Cognition, Communication, Discourse

U.S. administration’s press communications on Tunisia after the July 25, 2021 ‘state of exception’: The shaping of urgency discourse

2023-12-27T10:10:32+00:00

July 25, 2021 was an exceptional day in Tunisia, ushering in a new chapter in its contemporary political history and triggering a wave of global responses to the declared ‘state of exception’. This research examines the U.S. administration’s press communications on Tunisia following this event. Specifically, it explores (i) the dominant crisis frames permeating these communications and their underlying political agenda and (ii) the extent to which the discourse they imparted signals a change in U.S. foreign policy towards Tunisia in crisis situations. To meet these research objectives, a corpus-based investigation was undertaken using an integrative framework combining qualitative (frames) and quantitative (keyness and collocations) approaches. Results revealed changing discourses around the theme of crisis, moving from a sense of togetherness to urgency. This may echo the cautious attitude of the American government and its heightened concern about Kais Saied’s transitional measures. In broad terms, the exploration offered a glimpse of how the dynamics of global politics unfold discursively. Importantly, the Biden administration’s construction of Tunisia’s political-democratic crisis in terms of urgency can have real-life consequences for international perceptions of the country’s future. Theoretically, the study’s implications touch primarily upon Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS, henceforth), particularly the evolving corpus linguistics concepts of keyness and collocation networks.

Typical agramaticalized constructions as actualized mono- and polysynonymic transforms of virtual primary syntagmata and propositions (on the material of modern french fiction)

2023-12-26T16:20:02+00:00

In this article, mono- and polysynonymic typical agrammaticalized constructions are defined as virtual transforms of primary syntagmata and propositions, actualized in the form of reduced, extended, and quantitatively equacomponential preferential options, in which expressivity prevails over expression. The aim of this research was to suggest a typology and to determine the degree of co(n)textual pertinence of typical agrammaticalized mono- and polysynonymic transforms in modern French fiction. To reach this aim I used the procedure of inverse reconstruction (discourse → language) of the primary structure of the analyzed types of mono- and polysynonymic agrammaticalized discourse innovations. The method of systematization made it possible to build a typology of common agrammaticalized synonymic preferential options. An “alternative” linguistic experiment, i.e., an artificial substitution by the recipient of a certain syntagm or proposition of the analyzed discourse fragment by a synonymic syntagm or proposition, helped to determine the degree of co(n)textual pertinence of the primary structure and secondary synonymic transforms. As a result, the types of mono- and polysynonymic typical agrammaticalized constructions were distinguished, the primary structure and members of virtual synonymic series were inversely reconstructed, and the co(n)textual pertinence of the constructions under analysis was justified by means of the “alternative” linguistic experiment. I claim, that in the French fiction of the 20th ‒ 21st centuries, the most frequent elements are mono- and polysynonymic typical agrammaticalized mono- and polypredicative utterances, extended by the interrogative or relative pronoun que, the personal pronoun il (and its colloquial analogues), quantitatively equacomponential preferential options containing the pronominal component que, and elliptical constructions with final suppression of complement after prepositions avec, sans, pour, contre, parmi, comme. I also claim, that the main reason for actualizing typical agrammaticalized constructions is to emphatically focalize new co(n)textual referents, stylistically nuance the intra- and / or interphrasal co(n)text, syntactically simplify complex structures, or prevent the re-actualization of referents previously introduced to the pre- or post-text.

Linguistic means of forming euphemisms in the modern Chinese language

2023-12-26T16:20:04+00:00

The article discusses the linguistic means of forming euphemisms in the modern Chinese language and the study of the concept of “euphemism” synchronically and diachronically. Authors highlighted and described several linguistic classifications of euphemisms, presenting the historical prerequisites for their appearance in China, analyzing the connection between taboos and euphemistic vocabulary and formulating the main subject-thematic groups of Chinese euphemisms. Attention is paid to the methods of formation of euphemisms in the Chinese language, including the phonetic allusion, antonomasia, euphemization of certain fixed expressions, metaphor, metonymy. With the help of deductive-inductive analysis and a vast set of examples, authors describe how some foundations of Confucious morality and ethical-ritual traditions in Chinese society led to restriction of the usage for some lexical units and resulted in the emergence of a large number of euphemisms in the Chinese language. The study reveals many factors influencing the usage of euphemisms in the modern Chinese language including the development of society. Special attention in the article is given to the role of euphemism as a universal phenomenon, providing an opportunity for better understanding the culture of the Chinese people and their language and widening the field of effective cross-cultural communication. The authors examined the works of prominent Chinese linguists and emphasized some certain differences in their classifications. The conducted study shows that the phenomenon of euphemism exists in all nations of the world and refers to the same origin but differs in the methods of the research and therefore in the ways of forming certain lexical units.

Revelative evidential markers in English-language dream reports: A corpus-based study

2023-12-26T16:20:06+00:00

This corpus-based study investigates revelative evidential marking in English dream reports, specifically focusing on the word dream. Analyzing a corpus of 60,155 dream reports, the research identifies the expressions in * dream (in the dream, in my dream etc) and of the dream as most frequent revelative evidentials. The frequency of the central revelative marker in the dream reveals a conventional conceptualization of DREAM IS A CONTAINER, aligning with the broader linguistic metaphor of STATES ARE CONTAINERS. Concordance analysis of the second-frequent phrase of the dream illustrates that narrators tend to use the marker for navigation and coherent narrativization of the dream experiences, conceptualizing the experience as DREAM IS A STORY or DREAM IS A SPACE. Identified with the help of cluster analysis, the trends in dream experience narrativization also emphasize navigation and coherence. The study argues for pragmatic and cognitive implications of evidential marking, which is accounted for by juxtaposing dream content with real-world knowledge via the use of evidential markers in dream reports. It has been found that evidential marking serves to maintain a coherent construal and retain the epistemic control over the conceptualization of the narrated experience. The findings contribute to the expounding revelative evidential labelling, specifically, as well as of the broader semantic evidential system of the English language, advancing the scholarship on linguistic expressions of subjective states and narrativization of subjective experience.

Ecolinguistic approach to the analysis of the notion “leader’s charisma” (based on English non-fiction literature)

2023-12-26T16:20:09+00:00

The research attempts to study various aspects and correlations between the verbal and non-verbal characteristics of charismatic leaders from an ecolinguistic perspective. The analysis of the lingual and non-lingual repertoire of a charismatic leader, his main characteristics and correspondence of his verbal, non-verbal and supra-verbal behavior to the ecological principles of communication demonstrates that if the leader avoids using in their speech the elements producing a harmful effect on physical, psychological or emotional state of a partner they can reach ecologically effective influence on the audience. A charismatic leader's identity emerges from psychological and social factors that manifest in their speech. This statement correlates with the principles of ecolinguistics, which involve the analysis of verbal, non-verbal, and supra-verbal phenomena in the unity with natural, social, and psychological factors. Modern English non-fiction literature was chosen as the research material. The non-fiction authors – scientists, psychologists, coaches, and business-trainers, focus the reader’s attention on the main criteria for creating the image of a charismatic leader, which includes verbal and non-verbal communicative components, as well as their ecological combinability. Core features that effectively shape the image of a successful leader are charisma and high communicative skills, which include preservation of communicative maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner. The focus of ecolinguistic research on a charismatic leader who influences the society and achieves their goals through various means, including language, contributes to further development of the theory of discursive personality. The results of this study can be used in discourse studies, studies of verbal and non-verbal communication, pragmalinguistics, and communication theory.