Maintaining Ethnic Boundary: The Ethnogenesis of Madhesi Identity in Nepal Tarai

This article attempts to illuminate on the processes wherein diverse groups of Madhesi people of the central Tarai have been ethnicized to form a shared identity in the specific historical and socio-political context of Nepal. Drawing on the perceptions and subjective experiences of Madhesi individuals in terms of their identity, it is argued that Madhesi identity has come into being and maintained through the practices of boundary maintenance that encompasses relational processes of inclusion and exclusion. Madhesi people have re(asserted) their cultural contrast to the Pahadis and claim political autonomy of the Tarai territory where they belong for making ethnic distinction and maintaining group boundary.

Activist as Symptom: Healing Trauma within a Ruptured Collective

Animal activists serve as symptom-bearers for trans-species collective trauma within Western-industrial society. Findings from literature on traumatology and nonhuman animal activism, contemporary discourse, and the voices of ten activists currently in the field suggest that many animal activists suffer some form of trauma. Activist trauma arises through overlapping, complex relational processes of intersubjective attunement with nonhuman animals and embeddedness within a human social context that disavows nonhuman suffering. In understanding activist trauma as a symptom of a dysfunctional system, I depathologize activist suffering and view activists as integral members of a whole society that seeks healing.

ПОНЯТТЯ ЧАСУ В ПОЕЗІЇ РАБІНДРАНАТА ТАГОРА: ЧИТАЦЬКА ІНТЕРПРЕТАЦІЯ

In the current study, readers’ interpretation of the conception of time in Rabindranath Tagore’s nonnarrative poetry is approached from the perspective of schema theory (E. Semino) and Text World Theory (P. Werth, J. Gavins). The analysis shows that in Rabindranath Tagore’s non-narrative poems about time, which were written in or translated into English, a TIME schema is instantiated through (i) linguistic units that refl ect human idea of dividing time into conventional periods – moments, days, months, years, etc.; (ii) a complex web of fi gurative devices, metaphors and similes in particular. In readers’ minds, fi gurative language prompts associative connections between several core, or basic, schemata: TIME, GOD, HUMAN LIFE, LIFE OF NATURE. Basic schemata can contain subordinate ones (TIME: MOMENT, DAY, MONTH; GOD: THY HANDS, SHUT GATE (thy gate be shut); HUMAN LIFE: CLOCK, PARODY, POEM, MEMORY; LIFE OF NATURE: BUTTERFLY, GARDEN, FLOWER, etc.). Connections between schemata on either a level or across levels indicate that the abstract conception of time is objectifi ed through physical processes and entities, which are perceptible by human senses; and that human life and life of nature have some common characteristics determined by time-related processes. Relying on schemata instantiated by the language of a poem, a reader creates his or her mental representation of the text, in other words, builds a poem’s text-world. On the text-world level, the conception of time in Rabindranath Tagore’s non-narrative poetry is presented through the use of all the three types of elements from which text-worlds are constructed: temporal deictic markers (world-building elements), function-advancing propositions (elements that describe actions, events, and states), and intensive relational processes (elements which describe physical characteristics). Text-worlds in Rabindranath Tagore’s non-narrative poems about time can be complex. His texts can contain world-switches – changes in the temporal parameters “present – future” from the perspective of the author and “present – past” from the perspective of a reader, and/or modal worlds that exist as hypothetical ones in the minds of the author and his readers. The latter concerns the poems in which time is associated with the transcendent conception of God. Key words: Rabindranath Tagore, non-narrative poetry, time, schema, text-world.

Time Banks as Transient Civic Organizations? Exploring the Dynamics of Decline

Time banks have become a popular type of civic organization constructed to facilitate egalitarian economic exchange through a community-bounded currency. Especially after the recent economic crises in Europe, the rise in the number of time banks has been accompanied by relative transience and sometimes short lifespans. We adopt a relational perspective to explore the dynamics of decline in the civic engagement of a time bank in southern Germany. Using methods of longitudinal social network analysis, we analyze the relational processes and individual trajectories of members within the emerging transaction network over a period of eight years. Rather than explaining why, we have found how relational trajectories of members through a structure of core and periphery have led to creeping decline in activity and membership. Given the repeated observation that time banks and other types of alternative economic practices are often characterized by considerable volatility and potential collapse, relational thinking and network analysis are especially suited to unpacking the underlying relational mechanisms that shape these outcomes of volatility and demise.

Slow Disturbance: Infrastructural Mediation on the Settler Colonial Resource Frontier

This article reviews Rafico Ruiz’s Slow Disturbance, which presents a strong analysis of the temporal dimensions of infrastructure and the resource frontier through the case of the Grenfell Mission in Newfoundland and Labrador, an evangelical Protestant medical mission. Ruiz highlights infrastructure as ongoing relational processes that are also media productions and is especially attuned to how relationships are oriented around the repair and maintenance of infrastructure in order to create the resource frontier.

When blogging is a challenge: An organizational and psychological analysis of a failed empowerment project

Literature supports the effectiveness of blogs to improve communication, strategic thinking, and collaboration. These competencies are particularly relevant for organizations, and for this reason, social media are frequently used as opportunities to better manage employees' behaviors, enhance the transfer of knowledge, and foster creativity. Despite these considerations, few research-based findings guide these new tools' practical application in the organizational environment's training processes. This study aims to understand the organizational, individual, and socio-relational processes and issues that occur during a blog-based training program and how they interact and influence its effectiveness. We present a casestudy based on the use of discourse analysis, focused on the failure of a blogbased training project. Our findings suggest the employees' metacognitive awareness is a significant issue in the design and implementation of a blog-based training program. Insights derived from conversation analysis suggest that to manage a blog-based training program effectively, it is crucial to deal with face-to-face interaction and the group sense-making process ‘outside' the blog.

Comparing Oral and Written Cooking Recipes Using Systemic Functional Grammar

This article compares oral and written cooking recipes of the same food created by the same person, by using systemic functional grammar. The aim of the article is to find out the similarities and differences of the language used in both recipes. The data are obtained from Jamie Oliver’s cooking show aired in a YouTube channel on how to make scones and the written recipe of the same food published in his website. The focus of the analysis is on the lexico-grammar of the clauses used in the texts. The result shows that there are more differences than similarities between the two texts. There are more clauses in the spoken text than those in the written text in terms of quantity and variety. In the ideational function, both texts have a similar variety of processes with the majority of material process showing imperatives of procedural texts and additional information using mental, existential, and relational processes, but in the written text there are two clauses using verbal process that are not found in the spoken text. In the interpersonal function, the two texts show demands of good and services and the use of modalities in expressing the expected results of the cooking process. In the spoken text, the relation between the cook and the audience is friendlier and closer than that in the written text. It is demonstrated in the use of vocatives and interrogatives that are not used in the written text. The textual functions show similar results in the use of conjunctions but the spoken text displays closer interpersonal textual functions found in the use of vocatives. The analyses of the three metafunctions of the two recipes may contribute to the study of food texts in linguistics that are relatively low compared to those in other disciplines.

The Construction of China’s National Image From Transitivity Perspective—A Case Study of Fighting COVID-19: China in Action

Using the theory of transitivity system within Systemic Functional Linguistics as the theoretical basis and the white paper named Fighting COVID-19: China in Action, which was published by the Chinese government on June 7, 2020 as the corpus, with the help of corpus analysis tool, UAM Corus Tool 3, this paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the construction of China’s national image. The results show that the frequency of material processes is extremely high, which is 88.26%, while existential processes and behavioral processes occupy only an extremely small proportion, 0.73% and 0.09% respectively. Relational processes are in the second rank, 5.34%. The frequencies of verbal processes and mental processes are similar, accounting for 2.97% and 2.6% respectively. Through a detailed analysis of the six transitivity processes, a national image that advocates “people supremacy”, selfless collectivism, with strong executive ability and mobilization, and a great responsibility in the international society is found to be constructed. This paper lays a foundation for further studying China’s national image in the path of SFL. It also sheds some light on the construction of China’s image in the official government document.