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This paper analyzes the discourse concerning Islam and Muslims by assessing the extreme right-wing party, Vox, on Twitter. In addition, this paper examines the incidence (impact and reactions) of this party on the users of this social network. The objectives of this study are as follows: to identify themes and topics concerning this discourse; to analyze how the discourse is articulated and represented; and to understand the impact of this discourse by measuring the engagement of the most viral publications. To do so, we observed the publications posted by the party via its official account throughout 2022. The research methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the publications themselves were monitored to ascertain the level of engagement. The results of this study clearly show that Vox created Islamophobic narratives; thus, Islam and Muslims are explicit targets of Vox's hate speech. Their rhetoric referred to security threats and threats to national identity, with the recurrent use of the idea that there is a "danger of Islamization" in Spain. The party uses disinformation and hoaxes, and users respond in a polarized way. The results of this study alert us to the worrying levels of radicalization and the normalization of Islamophobic racist discourse in the examined context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its complexity, the study of local development can be approached from different perspectives. This paper presents a proposal for the study of local development models at the level of their conception (discursive level) and their implementation (level of practices or strategies). Two theoretical models have been identified in the literature, the economic-competitive and the social-sustainable, the former being hegemonic. The aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities of alternatives to this model and to investigate the importance of governance mechanisms and the territorial context in shaping the translation of these theoretical models to the cases studied. To this end, case study research is presented, using a qualitative approach that combines the use of interviews with key actors and the use of documents to analyse the role of these factors in the articulation of the discursive level and the local development strategies implemented. The results point to the predominance of the economic-competitive model, with variations resulting from the particular configuration of actors, spaces of interaction and local structures of interest exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The recent economic crisis has had serious consequences on the housing system, making it necessary to rethink housing in our society from a multidisciplinary and multi-methodological point of view. Purely quantitative studies are insufficient to analyse the structural and social aspects of housing: it is necessary to define concepts, extent approaches and to understand that residential studies should also resort to qualitative analyses to achieve a further understanding of the situation. This paper is based on the analysis of 35 focused interviews about Spain's housing crisis. The results show that there are only two discursive types: a critical discourse and a conservative discourse. In the dialectical confrontation of both views, some key factors for understanding the housing market are left out, which may lead to a new crisis scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Philologia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 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.)

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

At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several countries declared “states of exception,” that is, authorized legal devices that, in the face of circumstances deemed catastrophic, permit the implementation of extraordinary measures and the temporary suspension of some rights in order to restore the previous state of affairs as soon as possible. This paper offers a comparative textual analysis of the different states of exception declared in the USA, France, and Spain. I argue that these texts constitute a privileged site to explore how prevalent global political logics and mainstream discourses on illness are interwoven. Regarding the global political logics in play, I hold that these declarations constitute an instantiation of democracy’s autoimmune character; it attacks itself in order to protect itself. Regarding mainstream discourses on illness, I explore how illness is regarded as a threat to one’s self (by something seemingly other) and the notion that therapy must consist of securing the self’s triumph over anything seemingly other. This twofold analysis reveals that an aporetic dialectic between self and other—as regards politics and illness—operates in these declarations, most likely because it is, in fact, one and the same dialectic, upon which Western epistemology rests. Furthermore, I suggest that these texts reflect and promote these dominant logics, contributing to shape human relationships around the globe in a certain dangerous way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

Spain's and Latin America's perception of Arabs is conditioned by a set of labels. This article aims to study the (re)presentation of the figure of the Arab immigrant in both Spanish and Latin American journalistic discourse. The researchers, through the use of a series of lexical and rhetorical resources, demonstrate that, this discourse effectively contributes to the generation of labels about the population of the study in question. Our corpus of analysis is essentially made up of newspaper articles with national and local circulation (El Mundo, El Diario de Sevilla, El Tiempo, Libertad Digital, etc.). The methodology followed in the analysis is based on the theories of Van Dijk about discourse and racism in Spain and Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 2010 legal and political crisis surrounding the status of Catalonia within Spain, the Catalan proindependence civil society undertook an extensive campaign during which they produced, translated and distributed many documents in favor of independence. The aim of this campaign was to make the international community, especially the European Union, aware of the Catalan independence cause and ultimately to garner support from outside Catalonia and Spain. Our study aims to understand the way pro-independence discourse in translation depicts the crisis at large, and more specifically the relationship between Catalonia and Spain in the early stages of the crisis. To this end, we conducted a critical discourse analysis using Chilton and Schäffner's strategic functions, drawing on three books produced, translated and distributed between 2010 and 2014 and that deal primarily with the independence of this autonomous community of Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Cuba was represented as a travel destination in four mainstream media in Spain between 2010 and 2019. The study combined a thematic analysis with a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to focus on their supplements and travel sections. The results revealed that Cuban representations were far from the common discourse attached to 'sun and beach' tourism for Caribbean travel destinations. Instead of this, aspects related to society, citizenship and daily life of Cuban people were the most common. Cultural and natural heritage were also salient topics. The CDA revealed about a discourse with some persistence of stereotypes and dominant metaphorical areas that framed Cuba as a 'paradisiacal' destination and emphasize the 'hot' nature of the island. The study illustrates that the actors in these narratives – tourists and Cuban people – had a variety of roles and agencies. The research contributes to the existing research on Cuban representations and media discourse with evidence about the weight of social issues, culture, heritage, but also remaining postcolonial views to the island, grounded on discourses of otherness and exoticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the interplay of evaluation and transitivity in an American and Spanish parliamentary debate by President Obama and PM Rajoy aiming at legitimizing their actions and at convincing candidates to vote for them in the upcoming elections. A further objective is to investigate whether the transitivity and appraisal analyses illustrate the politicians' ideological positions. Within the general framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we use the results obtained for Appraisal following Martin and White's appraisal scheme [Cabrejas-Peñuelas, A. B. (2020). Metaphor, metonymy and evaluation as political devices in American and Spanish parliamentary political discourse. Ibérica, 40, 75–99] and add a study of the interplay with transitivity [Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday's introduction to functional grammar. Routledge]. The results reveal that both politicians used transitivity differently: Obama used mental desiderative processes for expressing desires and showed the active role of 'us' to bring about positive changes. In contrast, Rajoy preferred relational, verbal and existential processes. These contribute to his particular picture of reality, which is ideological in nature. Also, the results show that evaluation and transitivity were used as an ideological tool for persuasion and legitimization of the politicians' economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unfortunately, racism is a kind of violence present in current societies that embodies an attitude opposed to the culture of peace. In this scenario, the family has a relevant role to contribute to the development of values related to human rights. With the aim of identifying patterns and challenges to progress from a polarized debate to an empathetic and non-violent dialogue, the discourse between parents and children between 3 and 16 years of age is reviewed. For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed and 1,701 families in Catalonia (Autonomous Community of Spain) answered it. The results show that racism represents 9.7% of the controversial topics of conversation at home; the principal values and attitudes that guide the family discourse are: respect (23.1%), fighting injustice (18.7%), and equality (12.4%); families who claim to have suffered racism reach 6%; women and individuals with a low level of education are those who most believe that the economy would improve if immigrants went back to their countries; and those who sent their children to a charter school prefer them to relate with people of the same culture. Considering this evidence, guidelines are formulated to encourage reflection and anti-xenophobic dialogue at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Televised football in Spain enjoys great popularity as it is watched by millions of people every year. It has also been suggested as a site where ideas about race/ethnicity are (re)produced and national football teams have been proposed as key elements in the formation and/or confirmation of national identities. In this qualitative research we analyse the transcripts of 11 televised football matches of the Spanish national team with the goal of understanding how football commentators contribute to the construction of meanings about race/ethnicity and its intersections with nationality. Results showed how football commentators constructed racial difference by describing football players of diverse backgrounds in different ways. Furthermore, commentators made use of warlike language and national heroes in their construction of a narrative about the nation. These results will be interpreted and placed within the larger socio-historical context in the Discussion section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many charges have been made against Catalan secessionism from a normative or ideological point of view. In this article we would like to focus on the accusation that the secessionist movement is xenophobic, racist or ethnicist. Between 2017 and 2019, and particularly since Quim Torra was named president of the Generalitat, this has been the dominant criticism in the arguments set out against secessionism. We are interested in evaluating the strength of this accusation in this contribution. In this respect, we focus on the discourse and the main legislative actions adopted by the Catalan institutions since embarking on a determined bid for sovereignty, popularly called the Process, in 2010. Our conclusion is that both from discursive and legislative points of view, it can be concluded that Catalan secessionism cannot be considered as an ethnicist movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the main discourses that appear in a sample of Spanish newspapers before and after the arrival of the Aquarius at the port of Valencia in June 2018, in order to observe if there is a solidarity discourse or one that rejects the arrival of the rescued immigrants in Spain. The corpus consists of all the news published from June 10 to July 10, 2018 in the electronic version of the Spanish newspapers ABC, El Mundo, El País and La Vanguardia. The methodology is mainly qualitative-descriptive. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was chosen to observe the main linguistic characteristics of the collected news items and the topics that appear in the articles. The analysis shows that the testimonies of politicians and members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) predominate, but there are few testimonies of immigrants. The solidarity and acceptance of Spain are strengthened, as well as the defense of human rights. This contrasts with the discourses that the press presents after the arrival of the ship in Valencia. A discourse related to the health of immigrants and their need for help and resources predominates, a fact that contributes to the alarm of the majority group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the construction of the most influential myth crafted by the Spanish dictatorship during its last decades. Through its metaphorical construction of the word "development" (desarrollo) and its catachrestical use of "peace" (paz), the Francoist regime naturalised a contradictory understanding of history which conflated the economic development that Spain underwent in the 1960s with political liberalisation. Additionally, by analysing Spanish hegemonic discourse, this article maintains that the ideology embedded within the Francoist myth continued to operate during the so-called "transition" (transición) through the conceptualisation, this time, of Spanish "democracy" (democracia). "Democracy", very much like "peace", became an empty signifier that named the absence it totalised, and in the process presented – and still presents– Spanish history as forward-looking yet unchanging, while disguising the weight of the Francoist past upon the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific debate regarding populism has been renewed by the rise of extreme right-wing parties in Western Europe. Spain was an exception to the European situation until Vox stormed onto the scene in the Andalusian regional elections in December 2018. By taking into account the definition of populism from Jaager & Walgrave (2007), Mudde (2007), Hawkins (2010), Charaudeau's populist discourse analysis (2009), and the idea of "contamination" by Hernández Carr, 2011 and Van Spanje, 2010, this article presents the results of an analysis regarding the discourse of the tweets published by the candidates of the three right-wing national parties during the electoral campaign in Spain prior to the day of the elections on 28 April 2019. The aim of the study is to reveal whether Abascal's discourse conforms to the parameters of the populist style, and whether there was contamination by Abascal (Vox) of the issues and rhetoric of Pablo Casado (Partido Popular-PP) and Albert Rivera (Ciudadanos-Cs). Firstly, the quantitative analysis shows that Abascal's political discourse on this social network is in line with the discursive strategies of populism; Secondly, the Vox leader behaves differently from the candidates of the PP and Cs. Finally, the influence of Vox's discourse on the other two parties with which he competes on the right-wing ideological spectrum is lower than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media can play a key role in shaping public opinion and setting a policy agenda by conveying and influencing public discourse. This article evaluates how the Spanish media has covered the topic of the forest bioeconomy and what kind of discourse it has produced and reproduced around it. For this purpose, we analysed the content of 204 national and regional newspaper articles. The results reveal the scarce penetration of the forest bioeconomy in media and some weaknesses in the narrative production and communicative dimension. The discourse is mainly constructed by governments with a limited presence of multiple stakeholders and an absence of conflict and divergent or alternative views. In addition, the discourse only addresses regional or local problems within the framework of an extended and dominant paradigm of economic growth considering the forest bioeconomy as an opportunity to combat fire, rural abandonment, smallholdings, and poor forest management. We conclude that media is not using its strategic potential and capacity as a public space. To become agents of change, the media should reflect a forest bioeconomy based on successful experiences of innovation and valorization, and adopt a transformative social vision that gives relevance to the interconnection between multiple stakeholders, forest multifunctionality and rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Iberian Studies is the property of Intellect Ltd. 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.)

Review of: Identity Discourses About Spain and Catalonia in News Media: Understanding Modern Secessionism, Clara Juárez Miró (2020) Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, xii+182 pp., ISBN 978-1-79360-964-9, h/bk, $90.00, £69.00 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During initial ethnographic fieldwork among Norwegian long-term visitors in the province of Alicante in Spain, these visitors expressed concern about the manner in which they were portrayed in the Norwegian news media, in contrast to their own images as holidaymakers. This problem is partly epistemological, since 'long-term visitors' were uncertain about their status and role. For instance, on sightseeing tours, sports events or hiking trips, they were tourists. At other times, for instance, when dealing with local authorities, they saw themselves as different from pure tourists. The Norwegian long-termers stated that their stay in Spain was far more multifaceted than what had been portrayed in the media, that they participated in cultural and social activities, and that they had many points of contact with Spanish society. The Norwegian visitors wondered how a more accurate and multi-vocal image of holidaymakers and long-termers could be represented. The concepts of local knowledge, adaptation and discourse will be used here to problematise this timely topic in tourism research on roles and images. Developing a more comprehensive view of long-term visitors will focus not only on their own situation, but also on their relations with other visitors, the host population, and Spanish authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how risk is communicated by different actors, particularly local print newspapers and actors at the community level, in two different geographical contexts that are severely affected by wildfires—the Brazilian Amazon and Atlantic Spain. We analyzed how wildfire risk is framed in local print media and local actor discourse to elucidate how wildfire risk is interpreted and aimed to identify the main priorities of these risk governance systems. The main findings reveal that the presentation of wildfire as a spectacle is a serious obstacle to the promotion of coherent risk governance and social learning, which involves recognizing wildfire risk as a social, political, economic, and environmental problem. Proactive risk governance should communicate the multifaceted nature of risk and stimulate dialogue and negotiation among all actors to build consensus regarding land use and the creation of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approval of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has generated intense debates in the aid sector at the global, national and subnational levels. A key question is whether they can address structural problems in development aid policies and practices, such as the lack of accountability and coherence, unequal power relations, or depoliticisation. It seems that this will depend on how the agenda is adopted in the various territories as well as on the different interests at play. We address this question by studying the case of the Valencian Autonomous region. This is the territory in Spain where institutions have been the most active in establishing the SDGs at the core of the political discourses. We follow a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews with key respondents from the public, civil society and university sectors, participant observation, and the analysis of secondary information. Inspired by critical discourse analysis, we explore the varying and conflicting discourses regarding the potential of SDGs to address the problems of aid, and on the impacts that its adoption are producing. We illustrate that the introduction of SDGs in aid policies is a conflictive process modelled by the power dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this article is to analyse the sceptical movement's discourse on complementary therapies in Spain, as well as comprehend its mobilisation against these therapies. Over the past 2 years, the Spanish sceptical movement, constituted by citizen's associations against unconventional therapies and in favour of evidence-based medicine, has increased its activism which, as a result, is now more familiar to the public. To perform this study, three sources of information were selected: (a) the #StopPseudociencias campaign, with a corpus of 6252 tweets; (b) 153 news articles published during the study timeline and (c) 7 interviews with members of the sceptical movement, journalists and politicians. The results of the content and discourse analyses have shown that the sceptical movement occupies a dominant discursive position on Twitter, while the perspective is more balanced in digital dailies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence of child abduction for intercountry adoption challenges our notions of altruism. The history of illicit adoptions and child abduction is presented with specific emphasis on Guatemala as a case example. Drawing on data produced in an ethnographic research, the analysis searches to elucidate how those involved in intercountry adoption in Spain (mainly adoptive and prospective adoptive parents) deal with signs of fraud and corruption. The results point out how these discourses usually dismiss the failures of the system and revolve around the idea of rescue. The rights of birth families – and even their mere existence – are usually absent in the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we discuss the outcomes of a study into the languages of the workplace of internationally operating companies. Our aim is to contribute to studies of multilingualism in the workplace by adopting a holistic approach that focuses on several languages and relates the competences and attitudes of multilingual professionals to the repertoires used and learned in the workplace and the wider social context. The study is situated in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain, where the regional government has already developed a strong bilingual language policy to promote the minority language Basque and recently also supports a policy of internationalization of companies, implying the use of other languages. The tensions arising from the confrontation between these two policies are discussed. Based on interviews with 25 informants in managerial positions, we found that the default language of workplace communication is Spanish, there is limited use of Basque and for foreign trade English is dominant, although Spanish is used with Latin America. The language and cultural competence of professionals is lagging behind and should be further developed, although the younger generation has a better command of English. The wider social context has an important influence on the language practices inside the company. Multilingualism plays an important role in Basque companies that operate internationally, but the companies still have to overcome important language barriers. Our study confirms that language practices and language learning experiences are complex and highlights the need for a holistic approach that includes the repertoire of languages used in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the impact of discourse-linking deficits on the performance of individuals with aphasia by providing new data from a set of rarely investigated constructions: sentences in which a clitic pronoun coexists alongside with the full DP it agrees with. To do so, we use data of individuals with non-fluent aphasias who need to overcome the difficulties in direct object (accusative) clitic production. This results in overproduction of non-target clitic right dislocations (RDs) and clitic doubling (CD). Data from 15 individual’s native speakers of Spanish and Catalan are discussed. Data complement the results of previous investigations on discourse-linking effects in these languages, allowing the interpretation of results across constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]