the evaluation indicators, the definition and formation process of academic journals' discourse power, this paper constructed. the evaluation indicator system. Secondly, this paper obtained 163,628 international citations and 211,150 domestic citations, and 111,496 altmetrics indicators data for 29,203 published papers from 238 Chinese English-language journals. Meanwhile, 12 scientometrics indicators and 14 altmetrics indicators are selected. Thirdly, descriptive statistical analysis and an overview indexed by international databases are carried out at the macro level. Then, correlation analysis, factor analysis, entropy weight method and TOPSIS method are adopted to evaluate and analyze the discourse influence and discourse leading in Chinese English-language journals by integrating scientometrics and altmetrics indicators. Finally, Two-dimensional and four quadrant method is used to evaluate academic journals' discourse power. At the same time, this paper compares and verifies the reliability of the evaluation results. The findings demonstrate that the research on the academic journals' discourse power evaluation based on the theory, method and application logic is practical, comprehensive and reliable. This paper also puts forward the countermeasures to enhance the discourse power of Chinese academic journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the presence of personification in the speech of participants in two academic seminars that were carried out in an English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) course at a Swedish university with a multicultural group of students (17 people from 15 different countries) that focused on business and marketing topics. We analyse if the purposeful humanization of companies is present in university discourse interaction by examining these EMI participants' personification of companies and brands in the two selected seminars. Our data were analysed from a principally qualitative perspective in a small-scale case study that shows the multiple ways personification permeates EMI students' language to treat companies as human-like entities, both for specific brands as well as for the concept of businesses in general. This was especially noteworthy in verbs of cognition in discussions on businesses and marketing. The presence of personification in the figurative uses of EMI students points to some of the pragmatic success of these EMI students in referencing well-established marketing strategies that attribute human-like characteristics and relationships to businesses and brands. It also reflects a natural tendency to employ personification and see a person behind a corporate entity. Unlike other figurative uses that have shown to be challenging for L2 speakers, these EMI students use personification in business English, a frequent device in their discourse community, naturally and appropriately, showing how they are part of that specific discourse community. • EMI participants' discourse reveals a good deal of personification, in particular through verbs representing cognition. • Multinational companies and culture are pertinent to the metaphorical domain underlying these personifications, corporations are people. • Successful use of figurative language in their discourse community shows EMI learners as competent members of the discipline. • Personification may be a more basic mental mechanism than metaphor or metonymy with a role in 'disciplinary enculturation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• States approach the security implications of climate change in different ways. • Different climate security 'discourses' have different implications in practice. • Ecological security represents the most progressive approach to climate security. • Ecological security is gaining in prominence and attention, even among states. • Climate crisis makes exploring ecological security's institutional prospects vital. It has become commonplace, almost a cliché, to begin an analysis of the relationship between climate change and security with the acknowledgement that this relationship looks very different depending on whose security is under consideration. In the academic literature on this relationship we have seen a steady shift away from an exclusive focus on the protection of existing institutions from the indirect effects of climate change, and towards a focus on the biosphere or the natural world itself. Such an orientation asks whether and how the natural world, and the ecosystems that compose it, are threatened by the immediate and direct effects of climate change. While this shift seems logical in response to the geological reality of the Anthropocene epoch and the unambiguous arrival of climate change, crucial questions remain about the prospects for pursuing 'ecological security' in practice: what would this look like, who would be agents of ecological security, and is increasing academic and think tank engagement with the concept matched in policy and practical developments? This paper analyses the institutional and practical prospects for this approach to the climate-security relationship, drawing on policy documents and interviews with policy makers in a range of states. It finds grounds for (cautious) optimism in increasing engagement with ecological security, including at the nation-state level, evident in growing recognition of the need for states to address the direct threat posed by climate change to the most vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a conceptual distinction between epistemic modality and discourse strategy, and aims to disentangle both notions by showing how they relate to each other on the basis of corpus data. The meanings of six Galician epistemic adverbs are studied using samples taken from an electronic corpus. 1800 observations were coded for the relevant meaning categories, including epistemic modality, mitigation, strengthening and other strategic and non-strategic uses, such as tendency and dynamic modality. The results reveal a relation between the epistemic value encoded by an adverb and the discourse strategic goals it serves: possibility adverbs feature several strategic uses, but only in a small portion of their occurrences; probability adverbs are almost purely epistemic; and certainty adverbs take on strategic functions most often. Thus, the study shows the viability and descriptive adequacy of distinguishing between modal and strategic uses of epistemic expressions. • Epistemic modality and discourse strategy are conceptually different categories. • Corpus data shows how epistemic modality and discourse strategy are related. • Discourse strategy depends on the epistemic value encoded by adverbs. • Uncertainty adverbs are primarily epistemic. • Certainty adverbs are used strategically most often. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main distinctive features of social interaction in our species is that we use language to coordinate our future activities, and in many cases far ahead. Non-human primates don't do this, as a consequence of which their interactions remain comparatively simple and short-range. This paper offers the first in-depth discussion of this key distinctive feature of human communication. It is argued that its evolution was conditional on two developments: an increase of responsiveness during the communicative exchange and the emergence of normative behaviours in the follow-up. Responsiveness was required to coordinate future interactions, but wasn't enough for coordinating interactions beyond the immediate future, which required normativity, to boot. • Normativity is essential for discourse and cooperation. • First study of normativity in evolutionary pragmatics. • Future coordination is a key explanandum for evolutionary pragmatics. • A detailed account of the early stages of human communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in ecovillages has increased greatly in the last two decades, alongside a growing awareness of the need for more sustainable lifestyles. Once regarded as countercultural, alternative places for alternative people, some ecovillages actively work to gain a more mainstream identity for themselves and sustainable lifestyles. While most research focuses on perspectives within ecovillages, attention to outside representations or discourse is limited. This paper looks to expand knowledge into how ecovillages are represented from the outside through factual media. Analysing printed texts and documentary films, we ask how (rural) sustainable lifestyles are represented through factual media surrounding an ecovillage regarded as Norway's first. Where representations have the power to (re)produce understandings of the world around us, we argue that representations of ecovillages can potentially construct or remove barriers towards engaging with sustainable ways of living. Following the discourse from 2001 to 2019 we find the ecovillage represented as either Idealistic or Entrepreneurial. Processes of Othering juxtapose alternative sustainable lifestyles with an Entrepreneurial sustainable place, creating distance to Idealistic dreams and celebrating commercialism. Additionally, factual media plays a role in constructing understandings of 'rural' and 'urban' through representing a potentially new discourse of Norwegian rurality, an 'eco-idyll' for mainstreaming sustainable lifestyles. • Factual media helped construct & maintain 'us & them' scenarios in the ecovillage discourse • Alternative lifestyles are becoming more mainstream but still being Othered • Sustainable lifestyles are intertwined with discourses of the rural and the urban • Representations of this ecovillage suggest a potential new discourse of Norwegian rurality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural forest regrowth on abandoned land represents a major land use change in some regions of Europe. This is driven by various factors related to land abandonment, particularly changing socioeconomic conditions for agriculture and rural depopulation. Little research exists about how the issue is addressed at the policy level. This paper looks into the policymaking related to natural forest regrowth in France and Spain, two countries where land abandonment and natural forest regrowth occur at significant scales. We conduct a policy discourse analysis building upon 27 interviews carried out between 2018 and 2020 with policy actors from various fields that connect with these topics. We find four competing storylines in both countries: extensive agriculture, forestry, landscape conservation, and wilderness. These storylines differ regarding the framing of natural forest regrowth as a problem or an opportunity, and the preferred policy solutions. While storylines rooted in extensive agriculture, landscape conservation and forestry tend to problematize the phenomenon, a wilderness storyline voices an opportunity perspective. In France, a few actors voice elements of an insignificance storyline. Given its spatial importance, natural forest regrowth will likely become more important for future policymaking in the EU. Engaging in further research across disciplines and policy fields is necessary to study the phenomenon and its possible management and governance options. • Policy actors narrate natural forest regrowth on abandoned land through storylines. • Interview results distinguish four storylines on natural forest regrowth. • Three storylines tend to highlight the threat of natural forest regrowth. • Natural forest regrowth has not yet received much political attention. • Shifts towards a rewilding perspective may strengthen an opportunity framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English vague language (VL), as in general noun phrases, general extenders and general verbs, is central to casual conversation. It can have discourse functions and create an informality and solidarity. The rationale for the study described here was a gap in the literature vis-à-vis language learner metapragmatic awareness of VL in their L1. It was hypothesised that attitudes towards VL vary from language to language. This paper describes a comparative questionnaire study of German, Spanish and Mandarin speakers' attitudes to VL in their languages. Subjects were invited to translate English VL to their languages and to think of other vague forms: German speakers volunteered 'Dingsbums' and 'und so'; Spanish speakers suggested 'cómo se llame' and 'o algo así; Mandarin speakers noted 'na ge dong xi'. Subjects were also asked to describe social variables, domains and functions associated with their VL: German speakers saw VL as creating closeness but many felt that it made addressors sound unreliable and mildly impolite; Spanish speakers mostly saw VL as a way of showing a relaxed, close, comfortable, friendly, but a few saw it as an sign of laziness and impoliteness; Mandarin speakers responded that VL was a marker of friendly informality and solidarity but they mostly associated it with indifference, laziness, impatience, irritation, anger, disappointment, contempt and dishonesty. The paper concludes with suggestions of ways to incorporate tasks on VL into English language teaching classrooms, and to raise language teachers' awareness of English L2 users' beliefs and intercultural differences in terms of VL. • Vague language forms, functions and variation. • Close with family and friends. • Indifference, impoliteness with strangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proximity to extreme weather event plays role in type of policy response. • Little connection between city media engagement and its influence on policy response. • Boston and New York City overlapped in communicating current and projected climate risk. • Boston displayed proactive climate policy responses while New York City pursued reactive climate policies. The potential for extreme weather events to open windows for public policy changes or transitions has been studied from various theoretical and analytical perspectives. Following extreme weather events, the media (including popular press and journalism) contributes to critical moments, where a potential window opens to transform public understandings of issues and challenges in established extreme event discourses. This paper examines government engagement with the media to better understand conditions of the post-event policy window from the perspective of critical discourse moments. More specifically, the paper uses keyword analysis and critical discourse analysis to examine discursive constructions of the post-event policy window following Hurricane Sandy by two city governments– Boston and New York. We contrast the language of city government engagement with media about post-disaster policy responses and compare this with the language of proposed city policies on climate risk adaptation and mitigation strategies. The outcomes of this analysis illustrate differences between government engagement with media in the post-disaster window and their eventual climate policy responses. The results raise questions regarding the influence of the media on post-disaster policy responses and focus attention on the proximity of an extreme weather event as potentially affecting the type of policy response (either proactive or reactive) by a governing body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Resilience is used worldwide to responsibilise individual citizens and local networks. • This paper analyses how resilience has been established in the safety discourse. • The paper analyses effects of the normative resilience discourse. Abstract There seems to be a worldwide push, through policy and Government campaigns, to emphasise a local and decentralised responsibility for societal safety and security. Often, this push is argued for using the notion of resilience. Using an archaeological approach this paper sets out to analyse the conditions of possibility for resilience to get established as an object of knowledge within the discourse of societal safety and security. Three such conditions of possibility are analysed: a scientific availability of resilience language and theory which offers an academic credibility to claims for resilience, a political need to decentralise initiatives (and costs) for societal safety and security to local actors and networks, and a number of events defining the need for such an approach. Critical questions are raised regarding the transfer of responsibility to citizens for societal safety and security, the normative use of resilience language as well as whether the resilience object of knowledge actually provides new language or whether it rather repackages previously present objects of discursive knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores sellers' addressing behaviours in Chinese e-commerce live streaming discourse by focusing on the impact of gender. Data were drawn from a self-built corpus comprising 120 h of transcribed texts from live streaming on Taobao. By conducting a corpus-based analysis, we compared males' and females' keywords for addressing customers and their performative functions of suggestive selling. The findings show that: (1) both males and females use a small percentage of kinship terms; (2) males' ratio of address pronouns to nouns greatly surpasses females', but their frequency of ' nín ' (deferential you) is much lower than females'; (3) females are more likely to consistently use nouns with the meaning of baby, whereas males prefer utilising diverse friendship terms; and (4) females frequently use a pattern of 'thank/greet + baby' to conduct ritual interactions more often than males. We argue that both males' and females' addressing behaviours function to promote successful selling; however, gender distinctions do exist in terms of their lexical choices and pragmatic uses of addressing words. The current study contributes to both pragmatics and the sociolinguistic study of gender and language. • Provides research data on Chinese addressing behaviors in e-commerce live streaming context. • Explores how sellers manage rapport via address pronouns and nouns for suggestive selling. • Focuses on gender's impact on addressing forms by conducting a corpus-based analysis. • Finds both similarities and differences in males' and females' use of addressing forms. • Contributes to both pragmatics and the sociolinguistic study of gender and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the functions of negated indicative present forms of the verb vedere 'to see' that refer to the speaker and are followed by an indirect wh-interrogative subordinate clause. The investigation of an Italian written corpus of newspaper articles, reviews and forum posts shows that this construction set forms a discourse routine with a recurrent pragmatic function. It expresses a disagreeing action of rebuttal that includes the reformulation and critical assessment of an interlocutor's preceding utterance and projects arguments sustaining the speaker's standpoint. The routine is highly specialized: its functions are limited to those mentioned, whereas it does not express bare denial, counterarguments, or agreeing actions. The corpus analysis also shows that this specialization is a characteristic of the combination of the examined negated verb forms with indirect wh-interrogative clauses, whereas combinations with other complement types either do not occur at all in the corpus (indirect polar questions and complement clauses introduced by che) or have a broader range of diverse discourse functions (nominal complements with propositional meaning). The routine's lexical and grammatical components (inferential lexical meaning, deixis, negation and its scope, the presupposing properties of indirect wh-interrogatives, mood) all contribute to realize its discourse function. • Negated vedere + indirect wh-interrogative has evidential meaning and marks a disagreeing action. • The construction tends to express a rebuttal justified by explicit arguments given in the co-text. • Its function depends on lexical meaning, deixis, negation, presupposition, and mood. • The indirect wh-interrogative establishes a discourse relation with a preceding statement. • The combination of evidential verbs with negation raises specific problems of scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the urgency of climate change, Climate Engineering has been framed as a fast and feasible technological solution. At the same time, however, critique against it is getting increasingly louder. This paper articulates a critical analysis of Climate Engineering technologies from a point of view situated within the degrowth discourse. In the first part two approaches discussed within the degrowth debate are presented: the concept of viability based on a biophysical perspective and the concept of conviviality based on a socio-cultural approach. In a second step formalized arguments from the point of view of applied ethics are articulated and applied to three Climate Engineering Technologies: Sulfate Aerosol Injection, Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage, and Afforestation. In a third step, an extended version of the trade-off argument about mitigation versus Climate Engineering solution is discussed from a degrowth perspective: accordingly, within the current dominant growth paradigm, climate engineering technologies might lead to reduced mitigation efforts. The paper follows the argumentative turn in applied ethics and displays a formalization of arguments that can help clarify decision-making and identify the different dimensions at stake. The paper articulates arguments against the deployment of CE technologies and advances a new version of the trade-off-argument based on a degrowth perspective. From the point of view of a degrowth-based critique of technology, the only type of Climate Engineering Technology ethically acceptable would be afforestation under specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the ways in which online, anonymous interaction on the website 4chan.org can complicate traditionally situated discursive theory. Through an examination of the politically incorrect board (/pol/), this paper begins to reanalyze scale, alignment, and double-voicing approaches in ways that necessitate novel understandings of digitally placed discourse. This website has demonstrated unique engagements with these categories, engaging with global and personal discourses through anonymity, geographically “situated” flag markers, and green-text narrative techniques, among others. This essay contains a number of examples found through 4chan’s /pol/ via qualitative-oriented, inscriptive gathering techniques of discourses concerning both the continuing European and American migration issues, as they are explored by a globally situated, digital community. Through banal, everyday engagements with both the material and the website features themselves, users craft new realizations of identity and interaction in a space that seeks to make all anonymous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English high-secure hospitals have contained individuals deemed mentally disordered, and dangerous, since the mid-nineteenth century. With the development of gender sensitive services female patients have been moved out of these institutions into smaller secure settings. Female staff continue to work in high secure hospitals, but are often in a minority in these services. Little is known about how female staff experience the everyday world of work. This paper is based on in-depth interviews with female nurses employed in a unit caring for detained male sexual offenders with a diagnosis of personality disorder. It forms part of a much larger discourse-analytic study of nine patients, with a history of sexual offending, and eighteen mental health nurses, which focused on talk about pornography and criminality. The findings from this project have been previously reported in Mercer and Perkins (2014). This paper demonstrates how patriarchy remains an enduring cultural characteristic of caring for men detained under the Mental Health Act (1983, 2007) because of sexually violent crimes against women and children. It textures the ward environment and the relationships between people who work within it, constructing women as 'outsiders' and producing a masculine culture which leaves female staff feeling vulnerable and at risk. The analytic focus of the paper is concerned with exploring how women experience working in the male-dominated environment of a high-security Personality Disorder Unit (PDU). Three discursive repertoires are identified: the institutional space as male, the impact of working with men detained as a result of sexual offending, and the construction of therapeutic work as a 'job for the boys'. In this world, female staff, as a product of their gender, constructed themselves both as at risk and inviting risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores value chain governance through a discourse approach to an event which included an exhibition and a conference. This approach appears promising for investigating industries in their formative phase and is particularly relevant for new renewable energy sectors. By studying the European offshore wind value chain, the paper investigates the coupling between wind industries and offshore industries as an encounter of various conventions. The key speakers at the conference, particularly those from the utility companies, introduced new principles for organizing the value chains they are leading, in order to reduce costs, and turn the immature sector into a mature one. Their storyline of industrialization by standardization breaks, however, with the storyline demonstrated by the firms in offshore oil and gas, and maritime industries at the exhibition. The latter offshore suppliers find evidence of quality in their business history and their trust-based relations to their clients. Theoretically the paper contributes to the global value chain governance debate by offering another perspective on power. The discourse approach helps us explain how influential actors could enforce one convention over another. The paper contributes methodically by suggesting a discourse approach to events. Events appear as a significant arena for negotiating industry formation and convenient for researcher’s data gathering for text analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When new material is added to classrooms, there is interest in knowing what changes this brings to the teaching-learning process. In an extra-hours science and mathematics learning project in India, observations were conducted to study how teachers and students interact when they enact the new material that show new ways of problem-solving or new knowledge. Teachers and students may not articulate through regular interviews their perceptions about the new learning experiences but these can be identified in classroom interactions. Alignment and disalignment are constructs in conversation analysis that help identify speakers' intention to cooperate or not support others' utterances. Through analysis of sequences of general moves by the teacher and stances evidenced in the interactions between teacher and students, it is possible to investigate the stances towards new knowledge in the classroom. This paper adds to the understanding of how teachers and students demonstrate subtle and specific differences with given learning material. These findings have implications for designing material as well as teacher education for introducing new material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Explores the relationship between circular economy and jobs, crucial for sustainable transitions. • Three distinct labour futures in the circular economy, revealing how strategies shape labour. • Links hierarchically organized circular strategies to labour outcomes. • Insights inform policy balancing between incremental and radical transitions. • New skills and policy frameworks, shaping a resilient workforce in the transformative journey to a circular economy. The circular economy (CE) and its impact on the labour market has received increasing attention in both academic and practitioner circles over the past decade. The CE aims to close material and energy loops through various transition pathways or strategies, which are often ranked in a waste hierarchy based on their contribution to the CE. Using discourse analysis, this paper examines how labour market actors in Flanders understand the role of labour in the transition to the CE. We find three distinct future-visions of labour in a CE, closely related to which circular strategies are imagined to become dominant. The findings show that specific storylines shape incremental change through engendering low-ranked strategies which do not require significant shifts in worker skills or policies. On the other hand, alternative discourses show that more radical changes require new or marginalised skills and more fundamental changes in policies and systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Repair's limited success is often explained through barriers, policies and user acceptance. • The study finds four competing political choices related to repair, requiring attention to facilitate systemic thinking. • A focus on barriers, policies and user acceptance may downplay these political choices and limit systemic thinking. • To facilitate such thinking, reflection of repair scholars, practitioners and policymakers is needed on these choices. • Reflection process raises difficult questions about barriers, policies and acceptance for whom and what mode of repair. Policies intended to promote circular economies have recently gained momentum, but the potential of repair, as a key circular strategy, remains untapped. To explain this issue, repair scholars have focussed on three factors: overcoming barriers, developing better policies and identifying user acceptance. However, this paper argues that these approaches may downplay the tensions and choices involved in repair and, consequently, limit the systemic and transformative thinking required for a shift to repair. It therefore illuminates these choices through an empirical analysis of the discourses of electronics repair in Flanders. Four competing discourses are identified, highlighting the difficult, political choices that need to be made. Two discourses of powerful actors, promoting narrow modes of repair, are gaining influence and reproduce specific, established producer-consumer and labour relations. If repair scholars, policymakers and practitioners neglect such political choices, their analyses may embed and incite impoverished modes of repair. To facilitate systemic and transformative thinking, they need to reflect on these choices by asking difficult questions about barriers, policies and user acceptance for whom, for what repair discourse and for what kind of circular repair economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the salience of discourse referents from both a hearer and a speaker perspective in the context of negative quantifying expressions (e.g. not all, few) in Swedish. In three sentence completion studies we investigated what discourse referent is most salient from each of these perspectives and how salience is affected by the syntactic form/semantic type (entity vs. proposition) of the sentence topic in the continuation. We also investigated what morphosyntactic forms are used to refer back to referents of different information structural status. The studies were specifically set up to allow us to distinguish between the two perspectives on salience, unlike previous studies on English, which have only taken hearer-salience into account. The emerging picture of what discourse referent is most salient for negative quantifying expressions is therefore more complex than what previous studies have shown. • The semantic type of the Sentence Topic affects what discourse entity is most speaker-salient. • Negative quantifiers differ in what discourse salience patterns they give rise to. • The syntactic environment of an anaphoric element affects its resolution in quantified contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French right and far-right have promoted a dehumanized vision of the migrants through their discourse in the last ten years. In this paper, we argue that this is the outcome of a diachronic linguistic process involving migration-related lexicon. A remarkable frequency increase enabled the progressive semantic bleaching of its [+human] trait and finally its functional recategorization as a simple trigger of a non-referential category where migrants and terrorism, but also the European Union and globalization, conflate to generically designate the "other". Combining corpus methods and critical discourse analysis through the quantitative, semantic, and distributional analysis of migration-related lexicon in a corpus of 5689 tweets by Marine Le Pen and other right-wing French politicians, we show the association between migration and several unrelated topics through pragmatic implicature at various stages. We find a robust tendency of migration-related lexicon to occur in lists and parallelisms, whose sematic-pragmatic function is specifically to implicate a relation between the members of a category construed in context. We claim that these structures are the main culprit for the emergence, the spread, and the entrenchment of manipulative categories in public discourse and for their expansion in ad hoc fashion, following the right's political agenda. • The French right used for years implicit strategies to spark hate towards migrants. • A relation between migration, terrorism, EU, globalization, finance was implicated. • Lists containing migr-lexicon are used to construct the category of the "enemy". • Migrants are now represented as dehumanized, while immigration as anthropomorphic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction and contextualization of meaning in conversation is accomplished through various multi-modal resources. This paper focuses on the quoting gesture (QG) as an embodied resource mobilized for the modification of formulations in Israeli Hebrew conversational media talk. Drawing on interactional approaches to language and embodied action, we show that the QG is deployed (i) to demarcate an affiliated formulation as emanating from another speaker while (ii) indexing the current producer's distancing from particular aspects of meaning associated with the formulation. This generic function is particularized in different contextual environments in which the QG, in concert with verbal, vocal, and additional embodied resources, instantiates different forms and degrees of dissonance with respect to a selected formulation. The analysis proceeds from the more common situation in which the QG is synchronically-aligned with its affiliated formulation to pre-positioned and post-positioned instances of the QG, which serve to project a reserved endorsement of a formulation and repair participants' alignment toward a previously produced formulation. The modification proposed by the QG orients both to the actional-rhetorical exigencies of the moment and to more enduring aspects of participants' positioning vis-a-vis co-participants and audiences. Thus, the QG provides a method to calibrate and accommodate different attitudes towards a formulation and to overtly display participants' accountability for their verbal selections. • The QG demarcates a formulation as double-voiced while indexing distancing from it. • The import of the QG is particularized in different contextual environments. • Commonly, the QG is synchronically-aligned with its affiliated formulation. • The QG can be pre-positioned and post-positioned relative to its formulation. • The QG overtly displays participants' accountability for their verbal selections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of the use of constructed action (CA) in the stories and conversations of adult Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) signers of different ages. CA is defined here as a type of depiction in which a signer enacts the actions, feelings, thoughts and utterances of discourse referents with different parts of their body. Most studies on CA in sign languages have been done on the basis of signed storytelling, and little is known about how the use of CA varies in different discourse types. The use of CA has also been noted to vary between individual signers, but we do not yet know much about the socio-individual phenomena that may be linked to this variation. In the present study, we investigate whether the use of CA is different in the stories and the conversations of adult FinSL signers, and whether younger (18–39) and older (50–79) adult signers use CA differently in stories and conversations. The study is based on the manual annotation of video data recorded for the Corpus of Finnish Sign Language (Corpus FinSL) and the analysis includes frequency descriptions and statistical analysis. The data show that there is a statistically significant difference in the use of CA in stories and conversations, and that in storytelling, older adults use significantly more CA than younger adults. This difference between the two age groups is particularly evident in the overt uses of CA. The work presented here points toward the need for more investigation of CA in non-narrative discourse contexts and in the language use of signers of different ages. • Signers of Finnish Sign Language use significantly more constructed action in storytelling than in conversations. • The most frequent type of constructed action in both discourse contexts is overt constructed action. • When a signer uses constructed action in a conversation, the chance of its being non-overt is greater than it is in stories. • Older adults use significantly more constructed action than younger adults in storytelling, but not in conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the globalized agri-food system of the 21st century, plantations of genetically modified crops have increased considerably worldwide, justified by arguments such as food security and feeding the world's population. In Brazil, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have indisputably consolidated as a hegemonic type of market-centered agriculture, despite continuous resistance. Therefore, the research question guiding this study is what are the discursive articulations that prompted GMO hegemony in Brazil, despite the distinctive counterhegemonic articulations shaping this field of struggle? Grounded on Laclau and Mouffe's political discourse theory (PDT) of hegemony formation, we qualitatively assess a corpus of mainstream newspaper articles and documental sources to develop a longitudinal analysis of the GMO arena. Our analysis of key periods helps elucidate GMO hegemony establishment in Brazil, comprising six articulation processes conducted by pro-GMO actors concerning anti-GMO discourses. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of how hegemonic actors in rural Brazil shaped articulation practices to establish GMO hegemony, diminishing state and media control, and fostering market-oriented arrangements. • GMOs represent a cornerstone of agro-neoliberalism in Brazil, despite resistance. • This hegemony developed through discursive articulations that aim at fixing meanings. • A longitudinal analysis enabled these discursive articulations to be identified. • Key periods over the last decades led to the settlement of GMO hegemony. • Pro-GMO actors followed a modus operandi, comprising six articulation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Animal cell-cultured meat has been discursively positioned as the solution to global food systems issues. • This has impacts on regulatory scope and responses. • Current problematizations serve the dominant ideology maintaining the intensive use of animals in food systems. • There is a need for animal-centered perspectives in policy and regulatory debates around animal cell-cultured meat. This paper draws attention to how 'problems' were constructed at the USDA-FDA Joint Public Meeting on Use of Animal Cell Culture Technology in 2018 and the implications of these discursive constructs for the governance of animals in food systems. The findings demonstrate what problems animal cell-cultured meat has been positioned as the solution to, and what problems emerge from this new technology that regulators are expected to respond to. The problem representation and the solutions posed reproduce understandings that normalize and promote high and increasing levels of animal flesh consumption and related intensive uses of animals. With relevance for various academic disciplines, and policy-making and activist communities, this analysis offers insight from a critical animal studies lens into the role discourse plays in the governance of food systems that in turn shape the lives and bodies of animals in this emerging regulatory space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]