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In spite of decades of research developing a model of language and context, there is little consensus in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) about how context should be modelled and how language and context are related. In this paper, we review recent work in SFL which focuses on modelling register as a resource – reconceiving field as a resource for construing phenomena, tenor as a resource for negotiating social relations, and mode as a resource for composing texture. This work has a number of implications for SFL's conception of realisation (as strata of abstraction), instantiation (as a cline of generalisation), and individuation (as a scale of belonging). For realisation it bears critically on the issue of whether or not to adopt a stratified model of context (as register and genre) and the relationship between extrinsic functionality (field, tenor, and mode) and intrinsic functionality (ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions). For instantiation, it bears critically on our modelling of principles for coupling (co-selecting and arranging choices within and across languages and related modalities of communication) – for example mass, presence, and association. And for individuation, it bears critically on the perspectives of allocation (i.e. how access to meanings and their uptake is distributed across communities) and affiliation (i.e. how meanings are used to collaborate and struggle, within and between social groups). Our basic aim in this paper is to suggest a model for improving traction as far as SFL work on language in context is concerned, fully embracing a multimodal perspective on language and related modalities of communication as resources for meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In medieval studies, the "Liber legum of Lupus of Ferrières" has long been a firmly associated pair of terms, although the identity of the author is by no means certain and has been repeatedly called into doubt. The paper reconstructs how this opinion has prevailed, and critically examines the arguments put forward in favor of it. Given the paucity of reliable evidence, adherence to the hypothesis seems to be due primarily to the appeal of combining a well-known work with a famous name. Since the sources used for the Liber legum as well as its manuscript tradition clearly point to Italy, it seems most likely that Lupus was an Italian collector of legal texts, who had a personal relationship with the patron of the work, Margrave Eberhard of Friuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that impoliteness research has spanned over three decades, it has been conceptualized persistently in terms of politeness as its binary opposite. In this paper, we endeavor to provide a theoretical framework for studying impoliteness as significant communicative practice. We aim to introduce Levinas' face as an alternative to Goffman's face and identify impoliteness with Levinas' face for the reason that Levinas' face, featuring absolute difference, can only be expressed through the discourse of resistance which manifests in various phenomena commonly categorized as impoliteness. We also argue that impoliteness is essentially the discourse of the authentic Self whose uncompromising difference, though potentially resulting in conflictive phenomena, facilitates understanding between individuals, not as actors, but as unique beings with their individualities and differences. We further contend that impoliteness is ethical in that the discourse of resistance does not aim for power but calls for respect for individual difference as well as responsibility for the Other in an effort to seek equality in human relations which are fundamentally power-laden and unequal. We also provide a case study to apply our theoretical construction of impoliteness to a literary classic, namely, Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" to illustrate our main points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) highlights rising rates of working-age mortality in the United States, portending troubling population health trends for this group as they age. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is an invaluable resource for researchers studying health and aging dynamics among Americans ages 50 and above and has strong potential to be used by researchers to provide insights about the drivers of rising U.S. mortality rates. This paper assesses the strengths and limitations of HRS data for identifying drivers of rising mortality rates in the U.S. and provides recommendations to enhance the utility of the HRS in this regard. Among our many recommendations, we encourage the HRS to prioritize the following: link cause of death information to respondents; reduce the age of eligibility for inclusion in the sample; increase the rural sample size; enhance the existing HRS Contextual Data Resource by incorporating longitudinal measures of structural determinants of health; develop additional data linkages to capture residential settings and characteristics across the life course; and add measures that capture drug use, gun ownership, and social media use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the correlations between imperative sentences and interpersonal relations in Jane Eyre. The imperatives uttered by Rochester, St. John, and Mrs. Reed to Jane are examined from four perspectives: quantity, imperative force, addressing, and Jane's corresponding responses. It is found that the variation in these aspects matches well with the development of interpersonal relations. Specifically, when the addresser and Jane get more intimate in relationship, the quantities of the imperatives tend to decline, the imperative force tends to soften, the addressing becomes more personal, and Jane's compliance to the imperatives tends to decrease and her non-compliance tends to increase. It is proposed that new indicators in imperatives (i.e. vocatives, personal pronouns and directional verbs like come and go in imperatives) can be adopted to evaluate interpersonal relations in a literary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for leadership in nursing is well-documented and Domain Six of the doctoral section of the National Nursing Education Framework of the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) is Leadership. While there are likely many paths to achievement of these leadership components, the intent of this paper is to share my journey through iteration of and reflection on my PhD dissertation research focused on a four-cycle community-based participatory action research study (CBPR) related to clinical teaching in Ghana. The focus of CBPR is to engage the researcher and the participant group (community) in collaborative, and egalitarian processes to assess and problem solve an issue in the community. Similarly, leadership promotes collaborative interpersonal relationships among leaders and followers to address issues and institutes change strategies in policies. This paper presents my experiences in building leadership capacity through this scholarly endeavor (PhD thesis) in relation to the CASN guideline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with one of Plutarch's favourite subjects – the relation between human beings and animals. In order to gain new insight into this topic, a three-step approach is chosen: First, the paper investigates some of the essential ideas concerning animals (their soul, their emotions and intellectual capacities) to be found in Plutarch's work and the vocabulary he employs. Secondly, the paper focuses on Plutarch's unique style of writing and his skillful use of the Socratic method to guide his audience. Thirdly, Plutarch's personal opinion will be analyzed. In the first part of this paper, Plutarch's work serves as a lens to unfold the nature of contemporary discourses on the relation between man and animal (with broad agreement on some points and controversies about others) as well as the different notions associated with the terms theria and zoa. A special focus is placed on the 'Gryllos' (mor. 985 d–992 e). Plutarch's treatise 'Whether the creatures of the land or the creatures of the sea have more phronesis' (mor. 959 b–985 c) is an important contribution to the field of animal ethics and the subject of the second part of this paper. The ingenious structure of said text illustrates Plutarch's qualities as a writer and how carefully he employs maieutic methods to support his readers in developing their own point of view. The third part of this paper is devoted to passages from Plutarch's oeuvre which illustrate his personal position in the debate on the relation between human beings and animals. He is clearly aware that life on earth is inextricably interwoven with acts of killing and destruction, yet he also believes that observing animals has some lessons to offer to mystery religions. Plutarch describes animals as 'clearer mirrors to the divine', thereby illustrating that he perceives creatures – whether tiny or large – as a unique chance to gain a better understanding of the miracle of life. In this capacity animals provide a way for human beings to improve their insight into the nature of the divine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Introduction Professionals who work with people have often theories, concepts, and ideals that are related to their interactions with their clients. Practitioners understand their own work (and related practices such as training or development) in terms of these theories, and much of the research around professional fields is conducted by reference to such theories. In healthcare, for example, ideals of ‘patient-centeredness’ are widely known. Such ideals involve normative descriptions of what the interaction between professionals and clients ‘should’ be like. In psychotherapy, family therapy, and psychoanalysis, different therapeutic theories involve not only ideas about the nature of the pathogenic mental or social processes, but also concepts and standards for the therapeutic interactions in which remedies are sought for these pathologies. Even theories that primarily focus on somatic processes, such as medical (allopathic or homeopathic) theories, may have significant consequences for the interactions between patients and professionals adhering to these theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The set of papers that constitutes this special issue of Communication & Medicine marks an important development in studies of professional–client communication. Instead of studying the practice of health professionals as an ethologist would study the mating habits of the dung beetle, it is clear that communication researchers can involve health professionals in their work to the greater satisfaction, one hopes, of all concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While politeness has been researched mainly from the perspectives of face and identity, this conceptual paper explores another understanding of politeness through the consideration of attentiveness, namely, a demonstrator's pre-emptive responses to a recipient's verbal or non-verbal cues or situations surrounding a recipient and a demonstrator, which takes the form of offering. In this paper, it is suggested that politeness can be construed in relation to the heart; and that behavioral (non-linguistic) politeness, an understudied area in the field, should be taken into account in politeness research. With the development of interpersonal pragmatics, there has been a growing need to investigate interpersonal relationships, and great importance is placed on evaluation in the discursive approach. As attentiveness is an interpersonal notion, which involves evaluation, the consideration of attentiveness meets these demands. In the present paper, the concept of attentiveness is clarified and it is shown how attentiveness works by presenting the process of demonstration and evaluation of attentiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Stanley and Williamson's take on Ryle's argument against know-how being know-that. For this, I provide an initial consideration of the possibility of isolating Ryle's argument from his overall philosophical outlook and Stanley and Williamson's purpose in their discussion of Ryle. I then examine in detail Stanley and Williamson's reconstruction of Ryle's argument with the specific aim of showing where they have introduced extraneous elements: I examine what they take to bes additional assumptions needed for the argument to be valid and how they construct the premises in order to attempt to show that Ryle's argument is not sound. I end the paper showing the limits of Stanley and Williamson's attack, suggesting how the extraneous elements Stanley and Williamson introduce already bias the discussion against Ryle. The main aim is not to defend a form of Ryle's regress but rather advocate the need for a deeper discussion of Ryle's views of mind and action when discussing his views on know-how. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theme, the building block for the Textual Metafunction in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), is itself an element at the clause rank. Its function and application, however, can only be fully recognized in the unfolding discourse. This article extends multiple Theme to the discourse level and proposes the notion of multiple hyperTheme that exists beyond the clause, with a view to developing the system of Theme in SFL and strengthening its role in discourse analysis. The article begins with an overview of the historical development of Theme, primarily reflecting on hyperTheme initiated by Daneš (1974, Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In Daneš František (ed.), Papers on functional sentence perspective, 106-128. The Hague: Mouton) and developed by Martin (1992a, English text: System and structure. Philadelphia: John Benjamins) andMartin and Rose (2003, Working with discourse:Meaning beyond the clause. London: Continuum). By redefining hyperTheme and suggesting that it should not just be confined to the ideational dimension, this article introduces multiple hyperTheme which may cover the three strands of meaning (ideational, interpersonal and textual), offering a more delicate system of hyperTheme in SFL. The complexities and delicacies of different elements within the category of multiple hyperTheme are illustrated in its various patterns such as Interpersonal ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Interpersonal ^ Ideational, Textual ^ Textual/Interpersonal ^ Ideational and Interpersonal/Textual ^ Ideational. Furthermore, the subtle configuration of the interpersonal and the ideational meanings in one grammatical sentence may blur the distinction between multiple hyperTheme and simple hyperTheme, especially when there is no obvious textual element involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following on Pomerantz's (1978) study, the speech act of compliment has been studied from various aspects. Past studies have been confined largely to examination of a single compliment and its response pair. However, actual compliment speech acts rarely end after one such exchange. Therefore, this paper observes the strategic development of compliment discourse: how compliment discourse, a series of exchanges that include compliments and their responses, develops, recesses, and moves into the next topic. In analyzing the extended speech act, rather than merely compliment response pairs, this research reveals the following developmental patterns: repetition of compliment and response, followed by frame shift to close the compliment discourse. The findings indicate that people collaboratively construct compliment discourse for the purpose of facework, i.e., avoidance of self-praise and agreement with others, and respecting evaluation of evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates cultural transfers related to the expression of time and indications of time in the German translation of Ousmane Sembène´s novel Le mandat / Die Postanweisung (The money order). The paper points out the significance of time, not only as an important parameter of the narration in the selected novel, but also in the way it is used by the different actors, and especially by the main actor Ibrahima Dieng, in social interactions and human relations. Furthermore, I investigate in this article how expressions related to time indications that are deeply rooted in the author's domestic culture, are translated and/or transported in the German version of Sembène's novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the conceptual basis of Chinese social organization, and examines how the fundamental Chinese categories of interpersonal relationships affect Chinese ways of speaking and social interaction. Firstly, the paper will analyze the full meanings and interrelationship of two of the most distinctive (complementary) dyads of Chinese social categories, namely, shēngrén (lit. ‘uncooked person’, ‘stranger’) vs. shúrén (lit. ‘cooked person’, ‘an old acquaintance’), and zìj&icaron;rén (lit. ‘oneself person’, ‘insider’) vs. wàirén (lit. ‘outer/outsider person’, ‘outsider’). It will then put forward two master scripts—general principles underlying norms of social interaction—in Chinese culture that are governed by the demarcations of these fundamental categories: nèiwàiy&ocaron;ubié (‘difference between the insider and outsider’) and yóushūzhìqīn (‘from far to close’), and illustrate aspects of Chinese language use that are guided by these principles. They include d&acaron; zhāohu (‘greetings’), the use of tóng X (‘fellow X’) and l&acaron;o X (‘old X’), and a brief discussion of the value of not being polite in Chinese culture. On the one hand, this paper demonstrates the need for treating interpersonal relationships as a theoretical variable in the study of human interaction and shows the importance of an indigenous perspective; on the other, it relates theoretical discussion of human interaction to practical needs of understanding Chinese interactional style for the purpose of language teaching and political and commercial negotiations. Both goals can be attained by the use of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage and ‘cultural scripts’ theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing Post Office scandal in the UK and the 2021 Child Daycare Benefit Scandal in the Netherlands make up exemplary cases of how digital automation has changed and in fact severely harmed trust relations ranging from trust in oneself over trust in social roles, trust in institutions, trust in technology and general trust. By looking closer at how digital automation in these cases generated ruptures in the lives of ordinary citizens and also affected the involved institutions and society at large I discuss how we may begin to discuss the impact of digitalization on trust in societies. I start with an introduction to the panoramic view of trust, followed by a short description of the two scandals. Based on the exploration of the two cases I take an ex post facto perspective on the dynamic social events as they unfolded in the scandals in order to analyze how the introduction of digital automation tools affected trust relations. I draw attention to some of the most noticeable changes in the four relations of trust, which is trust in institutions, interpersonal trust, trust in oneself and trust in technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with 82 words of possible African origin registered in Uruguay by Ildefonso Pereda Valdés and Rolando Laguarda Trías between 1937 and 1965. Many of the lexical items were probably introduced by enslaved Africans brought to the region during the 18th and 19th centuries. Evidence shows that most of the words are apparently shared with varieties of Spanish outside the Rio de la Plata region, and most of them also appear in neighboring Argentina and Brazil. Furthermore, the African-derived lexicon is often used to denominate the 'other' with respect to people and social behaviors, and most of these loanwords are nouns with possible origins in Bantu languages spoken in West-Central Africa, which corresponds to the available demographic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der Aufsatz untersucht die Praxis gegenwärtigen Wiedererzählens von ghanaischen (Kasem) Volkserzählungen, die sich kritisch mit sozialen Rollen- und kulturellen Wertvorstellungen in den traditionellen Versionen auseinandersetzen. In den überlieferten Versionen werden übersinnliche Mächte angerufen, um Frauen zu bestrafen, die zu selbstständig handeln; damit wird weibliche Identität streng reguliert und begrenzt. In den neuen Versionen wenden die weiblichen Protagonistinnen das Prinzip des nantandia an, ein lokaler Kasem-Begriff, der Intelligenz, Initiative und Mut beinhaltet, und damit gleichzeitig den Einfluss der übersinnlichen Mächte beschneidet und die weibliche Individualität und Handlungsfähigkeit bestärkt. Summary: This paper examines contemporary retellings of Ghanaian (Kasem) folktales that engage critically with the social roles and cultural values in the traditional corpus. While in traditional folktales supernatural forces are unleashed to punish females who pursue their own strivings, thus regulating gender identity, in the retold tales female protagonists deploy nantandia, a local Kasem term which encompasses intelligence, initiative and courage, to thwart the power of the supernatural and assert their own subjecthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modalities are fundamental in building, maintaining and contesting ideological systems. While modalities have been described as resources for constructing both representational and interpersonal aspects of reality and truth, the analytical focus has been on modalities as a relationship between authors, their texts and their audiences, i.e. on their interpersonal functions. Informed by a framework on modalities for discourse analyses of values, Hodge and Kress's theory on ideological complexes and Fairclough's three-dimensional conception of discourse, in this paper I develop a method for examining modalities as resources for building dominant and counter discourses. I use example excerpts that come from my research on Finnish equality discourses to build and demonstrate the method. The example texts were written by people who are differently positioned in relation to salient norms and institutions on gender/sex and sociability: people contacted through a national random sample, people diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and people with transgender experiences. The method allows not only for systematic examinations of how modalities function in ordering power-imbalanced interpersonal relations but also attends to an underexplored dimension dealing with how modalities work in ideological representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide a formal model of the effects of domestic constraints upon crisis initiation and crisis termination. The model treated here is distilled from an extension of the two-sided incomplete information version of the traditional deterrence game. We employ a two-stage analysis of the decision problem faced by Challenger that formally links the onset of a crisis to the decision over whether to escalate or to back down in a crisis should the Challenger face resistance from the Defender. The results have interesting implications for the empirical analysis of international and domestic interactions, and crisis initiation in particular, in that it provides a foundation for displaying the mechanism of interdependence of crisis initiation and crisis termination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines complimenting behavior directed at members of one Facebook network of family and friends in the United States. It proposes a way of selecting a corpus for analysis within the online environment under scrutiny and offers a preliminary characterization of Facebook compliments in American English in relation to the form compliments take, common objects of complimenting and the key function(s) that they perform. As part of a multimodal system of communication, compliments on Facebook are described as a kind of second-pair part of photo-initiated communication online that can be employed to reaffirm the relationship and strengthen the bonds between the interactants. The paper also explores the extent to which complimenting behavior on Facebook resembles usage that has been described for American English in face-to-face interaction. It shows that complimenting behavior on Facebook is the same in some ways but also different. The differences identified appear to be mainly related to the medium of interaction and the affordances (and restrictions) of the technology that can give rise to variations of talk and perhaps even new social practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how refusals are constructed and negotiated in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong. A particular focus is on the ways in which Hong Kong Chinese subordinates negotiate issues of face and power relations when refusing their expatriate superiors. Despite abundant research on refusals in a variety of contexts across cultures, there are very few studies of multicultural workplaces. This is particularly surprising considering that refusals have been described as a frequent ' 'sticking point' in cross-cultural communication' (Beebe et al. 1990). This paper addresses this gap by drawing on more than 80 hours of authentic audio- and video-recorded spoken workplace discourse and a corpus of emails collected in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong. Findings of this exploratory study indicate that refusals are complex communicative activities that are carefully negotiated among participants. We argue that in contrast to earlier studies, participants' socio-cultural backgrounds do not appear to be the main determining factor of how issues of face and power relations are negotiated in upward refusals. Rather, a range of other factors, including media of communication, normative ways of interacting in a workplace, the relationship between interlocutors, as well as the content of the refusal, are more relevant for explaining participants' communicative behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Pain is not merely an isolated experience occurring within the person. It takes place in a wider social context, including the immediate social relationships that the person is a part of. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how intercouple interactions might influence pain coping in couples coping with chronic pain., Methods: Four different approaches to understanding the influence of intercouple interactions have been proposed in the literature. In this review, we present and discuss the empirical support for each of these models. A literature search on all studies published up until May 2017 (PubMed and PsycINFO) was performed. The search string consisted of 3 steps: Chronic pain AND couple interaction*/partner validation/marital interaction/chronic pain couple*/spouse response* AND coping/adjustment/disability/function/work participation/sick leave/sickness absence/work disability., Results: The operant model views partner responses from the perspective of conditioned learning and focuses on how such responses might increase or decrease the occurrence of pain behaviour. The notion that partner responses can reinforce pain behaviour generally finds support in the literature. However, when it comes to negative partner responses results are mixed, and the model paints a limited picture of the range of interactions that takes place in a couple. The communal coping model focuses on one specific type of coping (i.e. catastrophizing), and emphasizes the interpersonal aspect of pain coping. There is some evidence that a tendency to catastrophize is related both to couple interactions and pain coping, but it has proved difficult to test this model empirically. The interpersonal process model of intimacy is concerned with patient disclosures of distress and subsequent validating and invalidating partner responses. There is some preliminary support that such mechanisms of validation and invalidation can be linked to pain coping. A dyadic approach focuses on processes where the couple negotiates a shared meaning of events and participates in mutual coping of a shared stressor. This approach has not been investigated explicitly, but preliminary support can be derived from studies conducted within other frameworks., Conclusions: Each of the four approaches find some support in the research literature, yet none of them can explain the full range of couple interactions. We argue that the different approaches are complementary and that several of the approaches can be integrated in a dyadic understanding of pain coping., Implications: All the models indicate that couple interactions can affect pain coping and that this should be taken into account when developing treatment programmes for chronic pain patients., (Copyright © 2017 Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study sheds light on the unprecedented complexities of the Israel–Gaza war, offering insights into the challenges that journalists face in this conflict zone. It employs the Hierarchy of Influences Model to analyze the factors influencing conflict reporting within the dynamic landscape of contemporary war journalism. Rooted in the Hierarchy of Influences Model, the research is informed by interviews with 18 Palestinian journalists in Gaza. It examines the multifaceted influences on war coverage, encompassing individual, media routines, organizational, and societal factors, offering detailed insights from journalists' firsthand experiences. The research unveils semi-hierarchical influences within the model, illustrating the intertwined nature of micro and macro-level factors impacting war reporting. It sheds light on the complexities of journalistic practices amidst conflicts, underscoring the importance of safety, ethics, and the intricate relationship between personal experiences and professional duties as well as the evolving role of technology, acting both as a facilitator and a limitation in journalistic endeavors. The study holds substantial implications for war journalism practices, providing valuable perspectives for educators, policymakers, stakeholders, and media practitioners engaged in conflict reporting. It highlights the importance of understanding and addressing the challenges faced by journalists in conflict regions to enhance the quality and accuracy of war reporting. By uncovering the challenges and influences affecting war reporting, this research contributes to the broader discourse on media ethics, safety protocols, and the societal impact of conflict coverage. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive support systems and ethical guidelines to safeguard journalists operating in volatile regions. Bridging academic and practical perspectives on conflict reporting, this study offers unique insights into reporting complexities in the Israel–Gaza War. It emphasizes the critical role of journalistic practices in navigating hazards and limitations, amid evolving challenges for the media in portraying conflicts accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper appraises Brown & Levinson (1987 [1978]) from a utilitarian perspective. Rather than assess the veracity, validity, or applicability of their model as a whole, or its relevance to politeness, it identifies and examines several of the claims contained in the model individually, to see which ones can help to illuminate interaction across cultures. Its main contention is that the concepts of positive face(work) and negative face(work) are particularly useful in this context, being applicable to a wider range of interactive moves than the model in which B&L cage them allows. (By way of example, one such interactive move is analyzed in detail.) This potential, however, only becomes clear when (1) these concepts are freed from the constraints of the B&L model as a whole, (2) they are defined in a manner which returns to the original inspiration for the positive-negative opposition and (3) it is understood that this opposition is just one among many aspects of face, so that it is not made to do too much, inappropriate, work. (Examples of these limits are also discussed.) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I use nexus analysis framework to examine how one quadriplegic man from Oman, named Yahya, directs the course of his present (and his future) through anticipatory discourse. In particular, I analyze conversations between Yahya and me regarding his future as they relate to actions I undertake on his behalf to effect a social change: to secure Yahya, an unmarried man, a permit to hire his own resident nurse/assistant (permits for such hirings are reserved only for married couples in Oman). I demonstrate how Yahya influences me to follow his agenda through constructing a helpless identity in narrative discourse. Reciprocally, I suggest that through the actions Yahya's caregivers subsequently undertake, they succeed in giving him a sense of control over an important aspect of his life (being able to hire his own assistant), and I demonstrate how Yahya subsequently displays agentivity in his narratives. I thus illustrate the interconnectedness of Yahya's anticipatory discourse and his caregivers' (macro-level) actions that cause societal change, as well as the interconnectedness of these actions and the kinds of selves Yahya constructs through anticipatory discourse in private (micro-level) interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines presupposition and implication from a semiotic perspective. It suggests that the conventional approaches to presupposition have a limited focus because of emphasis on truth-value, or the propositional level of the utterance. The paper demonstrates how texts construct an assumed world of agents, which can be traced in narrative structure. This ‘presupposed world’ gives the story the form in which it is narrated. By analyzing utterances from a variety of written texts, the paper outlines an approach that traces presupposed worlds in syntactic and semantic strategies. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes, and the deictic framework of the text are examined to show this. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of presupposed worlds for semiotic text analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both general practice and homeopathic consultations are organized around the key task of treating patients’ health-related problems. Despite their different theories of healing, interactions between professionals and patients in both share many features, though there are also clear differences in the ways in which patients and professionals go about the process of problem solving. This paper compares the ways in which a specific activity, the delivery and reception of the reason for the visit, is managed in these two institutional environments. Through the comparison, it discusses ways in which participants are informed by the different theories of healing and ‘ideal’ models of interaction in their activities at the consultation, and points at some discrepancies between theories on treatment and theories on interaction. Furthermore, the paper shows how other contextual features, such as the institutionalized structure of a service encounter, may be consequential for the interaction analyzed. Finally, the paper discusses the potential benefits of this analysis to the practices studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes rapport (Spencer-Oatey 2000, 2002) as its central concern, since (im)politeness is typically associated in some way with harmonious/conflictual interpersonal relations. The paper discusses the factors that influence people's dynamic perceptions of rapport, and proposes that there are three key elements: behavioral expectations, face sensitivities, and interactional wants. The paper explores the components of these three elements and uses authentic discourse data to illustrate how people's judgments about rapport can be unpackaged in relation to these elements. The approach enables us to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that influence people's dynamic judgments of rapport, which is essential if we are to understand how and why problems of rapport occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean is widely known for its extremely elaborate system of honorification. This paper attempts to capture and articulate Korean cultural scripts about social relationships and associated communicative norms pertinent to the honorific system and in numerous fixed expressions. Relevant components include a ‘vertical’ model of society in which people are commonly thought of as ‘above’ or ‘below’ oneself, a recognized category of revered senior people (Korean noin), and the importance of relative age differences in one-to-one interaction. In addition, the paper tries to articulate the shared understanding behind the existence of honorification as a social practice, namely, that differential usage of words can send specific social messages about how interactants regard each other. The descriptive technique is the cultural scripts approach, using conceptual primes proposed in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory. The cultural scripts are presented in both English and Korean metalangauges. The study demonstrates the possibility of describing cultural values and the related communicative norms in simple terms from an insiders' perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the key Chinese cultural concept of 'harmony' and investigates how Chinese speakers endeavor to achieve interpersonal harmony in face4o-face interaction. The data on which this study is based comes from a business meeting amongst four native speakers of Mandarin Chinese in Beijing. Through a detailed Conversation Analysis of a sequence from the closing stage of the meeting, we demonstrate the ways in which the Chinese speakers work together to achieve conversational coherence which in turn contributes to the harmonious relationship they aim to build with each other, even though their business interests and objectives may be different. Implications for crosscultural business communication are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of compliments and other evaluative comments in French and Lebanese Arabic. The analysis is based on naturally-occurring interactions, video-recorded during dinner invitations among friends and relatives. The analysis focuses on two specific types of compliments related to being offered and savoring food. The description takes into account not only the linguistic forms of assessments and compliments (on the syntactic and lexical levels), but also vocal productions like 'hm', as well as gestures, mimics, gaze and other multimodal resources. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the main aspects of previous studies on compliments that will be used as reference points for our own study. We then present the corpora we used and our methodology. The last part of the paper is devoted to the interactional multimodal analysis of specific types of compliments related to being offered food in the two corpora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the reply of the author on comments about her research on face-to-face interaction. The author's stated goal is to account for/explain behavior in face-to-face interaction from the standpoint of the meanings attributed to this behavior by the participants themselves. Reactions to the stated goal was given. The author explained that her stated goal is unambiguously restrictive. It specifies what is within the scope of the theory and what is outside of it. In other words, the theory is not all-encompassing. According to the author, there are many aspects of human behavior that are not accounted for simply because the theory does not attempt to do so and not because the author consider such aspects as unworthy of theoretical consideration. Orders of comments pertinent to the stated goal of the theory but outside the focus of the paper include, comments relating to the literature, requests for a specification of the relation of theory and method, and requests for a detailed description of the technique. From the author's view, the process of building an empirically based theory of human behavior is a topic of inquiry for the social scientist that deserves consideration.

While most of the literature has focused on the individual-level effects of humor, the number of studies addressing and analyzing humor in its social context as a group-level phenomenon has also started to increase. Yet there is still increased heterogeneity of results, as well as problems regarding conceptualization and measurement of humor in groups. To further our understanding of humor as an emergent multilevel construct, we conducted a systematic literature review on the antecedents and consequences of humor in groups. The findings indicate that factors such as group composition, interpersonal familiarity, task structure, trust, cohesion, positive team environment, communication norms, communication channels, and timing dynamics play important roles in the emergence and type of humor expressed within groups. The consequences of humor in groups include the emergence of cohesion, the delineation of group boundaries and identity formation, influence on group atmosphere and affective dynamics, facilitation of collective coping and team engagement, and potential effects on team performance. We discuss research progress and gaps, and conclude by outlining future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My starting point is that bioethics and the problems connected to human rights and human dignity are the logical evolution of the principles of equity. My paper aims at analysing Jodi Picoult's novel My Sister's Keeper (2005) in the light of the connections existing between Literature and the interdisciplinary fields of Bioethics and Biolaw. Bioethics examines the moral and ethical dimension of biological sciences, with particular reference to health-related contexts, whereas biolaw takes into account their more and more evident legal implications. Picoult's literary production is chiefly devoted to inspect how modern technology applied to medicine has affected our lives, bringing on evident threats to the consistency of our rights and undermining our interpersonal relationships as well. Throughout this compelling novel, life, love and compassion, science and the law indissolubly merge together. The extremely complicated context of boundary medical situations the author presents force us to open our eyes to alarming current scenarios, and to their future possible developments as well. Her fictional characters call for a reassessment of the concept of human dignity and for the necessity for law to defend the integrity of the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeric epics are rich in paradigmatic scenes, where it is not inappropriate to look for examples of Greek polite social behaviour. This paper proposes an analytical framework to study ancient Greek politeness, and applies it to a famous scene of the Odyssey: the arrival of the goddess Athena, disguised as the old stranger Mentes, at the door of the royal palace of Ithaca, where she is welcomed by Ulysses' son Telemachus. The stranger's welcome in Homer is a very formal ritual following a well ordered pattern, which is made by several steps that require a high level of cooperation between the householder and his guest. My interpretation of Telemachus' behaviour toward Athena-Mentes is based on the analytical categories developed by Erving Goffman to understand the everyday behaviour code. I take into consideration two main variables: the distribution of authority that characterizes the social situation of Ulysses' palace and its social density, defined as the degree to which people are in each other's presence and hence under each other's surveillance. A close analysis of these variables within the social situation is helpful in defining its members' social expectations towards each other, and, thus, highlighting which behavioural norms are enforced by the social situation itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Aschkenas: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

Baumeister and Leary's (1995) seminal work on the 'Belonging Hypothesis' proposed an important theory that catalyzed an abundance of research predicated on the hypothesized essential need for humans to establish and preserve interpersonal relationships. However, this premise cannot fully explain certain human phenomena that have historically occurred, and still continue to occur today, including the existence of psychopathology, self-selected seclusion, and unrequited love. Thus, the need to belong is unlikely to be a vital motivation capable of encompassing the needs of all human beings. Instead, this paper proposes the need to meaningfully matter, or, to find meaning within one's life, regardless of one's relation to others, as a primary motivation from which the need to belong emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Martineau's seminal chapter on the social functions of humor, he postulated some of the ways in which disparagement humor shapes social behavior. This research paper discusses three research studies that compared the effects of other-deprecating humor and self-deprecating humor on the observer and examines how they relate to Martineau's theory. In our research, we hypothesized that people who observe ridicule of others experience 'jeer pressure.' This inhibiting effect on behavior was expected to result in conformity to others' opinions, fear about failing or standing out, and conventional thinking. In the first two studies, participants observed videotapes containing self-ridiculing humor, other-deprecating humor, or non-ridiculing/no humor. Participants then completed tasks assessing conforming, fear of failure, and creativity. Results of both studies showed that participants who observed ridicule of others were more conforming and more afraid of failing than participants who observed self-deprecating humor or the control condition. Study 3 examined the effects of ridicule of others versus self-deprecating humor on creativity using a more sophisticated creativity measure, and less caustic humor. Results supported the hypothesis that observing self-deprecating humor would result in higher levels of creativity compared to the other-ridicule condition. Implications of these findings for Martineau's model are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business email has a significant impact on commercial activities and organizational image. Intercultural pragmatics is the new development of pragmatics, moving its focus from mono-cultural communication to multi-cultural communication, aiming to describe how communicators seek, activate, and create common ground to complete tasks in intercultural communication contexts. Drawing on 1,477 separate English emails exchanged between a Chinese auto parts export company and its business partners in different parts of the world, we find, from the intercultural pragmatics perspective, that different types of interpersonal strategies, i.e., alliance building, other-caring, and self-enhancing/defending, are employed to construct virtual intimacy and to create and highlight interpersonal relationship dimensions in international business communication. These strategies are intended to facilitate the accomplishment of communication tasks by creating emergent common ground, reflecting the dynamics and interculturality of business communication. This research deepens our understanding of the mechanism of relationship management in international business communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disputes and conflicts affect interpersonal relationships. The key factors in resolution are what attitudes people take and what kinds of reconciliation people choose. The paper examines the language of judges from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, specifically Appraisal System. It presents a case study that is a civil one brought to court in Tahe County in China. The case concerns the conflict and dispute between a chicken raiser and his neighbor. The judge resolved the conflicts and disputes, and the two parties were reconciled. The appraisal analysis of the language used by the two parties explains how conflicts and disputes occurred. The appraisal analysis of the judge's language explains how the mediation succeeded in reconciling the conflicts and disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a study of Joseph de Medeiros, an officer working for the Intendancy of Salta, in order to analyze his actions as regards his double position between the interests of the crown he was representing and those of the local elites. We focus our attention on the relations and the conflicts that Joseph de Medeiros created as officer and as member of the local society, thereby analyzing the functioning of the Bourbon administration in a peripheral place. We define Medeiros's itinerary and reconstruct the networks he formed in order to visualize the administrative organization from the point of view of interpersonal relations. We are interested in analyzing the evidence of the opposing power networks in which Medeiros participated as an active part, and which evidently put in danger his capacity to govern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary testing and counseling (VTC) is a popular method for fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The purpose of VTC is to reduce the incidence of the virus in a two-fold manner. First, testing provides access to health care and antiretroviral therapies that diminish the transmission rate of the virus. Second, counseling encourages safer behavior for not only individuals who test HIV-negative and wish to avoid HIV/AIDS infection but also altruistic individuals who test HIV-positive and wish to protect their partners from becoming infected by HIV. Surprisingly, DHS surveys that were conducted in sub-Saharan Africa provide empirical evidence that testing services are underutilized. Moreover, it is rare for both partners in a couple to be tested for HIV. This paper proposes a theoretical model that indicates how misperceptions about the HIV/AIDS virus may explain these puzzles. More specifically, this study demonstrates that individuals who are at risk of HIV infection may act strategically to avoid the cost of testing if they overestimate the risk of HIV transmission or believe that health care is not required if HIV is asymptomatic. The correction of false beliefs and the promotion of self-testing are expected to increase HIV testing rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Kripke's thesis of the necessity of origin has some implausible consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to demonstrate and analyze the behaviours of two Jordanian persons employing different positive politeness strategies in a face-threatening situation. The discussion explicitly centres on the fact that the directionality of politeness could be realized and encoded in the individuals' linguistic choices. The present paper primarily addresses the strategy of displacing the main topic of discussion on the part of Jordanian interlocutors exhibiting a positive politeness direction, in an apology-calling situation, as a way to protect the speaker's face. The discussion is based on the analysis of an exchange between two acquaintances of mine. The main point raised is that though the two neighbours are displaying politeness behaviours that may appear to be in tension -- with one considering his addressee's as well as his own face (neighbour 1) and the other being primarily concerned with his own face (neighbour 2) through his disinclination to get involved in a lengthy conversation and through the displacement of the main topic of discussion -- the two neighbours' behaviours are nevertheless orienting to an over-arching relational goal of maintaining the relationship. This is also to suggest that intracultural differences should be addressed before moving on to discuss cross-cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of being in today's global communication-production system concerns all life forms over the planet. Global semiotics describes life and semiosis as converging and in this framework faces the question of ontology. Three contexts for a critical approach to the study of signs include the socio-economic, the phenomenological, and the ontological. These are closely interconnected and in this paper are considered from the perspective of global semiotics and semioethics. Politics, war, communication, and subjectivity are critiqued in terms of a dialogic approach to life, signs, and human relations, where dialogism is not only viewed as a cultural but also a biosemiosic phenomenon implying detotalization and otherness beyond the logic of short-sighted identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter 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 paper approaches the myth of Theseus' childhood and coming of age as encapsulated in Callimachus' Hecale from the perspective of social psychology in the field of father-child relationships and child development. It explores the significance of the overarching theme of father absence for Theseus' social maturation and appropriation of male (heroic) identity as well as its role in the emergence of matrifocality. The analysis extends to a series of other myths found in the Hecale, which equally address the problem of fatherlessness. The plethora of father absent children brings about diverse repercussions of this socio-mythic phenomenon in non-heroic, heroic and divine family structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bittner argues in his paper that the idea of a general duty to respect persons is of much less importance than some moral philosophers think. If respect plays a role in our lives it is mainly appriciation respect persons have to merit. Respecting persons as such is, Bittner thinks, not just irrelevant, but also incompatible with personal relations. Against this it is argued that respect for persons should be seen as the basic moral duty we have towards persons. And in addition, it is argued, that you can only be a proper friend of someone, if the relation to her or him is based on moral respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most recent accounts of personal autonomy acknowledge that the social environment a person byes in, and the personal relationships she entertains, have some impact on her autonomy. Two kinds of conceptualizing social conditions are traditionally distinguished in this regard: Causally relational accounts hold that certain relationships and social environments play a causal role for the development and ongoing exercise of autonomy. Constitutively relational accounts, by contrast, claim that autonomy is at least partly constituted by a person's social environment or standing. The central aim of this paper is to raise the question how causally and constitutively relational approaches relate to the fact that we exercise our autonomy over time. I argue that once the temporal scope of autonomy is opened up, we need not only to think differently about the social dimension of autonomy. We also need to reconsider the very distinction between causally and constitutively relational accounts, because it. is itself a synchronic (and not a diachronic) distinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]