scholarly journals Social and Physical Distance/Distancing: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Recent Changes in Usage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Butler ◽  
Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Semantic Change ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
British English ◽  
Stability And Change ◽  
Special Relevance ◽  
Over Time

AbstractSince the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and its dramatic spread in the early months of 2020, the term social distancing has rapidly become a key term in public and private discourse. At the same time, social distance, physical distance and physical distancing have become current in the same context. This paper examines these terms in (samples of) four corpora of British English (BNC, ukWaC, NOW 2019 and NOW 2020), with the following aims: (i) to study the frequency and usage of these phrases in corpora of different kinds, representing texts created both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic; (ii) to determine whether the recent spread of the phrases in the Covid-19 context has entailed any shifts in the collocational profile of the constituent words. By looking at the most frequent collocations over time we establish to what extent the corpora reflect stability and change in patterning and to what extent the external factor of the pandemic outbreak has far reaching consequences for the lexical semantics of the language. The case of social distance/distancing has special relevance to accounts of semantic change through the sudden and radical shifts in the collocational profile of the items concerned.

“That’s well good”: A Re-emergent Intensifier in Current British English

2020 ◽  
pp. 007542422097914
Author(s):  
Karin Aijmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
British English ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Time Gap ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Over Time ◽  
National Corpus

Well has a long history and is found as an intensifier already in older English. It is argued that diachronically well has developed from its etymological meaning (‘in a good way’) on a cline of adverbialization to an intensifier and to a discourse marker. Well is replaced by other intensifiers in the fourteenth century but emerges in new uses in Present-Day English. The changes in frequency and use of the new intensifier are explored on the basis of a twenty-year time gap between the old British National Corpus (1994) and the new Spoken British National Corpus (2014). The results show that well increases in frequency over time and that it spreads to new semantic types of adjectives and participles, and is found above all in predicative structures with a copula. The emergence of a new well and its increase in frequency are also related to social factors such as the age, gender, and social class of the speakers, and the informal character of the conversation.

scholarly journals Absolute Insurer Denial of Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy for Hepatitis C: A National Specialty Pharmacy Cohort Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charitha Gowda ◽  
Stephen Lott ◽  
Matthew Grigorian ◽  
Dena M Carbonari ◽  
M Elle Saine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Hepatitis C ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Commercial Insurance ◽  
Direct Acting Antiviral ◽  
Insurance Type ◽  
Specialty Pharmacy ◽  
Direct Acting ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Despite the availability of new direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimens, changes in DAA reimbursement criteria, and a public health focus on hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination, it remains unclear if public and private insurers have increased access to these therapies over time. We evaluated changes in the incidence of absolute denial of DAA therapy over time and by insurance type. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study among patients who had a DAA prescription submitted from January 2016 to April 2017 to Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc., which provides HCV pharmacy services across the United States. The main outcome was absolute denial of DAA prescription, defined as lack of fill approval by the insurer. We calculated the incidence of absolute denial, overall and by insurance type (Medicaid, Medicare, commercial), for the 16-month study period and each quarter. Results Among 9025 patients from 45 states prescribed a DAA regimen (4702 covered by Medicaid, 1821 Medicare, 2502 commercial insurance), 3200 (35.5%; 95% confidence interval, 34.5%–36.5%) were absolutely denied treatment. Absolute denial was more common among patients covered by commercial insurance (52.4%) than Medicaid (34.5%, P < .001) or Medicare (14.7%, P < .001). The incidence of absolute denial increased across each quarter of the study period, overall (27.7% in first quarter to 43.8% in last quarter; test for trend, P < .001) and for each insurance type (test for trend, P < .001 for each type). Conclusions Despite the availability of new DAA regimens and changes in restrictions of these therapies, absolute denials of DAA regimens by insurers have remained high and increased over time, regardless of insurance type.

Biased Benevolence: The Perceived Morality of Effective Altruism Across Social Distance

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110027
Author(s):  
Kyle Fiore Law ◽  
Dylan Campbell ◽  
Brendan Gaesser
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Effective Altruism ◽  
Quality Study ◽  
Matched Study

Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable. Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 2) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 3). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1 to 3, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 4). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.

Grafinscripties

Lampas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Onno van Nijf
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Frequent Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Funerary Inscriptions ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This article offers a brief introduction to the most frequent type of inscription: funerary inscriptions or epitaphs. The article offers a chronological overview from the Archaic period to late Antiquity, with an emphasis on Athens. It opens with a brief discussion of the archaeological and ritual contexts in which funerary inscriptions were set up, followed by a discussion of archaic epigrams and the social strategies that lay behind them. This is followed by a discussion of public and private graves that shows how epigraphic habits changed over time. The article continues with a discussion of funerary epigraphic habits outside Athens and closes with a few examples of Christian epitaphs.

Taking it up a level: Copy-raising and cascaded tiers of morphosyntactic change

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Brook
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
British English ◽  
Finite Structure ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Copy Raising ◽  
Over Time ◽  
As If

AbstractThis paper uncovers evidence for two linked levels of morphosyntactic change occurring in Canadian English. The more ordinary is a lexical replacement: with finite subordination after seem, the complementizer like has been overtaking all the alternatives (as if, as though, that, and Ø). On top of this, there is a broader syntactic change whereby the entire finite structure (now represented primarily by like) is beginning to catch on at the expense of infinitival subordination after seem. Drawing on complementary evidence from British English and several partial precedents in the historical linguistics literature, I take this correlation to mean that like has reached sufficient rates among the finite strategy to have instigated the second level of change, to the point that it has ramifications for epistemic and evidential marking with the verb seem. I propose that the best model of these trajectories is a set of increasingly large envelopes of variation, one inside the next, and argue that the envelope might itself be an entity susceptible to change over time.

scholarly journals Strengthening Cybersecurity in Singapore

2019 ◽  
pp. 96-128
Author(s):  
Ching Yuen Luk
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Cyber Attacks ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Cooperative Approach ◽  
Development Trajectory ◽  
The Government ◽  
Over Time

This chapter uses a historical perspective to examine the development trajectory of e-government in Singapore, the trends and patterns of cybercrimes and cyber-attacks, and the measures taken by the government to combat cybercrimes and cyber-attacks. It shows that the government has adopted a proactive, holistic, and cooperative approach to cybersecurity in order to tackle the ever-increasing cybersecurity challenges. It has regularly reviewed and improved cybersecurity measures to ensure their effectiveness and strengthened its defense capabilities over time through coordinating national efforts with public and private sectors and cooperating with regional and international counterparts. The chase for a perfect cybersecurity system or strategy is both impossible and unnecessary. However, it is important and necessary to establish a cybersecurity system or formulate a cybersecurity strategy that can monitor, detect, respond to, recover from, and prevent cyber-attacks in a timely manner, and make the nation stronger, safer, and more secure.

Temporal affordances in the news

Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt ◽  
Motti Neiger
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Online News ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Preparation Time ◽  
News Production ◽  
Stability And Change ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This article develops the concept of temporal affordances as a framework for understanding and evaluating the relationship between news technologies and journalistic storytelling practices. Accordingly, temporal affordances are defined as the potential ways in which the time-related possibilities and constraints associated with the material conditions and technological aspects of news production are manifested in the temporal characteristics of news narratives. After identifying six such affordances – immediacy, liveness, preparation time, transience, fixation in time, and extended retrievability – we examine manifestations of temporal affordances in different journalistic cultures over time, based on a content analysis of Israeli and US news narratives in different technological eras (from 1950 to 2013). The findings point to a consistent pattern of inter-media differences, in accordance with the distinct affordances of print and online news, alongside cross-cultural and cross-organizational variations in the use of these affordances. In addition, we detect complex patterns of stability and change in the use of temporal affordances in print media over time. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Social Distance Increases Perceived Physical Distance

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Stevenson Won ◽  
Ketaki Shriram ◽  
Diana I. Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Closeness ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
The Social

Proximity, or spatial closeness, can generate social closeness—the closer people are together, the more they interact, affiliate, and befriend one another. Mediated communication allows people to bridge spatial distance and can increase social closeness between conversational partners, even when they are separated by distance. However, mediated communication may not always make people feel closer together. Here, we test a hypothesis derived from construal theory, about one way in which mediated communication might increase spatial distance, by imposing social distance between two texting partners. In three studies, the social distance generated by a text conversation correlated with estimates of spatial distance. Conversations designed to generate social distance increased estimates of spatial distance. We discuss this relationship in light of the rise in computer-mediated communication.

Social Distance Between Prisoners and Prison Staff

2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (6) ◽  
pp. 706-724
Author(s):  
Gorazd Meško ◽  
Rok Hacin
Keyword(s):  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Prison Staff ◽  
Over Time

This article focuses on social distance and explores possible differences between factors that influence social distance in a variety of prison environments. Results from multiple regression analyses show that the perception of procedural justice and legitimacy of prison staff, the presence of violent subculture, and age are the best predictors of social distance. These findings highlight the unstable nature of social distance. Moreover, the presence of social distance varies over time and across different prison settings. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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