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The majority of functional models of language, which purport to account for text, do not recognize the distinct dimension corresponding to "discourse", as conceived here. Instead, the various semantic-pragmatic aspects of the use of indexical expressions, in particular, tend to be conceived uniquely in terms of the textual environment of the markers involved. Correlatively, the invocation of "context" in such approaches tends to be limited essentially to the co-text. But according to the present study, such expressions operate in terms of the mental discourse representations which the participants are jointly as well as severally constructing as the discourse proceeds. The article's aim is to show that the discourse dimension of language use is crucial to the ways in which indexical markers function, and hence should be taken into account in their modelling. This can only be done, it is argued, by integrating their treatment within a model of the broader utterance context in which such expressions are used, thus permitting a dialectic between the system-derived properties of such expressions and those emanating from the particular uses of such resources in actual communication. • The dimensions 'text' and 'discourse' are often confused or conflated by many authors. • For an adequate account of indexical reference, the roles of each meta-dimension need to be distinguished. • Context is the crucial mediating dimension making possible the creation of discourse from text. • Two major functional models of language are examined in terms of this three-way distinction, but are both found wanting. • Integrating indexical reference within a broader model of use will make discourse and context fully relevant alongside text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Academic and policy domains are increasingly constructing 'migration as adaptation' as a policy ideal against alarmist, security-oriented approaches to the climate-migration nexus. However, our knowledge of how development actors in national contexts view and use migration as adaptation in practice remains limited. Based on 90 interviews with development stakeholders, this paper demonstrates the limited reach of the migration as adaptation policy ideal in Senegal's development sector. It is considered too vague a concept to operationalise and is in tension with the wider discursive context on migration and development, marked by sedentary bias which requires 'addressing the root causes of migration', including environmental change, to 'fix populations in place'. A dominant discourse accommodates sedentary bias. It allows for a narrow application of migration as adaptation through 'return migration' and 'diaspora mobilisation' projects. These target only existing migrants, avoiding new mobility solutions. A minority counter-discourse rejects sedentary bias, emphasising freedom of movement. • We investigated uptake and use of migration as adaptation discourses in Senegal. • Interest in migration as climate adaptation strategy is growing but superficial. • Sedentary bias in Senegalese development sector: migration seen as failure to adapt. • Dominant discourse opposes new migrations but turns to diaspora for adaptation goals. • Minority discourse emphasises freedom of movement, but not climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the environment of open science, the transformation of scientific exchange and research paradigms urgently needs diversified and open scientific evaluation. This study aims to advance the construction of academic journals, reform the quantitative evaluation mechanism, and provide references for promoting the international discourse power of Chinese academic journals. It also aims to enrich and improve the indicator system and evaluation theory of the discourse power of academic journals with Chinese characteristics. Firstly, this paper analyzes the fundamental concerns of the discourse power evaluation of academic journals, drawing on the theory of evaluation science, discourse power theory, and communication theory. According to the characteristics and connotation of the evaluation indicators, the definition and formation process of academic journals' discourse power, this paper constructed. the evaluation indicator system. Secondly, this paper obtained 163,628 international citations and 211,150 domestic citations, and 111,496 altmetrics indicators data for 29,203 published papers from 238 Chinese English-language journals. Meanwhile, 12 scientometrics indicators and 14 altmetrics indicators are selected. Thirdly, descriptive statistical analysis and an overview indexed by international databases are carried out at the macro level. Then, correlation analysis, factor analysis, entropy weight method and TOPSIS method are adopted to evaluate and analyze the discourse influence and discourse leading in Chinese English-language journals by integrating scientometrics and altmetrics indicators. Finally, Two-dimensional and four quadrant method is used to evaluate academic journals' discourse power. At the same time, this paper compares and verifies the reliability of the evaluation results. The findings demonstrate that the research on the academic journals' discourse power evaluation based on the theory, method and application logic is practical, comprehensive and reliable. This paper also puts forward the countermeasures to enhance the discourse power of Chinese academic journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Commission is pursuing a circular bioeconomy to tackle pressing sustainability challenges, such as climate change and fossil dependency. Previous bioeconomy policy studies demonstrated the existence of competing bioeconomy discourses in the European Union. However, it remains nebulous how such discursive conflicts emerge and change, particularly in online settings. In this paper, we provide a more in-depth analysis of how argumentative changes of actors alter the network of online dynamic discourse coalitions. We base our findings on interviews and a qualitative discourse network analysis of 9983 tweets about European Union bioeconomy policies from the period 2008 – 2021. Our results indicate that initially, expert debates centred around storylines on bioeconomy advantages. After the 2012 Bioeconomy Strategy, the debate diversified with the entry of new actors and storylines. Two discourse coalitions, 'Green future' and 'Planetary boundaries', emerged around conflicting storyline clusters. In the aftermath of the 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy update, the debate simplified into core argumentations of few, highly conflicting storylines, leading to a polarization of the two discourse coalitions. Storyline hijacking further added to polarization and conflict. Understanding the evolution of online dynamic discourse coalitions provides new opportunities for practitioners to open up discourses towards storylines from other parts of the discourse network. This can help to prevent locking-in the limited range of solutions in congruence with the dominant 'Green future' discourse. [Display omitted] • The future of the bioeconomy in the EU is discussed controversially on X/Twitter. • Storyline diversification and simplification dynamics led to polarization. • The EU Commission is almost exclusively part of one side of the discourse network. • EU bioeconomy debates head towards a problematic discursive lock-in. • To open up the debate, include ideas of other parts of the discourse network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the use of ‘like’ as a discourse-pragmatic marker by recently-arrived Polish and Chinese migrants in Dublin, Ireland. The data comprises 14 hours of audio-recorded sociolinguistic interviews with 42 participants, including a control sample of six native Irish English speakers. The frequency of ‘like’ is investigated, along with its variable positioning within the clause, and its discourse-pragmatic function. In total 926 tokens are examined, and statistical tests, including fixed and mixed effects regression models, are used to determine the significance of the results. The results show that the frequency of ‘like’ among the non-native speakers reaches the levels of the native speakers after approximately three years of residence in Ireland. Proficiency in English is not found to be significant, suggesting that it is exposure to native speaker input that drives this acquisition. The results also show that ‘like’ in clause-final position, considered to be an emblematic feature of Irish English (and a ‘non-standard’ feature of world Englishes more generally), was employed significantly more often by the native Dubliners, with no effect in this instance for length of residence among the migrants. As regards the function of ‘like’, it was found to be used predominantly to illustrate, explain or introduce information. ‘Like’ in clause-final position was also found to be used as a mitigator or hedge, predominantly by the Irish, and particularly in short statements of personal opinion that could be perceived as face-threatening or opposing the interlocutor's views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to recognize and categorize the various ways that ecosystem services researchers perceive the concept and purpose of ecosystem services (ES). To do so, we employed the discourse analysis approach of Q methodology, where 33 researchers ranked 39 statements on ES derived from the literature. Factor analysis of the Q sorts allowed for the interpretation of five main perspectives on ES: a pragmatic view on nature conservation, seeing ES as useful tool (“Non-Economic Utilitarian”), a strongly value-focused perspective with a skeptical view on ES (“Critical Idealist”), an opposition to a utilitarian approach to nature conservation but seeing ES as more encompassing approach (“Anti-Utilitarian”), a focus on a methodological rather than a critical approach to ES (“Methodologist”), and a rather economic approach to environmental decision-making, in which ES is a useful tool (“Moderate Economist”). We see this plurality as illustrating both the potential of the ES concept to serve as a boundary object for collaboration, but also the threat of ineffective collaboration due to the lack of a common conceptual ground. However, as pluralism can be fruitful if handled transparently, we suggest the need for open dialogue about underlying assumptions when using a value-laden concept like ES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the incorporation of discourse-pragmatic features from English into Serbian, proposing the term ‘pragmatic Anglicisms’ to denote a range of directly or indirectly borrowed forms from English with pragmatic functions. The article offers a descriptive and taxonomic framework for the study of pragmatic Anglicisms in Serbian and analyzes their formal and functional characteristics, as well as sociolinguistic, sociopragmatic and sociocultural aspects of their use, related to the users, registers, stylistic and communicative markedness, motivational factors, perception and evaluation by Serbian native speakers, post hoc effects, and cultural influences. Apart from the commonly identified classes, such as interjections and discourse markers, the article recognizes the use of (calqued) discourse formulas from English in situations where there are either existing Serbian ones or a discourse ‘gap’ (i.e. when both the previously non-existent communicative act and the formulaic expression are adopted from English). This subclass is particularly interesting since it is not only a novel linguistic element that is thus introduced, but a novel communication and cultural pattern from the Anglo-American globalizing culture that gets adopted through new discourse formulas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief ‘conceptual’ paper offers some reflections on the status of ‘subjectivity’ in language. Section 1 highlights the differences and correlations between a few of the major current concepts of subjectivity, notably the ‘general’ ones by Traugott (1989) , Traugott and Dasher, 2002 ) and Langacker (1990, 1999, 2008) , and the specific one(s) as postulated in the context of the analysis of modal expressions ( Nuyts, 2001, 2012 ). Section 2 then zooms in on the ‘functional’ role in language use of the modality-related – or probably more accurately, attitude-related – dimension, focusing on its discursive status. Section 3 , finally, returns to the issue of how the major notions of subjectivity discussed in Section 1 relate, and how this can only be understood with reference to both the conceptual and the discursive status of the phenomena at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the use of tag questions in Italian conversation. We propose a classification of their discourse functions, and provide an account of their syntactic and discourse contexts. The data used are recordings of conversation in several settings: experimental game settings, a reality TV show, and TV and radio talk shows, for a total of 60.4 h. The analysis uncovered seven main functions, some of which do not conform to existing classifications in the literature. We explore the relationship between these functions and the conversational settings in which they are used, their placement within the utterance, and their relationship with asymmetries in participants’ leadership roles in specific settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]