Disagreement Strategies used by Speakers of English as a Lingua Franca in Business Meetings

Numerous studies have attested to the consensus-orientation and cooperative nature of English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions. However, limited attention has been given to moments of disagreements in ELF communication, with most of the little existing work focusing on disagreements in ELF academic or informal contexts. Consequently, little is known about how ELF users display disagreement in real-life business contexts. For this reason, this study examined disagreement expressions in five ELF business meetings drawn from the VOICE corpus to understand the nature of disagreement in ELF interactions. Following the identification of disagreement instances, the study used Stalpers’s (1995) framework to investigate whether the disagreement was accompanied by a mitigation strategy that reduces its impact. It was found that the examined ELF business speakers express their disagreement in both mitigated and unmitigated forms with a marked preference for using mitigated expressions, indicating that the appropriate linguistic choice for expressing disagreements in a between-company business meeting is a mitigated disagreement form. Another main finding is the frequent use of disagreement utterances, suggesting that ELF speakers do not merely seek consensus, but they also raise objections and state their different opinions. One implication of these findings is that ELF encounters might not be as consensus-seeking and mutually supportive as suggested in previous works. Taken together, the findings of the present study extended the existing body of work on ELF disagreement and, in general, added further to our understanding of ELF interaction.

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FROM TESTIMONY TO HETEROGLOSSIA: THE VOICE(S) OF LAMENT IN WE ARE THE PERSIANS!

Acotaciones Investigación y Creación Teatral ◽

10.32621/acotaciones.2021.46.06 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (46) ◽

pp. 151-182

Author(s):

Marios Chatziprokopiou ◽

Keyword(s):

Asylum Seekers ◽

Real Life ◽

Main Body ◽

Original Play ◽

Documentary Theatre ◽

History Of ◽

Audiovisual Archives ◽

Displaced People ◽

The Voice ◽

Ancient Drama

We are the Persians! was a contemporary adaptation of Aeschy-lus’s The Persians presented in June 2015 at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. Performed by displaced people from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and directed by Yolanda Markopoulou, the piece grew out of the Station Athens group’s five-year theatre workshops. Extracts from the original play were intertwined with performative material brought to the project by the participants: from real-life testimonies to vocal improvisations, poems, and songs in different languages. High-lighting the historical thematic of the play, this adaptation was presented as a documentary theatre piece, and the participants as ‘modern-day heralds’ who provided on stage ‘shocking accounts’ concerning ‘contem-porary wars’ (programme notes, 2015). After briefly revisiting the main body of literature on the voice of lament in ancient drama and in Aeschylus’s The Persians in particular, but also after discussing the recent stage history of the play in Greece, I conduct a close reading of this adaptation. Based on semi-directed interviews and audiovisual archives from both the rehearsals and the final show,I argue that the participants’ performance cannot be limited to their auto-biographical testimonies, which identify their status as refugees and/or asylum seekers. By intertwining Aeschylus with their own voices and languages, they reappropriate and reinvent the voice(s) of lament in ancient drama. In this sense, I suggest that We are the Persians! can be read as a hybrid performance of heteroglossia, which disrupts and potentially transforms dominant ways of receiving ancient drama on the modern Greek stage.

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To use or not to use corticosteroids for pneumonia? A clinician’s perspective

Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease ◽

10.4081/monaldi.2012.157 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 77 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

M. Confalonieri ◽

M. Kodric ◽

M. Santagiuliana ◽

C. Longo ◽

M. Biolo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cochrane Review ◽

Real Life ◽

Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

Frequent Use ◽

Infection Surveillance ◽

Rebound Phenomenon ◽

Severe Community Acquired Pneumonia ◽

Randomised Controlled ◽

Robust Evidence ◽

H1n1 Virus Infection

The use of corticosteroids in the management of pneumonia is still a controversial issue. The physicians in daily clinical practice often use corticosteroids in patients with pneumonia for different reasons all over the world. As an example of real life is the frequent use of corticosteroids to treat patients with pneumonia due to H1N1 pandemic influenza in spite of WHO’ statements that clearly discouraged this therapy. In fact, the literature up to august 2012 reported a total of 6,650 patients with pneumonia due to H1N1 virus infection (of whom 2,515 were ICU patients): corticosteroids were used with various dose regimen in 2404 patients (37.8%). The attitude of international guidelines on pneumonia in using steroids do not help the clinician to clearly choice when and how to treat pneumonia with steroids. However, stress doses of corticosteroids are suggested by some major guidelines on community-acquired pneumonia in case of severe episodes with sepsis. To date, there are 10 randomised controlled trials assessing the effectiveness of corticosteroids for community-acquired pneumonia globally involving 1090 participants . Most of the trials adopted stress doses of glucorticoids for 4-7 days. The evidence from these trials taken separately is weak due to limitations of the studies themselves, but a Cochrane review and a systematic review found benefit using prolonged low doses of glucocorticoids in severe community-acquired pneumonia. Moreover, such a strategy decreases vasopressor dependency and appears to be safe. Nevertheless, larger trials with more patients and clinically important end-points were claimed to provide robust evidence. Finally, infection surveillance is critical in patients treated with corticosteroids, and to prevent the rebound phenomenon, the drug should be weaned slowly.

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Backchannels in video-mediated ELF conversations: a case study

Journal of English as a Lingua Franca ◽

10.1515/jelf-2021-2055 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 113-140

Author(s):

Francisco Javier Fernández Polo

Keyword(s):

Computer Mediated Communication ◽

Male Student ◽

Mediated Communication ◽

Lingua Franca ◽

General Impression ◽

Computer Mediated ◽

Marked Preference ◽

Opening And Closing ◽

Intrinsic Feature

Abstract There are few studies on backchannels in ELF and none concerns computer-mediated conversations. Backchannelling has been associated with good listenership and enhanced cooperativeness, an intrinsic feature of ELF. They would also play a key role in computer-mediated communication, maintaining a sense of affective equilibrium among participants and compensating for medium-related limitations. We analyze backchanneling in an ELF conversation between a Spanish female and a German male student from the Corpus of Video-Mediated English as a Lingua Franca Conversations (ViMELF). Backchanneling seems to be particularly intense in the opening and closing sections of the exchange, where interpersonal work is the most needed. While significant idiolectal differences are observed between the two participants, both show a marked preference for and a tendency to concentrate realizations on a few weak backchanneling forms, conferring the exchange a general impression of monotony and emotional flatness. Some backchanneling features in the exchange may be described as typical of ELF: backchannels tend to occur in moments when speakers sense that understanding may be compromised and are frequently complemented by supportive material reinforcing the speaker’s point. The analysis also reveals some characteristic awkward usage, with tokens which are clearly “overdone,” while others are too weak and disappointing or behave disruptively by occurring in unexpected positions and interrupting the flow of the conversation. Research on ELF video conversations is particularly timely given the recent surge in videoconferencing propitiated by the COVID pandemic, a tendency which is likely to stay in post-pandemic times.

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Delegate Assembly Bylaws

PMLA ◽

10.1632/pmla.2006.121.4.965 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 121 (4) ◽

pp. 965-968

Keyword(s):

Governance Structure ◽

Business Meeting ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Annual Business ◽

Modern Language ◽

The Voice

The Delegate Assembly was created in 1970 as a successor to the former annual Business Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Within the governance structure of the Modern Language Association, the Delegate Assembly is intended to function as the voice of the membership, the forum at which issues of professional concern are to be debated and policies formulated.

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Delegate Assembly Bylaws

PMLA ◽

10.1632/s0030812900139914 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 115 (4) ◽

pp. 498-500

Keyword(s):

Governance Structure ◽

Business Meeting ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Annual Business ◽

Modern Language ◽

Study And Teaching ◽

The Voice

I. Purpose. The Delegate Assembly was created in 1970 as a successor to the former annual Business Meeting of the Modern Language Association. Within the governance structure of the Modern Language Association, the Delegate Assembly is intended to function as the voice of the membership, the forum at which issues of professional concern are to be debated and policies formulated.Representation on the Delegate Assembly is designed to provide the MLA with comprehensive perspectives representing the study and teaching of languages and literatures, the conditions under which they are carried out, and the circumstances of the members professing these activities.

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Delegate Assembly Bylaws

PMLA ◽

10.1632/s0030812900104341 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 121 (4) ◽

pp. 965-968

Keyword(s):

Governance Structure ◽

Business Meeting ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Annual Business ◽

Modern Language ◽

The Voice

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Schubert’s “Ständchen” in the Voice of the Cinematic Amateur

19th-Century Music ◽

10.1525/ncm.2019.42.3.157 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (3) ◽

pp. 157-183

Author(s):

Jennifer Ronyak

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Twentieth Century ◽

Cultural History ◽

Real Life ◽

Documentary Evidence ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

Literary Sources ◽

Musical Practices ◽

The Relationship ◽

The Voice

Scholars who have analyzed performances of Schubert’s Lieder have generally focused on the voices of masterful professionals, whether looking at performances before or during the age of sound recordings. This tendency overlooks one historically important group of performers: the amateurs who made up the broad marketplace for the genre during Schubert’s lifetime and throughout the nineteenth century. Studying this group of performers with any level of aesthetic particularity is, however, difficult: documentary evidence of particular singers in this group in the nineteenth century and even the early twentieth is scarce. Yet as the real-life practice of the amateur singing of Schubert’s Lieder in the home gradually dwindled after the nineteenth century, fictional representations of this nineteenth-century practice began to appear in period sound films across the twentieth. While not a substitute for documentary evidence of real practices, this film phenomenon meaningfully engages with nineteenth-century cultural history, literary sources, and musical practices through presentist conventions and concerns. Such films thus offer a vehicle through which to think about continuity and change in the relationship between Schubert’s song and the figure of the amateur in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century, and today. This article analyzes three period film scenes involving nineteenth-century “amateur” performances of Schubert’s “Ständchen” (Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 4). It does so in order to think about the combined aesthetic and social ramifications of the figure of the amateur in relationship to Schubert’s Lieder. I look at scenes in the following three films: the operetta-influenced Schubert picture Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933), in which operetta star Mártha Eggerth sings as the Countess Esterházy, the classic novel adaptation Jane Eyre (1934), in which Virginia Bruce sings as the titular character, and a newly written piece of “governess fiction,” The Governess (1998), in which Minnie Driver performs the song as said governess. None of these scenes offers unmediated or simple access to amateurism. Instead, in each scene, a professional, twentieth-century celebrity woman movie star both sings and otherwise portrays the nineteenth-century amateur musician and character onscreen. Keeping this tension in mind, I explore how this contradiction and other elements in each scene would have and can still provide audiences opportunities to think about the relationship between amateurism and Schubert’s most popular songs. In so doing, I explore the term “amateur” in a number of overlapping senses that embrace positive and, to a lesser extent, pejorative meanings. My analysis ultimately shows how these three diverse film stagings valorize the figure and, indeed, the voice of the amateur in relationship to Schubert’s music. These conclusions have implications regarding Schubert’s songs and successful modes of performance that might attend them.

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Why are Euro ELF (English as a lingua franca) user attitudes ambivalent? Pre-service teachers from Spain and Sweden

10.31235/osf.io/ay6m4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hyeseung Jeong ◽

Raquel Sánchez Ruiz ◽

Georgia Wilhelmsson

Keyword(s):

Teaching And Learning ◽

Real Life ◽

University Teaching ◽

Lingua Franca ◽

Policy Documents ◽

European Student ◽

User Attitudes ◽

Student Cohorts ◽

Contact Language ◽

Linguistic Backgrounds

English as a lingua franca, or ELF is a well-known concept referring to English used as a contact language among people from different linguistic backgrounds. ELF users are thus people using English as ELF. This study investigated the ELF user attitudes of pre-service teachers from Spain and Sweden, towards English and its users. From the convergences and divergences of their attitudes, it emerged that the ELF user attitudes of the two European student cohorts tended to be ambivalent, mixed, and self-contradictory. After discussing factors for participants’ attitudinal tendencies, we conclude that the ambivalence in their overall attitudes seem to mirror the ambivalence of the ‘double’ definitions of English in policy documents, which are largely incompatible in setting the goals of teaching and learning the language. We suggest that university teaching help pre-service teachers experience real-life use of English and critically engage with policy documents for future teaching practices.

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Voices that Matter?

Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques ◽

10.3167/hrrh.2021.470106 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 47 (1) ◽

pp. 113-137

Author(s):

Josephine Hoegaerts

Keyword(s):

Sound Studies ◽

Source Material ◽

Historical Research ◽

Practical Approach ◽

Interdisciplinary Methods ◽

Business Meetings ◽

History Of ◽

Bodily Practice ◽

Analytical Approaches ◽

The Voice

How do we thoroughly historicize the voice, or integrate it into our historical research, and how do we account for the mundane daily practices of voice . . . the constant talking, humming, murmuring, whispering, and mumbling that went on off stage, in living rooms, debating clubs, business meetings, and on the streets? Work across the humanities has provided us with approaches to deal with aspects of voices, vocality, and their sounds. This article considers how we can mobilize and adapt such interdisciplinary methods for the study of history. It charts out a practical approach to attend to the history of voices—including unmusical ones—before recording, drawing on insights from the fields of sound studies, musicology, and performativity. It suggests ways to “listen anew” to familiar sources as well as less conventional source material. And it insists on a combination of analytical approaches focusing on vocabulary, bodily practice, and the questionable particularity of sound.

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A relationship of sorts: gender and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Archives of Women s Mental Health ◽

10.1007/s00737-021-01109-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Stefanie Suessenbacher-Kessler ◽

Andrea Gmeiner ◽

Tamara Diendorfer ◽

Beate Schrank ◽

Annemarie Unger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Real Life ◽

Structured Interview ◽

Dominant Male ◽

Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Psychotherapeutic Interventions ◽

Schizophrenia Spectrum ◽

Therapeutic Concepts ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Voice

AbstractVoice hearing has been conceptualized as an interrelational framework, where the interaction between voice and voice hearer is reciprocal and resembles “real-life interpersonal interactions.” Although gender influences social functioning in “real-life situations,” little is known about respective effects of gender in the voice hearing experience. One hundred seventeen participants with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder took part in a semi-structured interview about the phenomenology of their voices and completed standardized self-rating questionnaires on their beliefs about their most dominant male and female voices and the power differentials in their respective voice-voice hearer interactions. Additionally, the voice hearers’ individual masculine/feminine traits were recorded. Men heard significantly more male than female dominant voices, while the gender ratio of dominant voices was balanced in women. Although basic phenomenological characteristics of voices were similar in both genders, women showed greater amounts of distress caused by the voices and reported a persistence of voices for longer time periods. Command hallucinations that encouraged participants to harm others were predominantly male. Regarding voice appraisals, high levels of traits associated with masculinity (=instrumentality/agency) correlated with favorable voice appraisals and balanced power perceptions between voice and voice hearer. These positive effects seem to be more pronounced in women. The gender of both voice and voice hearer shapes the voice hearing experience in manifold ways. Due to possible favorable effects on clinical outcomes, therapeutic concepts that strengthen instrumental/agentic traits could be a feasible target for psychotherapeutic interventions in voice hearing, especially in women.

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