Introduction

Author(s):  
Hannah Kosstrin

The Introduction establishes Anna Sokolow’s choreography among revolutionary spectatorial currents of the 1930s international Left as it aligned with Jewish peoplehood and shows how these values remained present through Sokolow’s career. It positions Sokolow’s choreography within leftist transnationalism; it methodologically renders her dancing body from archival evidence through discourse analysis to ground the book’s discussion; and it defines Jewish cultural and aesthetic elements in Sokolow’s work to explain how her dances’ Jewish signifiers engendered their meaning-making processes. Arguing that Ashkenazi Jewishness undergirds Sokolow’s choreography, the Introduction shows how communism, revolutionary modernism, gender presentation, and social action in Sokolow’s dances were part of Sokolow’s milieu as a member of the “second generation” of American Ashkenazi Jews. Sokolow’s professional arc from Martha Graham dancer and proletarian choreographer to established midcentury modernist dancemaker reflects the assimilation of her generation from the marginalized working class to the American mainstream.

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siân M Beynon-Jones

In this paper, I highlight key differences between a discourse analytic approach to women’s accounts of abortion and that taken by the growing body of research that seeks to explore and measure women’s experiences of abortion stigma. Drawing on critical analyses of the conceptualisation of stigma in other fields of healthcare, I suggest that research on abortion stigma often risks reifying it by failing to consider how identities are continually re-negotiated through language-use. In contrast, by attending to language as a form of social action, discursive psychology makes it possible to emphasise speakers’ capacity to construct “untroubled” (i.e. non-stigmatised) identities, while acknowledging that this process is constrained by the contexts in which talk takes place. My analysis applies these insights to interviews with women concerning their experiences of having an abortion in England. I highlight three forms of discursive work through which women navigate “trouble” in their accounts of abortion, and critically consider the resources available for meaning-making within this particular context of talk. In doing so, I aim to provoke reflection about the discursive frameworks through which women’s accounts of abortion are solicited and explored.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.P. Busygina

Co-experiencing psychotherapy of F. Vasilyuk is considered in the context of the linguistic turn in social sciences in the second half of the twentieth century. The linguistic turn meant the change of research style under the influence of increased attention to everyday language. Language is viewed as a form of social action not so much representing reality as constructing it. The linguistic turn in psychology has led to the development of such theoretical and methodological approaches as discursive psychology, narrative psychology, narrative psychotherapy and to the development of such language-oriented methodologies as discourse analysis, narrative analysis, conversation analysis. The main idea of the article is that co-experiencing psychotherapy is a successor of this movement and contributes greatly to the development of language-oriented methodologies in psychology and psychotherapy. It is argued that in co-experiencing psychotherapy the unique methodology of discourse analysis has been proposed and much attention is paid to meaning-making and sense-making processes by means of everyday language. The paper also offers a new interpretation of lifeworlds as stylistics of narrative contemplation of experience. Based on the conversation analysis of training and counseling sessions held by F. Vasilyuk it is argued that the empathetic counseling strategy created in co-experiencing psychotherapy involves repeated reformulations of client statements which open up possibilities for changing the scale of an individual’s experiencing by means of employing the aesthetics of different genres.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef

This qualitative study examined multimodal cohesive devices in English oral biology texts by eight high-achieving Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science Dentistry program. A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of the textual and logical cohesive devices in oral biology texts was conducted, employing Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion analysis scheme. The findings showed that students used varied cohesive devices: lexical cohesion, followed by reference and conjunctions. Although ellipsis was minimally employed in the oral biology texts, its discipline-specific uses emerged: the use of bullet points and numbered lists that facilitate recall. The SF-MDA of cohesion in multimodal semiotic resources highlighted the processes underlying construction of conceptual and linguistic knowledge of cohesive devices in oral biology texts. The results indicate that oral biology discourse is interdisciplinary, including a number of subfields in biology. The SF-MDA of pictorial oral biology representations indicates that they include instances of cohesive devices that illustrate and complement verbal texts. The results indicate that undergraduate students need to be provided with a variety of multimodal high-cohesion texts so that they can successfully extend underlying conceptual and logical meaning-making relations.


Author(s):  
Nur Nabilah Abdullah ◽  
◽  
Rafidah Sahar ◽  

Intercultural communication refers to interaction between speakers of different backgrounds, such as different linguistic and cultural origins (Kim 2001). Interaction in face-to face situations has demonstrated that spoken language involves both verbal and semiotic resources for social action. Semiotic resources that include use of talk, gestures, eye gaze and other nonverbal cues can convey semantic content and can become a crucial point in conversation (Hazel et al. 2014). Drawing on a Aonversation Analysis (CA) approach, we explore how participants employed semiotic resources in word searches activities in an intercultural context. Word searches are moments in interaction when a speaker’s turn is temporarily ceased as the speaker displays difficulty in searching for appropriate linguistic items so as to formulate the talk (Schegloff et al. 1977; Kurhila 2006). In this study, naturally occurring interactions in a multilingual setting were video recorded. The participants were Asian university students with different language backgrounds. The findings suggest that multilingual participants mutually collaborate by utilizing verbal affordances, gaze, gesture and other nonverbal cues as useful semiotic resources in the meaning-making process, and thus resolving word search impediments to facilitate intercultural interaction.


Author(s):  
Leena Kuure ◽  
Maritta Riekki ◽  
Riikka Tumelius

Nexus analysis is becoming increasingly employed in a variety of research fields. It is seen to be particularly suited to exploring complex and changing phenomena. It entails a mediated discourse perspective to social action and interaction. In discourse studies, this involves switching the perspective from language to social semiotic meaning making in its full spectrum not only here and now but at the same time reaching across more distant spatial and temporal orientations. As the tradition of nexus analysis is still young there are no established interpretations of how to conduct research with an interest in such complexities in flux. This paper presents a review of studies in which nexus analysis or mediated discourse analysis has been applied in research related to language pedagogy and language teacher education. The review shows how research in the field is in emergence and the interpretations concerning the theoretical-methodological underpinnings vary to some extent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rana Saba Sultan ◽  
Nadil Shah ◽  
Ambreen Fazal

Gender became the attention of contemporary scholarships when women were found in domestic issues as well as gender inequality in terms of job opportunities, education, health, political participation etc. Many studies have been carried out regarding women issues and provided policies and laws to provide opportunities for women to contribute in the society. So, gender presentation in school textbooks is newly emerging field of study in the academia. The present study focuses on women presentation in school textbooks of Balochistan. The English Books for Class I, to V were taken as sample for present study. These books were selected through purposive sampling. All conversations, texts and images related to women misrepresentation were taken from selected books. These data were analysed by the help of Michal Foucault’s theory of power/Knowledge and Discourse Analysis and also Cultural Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci. The findings of the present study suggest that textbooks of Balochistan are clearly misrepresenting women and promoting the male hegemony. The women are shown in domestic works and teaching jobs which are considered soft works. On the other hand, men are shown in school administrations, public domains, ownerships and in those jobs which need more power and energy. So, it is clear that schools textbooks promote the gender biased approach because men are shown in powerful, prestigious, well reputed and respectable jobs and women are shown in less respected and less valued positions.


Author(s):  
Ritu Radhakrishnan

This chapter addresses the ways in which aesthetic practices provide educators at all levels and across disciplines with practical tools for enhancing critical literacy in pursuit of responsible citizenship. Engaging with aesthetics allows students to create meaning-making experiences and explore their own thinking about a topic and provides students with an opportunity to create meaningful experiences to address social action. Sharing of these processes and creations is often less polarizing than dialogues or debates and allows for inclusion of students with multiple modalities and talents. This curricular approach is more than simply creating an arts-integrated curriculum. Students should be creating, critiquing, and engaging with various forms of aesthetics (e.g. visual, drama, dance, music, etc.).


Author(s):  
Patricia Goodman

In this information age, people are able to secure information, search for answers, and make informed decisions. Nonetheless, organizations are challenged to develop strong cultures and be agile to change. This paper initiates the exploration into organizational culture and the impact of employees' work culture. The focus is on working-class and societies having experienced social traumas and political changes, which ultimately formulate shared mental models and translate into work culture. By examining various societal scenes, questions are posed to deconstruct the impact of politics on workers and their work ethic. These scenes illustrate interactions and perspectives, which describe shared values by employees defined as work culture. Multiple levels of inquiry are presented to encourage further investigation into this possible opposing cultural dynamic within organizations. Suggestions of storytelling and meaning making are offered to support leaders in being strategic through staff development and organizational learning.


Author(s):  
Jeremiah H. Kalir ◽  
Francisco Perez

This case study examines educator learning as mediated by open web annotation among sociopolitical texts and contexts. The chapter introduces annotation practices and conceptualizes intertextuality to describe how open web annotation creates dialogic spaces which gather together people and texts, coordinates meaning-making, and encourages political agency. This perspective on texts-as-contexts is used to present and analyze educator participation in the Marginal Syllabus, a social design experiment that leverages open web annotation to foster conversation about educational equity. One conversation from the Marginal Syllabus is analyzed using mixed method approaches to data collection, analysis, and the presentation of findings. Learning analytics and discourse analysis detail how open web annotation mediated educator participation among sociopolitical texts and contexts of professional relevance. The chapter concludes by discussing open web annotation as a means of coordinating educator participation in public conversations about sociopolitical issues related to educational equity.


Author(s):  
Lee Sherlock

This chapter examines the construction of serious game genre frameworks from a rhetorical perspective. The author argues that to understand the forms of persuasion, learning, and social action that serious games facilitate, perspectives on genre must be developed and applied that situate serious gaming activity within larger systems of discourse, meaning-making, and text circulation. The current disconnect between popular understandings of serious game genres and those expressed by serious game developers represents one instance where rhetorical genre studies can be applied to generate knowledge about the “genre work” that serious games perform. Advocating a notion of genre that seeks to identify forms of social action and the persuasive possibility spaces of gaming, the author concludes by synthesizing digital game-based formulations of genre with perspectives from rhetorical theory to suggest implications for serious game research and design.


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