Tiger Woods as a linguistic role model?

English Today ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-61
Author(s):  
Brian Poole
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
British English ◽  
The Media ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Tiger Woods

ABSTRACTInternational sports stars are often required to speak to the media after their performances. When Tiger Woods does so, it is noticeable that he makes use of the formulaic expression ‘I feel/felt like I’ as a means of introducing descriptions of, or generalizations about, his actions or motivations. Drawing on corpus data, this paper offers some observations about this expression in relation to its use by speakers (and to a lesser extent writers) of both American and British English, and also investigates the apparent disparity in frequency between instances of ‘she’ and ‘he’ when it is used.

Role with the Punches: The Construction and Representation of Amir Khan as a Role Model for Multiethnic Britain

2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Burdsey
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The Media ◽  
Silver Medal ◽  
London Bombings

This article examines the rapid rise to fame of teenage British Asian boxer Amir Khan following his silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games, and provides a critical discourse analysis of the way that he was subsequently constructed and represented by politicians and the media as a role model for multiethnic Britain. The analysis demonstrates that in the periods directly after both the 2004 Olympic Games and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the majority of discourses about, and representations of, Khan were inextricably related to contemporary debates around multiculturalism, national identity, and religious extremism and/or deviance amongst young British Muslim men. This article argues that despite the ostensibly positive portrayals of Khan as an individual, a broader, more critical reading of these texts uncovers how they actually reproduce the contradictions and problems inherent to New Labour's policies on citizenship, community cohesion, the ‘war on terror’ and ‘diversity management’. The article concludes that the almost ubiquitous configuration of Khan as a positive role model is in danger of obscuring the continued existence of discourses and practices of racism and social exclusion in contemporary Britain.

Thai People Don’t Get Hate Mail

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lane Demas
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Athletes ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Inner Cities ◽  
Minority Participation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Thai People ◽  
Tiger Woods

This chapter explores the decline of golf in America’s inner cities in the 1980s, subsequent efforts to increase minority participation, and the rise of Tiger Woods. Complicating the notion of Woods as a traditional, popular figure in sport desegregation, the narrative instead posits him as a reluctant civil rights hero, contextualizing his popularity and exploring why the media (and many golf fans) struggled to turn back the clock and fit Woods into the mold of historic black athletes. It was a process that future historians may consider a failure, not only because the traditional “civil rights era” was over but also because the young Woods himself asked not to be identified as “black” and instead told the world that he was “Cablinasian,” a term he coined to describe his multiracial heritage. The chapter features an analysis of Woods that draws on a comparison with other athletes, including lesser-known black golfers like Calvin Peete as well as superstars like basketball great Michael Jordan.

Temporal adverbials and the present perfect/past tense alternation

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Werner
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Phylogenetic Networks ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
British English ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
The Difference

Specification by certain temporal adverbials has been shown to be one of the typical triggers of the present perfect in British English. Often, however, L2 varieties display different patterns of temporal co-occurrence, especially using the simple past tense. This study is based on corpus data from twelve components of the International Corpus of English and analyzes the distribution between present perfect and past tense for a number of co-occurring temporal adverbials. In addition, it establishes three measures of similarity across the varieties (hierarchical cluster analysis, phylogenetic networks and a distribution-based measure). On the basis of 6 353 adverbials in total, this paper suggests (1) that there is a L1–L2 divide, (2) that the difference between “traditional” and “transplanted” L1 varieties is less pronounced, (3) that L2 varieties allow more variation, which indicates that in these varieties, the present perfect is partly used as a tense (sensu Quirk et al. 1985), and (4) that some temporal adverbials are less categorically attached to either present perfect or past tense than others. Finally, some conclusions with regard to the importance of geographical and socio-cultural proximity of certain varieties can be drawn.

The Use of Media Materials and Role Training Programs with Parents in India

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-150
Author(s):  
M.L. Mathur
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Model Analysis ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Direct Training ◽  
The Media ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Visually Impaired Children

This report examines, in the context of role-model analysis, why parents in India sometimes fail to assume appropriate roles in the rehabilitation of their visually impaired children. It describes the media—films, audiovisual materials, and literature—that are available to educate parents, and two direct training programs in rural villages which taught rehabilitation techniques to parents as well as to their children.

The Good and Bad of It All: Professional Black Male Basketball Players as Role Models for Young Black Male Basketball Players

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben A. Buford May
Keyword(s):  
Black Males ◽  
Social Learning Theory ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Basketball Players ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
The Media

It is a generally accepted belief, affirmed in the media, that professional Black male basketball players from the National Basketball Association serve as role models for young Black males. Very little empirical evidence, however, is available about how the young men think about these relationships. Using the concept of role model from social learning theory as a lens, I analyze interview data drawn from a convenience sample of 19 young Black men who participated in high school basketball to investigate the idea of “professional Black male basketball players as role models.” I find that young men do not necessarily accept the “good/bad” role-model dichotomy presented in the media, but rather, they are discerning in their acceptance and rejection of certain role-model attitudes and behaviors.

scholarly journals A Case Study: Mada Masr—A Progressive Voice in Egypt and Beyond

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Leihs
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
Online News ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
English Edition ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
News Outlet ◽  
Egyptian Government ◽  
Privately Owned

This article questions the role of the media in times of political transformation. In doing so, it draws on theories on the interconnectedness of the different fields of society to explain the sets of roles that media outlets and journalists adopt during phases of transition. Before 2011, the Egyptian media mostly acted as collaborators of the ruling regime and rarely as an agent of change. Journalists took over the latter role more often following the advent of privately-owned media outlets, thus helping to pave the way for the events of the so-called Arab Spring. This case study focuses on the development of the online news portal <em>Mada Masr</em> and therefore traces the development of two newsrooms. Starting as the English edition of a privately-owned Arabic newspaper in 2009 and changing its status to an independent news outlet in 2013, <em>Mada Masr</em> is one of the few voices which still openly criticise the Egyptian government. Founded in a time of political turmoil and struggling against an increasingly authoritarian environment, the outlet implements innovative ways of producing content, securing funding, and reaching out to its readers. A group of young Egyptian and international journalists make use of new spaces for expression that have opened through the global changes in communication infrastructure while struggling with frequent attacks by representatives of the ruling regime. As such, <em>Mada Masr</em> is a role model for small and regime-critical media outlets.

A corpus-driven description of when-adverbial in Nigerian and British Englishes

Glottotheory ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayowa Akinlotan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Structural Variation ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Distributional Analysis ◽  
British English ◽  
Functional Factors ◽  
New Varieties ◽  
Corpus Data

Abstract Syntactic alternation allows us to understand how structural variation, including crucial factors relevant to their meaning and interpretation, operates linguistic varieties. Empirical evidence from such syntactic alternation study can provide insights into how new varieties differ from the established ones. The present study aims at increasing contributions that show the nature of syntactic alternation from new Englishes such as Nigerian English, and how they differ from established varieties such as British English. Taking when adverbial construction in Nigerian English as a reference point (When Trump realised his reelection loss, he changed his political expectations versus Trump changed his political expectations when he realised his reelection loss), the study shows the extent to which previously tested factors influence the ordering of the construction and how they differ from findings reported in British English. Relying on corpus data, together with descriptive distributional analysis, the study shows that, unlike British English in which functional and cognitive factors strongly influence structural patterning, functional factors outweigh cognitive factors in Nigerian English.

The Digital Citizen

2008 ◽  
pp. 108-115
Author(s):  
Zizi Papacharissi
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

The objective of this article is to sketch out the profile of the digital citizen. The premise for this article rests upon utopian views that embrace new media technologies as democratizers of postindustrial society (e.g., Bell, 1981; Johnson & Kaye, 1998; Kling, 1996; Negroponte, 1998; Rheingold, 1993) and cautionary criticism that questions the substantial impact new media could have on reviving a dormant public sphere (e.g., Bimber & Davis, 2003; Davis, 1999; Hill & Hughes, 1998; Jankowski & van Selm, 2000; Jones, 1997; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Scheufele & Nisbet, 2002). Concurrently, declining participation in traditional forms of political involvement and growing public cynicism (e.g., Cappella & Jamieson, 1996, 1997; Fallows, 1996; Patterson, 1993, 1996) position the Internet and related technologies as vehicles through which political activity can be reinvented. Still, conflicting narratives on civic involvement, as articulated by the government, politicians, the media, and the public, create confusion about the place and role of the citizen in a digital age. The digital citizen profile, therefore, is defined by historical and cultural context, divided between expectation and skepticism regarding new media, and presents hope of resurrecting the public sphere and awakening a latent, postmodern political consciousness. This article outlines these conditions, reviews perceptions of the digital citizen, and proposes a digital citizen role model for the future.

The Complex History of Have Gotten in American English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Lieselotte Anderwald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Text Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data

This article challenges the accepted opinion that the American English perfect form HAVE gotten is a straightforward historical retention of an earlier British English form. Although HAVE gotten was presumably part of the settler input in North America, it (almost) died out in American English as well, but was then revived in the nineteenth century, as historical corpus data show. Contrary to expectations, this revival was not an innovation from below. Instead, the rise of HAVE gotten was promoted by careful writers who deliberately avoided the highly stigmatized stative HAVE got. This explains why perfect HAVE gotten appears in more formal text types first, and how it became specialized to dynamic contexts only. The morphological Americanism HAVE gotten is thus a curious case of an (unintended) side-effect of marginally successful prescriptivism.1

scholarly journals Sentence-initial I think (that) and I believe (that)

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dehé ◽  
Anne Wichmann
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
British English ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
The One

Sentence-initial pronoun-verb combinations such as I think, I believe are ambiguous between main clause use on the one hand and adverbial or discourse use on the other hand. We approach the topic from a prosodic perspective. Based on corpus data from spoken British English the prosodic patterns of sentence-initial I think and I believe are analysed and related to their interpretation in context. We show that these expressions may function as main clause (MC), comment clause (CC) or discourse markers (DM) and that the speaker’s choice is reflected in the prosody. The key feature is prosodic prominence: MCs are reflected by accent placement on the pronoun, CCs by an accent on the verb, while DMs are unstressed.

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