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Research on the speech acts of compliments (Cs) and compliment responses (CRs) has attracted a wide variety of research attention over the last several decades. Cs and CRs index an array of relational dimensions that govern sociocultural expressions of rapport and solidarity. Their importance has been well documented in intra- and intercultural communication pragmatics research across different languages. This study used a discourse analytic approach to examine one type of rare and often underutilized CR strategy, the praise upgrade, and its surprisingly frequent use as a CR response across a corpus of casual conversations between US English speaking young adults in a serious dating relationship. The analyses demonstrate that praise upgrades were often exaggerated and playful responses that re-position the compliment as somewhat absurd and thus not entirely serious. Ironic or playful CR upgrades to Cs worked to dilute the C itself while also attending to the subject-side risks of both the one formulating the C and the one receiving it. Three types of praise upgrades were identified: 1) praise upgrades that playfully rendered the compliment as absurd; 2) praise upgrades with tongue-in-cheek self-praise or boasts; 3) praise upgrades that redefined the compliment on the recipient's terms. • Praise upgrades were frequent compliment response strategy. • Praise upgrades playfully rendered compliments as absurd. • Praise upgrades were common in young adult dating relationships. • Discourse analyses reveal praise upgrades to be exaggerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes discourse acts in an ESP context from a local grammar perspective. We illustrate this analysis by constructing a local grammar for the discourse act of commenting on information in graphics, i.e., graphic data commentary in the discourse of Economics. Based on a corpus of research articles of Economics, we extracted instances of graphic data commentary that contain lexical items indicating different types of graphics (e.g., table, figure). Eight functional terminologies (e.g., 'Graphic', 'Data') were identified from the instances for the subsequent local grammar analysis, which in turn led to 17 frequently occurring semantic patterns, i.e., local grammar patterns. Each pattern has been observed to have a distinctive way to organize meanings and a corresponding communicative function, fitting the variation of the context. The study indicates that local grammar can provide a precise and systematic description of the lexical-semantic means that economists rely on to communicate graphic information and can offer pedagogical insights into the teaching of academic writing in an ESP context. • The study develops a local grammar of graphic data commentary in economic discourse. • The analyses identified 17 local grammar patterns for graphic data commentary. • The patterns systematically quantify the lexical-semantic realization of this act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the recent research in English for nursing has focused on the specialised spoken discourses rather than the written documentation that nursing students need for patient care. However, patient documentation can be challenging to learn, particularly for some students for whom English is an additional language. This study investigated how novice English as an additional language students learned to read patient documentation during their work placements, and the role that their workplace supervisors played in helping them learn. An ethnographic approach and discourse analysis of workplace interactions with three supervisors and 16 students in three Australian hospitals showed that most nursing students observed required explicit guidance from their supervisors to read the documentation and to understand the linguistic and rhetorical functions of those notes. The findings suggest that developing reading skills in the workplace should involve explicit guidance in learning to read the requisite documentation. It is recommended that English for Specific Purposes courses for nursing students pay attention to written as well as spoken discourses and that language specialists work with nursing educators to provide professional development for workplace supervisors and to ensure that guidelines and expectations for reading documentation are clear for supervisors and students. • Reading patient documentation is challenging for novice nursing students. • Workplace supervisors' practices can enable or limit opportunities for reading documentation. • A guided approach to reading patient documentation can be beneficial for students. • Reading aloud and alongside may help students learn the discourse of patient documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnomethodology has been influential in many social science fields, including and especially applied linguistics, where conversation analysis is a major subfield for analyzing oral data. Nevertheless, ethnomethodology can also be—and has been—fruitfully applied to written discursive data, using its tools and methods to describe in detail how written texts are assembled and reflexively used, as members' methods, for doing and displaying social actions. This paper proposes an open analytical model to capture existing ethnomethodological analyses of written discourse and create a more transparent and replicable protocol for new analyses. I reconstruct ethnomethodology as set of assumptions and principles, review seminal research that used these principles to analyze written discourse, and present the master concept of "active text" that encapsulates them. I then construct a hierarchical prospective-retrospective model to formalize the methods used in ethnomethodology of written discourse. I use the model to reconstruct the analytical methods of two papers to show how it can be used for transparency and replication. The discussion section covers modelling in qualitative applied linguistics and ethnomethodology, and ends with some conclusions. • Ethnomethodology has a long relationship with discourse analysis, but focused on oral registers. • Ethnomethodology can be conceptualized a set of ontological and epistemological assumptions and principles. • A formalized and open analytical model can be used to apply ethnomethodology to written discursive data. • A model can help make ethnomethodological analysis of discursive data easier to apply and more replicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates knowledge management in interaction and the role of epistemic stance in place identity construction. We examine how a US expat in Toronto negotiates her New Yorker identity in conversation with two Canadians by demonstrating how authoritative epistemic stances are employed to produce relations of distinction, adequation, and authentication in service of place identity construction. We also discuss 'epistemic disputes', wherein epistemic stances and claims to place identity are challenged through the notion of epistemic rights. In doing so, we argue for the fundamental connection between information state, management of knowledge in interaction, and processes of identity construction. • Analysis of place identity construction through epistemic stancetaking. • Negotiation of epistemic rights and responsibilities. • How 'epistemic disputes' highlight incongruences between epistemic status and stance. • How epistemic stance contributes to tactics of intersubjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing attention to its spread, there has been little sustained engagement with online disinformation's localized effects. This paper provides a case study of online commenters' own interpretations of potential disinformation campaigns, by analyzing The Financial Times 's anonymous comment boards below coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Despite a lack of clear-cut evidence of ongoing disinformation campaigns, disparate textual features retrievable in discourse come to function as contextualization cues that situationally index ongoing disinformation campaigns. Participants' awareness of the possibility of disinformation may thus engender accusations of disinformation towards any comment criticizing the protest movement, with several arguments becoming stereotypically indexical of potential disinformation campaigns. The case study provides a linguistic-anthropological account of the interrelation between disinformation and social polarization. • Ideas of disinformation may function as a meaning-making resource online. • Online users may assess any available textual cue as proving disinformation. • Certain arguments may become indexical of disinformation campaigns. • The spread of disinformation may engender polarization, not changing of minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the call to care for the environment becoming more urgent, the notion of what it means to be Green, in light of consumption culture, is explored. In conceptualizing Greenness as a continuous variable rather than an absolute quality, this linguistic landscape study examines the role that language plays in communicating Greenness across place-making discourses of luxury and mass/everyday housing. Despite the criticisms leveled at consumption culture for co-opting the Green movement, the study shows there are no easy assumptions to be made due to the multiple facets of Greenness as it interacts in complex ways with class-oriented discourse. • Language plays an important role in communicating the degree of Greenness. • Linguistic Landscape provides a framework for discursively examining Green spaces. • Greenwashing exploits positive connotations of words associated with nature. • Green discourses reveal a (re)production of class-oriented ideologies and practices. • Greenness and nature are appropriated and commodified by consumerist discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pragmatics of Finnish municipality slogans by focussing on slogans that include a toponym, that is, a place name other than that of the municipality. We approach our data of 51 slogans from the standpoint of translocal chronotopes – imagery of time, place and social life that connects the municipality with another place. We demonstrate that toponyms position the municipalities geographically, culturally, socially, historically, economically, and politically. We also analyse responses that the slogans evoke in public online discourses. We argue that the interpretation of the slogan is affected by the choice of toponym as well as by structural and interdiscursive choices. The findings are discussed from the perspectives of discourse studies, onomastics, and place-branding research. • Municipality slogans construct chronotopic identities. • The use of toponyms in slogans gives rise to translocal chronotopes. • Translocal slogans activate a variety of regional and sociocultural contexts. • Linguistic choices affect the reception and recontextualisation of slogans. • The study of municipality slogans benefits from multidisciplinary approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a metaphor for political power, participation, and legitimacy, the concept of 'voice' is central to considerations of representative politics during the modern era. Little is known about how political actors themselves understood and referred to their own voices, those of others, and their respective significance for representative politics. This article focuses on the British Parliament, which was since the eighteenth century regarded as a paradigmatic incarnation of political voice and as the pinnacle of modern representative government. Based on a corpus of Hansard debates from 1800 to 2005, we analyse MPs' explicit references to 'voice' in parliamentary debates. We aim to explore the salience of 'voice' for MPs and of different aspects of voice as a vehicle for expressing political will. We also shed light on how metadiscursive references to 'voice' change over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. • A corpus-assisted, longitudinal study of metacommunicative references to 'voice' in British parliamentary debates. • Parliamentarians' references to 'voice' reveal communicative norms and ideals underlying parliamentary discourse. • Over time, normative pressure to raise and hear as many voices as possible increases, as well as the problematisation of lack or absence of voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has illustrated that metaphors and metonyms are concepts that govern thought and action, playing a central role in constructing realities. While previous studies have demonstrated that metaphors and metonyms are utilized as tools for conceptualizing nations, this study examines how metaphoric and metonymic representations of specific locations within the nation-state can serve as polarizing constructs within the nation-state. The State of Israel presents an interesting case study regarding how metaphors and metonyms construct polarizing identities, following increasingly polarized cross-cutting cleavages. Utilizing the Sketch Engine ELEXIS Hebrew Web corpora, this study utilizes discourse analysis tools to characterize the reproduction of metaphorical and metonymic meanings of geographical locations, tapping into specific cultural codes of the Israeli speech community. • Metaphoric and metonymic representations of specific locations within the nation-state serve as polarizing constructs. • Geographical terminology, interfaces with national, ethnic, and socio-economic divides. • Applied linguistics approaches can contribute to our understanding of relations between social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study aims to identify and evaluate e-scooters' controversial reputation in Sweden. • We use a mix method approach based on a news item analysis and a quantitative survey. • The local press portrays e-scooters as a problem; there are around five negative comments for every positive one. • Users and non-users have different perceptions but are all concerned about e-scooters' safety, cost, health and eco-friendliness. • Even non-users see e-scooters as fast, convenient and pleasant services; this triad can be the basis for an image-reshaping. E-scooters, one of the most rapidly growing forms of micromobility globally, entered our cities as an innovative first and last-mile travel mode looking to complement public transit and reduce short car trips. However, there are many voices openly suggesting that e-scooters, despite representing still a very low modal share, have instead been the source of traffic accidents, transport system disruption and public space anarchy. Despite a wealth of e-scooter research appearing lately, knowledge gaps about e-scooters' current reputation and how this matches actual user and non-user perceptions do exist. Our two-phase mixed method approach means to fill in these gaps by examining the intriguing context of Sweden, a country hosting more than 30 million e-scooter trips on an annual basis but recently enforcing new stricter rules for their regulation. This paper contributes to the state of the art by contextualising the current reputation of e-scooters in Sweden through a discourse analysis of local press items and by analysing an attitudinal survey that ran in Stockholm and Gothenburg with almost equal numbers of e-scooter users and non-users. First our news item analysis identifies six reputation-defining themes: cityscape fit; traffic safety and irresponsible user behaviour; rules, regulations and exploits; business; sustainability; and convenience and concludes that e-scooters' portrayal in Sweden is very negative. There are approximately five negative comments in the press for every positive one. Our survey offers statistical evidence that there are significant differences in the evaluations of users and non-users when it comes to seven perceived e-scooter qualities (s afety; speed; eco-friendliness; cost; convenience; fun; health and wellbeing) and two policy practicalities (regulations clarity; and parking provision). Users' perceptions are always more positive from those of non-users, but they do agree with them that safety, eco-friendliness, cost, health and wellbeing are areas of concern for e-scooters. Both groups see value in enhanced regulation clarity and better parking provision. Non-users however, to some degree, do recognise that e-scooters offer fast, convenient and pleasant mobility services making this the tripole where image change and positive rebranding could start from. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In jury trials, attorneys must build arguments about the facts and how these facts should be interpreted, and this happens through Q&A sequences with their own and the opposing party's witnesses. The structure of the courtroom interrogation usually disadvantages witnesses, especially in cross-examination because attorneys have the upper hand in the exchanges. This paper analyzes the Q&A sequences in a trial involving lawyers as witnesses and concerning abstract issues to investigate the different strategies attorneys and witnesses use to engage argumentatively. Specifically, the data are from a civil rights trial in which a female attorney sues a law school for not hiring her as an instructor. The suit alleged that the law school politically discriminated against her following her job talk because of her conservative political views. The paper shows how attorneys with their own witnesses can engage in co-reasoning, and how attorneys and the opposing side's witnesses can resist each other's argumentative projects. More specifically, we show that a question's answerability is a key resource which can be exploited by both attorneys and witnesses. • In trials attorneys pursue their own and resist competing argumentative projects • Yes-no questions vary in answerability , i.e., their content abstractness • In direct examination, attorneys co-reason with witnesses • Political discrimination trials involves showing or refuting negative feelings [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Teacher talk and technology use affect children's computational thinking processes • Teacher talk affects children's problem understanding and action sequences • Teachers' open questions aid children's logical organization of ideas and actions • Learn types of teacher talk to elicit children's computational thinking processes Although studies have shown that computational thinking (CT) can enhance learning processes and outcomes across traditional subjects, they have not shown how teachers might scaffold children's CT processes in a technology-mediated learning context. This exploratory study examined how teacher talk and technologies impacted the CT of three children (6 to 8 years old). Seven videotaped 90-minute sessions of weekly project-based activities yielded 4,842 turns of talk (2,974 by children). Statistical discourse analysis revealed the following results. After a teacher command, the children more often executed a sequence of actions toward a solution but less often demonstrated problem understanding than otherwise. Following a teacher's open question, the children were more likely to offer logically organized ideas. In response to a teacher's rhetorical question, they more often searched for information. These results inform educators regarding when to use each type of teacher talk to scaffold children's CT processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handovers are major clinical tasks in nursing practice involving the transfer of responsibility and accountability for patient care from one nurse to another. As English-medium nursing training is increasing, nurses who use English as a second language may find handovers challenging. Ineffective communication during handovers due to incomplete and unstructured information can be a major contributor to patient harm and critical incidents in hospitals. This study evaluates whether ESP workshops can enhance nurses' communication skills in handovers by incorporating handover protocols (i.e., the use of ISBAR, CARE) for better logical sequencing of clinical information and good quality of interactions between nurses. A 3-hour ESP handover communication workshop was implemented in a hospital in Hong Kong with a study population of 55 nurses. Data were collected through observations, surveys, and interviews and were analysed pre- and post-workshop. The findings indicate that post-workshop both informative and interactive dimensions improved in 1) message delivery after using ISBAR, 2) coherence due to sequential marker use and 3) increased interaction between incoming and outgoing staff as demonstrated by active clarification seeking and comprehension checking. ESP support for nurses should focus on English needs in performing clinical tasks so that optimal care can be provided. • ESP research on nurse handovers is limited. • Handovers may be challenging for nurses for whom English is an L2. • Handover is a critical process, but nurses generally receive minimal training. • ESP courses for nurses should focus more on English language use during handovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How limitations are acknowledged and discussed has a profound impact on the extent the research is evaluated and accepted by its intended readers. However, little attention has been drawn to the presentation of limitations in the EAP literature. This study seeks to remedy the oversight by exploring how this discursive practice is mediated by metadiscourse, how limitations are rhetorically contextualized and how much these rhetorical investments differ between PhD dissertations and research articles in applied linguistics. A corpus-based analysis of 100 PhD dissertations and 200 published articles in applied linguistics shows that PhD dissertation writers make more use of frame markers but less use of code glosses, evidentials, and hedges in the acknowledgment of limitations than published writers do in limitations steps. It is also found that limitations pertaining to the overall quality of research and writers' competence are far more often self-reported in PhD dissertations than in research articles, and PhD dissertation writers tend to attribute the limitations to situational constraints in research context and unmanageable complexity of research subjects. The results support the two-genre perspective (El-Dakhs, 2018; Kawase, 2015) and demonstrate that discussing limitations is a strategically self-critical but promotional effort in conclusion sections. • Discussing limitations are rhetorically contextualised in EAP discourse. • Rhetorical practice of acknowledging limitations differ between PhD dissertations and research articles. • The differences in metadiscourse markers used in Conclusion sections are investigated. • Different self-evaluative foci of limitations are identified and the mitigation of their impacts is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio remains the most important information and entertainment medium in translingual South Africa. Subject to digitalization, it underwent major technical and structural transformation processes known as media convergence to maintain and to broaden audiences. These transformations have significant effects on the pragmatic realization of interactive talk and knowledge transfer. The study is based on an empirical multimodal discourse analysis of a Facebook video by the isiXhosa radio station Umhlobo Wenene. It observes dynamics of media convergence on the communicative situation. The example from a multilingual and mediated setting highlights impacts of conversation conventions externally imposed by promotional obligations. Furthermore, it examines how material affordances affect the conversation. The analysis shows that radio convergence has some enabling as well as some restrictive effects for realizing translingual knowledge transfer in mediated expert interviews. • Multimodal settings complexify membership in radio talk. • Visual dimension adds level of understanding in translingual radio communication. • Converged radio changes communicative and pragmatic affordances. • Radio genre conventions change through fusion with social media. • Public radio talk commodifies through convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global space sector has to increasingly consider sustainability concerns in the orbit, given the rising challenge of space debris. In which direction the management of space debris will develop in terms of technological solutions, policies, and actor strategies remains still unclear. This paper applies the concept of 'global socio-technical regimes' to better understand how actors in the global space sector frame, conceive, and legitimize the space debris problem. More specifically, we apply a discourse network analysis method – sociotechnical configuration analysis – to identify and map different value orientations by core actors over the last fifteen years. This analysis reveals three development stages in the discourse: a problem identification period (2007–2011), followed by the rise of national interests amidst increasing promises of space-based infrastructures (2012–2015), and finally, the emergence of a global socio-technical regime that increasingly connects space sustainability with Earth-bound sustainability (2016–2019). Based on our analysis, we expect that ensuring future earth-space sustainability will include a broader mix of challenges. Future approaches to space debris management will have to consider a broader and clearer problem framing to help inform effective policy making. • We mapped the institutional structures that shape global space debris management. • We analyzed value considerations of actors by means of socio-technical configuration analysis. • We observed a broader sustainability framing concerning space over time. • There is a growing consensus on Earth-bound and space-based interdependencies. • Future policies to address space debris require an integrative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When negotiating sensitive and taboo topics language needs to be used carefully so as not to cause offence or disrupt the interlocutors' relationship. One way to do this is through the use of vague language. In this study, we provide an in-depth, qualitative analysis of vague, euphemistic language, which may be perceived as marginally 'figurative', that is used to negotiate taboo and sensitive topics concerning culture, immigration, race and class. We use the term figurative to include metaphor and metonymy. The paper's focus is on linguistic strategies that employ content words which are in turn, ambiguously figurative, vague and de-emphasising, as well as emphatic qualifiers, and hedging signals, that distance the speaker from their words or prepare the listener for figurative language to come, as tuning devices. The data used in the study are from the METCLIL (Alejo-Gonzalez et al., 2021) corpus and comprise two classes of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) students in Sweden studying international marketing in a post-graduate program. After a detailed discourse analysis, we show how L2 users exploit the vagueness inherent in ambiguously figurative language (i.e. language that we perceive to be "on the fringes of metaphor") to discuss complex topics in a pragmatically sensitive manner in ways that expand previously established categories for VL and collapse others. • EMI L2 users employ a sophisticated combination of vague language (VL) and figurative language (FL). • This use is non-prototypical, on the "fringes" of metaphor, and provides nuance for sensitive topics. • VL and FL interact dynamically: FL may introduce VL (and vice versa) or constitute its use. • Two VL categories (de-intensifiers/vague categories) may be collapsed: both decrease tone. • L2 users can make nuanced use of language to discuss complex topics in a pragmatically sensitive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mpox has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization on July 23, 2022. Since early May 2022, Mpox has been continuously reported in several endemic countries with alarming death rates. This led to several discussions and deliberations on the Mpox virus among the general public through social media and platforms such as health forums. This study proposes natural language processing techniques such as topic modeling to unearth the general public's perspectives and sentiments on growing Mpox cases worldwide. This was a detailed qualitative study using natural language processing on the user-generated comments from social media. A detailed analysis using topic modeling and sentiment analysis on Reddit comments (n = 289,073) that were posted between June 1 and August 5, 2022, was conducted. While the topic modeling was used to infer major themes related to the health emergency and user concerns, the sentiment analysis was conducted to see how the general public responded to different aspects of the outbreak. The results revealed several interesting and useful themes, such as Mpox symptoms, Mpox transmission, international travel, government interventions, and homophobia from the user-generated contents. The results further confirm that there are many stigmas and fear of the unknown nature of the Mpox virus, which is prevalent in almost all topics and themes unearthed. Analyzing public discourse and sentiments toward health emergencies and disease outbreaks is highly important. The insights that could be leveraged from the user-generated comments from public forums such as social media may be important for community health intervention programs and infodemiology researchers. The findings from this study effectively analyzed the public perceptions that may enable quantifying the effectiveness of measures imposed by governmental administrations. The themes unearthed may also benefit health policy researchers and decision-makers to make informed and data-driven decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we study how top-down propagated processes of hierarchical flattening affect the leadership style of participants in an atypical Community of Practice (CofP), namely the cabin crew of an airline. We focus on pre-flight briefing meetings and tease out how cabin crew members (CCMs) negotiate the division of in-flight positions. This decision tends to be based on a general principle, namely the seniority of the CCMs. By means of a micro-oriented discourse analytical approach, we tease out how decisions that follow as well as divert from this principle are discursively negotiated. We conclude the article by discussing what the implications of this discursive work are for the leadership style that is enacted in these meetings and we call for more research on atypical CofPs, such as these highly ephemeral working groups that do not have many chances to develop their own CofP-norms. • We scrutinize how cabin crew (CC) negotiate the division of in-flight positions. • CC form a highly mobile and traditionally hierarchical Community of Practice (CofP). • Top-down propagated hierarchical flattening has affected CofP's leadership style. • Discourse analysis reveals shared leadership has replaced authoritarian leadership. • Seniority has become a decision-making guideline, granting senior CC more authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to integrate acoustic analysis into discourse analysis. We developed a method that targets the fifth and the ninety-fifth percentiles of acoustic parameters of the four prosodic dimensions: pitch (F0), power (amplitude), duration, and voice quality per each speaker. We then defined a new measure to express the Volume of Extremity (VoX) of a speaker's voice. To demonstrate the strength of our model, we analyzed two political interviews from the Israeli election campaign in 2019, one with Benjamin Netanyahu and the other with Benny Gantz. Findings suggest that the acoustically targeted utterances are meaningful to the speaker but in a complex manner. • An acoustic-prosodic study of two political interviews using a novel approach. • An automatic process to extract extreme values of four prosodic dimensions. • We integrate the prosodic analysis with a qualitative discourse analysis. • Acoustically targeted utterances are meaningful in different ways. • We captured both emotionally-loaded content and rhetorical statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dans cette étude, on montrera que les répercussions d'événements graves (accidents, catastrophes, violences terroristes, guerres...) sur des personnes qui n'ont pas assisté directement à ces faits (victimes collatérales) dépendent des histoires de vie et des fragilités antérieures de ces personnes. À la lumière d'un nouvel outil qu'on appellera « Méta-entretien » associé à une analyse structurale de discours, on examinera le cas de Michèle L. en suggérant que l'activité créatrice pourrait constituer une possibilité de réparation des blessures provoquées par ces événements graves. In this study, it will be shown that the repercussions of serious events (accidents, disasters, terrorist violence, wars...) on people who have not directly witnessed these facts (collateral victims) depend on the life stories and previous fragilities of these people. In the light of a new tool called "Meta-interview" associated with a structural analysis of discourse, we will examine the case of Michèle L. by suggesting that creative activity could constitute a possibility of repairing the wounds caused by these serious events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The escalation of the opioid epidemic in the United States has sparked sweeping legislation meant to regulate physicians' opioid prescribing practices. The demands of such policies force physicians to initiate discussions that could jeopardize the collaborative doctor–patient relationships necessary for curbing inappropriate opioid prescriptions. Drawing on sociopragmatics, this discourse analysis study of primary care interactions examines the face-saving linguistic features employed by physicians in negotiating the line between policy demands and maintaining collaborative relationships. The findings reveal several face-saving acts—pseudo requests, downtoners, broadening, redirection, tag questions, impersonalization, listing, and (negative) imagery—used by physicians when enacting the three most prominent policies: (1) monitoring opioid use, (2) prescribing anti-overdose medication, and (3) transitioning patients from opioids to alternative treatment. Informed by Goffman's concept of "face-work," this study provides evidence of the communicative burden placed on physicians implementing disagreeable opioid policies, as well as opening up discussions on how policymakers and medical institutions can support physicians in implementing opioid policies. • Discourse analysis of medical consultations surrounding opioids and chronic pain. • Physicians comply with policies patients may disagree with. • Physicians use face-saving strategies to mitigate contentious discourse from enacting policies. • Guidance on language could help ease physicians' communicative burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse structure is generally represented as hierarchical structure, the two most well known representations are rhetorical structure theory (RST) and Penn discourse treebank (PDTB). The main problem of the hierarchical structure is that it can not describe the direct semantic relevance between the elementary discourse units (EDU), especially the non-adjacent and cross-level EDUs. Discourse dependency structure (DDS) has been put forward in recent years to describe the head-dependent relation between the EDUs. However, the judgment process of the head can not be answered theoretically. This problem is particularly serious in Chinese discourse analysis, because Chinese lacks the form differences between the main clauses and the subordinate clauses. In this paper, we propose clause relevance structure to represent the discourse structure. Compared with the hierarchical discourse structure and DDS, the clause relevance structure can effectively describe the direct semantic association between discontinuous and cross-level clauses in a text, and the construction of structure is not presupposed by the head recognition. We propose the judgment criteria and formal constraints of the clause relevance structure, and built a human-annotated corpus on Chinese text. Based on the Chinese corpus, we explore the automatic recognition of clause relevance structure. The clause relevance recognition task is formalized as a classification problem and performed by the BERT-based model. A bidirectional LSTM layer is added on the top of the BERT to improve the performance, and the recognition accuracy (90.77%) is achieved by the BERT-LSTM model. Experimental results show that the long distance clause pairs are the main difficulties in the clause relevance recognition, and these difficulties mainly focus on the positive examples, while the clause pairs with short distance are especially difficult to be correctly recognized as negative relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of expressions related to futsuu 'ordinary' by contemporary Japanese younger adults. Under conditions of socioeconomic precarity, the achievement of an 'ordinary life' is falling out of reach for many younger adults in Japan creating a situation in which 'ordinariness' is framed as an aspirational goal. Analysis considers how younger Japanese adults use futsuu to discursively (re)-frame what counts as standard or desirable practice and to enfold otherwise marginalized practices into contextually dependent norms. In demonstrating how the deployment of futsuu expressions both reflects and shapes the ethnometapragmatic order of things, this paper argues that ordinariness itself is an interactionally contingent semiotic event. • Contemporary Japanese adults are negotiating 'ordinariness'. • The Japanese construction futsuu ni 'ordinarily' is part of this negotiation. • Younger adults are changing what counts as 'ordinary' or 'standard' practice. • 'Standards' arise through events of communicative semiosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the nested relationship between graphic cues, voice, and positioning in digital discourse. The focus is on the 'indignation mark', or , an allographic sign used in German-language discussion boards on Reddit. The study's theoretical backdrop brings research on graphic practices in digitally-mediated communication into dialogue with sociolinguistic approaches to the enactment of group relations in discourse, in particular double-voicing, stylization, and positioning, thereby aiming to foster theory-building on both sides. Data is extracted from a large German-language forum ('subreddit') on Reddit and subjected to computational, sequential, and microlinguistic analysis. The findings show how participants in public online discussions use punctuation signs and other graphic cues to animate voices, i.e. ways of speaking that index recognizable social positions and ideologies; how these stylized voices provide a resource for positioning; and how participants display recognition of and alignment to this feature's indexical meaning. The findings also suggest that the 'indignation mark' is part of a wider ecology of graphic cues, which evolve constantly to enable multi-voicedness in public digital discourse. Overall, this paper aims to advance our understanding about how graphic elements of digital discourse are indexically and ideologically connected with positioning activities in online communities of practice. • Investigates the nested relationship between graphic cues, voice, and positioning in digital discourse. • Detailed analysis of a graphic sign, the 'indignation mark', attested in several languages with similar pragmatic function. • Data collection on Reddit, a social media discussion board understudied in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. • Combines computational, sequential, and micro-linguistic analysis. • Promotes dialogue between digitally-mediated communication research and sociolinguistic approaches to double-voicing, stylization, and positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Corpus of 105k posts on child and TBE vaccination in parental online forum. • Discourse analytical approach with topic modeling, collocation and content analysis. • Parents enter multidimensional decision-making process, topics of interest are: • Safety, development & control, effectiveness, epidemiology, necessity, alternatives. • Need for balanced and tailored information provided by public health authorities. This study aimed to understand parental discourse about vaccination, and to provide guidance for communication that addresses the needs of parents. We analyzed parental discourse on child vaccination in general and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) specifically in a Swiss parental online community. For this purpose, a data set containing 105k posts written by parents between 2007 and 2019 was analyzed using a combination of linguistic discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis. Results show that parents enter into a multidimensional decision-making process, characterized by elaborate practices of negotiation, consideration of vaccination recommendations as well as six distinct influencing thematic factors (vaccination safety, development and control, effectiveness, epidemiology, necessity, alternatives or additional prevention methods). The study shows a clear pattern of seasonality, with parents talking about TBE vaccination mostly triggered by events such as tick bites in spring and summer. From a public health perspective, the study emphasizes the need for sufficient, balanced, and tailored information about TBE vaccination. Online forums provide valuable information about what matters to parents and when, which can help public health authorities and practitioners provide information according to these concerns and enhance health literacy among parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study described physicians' use of plain language during patient-physician cancer clinical trial discussions.Methods: Video-recorded clinical interactions and accompanying transcripts were taken from a larger study of communication and clinical trials (PACCT). Interactions (n = 25) were selected if they included invitations to participate in a clinical trial. We used descriptive, qualitative discourse analysis, a method that identifies language patterns at or above the sentence level. We first excerpted discussions of clinical trials, then identified instances of plain language within those discussions. Finally, we inductively coded those instances to describe physicians' plain language practices.Results: The analysis identified four plain language practices. Lexical simplification replaced medical terminology with simpler words. Patient-centered definition named, categorized, and explained complex medical terminology. Metaphor explained medical terminology by comparing it with known concepts. Finally, experience-focused description replaced medical terminology with descriptions of patients' potential physical experiences.Conclusion: These plain language practices hold promise as part of effective information exchange in discussions of cancer clinical trials. Testing is needed to identify patient preferences and the extent to which these practices address patient health literacy needs.Practice Implications: Pending further testing, these plain language practices may be integrated into physician clinical trial and other communication training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians construct identity, reach supporters, and show their stance toward issues and colleagues through language. This study examines intervocalic /d/ and coda /s/ elision in the speech of the former Andalusian president, Susana Díaz, comparing her tendencies with those of others to determine how she navigates peninsular indexical fields in scripted and unscripted speeches over four years. Díaz's rate of elision increased in scripted speeches late in her presidency, unlike her peers. These changes result in part from the indexical meaning of regional variants, changing identity goals, and her intended audience. Her regional variant use both reinforces her solidarity with her region and supporters, and reflects behavior demonstrated by other peninsular politicians. • Regional variation of intervocalic /d/ and coda /s/ is used by politicians for identity construction, contributing to Andalusian identity. • Former president of Andalusia, Spain, Susana Díaz deviates from local female speech norms in her regional production of these two phenomena. • Díaz patterns more like non-politicians and conservative politicians than her own party for coda /s/, whereas in the elision of intervocalic /d/ in the participle <-ado>, she is the most extreme of all groups, eliding almost categorically. • When combined with information about her audience and political environment, these results reflect the reality of Díaz's identity as a speaker of a stigmatized dialect, a member of the Socialist Party, and a woman holding a position of major power in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how language ideologies are implicitly constructed and negotiated in the social interactions between two three-years-old children and their parents in Singapore. Conversation analysis shows that complex and competing varietal ideologies in the broader Singaporean society were present in family discourse at the micro level. Further, while the parents socialized their children into their values and norms and the children often conformed to these ideologies, the children also occasionally resisted them and asserted their own varietal preferences. The findings contribute to the understudied area of varietal ideologies in language socialization and shed light on the making of language ideologies in parents' conversations with children. • Society's language ideologies were present in family discourse at the micro-level. • A 'standard' language ideology co-existed with pride in colloquial local language. • The parents indexed stances through a range of verbal and non-verbal formulations. • The parents socialized their children into a complex ecology of language ideologies. • The children sometimes resisted this socialization and asserted their preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speaking on one's own behalf and asserting one's entitlement to assess oneself are regular features of interaction, but participants often sound for others through practices like responsive animation, through which they are seen to be temporarily "doing being" others in a responsive slot. In this paper we study a collection of responsive animations consisting primarily of non-lexical vocalisations with gestural ensembles produced in contexts where territorial rights are in tension. We focus on environments where a participant engages in self-deprecating disclosures around past or projected negative happenings that may be shared by a co-participant (albeit experienced independently) and who animates an aspect of these in response. We describe how co-participants sound for each other by deploying animations that instead of minimising deprecating components, actually amplify them through a transformed and creative vocal and/or visual demonstration of a jointly negotiated (shared) attribute or experience. These animations create brief moments of heightened involvement and other-attentiveness before transitioning to a new/next order of conversational business. • While participants often speak on their own behalf they may engage in animation to sound for others. • Animation is a responsive option in contexts of co-participants' reciprocal my-side self-deprecating disclosures. • Brief animations designed as non-lexical vocalisations or gestural ensembles in this context amplify deprecating attributes and experiences. • Animation is used for joint appreciation and play and other-attentiveness before turning to other orders of conversational business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has linguistically explored collective agency through the concept of group speech acts. However, how the "we-perspective" is constructed in narrative discourse has received less empirical attention. Drawing on positioning theory informed by linguistic anthropology, this study explores how a professional team in China constructs collective agency through conversational storytelling in their group meetings. The analysis shows that collective agency is constructed through a we-narrative of positive evaluation and the collaborative narrative of problem solving, vis-à-vis community cultural value of moral responsibility, positive thinking, and agentic beliefs. This study highlights the distributed nature of collective agency and the importance of examining multilayered narrative practices in professional settings. • Examining how collective agency is positioned through narrative-in-interaction in routinized meetings of a professional group. • Presenting a conceptual framework on how some important linguistic, interactional, and cultural resources are mobilized for constructing collective agency. • Investigating how We-perspective is constructed explicitly and implicitly through both plural pronouns and narrative structure in conversational storytelling. • Indicates some of the ways in which narrative/grammatical structure, narrating process, and cultural ideologies are interrelated in the positioning of collective agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various scholars have studied the increasing occurrence of toxic, often large-scale arguments over allegedly offensive behaviour in both public and private discourse arenas. However, what is meant by offence itself is rarely discussed at length in linguistics and communication studies, and little systematic work has been dedicated to how offence is taken and reported on across different contexts and in different modes of communication. The aims of this special issue are to examine how interactants and observers of interaction take offence across different communicative settings and sociocultural contexts, to consider the moral and relational implications of taking or reporting offence, and to highlight what a pragmatics-based perspective can add to research on offence and its relationship with morality. • Shows how people take offence across different settings and sociocultural contexts. • Examines the moral and relational implications of taking offence. • Scrutinises the relationship between offence and morality. • Discusses what a pragmatics perspective brings to research on offence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines the negotiation of offensive action, its uptake and moral implications in the context of parliamentary debate and user comments on social media, by drawing data from the British Parliament. Being institutional discourse, public discourse and media discourse, communicative action in parliament is constrained within a society's code of conduct, describing what may count as offensive action and which institutional sanctions an offender would need to expect. Adopting a discourse-pragmatic approach, debates on offence are distinguished with respect to metadebates in parliament, and metadebates following up on the offensive action in users' comments in social media. The study shows that parliamentary debate is imbued with complex moral issues and that participants draw on a variety of strategies to assign offence the status of an object of discourse in order to initiate metadebates on its (in-)appropriateness, such as the strategic use of challenges, presuppositions, and of explicit and implicit references to morality. Due to the pluralism of communicative action and the multilayeredness of participant roles and interactional frames, participants voice and take offence as representatives of political groups and as individuals, and in spite of the seeming regulatedness of parliamentary interactions engage in metadebates about what they consider as (in-)appropriate and morally right or wrong. • New insights are offered into the negotiation of offensive action, its uptake and moral implications in parliamentary debate and user comments. • The multilayeredness and complexity of debate is reflected in the participants' references to the debates' contextual constraints and requirements. • Discursive action in parliamentary debate is constrained by being institutional discourse, public discourse and media discourse. • Pluralism of communicative action and multilayeredness of interactional frames allows participants to voice offence as representatives of groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Ainu language, a critically endangered indigenous language of northern Japan, is deployed in the Japanese animation Golden Kamuy (Noda, 2018-). The Ainu language is mediatized as loanwords and the language of the community primarily in Ainu–Japanese interactions. The Ainu co-protagonist's skillful translation of loanwords makes Ainu culture accessible to the viewers. Such considerate representations reflect the creator's extensive research and commitment to overcoming discrimination against Ainu. Unfortunately, however, careful analysis of overall Ainu language allocational patterns reveals that the show cannot escape from reproducing race-related discourses in Japan, reflecting Japan's colonial legacy. • Analyzes how the Ainu, a critically endangered language, is mediatized in anime. • Incorporates notions of a raciolinguistic perspective and edutainment in analysis. • Finds mediatized bilingualism as loanwords and the language of the community. • Identifies that loanwords function to teach many aspects of Ainu's unique culture. • But also finds that other Ainu deployment reproduces race-related discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) direct close-air-support during NATO operations, however, non-native speaker JTACs struggle to meet the NATO English proficiency requirement. This paper examines the effects of including more "military flavour" (Green & Wall, 2005) in the oral proficiency interview (OPI) for JTACs, developed in accordance with NATO Standardisation Agreement (STANAG) 6001. The new test format, called the "OPI+" included linguistic tasks associating military content domains with the linguistic functions traditionally elicited in the OPI, allowing for comparisons to be made between the two. The test was tried on the Norwegian JTAC selection course (N = 25). Test-taker performance was holistically rated in accordance with STANAG 6001, and candidate output on four OPI+ tasks later transcribed and analysed using discourse analytic measures. Findings suggest that while adding more professional flavour to the test of speaking will improve face validity, test-takers' qualitative and quantitative performance will not be significantly affected, as long as the language functions elicited remain the same. Moreover, when it comes to testing the professional language JTACs need in the target language use situation, the standard STANAG 6001 OPI test format apparently leaves something to be desired. • Effects of including military content in an oral proficiency interview were measured. • Discourse analytic measures were performed in addition to holistic ratings. • A general proficiency rating scale was used. • Inclusion of professional, domain-specific content increased face validity. • Professional, domain-specific content did not improve qualitative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the discourse of 19 episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 of "Paranormal Survivor," a reality TV show about ghosts, haunted property, eeriness, fear, dread, and relief. Using various approaches to discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis we uncover the macro-, meso, and micro-level patterns of meaning creation in "Paranormal Survivor" that relate dually to the affective/psychological/sensory experiences of the protagonists as well as the cognitive puzzles, doubts, and (un)certainties underlying such paranormal phenomena. The macro-level analysis relates to the narrative structure of the program delivered through achronological multi-party perspectives, reflecting varying levels of emotional intensity/objectivity. The meso-level uncovers the various coherently related themes underlying the program. The micro-level examines the smaller bits of discourse that combine as they build the meso- (thematic) and macro- (structural) components of the larger spates of discourse through affect, emotion, believability, evidence, and empathy. This three-tiered analytic approach serves to systematically reveal the ways in which discursive mechanisms combine to enhance suspense, intensify horror, bolster both believability and relatability, and ultimately seek to establish and augment audience engagement. • Stance-taking is a discursively psycho-social cognitive and affective reaction to external stimuli. • Reality TV is both a reflection and magnification of everyday life. • Audience engagement in reality TV is a complex communicative process. • Suspense, curiosity, and surprise link both the affective and epistemic/cognitive domains of stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I review Talbot Taylor's rigorous critique of stylistic theory (begun as early as his first book in 1981 and resumed periodically, at least implicitly, in the decades since), and speculate as to why it appeared to have little impact on the practice of literary stylistics. Are stylisticians simply too engrossed in the practical and pedagogical commitments of stylistics to be embarrassed by the deep theoretical contradictions Taylor identified? Or perhaps the appearance of disregard is deceptive; perhaps some contemporary stylisticians have accepted the Taylorian theoretical critique, and tacitly recognise that literary stylistics is in essence a highly specialized form of the normative metadiscourse, applied to literary texts, that Taylor has argued lies at the heart of lay linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the Discourse Grammar framework, this study investigates what mechanisms are deployed in the rise of Korean DM com. The development of DM com involves two distinct mechanisms, namely grammaticalization and cooptation proposed by Heine et al. (2013a,b, 2020, 2021). More specifically, the rise of DM com involves the following three major stages: early grammaticalization leading from the diminutive quantifying noun cyekoma 'a little (bit)' to the adverb com 'a little' via phonological erosion, followed by cooptation whereby the coopted unit com is deployed as a discourse marker (DM), and finally late grammaticalization whereby the use of DM com is extended to new contexts inviting new discourse functions. The DM com is employed in various contexts including making polite requests, toning down assertions in potentially face-threatening situations, expressing negative emotions, and representing the speaker's playful engagement in seemingly impolite exchanges (e.g. banter and mock-disputes). Our analysis highlights a pivotal phase, which Heine refers to as 'cooptation', whereby lexical uses of com as quantifying noun and adverbial are redeployable for pragmatic uses as discourse markers expressing speaker attitude. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of how quantifying nouns can also evolve into speaker stance markers. • Discourse markers emerge via 2 major mechanisms: grammaticalization and cooptation. • Cooptation transfers lexical/grammatical structures to the discourse domain. • Korean com first evolved from quantifying noun to adverb (early grammaticalization). • Cooptation frees adverbial com syntactically and prosodically from its host sentence. • Once coopted, com develops a variety of attitudinal uses (late grammaticalization). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authorial voice is considered to be the representation of a writer's point of view or stance toward the propositions they adduce within a manuscript. This case study examines the reader's role in constructing authorial voice in scientific writing in the natural sciences. The study focuses on six scientists with varying degrees of professional experience from different natural sciences disciplines and their perceptions of authorial voice as readers. Their perceptions, derived from triangulation of multiple data sources, are contrasted in this study. Overall, our results illustrate a complex phenomenon in the way in which authorial voice is constructed, highlighting that natural scientists' voice construction—their revoicing processes as readers—is linked to their degree of professional experience, their expected roles and positions, and the beliefs, values, and assumptions that might have been shaped through their previous experiences and training. • The study focused on natural scientists' perceptions of authorial voice in scientific texts. • The scientists elucidated that the natural sciences are not purely objective or voiceless. • Differences existed between expert and novice scholars in their attitudes toward voice markers. • Scientists' revoicing processes were linked to their degree of professional experience. • The traditional conception of scientific discourse as objective needs to be reconceptualized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Our aim was to use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the most widely cited definitions of shared decision making so that we can evaluate how language is used to position participants. Based on our conceptual understanding, we presumed that shared decision making involves acts of communication where processes are collaborative.Methods: We used a CDA lens to closely examine the phrases, semantics, syntax, implied functions, and the social actions proposed in SDM definition texts. We conducted a systematic search guided by the PRISMA guidelines, to identify the most widely cited definitions of SDM.Results: A total of 72 studies met our inclusion criteria. While SDM is not consistently defined, it was striking to find that clinicians are constructed as active whereas patients were viewed to be passive participants. The definitions construct SDM to be a gift that the clinician has the power to offer, and the relationship in the definitions appears asymmetric, in which only one party seems to speak.Conclusions: The SDM definitions examined convey a process characterized by a clinician who speaks, while a patient mostly listens, and is invited to contribute. An alternative definition might be constructed through references to joint activity via sentences in active voice.Practice Implications: Clinicians may be influenced by definitions of SDM that reinforce the positionality of active speaker versus passive recipient. Clearer definitions that address the constructs of power and roles may help support the implementation of SDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research shows that men who experience erectile or sexual dysfunction may feel uncomfortable discussing their sexual experiences in face-to-face clinical encounters. Part of the reason is the stigma and embarrassment associated with discussing private sexual matters. This study examines how e-patients, or more precisely advice-seekers, and doctors communicate about sexual dysfunction in online medical consultations (OMCs). We conducted a Theme-Oriented Discourse Analysis of relevant OMCs on CH Doctor , a Chinese medical consultation website, to understand how individuals with perceived sexual dysfunction articulate their conditions and how doctors on the platform respond and provide recommendations to these individuals. Our analysis reveals that OMCs afford advice-seekers a place to openly discuss their sexual health issues and gain empowerment from doctors who assist in mitigating the associated social stigma. Upon detailed discourse analysis, however, we find that individuals seeking advice often interpret their sexual experiences as symptoms of illness that requires medical intervention. In response, doctors tend to validate these advice-seekers' preliminary self-diagnoses by treating their conditions as medical issues and characterizing them as psychosocial problems caused by stress and anxiety. Aligning with a critical sociological perspective that views sexual dysfunction as socially constructed problems referenced against dominant norms of sexual functioning, we argue that the medicalization and psychologization of certain sexual behaviors by doctors and advice-seekers discursively reinforce and legitimize essentialist views of hetero-coital sexual interaction. Such views reify penile-vaginal intercourse and ejaculation as the only standard, successful, and desirable form of sexual activity. This may further induce fear and anxiety among adult men whose sexual behaviors do not realistically align with these norms. • Online medical consultations (OMCs) enable adult men to openly discuss sexual dysfunction. • Theme-Oriented Discourse Analysis is adopted to analyze OMCs about sexual dysfunction. • Advice-seekers medicalize their sexual experiences to seek medical intervention. • Doctors medicalize and psychologize advice-seekers' sexual experiences. • Both doctors and advice-seekers reproduce essentialist hetero-coital views of sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Engagement as access to school, the wellbeing of the child, and curating diversity. • Parental actions both bridged and distanced the spaces of homes and schools. • The home-school language divide was upheld. • Reasons reflected complex language ideologies and notions of a parent and a family. • Insights are given to revisit theorisations of parental engagement. Persisting divides between 'multilingual homes' and 'monolingual schools' exist around the world, including Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Applying the lens of space production, we explore how 'parental engagement' is established, and the role it plays in shaping language separation. Discourse analysis on interviews with 24 parents of multilingual children revealed parental engagement as striving for parental access to schools, facilitating the schooling, learning and wellbeing of the child, and curating cultural and linguistic diversity. Parental actions both bridged and distanced 'schools' and 'homes', marking these spaces as intertwined and/or separate based on parents' motivations, reasons and opportunities to become engaged or not. However, the home-school language divide was upheld. Besides reflecting conformity with schooling and the language of schooling, parental rationalisations presented with a drive to preserve the family as independent from schools. These findings provide insights to revisiting theorisations of parental engagement, and its role in reconciling home- and school languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English-language reporting on the continuing difficulties in accessing Evusheld reflects the marginalization of immunocompromised people in discussions about the public policy response to Covid-19. Moreover, the lack of available data on global Evusheld access, particularly in low-income countries, has emerged as a key form of nonknowledge that must be redressed within public health research. Through examining how knowledge about domestic and global barriers to Evusheld access circulates, and does not circulate, within The New York Times , this paper identifies a case study of the social production of ignorance related to a key issue in the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on science and technology studies, the history of science and media studies, I situate these trends in the context of longer explanatory histories of nonknowledge. First, through a critical discourse analysis of the New York Times' reporting on Evusheld access in the U.S., I trace the individualizing framework evident in many articles to longstanding trends in reporting on health and illness, and to the structural marginalization of immunocompromised people in U.S. Secondly, I argue that the near-total absence of reporting on Evusheld access in low-income countries is consistent with the longstanding structural neglect of health crises in the global south. • New York Times coverage of preventative treatment Evusheld rarely discusses access barriers. • Access barriers discussed are largely logistical rather than structural. • The perspectives of immunocompromised people are rarely included in Times articles on Evusheld. • Failure to include voices from impacted communities contributes to agnogenesis. • Centering the perspectives of constituencies most impacted by a health crisis will advance health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To describe and analyse the perspectives and communication practices of kidney clinicians and older patients (aged 60 +) during collaborative education and decision-making about dialysis. This qualitative study drew on pluralistic data sources and analytical approaches investigating elicited semi-structured interviews (n = 31) with doctors (n = 8), nurses (n = 8) and patients (n = 15), combined with ethnographic observations, written artefacts and audio-recorded naturally-occurring interactions (n = 23, education sessions n = 4; consultations n = 19) in a tertiary Australian kidney outpatient clinic. Data were analysed for themes and linguistic discourse features. Five themes were identified across all data sources: 1) lost opportunity in education; 2) persistent disease knowledge gaps; 3) putting up with dialysis; 4) perceived and real involvement in decision-making and 5) complex role of family as decision-making brokers. As the first study to complement interviews with evidence from naturally-occurring kidney interactions, this study balances the perspectives of how older patients and their clinicians view chronic kidney disease education, with how decision-making about dialysis is reflected in practice. The study provides suggestions for contextualized, multi-perspectives formal and informal training for improving decision-making about dialysis, spanning from indications to boost communication efficiency, to reducing unexplained jargon, incorporating patient navigators and exploring different dialysis modalities. • Used pluralistic data sources to analyse clinician-patient communication about dialysis. • Themes identified: education and disease knowledge, treatment experience, decision-making, and family involvement. • Contextualises views on CKD education and decision-making about dialysis among older patients. • Evidence-based, contextualised communication training for kidney clinicians may enhance shared decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Care theory and critical discourse analysis were utilized to examine bilingual reference interactions extracted from 20 h of observations in a U.S.-Mexico border town public library. The researchers identified three types of caring discourse, including commiseration, soothing, and expressions of condolence. They also associated five conversation devices with caring discourse: humor, idiomatic expressions, interjections, lexical intensifiers, and whispering. Notably, librarians' infrequent production of elements of care were primarily in English regardless of community members' language choice. Further analysis revealed that linguistic expressions of care frequently masked unintentional, deficit-based perceptions about community members. Other salient themes that emerged include camouflaged community members' needs, clashes between intersectional and shared identity(ies), and librarians' dismissal of community members. Ultimately, bilingual caring discourse in this setting was often an interpersonal and institutional illusion. • Care theory is a valuable framework to investigate reference discourse in public libraries. • Critical discourse analysis illuminates forms of linguistic care in bilingual reference interactions. • Indicators of commiseration, soothing, and condolence masked unintentional, deficit-based stereotypes. • Librarians produced caring discourse infrequently and primarily in English regardless of community members' language choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a critical historic juncture of energy transition, energy resilience under the COVID-19 crisis and the Russian-Ukraine war will profoundly influence the energy sector and global climate. The research compared China and Germany as representatives of two modes of energy governance-state-centric and market-centric, respectively-to investigate their ability to maintain resilience amid the recent global turbulences. Policy reviews and discourse analysis of online interviews were conducted to understand the role of governance in three dimensions of resilience. The study found that energy resilience differed between state-centric and market-centric energy governance. The distributed power structure in market-centric governance promotes adaption and transformation, whereas a state-centric structure is more effective in responding to immediate disruptions and implementing larger-scale centralized renewable deployment. As energy policy is an element within and characterized by governance, understanding how governance would affect resilience can help policymakers of the two systems improve resilience and formulate policies that align stakeholders' expectations in the quest for the low-carbon transition. • Energy resilience differs between state-centric and market-centric energy governance. • The distributed power structure in market-centric governance promotes adaption and transformation, whereas a state-centric structure is more effective in responding to immediate disruptions and implementing large-scale centralized renewable deployment. • Both top-down and bottom-up approaches can be employed to formulate and enforce policies that align the interests and expectations of different stakeholders to eliminate conflicts that hinder transition progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Covid-19 was not the first pandemic, it was unique in the scale and intensity with which societies responded. Countries reacted differently to the threat posed by the new virus. The public health crisis affected European societies in many ways. It also influenced the way the media portrayed vaccines and discussed factors related to vaccine hesitancy. Europeans differed in their risk perceptions, attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine uptake. In European countries, Covid-19-related discourses were at the centre of media attention for many months. This paper reports on a media analysis which revealed significant differences as well as some similarities in the media debates in different countries. The study focused on seven European countries and considered two dimensions of comparison: between the pre-Covid period and the beginning of the Covid pandemic period, and between countries. The rich methodological approach, including linguistics, semantic field analysis and discourse analysis of mainstream news media, allowed the authors to explore the set of meanings related to vaccination that might influence actors' agency. This approach led the authors to redefine vaccine hesitancy in terms of characteristics of the "society in the situation" rather than the psychological profile of individuals. We argue that vaccine hesitancy can be understood in terms of agency and temporality. This dilemma of choice that transforms the present into an irreversible past and must be taken in relation to an uncertain future, is particularly acute under the pressure of urgency and when someone's health is at stake. As such, it is linked to how vaccine meaning is co-produced within public discourses. • Vaccine hesitancy is co-produced by media discourses. • Covid-19 caused a shift in European vaccine discourses. • Discursive shift from prevention (future) to effective vaccine distribution (now). • Vaccine hesitancy is mediated through temporal structures in agents' orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supermarkets play an important role in industrialized food systems, which is why many in academia, politics, industry, and civil society view them as key players in transforming the food system toward greater sustainability. We analyse narratives and proposed solutions in this context, as well as the role of supermarkets in Germany, home to some of the largest retailers worldwide. We show that many actors in the German food system, including supermarkets themselves, perceive the structural problems of overproduction and dysfunctional markets as major obstacles to achieving food system transformation. Despite this, they tend to propose solutions focused on optimization and efficiency in supermarket logistics and retail management or greater consumer awareness. These solutions show little transformative potential. Regarding the structural problem of dysfunctional markets, supermarkets are perceived to be in a quandary due to the drive for profits, competitive markets, and consumer demand. Thus, supermarkets are not likely to drive a transformation of the food system. However, a broadly shared understanding of the core problems of overproduction and dysfunctional markets presents an opportunity for 'discourse coalitions' to push for more systemic solutions. The findings may enhance food system stakeholders' understanding of the need for more holistic approaches to addressing sustainability. • German debates highlight systemic barriers to sustainability, including overproduction. • Yet, solutions focus on market-driven improvements in efficiency and changes in demand. • Supermarkets prioritize these market-driven solutions over systemic change. • A lack of policy frameworks hinders wholesale reform. • Promoting debates on overproduction could fuel systemic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]