Can Tourism Development Make Cities More Livable? Investigating 40 Cities in China

The field of rapid urbanization has recently paid more attention to the relationship between tourism development and liveable city construction. Previous studies have mainly focused on the experiences of tourists in tourist cities and seldom paid attention to the perceptions of local residents. Based on survey data of nearly 10,000 permanent residents in 40 key tourist cities in China, this study uses a multilevel model to quantitatively analyse the natural environment characteristics, sociocultural environment characteristics and comprehensive attraction of tourism in different tourist cities to explore their impact on urban liveability satisfaction. Results show that the developed tourist cities do not exactly correspond to the cities with a high liveability evaluation. The objective evaluation of both the natural environment and the sociocultural environment has an important influence on the liveability of cities, but the influence of the natural environment is stronger than that of the sociocultural environment. An intermediary effect exists in the subjective evaluation of the natural environment and environments for liveability perception. Simultaneously, residents’ liveability satisfaction varies according to their age, education level, annual household income and other social and economic conditions. These findings provide insights for developing countries to further improve residents’ living quality and urban construction under the condition of the rapid development of tourism.

Analysis of Mr. Collins’ proposal: Jane Austen’s realism as a strategy for social criticism

Jane Austen's novels are a faithful portrait of many of the customs and rules of her time’s society. By depicting her sociocultural environment, Austen confers a greater realism to her works and adds coherence to her characters’ attitudes. She also employs realism as a strategy to make a subtle social criticism, highlighting the negative consequences of some of her time’s laws and rules. In the present article, a sociocultural context is offered about clerics, courtship and marriage proposals, and the legal device of the entailment, which will lead to a better understanding of the subsequent analysis of Pride and Prejudice’s chapter 19, in which Mr. Collins’ marriage proposal to Elizabeth Bennet is related. Through this analysis, the way in which Austen criticizes the precarious situation of women in her time will be explained, as well as its subsequent consequences on marriage engagements.

Technologies of Formation and Development of Sociocultural Environment Professionals’ Emotional Competence

The article analyzes the theoretical foundations and features of emotional competence formation; the concept of emotional intelligence and emotional competence in retrospect of scientific research is understood and revealed; the structure, components, elements, factors and functional role of emotional competence of specialists are characterized; the methodological approach to the formation of emotional competence of socio-cultural professionals in Ukraine and the specifics of development at the present stage are highlighted. It is proved that the emotional competence of socio-cultural professionals involves the possession of four types of skills, in particular: managing their emotions, managing other people’s emotions, awareness of other people’s emotions, awareness of their emotions; presented and argued technologies for the formation and development of emotional competence of managers of socio-cultural environment in Ukraine in accordance with the challenges of the time.

Social Media Use and Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Thin- and Muscular-Ideal Internalisation

Internalisation of appearance ideals moderates the relationship between exposure to media images and body dissatisfaction. To date, the role of thin- and muscular-ideal internalisation in the context of social media remains under explored, particularly for boys. As such, we aimed to explore how social media use (Instagram and Snapchat) was related to body dissatisfaction, and whether thin- and muscular-ideal internalisation would moderate this relationship in a sample of 1153 adolescent boys and girls (55.42% males; Mage = 13.71, SD = 1.14). As hypothesised, social media use, and thin- and muscular ideal internalisation were positively correlated with body dissatisfaction in both genders. In moderation analyses, thin-ideal internalisation emerged as the only variable that had a significant effect on body dissatisfaction in both genders. Additionally, the influence of social media use on body dissatisfaction was moderated by muscular-ideal internalisation in boys, whereby for boys with high muscular-ideal internalisation, greater social media use was associated with greater body dissatisfaction. The two-way (muscular x thin-ideal internalisation) and three-way interaction (social media use x thin-ideal internalisation x muscular-ideal internalisation) effects on body dissatisfaction were non-significant. These findings emphasise the importance of considering the sociocultural environment (i.e., new media influences) as frameworks for understanding body dissatisfaction and suggest targeting of internalisation of appearance ideals in body dissatisfaction prevention programs.

The Balkan Concept of the Phenomenon of Odessa Culture

This article explores manifestations of the Balkan concept as a component of the phenomenon of ‘Odessa culture’. The research aims to reveal the concept’s specific components, how they were formed in Odessa’s sociocultural environment and how they are manifested today. These tasks are solved by means of retrospective analysis, one of the key methods of Historical Urban Studies. This form of analysis enables investigation of the issues of city development and functioning in a comprehensive fashion and implies an interdisciplinary approach. The process of populating Odessa and its ethnic composition shaped the ‘Odessa culture’ phenomenon. Its unique nature involves a harmonious blend of various social, ethnic and religious layers. Since Odessa was established as a city, the Balkan peoples have become an integral part of this process. The Balkan component is now cemented in the city’s culture and is strongly reflected in its toponymy and social and cultural practices. The public activities of individuals and cultural communities contribute to the positive image of Balkan ethnicities. For example, the Balkan culinary tradition is an integral component of Odessans’ everyday culture. All the investigated aspects (demographic, toponymic, personal, sociocultural, culinary) enable the process whereby the Balkan concept synthesizes with the ‘Odessa culture’ phenomenon to be revealed. Odessa culture today is unimaginable without its Balkan component.

Where to Retire? Experiences of Older African Immigrants in the United States

The needs and conceptualization of age-friendliness likely vary for immigrant older adults compared to native-born older adults. For example, Hispanic immigrant older adults often return to their home country following the development of ill health. Doubling in size since the 1970’s, the aging needs of African immigrants are not fully understood. This qualitative study examined experiences of aging and retirement planning for African immigrant older adults in the United States (U.S.). Specifically, it explored the factors, processes, and ultimate decision of where these older adults planned to retire. We analyzed semi-structured interviews with 15 older African immigrants in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area. Data were analyzed using thematic analyses in NVivo. The majority of participants were women, with a mean age of 64. We identified three overarching themes with ten sub-themes. The themes included: 1) cultural identity: indicating participant’s comfort with the U.S. society and culture; 2) decision making: factors that impact participants' choice of retirement location, and 3) decision made: the final choice of where participants would like to retire. Age-friendliness for immigrant older adults in the U.S. is complex and it includes the traditional domains such as physical and sociocultural environment (e.g. housing, transportation, and income). However, immigrant age-friendliness also needs to include wider contextual aspects such as political climate in their country of origin, immigrant status, family responsibilities, and acculturation in the U.S. More research is needed understand and facilitate age-friendly environments for transnational immigrant older adults.

Linguistic identity, national archetypes and sociocultural environment of their formation

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current state of the categories ―linguistic identity‖ and ―national archetype‖ in correlation with the socio-cultural environment. The national and cultural values of any ethno psychological group are reflected in the language serving a real-life community of people. National archetypes are the semiotic basis of linguistic identity, which is formed within a certain socio-cultural context, an inalienable instance of the psychophysical structure of a person. It is argued that the essential characteristics of the national linguistic identity can be detected already at the level of identifying the semantic features of the language units of the utterance in discoursing. The next steps to reconstruct the linguistic personality are associated with modelling the logical-semantic structure of the utterance, due to the presence of ethnocultural traces at all levels of the subject's discourse behaviour. The discourse behaviour of an individual is the essence of his communicative activity and worldview. It was found that behavioural models, modal and nominative ways of reflecting reality are ethnoculturally determined not only by language, but also by immanent preferences in accordance with the logic, semantics and pragmatics of the communicative act. It is suggested that the verbalization of Russian identity (the magic of Russian vocabulary) is preferably carried out within the framework of contact strategies (direct means of expressing thoughts) and in correlation with the values of the national community, and the intellectual parameters of the French language are implemented in line with distant communication strategies (indirect means expressions of thought) and the priority of individual values. Prospects for the application of the method of reconstructing new knowledge in the mainstream of identifying the dominant features of a national linguistic personality in languages of different structures are outlined.

MOTIVATIONAL ASPECT OF STUDENT NICKNAMES

Modern studies of informal names are presented from different angles of observation: semantics, motivation, creation and gender peculiarities of this type of onyms. The issue of characters of the sociocultural environment, in which nicknames appear, and its influence on assignment of a name to a member of a certain collective is also being considered more actively in recent years. School and student nicknames are appearing in linguists’ field of view more and more often. The purpose of our investigation is to find out the motivational features of student nicknames. The object of our study is student nicknames. The subject is motivational features of the lexical base, which formed the basis for the creation of this type of onyms. The main task was to reveal the meaning of noted onyms, to determine the reasons for their appearance and to ascertain the features of the student unofficial onomasticon. The nicknames of students of the philological faculty of Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University served as material for the article. Student slang reflects on the peculiarities of creating nicknames. The language of students differs from the language of people of other age groups, and this is what determines the specifics of student naming. Individual nicknames of students are grouped into two categories by origin – nicknames of appellative origin nicknames of anthroponymic origin. Nicknames of anthroponymic origin make up the largest part of discovered names. They are motivated by the official names and surnames of bearers. Names, motivated by the features of bearer’s appearance, establish the largest group of onyms of appellative origin. By structure, such onyms are mostly one-component and expressed by nouns. Among the studied student nicknames, onyms with neutral or ameliorative meaning are predominant.

Subtitling as a Didactic Tool for Relating Exactness of Information and Cultural Preservation: The Igbo Language Mediascape Example

Translation is a language activity that involves intercultural activities. The study’s focus is on subtitling as a didactic tool for relating exactness of information and cultural preservation: The Igbo language Mediascape example, by looking at the correctness of the subtitled expressions in context, in the movie used for the study. Language is a human form of communication in his sociocultural environment as well as culture which is people's way of life. The study adopted the frameworks of Gotlieb's strategy and Nida's equivalence to tackle the study’s problems. It also adopted the methodology of description and emergent design approach in the study. For the correctness of the source information expressions in context, it is discovered that by the use of Gotlieb's strategy and Nida's translation equivalence, the study was able to transfer right messages in the context in which they are used. It is discovered that the research objective of the study is achieved thereby attaining the signification of the study.