The Role of Second Language Motivation in Constructing the Self: An Empirical Study to Investigate the Role of Motivational Trajectories in Negotiating and Reconstructing Academic Sojourners’ Desired Selves in the UK

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study is an endeavour to explicate the dissonance of the linguistic quality outcome of study abroad (SA) experiences by exploring the second language (L2) motivation of six academic sojourners in Manchester. A person-in-context approach revealed that developing intimate relationships with ‘native-speakers’, providing L2-mediated interaction opportunities with international students, and social approval were key determinants of the extent to which SA students were invested in social practices. Such social engagements were found to stem from second language motivation that is part of identity construction process. In addition, the thematic analysis of the narrative inquiries suggests that the global status of the English language defies the traditional conceptualisations of L2 motivation as most participants’ motivations were formed despite their negative or neutral attitudes towards the English community. The findings also endorse the role of the other as a robust motivational source by which learners can replenish their motivation stream, leading to social identity investment to construct their ideological selves. The paper concludes with a recommendation to re-interpret the conceptualisation of the Ideal L2 Self system because ‘native-speakers’ are rarely the closest parallels to L2 learners, and it should incorporate explicit intrinsic orientations. Furthermore, language institutions in SA contexts should direct their focus on establishing conversation clubs and hosting social events for SA students to provide a safe space for their identities to be developed, enacted and reconstructed.</p>

Veracity Assessment of Multimedia Facebook Posts for Infodemic Symptom Detection using Bi-modal Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach

Ascertaining the truthfulness and trustworthiness of information posted on social media has been challenging with the proliferation of unsubstantiated, misleading, and inciting news, with different intents by purveyors. Unlike the traditional media with some level of regulations, user-generated posts on social networks does not pass through censorships in order to establish the truism of news items hence the need to be cautious of posted information on the networks. The lingering issue of recent suspension of Twitter microblogging site by the Nigerian government and the consequent decision to regulate social network operations in the country similarly centers on the subject of social media dependability for legitimate social engagements by millions of savvy Nigerian users. Whereas existing models in literature have proposed state-of-the-arts, this study seeks to improve on obtainable studies with a bi-modal machine learning methodology that indicate symptoms of infodemic social media posts. Using a multimedia facebook corpus, an unsupervised natural language processor, Inception v3 model, coupled with a hierarchical clustering network, is deployed for the duo of image and text sentiment analytics. Experimental result uniquely identified infodemic tendencies in facebook text-corpus and efficiently differentiates image-corpus into respective clusters through the Euclidian distance metrics. The most infodemic post returned a -0.9719 compound score while the most positive post returns 0.9488. Veracity assessment of polarized opinions expressed in negative clusters reveals that provocative, derogatory, obnoxious, etc. indicate propensity for infodemic tendencies. Keywords: Fake news. Facebook. Social media. Sentiment Analysis. Infodemic

Social media engagements of music videos on YouTube’s official artist channels

As social platforms become essential in promoting songs, many artists create an official channel on YouTube and encourage their fans’ engagements. However, little is known about the effectiveness of official videos in generating fans’ media engagements. We conduct two empirical studies to investigate the relationship between official video attributes, media engagements and channel subscribers. First, we propose a model to explain how music video attributes facilitate the relative social media engagements of a video. Second, we test whether three types of social engagements are associated with an increase in official channel subscribers. To do so, we collect social media engagement data for the 2896 music videos uploaded between May 2016 and April 2019 by 105 artists who own their YouTube official artist channels. The empirical evidence shows that the official videos incorporating visual, performance and storytelling components can generate more positive engagement from the viewers, while audio-only videos exhibit lower overall engagement intensity. Furthermore, we find that active media engagement, such as leaving ‘comments’, contributes to the increase in channel subscribers beyond the effect of the number of registered videos. Our results suggest that highly involved music fans may show the active types of social engagements, such as leaving a comment on live and follow-up videos. In practice, our findings imply that YouTube creators need to incorporate visual-focused platform characteristics to stimulate in-depth social engagement.

Glitter and Guts: Narrative Portrayal of Sportswomen’s Experiences on a Coached Masters Team

This qualitative investigation explored the lived meaningful experiences of adult women in a coached Masters synchronized ice-skating team and the role of the coach in these experiences. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 11 team members (mean age = 39) and their 32 year-old female coach, over multiple time points in their season. Observational field notes were taken during training, competition, and social engagements. Story analyst methods were used for data collection and analysis, to then present the results in the form of realist tales (Smith & Sparkes, 2009a; 2009b) about the novelties of identifying with a women’s Masters team. Stories respectively highlighted (1) how notions of team included compliance to social norms despite individual differences, (2) women’s unique empowerment through sport, sisterhood, and what that meant for their respective identities, and (3) the value of surrounding support networks and social negotiations. Intertwined within these three stories was a fourth narrative characterizing the coach’s involvement in the culture, interactions, and climate of the team. The coach had implicit and explicit roles, was integrated into the team, and shared power which enhanced athletes’ experiences. This study points toward the meaningfulness of sport by illustrating the inherent social dimensions and connectedness within a team sport for adult women.

Coda

The coda to this book uses modernist authors’ diverse engagements with academic institutions on the US lecture tour as an opportunity to reconsider long-standing scholarly narratives about modernist institutionalization. In particular, it argues that the academic institution is not the closed, autonomous space that critics frequently make it out to be and that modernism’s relocation into the university during the postwar period should not be seen as a retreat from the social world. After highlighting several scenes from this book that reflect an alternative perspective on modernism’s relationship with the university, the coda makes a final call for us to model our contemporary institutions on the US lecture tour’s diverse social engagements as a way of furthering recent efforts in the public humanities.

THE IDEA OF MUSIC BUSINESS

This paper captured the need to include ‘Music Business’ as a course of study in Music Departments and Business Schools across Higher Institutions in Nigeria. This call was necessitated by the growing zeal and number of students, youths, entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, music enthusiasts and investors who are enthusiastic about engaging in the music entertainment industry across the country in the face of rising unemployment indices in the country. Music educators have also awakened to the realization that some of the courses and music specialties offered students are insufficient and inadequate in meeting with the demands of the economic hardship and burgeoning business world around them. Definitely not all students have flairs or interest in music composition, music teaching, or music performance; some have flairs for music business where they can excel in packaging and managing music for events. Unarguably, music features in virtually all social engagements around the world and the Nigerian society such as meetings, weddings, rallies, religious gatherings, ceremonies, funerals, seminars and conferences, banquets, etc., and it is appropriate therefore that such endeavor be given adequate attention in scholarship to ascertain its functionalism and pragmatic ways of sustaining, improving, and promoting the art. The paper therefore recommends that Departments of Music and Business schools across the country should recognize the imperatives of ‘Music Business’ as part of their curriculum of studies to the end of fostering functional education among the youths.

Conclusion

INDIAN PEOPLE INVITED AND ESCORTED into town, welcomed by the city fathers, and cheered by enthusiastic crowds; lodging in the finest hotels, wined and dined at formal dinners, and dropping by for breakfast in private homes; touring the city, seeing the sights, strolling in the park, sitting in church, and watching performances at the theater and circus; cared for by physicians, and, if they died, being carried to city burial grounds in funeral corteges of hundreds of people; traveling by stagecoach at government expense and staggering home under the weight of gifts. . . . Contrary to assumptions that Indians were nowhere to be seen in the cities of early America, and that they had retreated as Euro-American settlements advanced, it might seem that citizens could barely walk the streets without bumping into visiting tribal delegates who went about an endless round of social engagements, observing and participating in urban life....

The predictive utility of word familiarity for online engagements and funding

Metacognitive frameworks such as processing fluency often suggest people respond more favorably to simple and common language versus complex and technical language. It is easier for people to process information that is simple and nontechnical compared to complex information, therefore leading to more engagement with targets. In two studies covering 12 field samples (total n = 1,064,533), we establish and replicate this simpler-is-better phenomenon by demonstrating people engage more with nontechnical language when giving their time and attention (e.g., simple online language tends to receive more social engagements). However, people respond to complex language when giving their money (e.g., complex language within charitable giving campaigns and grant abstracts tend to receive more money). This evidence suggests people engage with the heuristic of complex language differently depending on a time or money target. These results underscore language as a lens into social and psychological processes and computational methods to measure text patterns at scale.

Socio-Sexual Education Is Best Addressed as a Field of Study

Sex education typically claims to be value free. The focus of attention in this article is that sex education represents an extraordinary &ldquo;teachable moment&rdquo; for helping students consider the qualia of human engagements at a multiplicity of levels. Qualia is a term for the feel and hence the value of experience. Learning about the process of copulating machinery reveals little about the &ldquo;feel&rdquo; of sexual experience. Sex education should address issues students will continue to confront for the rest of their lives. Typically, students seem to waffle their way through sexually relevant encounters. Allure and fear are relevant emotions students should be mindful of when considering socio-sexual engagements of any kind. Consequently, rather than focus exclusively on sexual behavior and its consequences, educators should focus on what I have previously introduced as socio-sexual education. Socio-sexual education involves game-theoretic considerations but goes further than mere cost/benefit analysis. Socio-sexual education should focus student attention on understanding of sex and social engagements generally. People live in and through their experiences and not as mere spectators of some narrative in which experience is written about. Learning to understand socio-sexual experiences allows subsequent social and sexual adjustments for improving lived experience over a lifetime. Sex education then should broaden to socio-sexual instruction and reflection.

The changing role of protocol in the 21st century’s diplomacy and international relations

Protocol has long been considered to be the set of international courtesy rules primarily rooted from the French and Spanish royal courts of the 16–18th century. It has recently become a means of subconscious persuasion not only in diplomacy but also in the business and social world. These long-established rules facilitate not only the official representatives of nations but also for their people their co-existence in peace and harmony. It creates space, and sets the framework where offline and online interactions may take place. One of the most significant instruments that makes complex and delicate mechanisms of foreign policy work successfully. The year of 2020 brought many changes we all must face and react to. Protocol itself and protocol professionals are not exempt. Meetings, delegation programs, conferences and all official and social engagements have become unconventional to the end. The rise of online and hybrid events demands the skill of adaptability both in international relations and in protocol. The present article aims to briefly examine protocol by definitions and to show its complexity from a scientific perspective. Protocol as applied interdisciplinary science: an innovative approach initiated by a professional expert having elaborate practical experience in the field.