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Infrastructure development marks a country’s progress and growth. However, there are concerns regarding the potential environmental threats posed by extensive infrastructure development, including issues such as biodiversity loss, reduction in food supply, and ecosystem imbalances. Specifically, by taking the example of Jogja-Solo toll roads (JSTR) in Indonesian mass media, this article addresses exclusion and inclusion strategies of environmental impacts in an infrastructure discourse. Using AntConc 4.2.0, we examined the 410 news media articles, collected from December 2019 to June 2023, and investigated the representation of social actors based on van Leeuwen’s socio-semantics framework. The analysis showed that Indonesian mass media constructed the institutionalisation of infrastructure discourse through inclusion and nomination strategies identified from proper names and their position titles in the company. The JSTR project is also narrated as a national strategic agenda to benefit the country’s economic growth by categorising the government and construction companies into one group. On the other hand, the exclusion of environmental impacts in the JSTR is identified from the categorisation strategies shown by the lexemes ‘land’ and ‘resident’ and their juxtaposition with collocates of ‘monetary compensation’. This paper concludes that the repetition and rewording of particular lexico-grammatical choices and social actors are used by news media to construct infrastructure discourse merely from the anthropocentric interest.

This paper argues that the work of Erving Goffman can be profitably re-read with the aid of Juliane Vogel's work on the cultural logic of "the entrance" [der Auftritt]. Although Goffman's "dramaturgical sociology" makes use of several theatrical concepts for the analysis of face-to-face interaction in everyday life, "entrance" itself is not among them. The essay begins by demonstrating the significance of entrance for Goffman's thought. For Goffman, as for Vogel, answering the question, "Who's there?" is a necessary and pivotal moment in any face-to-face encounter. Then, it turns to the link between entrance and embarrassment, which has long been recognized as a critical concern for Goffman. Embarrassment proves to be the consequence of a "failed entrance" in Goffman's writing; its status as looming threat to any encounter, and the need for precautions to prevent it, suggest something about the fragility of social intercourse and a certain structural interminability of entrance. The final sections attempt to historicize Goffman's understanding of the human being as a performer compelled to enter into and out of conflicting and even contradictory roles, then explores theatrical antecedents of Goffman's social actor in two works from Shakespeare and Kleist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined media-framed investment fraud issues through critical discourse analysis (CDA) by Fairclough (1995). It analyzed the impact of context on text, employing van Dijk's (2009) theory of news discourse and van Leeuwen's (2008) framework for social actors (SAs) in investment fraud news, they were the affiliate (AF), the investor (IF), and the police (PL). Transitivity analysis (TA) was used to assess power relationships, while the appraisal system (AS) was used to identify SA’s attitudes. Framing served various purposes, enhancing salience in news contexts. In investment fraud news, the AF was portrayed as a target with immoral attitudes, the IF as un/fortunate behavers, and the PL as trustworthy sayers. The data obtained from Indonesian online media during the investment fraud reports were analyzed. The study utilized systemic functional linguistics (SFL) within CDA, integrating transitivity analysis for power relations and the appraisal system for attitude analysis of each social actor. The results demonstrated how the social actors shape the construction of social and economic values, influencing the public perceptions and beliefs of the business investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On October 1, 2022, the Kanjuruhan Football Tragedy in Malang, Indonesia, marked a poignant event, drawing significant media coverage, particularly by The New York Times. This incident, involving the police, supporters, and the government, unfolded amidst complex dynamics of action and response. This paper aims to dissect the media portrayal of these entities, examining the nuances of representation in news narratives. Adopting Van Leeuwen's (2008) Critical Discourse Analysis framework, the study employs a qualitative methodology to analyze how Social Actors are depicted through inclusion and exclusion strategies, alongside the portrayal of Social Actions through action and reaction approaches. The analysis of The New York Times' coverage reveals that the police were frequently portrayed as the enforcers of security, often resorting to measures like firing tear gas, while the supporters were depicted as reacting to these measures and significantly impacted by the tragedy. The government was represented as the overarching authority, responsible for managing the situation and its aftermath. This study uncovers a multi-layered narrative in the news discourse, highlighting the complexity of representing different actors in high-impact events. It concludes that media narratives in such scenarios are intricate, often shaped by the interplay of various actors' roles and actions. The findings emphasize the need for comprehensive discourse analysis in understanding media representations, suggesting future research should extend the scope of analysis by integrating broader elements from Van Leeuwen's framework and other Critical Discourse Analysis theories to gain deeper insights into media portrayals in similar situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Universum is the property of Instituto de Estudios Humanisticos Juan Ignacio Molina, Universidad de Talca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As one of the major venues for articulating and disseminating national agendas and opinion discourse, national newspapers play a critical role in promulgating ideology. Underpinned by Intertextuality and Social Actor Theory, this study explores intertextual aspects of China Daily' s reporting of COVID-19 to unearth hidden ideology behind texts. The analysis reveals diversified voices from multiple actors around the globe, with China's official leaders appearing most frequently. In the portrayal of social actors, some strategies like impersonalisation, and genericisation are utilised to add impersonal authority or power to an actor's activity, actant's engagement, and increase the trustworthiness of news. These reprsentational strategies belies a transformation in Chinese media discourse with a softer approach is used in wielding ideological intentions through journalistic practices of intertextuality. Our findings help to unravel how news texts draw on, echo, and bring together multiple intertextual resources realised in the forms of discourses. The circulations, dissemination and incorporation of these intertextual relations and practices construct specific understandings of ideology consolidation and public relations within the context of China and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the Mexicans represent in their discourse the perpetrators of everyday violence. Ethnographic data that I collected during in-depth interviews recorded in Guadalajara, Mexico, are analyzed employing Theo van Leeuwen's tools of CDA as presented in Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Comparing extracts from recorded interviews discussing violence against women, men, and children proves that the representation of social actors differs depending on the victim and thereby normalizes violent behavior. Although the main explanation of high rates in violence is the machismo – the cult of macho, the low frequency of the terms macho, machos, machista, or machismo in the corpus demonstrates that for the informants the concept of macho is remote and does not serve to justify the violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Configuration of the biocultural tourism region through the social actors and their capacity for agency, in order to describe the relationship between public policies and everyday thinking expressed under the concept of biocultural heritage in the Sierra Sur-Costa region of the state of Oaxaca. Methodology: The research is qualitative, resorting to a case study, with an exploratory-descriptive scope in order to explain the weft of meanings, interactions and values inscribed in the biocultural heritage that allows social actors to develop tourism activity. Results: The construction of the concept of biocultural tourism region, which is configured from a network of local actors that articulate the activity to diversify their products or services; as well as tourism committees and municipal authorities that apply public policies. Limitations: The implications of tourism in relation to the SDGs have yet to be explored in greater depth. Conclusions: With the intensification of public policies on tourism, territories are transformed in the ways of mobilizing biocultural heritage, resulting in a change in its material and symbolic dimension that allows the construction of a biocultural tourism region that is positioned in a dynamic of massive glocal marketing, driven by public policies and the commodification of the culture of marginalized areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Biológico Agropecuaria Tuxpan is the property of Revista Biologico Agropecuaria Tuxpan and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, Chinese media witnessed an increasing She Power in a mosaic context with an impressive improvement in women labor participation and a resurgence of patriarchal traditions. Chinese women-themed investigations have been mostly restricted to sociological and psychological perspectives; however, the discursive representations of Chinese child-free women and the exploration of the ideological factors remain inadequate. To address the gap, this article examines news representations of nüding (child-free women), a gender-nonconforming group, by drawing on van Leeuwen's social actor theory as one strand of critical discourse analysis. In so doing, we collected data from two state-owned newspapers, Global Times and China Daily, in China. Our data consist of 93 news reports on nüding-related phenomena. Research results reveal that nüding are dominantly represented as pressure-suffering women, self-centered women, and career-minded women. This article ends with a discussion of ideological contestations that emerge from such representations of nüding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

İslâm öncesi Arap düşünce yapısında ve inanç ikliminin oluşumunda, her ilkel toplum yaşamında olduğu gibi tabiatın domine ettiği doğal faktörlerin payı büyüktür. Bununla birlikte İnsanın yaşam seyrinde son derece etkin olan bu faktörlerin yanı sıra, kuşkusuz toplum yapısına bağlı olarak yapılacak incelemelerde, bakış açısına göre niceliği değişiklik gösteren ve toplumun içinden çıkan, toplumdan ilham alan ve toplumun güç merkezi olarak kolektif davranışlar ve düşünce sistemi üzerinde pay sahibi olan “sosyal aktörler” diyebileceğimiz unsurlar vardır. Çalışmamızın konusunu oluşturan ve İslâm öncesi Arap toplumunda Arap düşünce yapısının inşasında ve inanç ikliminin oluşumunda ağırlığı bariz bir şekilde hissedilen ve sivrilen özellikle üç sosyal aktör, kadim Arap tarihi boyunca birey ve toplum davranışlarını kalıtsal bir güç gibi etki altına almışlardır. Amacımız, İslâm öncesi toplumsal hayatı bütün genişliği ile kuşatan tüm unsurları irdelemek yerine, varlıkları ile birlikte etkinliklerinin de toplumbilimsel yönü dikkati çeken sosyal aktörlere odaklanmak ve böylece İslâm öncesi yaşamın dinî sosyolojisine ilişkin bir panorama ortaya koymaktır. Dolayısıyla bu çalışmada, sosyal gerçeklikleriyle İslâm öncesi Arap inanç ikliminde etkili olmuş bu üç sosyal aktörün ne tür bir sosyal kişiliğe sahip oldukları, toplumsal kimlik ve sosyal statülerinin temelinde yatan sosyolojik bileşenler ele alınmıştır. Bu aktörlerin ilki, ‘atalar’dır. Atalar, bireylerin bilincini kuşatan, haleflerce kendilerinin mutlak surette takip edilme zorunluluğu olan ve kutsallık atfedilen varlıklardır. Babadan başlayan ve en büyük ve mitolojik ataya varan piramidin her bir katmanı birey için son derece önemlidir. Bu, onların toplumsal değerleri, kuralları ve normları edinmeleri ve böylece sosyalleşmeleri için büyük önem arz ederken, sağladıkları pratik davranış kodları ve anlamlı bilgiyi hazır bulmuşluklarıyla da ilgilidir. Bu anlamda atalar en önemli, en sağlam ve en güvenilir bilgi kaynağıdır ve İslâm öncesi Arabın yaşamsal zorluklarla baş etmesinin ve Arap karakteristiğinin toplumda belirginleşen kutsallığının önemli bir dinamiğidir. Toplumda mitolojik kişilikleriyle önemli karar vericiler olarak birey ve toplum davranışlarının kılavuzu ve dinler tarihçilerinin “atalar kültü” dedikleri, korku, saygı ve tazim mercileri idiler. Doğuştan gelen ya da kişisel kabiliyetlerin yanı sıra, öğrenilebilen özelliklerle anlamlandırılan kâhinlik, bir diğer sosyal kişilikti. Kâhinin gücü, onun doğaüstü güçlerle girdiğine inanılan kontağın dikte ettiği yeteneklerinden ileri geliyordu. Kâhin, bu gücün sahibi olarak toplum bilincine yaptığı ürküntü veren baskının öznesiydi ve kâhin cinlerle irtibat halindeydi. Cinler ise topluma korku salan, kendisinden çekinilen ve geleneksel tasavvurun kutsadığı gizemli varlıklardı. Dolayısıyla gücün somut biçimini simgeleyen nesneler ya da garip cisimler bu gizemin kâhinde somutlaşan yönüydü. Bununla birlikte bu çekincelerin kâhini bağlayan ve bu imtiyazlı sosyal statüsünü korumak zorunda bırakan sorumluluklara eşlik etmesi de kaçınılmazdı. Dolayısıyla İslâm öncesinin sosyolojik anlamda kudretli aktörü kâhin, toplumun kendi üzerine konuşlandırdığı vasıfların, ona bahşedilen statünün ve üstünlük algısının, doğal olarak da kendisinden olan toplumsal beklentilerin farkındalığıyla bilinçli işlevler üstlenmişti. Bireysel ve sosyal sorunların çözümünden bireyler ya da gruplar arası anlaşmazlıklarda hakemliğe; doğaüstü güçlerden kaynaklı olduğu düşünülen hastalıkların tedavisinden fikirlerin ve eylemlerin yol haritası olarak kolektif bilincin inşasına kadar birçok sosyal planlamada kâhinin fonksiyonları vardı. İslâm öncesi Arap inanç ikliminin biçimlenişi ve kurumsallaşmasında etkili olan diğer bir sosyal aktör, bilgeliği, tarihçi ve edebiyatçı yönüyle sanatçı kişiliği, doğru bilgide ve davranışta tartışmasız otoritesiyle aynı etkin prestijin öznesi olarak şair de kâhin gibi, bu sıradanlığı aşan tartışmasız gücünü, cinlerle var olduğuna inanılan doğaüstü irtibatından alıyordu. Ondan da çekinilir, ilişkilerde titiz bir özene riayet edilirdi. Nitekim şairin sözü, yalnızca düşmanı değil, kendisine düşman olan herhangi bir kişi ya da grubu da yaydan çıkmış zehirli bir oktan daha etkili bir biçimde zarara uğratabilirdi. Aynı zamanda onun gücü, Arap insanının ruhunu okşayan sanatlı sözlerindeydi. Net, anlaşılır ve sanatsal bir dil ile canlandırdığı ve bilinçlerde soyut tarihsel olayların somutlaştığı; ataların kahramanlıklarının, yaşanan aşkların, savaşların, kısaca toplumun hafızası olarak geçmişe ve an’a dair var olan tüm sosyal olayların ve yaşanmışlıkların veri tabanıydı. Bu anlamda gerek tarihsel gücüyle öne çıkan ataların, gerekse toplumun düşünce ve eylemleri üzerinde mutlak güç sahibi ve bir kanaat önderi olarak etkin olan kâhin ve şairin Kur’ân-ı Kerim ve Kitâb-ı Mukaddes’te de sözü edilen paradigmal özellikleri, yöntemimizin tarihsel kaynakları derinliğine irdeleme esası üzerine dayalı olmasını zorunlu kılmıştır.

The paper aims at identifying common features in various fields of sociolinguistic research which would help rationalize methodological procedures and increase their efficiency. To this end, the paper discusses Language Management Theory, which focuses on the metalinguistic activities or behavior toward language of various social actors. Such metalinguistic activities represent a common denominator interconnecting seemingly heterogeneous fields of sociolinguistic research. The paper considers the possibilities of connecting such fields in various research areas. These include processes of language standardization and destandardization, the establishment of pluricentric standards, language attitudes research, the conceptualization of descriptive versus prescriptive linguistics, gender-related issues, language law, the management of multilingualism, and efforts aimed at strengthening the status of a language in a state or international organization. The discussion focuses on phenomena of agency, processes of the behavior toward language, the interconnection of the micro and macro levels of these processes, and the need to take socio-cultural, communicative as well as linguistic dimensions into consideration. Such a synthetic perspective would help generate and answer new fruitful research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In publication, which is about public discourse, done analyze case polish Roman Catholic Church, as a social actor which participate in permanent dispute about law regulations about in vitro fertilization in VI and VII cadency of polish first house parliament. Done comparison religious, political and media discourse.

The relevance of the article lies in formulation of the problem of analyzing the role of children in the design of a child-oriented urban environment in which they develop and grow. The purpose of the article is to study the methods of inclusion of children in the decision-making process on issues of urban design (as full-fledged participants), during which an active urban development environment is formed. The object of the research is the urban environment as a set of conditions for the life of children. As a subject area, the possibility of applying the concept and methodology of participatory design in the formation of this kind of child-friendly urban environment was chosen. The conclusions reached by the authors relate to the situation surrounding the creation of child-friendly cities, as well as the various consequences associated with the emphasis on the importance of integration, institutionalization and innovation. Integration implies the involvement of children in the development of projects focused on them; institutionalization – the need to create appropriate structures and institutions that meet the needs of children in practice; innovation involves new ways of including children in urban development scenarios as full participants in civil proceedings. In other words, there must be the integration of ideas, actions and knowledge, the institutionalization of positive social experience, the innovation of effective ways to meet the child's needs. The authors also came to the conclusion that the main problem of the environment of modern cities is its unfriendliness in relation to the needs of child development, its low educational and upbringing potential since the environment significantly limits the possibilities of dynamic activity of children.

Language textbooks often include visual elements such as images that contribute significantly to the construction of gender ideologies which play a crucial role in shaping the worldview of language learners towards gender. While prior critically oriented studies on gender have contributed to our understanding of discourses that reproduce gender bias in the textual content of English language textbooks (ELT), there has been limited attention to multimodal features in the depiction of gender. Adopting van Leeuwen's socio-semantic inventory, the current study aims to contribute to this niche area by conducting a multimodal examination of gender portrayal in secondary-level English textbooks used across four provinces of Pakistan. Our findings indicate that both text and images contribute to the asymmetrical portrayal of gender within professional, recreational, and domestic spaces. These results underscore the need for a critical review of the textbooks by Pakistani ELT educational authorities in promoting a more balanced and equitable representation of gender in classroom materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archives of Criminology / Archiwum Kryminologii is the property of Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Legal Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent decades scholars have acknowledged that transactions in the informal economy have not vanished with modernization and industrialization as expected but rather remain an important contemporary aspect of overall production and consumption across the world, in both developing and developed countries. Yet little is known about the profile of the consumers in this realm or what drives them to purchase from the informal economy. A systematic review of the literature investigating consumption in the informal economy reveals a severely underdeveloped area of consumer studies with significant gaps in terms of its theoretical approaches, methods and regional coverage. The findings of the existing literature is that multiple motives are used by consumers for justifying their purchases in the informal economy beyond the dominant simplistic view that they do simply for financial gain or for a lower price (namely, it identifies social ends and failures in formal market provision in terms of availability, speed of provision and quality). The outcome is a recognition that responsibility to reducing this phenomenon with negative effects on governments, businesses, workers and consumers lies not just with public authorities but also practitioners who need to correct the failures in formal market provision. The significant gaps identified in the literature are then used to highlight a comprehensive future research agenda, which includes the need for the development of an institutionalist theoretical perspective when explaining consumers' participation in the informal economy and social marketing interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been paid to why consumers choose to purchase goods and services from the informal economy. Similarly, few studies have been conducted on consumer behaviour in relation to informal markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to evaluate, for the first time, whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced consumer behaviour in relation to the informal economy. Qualitative evidence collected in Iași, Romania, is reported. The finding is that the most important motives for purchasing goods and services from the informal economy are related to social ends, such as supporting local businesses, maintaining relationships with others, and enhancing sustainable development. The novel finding of this research is that community exchange in the form of mutual aid and reciprocity is not activated only for friends, neighbours, kin or work colleagues but also for local businesses facing financial difficulties. The customers are displaying solidarity and empathy for their situation. As such, this article adds to previous findings indicating that the motivation of lower cost is not the universal rationale for purchasing from the informal economy as many consumers choose to make purchases from informal market driven by social rationales. The paper ends by discussing the policy implications of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades scholars have acknowledged that transactions in the informal economy have not vanished with modernization and industrialization as expected but rather remain an important contemporary aspect of overall production and consumption across the world, in both developing and developed countries. Yet little is known about the profile of the consumers in this realm or what drives them to purchase from the informal economy. A systematic review of the literature investigating consumption in the informal economy reveals a severely underdeveloped area of consumer studies with significant gaps in terms of its theoretical approaches, methods and regional coverage. The findings of the existing literature is that multiple motives are used by consumers for justifying their purchases in the informal economy beyond the dominant simplistic view that they do simply for financial gain or for a lower price (namely, it identifies social ends and failures in formal market provision in terms of availability, speed of provision and quality). The outcome is a recognition that responsibility to reducing this phenomenon with negative effects on governments, businesses, workers and consumers lies not just with public authorities but also practitioners who need to correct the failures in formal market provision. The significant gaps identified in the literature are then used to highlight a comprehensive future research agenda, which includes the need for the development of an institutionalist theoretical perspective when explaining consumers‘ participation in the informal economy and social marketing interventions.

We aim to investigate the nature of doubt regarding voice-based agents by referring to Piaget’s ontological object–subject classification “thing” and “person,” its associated equilibration processes, and influential factors of the situation, the user, and the agent. In two online surveys, we asked 853 and 435 participants, ranging from 17 to 65 years of age, to assess Alexa and the Google Assistant. We discovered that only some people viewed voice-based agents as mere things, whereas the majority classified them into personified things. However, their classification is fragile and depends basically on the imputation of subject-like attributes of agency and mind to the voice-based agents, increased by a dyadic using situation, previous regular interactions, a younger age, and an introverted personality of the user. We discuss these results in a broader context.

Despite the recent and ongoing progress in using text-mining tools to automatically analyze large text corpora, there remains significant potential to facilitate the study of social action in social science research. In this context, particularly the disambiguation (who is referred to in a text?) and specification (which demographic characteristics are present?) of social actors—currently a manual job—remains a challenge. This article demonstrates a reliable and accurate software architecture for social scientists who are interested in automatically detecting, disambiguating, and demographically specifying social actors (i.e., persons and organizations) in large text collections. The backbone of our software architecture is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a currently unexploited data source of a large amount of accurately prepared information. We illustrate how our software architecture detects and disambiguates social actors in large text corpora and retrieves their respective demographic information. Overall, we evaluate the reliability and accuracy of our software architecture across seven different social settings and facilitate an intuitive sense of the comprehensive applicability of our software architecture. We end by not only highlighting the benefits of our software architecture for social science research but also pointing to the limitations of using Wikipedia as a data source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the 1940's and 1970's, the most important theoretical perspectives in sociology and social anthropology gave huge importance to social relationships, however from the mid-1970's onward, and particularly since 1980, a whole series of trends focused on the subject and social actor, questioning previous perspectives and formulating non-relational methodological approaches. This polarization has been negative; thus, it is necessary to promote a joint analysis combining the relational focus and one based on the actor's point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RumeliDE Journal of Language & Literature Research / RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of RumeliDE Uluslararasi Hakemli Dil & Edebiyat Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Jurnal Pendidikan Indonesia is the property of Publikasi Indonesia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background and Purpose: Due to constant social, technological and economic change, social actor, interacting with environment, is constantly faced with the need to acquire new knowledge and develop different competences – field of statistics included. The latter, with development of statistical literacy, enables one to reflectively analyse environment and respond to its changes. The aim of this paper is to determine response effectiveness of a better statistically literate social actor to environmental changes from perspective of different generations in Slovenia.

In this article I argue for a relational approach to the agency–structure problem. Structure has three dimensions from this perspective but, at its most fundamental, it is a network comprising social actors (human and corporate) and the relations connecting them. Defined thus structure has measurable properties which generate both opportunities and constraints for actors and which shape processes, such as diffusion, which affect and implicate them. Agency is integral to this model. Actors are the nodes of the network and their relations are built, maintained, modified and broken by way of their interactions. However, I argue that the human organism only fully becomes a social actor by way of interaction. In effect, both agency and structure are emergent properties of social interactions/relations which act back upon and shape those interactions/relations. In addition to resolving theoretical problems this approach has the advantage of facilitating empirical analysis of structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Horyzonty Wychowania is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the psycho-sociological complexity inherent in the exercise of resilience. The concept of resilience has become so popular that it is usual in academic publications, in popular self-help publications, and in everyday conversations. This monographic issue shows the variety of empirical studies of resilience in different fields. However, my contribution is fundamentally theoretical insofar as it tries to analyze the limits and possibilities of the very concept of resilience. Indeed, human society is inherently ambiguous and ambivalent. This requires a capacity for exible adaptation in which risk and uncertainty are always present. However, resilience or the ability to adapt to adverse situations is a quality that can only be adequately analyzed within the complex etiological triangle of human behavior. Resilience is an exercise in which biology, culture, and environment establish the framework that enables or frustrates its success. Resilience is a relational and ambivalent dynamic process in which people are both passive and active subjects. Overcoming adversity means ceasing to be who we were and becoming different people. Therefore, resilience calls in question the sameness approach to human beings. This complexity of resilience always requires an integrated interdisciplinary approach that accounts for human reality. The most important conclusion is that resilience is a useful concept as long as it is sufficiently rooted in a realistic anthropological model such as the one I will try to develop throughout the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lublin Studies in Modern Languages & Literature / Lubelskie Materialy Neofilologiczne is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Department of German & Applied Linguistics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The idea of the constructed character of social reality implies human contribution to institutional arrangements and cultural patterns that determine the shape of collective existence. The article examines the specific features of social construction seen and studied in phenomenological approach by A. Schutz, P. Berger, Th. Luckmann. The concept reveals significance of daily cognitive style which enables people to structure and understand the world they share with others, escaping situations fraught with gaps of meanings and anomy. The author of the article analyzes the process of social construction, distinguishing it from imaginary building of reality that goes beyond the existed order. Reality of daily life is compared with fictional society represented in J.L. Borges’ “Lottery in Babylon”. Telling about the social construction as it may be, the story demonstrates the similarities between the mental procedures that underlie real and antiutopian (inhuman) routines. The article also centers on peculiarities of phenomenological beholder’s attitude towards sociality. On the one hand, it tends to be free from any theoretical abstractions, imaginary constructions or critical destruction of reality, on the other - inclines to transcend the reified forms of social being and engenders a certain critical message.

This article analyses how Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, redefines the image of the business leader in the graduation speech he gave at HEC in 2016. Faber promotes social justice and invites his audience to act for a better world. The strength of his speech lies in the way he constructs his message. The social actor analysis shows how he makes “the lower class people” exist discursively and associates them with an ethos of worker, whereas other business leaders are constructed as passive and negative. This analysis also shows how the address reworks the collective ethos of the business leader, thus contributing to the argumentative power of the speech. While Faber conforms to some aspects of the business leader's stereotype, he modifies the collective ethos in order to provide a redefinition of the business leader and of his role.

Any text can play a significant role in reproduction of its specific ideology provided that it can gain access to those discourses that make social actors involved in hegemony. Van Leeuwen’s (2008) discourse-oriented theory is one of the approaches to discourse analysis that aims at unraveling the hidden layers of language in written and oral texts by drawing on socio-semantic factors and with a focus on social actors. This approach to discourse analysis can have a special position is Quranic studies since discoursal structures of Quran and their mysterious features indicate that the hidden ideology behind them are more or less the same. Drawing on analytical-descriptive method, and Van Leeuwen’s (2008) discourse-oriented model, the present study aims at examining the discourse of Al-Jinn (English equivalent of “Goblin”) Sureh. This Sureh was selected because it involves various social actors and speech acts by narrating a group of Goblins. The results of the study indicated that discoursal elements related to candidness in comparison to those of secrecy were more frequent (with the frequencies of 172 and 24 respectively). This finding suggests that using a stylish creativity and innovation, this Sureh has attempted to familiarize the audience with persons, groups, places, and times in which the social actors have an active role. Besides, specificity of allusion type (with the frequency of 63), role specificity method (with frequency of 60), and nature specificity (with the frequency of 49) had the highest representations among the social actors’ statements and remarks.

Copyright of Nordic Journal of Francophone Studies / Revue Nordique des Études Francophones is the property of Ubiquity Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study analyses Theresa May‟s three seminal Brexit speeches. These describe the kind of desirable post- Brexit EU-UK relationship that she envisioned, and together constitute a corpus of 18,532 words. The speeches can be considered as landmarks on a timeline that was initially meant to lead to the delivery of Brexit. It is hypothesized that there may be meaningful differences between the speeches, and that these affect the representation of reality. These in turn would have a bearing on May‟s discursive self-representation as either an individualized or a collectivized social actor. To account for such representational values, the study draws on Halliday‟s Transitivity System (1994), starting from the clause and its potential to express ideational meanings. With the aim of uncovering more convincing and interesting findings, a statistical analysis is applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Selçuk University Journal of Faculty of Letters is the property of Selcuk Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How does a social actor in a disadvantaged position achieve field level change? Using a longitudinal case of 'Capability' Brown, an individual rising from humble origins to shape and refine the British landscape, we examine how an actor's unfolding efforts to move from a social position at the periphery of a field, to a social position at the centre of a field, may present them with opportunities to influence field level change. In doing so, we employ Bourdieu's Theory of Practice, and unexplored notion of 'position taking'. We argue that an actor's tactics to shape change, and position taking to enhance social position, should be considered in conjunction with one-another, and that position taking strategies may be viewed as a core component of the work undertaken by social actors in trying to influence field level change. Further, we suggest that tensions between an agent's accumulated capital and the social position typically afforded to their role in the field, may lead to efforts to 'take' or 'create' new positions, providing opportunities to influence the developing institution, with symbolic capital playing a pivotal role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]