Explaining "-splain" in digital discourse

Combining digital discourse analysis and Citizen Sociolinguistics, methodological frames that contend with the effects of evolving digital practices, I present an approach to studying sociolinguistic trends by investigating how social media users talk about what language is doing. This approach is applicable to research on a wide range of linguistic and cultural contexts. The particular focus in this paper, however, is on U.S.-based social issues and linguistic features of American English as they appear in pieces of digital discourse from the micro-blogging platforms Twitter and Tumblr. Situated within the highly fractured sociopolitical climate of the pandemic-afflicted United States, the language under discussion provides a glimpse of some historically relevant sociocultural beliefs and attitudes towards the role of gender and racial identity in sociopolitical discourse. Focusing on uses of -splain, a metapragmatic bound morpheme, the paper demonstrates how social media users assemble lexical, discursive, and other semiotic resources as means for negotiating sociopragmatic appropriateness. The analysis shows how the usage of words like mansplain encompass the sociolinguistic process of enregisterment through practices of linguistic reflexivity, creativity, and regimentation – practices that are essential aspects of interaction and participation in social media. Using these enregistered metapragmatic words problematizes imbalances in users’ sociopragmatic ideologies, namely who can or cannot say what, to whom, and in what manner. I show how creative metapragmatic language is deployed to discuss issues of entitlement and epistemic authority in communicative dynamics. I draw on theoretical frames that reveal how the recontextualization and resemiotization of -splain words and other metapragmatic neologisms are performances of identity. I also show how splain-mediated communication facilitates users in achieving their own discursive intentions to point out language in judgmental and/or lighthearted manners. I assert that attention to metapragmatic neologisms in the perspective of Citizen Sociolinguistics enhances the analytical repertoire of digital discourse analysis.

Epigenetics as a Mechanism of Developmental Embodiment of Stress, Resilience, and Cardiometabolic Risk Across Generations of Latinx Immigrant Families

Psychosocial stressors can become embodied to alter biology throughout the life course in ways that may have lasting health consequences. Immigrants are particularly vulnerable to high burdens of stress, which have heightened in the current sociopolitical climate. This study is an investigation of how immigration-related stress (IRS) may impact the cardiometabolic risk and epigenetic markers of Latinx immigrant mothers and children in Nashville, TN. We compared stress and resilience factors reported by Latina immigrant mothers and their children (aged 5–13) from two time points spanning the 2016 U.S. presidential election (June 2015–June 2016 baseline, n = 81; March–September 2018 follow-up, n = 39) with cardiometabolic risk markers (BMI, waist circumference, and blood pressure). We also analyzed these factors in relation to DNA methylation in saliva of stress-related candidate genes (SLC6A4 and FKBP5), generated via bisulfite pyrosequencing (complete case n's range from 67–72 baseline and 29–31 follow-up) (n's range from 80 baseline to 36 follow-up). We found various associations with cardiometabolic risk, such as higher social support and greater acculturation were associated with lower BMI in mothers; discrimination and school stress associated with greater waist circumferences in children. Very few exposures associated with FKBP5, but various stressors associated with methylation at many sites in SLC6A4, including immigrant-related stress in both mothers and children, and fear of parent deportation in children. Additionally, in the mothers, total maternal stress, health stress, and subjective social status associated with methylation at multiple sites of SLC6A4. Acculturation associated with methylation in mothers in both genes, though directions of effect varied over time. We also find DNA methylation at SLC6A4 associates with measures of adiposity and blood pressure, suggesting that methylation may be on the pathway linking stress with cardiometabolic risk. More research is needed to determine the role of these epigenetic differences in contributing to embodiment of stress across generations.

Foreign-born Faculty’s Perceptions and Experiences in a Turbulent Sociopolitical Climate

This study investigated the experiences of five foreign-born faculty in the US after the 2016 election. Through a written questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the participants shared their recollections of several critical incidents, their reactions to Trumpism, and their perceptions of support from their institutions. The analysis of the critical incidents revealed that while the participants experienced varying degrees of collegial support and sense of isolation, for some, their concern with Trumpism impacted their intent to stay at their institution and in the US. The article concludes with recommendations to increase diversity in faculty body, training US-born faculty about diversity and inclusivity, and increasing systems of support for foreign-born faculty in order to increase the recruitment and retention of foreign-born faculty.

Ichigo-Ichie

Racial justice dialogues in many U.S. higher education spaces have primarily stemmed from a desire to educate the uninformed. Many institutions have failed to attend to their students, faculty, and staff of color while focusing on providing “safe” places for the uninformed. Such efforts seem to have led to an extreme complacency of those who need to change the most to become disillusioned that they have done more than enough to contribute to race dialogues on campus. In the current sociopolitical climate in the United States, the U.S. higher education is facing unprecedented pressure to attend to the fundamental tension between those two worlds. In the Japanese language, ichigo-ichie (一期一会) is a famous saying that embodies the spirit of 'here and now'. Translated as “one time, one meeting,” it symbolizes the critical importance of how one encounter could lead to transformational changes. Contrary to the noble concept of 'trying again' many times before succeeding, ichigo-ichie poses this question: What if all we have is one time, one encounter, and one chance to get it right?

La Rivoluzione Macchiata: The Stained Revolution

Although graffiti gained popularity through the expansion of American pop culture, its origins are greatly embedded in Italian culture and history. Not only does the word graffiti come from the Italian word "graffiato" or "scratched "off", but some of the world's first graffiti was found in Pompeii's ruins. Over the last few years, Italy has been governed by right-wing coalitions that have implemented fascist practices once used by Mussolini. Given that there is little space for leftist ideas to emerge in the public space, Italians have used graffiti as a form of political activism and protest. Conversations surrounding fascism, racism, women's rights, immigration and the LGTBQ community have arisen within graffiti, allowing outsiders to better understand Italians' takes on these issues. This study investigates Italy's sociopolitical climate through graffiti as a form of art, and also sheds light on how graffiti provokes its audience. The graffiti found in Florence, Bologna, and Naples proves to be linguistically complex, and provokes observers both through heightened language and visuals. This study suggests that the majority of Italian sociopolitical graffiti belongs to students who are unable to take part in democracy based on their age or legal status. While often deemed a vandalistic act, graffiti has allowed Italian individuals to protest what is unjust, and make themselves heard in a society where their voices are being suffocated by right-wing political parties and their media.

Experiences of Transgender Couples Navigating One Partner’s Transition: Love Is Gender Blind

This study investigated the experiences of romantic couples who maintained their relationship when one partner transitioned gender. For this phenomenological study, 13 couples were interviewed as a dyad and individually. Relationship changes included improved communication skills and language changes, affirming sexual relationships, and redistribution of power within the couple dyad. Benefits of the gender transition included improved relationships overall, emergence of support from communities and loved ones, passing privilege, and improved awareness to social issues. Challenges included losing close relationships, difficulty with remaining patient in transition, and adjusting to new identities such as feeling queer invisibility or a loss of heterosexual privilege. Finally, couples shared that political issues in the current sociopolitical climate had a personal impact on their felt safety and daily lives. Clinical and empirical implications are discussed.

Paying the Price: Contextualizing Exchange in Phaedo 69a–c

This paper uses a problematic passage at Phaedo 69a–c as a case study to explore the advantages we can gain by reading Plato in his cultural context. Socrates argues that the common conception of courage is strange: people fear death, but endure it because they are afraid of greater evils. They are thus brave through fear. He proposes that we should not exchange greater pleasures, pains, and fears for lesser, like coins, but that there is the only correct coin, for which we must exchange all these things: wisdom (phronēsis). Commentators have been puzzled by the precise nature of the exchange envisaged here, sometimes labelling the coinage metaphor as inept, sometimes describing this stretch of argument as “religious” and thus not to be taken seriously. The body of the paper looks at (1) the connection between money and somatic materialism, (2) the incommensurability in Plato of financial and ethical orders, (3) financial metaphors outside Plato that connect coinage with ethics, (4) intrinsic and use values in ancient coinage, and (5) Athenian laws on coinage, weights, and measures that reflect anxiety about debased coins in the fifth and early fourth centuries. It sees the Phaedo passage as the product of a sociopolitical climate which facilitated the consideration of coinage as an embodiment of a value system and which connected counterfeit or debased currency with debased ethical types. Athenians in the early fourth century were much concerned with issues of commensurability between different currencies and with problems of debasement and counterfeiting; understanding this makes Socrates’ use of coinage metaphors less puzzling. Both the metaphor of coinage and the other metaphors in this passage of the Phaedo (painting and initiation) engage with ideas of purity, genuineness, and deception. Taken as a group, these metaphors cover a large area of contemporary popular culture and are used to illustrate a disjunction between popular and philosophical ways of looking at value.

A Sinner or a Criminal? The Judgment of Oleg Mavromatti under Article 282

This article discusses the performance events “Do Not Believe Your Eyes” (2000) and “Ally/Foe” (2010) by Russian artist Oleg Mavromatti in the framework of a single durational event that critiques the sacralization of public space in Russia. The public reception of the performances is mediated by attitudes toward Russian Criminal Law Article 282, the so-called law against religious offenses, in a sociopolitical climate where Orthodoxy is conflated with state patriotism. Through the appropriation of the colloquially resonant behavioral paradigm of the holy fool, the author analyzes how Mavromatti’s performance event critiques the concept of “judgment” (by an Orthodox state and by an Orthodox public) from within a culturally resonant religious tradition. The artist’s intervention calls for a secular separation of church and state, but by doing so from within a religious tradition, it illuminates the function of the postsecular as a mode of engagement in contemporary Russian culture.

The Kingdom of Spain’s Key Ministries of on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Other Types of Discrimination: Activities and Structures

The article focuses on the study the structural and functional characteristics of three departments: the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security; the Ministry of Internal Affairs; and the Ministry of the Presidency for Relations with Courts and Equality Issues, because these ministries directly control and regulate activities in the field of combating discrimination and intolerance. The aim of the article is to study the structure and various aspects of cooperation between these ministries, with particular attention to the implementation of special programs to combat various types of discrimination. The article was prepared using original sources, such as official electronic resources of the key ministries and institutions, regulatory documents, draft programs on combating discrimination and intolerance, agreements between Spain and international organizations. The plans and reports of the police, which reflect the main measures taken to combat racism and xenophobia, were analyzed. The study is based on an institutional approach, which allows carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the activities of Spanish public institutions and organizations in the field of combating discrimination and intolerance at the state, autonomous and city levels. The study employed the general scientific methods of analysis to highlight the key areas of activity of the ministries and to study them comprehensively, comparison to identify the general and specific functions of each of the organs, and generalization to identify the most common directions of anti-discrimination policy in Spain. In the course of the study, the authors develop the thesis that discrimination is a multidimensional phenomenon, the consequences of which affect not only individuals or groups, suffering from discrimination, but also, indirectly, society and the sociopolitical climate in general. Anti-discrimination measures are obligatory for the implementation of a comprehensive public policy, but, despite the presence of common functionality, the key ministries involved in this area have their own specifics. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that Spain has an extensive network of institutions and organizations dealing with the prevention and fight against various types of intolerance and discrimination. This network operates based not only on the local legislative basis, but also on international treaties and agreements with international organizations. The well-developed institutional structure and the introduction of new specialized organizations increase the effectiveness of government’s measures. The large number of projects to combat racism and xenophobia, which annually receive funding from the state and the EU, indicate that this area is receiving very close attention.