TED Talks as an instrument of learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 132-143
Author(s):  
Helen Symons
Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (32) ◽  
pp. eaba2196
Author(s):  
Ryan L. Boyd ◽  
Kate G. Blackburn ◽  
James W. Pennebaker

Scholars across disciplines have long debated the existence of a common structure that underlies narratives. Using computer-based language analysis methods, several structural and psychological categories of language were measured across ~40,000 traditional narratives (e.g., novels and movie scripts) and ~20,000 nontraditional narratives (science reporting in newspaper articles, TED talks, and Supreme Court opinions). Across traditional narratives, a consistent underlying story structure emerged that revealed three primary processes: staging, plot progression, and cognitive tension. No evidence emerged to indicate that adherence to normative story structures was related to the popularity of the story. Last, analysis of fact-driven texts revealed structures that differed from story-based narratives.


RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822097931
Author(s):  
Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov ◽  
Shoaziz Sharakhimov

In addition to movies, television programs, and TED Talks presentations, podcasts are an increasingly popular form of media that promotes authentic public discourse for diverse audiences, including university professors and students. However, English language teachers in the English as a second language/English as a foreign language contexts might wonder: “How do I know that my students can handle the vocabulary demands of podcasts?” To answer that question, we have analyzed a 1,137,163-word corpus comprising transcripts from 170 podcast episodes derived from the following popular podcasts: Freakonomics; Fresh Air; Invisibilia; Hidden Brain; How I Built This; Radiolab; TED Radio Hour; This American Life; and Today Explained. The results showed that knowledge about the most frequent 3000 word families plus proper nouns (PN), marginal words (MW), transparent compounds (TC), and acronyms (AC) provided 96.75% coverage, and knowledge about the most frequent 5000 word families, including PN, MW, TC, and AC provided 98.26% coverage. The analysis also showed that there is some variation in coverage among podcast types. The pedagogical implications for teaching and learning vocabulary via podcasts are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-103
Author(s):  
David Bradley
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Moro ◽  
Samita Nandy ◽  
Kiera Obbard ◽  
Andrew Zolides

Using celebrity narratives as a starting point, this Special Issue explores the social significance of storytelling for social change. It builds on the 8th Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies conference, which brought together scholars and media practitioners to explore how narratives inspired by the lives of celebrities, public intellectuals, critics and activists offer useful rhetorical tools to better understand dominant ideologies. This editorial further problematizes what it means to be a popular ‘storyteller’ using the critical lens of celebrity activism and life-writing. Throughout the issue, contributors analyse the politics of representation at play within a wide range of glamourous narratives, including documentaries, memoirs, TED talks, stand-up performances and award acceptance speeches in Hollywood and beyond. The studies show how we can strategically use aesthetic communication to shape identity politics in public personas and bring urgent social change in an image-driven celebrity culture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Francesco Pierini

TED is a non-profit global platform where conferences and speeches—brief but powerful—are held by people who, based on the TED’s motto, have an idea considered to be worth spreading. TED is often regarded as one of the best examples of positive globalization in its activity of knowledge-sharing and it defines itself as “a global community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world” (Note 1). As Heller (2012) said, TED’s talks are “sophisticated, popular, lucrative, socially conscious, and wildly pervasive—the Holy Grail of digital-age production”. However, in some recent newspaper articles TED’s approach to the dissemination of science has been criticized because considered simplistic, trivial and even biased (Bratton, 2013; Robbins, 2012). Notwithstanding, current studies in TED’s approach to scientific popularisation show that science is directly brought into contact with people, without any mediation (Scotto di Carlo, 2014a). The aim of this paper is to examine how a discipline such as positive psychology is represented in some successful speeches delivered by specialists at TED events. I will focus on the main linguistic and extra-linguistic strategies—such as non-verbal elements—used by experts and academics to convey specialized knowledge to lay people by using the main tools offered by discourse analysis. This will help to clarify whether this process of knowledge-dissemination established by this hybrid genre, is an effective mode of construing, representing and transmitting scientific information.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document