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BackgroundSeveral investigations have addressed the process of balance adaptation to external perturbations. The adaptation during unperturbed stance has received little attention. Further, whether the current sensory conditions affect the adaptation rate has not been established. We have addressed the role of vision and haptic feedback on adaptation while standing on foam.MethodsIn 22 young subjects, the analysis of geometric (path length and sway area) and spectral variables (median frequency and mean level of both total spectrum and selected frequency windows) of the oscillation of the centre of feet pressure (CoP) identified the effects of vision, light-touch (LT) or both in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) direction over 8 consecutive 90 s standing trials.ResultsAdaptation was obvious without vision (eyes closed; EC) and tenuous with vision (eyes open; EO). With trial repetition, path length and median frequency diminished with EC (p < 0.001) while sway area and mean level of the spectrum increased (p < 0.001). The low- and high-frequency range of the spectrum increased and decreased in AP and ML directions, respectively. Touch compared to no-touch enhanced the rate of increase of the low-frequency power (p < 0.05). Spectral differences in distinct sensory conditions persisted after adaptation.ConclusionBalance adaptation occurs during standing on foam. Adaptation leads to a progressive increase in the amplitude of the lowest frequencies of the spectrum and a concurrent decrease in the high-frequency range. Within this common behaviour, touch adds to its stabilising action a modest effect on the adaptation rate. Stabilisation is improved by favouring slow oscillations at the expense of sway minimisation. These findings are preliminary to investigations of balance problems in persons with sensory deficits, ageing, and peripheral or central nervous lesion.

Background: Several investigations have addressed the process of balance adaptation to external perturbations. The adaptation during unperturbed stance has received little attention. Further, whether the current sensory conditions affect the adaptation rate has not been established. We have addressed the role of vision and haptic feedback on adaptation while standing on foam. Methods: In 22 young subjects, the analysis of geometric (path length and sway area) and spectral variables (median frequency and mean level of both total spectrum and selected frequency windows) of the oscillation of the centre of feet pressure (CoP) identified the effects of vision, light-touch (LT) or both in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) direction over 8 consecutive 90 s standing trials. Results: Adaptation was obvious without vision (eyes closed; EC) and tenuous with vision (eyes open; EO). With trial repetition, path length and median frequency diminished with EC (p < 0.001) while sway area and mean level of the spectrum increased (p < 0.001). The low- and high-frequency range of the spectrum increased and decreased in AP and ML directions, respectively. Touch compared to no-touch enhanced the rate of increase of the low-frequency power (p < 0.05). Spectral differences in distinct sensory conditions persisted after adaptation. Conclusion: Balance adaptation occurs during standing on foam. Adaptation leads to a progressive increase in the amplitude of the lowest frequencies of the spectrum and a concurrent decrease in the high-frequency range. Within this common behaviour, touch adds to its stabilising action a modest effect on the adaptation rate. Stabilisation is improved by favouring slow oscillations at the expense of sway minimisation. These findings are preliminary to investigations of balance problems in persons with sensory deficits, ageing, and peripheral or central nervous lesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to quantify balance impairments in standing in people with degenerative cervical myelopathy (PwDCM) in response to external perturbations. PwDCM have damage to their spinal cord due to degeneration of the cervical vertebral column, but little is known about balance. Balance was quantified by capturing kinetics, kinematic, and electromyographic data during standing in response to lateral waist pulls. Participants received pulls during predictable and unpredictable contexts in three stance widths at two magnitudes. In response to lateral waist pulls, PwDCM had larger center of mass excursion (P < 0.001) and delayed gluteus medius electromyography onset (P < 0.001) and peak (P < 0.001) timing. These main effects of history of myelopathy were consistent across predictability, stance width, and magnitude. A multilinear regression determined that gluteus medius peak timing + tibialis anterior peak timing most strongly predicted center of mass excursion (R² = 0.50, P < 0.001). These data suggest that PwDCM have delays in generating voluntary and reactive motor commands, contributing to balance impairments. Future rehabilitation strategies should focus on generating rapid muscular contractions. Additionally, frontal plane postural control is regulated by the gluteus medius and the tibialis anterior, whereas other muscles (e.g. gluteus minimus, ankle invertors/evertors) not studied here may also contribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physiological perfusion asymmetries in the lower limb are known, although poorly understood, as are asymmetries reported in plantar pressure and stance. This preliminary study aims to explore potential relationships between perfusion and pressure variables in humans. A convenience sample of eight healthy individuals (25.25 ± 5.37 years old) of both sexes, was selected. Chosen variables were perfusion, plantar pressure, and stance. Perfusion was measured in both feet by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) and polarized light spectroscopy (PSp), and plantar pressure and stance obtained by a pressure plate. These were measured in baseline (Phase I) in a repeated squatting (Phase II), and in recovery (Phase III). A 95% confidence interval was adopted. Intraindividual significant perfusion asymmetries between both feet were detected by LDF in Phase I. These disappeared in Phase II and returned in Phase III. PSp did not detect any asymmetries. Plantar pressure was also asymmetric and differently distributed along both feet with no statistical significance except in the hindfoot. Significant correlations were found between BMI and mean Plantar Pressure in Phase I and Phase III, and an inverse correlation between LDF perfusion and Plantar Pressure in Phase I. These results seem to suggest an interesting direction for exploration and study of these asymmetries in the absence of disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we reflect on and examine the experiences of three doctoral students, and their thesis advisor, in discussing how we adjusted our research methods and assumptions to the new conditions of life and society that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss how our understandings of the embodied presence of the researcher, the location of research and writing, and the affordances of digital technologies are becoming more prominent and often rethought as issues of stance. We approach this discussion as co-explorers in charting new conceptions of and strategies toward research, as well as the relationships and mentoring practices between graduate students and their advisor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue on epistemicity and stance provides an overview of epistemic stance resources in a number of European languages, with a focus on discourse-pragmatic meanings and uses. Epistemicity is viewed as a conceptual domain which includes the subcategories of epistemic modality and evidentiality. The contributions in this issue discuss a number of pragmatic features and properties of the expressions under analysis, thus adding to existing knowledge: multifunctionality, interpersonal rapport, facework, discourse functions and joint effects with expressions of other types of stance. An outline of the special issue is also provided, including a summary of all the contributions. • Potential effect of emotion on epistemic and effective stance in journalistic comment on terrorism. • Epistemic and non-epistemic uses of modal verbs in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions. • Differences in epistemicity, effectivity and negation in the discourse of B. Obama and G. W. Bush. • Use of evidential adjectives and adverbials in English and other European languages. • Lexical evidentiality system in Galician, concentrating on seica as an evidential particle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a rising concern with social bots that imitate humans and manipulate opinions on social media. Current studies on assessing the overall effect of bots on social media users mainly focus on evaluating the diffusion of discussions on social networks by bots. Yet, these studies do not confirm the relationship between bots and users' stances. This study fills in the gap by analyzing if these bots are part of the signals that formulated social media users' stances towards controversial topics. We analyze users' online interactions that are predictive to their stances and identify the bots within these interactions. We applied our analysis on a dataset of more than 4000 Twitter users who expressed a stance on seven different topics. We analyzed those users' direct interactions and indirect exposures with more than 19 million accounts. We identify the bot accounts for supporting/against stances, and compare them to other types of accounts, such as the accounts of influential and famous users. Our analysis showed that bot interactions with users who had specific stances were minimal when compared to the influential accounts. Nevertheless, we found that the presence of bots was still connected to users' stances, especially in an indirect manner, as users are exposed to the content of the bots they follow, rather than by directly interacting with them by retweeting, mentioning, or replying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stancetaking is a complex linguistic practice at the levels of both function and form, and as such is difficult to analyze in a narrow variable context. Instead of treating stance as a linguistic variable in the variationist sense, we analyze how participants use different types and forms of stancetaking in a specific speech event, the re‐narration of a story. A combined view of the range of different options used by speakers allows us to describe similarities and differences among them as well as to identify two groups with distinct stance styles. At the methodological level, the contribution demonstrates the utility of cluster analysis for research on linguistic style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature of the final particle uè in Longxi Qiang, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in China. Previous studies have briefly described the uses of sentence final particles in 'tail-head' construction in Qiang varieties such as Longxi, Ronghong, and Puxi Qiang. Other studies indicate that the distribution of uè is not restricted to 'tail-head' construction. More features of the Qiang language are found by analyzing the uses of uè in narratives and conversations. First, the absence and presence of uè reflect the realis and irrealis distinction. The Qiang language lacks grammatical tense, but uè serves as a temporal reference to distinguish future and non-future. The choices of the final particle and person marker do not depend on aspect, but rather the realistic status of the events. Second, the use of uè signals the interlocutor's/narrator's evaluation from a third-party perspective, as well as his/her strong epistemic certainty or personal viewpoint regarding an entity or proposition. • Unlike previous studies on varieties of Qiang, I found that the distribution of uè is not restricted to 'tail-head' constructions. • In terms of a narrative discourse composed of sequential actions, uè functions to identify temporal junctures for narrative advancement. • The choices of the final particle and person marker do not depend on the time reference, but the realistic status of the events. • The use of uè in narratives and conversational stories signals the narrator's evaluation and viewpoint of the proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an analysis of well-prefaced constructed dialogue as a stance-taking resource in written discourse on abortion. Drawing from four corpora collected from editorials, blogs, Twitter, and Reddit, I demonstrate that writers use the discourse marker well to indicate a stance of disalignment and convey negative attitudinal information when there is tension between the writer's beliefs and those expressed in the constructed dialogue; the discourse marker allows the writer to position and align themself to construct a specific identity that reinforces a positive-self, negative-other evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writers of academic papers generally use a wide range of strategies when they expose scientific argumentations or take a stance that can potentially threaten readers' face. Hedging and boosting devices are rhetorical devices that help authors mitigate or enhance the impact of their positions and claims on readers. This study seeks to explore the role and the frequency of hedging and boosting in scientific articles from a cross-cultural perspective. Our goal is to compare English and Italian research papers to describe hedging and boosting strategies and check whether they differ between the two languages in terms of frequencies and functions. To do that, we have collected a bilingual corpus made up of 58 medical research papers in Italian and English, investigated through quantitative and qualitative methods. Our findings demonstrate that targeting an international audience dramatically increases the frequency of the hedges, and in particular the category of reader-oriented hedges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enactment is a frequent depictive strategy used to denote referents. Its referential functions are increasingly well-documented cross-linguistically, notably in sign languages. A lesser-known function of enactment is that of stance expression. By enacting a referent, language users can also convey their own perspective and comment on the enacted individual. In this article, it is argued that the depictive manipulation of the French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) lexical sign ls, which refers to the action of signing, is a fruitful area of investigation for the study of social meanings conveyed by means of enactment. The observation of elicited dyadic conversations about language attitudes shows that LSFB signers can mold several formational aspects of the sign ls in a variety of ways by means of enactment, providing a near first-hand experience of – and commenting on – diverse signers and their signing styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, we offer a first exploration of stance expressions in Flemish Sign Language (VGT). Biber and Finegan (1989) define stance as the expression of feelings, attitudes, judgments, commitments, and assessments. The few studies focusing on stance in signed languages have shown that stance can be expressed by various structures and mechanisms such as lexical signs, manual gestures (e.g., Palm Up gestures) and embodiment/mental space blends. We will examine if these findings apply to Flemish Sign Language, and we will identify other means of expressing stance in VGT. In this exploratory study, we focus on the following questions: (1) which articulators and semiotic resources can be used in Flemish Sign Language to express stance?; and (2) How are visible bodily actions through different articulators integrated temporally in stance expressions? Our study is based on the analysis of about five hours of data from the Corpus Flemish Sign Language. We present examples from our dataset to illustrate that stance can be expressed through a range of structures and mechanisms (such as lexical signs, manual gestures, enactment, and non-manual features), expressed either sequentially or simultaneously by a multitude of articulators. Moreover, we zoom in on the phenomenon of stance-stacking and analyse how multiple stance expressions can be combined in VGT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how evidential and egophoric making is used to manage knowledge in interaction. To this end, it analyzes interactional data from Wutun (mixed Sinitic, Northwest China) and Upper Napo Kichwa (Quechuan, Ecuador). Wutun has an egophoric marking system, which, according to the definition of egophoricity, encodes involvement/lack of involvement in the described event. Upper Napo Kichwa has a set of evidentials, which, according to theory, encode the source of evidence for a given proposition. The two languages are typologically unrelated. However, when we look closely at how speakers of Wutun and Kichwa use epistemic markers, we discover functional similarities not predicted by the dominant definitions of epistemicity and evidentiality. In both languages, the use of the markers is conditioned by the interpersonal context of the interaction, and speakers use egophoric and evidential marking to signal their epistemic rights and responsibilities with respect to other speech-act participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines processes through which social personae are conveyed by male Japanese students at a public university in Yokohama. Focusing on the frame-setting function of first person pronominals (FPPs) in contexts where there is no intra/inter speaker variation in the choice of FPP, this paper analyzes how speakers manage identity-associated discursive alignments related to a shared Okinawa prefecture background. The common experience of being from Okinawa prefecture and attending university far from home is the primary reason that these speakers are close friends. However, analysis reveals speakers' continual and active contention and re-formulation of this shared 'Okinawan-ness' and the personae to which it is linked. In particular, FPPs are implicated in speakers' discussion of heterogeneity and/or local differences with respect to their Okinawa prefecture background. Strategic use of FPPs thus emerges as a salient tactic for speakers' active negotiation of conversation relevant personae categories even in interactional contexts without variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, universities heavily rely on digital marketing and social media to recruit more students and to generate interest in their schools. Digital marketing and online advertising constitute a kind of interaction between writers and their potential readers. This paper explores how such an interaction is achieved by investigating a wide range of linguistic resources that writers use to express their stance toward the content in the text and toward the reader. A corpus of 80 academic advertisements from 38 universities, totaling approximately 2,118 words, was compiled and analyzed using Hyland's (2005b) interactional metadiscourse. The corpus was searched manually for all categories of interactional metadiscourse, and all the reported cases were examined in context to ensure their validity. The results revealed a statistically higher frequency of engagement markers than stance markers. This extensive use of engagement markers, particularly directives and reader pronouns, is a strong indicator of a high degree of interactionality, personalization, and reader consideration. Universities use these engagement features to position themselves and their students in the world of academia and in the context of interaction, where they can successfully focus students' attention, acknowledge their presence, and guide them toward achieving mutual goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2018, voters in the Republic of Ireland passed a referendum proposal to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, lifting the Irish state's near-total ban on abortion. Scholars have argued that Ireland's abortion ban has historically played a key role in the construction of Irish national identity along Catholic, traditional, and heteronormative lines, meaning the lead-up to the vote allowed for key insights into the discursive construction of national identity and gender in Ireland. Drawing on theoretical discussions in both the nationalism and Linguistic Landscape (LL) literature and adopting a qualitative, multimodal approach to analyse the referendum campaign's LL, I argue that there was a dominant understanding of the relationship between women and Irish national identity, predicated on a positive stance towards Irish identity, while any dissenting voices which questioned whether advancing gender equality was compatible with nationalist ideology were confined to the margins of the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to determine whether the maximal width of the base of support (BSW) measure is able to predict the risk of multiple falls in community-dwelling women. Thirty-eight community-dwelling women (mean age of 72 ± 8 years old) participated. Falls were prospectively recorded during the following year. Overall, 29 falls were recorded; six (16%) women were multiple fallers and 32 (84%) were nonfallers. There was a significant difference in the BSW between the fallers and nonfallers (F[1, 37] = 5.134 [p = .030]). A logistic regression analysis indicated a significant contribution of the BSW test to the model (odds ratio = 0.637; 95% CI [0.407, 0.993]; p = .046 per 1 cm).The cut-off score was determined to be 27.8 cm (67% sensitivity and 84% specificity). These results indicate that women with a smaller BSW at baseline had a significantly higher risk of sustaining a fall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT L2 writers tend to have difficulties in using reporting verbs (Bloch, 2010) because the choosing of reporting verb needs some considerations: the stance of the author whose claims are being reported, the stance of the writer, and the interpretation of the writer (Thompson and Ye, 1991). This article explores stance-taking in reporting verbs in the context of citations in undergraduate theses written by Mexican students in English as a Foreign Language. The corpus consists of thirty undergraduate theses written by non-native speakers of English in the field of English Language Teaching. I use corpus linguistics tools, i.e., concordances for the analysis of stance-taking which makes the expressions observable in their context. The findings show that undergraduates use reporting verbs to express their stance in their theses and that this varies depending on the chapter. This paper suggests a category of reporting verbs that is commonly used in EFL academic writing within the ELT discipline. I propose some educational implications, stressing the need to make students and their instructors aware that the choice of reporting verbs is not just a matter of stylistic choice, but it can be an expression of authorial identity.

We addressed postural instability during stance with eyes closed (EC) on a compliant surface in healthy young people. Spectral analysis of the centre of foot pressure oscillations was used to identify the effects of haptic information (light-touch, EC-LT), or vision (eyes open, EO), or both (EO-LT). Spectral median frequency was strongly reduced by EO and EO-LT, while spectral amplitude was reduced by all “stabilising” sensory conditions. Reduction in spectrum level by EO mainly appeared in the high-frequency range. Reduction by LT was much larger than that induced by the vision in the low-frequency range, less so in the high-frequency range. Touch and vision together produced a fall in spectral amplitude across all windows, more so in anteroposterior (AP) direction. Lowermost frequencies contributed poorly to geometric measures (sway path and area) for all sensory conditions. The same subjects participated in control experiments on a solid base of support. Median frequency and amplitude of the spectrum and geometric measures were largely smaller when standing on solid than on foam base but poorly affected by the sensory conditions. Frequency analysis but not geometric measures allowed to disclose unique tuning of the postural control mode by haptic and visual information. During standing on foam, the vision did not reduce low-frequency oscillations, while touch diminished the entire spectrum, except for the medium-high frequencies, as if sway reduction by touch would rely on rapid balance corrections. The combination of frequency analysis with sensory conditions is a promising approach to explore altered postural mechanisms and prospective interventions in subjects with central or peripheral nervous system disorders.

Background: Deviations from a conventional physiologic posture are often a cause of complaint. According to current literature, the upright physiological spine posture exhibits inclinations in the sagittal plane but not in the coronal and transverse planes, but individual vertebral body positions of asymptomatic adults have rarely been described using surface topography. Therefore, this work aims to form a normative reference dataset for the thoracic and lumbar vertebral bodies and for the pelvis in all three planes in asymptomatic women. Methods: In a prospective, cross-sectional, monocentric study, 100 pain-free asymptomatic women, aged 20–64 years were enrolled. Habitual standing positions of the trunk were measured using surface topography. Data were analyzed in all three planes. Age sub-analysis was: 1) ages ≤ 40 years and 2) ages ≥ 41 years. Two-sample t-tests were used for age comparisons of the vertebral bodies, vertebra prominence (VP)–L4, and global parameters. One-sample t-tests were used to test deviations from symmetrical zero positions of VP–L4. Results: Coronal plane: on average, the vertebral bodies were tilted to the right between the VP and T4 (maximum: T2 − 1.8° ± 3.2), while between T6 and T11 they were tilted to the left (maximum: T7 1.1° ± 1.9). T5 and L2 were in a neutral position, overall depicting a mean right-sided lateral flexion from T2 to T7 (apex at T5). Sagittal plane: the kyphotic apex resided at T8 with − 0.5° ± 3.6 and the lumbar lordotic apex at L3 with − 2.1° ± 7.4. Transverse plane: participants had a mean vertebral body rotation to the right ranging from T6 to L4 (maximum: T11 − 2.2° ± 3.5). Age-specific differences were seen in the sagittal plane and had little effect on overall posture. Conclusions: Asymptomatic female volunteers standing in a habitual posture displayed an average vertebral rotation and lateral flexion to the right in vertebral segments T2–T7. The physiological asymmetrical posture of women could be considered in spinal therapies. With regard to spinal surgery, it should be clarified whether an approximation to an absolutely symmetrical posture is desirable from a biomechanical point of view? This data set can also be used as a reference in clinical practice. Trial registration: This study was registered with WHO (INT: DRKS00010834) and approved by the responsible ethics committee at the Rhineland–Palatinate Medical Association (837.194.16). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Korean vocative interjection ya 'hey' in multiple turn-constructional unit (TCU) positions. A conversation analytic examination of telephone and face-to-face conversations shows that ya is an emerging discourse particle that plays an important role in the organization of turn-taking and stance-taking. At TCU-initial position speakers regularly use ya when departing from one topic to another or from one action/activity to another in a disjunctive manner. Here, speakers use ya to alert the recipient to the new topic or action they are pursuing. At TCU-final position, ya is used in turns that are not cohesive with another speaker's stance or with the speaker's own expectation. In this position the speaker retroactively marks their stance to the just-completed utterance with ya. Furthermore, the study finds that a ya which prosodically and syntactically belongs to both the prior TCU and the following TCU serves as a turn-constructional pivot extending the speakers' turn beyond the incipient point of possible completion. Overall, the findings illustrate the importance of understanding a form's usage as they occur through the progression of a turn and a sequence in naturally occurring talk, and contribute to our understanding of utterance (left/right) periphery phenomena. • Korean vocative interjection ya 'hey' emerges as a discourse particle. • Ya occurs in multiple turn-constructional unit positions. • Ya plays an important role in the organization of turn-taking and stance-taking. • Ya serves as a turn-constructional pivot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We addressed postural instability during stance with eyes closed (EC) on a compliant surface in healthy young people. Spectral analysis of the centre of foot pressure oscillations was used to identify the effects of haptic information (light-touch, EC-LT), or vision (eyes open, EO), or both (EO-LT). Spectral median frequency was strongly reduced by EO and EO-LT, while spectral amplitude was reduced by all "stabilising" sensory conditions. Reduction in spectrum level by EO mainly appeared in the high-frequency range. Reduction by LT was much larger than that induced by the vision in the low-frequency range, less so in the high-frequency range. Touch and vision together produced a fall in spectral amplitude across all windows, more so in anteroposterior (AP) direction. Lowermost frequencies contributed poorly to geometric measures (sway path and area) for all sensory conditions. The same subjects participated in control experiments on a solid base of support. Median frequency and amplitude of the spectrum and geometric measures were largely smaller when standing on solid than on foam base but poorly affected by the sensory conditions. Frequency analysis but not geometric measures allowed to disclose unique tuning of the postural control mode by haptic and visual information. During standing on foam, the vision did not reduce low-frequency oscillations, while touch diminished the entire spectrum, except for the medium-high frequencies, as if sway reduction by touch would rely on rapid balance corrections. The combination of frequency analysis with sensory conditions is a promising approach to explore altered postural mechanisms and prospective interventions in subjects with central or peripheral nervous system disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyze the reactions of some mainstream Israeli politicians to a celebrity marriage between Tzahi Halevi, a Jewish Israeli actor, and Lucy Aharish, a Palestinian Israeli TV personality. Drawing upon the notion of stance, we unveil the affective trouble generated by this heterosexual union vis-à-vis the Israeli national project. More specifically, we tease out the kaleidoscopic collage of politicians' affective (dis)attachments in relation to Halevi, Aharish and a variety of socioculturally relevant categories such as the Israeli nation. This affective patchwork, we argue, is itself the product of a tension that is at the very heart of the Israeli nation-state, that between the policing of Jewishness as the defining principle of the Israeli national imagined community, on the one hand, and the upholding of the democratic imperative to equal treatment and recognition, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I focus on how leaders of a progressive activist group in Houston, Texas interacted with each other on Facebook, collaboratively formulating a group identity exemplified through a set of stances that I call moral political stances. Through microlevel examination of two postcomment sequences, I examine exactly how these participants wrote themselves into being as a singular and unified group of politically and morally motivated actors. As the group collectively relied upon and supported each other's assumptions of moral political stances, they actively constructed their own group identity, in front‐ and backstage spaces, as the leaders and organizers of the structure and moral political framework of their activist organization. This collaborative construction, I argue, was further meant to influence and set the moral guidelines for the larger group identities of their organization and to portray this identity to groups of their Facebook Friends beyond these circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a common assumption that predicating truth over some assertion expresses the evaluation of that assertion as true (or false) with respect to its corresponding state of affairs. This assumption, combined with the norms that govern assertions, renders the use of 'true' redundant in natural discourse. In the following, we examine the two uses of 'true' discussed in the literature: the descriptive truth-evaluative use and the performatory intersubjective agreement use. We analyze the true tokens in two spoken American English corpora, and identify a unique discourse profile for each use. Nonetheless, the two uses of 'true' do not manifest a perfectly complementary distribution. On the contrary, they exhibit a bi-directional derivational relation, which may flip on the basis of the relevant context. When one use is foregrounded, the other is backgrounded, and vice versa. • True serves two functions in interaction: truth-evaluation, and alignment. • Truth-evaluative true s are descriptive, while alignment true s are performatory. • Each true function is associated with a unique discourse profile. • True 's functions are not mutually exclusive, but vary in prominence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to compare choices in epistemic and effective stance markers and negation as a marker of stance in the farewell addresses by US presidents Obama and Bush. The discussion focuses on how these choices reveal specific stance-taking acts of positioning towards topics and alignment/disalignment with communities of speakers and how they contribute to construing two different idiosyncratic interactional or dialogic stance styles. The analysis reveals that Obama's interactional stance style can be argued to be highly dialogic and relies on a combination of stance markers, among which directivity and contrastive negation stand out, since they are absent in Bush. Directivity is used to engage directly with his audience and persuade them to take specific courses of action regarding the future of America, while contrastive negation is used to write in different voices in his speech, creating complex relations of (dis)alignment with communities of speakers. Bush's interactional stance style relies more on choices which involve the expression of epistemic certainty and deontic modality, as a means of legitimizing a positioning towards America in which the safeguard of national security is his major concern. • Obama's stance choices are characterized by directivity and negation. • Bush's stance choices are characterized by epistemic certainty and deonticity. • Obama's stance choices reveal a more dialogic interactional style than Bush. • Directivity is used to persuade the audience to take specific courses of action. • Negation evokes sets of values and creates alignment with communities of speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaning-making in reading literary texts is a process that is widely theorised, applied in instructions, and observed through research. While recognitions have been given to the value of literature for different purposes, trends in educational policies for literature in different curricula do not secure a clear and systematic way of how meaning-making should be explored. Research into meaning-making demonstrates the need to examine the process as this remains to be understudied. This study observed the meaning-making process through the stances and perspectives adopted among a group of ESL readers when meaning was made in reading a literary text. This case study employed Concurrent Verbal protocol for data collection. 31 participants, majoring in Teaching English as a Second language (TESL) were selected for the study. Qualitative data from the verbal protocol sessions were quantified using a preestablished set of 24 themes derived from the theoretical framework of the study. The themes were based on the Efferent, Aesthetic, and Critical stances and also the public and private perspectives of the Text, Reader, Universal Values, and Writer. The findings indicate that the Critical is favoured over the Efferent and Aesthetic stances. Public Textual Perspectives were also preferred over the Private Textual, Reader, Universal, and Writer's perspectives. The implication of examining the meaning-making process from multiple perspectives would nurture learning aptitudes and encourage personal connection and engagement to literature. Future research should consider expanding the investigation into the meaning-making process on other categories of readers as well as literary genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Press releases represent a hybrid business genre, which combines an informational and a promotional communicative purpose. The objective of the study is to assess the extent to which this duality is reflected in the language used, and more particularly in the expression of stance, by comparing corporate press releases with another business genre that is essentially informational, namely business news reporting. The focus is on lexical bundles, as they have been found to be a major conveyor of attitudinal and epistemic stance. Relying on the pattern-matching approach to language, 3-word lexical bundles are extracted from a 1-million-word corpus of press releases (BeRel) and set against those found in a similar-sized corpus of business news (BeNews). An examination of the key bundles (keyword analysis) in each corpus reveals that the bundles that are distinctive to press releases differ significantly from those found in BeNews, particularly in the expression of modal, evaluative and personal stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the stance-related functions of –nya and –ni in Korean conversation within the theoretical and analytical framework of stance proposed by Du Bois (2007) as well as that of conversation analysis. Previous studies have understood –nya and –ni as plain-speech level sentence-type markers that are employed to form interrogative sentences mainly intended to seek information. This study, however, demonstrates that –nya and –ni can function as stance markers that show how the speaker aligns his/her stance with the stance displayed by the prior speaker. The findings of this study further show that –nya and –ni are starkly different in the types of stances they index: –nya tended to indicate the speaker's divergent stance with the prior speaker's stance, whereas –ni tended to indicate a convergent stance. The grammaticalization of stance alignment into the interrogative suffixes –nya and –ni in Korean thus clearly demonstrates how grammar is not only a resource to indicate the syntactic and propositional information of an utterance but also a socio-interactional and public resource that enables the dialogic construction of stance in and through interaction. • The Korean interrogative suffixes –nya and –ni serve stance-related functions. • –Nya indexes a diverging stance with the prior speaker's stance. • –Ni indexes a converging stance with the prior speaker's stance. • Grammar can be a resource for the dialogic construction of stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of metadiscourse, which refers to a range of interactional and organisational linguistic resources, has been increasingly used in studies that analyse professional and tertiary-level writing. Although studies tend to support the teaching of metadiscourse to tertiary-level students and have even promoted its potential value at the pre-tertiary level, the pool of studies that have investigated upper secondary pupil writing is relatively small. This study contributes to this research pool by investigating metadiscourse in 56 English essays belonging to five genres written at Norwegian and British upper secondary schools. By adapting a taxonomy based on several previous studies, the analysis accounts for the particular metadiscourse features in the corpus, and identifies which features characterise each of the five genres. For example, linguistic investigations, which were longer and more academic-like, used more topic and phoric markers to guide readers through the essay’s content. Opinion pieces, in contrast, contained more engagement markers and boosters as pupils were tasked with targeting a lay audience. The results have implications for future research that aims to investigate the use of metadiscourse in pre-tertiary writing.

Academic essays entail taking a stance on the truth value of propositions. Epistemic adverbs deal with the speaker's assessment of the truth value of propositions. Employing a corpus-based approach with descriptive statistics and qualitative description, this study explored the use of epistemic stance adverbs in academic essays written by native English speakers and Iranian EFL learners. Following Biber et al.'s (1999) framework of stance adverbials, the researchers employed a corpus of 62077 words taken from class assignments written by Iranian EFL learners and a corpus of 65268 words taken from British Academic Written English (BAWE) to investigate the use of epistemic stance adverbs. Antconc software 3.4.3 version was used to search the most frequent stance adverbs. Frequency counts for each of the adverbs were extracted and normalized per 1000 words; then, Chi-square was run to pinpoint any differences between the two groups. The findings revealed both similarities and differences in the use of stance adverbs between the two groups. For example, EFL writers used more confident adverbs to show their authorial presence while native speakers used more maybe adverbs which are less authority-oriented. The findings may have implications for second/foreign language learners and writing instruction.

Despite widespread interest and research among applied linguists to explore metadiscourse use, very little is known of how metadiscourse resources have evolved over time in response to the historically developing practices of academic communities. Motivated by such an ambition, the current research drew on a corpus of 874315 words taken from three leading journals of applied linguistics in order to trace the diachronic evolution of stance markers in methodology section of research articles from 1996 to 2016. Hyland’s (2005b) model of metadiscourse was adopted for the analysis of the selected corpus. The data were explored using concordance software AntConc (Anthony, 2011). Moreover, a Chi-Square statistical measure was run to determine statistical significances. The analysis revealed a significant decline in the overall frequency of stance markers in methodology section of RAs. Interestingly, this decrease was entirely due to the overall decline in the use of self-mentions. Approaching interactional dimension of academic writing from such a diachronic perspective, it might be argued that the very selective use of stance markers by academic writers over time means metadiscourse does not operate in vacuum and is sensitive to changes within disciplines and their academic practices.

The paper explores engagement as a linguistic category by discussing its defining characteristics. Following work by Evans and colleagues (2018a, b), we discuss issues of scope and the intersubjective distribution of information, as central to the definition of engagement. In addition, we examine the notion of access as a crucial component of engagement marking and we attempt to distinguish access from epistemic authority, which we argue is a prerequisite for the existence of engagement as a linguistic category. Both access and epistemic authority appear central to an analysis of engagement marking, as found in the literature and in the languages of this Special Issue. From an interactional point of view, engagement may be viewed as a form of “stance” (Du Bois 2007), in that it primarily positions the speech participants with respect to talked about events from the point of view of the speaker.

This article seeks to contribute to the body of research on the use of perception verbs in interaction and, more specifically, to enhance the understanding of how participants in courtroom proceedings exploit you see to manage the discourse as it unfolds and to negotiate stance. Against the background of earlier work on vision words in interaction, the study looks at parenthetical and non-parenthetical you see to reveal both perceptual and cognitive uses, and to identify their local pragmatic effect. As the analysis indicates, in the data at hand, lexical you see is more readily recruited than non-lexical you see, and it is found chiefly in grammatical and declarative questions. At the same time, it is the clause-initial you see that visibly brings out the epistemic tensions between the speakers and serves to contest the addressee’s position. The study corroborates the claim that you see is an argumentative marker, whose meaning (and force) depends on its formal properties (position, complementation) and the relationship between the speakers.

Following Evans et al. (2018a, 2018b), I use “engagement” to refer to grammatical encoding of the relative accessibility of an entity or state of affairs to the speaker and addressee. I refer to what is thereby encoded as the “engagement function”. How neatly does that function map on to grammatical categories of particular languages? Here I address that question with respect to the Papuan language Ku Waru, focusing on spatial and epistemic demonstratives, and definiteness and indefinite marking. I show that forms within each of those word/morpheme classes do serve engagement functions, but in cross-cutting and partial ways. I show how the engagement function is also achieved through poetic parallelism, prosody, gaze direction and other aspects of bodily comportment. In the examples considered, the engagement function is realised through interaction between those extra-linguistic features and the grammatical ones. The main thing that is added by grammatical engagement marking is an explicit signalling of the intersubjective accord that has been achieved on other bases. I hypothesize that that is true of engagement overall, and conclude by suggesting some ways to test that hypothesis and to advance the understanding of engagement more generally.

Murrinhpatha, an Aboriginal language of northern Australia, has an initial k-alternation in verbs that has hitherto been resistant to grammatical analysis. I argue that k-does not encode any feature of event structure, but rather signals the speaker’s epistemic primacy over the addressee. This authority may relate to concrete perceptual factors in the field of discourse, or to socially normative authority, where it asserts the speaker’s epistemic rights. These rights are most salient in the domains of kin, country and totems, as opposed to other topics in which speakers are habitually circumspect and co-construct knowledge. My analysis of the k-alternation thus brings together the typology of epistemic grammar (Evans, Bergqvist, & San Roque, 2018a, 2018b), and a sociolinguistic perspective on stance (Jaffe, 2009).

تبحث هذه الدراسة في مفهوم الموقف في الخطاب السياسي باعتباره أحد أهم الأشياء التي نقوم بها مع اللغة، والتي يمكن أن تنسب قيمًا إلى الأشياء، وتضع الفاعلين الاجتماعيين فيما يتعلق بتلك الأشياء، ومعايرة موقفين ذاتيين، وإظهار قيم الموقف. النظام الاجتماعي والثقافي للفرد أو المجموعة الاجتماعية. تهدف الدراسة إلى التعرف على الأساس اللغوي لمقالات رأي تشومسكي. ثانياً، يهدف إلى وصف الاستراتيجيات التواصلية لمقالات رأي تشومسكي. ثالثاً: يهدف إلى توضيح العلاقة بين الأسلوب وبناء الهوية. يتضمن مفهوم الموقف المعتمد في هذه الدراسة شبكة معقدة من المناهج التي تشمل الأدلة، والخطاب الفوقي، والتقييم، ومثلث الموقف. وهذه الشبكة المعقدة ضرورية للسرد الدلالي الخطابي لمقالات رأي تشومسكي. وللقيام بذلك تم تطوير نموذج متعدد وجهات النظر في ضوء أهداف الدراسة. يحتوي النموذج على عنصرين: استراتيجيات تحقيق الموقف ووظائف الموقف.

We seek to investigate a broader range of the generic pronoun you beyond simple prototypical usage as well as its possible relationship with “territory.” This paper focuses on unraveling key perceptions within authentic interactions and how the pronoun you is involved in the unfolding of stance-taking in conversation. Previous research has considered distal functions of the pronoun you, such as creating psychological space between oneself and information to diffuse accountability, making external generalizations, or those related to listening audiences (O’Conner 1994; Thomas-Ruzic, 1999; Kamio 2001; Stirling and Manderson 2011). However, this study departs from these previous distal deictic and broadening interpretations of the pronoun you. Instead, we suggest that psychological domains of a more proximal “territory of information” serve as a type of salient and well-informed piece of information when offering insight and expertise, signaling the correction of common misnomers or as a way of relating keys to greatness or success where speakers use this pronoun to take a stance or position in interaction. Kamio’s (1997) framework hypothesizes that certain linguistic utterances are used for marking territory over information. We view the generic you switch as a type of “Realis” device. We also suggest that an inclusion of the non-prototypical you requires adding to Kamio’s (2001) framework to depict a much closer proximal psychological subarea comprising these stances that represent strong claims over information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored stance‐taking in Chinese heritage language writing. Analysis focused on a prominent stance expression, wo juede 'I think.' Frequency, function, and formulaic usage of wo juede were compared across 3 written Chinese corpora by heritage learners, second language (L2) learners, and native speakers (L1 writers). The analysis revealed distinctive linguistic features and collocational patterns of stance‐taking among the 3 groups. Overall, heritage writers' stance performance was found to be self‐centered and text oriented. They exhibited a strong reliance on wo juede combined with textual organizers such as contrastive or causal conjunctions. In contrast, L1 writers were more reader oriented, exhibiting a strong tendency to combine wo juede with interpersonal devices including attitudinal markers, modal verbs, sentence‐final particles, and question forms. The study also found that heritage writers' stance‐taking performance consistently fell between that of L1 and L2 writers. Findings and pedagogical implications are discussed in light of heritage learner pragmatics and learner agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media use has become a common feature of contemporary tourism, yet in face‐to‐face interactions tourists often distance themselves from online engagement. Drawing on interviews collected at a popular tourism site in Myanmar (Burma), tourists are found to recurrently take a stance of disavowal regarding social media use, downplaying and rationalizing their engagement or locating a tourist out‐group against which their own behavior can be favorably compared. This case study of stancetaking regarding social media use reveals the dynamics of tourism's longstanding function as a distinction‐making practice, with social media use but one of many behaviors that tourists critically evaluate in the pursuit of symbolic capital. As tourism becomes increasingly integral to the global maintenance of class status, focusing on the production of symbolic power in tourism raises critical questions about entanglements with industry and the accumulation of material capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English-language particle you know is used so frequently in a diversity of environments that a comprehensive account of its functional import has been elusive. The present study, based on sequential and distributional analyses of a large sample from ordinary conversation, demonstrates that you know works as an alignment token invoking a convergent orientation between recipient and speaker. The invoked alignment may come off in context as either intersubjective (recipient correctly grasps speaker's meaning) or affiliative (recipient endorses speaker's action or stance). In support of this analysis, you know clusters in action environments where either the recipient's understanding or affiliation has emerged as salient or potentially problematic, but before such problems have risen to the level of overt expression. Correspondingly, the particle engenders confirmatory responses which are interjacently produced in a plurality of cases. The particle is thus implicated in the maintenance of both intersubjectivity and solidarity when these come under strain, and its use is indicative of nascent difficulties in either or both of these areas. • You know (YK) is an alignment token. • YK invokes a convergent orientation between recipient and speaker. • YK clusters where understanding or affiliation is potentially problematic. • YK engenders confirmatory responses, interjacently produced in many cases. • YK is thus implicated in the maintenance of both intersubjectivity and solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This self-study demonstrates how crafting found poems and critical friendship facilitated unstitching and (re)stitching narrative understanding for purposes of learning from pedagogy for improving practice. Findings extend existing literature by documenting how composing found poems from previous, dissertation research is a tool for inquiry, analysis, and representation for meaning-making within self-study methodology. Two sets of artifacts included the researchers' dissertations framed as composite stories and drafts of found poems; these data were positioned and repositioned, woven as artifacts, field texts, and representations. We inquired how we might reposition ourselves to hear the multivoicedness of our temporal, personal-professional, and conceptual (con)texts. We asked, how might we utilize a familiar teaching practice to inquire into our lived experiences? How might found poems be positioned as both a methodological tool for analyzing completed research and representing meaning-making from deeply constructed narrative experiences? Found poetry enabled the researchers to evoke the fourth and fifth envisionment-building stances (Langer, 2011a), enabling them to 'step back' and reconsider what they know, and to develop deeper understandings that disrupted and transformed understanding. Through self-study with a critical friend, the poem as meaning-making event unfolded before us, weaving new threads, in the space of new tensions, resulting in new understandings. Analyzing and representing data through the process of composing found poems with a critical friend generates the vulnerable-confident; self-other; vision-revision; reading-composing; critiquing-discovering; powerful-empowering; learning-teaching; textual-intertextual; aesthetic-efferent; three-dimensional spaces for ongoing transformation where silent voices are liberated and heard through collaborative self-study methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]