Implicit vs explicit expression on advertising in a cross-cultural study: the mediating role of processing fluency and number of alternatives

PurposeThis study aims to examine the moderating effect of culture on the phrase expression type that affects product attitude. Moreover, to identify the mechanism by which these effects occur, the authors investigated the mediating role of processing fluency, and examined how such a mediating effect of processing fluency varies with number of alternatives.Design/methodology/approachThree experiments were conducted to verify the hypotheses presented in this study. Experiment 1 tested the effects of phrase expression type and culture on product attitude; a two-factor design (phrase expression type: explicit expression vs implicit expression) was applied, and culture was classified according to nationality. Experiment 2 tested the mediating effect of processing fluency on product attitude, using the same approach as Experiment 1. Experiment 3 tested the moderated mediating role of the number of alternatives, a between-group experimental design of 2 (phrase expression: explicit expression vs implicit expression) × 2 (number of alternatives: many vs few) was applied.FindingsExperiment 1's results demonstrate that product attitude is more favorable when implicit expressions are used for Asians, whereas it is more favorable with explicit expressions for Westerners. Experiment 2 verifies that the interaction effect between phrase expression type and culture on product attitude is mediated by processing fluency. Experiment 3's results demonstrate that the number of alternatives moderates the mediating role of processing fluency for Westerners, but has no effect on the processing fluency for Asians.Originality/valueThis study provides novel insights and expands the field of study of phrase expression types by separating the ambiguous boundaries among phrase presentation types. Furthermore, this study provides practical guidelines for establishing effective advertising strategies for companies by suggesting suitable phrase expression types based on culture.

Politeness in Parliamentary Discourse: An Analysis of the Hansard of the Parliament of Ghana

This study investigates politeness in parliamentary discourse in Ghana. Using politeness theory as framework and the parliamentary Hansard as source of data, the study examines the politeness strategies employed by parliamentary actors, the implications of the frequency of the usage of the politeness strategies, and how the Standing Orders of Parliament determine the choice of a politeness strategy. Findings of the study show that political actors in the Parliament of Ghana use the bald on-record, the positive, the negative and the off-record politeness strategies in varied proportions. The study further reveals that the negative politeness strategy is the most frequently used politeness strategy with the Speaker being the highest user of the negative and the bald on-record politeness strategies. Again, the study found out that the off-record politeness strategy is the least used strategy. The Majority Members in Parliament use the highest frequency of the positive politeness strategies while the Minority Members of Parliament employ more negative politeness strategies. The study concludes that parliamentary discourse in Ghana employs more of the direct explicit polite expressions than the indirect implicit expressions of politeness. The study recommends that researchers should pay critical attention to the politeness phenomenon in parliamentary discourse.

The Relationship Between Internal and External Dose: Some General Results Based on a Generic Compartmental Model

Statements on how the internal-to-external-dose (IED) relationship looks like are often based on qualitative toxicokinetic arguments. For example, the recently proposed kinetically derived maximum dose (KMD) states that the IED relationship must have an inflection point, due to saturation of underlying processes like metabolism or absorption. However, such statements lack a solid quantitative foundation. Therefore, we derived expressions for the IED relationship for a number of scenarios based on a generic compartmental model involving saturation. The scenarios included repeated or single dose, and saturable metabolism or saturable absorption. For some of these scenarios, an explicit expression for the IED relationship can be derived, for others only implicit expressions can be established, which need to be evaluated numerically. The results show that saturable processes will lead to an IED relationship that is nonlinear over the whole dose range, ie, it can be approximated by a linear relationship at the lower end, whereas the approximation will become gradually poorer with increasing doses. The finding that saturation does not lead to an inflection point in the IED relationship, as assumed in the KMD, implies that the KMD is not a valid approach for selecting the top dose in toxicological studies. An additional use of our results is that the derived explicit expressions of the IED relationship can be fitted to IED data, and, possibly, for extrapolation outside the observed dose range.

Epistemic Uncertainty, Subjective Probability, and Ancient History

The subjective interpretation of probability—increasingly influential in other fields—makes probability a useful tool of historical analysis. It provides a framework that can accommodate the significant epistemic uncertainty involved in estimating historical quantities, especially (but not only) regarding periods for which we have limited data. Conceptualizing uncertainty in terms of probability distributions is a useful discipline because it forces historians to consider the degree of uncertainty as well as to identify a most-likely value. It becomes even more useful when multiple uncertain quantities are combined in a single analysis, a common occurrence in ancient history. Though it may appear a radical departure from current practice, it builds upon a probabilism that is already latent in historical reasoning. Most estimates of quantities in ancient history are implicit expressions of probability distributions, insofar as they represent the value judged to be most likely, given the available evidence. But the traditional point-estimate approach leaves historians’ beliefs about the likelihood of other possible values unclear or unexamined.

The Discourse of Controlling “Illegal Immigration” in Irish Parliamentary Texts

“Illegal immigration” occurs at a quite small scale in the Irish context, especially when compared to other European countries. Nevertheless, there is a significant level of discussion about “illegal immigration” in the Irish Parliament. Through the conceptual frameworks of Foucauldian thought and Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper undertakes a Topoi Analysis to examine discursive representations from the Irish Parliament (2002–2009). It concentrates upon the most common argumentation forwarded by parliamentarians – the need to control “illegal immigration” in Ireland. This argumentation is expressed through various discourses. Notably, these discourses are juxtaposed with positive representations of the “undocumented Irish” in the U.S. Overall, it is argued that negative control discourses about “illegal immigrants” in Ireland provide a number of functions: (i) the legitimization and continuation of the nation-state rationale of governance, (ii) the provision of a forum for implicit expressions of racism, and (iii) the acceptance of “justified” practices of exclusion of unwanted non-EU migrants.

Implicit expressions of static and incident wave pressures over the instantaneous wetted surface of ships

To predict a ship's behaviour, adopting either a partial or comprehensive non-linear hydrodynamic method, requires accurate information of incident wave and static pressure on any location over the instantaneous wetted hull surface. In this study an implicit formula to evaluate the non-linear hydrostatic and incident wave dynamic pressures acting on a ship travelling in linear or second-order deep water incident waves is deduced based on a wave mapping method. The accuracy and efficiency of the numerical scheme of study employing this formula is verified and validated through comparisons with a simple extrapolation (or stretching) approach, Wheeler stretching methods, and with a fifth-order Stokes' wave theory, which is assumed to embody a more complete solution. More accurate predictions of the dynamic pressure are achieved from the proposed second-order wave mapping method. However, as a practical approach, the presented second-order wave Wheeler stretching method can be considered as a reasonable approximation to the proposed wave mapping method.

Stability of circular-section bonded rubber blocks subjected to compression and bending

Rubber blocks of circular cross-section whose ends are bonded to rigid plates are studied under compression between either flat parallel surfaces or central parallel knife-edges. Implicit expressions are derived exactly in each case for the critical values of the loads at which the blocks begin to bend, based upon the classical theory of elasticity. Convenient very good approximate explicit representations are additionally deduced for these first critical loads. Some typical representative numerical data are compared and presented graphically in both situations.

PERIODIC WAVES AND THEIR LIMITS FOR THE CAMASSA–HOLM EQUATION

In this paper, the bifurcation method of dynamical systems is employed to study the Camassa–Holm equation [Formula: see text] We investigate the periodic wave solutions of form u = φ(ξ) which satisfy φ(ξ + T) = φ(ξ), here ξ = x - ct and c, T are constants. Their six implicit expressions and two explicit expressions are obtained. We point out that when the initial values are changed, the periodic waves may become three waves, periodic cusp waves, smooth solitary waves and peakons. Our results give an explanation to the appearance of periodic cusp waves and peakons. Moreover, three sets of graphs of the implicit functions are drawn, and three sets of numerical simulations are displayed. The identity of these graphs and simulations imply the correctness of our theoretical results.