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The exponential growth of consumer reviews has given rise to a new online genre: responses from businesses. While previous research predominantly focused on responses to negative reviews and mainly adopted a monolingual standpoint, in this contribution we analyze business responses to positive reviews, adopting a cross-linguistic perspective. We first explore the move structure of these responses, then delve into their different linguistic realizations, paying particular attention to potential face-work strategies. Replying to positive evaluations raises specific challenges for face-work, since it creates a tension between the choice of 'self-enhancement' and 'self-effacement' (modesty). Our findings show that the professional orientation of these interactions plays a determining role in the communicative choices adopted by the response writers. Indeed, responses to positive reviews display divergent face-work practices from patterns observed in other "positive" interactional contexts such as face-to-face or Facebook compliment responses. Specifically, we observed the pervasiveness of accepting strategies and the absence of evading or rejecting strategies. From a cross-linguistic perspective, responses written in Dutch and English tend more often toward values of modesty, whereas replies written in Italian display self-enhancement of their business, adding positive descriptions of their accommodations and promotional strategies. Furthermore, responses written in English and Dutch, display a more neutral style, while responses written in Italian opt for a more involved style (e.g., including positive small talk and returning compliments to their guests). • Positive responses on TripAdvisor display divergent face-work strategies compared to Facebook. • On TripAdvisor accepting strategies are pervasive, while evading or rejecting strategies are absent. • Positive responses written in Dutch and English tend more often toward values of modesty and display a more neutral communicative style. • Positive responses written in Italian display self-enhancement strategies (promotional strategies). • Positive responses written in Italian opt for a more involved style (small talk/returning compliments). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the Web 2.0 profoundly changed the tourist experience and its modes of interaction and communication. Among the most pervasive forms of contemporary tourism discourse we find online reviews posted on social media platforms as TripAdvisor. Previous research on online travel reviews focused almost exclusively on negative reviews and mostly considered monolingual English dataset. In the present study we will explore positive reviews and we will add a cross-linguistic analysis comparing reviews written in English, Italian and Dutch. In this contribution, we first explore the move structure of reviews, and then delve into their different linguistic realizations, paying particular attention to potential cross-linguistic similarities and divergences. Our results show that positive reviews are generally formed by four main moves: positive and negative evaluations, offering extra/background information and future-oriented recommendations. These moves represent stable and recurrent features in reviews written in all three languages under examination. Further, also the topics of the reviews display a cross-linguistic tendency towards similarity, with the preferred topics being the accommodation, its services and the staff. The findings also highlight some divergences among the three language groups, especially not on what is said but on how it is said. For instance, in reviews written in Italian we found expressions of thankfulness and congratulations to the staff, while these are practically absent in the other languages. Moreover, we observed that Italian reviewers tend to realize positive evaluations in a more intensified way (e.g. through the use of superlative lexical expressions) while these strategies are used far less frequently in British and Dutch reviews. With this study we seek to contribute to research in the field of (digital) tourism discourse providing one of the first discourse-oriented analyses on reviews of positive polarity. Moreover, performing a comparative analysis, we aim at gaining a deeper insight on the issue of multilingualism within (online) tourism communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to gain insight into (Spanish) tourists' multilingual experiences by analyzing spontaneously written online travel diaries. Using the conceptual framework of Rapport Management Theory (RMT; ), I analyze reports on the tourists' mother tongue, local languages, and English as lingua franca in order to examine the relations between language choice and the three interactional principles distinguished in RMT: interactional goals, face concerns, and sociality rights concerns. The data suggests that using one language rather than another may have different implications. Spanish tourists assign a privileged role to their mother tongue, especially for realizing interpersonal goals. Furthermore, tourists regularly describe low English proficiency as a potentially face-threatening characteristic of their own ethnolinguistic group. Finally, Spanish tourists do not seem to consider services in their mother tongue as a commercial right, except in specific contexts where the absence of Spanish language contrasts with other contextual features. On a methodological level, this study seeks to explore the potential of analyzing spontaneously written online diaries as a source of information for sociolinguistic research on multilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the constructional meaning of NPs preceded by a demonstrative determiner and NPs preceded by a definite article, in both Spanish and Dutch. First, I will give a brief, general description of the meaning of the two constructions, focusing on three features: unique identifiability, deictic force and predicating force. Then, a contrastive analysis will show that demonstrative determiners and definite articles differ crosslinguistically. A quantitative analysis of translational shifts will reveal a systematic shift between Dutch demonstrative determiners and Spanish definite articles. Through the qualitative analysis of several subgroups of examples, I will show that the Dutch and Spanish paradigms differ with regard to the features of deictic and predicating force. Both Dutch demonstratives and definite articles seem to be more semantically bleached and hence more grammaticalized than their Spanish counterparts, which may well go some way to explaining the frequent and systematic translational shifts. Finally, I will draw attention to some specific phenomena, such as the cultural embeddedness of anaphoric relations, and the role of demonstratives in evoking a visual frame, which also motivate translational shifts between demonstratives and definite articles, but are better interpreted as local translator's decisions, rather than as systemic contrastive differences between Dutch and Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: I will describe the structural and semantic characteristics of the Spanish causal conjunctions como (as, since), ya que (as, since), and pues (for). I will argue that, unlike predicative causal conjunctions like porque (because), they function as speech event markers. This difference will be related to Peirce''s semiotic distinction between symbolic and indexical signs. A speech event will be defined as a three-dimensional event, including a modal, interpersonal and sequential dimension. The three justificational conjunctions give the same indication at the sequential dimension: they identify the speech event as an act of justification. I will show that what further distinguishes the three conjunctions from each other can be analyzed in terms of the other two dimensions. I will argue that pues activates both the modal and the interpersonal dimension, that ya que activates the modal dimension but de-activates the interpersonal dimension, and that como de-activates both the modal and the interpersonal dimension. I will show that this analysis can explain certain typical pragmatic effects, for instance why pues marks the information that follows as new, why ya que allows special uses like irony or is frequently used to introduce quotations, and why como presents the information as taken for granted. In the concluding section, I will argue that the framework is not only suited to describe Spanish causal conjunctions, but has a broader theoretical and descriptive scope. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The migration of moisture in cores of porous homogeneous sandstone of Ledian age (Belgian Eocene, Tertiary) is monitored with PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and micro-focus X-ray radiography. In the case of PET, a nuclear medical imaging technique, 55Co-EDTA (Ethylenediamine Tetraacetic acid) and R-18F were used as water-soluble tracers. The X-ray projection method has evolved from the better-known medical technique and allows a fast and accurate determination of the two-dimensional transient moisture content profiles. Results indicate that both techniques can deliver important information concerning physical processes in situ. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We have studied a new aqueous reprocessing system that consists of anion exchange as the main separation method, electrolytic reduction for reducing U(VI) to U(IV), and extraction chromatography for minor actinide partitioning. In this work, hot tests were carried out on the main flow sheet (U and Pu recovery) using a nitric acid solution of a spent commercial boiling water reactor fuel with burnup of 55000 MWd/t HM. First, a separation experiment was conducted using a column packed with AR-01 anion exchanger, and the separation behavior of about 20 elements was examined. Then electrolytic reduction was performed for the U(VI) eluate from the first column using a flow-type electrolysis cell. Subsequently, the reduced U solution was applied to the second AR-01 column to separate the U(IV) from contaminated fission products. Most amounts of Pu(IV)-Np(IV), were successfully separated and recovered in the first column. In the electrolysis, U(VI), Np(V, VI), and a trace amount of Pu(VI) were reduced to U(IV), Np(IV), and Pu(IV), respectively. In the second column, the U(IV) with small amounts of Np(IV) and Pu(IV) was completely separated from the fission products. These results demonstrated that the proposed U and Pu recovery process is essentially feasible, though more effective elution methods for Pd and Tc need to be investigated further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]