Degrees of Anthropocentrism in Accounts of Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai Kuha
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Vehicle Collisions ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Land Vehicles ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractAn investigation of language use in news stories about collisions involving vehicles and nonhuman animals in the wild reveals that reports of bird-airplane collisions tend to focus on the safety of the humans involved, even to the point of constructing the bird as a projectile, rather than a victim. Reports of land vehicles and boats colliding with larger nonhuman animals tend to demonstrate a greater concern for nonhuman participants, attributing greater responsibility to humans for the collisions, although they are more dangerous to humans. Although similar patterns are found in news reports in several languages and in several English-speaking countries, anthropocentrism alone does not fully explain the patterns in journalists’ choice of expressions and structures in these news stories.

Perceptions of Palestine: The View from Large Linguistic Datasets

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Terry Regier
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
General Theme ◽  
English Usage ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World

Cultural norms and trends are often reflected in patterns of language use. This article explores cultural perceptions of Palestine and Palestinians in the English-speaking world, through two analyses of large linguistic datasets. The first analysis seeks to uncover current conceptions of participants in the Israel-Palestine conflict, by identifying words that are distinctively associated with those participants in modern English usage. The second analysis asks what historical-cultural changes led to these current conceptions. A general theme that emerges from these analyses is that a cultural shift appears to have occurred recently in the English-speaking world, marked by greater awareness of Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. Possible causes for such a cultural shift are also explored.

Encoding polysemy in the news

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110459
Author(s):  
Lillian Boxman-Shabtai
Keyword(s):  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Media Audience

Although media-audience encounters are always potentially open to different interpretations, little is known about the textual mechanisms that encourage polysemy. Focusing on a story about a CEO who pledged to drastically cut his pay to increase his employees’ salaries, this study compared news reports that covered the same event but were met by different levels of polysemy in their reception. Through a combination of frame and semiotic analysis, the study pinpoints differences in content and style between news stories that were met by interpretive convergence from audiences (low polysemy) and those that were met by interpretive divergence (high polysemy). Based on these differences, a typology of three textual mechanisms is offered to explain the range of polysemy in the news: the attributes and representation of characters, the use of empiricism versus mythology in structuring conflict, and the level of closure versus uncertainty in the story’s conclusion.

Linguistic Diversity in India’s Polity and Economy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma K. Sonntag
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Economic Liberalization ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Electoral Participation ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Linguistic Dimension ◽  
Regional Languages

This chapter examines the linguistic dimension of the tension between India’s democratic politics and its liberalized economy. I argue that there is a divergence between languages used in the polity and languages used in the economy. In the polity, characterized by a semblance of empowerment through the electoral participation of the weaker sections of society, vernacular languages predominate. In contrast, the language of the economy in India, particularly since economic liberalization in 1991, tends to be English. It is in the economy that India’s class and caste chasm manifests itself linguistically: between the English-speaking elite and the vernacular-speaking masses. While the noted Indian economist, Deepak Nayyar, warns of an impending clash between the democratically empowered masses and the economically privileged elite, I suggest that in terms of language use India’s robust democracy may well trump market forces. And while linguists have warned that English as the language of the globalized marketplace can have dire consequences for linguistic diversity, I argue that India’s linguistic diversity, at least in terms of its major regional languages, remains impressive. In the case of India, I conclude, the spread of the language of globalization, English, as the language of the economy, is mediated by the languages used in India’s vibrant democracy.

Spiritualism and the Resurgence of Fake News

2020 ◽  
pp. 222-237
Author(s):  
Kristy A. Hesketh
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The World ◽  
Spirit World ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
False News

This chapter explores the Spiritualist movement and its rapid growth due to the formation of mass media and compares these events with the current rise of fake news in the mass media. The technology of cheaper publications created a media platform that featured stories about Spiritualist mediums and communications with the spirit world. These articles were published in newspapers next to regular news creating a blurred line between real and hoax news stories. Laws were later created to address instances of fraud that occurred in the medium industry. Today, social media platforms provide a similar vessel for the spread of fake news. Online fake news is published alongside legitimate news reports leaving readers unable to differentiate between real and fake articles. Around the world countries are actioning initiatives to address the proliferation of false news to prevent the spread of misinformation. This chapter compares the parallels between these events, how hoaxes and fake news begin and spread, and examines the measures governments are taking to curb the growth of misinformation.

Infanticide in 19th-Century England

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolá Goc
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Fallen Woman ◽  
News Stories ◽  
News Reports ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
The Times ◽  
History Of Journalism ◽  
Insight Into

Throughout the history of journalism the notion of a mother killing her infant child—committing an act of infanticide—has always been high on the news values scale. In the 19th century, sensational news reports of illicit sexual liaisons, of childbirth and grisly murder, appeared regularly in the press, naming and shaming transgressive unmarried women and framing them as a danger to society. These lurid stories were published in broadsheets and the popular press as well as in respectable newspapers, including the most influential English newspaper of the century, The Times of London. In 19th-century England, The Times played a powerful role in influencing public opinion on the issue of infanticide using lurid reports of infanticide trials and coronial inquests as evidence in stirring editorials as part of their political campaign to reform the 1834 New Poor Law and repeal its pernicious Bastardy Clause, which had led to a large increase in rates of infanticide. News texts, because of their ability to capture one view of a society at a given moment in time, are a valuable historical resource and can also provide insight into journalism practices and the creation of public opinion. Infanticide court and coronial news reports provided details of the desperate murderous actions of young women and also furnished potent evidence of legal and government policy failures. The use of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in studying infanticide reports in The Times provides insight into the ways in which infanticide news stories worked as ideological texts and how journalists created understandings about illegitimacy, the “fallen woman,” infanticide, social injustice, and discriminatory gendered laws through news discourse.

scholarly journals Death is common, so is understanding it: the concept of death in other species

Synthese ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Monsó ◽  
Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Learning Pathways ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Nonhuman Species

Abstract Comparative thanatologists study the responses to the dead and the dying in nonhuman animals. Despite the wide variety of thanatological behaviours that have been documented in several different species, comparative thanatologists assume that the concept of death (CoD) is very difficult to acquire and will be a rare cognitive feat once we move past the human species. In this paper, we argue that this assumption is based on two forms of anthropocentrism: (1) an intellectual anthropocentrism, which leads to an over-intellectualisation of the CoD, and (2) an emotional anthropocentrism, which yields an excessive focus on grief as a reaction to death. Contrary to what these two forms of anthropocentrism suggest, we argue that the CoD requires relatively little cognitive complexity and that it can emerge independently from mourning behaviour. Moreover, if we turn towards the natural world, we can see that the minimal cognitive requirements for a CoD are in fact met by many nonhuman species and there are multiple learning pathways and opportunities for animals in the wild to develop a CoD. This allows us to conclude that the CoD will be relatively easy to acquire and, so, we can expect it to be fairly common in nature.

Birding, Citizen Science, and Wildlife Conservation in Sociological Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Cherry
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Science Projects ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
In The Wild

Abstract Sociological research on wildlife typically looks at how nonhuman animals in the wild are hunted, poached, or captured for entertainment, or how they play a symbolic role in people’s lives. Within sociology, little research exists on how people appreciate nonhuman animals in the wild, and how people contribute to wildlife conservation. I explore birding-related citizen science projects in the US. Citizen science refers to scientific projects carried out by amateurs. Literature on citizen science focuses on the perspective of professional scientists, with the assumption that only professional scientists are concerned with the quality of data from citizen science projects. The research showed birders share this skepticism, but they still find satisfaction in participating in citizen science projects. This paper contributes to sociological understandings of wildlife conservation by showing how birders’ participation in citizen science projects helps professional scientists study environmental problems such as climate change and its effects on wildlife.

Researching Language and Gender: A Critical Review

2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
D. Vasanta
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Language Use ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
Indian Context ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Gender ◽  
English Speaking World

This article provides a review of some of the major language and gender studies reported pri marily in the English-speaking world during the past three decades. After pointing to the inade quacies of formal linguistic and sociocultural approaches in examining the complex ways in which gender interacts with language use, an alternative theoretical paradigm that gives impor tance to the sociohistorical and political forces residing in the meanings of the resources as well as social identity of the speaker who aims to use those meanings is described. The implications of this shiff from sociocultural to sociohistorical approaches in researching language and gender in the Indian context are discussed in this article.

scholarly journals A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of Pre-2019 General Elections Reports in Selected Nigerian Newspapers

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 142-147
Author(s):  
Samuel Oyeyemi Agbeleoba ◽  
Edward Owusu ◽  
Asuamah Adade-Yeboah
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
News Reports ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Negative Perceptions ◽  
Language Corpus ◽  
Different Levels

Generally, language experts believe that there are inherent ideologies in language use. The aspect of discourse study that discloses such ideologies is known as Critical Discourse Study (CDA). This paper seeks to exhume the various inherent ideologies that presuppose selected news reports on the Nigeria’s 2019 General Elections in Nigerian newspapers. This study is, however, corpus-based. Scholars have established that discourse is a kind of constructively conditioned public exercise. They believe that power relations exist at different levels of daily social interaction; revealing superiority or inferiority of interlocutors involved. News reports relating to the General Elections were electronically collated from the various newspaper platforms for a sizable language corpus. The name Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was selected and analysed purposively with the aid of Digital Humanities (DH) tool to observe the frequency of the acronym INEC and the textual context in which it occurs in five newspapers’ reports about the electoral body via the authority it gives; the warning it issues, and the appeal it makes to the stakeholders. The paper finds out that the negative perceptions of many observers about the elections have actually been predicted by the various reports in the newspapers, prior to the elections. The paper concludes that reporters of news items do not account for issues concerning electoral body with the same constructive and destructive dispositions; and this gives room for subjectivity and prejudice.

scholarly journals Event Perception and Memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Zacks
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Event Perception ◽  
Common Coding ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Computer Science Research ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Event Representations

Events make up much of our lived experience, and the perceptual mechanisms that represent events in experience have pervasive effects on action control, language use, and remembering. Event representations in both perception and memory have rich internal structure and connections one to another, and both are heavily informed by knowledge accumulated from previous experiences. Event perception and memory have been identified with specific computational and neural mechanisms, which show protracted development in childhood and are affected by language use, expertise, and brain disorders and injuries. Current theoretical approaches focus on the mechanisms by which events are segmented from ongoing experience, and emphasize the common coding of events for perception, action, and memory. Abetted by developments in eye-tracking, neuroimaging, and computer science, research on event perception and memory is moving from small-scale laboratory analogs to the complexity of events in the wild.

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