Mike Baynham, Literacy practices: Investigating literacy in social contexts. (Language in social life series.) London: Longman, 1995. Pp. xii, 283.

Background and Objectives: Social interactions involving personal disclosures are ubiquitous in social life and have important relational implications. A large body of research has documented positive outcomes from fruitful social interactions with amicable individuals, but less is known about how self-disclosing interactions with inimical interaction partners impacts individuals. Design and Methods: Participants engaged in an immersive social interaction task with a confederate (thought to be another participant) trained to behave amicably (Fast Friends) or inimically (Fast Foes). Cardiovascular responses were measured during the interaction and behavioral displays coded. Participants also reported on their subjective experiences of the interaction. Results: Participants assigned to interact in the Fast Foes condition reported more negative affect and threat appraisals, displayed more negative behaviors (i.e., agitation and anxiety), and exhibited physiological threat responses (and lower cardiac output in particular) compared to participants assigned to the Fast Friends condition. Conclusions: The novel paradigm demonstrates differential stress and affective outcomes between positive and negative self-disclosure situations across multiple channels, providing a more nuanced understanding of the processes associated with disclosing information about the self in social contexts.

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Generics in society

Language in Society ◽

10.1017/s0047404521000282 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 50 (4) ◽

pp. 517-532

Author(s):

Susan A. Gelman

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Social Life ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Anthropological Research ◽

Generic Language ◽

Contemporary Work ◽

Positive Functions ◽

Context Free

ABSTRACTThis article examines two interrelated issues: (i) how considering generics within their social contexts of use contributes to theories of generics, and (ii) how contemporary work on generics provides promising directions for the study of language as an aspect of social life. Examining the function of generics in meaningful interactions stands in contrast to standard treatments, which consider generics as isolated, context-free propositions. Additionally, recent psychological approaches suggest new questions that can enrich sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological research. These include, for example, when and why generics serve not just negative functions (such as stereotyping) but also positive functions (such as meaning-making), how generics gain their power from what is unstated as opposed to stated, and how generic language distorts academic writing. Ultimately, the study of language in society has the potential to enrich the study of generics beyond what has been learned from their study in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. (Generics, concepts, categories, stereotyping, induction)*

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Multimodal Literacy

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.232 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Kathy A. Mills ◽

Len Unsworth

Keyword(s):

Digital Media ◽

Literacy Practices ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Digital Images ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Mobile Technologies ◽

Language And Literacy ◽

Multimodal Literacy ◽

Multimodal Texts ◽

Making Meaning

Multimodal literacy is a term that originates in social semiotics, and refers to the study of language that combines two or more modes of meaning. The related term, multimodality, refers to the constitution of multiple modes in semiosis or meaning making. Modes are defined differently across schools of thought, and the classification of modes is somewhat contested. However, from a social semiotic approach, modes are the socially and culturally shaped resources or semiotic structure for making meaning. Specific examples of modes from a social semiotic perspective include speech, gesture, written language, music, mathematical notation, drawings, photographic images, or moving digital images. Language and literacy practices have always been multimodal, because communication requires attending to diverse kinds of meanings, whether of spoken or written words, visual images, gestures, posture, movement, sound, or silence. Yet, undeniably, the affordances of people-driven digital media and textual production have given rise to an exponential increase in the circulation of multimodal texts in networked digital environments. Multimodal text production has become a central part of everyday life for many people throughout the life course, and across cultures and societies. This has been enabled by the ease of producing and sharing digital images, music, video games, apps, and other digital media via the Internet and mobile technologies. The increasing significance of multimodal literacy for communication has led to a growing body of research and theory to address the differing potentials of modes and their intermodality for making meaning. The study of multimodal literacy learning in schools and society is an emergent field of research, which begins with the important recognition that reading and writing are rarely practiced as discrete skills, but are intimately connected to the use of multimodal texts, often in digital contexts of use. The implications of multimodal literacy for pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment in education is an expanding field of multimodal research. In addition, there is a growing attention to multimodal literacy practices that are practiced in informal social contexts, from early childhood to adolescence and adulthood, such as in homes, recreational sites, communities, and workplaces.

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Predicting the Future: Art and Algorithms

Socio-Economic Review ◽

10.1093/ser/mwaa040 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 893-911

Author(s):

Akos Rona-Tas

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

Consumer Credit ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Individual Level ◽

The Past ◽

Predictive Algorithms ◽

The Future ◽

The Usa ◽

The Individual ◽

Political Governance

Abstract Predictive algorithms are replacing the art of human judgement in rapidly growing areas of social life. By offering pattern recognition as forecast, predictive algorithms mechanically project the past onto the future, embracing a peculiar notion of time where the future is different in no radical way from the past and present, and a peculiar world where human agency is absent. Yet, prediction is about agency, we predict the future to change it. At the individual level, the psychological literature has concluded that in the realm of predictions, human judgement is inferior to algorithmic methods. At the sociological level, however, human judgement is often preferred over algorthms. We show how human and algorithmic predictions work in three social contexts—consumer credit, college admissions and criminal justice—and why people have good reasons to rely on human judgement. We argue that mechanical and overly successful local predictions can result in self-fulfilling prophecies and, eventually, global polarization and chaos. Finally, we look at algorithmic prediction as a form of societal and political governance and discuss how it is currently being constructed as a wide net of control by market processes in the USA and by government fiat in China.

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Editorial

Reading & Writing ◽

10.4102/rw.v1i1.1 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Editorial Office

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Social Life ◽

Literacy Practices ◽

Research Field ◽

Complex Dynamic ◽

Reading And Writing ◽

Critical Commentary

Welcome to the first issue of Reading and Writing: Journal of the Reading Association of South Africa. !is new journal aims to bring together research, field reports, discussion pieces and critical commentary that will contribute to our knowledge and understandings of reading and writing and that may help us to better grasp the complex, dynamic and changing nature of literacy practices in education and in contemporary social life.

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Samoan identity through music composition: The agony of asking

10.26686/wgtn.17139737.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Opeloge Ah Sam

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Social Life ◽

Music Composition ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Musical Composition ◽

Creative Work ◽

Creative Practice ◽

Professional Musician ◽

And Performance

<p>In this thesis, Samoan music and identity are woven together and expressed simultaneously through new composition, critical reflection, and performance. This thesis explores creative practice in both Samoa and New Zealand, and it engages with critical insights in order to produce a body of new creative work in music. Through these efforts, this thesis contributes a new original understanding for how to articulate Samoan identity in current musical composition. In Samoa, cultural practices exist alongside global influences. These are found in song, language, contemporary music and dance in a variety of social contexts, and it is in this space of crossing boundaries where I explore my own identity as a Samoan-born, New Zealand composer, and a broader Samoan communal identity. The two contexts of my journey in Samoa and New Zealand offer sustained influences on my compositions both as a professional musician and educator. They provide very different expectations and cultures that I have negotiated, and have formed the basis of my creative work in this thesis. Adapting the Pasifika-centred framework of Epeli Hau’ofa in “Our Sea of Islands” (1993), in this thesis I provide a personal blueprint for a Samoan interpretation of creative practice in music, based on close readings and interpretations of concepts in new music composition. Through this work I deconstruct my own colonial past to rise above cultural stereotypes, and instead move towards finding connections with local-based styles and values of music. In doing so, my creative output offers an original voice as a composer that is firmly based in Samoan realities, just as it extends to experiences and with a diversity of musical practices. Through my creative work I offer unique musical spaces and mediums that expresses my Samoan identity, in both music and culture. In this way, new composition is a means of navigating and negotiating musical creativity. As I have discovered, I am not the only one moving in and out of these contexts as a Samoan musician and composer. I have worked together, alongside other Samoan composers such as Natalia Mann (based in Queensland, Australia), Metitilani Alo (based in Dunedin, New Zealand), Igelese Ete (based in Fiji) and Maori artists such as Riqi Harawira (based in Kaitaia, New Zealand) and artist BJ Natanahira (based in Kaitaia) sharing ideas and engaging in discussions around process of creativity and identity. In creating our own musical voices, we also take control of the forms and shapes used to express our identities musically and culturally. As Thomas Turino points out in Music as Social Life (2008) this is about navigating and negotiating our identity according to the spaces we move within, and the music we associate with through composition and performance. This is that journey.</p>

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The 1970s and 2008: Theorizing Benchmark Dates for Today’s Decentred Global Order

International Studies ◽

10.1177/0020881718825076 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 1-27

Author(s):

Maximilian Terhalle

Keyword(s):

Financial Crisis ◽

International Relations ◽

Incubation Period ◽

Social Life ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Global Order ◽

2008 Financial Crisis ◽

The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽

International Social

Many Western and non-Western scholars consider the 2008 financial crisis a fundamental caesura, precipitating a decentred globalism. However, they have neither conceptualized the foundations of the dynamics that developed before this caesura nor have they theorized the amalgamating process which ultimately merged the hitherto overlooked and the formerly predominant Western forces and actors. Addressing this deficit, this article presents two innovations. First, it re-conceptualizes the 1970s by integrating two macro-developments: China’s deviation from patterns of the former Third World’s development and the thickening of liberal politico-economic institutions. Their relationship was complementary, but independent, since heterogeneous purposes drove these strands. Neither was disrupted by the end of bipolarity. Thereby, this article offers the first narrative of the years 1970–2008, viewing them as the incubation period of both strands’ simultaneous development before their fusion in ‘decentred globalism’. Consequently, the 1970s supersede International Relations (IR’s) hegemonic benchmark date of 1989–1991. Second, the article accounts for the merging of macro-developments. It argues that, despite regularities, international social life is characterized by heterogeneous purposes derived from different social contexts, reflecting an environment that operates in multidirectional ways. Large trends in the environment, such as those of the 1970s, may coincide at contingent points in time (e.g., 2008). Based on comprehensive reviews of distinct literatures, these two innovations emerge as the key building blocks for the development of a theory of benchmark dates for a ‘decentred’ global order.

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Introduction

Writing, Violence, and the Military ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198841623.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Niv Allon

Keyword(s):

Literacy Practices ◽

Group Formation ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Historical Background ◽

Literacy Studies ◽

New Literacy ◽

New Literacy Studies ◽

Eighteenth Dynasty ◽

The Social ◽

Main Figure

The introduction sets up the historical background and the methodological foundations of the book. It first describes the Eighteenth Dynasty in broad strokes and locates Haremhab, the main figure in this book, within this timeframe. Following the historical discussion, the introduction touches upon three main issues at the heart of the book’s methodology: literacy, self-representation, and group formation. Engaging with issues raised by scholars of New Literacy Studies, the book focuses on the social contexts in which literacy practices are used. Building on the works of Stephen Greenblatt and Bruno Latour, the chapter then begins to ask questions regarding the relationships between art, patron, and society.

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Olhares Acerca do Letramento Digital: Perspectivas da Prática

Revista de Ensino Educação e Ciências Humanas ◽

10.17921/2447-8733.2018v19n4p472-477 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 472

Author(s):

Zuleica Aparecida Cabral ◽

Mariele A. Mickalski

Keyword(s):

Digital Literacy ◽

Knowledge Construction ◽

Social Life ◽

New Technologies ◽

Literacy Practices ◽

Digital Technologies ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Daily Activities ◽

Reading And Writing ◽

De Se

A chegada das novas tecnologias e o aumento de informações advindos da globalização faz com que haja a necessidade de os indivíduos dominarem as tecnologias que se encontram presentes nas atividades cotidianas, seja no trabalho, na escola, na vida social. Para que isso seja possível, o ensino deve estar voltado para a promoção do letramento digital dos alunos, a fim de que eles saibam dominar e lidar com situações cotidianas, nas quais as novas tecnologias se encontram presentes. Neste norte se busca, neste trabalho, trazer as perspectivas de professores de línguas, atuantes na sala de aula, acerca do letramento digital a partir de uma pesquisa qualitativa. Isso porque se entende a relevância das tecnologias digitais no ambiente educacional, na utilização da leitura e da escrita para a autonomia e construção de saberes dos alunos. Portanto, para que os alunos saiam da escola cidadãos letrados digitalmente e capazes de se incluírem no vasto universo de tecnologias, em que se encontra a sociedade atualmente, faz-se necessário a inclusão de práticas de letramento digital na escola e na formação de jovens e adultos. Palavras-chave: Letramento Digital. Leitura/Escrita. Ensino de Línguas. AbstractThe arrival of new technologies and the increase of information coming from globalization makes it necessary for individuals to master the technologies that are present in daily activities, either it at work, at school or in social life. For this to be possible, teaching should be aimed at promoting pupils' digital literacy so that they are able to master and deal with everyday situations in which new technologies are present. Therefore, in this study it was sought to bring the perspectives of language teachers, acting in the classroom, about digital literacy from a qualitative research. This is because the relevance is understood of digital technologies in the educational environment, in the use of reading and writing for students' autonomy and knowledge construction. Therefore, in order for students to leave school digitally literate citizens capable of being included in the vast universe of technologies in which our society is today, it is necessary to include digital literacy practices in school and in the training of young people and adults. Keywords: Digital Literacy. Reading/Writing. Language Teaching.

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