Religion and Culture Intersected in 2M’s Mediated Discourse: Toruq Alarifeen Program as a Case Study

Early studies focused mainly on demystifying Sufism, but little has been said about its mediated broadcasting to the Moroccan audience. This article explores the ways Moroccan public media channels the Sufi dichotomies. Specifically, I investigate the binary oppositions of cultural rites versus Sufi esoteric practices through a reflexive thematic analysis. A purposeful inspection of Turouq Alarefeen’s TV program is gauged to identify the manifestation of Sufi and cultural aspects in this TV show as a sample for this study. Three themes are selected to contextualize the discussion: language absurdity, esotericism versus exotericism, and glorification of the shaykhs. The qualitative methodology seems to serve my research better as it is convenient for the nature of the subject matter. I have worked on the most recent ten program episodes as samples representing mainly an ongoing Sufi TV show. The main findings reveal how the Media reproduce the mystery of Sufism and the fact that coverage tends to amalgamate cultural dimensions of popular Islam with Sufi esoteric scopes.

Transdiscourse as a Concept of Digital Worlds

The paper presents the current transformations of media culture in the conditions of crucial digitalization of society. Everyday life is fundamentally mediatized and this process is beyond the control and understanding, both by an individual, and by the professional community and society as a whole. Rather, we observe a general disturbing sense of violation of the usual boundaries of definitions and norms. In response to the crisis of comprehension and understanding, philosophy of language and communication turns back to the idea of discursivity of human civilization and proposes to adapt and rethink the concept of possible worlds and its descriptions in the aim to renew social strategies and communications. The increasing demand for methodological support of communication activities indicates the growing significance of cabinet philosophy, in particular philosophy of language and communication. This strategy of the scientific approach will allow us to build a research relevant to the subject-transdisciplinary. Based on an analysis of history of ideas and modern Russian methodology of transdisciplinarity, the authors put forward a hypothesis in terms of the philosophy of language on the development of digital mediated discourse in a transdimensional unity and the generation of different discourses.

“Is it all just lip service?”: on Instagram and the normalisation of the cosmetic servicescape

Purpose To better understand the uptake of cosmetic procedures in the wake of Instagram, this study aims to unravel how the aesthetic labour of influencers acts as the packaging of the cosmetic servicescape. In doing so, the authors contribute to theorising of aesthetic and emotional labour within the services marketing literature, fleshing out the bodywork of influential others not as employees but endorsers, who act like the “walking billboards” (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003) for the cosmetic service industry. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a dual qualitative approach to data collection, coupling netnographic material from Instagram posts with 16 in-depth interviews with female Instagram users who have undergone or hope to undergo cosmetic surgery. Using mediated discourse analysis, the authors weave their visual and discursive data together for a richer account of the commoditisation of cosmetic surgery. Findings Adopting a postfeminist neoliberal lens, where women are viewed as aesthetic entrepreneurs who are constantly working on the body and the self, the findings of the study reveal how influencers’ aesthetic and emotional labour help package, propagate and demystify the cosmetic servicescape. Through their visual storytelling, we see how influencers help endorse (local) cosmetic services; commoditise cosmetic procedures through the conspicuous display of their ongoing body projects whilst masking the labour and pain involved; and how face-filters that use augmented reality (AR) technology foster new forms of (digitised) body dysmorphia. Originality/value The authors shed light on the darker side of social media and body-enhancing technologies, where tales of body transformation trivialise cosmetic intervention and AR technology induces a digitised body dysmorphia.

Kommunikative und expressive Formeln des Deutschen in Internettexten: ein diskursorientierter Ansatz

This paper deals with the functioning of expressive and communicative formulas of modern German in computer-mediated discourse. The set phrases analysed are pre-formed sentence-value word combinations that serve as a means of expression of various speech intentions and emotions. These linguistic units are known to evade a uniform classification scheme, with boundaries between different groups being indistinct. The set phrases considered in this work are viewed as a functional-semantic field which includes communicative and expressive formulas and some mixed types. By discussing their cultural specificity – provided by units containing symbolic components, as well as by entities in various areas of national life, and fixed phrases of obscure literary origin – I attempt to explore their intertextual potential for further contribution to studies in intercultural communication. Expressivity, intertextuality, multimedia impact and interactivity have been defined as constitutive characteristics of computer-mediated discourse. The units discussed keep the tone of asynchronous online communication humorous and help to establish communicative closeness. In online media, the language game comes to the fore: a common phenomenon is semantic transformation often performed as simultaneous actualisation (ambiguity) of literal and idiomatic meaning, causing additional communicative effects. In combination with the informative part of a headline, these units act as emotional and evaluative indicators of media texts. Due to its technological features, internet communication allows easy combination of visual and verbal channels of information, and so there is frequent play between language images and digital images, especially in photo and video hosting services. My analysis of different online genres has shown that in internet communication, the core of the functional-semantic field (i.e. the most frequently used units) acquires added discursive value. The universal nature of their creative use, appeal, entertainment and community-building functions was also ascertained.

Resemiotized experience in classroom interaction: A student teacher’s interactional use of personal stories during teaching placement

One of the most important points of contact that student teachers have with the teaching profession occurs during placement, as placement provides a prime opportunity for them to interact with pupils and to further develop their teaching. In this article, a mediated discourse analytical perspective is employed as a lens to study a student teacher during his final teaching placement, with the aim of exploring how resemiotizations of previous experiences in the shape of oral stories can be interactionally used in the classroom. The data consist of three video recorded oral presentations, two video recorded sessions in a classroom, interview data, and observational field notes. Due to its potential to link past multimodal semiosis to present-time actions, nexus analysis is employed as the method for analysis. By unpacking a student teacher’s use of oral stories in the classroom, the study demonstrates how stories are adaptable resources that can be used to mark proximity to pupils, and thus serve as a means to manage the interaction order in the classroom. This is an activity with relevance for the teaching profession and, by extension, student teachers' development of professional identity.

Discursive strategies of self-promotion by doctors in online medical consultations in China: an e-commercialised practice

The online mode of medical consultation has been gaining increasing popularity. Online medical consultation (OMC) in China is largely mediated through e-healthcare websites which are featured with an online evaluation system for patients and caregivers to assess OMC doctors’ service. The evaluation system facilitates an e-commercialised way for delivering healthcare services. It is of interest to study how doctors make efforts to promote themselves in the e-commercialised OMC practice, in particular how language is used to elicit positive comments and evaluations in doctors’ self-promotion. However, this, to my best knowledge, has not been studied. The present study thus examines discursive strategies for eliciting feedback by doctors who contribute to OMCs on a widely used e-healthcare website in China. By the approach of mediated discourse analysis, five strategies have been identified. These discursive strategies are discussed in relation to the disruption of stereotypical roles of doctor and patient and the influence of non-stereotypical positions on power relations between doctors and patients. This study provides a new perspective on doctor-patient relationship and serves as a starting point for further studying neoliberal medical discourse.

Bringing agency back in: the missing link between identity, knowledge, and mediated discourse

In an era often characterised by the notions of “post-truth” and “identity politics”, the nexus between communication, knowledge, and identity forms a crucial realm for social-scientific analysis. However, existing approaches, inspired by content, frame, and discourse analysis often rest on a limited conceptualisation of the agency exercised by those appearing in mediated discourse as speakers or subjects. To remedy this, we argue for an intervention inspired by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and propose a framework combining ANT and poststructuralist Discourse Theory (PDT). Building on a discussion of the theoretical similarities between the two, our core proposal is to study the associations between identity markers and knowledge claims at the sentence level to make transparent how and by whom they are articulated. The nuance gained deepens our understanding of the discursive construction of identity and knowledge, shedding light on the links between identity polarisation and the politicisation of facts.

Systems of Communication: Aspects of Culture and Structure in Speech Surrogates

The practice of speech surrogacy is used for communication across many cultures. Previous work has historically engaged with the study of speech surrogates as part of anthropological or ethnomusicological inquiry; more recently, scholars have explored aspects of the formal relationship between spoken and surrogate linguistic structures. How speech surrogates function as systems of communication is not yet well understood. Based on evidence from an interdisciplinary corpus of documentation, characteristics of culture and discourse, as well as features of linguistic structure, are shown to play a role in fostering communicability in speech surrogates. Cultural constraints are linked to the development of a speech surrogate-mediated discourse within a community of practice, facilitating comprehension of the surrogate system. Moreover, specific structures including formulas, enphrasing, and framing devices are identified as common to various speech surrogate traditions, suggesting a common function as aids to communication. This analysis points to the need to investigate speech surrogates as linguistic systems within a discursive context.

Forms and Functions of Graphicons in Facebook Private Conversations Among Young Filipino Users

Understanding the functions of graphicons such as emojis, images, memes, videos, GIFs, emoticons, and stickers has become increasingly relevant as they have become extensively integrated into textual messages on Facebook, especially in group chats. This study aimed to investigate the forms and functions of graphicons used by young Filipino users (ages 18-31) on Facebook group chats. The datasets were extracted from the corpora, ten Facebook group chats, each lasting for three months, and analyzed using or computer-mediated discourse analysis or language-focused content analysis. According to the findings of this study, emoji was the most widely used graphicon by young Filipino users on Facebook, while sticker was the least. Adopting Herring and Dainas’ six functions of graphicons (2017), the researcher discovered additional five functions on Facebook group chats. These functions are identified as mention, reaction, riff, tone modification, action, narrative sequence, response, sharing, replacement, complement, and attention. It was also discovered that a graphicon could serve more than one function in a conversation. Tone modification was the most commonly used function, while the narrative sequence was the least. It was found out that in both emojis and emoticons, ‘tone modification’ was the most used function while ‘sharing’ in both images and videos. Meanwhile, ‘action’ was the most used function in GIFs, ‘attention’ in memes, and ‘mention’ in stickers. Because of the significantly increased use of online communication, this study may provide insight on how people may use these graphicons in their everyday conversations.