scholarly journals Euphemism in laxative TV commercials: at the crossroads between politeness and persuasion

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliecer Crespo-Fernández

Abstract Despite the stigma attached to human defecation and people’s reluctance to talk about it openly, there are certain communicative situations in which one cannot evade referring to the elimination of body wastes. This is the case of laxative TV commercials, a type of discourse focused on the infrequent or difficult evacuation of the bowels that constitutes a breeding ground for euphemism. In this regard, following a socially-oriented approach to discourse analysis, politeness theory, and cognitive linguistics, the purpose of this paper is to gain an insight into the way euphemism works in a sample of contemporary American TV commercials advertising laxatives. The analysis reveals that euphemism – mostly in the form of metonymy and understatement – and non-euphemistic metaphors and similes serve as face-saving mechanisms for the company’s self-presentational purposes and are ultimately used as part of a sales strategy aiming to attract the interest of viewers.

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio García-Gómez

The electronic swapping of sexually provocative images and texts, commonly known as sexting, seems to have become part and parcel of adolescents’ social lives. In spite of both media and policy attention, questions remain about the way(s) young women navigate sexual relationships and construct their gendered identity discursively by endorsing/challenging social and behavioural norms of sexual agency. Guided discussions involving 36 young women were conducted. The main of aim of this study was to gain insight into the characteristics of sexualised adolescent cyberculture by analysing their discourses about sexting, the effects on their lives and its implications. In this article, I argue that the discourse analysis of these young women’s own construction of their sexualised gender identity may throw light on the interrelationships between dominant purportedly sexualised culture and agency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
S.V. Tsymbal ◽  

The digital revolution has transformed the way people access information, communicate and learn. It is teachers' responsibility to set up environments and opportunities for deep learning experiences that can uncover and boost learners’ capacities. Twentyfirst century competences can be seen as necessary to navigate contemporary and future life, shaped by technology that changes workplaces and lifestyles. This study explores the concept of digital competence and provide insight into the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators.


Jurnal KATA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 356
Author(s):  
Saiko Rudi Kasenda

<p><em>This article is aimed to investigate face threathening acts and face saving acts demonstrated by Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as the candidates of DKI Jakarta governor during the debate held in April 2017. Face threatening act and face saving act are analyzed because they are able to show not only their positive image but also the negatve one in front of not only to each candidate but also to the audience watching the debate. Politeness theory from Brown and Levinson (1987.) are employed to analyze both candidates’ face threatening acts and saving acts since this theory provides detailed descriptions of a large range of strategies that can be used to deeply understand both face threatening acts and face saving act performed by the candidates. The context surrounding the debate becomes a crucial point to analyze how politeness strategy is applied to show face thratening act and face saving act. Through qualitative method, this study found that 1) Bald on-record is the strategy used by the candidates to show face threatening and they are intended to show contradictions, to disagree, to insult, to interrupt, to speak out-of-topic, to challenge, and to exaggerate. 2) Both candidates use positive and negative strategies to show face saving act intended to show contradictions, to assert common ground, to show agreement, to joke, to apologize, and to avoid disagreement. 3) The face threatening act and saving acts can be considered as the efforts to defend their argumentations and to preserve their positive faces, 4.) The use of the word “kita” and passive voice can be seen as markers in both candidates’ utterances to minimize the imposed face threatening act and to signal solidarity to each candidate and to audience, 5) While Anies is revealed to be the one who more frequently uses face threatening act, Basuki is the candidate who uses face saving act more often during the debate. The study is expected to enrich the study in the field of pragmatics focusing on the use of politeness strategy. </em></p><p> </p><p>Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menginvestigasi tindak pengancaman muka wajah dan tindak penyelamatan wajah yang ditunjukkan oleh Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama pada Debat Pilkada gubernur provinsi DKI Jakarta 2017.<strong> </strong>Tindak pengancaman wajah dan penyelamatan wajah diteliti pada makalah ini karena dapat merepresentasikan citra positif maupun citra negatif kandidat pilkada Gubernur DKI tidak hanya dihadapan masing-masing kandidat tetapi juga kepada masyarakat umum yang menyaksikan. Teori kesantunan dari Brown dan Levinson digunakan untuk menganalisis tindak pengancaman muka dan tindak penyelamatan muka kedua kandidat karena teori ini memiliki penjelasan yang komprehensif tentang berbagai strategi yang dapat dipergunakan untuk memahami secara mendalam bagaimana tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah ditunjukkan oleh kedua kandidiat. Konteks topik debat yang diangkat dipahami untuk dapat menganalisis tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah oleh Anies dan Basuki.  Melalui metode kualitatif, studi ini menemukan bahwa 1) Bald on-record adalah strategi yang sering digunakan untuk menunjukkan tindak pengancaman muka dan ditujukan untuk menyatakan kontradiksi, menyatakan ketidaksetujuan, menyinggung, menginterupsi, berbicara di luar topik pembicaraan, menantang kandidat lain, dan memberikan pernyataan yang berlebihan. 2) Tindak penyelamatan muka dilakukan dengan strategi kesantunan positif dan negatif seperti menyatakan kontradiksi, menegaskan common ground, memberikan persetujuan, membuat lelucon, meminta maaf, dan menghindari ketidaksetujuan. 3) Tindak pengancaman muka dan penyelamatan muka dapat dianggap sebagai cara untuk mempertahankan argumentasi kedua kandidat dan untuk melindungi wajah positif masing-masing.4) Penggunaan kata “kita” dan kalimat pasif dimaksudkan untuk meminmalisiri ancaman sekaligus sebagai sinya solidaritas.5) Anies ditunjukkan sebagai kandidat yang lebih sering menggunakan tindak pengancaman muka, sedangkan Basuki adalah kandidat yang lebih sering menunjukkan penyelamatan muka selama debat berlangsung. Studi ini diharapkan dapat memperkaya pemahaman di bidang pragmatik khususnya tentang penggunaan strategi kesantunan</p>


Author(s):  
Andrew Erskine

Plutarch wrote twenty-three Greek Lives in his series of Parallel Lives—of these, ten were devoted to Athenians. Since Plutarch shared the hostile view of democracy of Polybius and other Hellenistic Greeks, this Athenian preponderance could have been a problem for him. But Plutarch uses these men’s handling of the democracy and especially the demos as a way of gaining insight into the character and capability of his protagonists. This chapter reviews Plutarch’s attitude to Athenian democracy and examines the way a statesman’s character is illuminated by his interaction with the demos. It also considers what it was about Phocion that so appealed to Plutarch, first by looking at his relationship with the democracy and then at the way he evokes the memory of Socrates. For him this was not a minor figure, but a man whose life was representative of the problems of Athenian democracy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
JOHN GLUCKMAN

I provide a syntactic analysis of the take-time construction (It took an hour to complete the test). The investigation provides insight into well-known issues concerning the related tough-construction. Using a battery of standard syntactic diagnostics, I conclude that the take-time construction and the tough-construction require a predication analysis of the antecedent-gap chain, not a movement analysis. I also conclude that the nonfinite clause is in a modificational relationship with the main clause predicate, not a selectional relationship. Broadly, this study expands the class of tough-constructions, illustrating crucial variation among predicates, and pointing the way to a unified analysis. The investigation also reveals undiscussed aspects of English syntax, including the fact that English has a high applicative position.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 207-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALLAN O'CONNOR ◽  
JOSE M. RAMOS

This study explores how education and development in the skills and knowledge of foresight, innovation and enterprise (FI and E) relate to the empowerment of young individuals with respect to creating a new venture. In 2003, three groups of young persons aged between 13 and 18 years participated in a program designed for empowerment. An evaluation was conducted nine months later that provided useful insight into the impact of the education design, content and delivery. This research provides deeper insight into the way FI and E education can be used to create empowerment through the derivation of a framework that addresses entry, process and agency factors.


2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingela Berggren ◽  
Elisabeth Severinsson

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of clinical supervision on nurse’ moral decision making. The sample consisted of 15 registered nurses who took part in clinical supervision sessions. Data were obtained from interviews and analysed by a hermeneutic transformative process. The hermeneutic interpretation revealed four themes: increased self-assurance, an increased ability to support the patient, an increased ability to be in a relationship with the patient, and an increased ability to take responsibility. In conclusion, it seems that clinical supervision enhances nurse’ ability to provide care on the basis of their decision making. However, the qualitative and structural aspects of clinical supervision have to be investigated further in order to develop professional insight into the way that nurses think and react.


2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1522) ◽  
pp. 1475-1480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douwe Draaisma

In their landmark papers, both Kanner and Asperger employed a series of case histories to shape clinical insight into autistic disorders. This way of introducing, assessing and representing disorders has disappeared from today's psychiatric practice, yet it offers a convincing model of the way stereotypes may build up as a result of representations of autism. Considering that much of what society at large learns on disorders on the autism spectrum is produced by representations of autism in novels, TV-series, movies or autobiographies, it will be of vital importance to scrutinize these representations and to check whether or not they are, in fact, misrepresenting autism. In quite a few cases, media representations of talent and special abilities can be said to have contributed to a harmful divergence between the general image of autism and the clinical reality of the autistic condition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Mustafa Menshawy

Abstract In this article, I examine a corpus of texts that address the 1973 war; these texts cover the period from 1981 to 2011, marking the beginning and end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how Mubarak’s regime employed the war to legitimize its power and defend its policies by deploying longstanding culturally-embedded ‘macro themes’. These macro themes refer to the war as an overwhelming and undisputed ‘Egyptian victory’ and, more significantly, they portray Mubarak himself as ‘war personified/war personalized’. The analysis of linguistic and extra-linguistic features in al-Ahram newspaper (the mouthpiece of the state), among other media texts on the war, show how the discursive construction was made consistent, coherent and resonant in a managed context that characterized the political and media landscapes. Depending on unique access to those who produced, edited and even censored the texts under analysis, this method unravels a complex set of cultural messages and conventions about the war, and fills a lacuna in the literature by offering insight into the deliberate and well-coordinated process of shaping and reshaping a specific discourse for a specific purpose.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 24-40
Author(s):  
Shuv Raj Rana Bhat

Partly drawing on postcolonial rhetorics and partly drawing insights from critical stylistics and critical discourse analysis, this paper basically explores how Antigua-born-American writer Jamaica Kincaid rhetorically constructs Nepal in a disguised form of a travel writer through her travel narrative Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya. Even though Kincaid is best known as an anti-imperialist, the way she longs for the Garden of Eden and represents Nepali landscape, people, and culture posits that her travel to Nepal is threaded with the rhetoric of Othering, metropolitan culture, and imperial politics. In particular, she looks at the travelled places and people with an imperial eye: nomination, surveillance, negation, debasement, and binary rhetoric.


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