scholarly journals TED Talks: A genre analysis

Revista X ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1552
Author(s):  
José Augusto Simões de Miranda ◽  
Maria Ester Wollstein Moritz
Keyword(s):  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Diverse Audience ◽  
Ted Talks ◽  
Speaker Presentation ◽  
The Way

This research aims at investigating TED Talks as a genre. The analysis focuses on its rhetorical structure, characterized by moves and steps and the communicative purposes of the genre. The corpus comprises 10 talks selected from the website TED Talks. The data are discussed in the light of Bhatia’s (1996/2004) and Swales’ (1990/2004) theories of genre. Results demonstrate that, in terms of the analysis of the rhetorical structure, it reveals a constant pattern of moves and steps along the corpus, since every talk contained the five moves identified by the analysis. These cyclical and more frequent moves are: topic introduction, speaker presentation, topic development, concluding messages, and acknowledgments/gratitude. In terms of its communicative purpose, TED aims to celebrate ideas to a diverse audience worldwide, due to the variety of topics encompassed. This study also allowed us to develop a deeper view of this spoken genre, its features, and the way individuals may benefit from it in their lives.

scholarly journals Move Analysis of Legal Justifications in Constitutional Tribunal Judgments in Poland: What They Share and What They Do Not

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislaw Gozdz-Roszkowski
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Constitutional Tribunal ◽  
The Way

Abstract It appears that we know surprisingly little about how judges frame linguistically the rationale behind their decisions and how such texts are structured. Using the concept of rhetorical moves (Swales in Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; Bhatia in Analyzing genre-language use in professional settings, Longman, London, 1993, Worlds of written discourse. A genre-based view, Continuum, London, 2004), this paper adopts a genre-based approach to examine the rhetorical structure of legal justifications provided in the decisions of the Polish Constitutional Court (Trybunał Konstytucyjny). The goal of the study is to verify the claim that the way justifications are drafted is becoming more and more uniform and conventional. The results show that there is a common core of rhetorical structure realized by means of recurrent functional segments of text. This paper proposes a prototypical move structure of a Constitutional Tribunal justification and it argues that that the way justifications are drafted are subject to very concrete, even if not explicitly stated constraints.

Concessive constructions in English business letter discourse

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Vergaro
Keyword(s):  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Traditional Grammar ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of the pragmatic use of concessive constructions in business letter discourse. In linguistics, concession has been analyzed primarily within concessive clauses, which have been widely studied, either alone or compared with other syntactic categories such as adversative, causal, or conditional clauses. The term ‘concessive’ itself belongs to the terminology developed within traditional grammar to classify adverbials and adverbial clauses. Heretofore, less attention has been paid to the pragmatic use of concession, i.e., the way in which concessive constructions strategically function within a specific context. The context under analysis in this paper is that of the ‘business letter’ genre. Analysis of a corpus of English business letters shows that concessive constructions are used in this genre both for propositional (or ideational) and procedural (or interpersonal) reasons. This paper considers only the second to be truly pragmatic. Preference for the first or second strategy depends on the text types belonging to the genre. When procedural reasons prevail, concession is mostly introduced for politeness reasons, politeness being one of the factors constantly at play in business exchanges.

Styles of Sincerity

Enthusiasm ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 142-173
Author(s):  
Monique Scheer
Keyword(s):  
Social Processes ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Emotional Norms ◽  
Ted Talks ◽  
The Way ◽  
A Performance

Chapter 4 deals with whether emotions are real in the sense of “genuine,” drawing on historical and ethnographic material to discuss social processes of assessing sincerity. The way enthusiasm is performed plays a role in whether it is perceived as sincere (and thus believable), which in turns depends on emotional norms, very often unarticulated and therefore more of an aesthetic judgment. It explores the overlap between enthusiasm and sentimentalism as concepts and asks what kind of work these concepts do in discrediting actors and their convictions. Charismatics are accused of sentimentalism, enjoying the feeling of the feeling too much, whereas mainline Lutherans are viewed as “going through the motions” without any real feeling behind them. This chapter argues that these groups have different styles of sincerity, and that the conflict over whether the emotions of the “other” group are genuine allows us to see more clearly how sincerity must be analyzed as a performance, not as a state of mind. These performances are informed by both the Enlightened and Romantic ideologies in complex ways that are somewhat unexpected and inform sincere speech in contexts beyond the religious, such as TED talks and other inspirational rhetoric.

scholarly journals How to Gain Wisdom of Heart: The Meaning of the Rhetorical Structure of Psalm 90

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
Marek Kowalczuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Valuation Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Literary Structure ◽  
True Knowledge ◽  
The Way

The request for wisdom of heart that can be found in Psalm 90:12 conveys in a certain sense the essence of the spiritual search on which that the authors of the Old Testament Wisdom Books embarked. In the end, they arrived at the conclusion that true knowledge can be attained only as a gift from the Creator. The question that remains, however, is: how man can receive this knowledge? The analysis of Psalm 90 presented below is an attempt to respond to this question. This analysis focuses particularly on the literary structure of Psalm 90 because, by coming to a better understanding of the way in which the sections and respective elements of the poem relate to each other, one arrives at the psalm’s deeper meaning. In this regard, the psychologist Hubert Hermans’ valuation theory is particularly helpful.

scholarly journals The Reconceptualization of Academic Discourse as a Professional Practice in the Digital Age: A Critical Genre Analysis of TED Talks

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (54) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Antonio Compagnone
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ted Talks

<p>This paper explores how academic discourse is reconceptualized as a professional practice via the web-mediated genre of TED talks (Technology, Entertainment and Design), popularizing speeches delivered by experts in fields that range from the ‘hard’ disciplines to the social sciences and the humanities. More precisely, this study compares two corpora of academic spoken discourse, i.e., a corpus of transcribed TED talks given by academics (TED_ac) and a corpus of university lecture transcripts (MICASE_lect) drawn from the <em>Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English </em>(MICASE) to understand how academics’ communicative purposes differ in these two settings. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Critical Genre Analysis (Bhatia 2012) and Discourse Analysis (Goffman 1981; Fairclough 1989; Pennycook 1994; De Fina 1995; Benwell/Stokoe 2006; De Fina 2006), the present study sets out to investigate ways in which academics make use of language on the TED stage to achieve their “private intentions” as professionals (Bhatia 2012), e.g., building up their identity as experts as well as promoting their research and scholarship, rather than training a group of novices in their discipline or merely informing mass audiences. To this end, consideration is given to the distribution of first and second person pronouns in the two pragmatic contexts under investigation. Special emphasis is placed on referents and discourse functions of the pronoun <em>we</em>, which is significantly more frequent in TED_ac than in MICASE_lect. Despite its language-centered approach, this study has a marked sociological intent, as it casts light on an instance of academic discourse seen as an example of “professional practice” embedded in the wider context of a “professional culture” (Bhatia 2012).</p>

scholarly journals Jordanian Wedding Invitation Genre During the Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-715
Author(s):  
Ahmad I. Tawalbeh
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Analysis Approach ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Rhetorical Structure

This study examines the generic components of Arabic wedding invitation cards issued during the Covid-19 period in Jordanian society. It aims to find out the role played by the Covid-19 pandemic in shaping the rhetorical structure (moves and steps) of these cards. The sample consists of 100 electronic wedding cards which were analyzed using top-down (genre analysis approach) and bottom-up processing. The analysis shows that there are nine component moves realized by certain steps, shaping the invitation genre. It is found that this genre is subject to change which essentially affects its common main communicative purpose, viz. to invite people to celebrate the wedding in a place. It is hoped that the results of this study may confirm previous literature about the effects of the surrounding context on shaping a genre, help familiarize those interested in knowing about this Arabic genre and offer insights for those interested in conducting cross-cultural contrast.

Online conference announcements as spaces for disciplinary communication

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-285
Author(s):  
Rosa Lorés Sanz
Keyword(s):  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Strategic Role ◽  
The Way

Abstract The aim of the study is to explore online conference announcements as sites for disciplinary communication and the way they are realized linguistically. A corpus of 50 conference announcements included in a major listserv in the field of linguistics is analysed, focusing on rhetorical structure and major interpersonal features, namely self mentions, engagement markers, modal verbs and the use of passive voice. Results show that linguistic interpersonal markers are deployed in the text according to the various communicative functions the text has and also the role played by the writer at each stage and, subsequently, the roles ascribed to readers. Moreover, it is claimed that the wide distribution of conference announcements ensured through electronic platforms reinforces the strategic role of these texts as vehicles of communication and interaction among disciplinary members.

scholarly journals The Rhetorical Structure of Short Lecture by Famous Applied Linguists Jack C. Richards Posted on YouTube

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
Idham Widodo ◽  
Irma Diani ◽  
Safnil Safnil
Keyword(s):  
Oral Presentation ◽  
Genre Analysis ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Proposed Model

This study aims to investigate the rhetorical structure of move and step of short lecture by famous applied linguist Jack C. Richards posted on YouTube. The data of this study were 22 video-transcripts of a short lecture of Jack C Richards. The results: (1) three moves of rhetorical structure such as M1 – Introduction, M2 – Content of Short Lecture, and M3 – Conclusion. They are 100% occurred in all of the data analyzed as obligatory category. (2) the most often found steps in the short lectures that occurred 100% and classified as obligatory category, such as M2SB – Argumentation of the short lecture and M3SA – Summarizing the points and the steps with 60-99% percentage of occurrences as classified as conventional category, namely are M1SE – Announcing topic of oral presentation, M1SA – Greeting the Audience, M2SC – Illustration of short lecture, and M2SA – Description of short lecture.  The new proposed model of spoken genre analysis adapted from Ali and Singh (2019), the Sermon model by Cheong cited in Safnil (2010) and Seliman (1996) for identifying the rhetorical structure of short lecture is effective enough to capture the possible rhetorical moves and steps in a whole text of short lecture by famous applied linguist posted in YouTube.

A new golden age for libraries

2015 ◽  
Vol 116 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 641-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Massis
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face ◽  
Diverse Audience ◽  
The Way ◽  
Forward Looking

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and provide several examples of evidence to support the estimation that libraries have entered a new “golden age”. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review and commentary on this topic that has been addressed by professionals, researchers and practitioners. Findings – Flexibility in the face of change has always been a hallmark of an exceptional service-minded organization and the library is no different. To maintain its reputation as a forward-looking service that appeals to an expansive and diverse audience, libraries must always be forward-thinking and forward-seeking in their ability to satisfy. Such a continual evolution can result in the conviction that the library is recognized as an institution whose golden age will not reside in the past, but fully in the present, and that its growth into the future remains persistent, evident and fully embraced by its customers and supporters. Originality/value – The value in addressing this issue is to demonstrate that there are ready examples of libraries leading the way in supporting the opinion that we are in a “golden age” for libraries.

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