“Stirring it up!” Emotionality in audience responses to political speeches

Speaker-audience interaction in political speeches has been conceptualised as a form of dialogue between speaker and audience. Of particular importance is research pioneered by Atkinson (e.g., 1983, 1984a, 1984b) on the analysis of rhetorical devices utilised by politicians to invite audience applause. Atkinson was not concerned with emotionalisation in political speech-making, rather with how applause was invited in relation to group identities through ingroup praise and/or outgroup derogation. However, his theory has provided important insights into how speakers invite audience responses, and a powerful stimulus for associated research. The purpose of this article is to address the shortfall of emotionalisation research within the realm of political speeches. We begin with an account of Atkinsons influential theory of rhetoric, followed by a relevant critique. The focus then turns to our main aim, namely, how key findings from previous speech research can be interpreted in terms of emotionalisation. Specifically, the focus is on audience responses to the words of political speakers, and how different forms of response may reflect audience emotionality. It is proposed that both duration and frequency of invited affiliative audience responses may indicate more positive emotional audience responses, while uninvited interruptive audience applause and booing may provide notable clues to issues on which audiences have strong feelings. It is concluded that there is strong evidence that both invited and uninvited audience responses may provide important clues to emotionalisation - both positive and negative - in political speeches.

Does Lewis’ Theory of Causation Permit Time Travel?

David Lewis aimed to give an account of causation, and in particular, a semantics for the counterfactuals to which his account appeals, that is compatible with backwards causation and time travel. I will argue that he failed, but not for the reasons that have been offered to date, specifically by Collins, Hall and Paul and by Wasserman. This is significant not the least because Lewis’ theory of causation was the most influential theory over the last quarter of the 20th century; and moreover, Lewis’ spirited defence of time travel in the 1970s has shaped philosophers’ approach to time travel to this day.

The Influence of Political Discourse on the Formation of the Language Personality of a Politician

The current paper sums up the results of the dissertation research conducted by the author at the Moscow Region State University which was supervised by Professor Ye. A. Sorokina, Doctor of Philology. The relevance of the chosen research topic is determined by anthropocentrism of modern linguistics which manifests itself in progressive development of personology, including linguistic personology and political linguistic personology as one of the emerging scientific disciplines that is not yet fully separated from political linguistics. This article looks at some new issues of political linguistics, one of which is the notion of linguopersoneme, and suggests several types of linguistic personemes: the mythmaker, the actor, the alarmist, the gentleman (the lady), the aggressor, and the marginal. Most of these notions and terms were used in our previous articles and yet it is only now that we present a more or less holistic vision of the complex and versatile phenomenon of the language personality of a politician. In our opinion, the language personality of a politician is a variety of a creative professional language personality, to some extent comparable to the people working in such professional spheres as show business, sport, art, etc. The language personality of a politician is formed in political discourse, as follows from the sociological theories by P. Bourdieu and M. Foucault. It was found that the main characteristics of political discourse manifest themselves in the politician’s language personality in a specific way, thus forming its structure, which up to this moment was predominately described in terms of Yu. N. Karaulov’s influential theory. These are verbal-semantic, cognitive and pragmatic levels of the language personality.

Deliberate practice

A large volume of research has shown that acquiring expertise in any domain is heavily influenced by the amount of deliberate practice (DP) the performer engages in over time. This chapter provides an overview of Ericsson’s highly influential theory of deliberate practice (DP) and argues that DP is essential if performers are to maintain and improve their skill levels over time. One of the primary goals is to distinguish between mechanical practice and DP. In doing so, the chapter posits that mechanical practice involves mindless repetition of well-learned skills while DP involves the use of reflective and self-regulatory processes to identify and correct errors (movement patterns that produce undesirable motor outputs) and to inspire exploratory behaviour. The chapter also argues that DP activities are often characterized by experimentation, playfulness, and enjoyment and that these are important components of expertise because they increase one’s motivation or desire to stick with difficult tasks.

Conclusion

The book comes to four main conclusions. Contrary to an influential theory (Rogers Brubaker), it is, first, not discursive idioms about the nation that primarily determine the inclusive or exclusive character of citizenship. Rather, it was changing politico-social constellations—economic, demographic, and foreign policy interests and conjunctions—that defined the political form and practice of citizenship. Second, contrary to a dominant narrative, the frequently alleged qualitative divide of legal culture from Western to Eastern Europe is called into question. Third, the book’s historical cross-section supports a critical review of the widespread theory of convergence between regimes of citizenship in Europe. It specifies, instead, the historical conditions for expectations of Europeanization through law and thus for European citizenship. Fourth, the history of citizenship in Europe since the nineteenth century cannot be told as an exclusively European one. The politics and colonial practices of affiliation in the European powers’ overseas and continental colonial empires remained in effect well into the postcolonial policies of citizenship and migration, thus also shaping the inheritance of a current policy of citizenship in Europe.

Predictions about the Cognitive Consequences of Language Switching on Executive Functioning Inspired by the Adaptive Control Hypothesis Fail More Often than Not

The adaptive control hypothesis developed by Green and Abutalebi is the most influential theory of bilingual language control. The focus of this article is on the predictions that other researchers have derived based on the three different modes of interactional context described by the hypothesis. Foremost, that dual-language contexts should enhance domain-general executive functions more than single-language contexts. Several recent and ambitious behavioral tests of these predictions are reviewed. Although there was some evidence that dual-language contexts are associated with smaller switch costs, the evidence is inconsistent and there were no similar advantages for inhibitory control. The hypothesis also predicts neuroanatomical adaptations to the three types of interactional context. A careful evaluation of the relevant fMRI and ERP studies that take into account whether behavioral differences align with neuroscience differences and resolves valence ambiguities led to the conclusion that the neuroscience evidence for the hypothesis is, at best, inconsistent. The study also includes new analyses of two large-sample studies that enable the identification of relatively pure cases of single-language bilinguals, dual-language bilinguals, and dense-code switchers. Across nine different measures of executive functioning, the predicted advantage of the dual-language context never materialized. The hypotheses derived from the adaptive control hypothesis do not accurately predict behavioral performance on tests of executive functioning and do not advance our understanding as to what dimensions of bilingualism may lead to enhancements in specific components of executive functioning.

Analysis of Cohesivenes in Descriptive text Written by Undergraduate Students

Cohesiveness or the use of cohesive devices is a critical aspect of writing skill. It is one of the primary characteristics that should be mastered when writing well. The purpose of this article was to examine the use of cohesive devices in descriptive text written by undergraduate students in the Banking Department of STIE KERJASAMA Yogyakarta's third semester. This study examined the use of cohesive devices in each of the students' descriptive texts. The study's data set consisted of ten texts. The study identified four significant findings by employing a mixed research design and drawing on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) influential theory of cohesion. To begin, students' English texts contain a variety of cohesive devices (reference, conjunction, substitution, ellipses, and lexical cohesion). Whereas there are three types of cohesive devices that are frequently used in texts: reference, lexical cohesion, and conjunction. The study's findings have repercussions for pedagogy, theory, academic writing, and future research.

Religious Theory in the Thinai Grammar

The Tamil word is basic ally from the grammar of the Tamil word. The grammar system that divides world life into 'Thinai' is a very important system in Tamil. Language changes are taking place in a scientifically functioning society. The cultivation and productivity of the foundation of society have an impact on the superstructure of the society, the art, literature and culture. The religious god thought is in the life classification of the Tamil grammar which is the basis for the creation of words. The tholkappiyam period of the resurrection of the collective life is a symbol of the non-religious protodravidian ism and directly links the doctrine of God to the people. The authors of the well developed landslide society, who wrote to tholkappiyam, have also incorporated the theory of God, based on the various religious and social contexts. The Veera Choliam with buddhist background and Neminatha with Jainism link the god sandals in the higher dina. The nannul also inscribes the sanskrit influence of the deity and the naraka of the sanskrit influence, and the sanskrit influential theory of the proto Dravidian grammar of the grammar, the devar and the narakar a number of religious theories.

Public Reason, Partisanship and the Containment of the Populist Radical Right

This article discusses the growth of the populist radical right as a concrete example of the scenario where liberal democratic ideas are losing support in broadly liberal democratic societies. Our goal is to enrich John Rawls’ influential theory of political liberalism. We argue that even in that underexplored scenario, Rawlsian political liberalism can offer an appealing account of how to promote the legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic institutions provided it places partisanship centre stage. Specifically, we propose a brand-new moral duty binding ‘reasonable’ partisans committed to pluralism. This duty establishes conditions where partisans must strategically transform society’s public reason (i.e. transform the visions for society their parties campaign on) in ways that promise to attract back support from illiberal and antidemocratic competitors. While this strategic behaviour might seem impermissible, we show that Rawls’ distinctive account of sincerity in democratic deliberation is uniquely placed to justify it as perfectly ethical.

Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies

Children’s movies often provide messages about morally appropriate and inappropriate conduct. In two studies, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to derive predictions about actual depictions of morality, and people’s preferences for different moral depictions, within children’s movies. According to MFT, people’s moral concerns include individualizing foundations of care and fairness and binding foundations of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Prior work reveals that although there are political differences in the endorsement of these two broad categories—whereby stronger political conservatism predicts stronger binding concerns and weaker individualizing concerns—there nonetheless is broad agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. We therefore predicted that heroes would value individualizing foundations more than villains, and that despite political differences in preferences for moral messages, there would be more agreement in the importance of messages promoting individualizing concerns. In Study 1, we coded heroes and villains from popular children’s movies for their valuation of moral foundations. Heroes valued individualizing concerns more, and binding concerns less, than villains did. Participants in Study 2 considered moral dilemmas faced by children’s movie characters, and rated their preferences for resolutions that promoted either individualizing or binding foundations. Although liberals preferred individualizing-promoting resolutions and conservatives preferred binding-promoting resolutions, there was stronger agreement across political identity in the importance of individualizing concerns. Despite political differences in moral preferences, popular depictions of children’s movie characters and people’s self-reported moral endorsement suggest a shared belief in the importance of the individualizing moral virtues of care and fairness. Movies are often infused with moral messages. From their exploration of overarching themes, their ascription of particular traits to heroic and villainous characters, and their resolution of pivotal moral dilemmas, movies provide viewers with depictions of morally virtuous (and morally suspect) behavior. Moral messaging in children’s movies is of particular importance, since it is targeted at an audience for which morality is actively developing. What moral messages do filmmakers (and consumers, including parents) want children’s movies to depict? Are these preferences related to people’s political identity? And what are the actual moral depictions presented in movies? In the present two studies, we draw on an influential theory of moral judgment—Moral Foundations Theory—to develop and test predictions about the depiction of morality in children’s movies.