| 1. |
- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-
(författare)
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Epistemic and Existential, E2-sustainability. On the need to un-learn for re-learning in contemporary spaces
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper contributes to a re-thinking, un-learning, and re-learning agenda by interrogating some core ideas and assumptions related to contemporary societal and planetary concerns, including concerns within the research enterprise. Transcending the first step that calls for pausing and re-thinking, this paper troubles universalizing vocabularies that naturalize conceptual framings and ways/waves-of-being in research and educational practices. Furthermore, it illuminates the ways in which scholarship has become complicit in re-cycling and re-creating reductionistic ideas that loop back into educational practices. Its overarching argument aligns with an emergent call within research and higher education for going beyond its universalizing monolithic ethos that has become naturalized in contemporary digital-analog entangled existence. Framed as alternative theorizing that is variously termed post/decolonial/southern thinking, these emergent perspectives are part of the introspection that is critically needed in mainstream academia, in particular in the Learning Sciences. This paper argues that this is needed to contribute to both Epistemic and Existential sustainability, i.e., E2-sustainability. E2-sustainability enables transcending issues of environmental-, economic-, social-, and cultural-sustainability: E2-sustainability assumes and includes these. Marked by alternative conceptual framings and pushed by a mobile gaze, this theoretical paper argues that major and minor shifts in thinking are needed for attending to contemporary societal and planetary challenges. E2-sustainability in the scholarly realm has relevance for transcending ethnocentrically framed biases and siloed framings of contemporary education and higher education, including teacher education. Troubling key, taken-for-granted universalizing truths and using the areas of language and educational scholarship as illustrative points of departure, this paper raises concerns regarding the outsourcing of important educational agendas to technologies, including digitalization on the one hand and concepts that build on contentious assumptions on the other hand. It is such default outsourcing that is troubled through a curiosity-driven multiversal and global-centric mobile gaze wherein both northern and southern knowledge-regimes need to be privileged. The theorizing presented in this paper builds on a Second Wave of Southern Perspectives (SWaSP) framing that has relevance for both north-centric and south-centric scholarship, including writing research. Explicitly multi/inter/cross/trans-disciplinary, this work is relevant to Epistemic and Existential sustainability given its non-allegiance to the imaginaries of mono-disciplinarity, nation-state essences, or universalisms.
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| 2. |
- Bergqvist, Henrik
(författare)
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Egophoricity and Perspective : A View From Spoken Swedish
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From the point of view of everyday talk and especially, casual conversation, it is obvious that language use is highly perspectivized with a clear focus on the speech-act participants. This fact is supported by observations regarding the pervasiveness of egophoric pronouns and the frequent use of the modal particles ju and väl in spoken Swedish. The paper demonstrates how egophoric pronouns, modal particles, and mental verbs are used to signal the epistemic perspective of the speech-act participants, i.e., when the knowledge and attention of the speech-act participants are at stake. These formally distinct resources show patterns of co-distribution that permit an analysis of forms in terms of how they signal shared/private access to events from the perspective of the speaker and the addressee.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Carling, Gerd, et al.
(författare)
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The evolution of lexical semantics dynamics, directionality, and drift
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: The directionality of semantic change is problematic in traditional comparative models of language reconstruction. Compared to, e.g., phonological and morphological change, the directions of meaning change over time are potentially endless and difficult to reconstruct. The current paper attempts to reconstruct the mechanisms of lexical meaning change by a quantitative model. We use a data set of 104 core concepts in 160 Eurasian languages from several families, which are coded for colexification as well as cognacy, including semantic change of lexemes in etymologies. In addition, the various meanings are coded for semantic relation to the core concept, including relations such as metaphor, metonymy, generalization, specialization, holonymy, and meronymy. Further, concepts are coded into classes and semantic properties, including factors such as animacy, count/mass, concrete/abstract, or cultural connotations, such as taboo/non-taboo.Methodology: We use a phylogenetic comparative model to reconstruct the probability of presence at hidden nodes of different colexifying meanings inside etymological trees. We find that these reconstructions come close to meaning reconstructions based on the comparative method. By means of the phylogenetic reconstructions, we measure the evolutionary dynamics of meaning loss of co-lexifying meanings as well as concepts.Results and discussion: These change rates are highly varying, from almost complete stability to complete unstability. Change rates vary between different semantic classes, where for instance wild animals have low change rates and domestic animals and implements have high change rates. We find a negative correlation between taboo animals and change rate, i.e., taboo animals have lower change rates than non-taboo words. Further, we find a negative correlation between animacy and change rate, indicating that animate nouns have lower change rate than inanimate nouns. A further result is a negative correlation between change rate and degree of borrowing (borrowability) of concepts, indicating that lexemes that are more likely to be borrowed are less likely to change semantically. Among semantic relations, we find that metonomy is more frequent than any other change, including metaphor, and that a change from general to more specific is in all cases more frequent than the other way round.
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| 5. |
- Carlsson, Anna-Lena, et al.
(författare)
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The complexity of situated text design : a negotiation between standardization and spoken language in a manufacturing company
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : FRONTIERS MEDIA SA. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In information design textbooks, text design is mostly understood as typography and layout. The meaning-making process of language, involving social interaction that affects language, is rarely acknowledged. Instead, texts are supposed to be "clearly" written. In this research article, we argue that the understanding of text design could benefit from also addressing text production and use situated amid social activity. This article presents a study on a text design process partly based on spoken language and owned by assembly operators in a workplace. Capturing the spoken dialogue and transforming it into instructive texts resembling transcripts are essential steps in securing the best practices for the smallest tasks in manual assembly, the minima of working, which is crucial for manufacturing. Our aim within the information design field is 2-fold: To underline the meaning-making process in language as a social phenomenon and to show that the situated design perspective, i.e., an outlook that highlights the uniqueness of the setting, can be important for the production and use of certain texts, such as instructions, and for affecting language. We asked ourselves: What are the consequences for the information design field when meaning-making in a language is understood as being socially situated in an activity? We have studied a design process and used observations, interviews, and text analysis to gather data. The result showed that the workers' ownership of text documents is crucial for the texts' use, yet the texts used do not meet the standard of information design textbooks. Moreover, the design of the text involves a continuous and non-linear collective negotiation that balances standardization in language and work procedures with the incorporation of operators' linguistic improvements. We unfold a case of text design where there is a closeness of designer and user roles, a non-linearity of the process, and an understanding of an information design product as becoming rather than having been finalized for use.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Conroy, Melanie, et al.
(författare)
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Uncertainty in humanities network visualization
- 2024
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Network visualization is one of the most widely used tools in digital humanities research. The idea of uncertain or “fuzzy” data is also a core notion in digital humanities research. Yet network visualizations in digital humanities do not always prominently represent uncertainty. In this article, we present a mathematical and logical model of uncertainty as a range of values which can be used in network visualizations. We review some of the principles for visualizing uncertainty of different kinds, visual variables that can be used for representing uncertainty, and how these variables have been used to represent different data types in visualizations drawn from a range of non-humanities fields like climate science and bioinformatics. We then provide examples of two diagrams: one in which the variables displaying degrees of uncertainty are integrated into the graph and one in which glyphs are added to represent data certainty and uncertainty. Finally, we discuss how probabilistic data and what-if scenarios could be used to expand the representation of uncertainty in humanities network visualizations.
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| 8. |
- Cox, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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How academic podcasting can change academia and its relationship with society : A conversation and guide
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we explore the potential of academic podcasting to e ect positive change within academia and between academia and society. Building on the concept of epistemic living spaces, we consider how podcasting can change how we evaluate what is legitimate knowledge and methods for knowledge production, who has access to what privileges and power, the nature of our connections within academia and with other partners, and how we experience the constraints and opportunities of space and time. We conclude by o ering a guide for others who are looking to develop their own academic podcasting projects and discuss the potential for podcasting to be formalized as amainstream academic output. To listen to an abridged and annotated version of this paper, visit: https://soundcloud.com/conservechange/podcastinginacademia.
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| 9. |
- Cox, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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How academic podcasting can change academia and its relationship with society: A conversation and guide
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we explore the potential of academic podcasting to effect positive change within academia and between academia and society. Building on the concept of “epistemic living spaces,” we consider how podcasting can change how we evaluate what is legitimate knowledge and methods for knowledge production, who has access to what privileges and power, the nature of our connections within academia and with other partners, and how we experience the constraints and opportunities of space and time. We conclude by offering a guide for others who are looking to develop their own academic podcasting projects and discuss the potential for podcasting to be formalized as a mainstream academic output. To listen to an abridged and annotated version of this paper, visit: https://soundcloud.com/conservechange/podcastinginacademia.
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| 10. |
- Das, Jayatri, et al.
(författare)
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Neuroscience is ready for neuroethics engagement
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neuroscience research has been expanding, providing new insights into brain and nervous system function and potentially transformative technological applications. In recent years, there has been a flurry of prominent international scientific academies and intergovernmental organizations calling for engagement with different publics on social, ethical, and regulatory issues related to neuroscience and neurotechnology advances. Neuroscientific activities and outputs are value-laden; they reflect the cultural, ethical, and political values that are prioritized in different societies at a given time and impact a variety of publics beyond the laboratory. The focus on engagement in neuroscience recognizes the breadth and significance of current neuroscience research whilst acknowledging the need for a neuroethical approach that explores the epistemic and moral values influencing the neuroscientific agenda. The field of neuroethics is characterized by its focus on the social, legal, and philosophical implications of neuroscience including its impact on cultural assumptions about the cognitive experience, identity, consciousness, and decision-making. Here, we outline a proposal for neuroethics engagement that reflects an enhanced and evolving understanding of public engagement with neuroethical issues to create opportunities to share ideation, decision-making, and collaboration in neuroscience endeavors for the benefit of society. We demonstrate the synergies between public engagement and neuroethics scholarship and activities that can guide neuroethics engagement.
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| 11. |
- Ehret, Katharina, et al.
(författare)
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Meaning and Measures: Interpreting and Evaluating Complexity Metrics
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research on language complexity has been abundant and manifold in the past two decades. Within typology, it has to a very large extent been motivated by the question of whether all languages are equally complex, and if not, which language-external factors affect the distribution of complexity across languages. To address this and other questions, a plethora of different metrics and approaches has been put forward to measure the complexity of languages and language varieties. Against this backdrop we address three major gaps in the literature by discussing statistical, theoretical, and methodological problems related to the interpretation of complexity measures. First, we explore core statistical concepts to assess the meaningfulness of measured differences and distributions in complexity based on two case studies. In other words, we assess whether observed measurements are neither random nor negligible. Second, we discuss the common mismatch between measures and their intended meaning, namely, the fact that absolute complexity measures are often used to address hypotheses on relative complexity. Third, in the absence of a gold standard for complexity metrics, we suggest that existing measures be evaluated by drawing on cognitive methods and relating them to real-world cognitive phenomena. We conclude by highlighting the theoretical and methodological implications for future complexity research.
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| 12. |
- Ekström, Axel G., et al.
(författare)
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Motion iconicity in prosody
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Evidence suggests that human non-verbal speech may be rich in iconicity. Here, we report results from two experiments aimed at testing whether perception of increasing and declining f(0) can be iconically mapped onto motion events. We presented a sample of mixed-nationality participants (N = 118) with sets of two videos, where one pictured upward movement and the other downward movement. A disyllabic non-sense word prosodically resynthesized as increasing or declining in f(0) was presented simultaneously with each video in a pair, and participants were tasked with guessing which of the two videos the word described. Results indicate that prosody is iconically associated with motion, such that motion-prosody congruent pairings were more readily selected than incongruent pairings (p < 0.033). However, the effect observed in our sample was primarily driven by selections of words with declining f(0). A follow-up experiment with native Turkish speaking participants (N = 92) tested for the effect of language-specific metaphor for auditory pitch. Results showed no significant association between prosody and motion. Limitations of the experiment, and some implications for the motor theory of speech perception, and "gestural origins" theories of language evolution, are discussed.
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| 13. |
- Englund, Liselotte, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Reporting under extreme conditions : journalists' experience of disaster coverage
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Media presence on site and reports on disasters are crucial parts of disaster communication. Aside from authorities, civil society, concerned businesses and citizens, the media constitute an important actor. The working conditions, situational competence and management among journalists on duty in a disaster area are important factors within the complex area of crisis management and disaster communication. This study aims to explore the working conditions, challenges, and coping strategies among journalists covering the Haiti earthquake in 2010.Methods: Ten months after the event, Scandinavian journalists (n = 32) provided free-text responses about their work on site through a web survey. The free- text responses underwent content analysis. In addition, self-report questionnaires were used to assess general mental health and posttraumatic stress.Results: We found that journalists faced five main challenges in Haiti: situational (technicalities, practical, collegial), professional (mission, approach, roles), personal (traits, emotions, coping), traumatic (general mental health and posttraumatic stress) and experiential (learning and growth). They described a difficult and challenging mission, but also an eye-opening and life-changing experience. Most respondents' questionnaire responses indicated low risk for both poor mental health and posttraumatic stress, with a few significant exceptions. Being properly equipped and mentally prepared, getting collegial support and maintaining professional focus were seen as important, and good leadership and clear instructions from editors at home were highlighted.Discussion: Corroboration of the present findings would strengthen our knowledge of their experiences, and may provide valuable insights for designing preparedness activities in the future as well as for applying to other communication functions in disasters.
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| 14. |
- Graziano, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Providing evidence for a well-worn stereotype : Italians and Swedes do gesture differently
- 2024
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Across cultures and languages spontaneous speech is often accompanied bygestures. It is a popular belief that people in Italy gesture more than peoplein Northern Europe, such as in Sweden. Despite this general assumption fewstudies empirically investigate cultural differences in gesture frequency andgesture function under similar circumstances. This study compares the spokenand gestural behaviours of Italian and Swedish speakers, assumed to representgesture-rich vs. gesture-sparse cultures. We examine the groups’ gesturalbehaviour for frequency, and in terms of possible differences in rhetorical styleprobing the distribution of gestural functions (referential vs. pragmatic) acrossnarrative levels (narrative, metanarrative, and paranarrative). The results showthat (1) Italians overall do gesture more than Swedes; (2) Italians produce morepragmatic gestures than Swedes who produce more referential gestures; (3)both groups show sensitivity to narrative level: referential gestures mainly occurwith narrative clauses, and pragmatic gestures with meta- and paranarrativeclauses. However, the overall group preferences for different functions still leadto different styles. These findings indicate that the two groups differ in gesturerate and, more interestingly, in rhetorical styles, one focused on events andactions in speech and gesture (Swedish), the other alternating between eventsin speech and gesture, and the highlighting of the presentation of new pieces ofinformation in gesture only (Italian). We propose that the findings suggest that thetwo groups conceptualise narrative production in different ways reflected in twodifferent rhetorical styles revealed by gesture production more than by speech.
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| 15. |
- Grohmann, Kleanthes, et al.
(författare)
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Acquiring Clitic Placement in Bilectal Settings: Interactions between Social Factors
- 2017
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1050-9046 .- 2297-900X. ; 2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the development of object clitic placement by children acquiring Cypriot Greek. Greek-speaking Cyprus is sociolinguistically characterized by diglossia between two varieties of Greek, the local Cypriot Greek and the official Standard Modern Greek. Arguably as a result of this situation, clitics may be placed post- (enclisis) or preverbally (proclisis) in the same syntactic environment; while the former is a property of Cypriot Greek, the latter is typically considered an effect of the standard language. The following issues are investigated here: (a) how such bilectal speakers distinguish between the two Greek varieties with respect to clitic placement; (b) how the acquisition of clitics develops over time; (c) how, and which, sociolinguistic factors determine clitic placement; and (d) how schooling may affect clitic placement. To address (a)–(d), a sentence completion task was used to elicit clitic productions, administered to 431 children around Cyprus ranging from 2;8 to 8;11. The C5.0 machine-learning algorithm was employed to model the interaction of (socio-)linguistic factors on the development of clitic placement. The model shows that speakers acquire the relevant features very early, yet compartmentalization of form and function according to style emerges only as they engage in the larger speech community. In addition, the effects of sociolinguistic factors on clitic placement appear gradually.
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| 16. |
- Gärdenfors, Peter
(författare)
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Teaching as evolutionary precursor to language
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The central thesis of this article is that the evolution of teaching is one of the main factors that lead to increasingly complex communicative systems in the hominin species. Following earlier analyses of the evolution of teaching, the following steps are identified: (i) evaluative feedback, (ii) drawing attention, (iii) demonstration and pantomime, (iv) communicating concepts, (v) explaining relations between concepts, and (vi) narrating. For each of these step the communicative and cognitive demands will be analyzed. The focus will be on demonstration and pantomime, since these seem to be the evolutionarily earliest unique human capacities. An important step is the transition from pantomime for teaching to pantomime for informing and how this in turn leads to communicating concepts. As regards explaining relations between concepts, the focus will be of the role of generics in teaching and communication. Analyzing these topics involves combining cognitive science with evolutionary theory, archaeology and theories of communication. Two factors are important as a background: (i) the evolution of prospective planning, that is, planning for future goals, and (ii) the evolution of a theory mind. These capacities are central in explaining how more advanced forms of teaching, communication and cooperation emerged along the hominin line.
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| 17. |
- Hallgren, Lars, et al.
(författare)
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Communication problems when participants disagree (or avoid disagreeing) in dialogues in Swedish natural resource management – challenges to agonism in practice
- 2018
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Ingår i: Frontiers in communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we analyze how participants perform disagreement in meetings organized with the explicit purpose of managing through dialogue conflicts concerning natural resources in Sweden. How is a conversation initiated about something that participants disagree about? How do they clarify to each other that, about what, and why they disagree? How do they show that they understand it is like that and what do they do when this is clear to them? Answers to these questions are important because, if dialogue is to contribute to the constructive development of conflict situations, dialogue should be regarded as a forum where disagreement is expressed and developed, rather than as a forum and tool for consensus. We conducted a sequential analysis of how disagreement is performed and accomplished in normative dialogues in which participants talk about how to reduce the negative impact of wildlife populations — such as predators and grazing birds — on human activities such as domestic reindeer husbandry and cropfarming. The analysis shows that disagreement is articulated in ways that do not seem to make ontological, epistemological and axiological differences among positions clear for participants. We identified six procedures through which disagreements are(not) accomplished in these conversations. This shows that routines and procedures in normative dialogue are characterized by consensus-preferences not helpful foragonistic dialogue. In order to avoid situations where dialogue leads to discursive closures, standards and procedures that facilitate articulation of disagreement need to be developed.
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| 18. |
- Heuman, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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The learning potential of streaming media : cultural sustainability in a post-digital society
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to contribute to a discussion on the challenges of and opportunities for using major streaming media platforms and fictional streaming series in an educational context. The article departs from research on the post-digital condition, platformization, cultural memory, and cultural sustainability. The tangible interest in cultural memory and heritage studies indicates the current need to include streaming services in these research fields, as the platforms for streaming media are vectors of popular culture and heritage in terms of digital archives. With the help of Astrid Erll’s analytical model, the authors argue that perspectives from cultural memory studies are useful for deepening the learning potential of fictional series on streaming platforms. The article also supports the idea that major streaming services can be used in education as a supplement to other cultural resources if the potential sustainability risks are considered.
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| 19. |
- Hofstetter, Emily, et al.
(författare)
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Suspending Syntax: Bodily Strain and Progressivity in Talk
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People speak not only under relaxed conditions but also during strenuous activities, and grammatical resources can be used to achieve displays of strain. This study looks at the relationship between progressivity of talk and bodily strain, focusing on the practice of temporarily suspending syntax while the speaker is accomplishing a physically challenging task. Based on examples from two different physical activities, rock climbing and opera rehearsals, the paper argues that the practice of suspending syntax is a resource available across contexts to render prominence to the strained body and highlight ongoing movement or other bodily action. By placing the strain-based display of incapacity to talk at a moment when the emerging syntactic structure is incomplete, participants maintain rights to resume talk while also presenting themselves as possessing the physical capacity to do so. Suspending syntax is shown to be a minutely timed speakers technique that takes advantage of the emergent nature of syntax and that demonstrates how speakers organize language in relation to the sensing and moving body.
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| 20. |
- Kaijser, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Run for Your Life : Embodied Environmental Story-telling and Citizenship on the Road to Paris
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - Lausanne, Switzerland : Frontiers Research Foundation. - 2297-900X. ; 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In December 2015 the United Nations held its Twenty-First climate change conference (COP21) in Paris. While political leaders convened to negotiate a new climate treaty, a diverse landscape of social movements, grassroots organizations, activists and artists assembled to mobilize public support for climate justice. In this paper we draw attention to one example of such non-traditional climate mobilization: Run for Your Life, organized by the Swedish theater company Riksteatern. Framed as a “climate performance,” this initiative enrolled thousands of people to run distances in a relay race for climate justice, starting in Arctic Sweden and arriving in Paris on the first day of COP21. Public events were organized along the way, and the entire race was video recorded and broadcasted online. When signing up, runners were asked to submit their own climate story. Drawing on this archive of personal stories, we examine how Run for Your Life mobilized citizen engagement for climate justice. By paying attention to the multiple ways in which climate change is storied into people's lives, we seek to understand why citizens decide to take climate action and which subject positions are available to them in the broader environmental drama. While the scripting of climate change as a planetary emergency perpetuated by global injustices serves an important function in the politics of climate change, we argue that it is in situated stories of environmental connection that climate change gains personal meaning. Here, kinship and solidarity are articulated, opening up for progressive social change.
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| 21. |
- Levshina, Natalia, et al.
(författare)
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Revered and reviled : a sentiment analysis of female and male referents in three languages
- 2024
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Our study contributes to the less explored domain of lexical typology, focusing on semantic prosody and connotation. Semantic derogation, or pejoration of nouns referring to women, whereby such words acquire connotations and further denotations of social pejoration, immorality and/or loose sexuality, has been a very prominent question in studies on gender and language (change). It has been argued that pejoration emerges due to the general derogatory attitudes toward female referents. However, the evidence for systematic differences in connotations of female- vs. male-related words is fragmentary and often fairly impressionistic; moreover, many researchers argue that expressed sentiments toward women (as well as men) often are ambivalent. One should also expect gender differences in connotations to have decreased in the recent years, thanks to the advances of feminism and social progress. We test these ideas in a study of positive and negative connotations of feminine and masculine term pairs such as woman - man, girl - boy, wife - husband, etc. Sentences containing these words were sampled from diachronic corpora of English, Chinese and Russian, and sentiment scores for every word were obtained using two systems for Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis: PyABSA, and OpenAI's large language model GPT-3.5. The Generalized Linear Mixed Models of our data provide no indications of significantly more negative sentiment toward female referents in comparison with their male counterparts. However, some of the models suggest that female referents are more infrequently associated with neutral sentiment than male ones. Neither do our data support the hypothesis of the diachronic convergence between the genders. In sum, results suggest that pejoration is unlikely to be explained simply by negative attitudes to female referents in general.
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| 22. |
- Lindgren, Josefin, 1985-
(författare)
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Age and task type effects on comprehension and production of narrative macrostructure : storytelling and retelling by Swedish-speaking children aged 6 and 8
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is often said that story retelling tasks, where children listen to a model story and then retell it, are easier than story telling tasks, where children are not provided with a model. However, previous studies have rarely used comparable stimuli and procedures for the different tasks, creating possible confounds with task effects. Additionally, studies seldom investigate the interaction between age and task type and most studies focus on preschool children. The present study addresses these gaps by analyzing the performance of Swedish-speaking 6-year-olds and 8-year-olds (N = 74) on measures of story comprehension and story structure (narrative macrostructure) using a carefully controlled procedure with comparable telling and retelling tasks (MAIN Cat/Dog stories) and counterbalancing the order of the tasks. For story comprehension, results showed that overall accuracy was uniformly high (>90%) across tasks and age groups. However, performance was substantially lower for one question (D10), which assesses comprehension of the entire plotline. With increasing age, children did not become more likely to answer this question correctly, nor did hearing a model story improve performance. A qualitative analysis showed that incorrect answers often contained reasonable explanations showing advanced general inferencing abilities. In light of these results, an adjustment to the scoring of MAIN is recommended. For story structure, results showed significant effects of both age and task type, with higher scores in retelling and higher scores by the 8-year-olds. The 8-year-olds exhibited the same performance gap between telling and retelling as the 6-year-olds. There was also a significant effect of task order, showing a training effect from the first task to the second. The present study thus confirms previous findings that expressing story structure in a retelling task is easier than in a telling task, but showing this for the first time while controlling for task order and stimulus complexity in MAIN.
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| 23. |
- Madison, Guy, 1961-
(författare)
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Explicating politicians’ arguments for sex quotas in Sweden : Increasing power and influence rather than increasing quality and productivity
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quotas are employed or proposed in several European countries as a means to decrease differences in outcomes across groups. Quotas belong to a family of biased selection and treatment measures based on group membership, rather than individual ability. The effects of such measures depend on the underlying model of the relevant variables and their relationships, but this model is not explicit in the political discourse. Here, thematic analysis is applied to statements that argue for legislated sex quotas in Sweden, issued by leading politicians and government officials. The most common, recurrent themes are that: (a) Women are at least as able as men; (b) less able men are currently selected over more able women; (c) the proportion of women should be increased to at least 40%, which (d) will increase organizations' quality and productivity; (e) this should be achieved by means of quotas but (f) not through improved meritocratic assessment. It is shown that these claims are inconsistent, as (1) improved meritocratic assessment was not proposed, although that would more effectively select the more able than would quotas, and (2) quotas will lead to lower rather than higher quality and productivity, as it demands that the less able be appointed if they are female. This suggests that the purpose of quotas is to increase the influence of the favored group even if it is currently less able.
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| 24. |
- Malisz, Zofia, et al.
(författare)
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Dimensions of Segmental Variability : Interaction of Prosody and Surprisal in Six Languages
- 2018
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contextual predictability variation affects phonological and phonetic structure. Reduction and expansion of acoustic-phonetic features is also characteristic of prosodic variability. In this study, we assess the impact of surprisal and prosodic structure on phonetic encoding, both independently of each other and in interaction. We model segmental duration, vowel space size and spectral characteristics of vowels and consonants as a function of surprisal as well as of syllable prominence, phrase boundary, and speech rate. Correlates of phonetic encoding density are extracted from a subset of the BonnTempo corpus for six languages: American English, Czech, Finnish, French, German, and Polish. Surprisal is estimated from segmental n-gram language models trained on large text corpora. Our findings are generally compatible with a weak version of Aylett and Turk's Smooth Signal Redundancy hypothesis, suggesting that prosodic structure mediates between the requirements of efficient communication and the speech signal. However, this mediation is not perfect, as we found evidence for additional, direct effects of changes in surprisal on the phonetic structure of utterances. These effects appear to be stable across different speech rates.
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| 25. |
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| 26. |
- Marklund, Ellen, et al.
(författare)
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The Dynamics of Vowel Hypo- and Hyperarticulation in Swedish Infant-Directed Speech to 12-Month-Olds
- 2020
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Vowel hypo- and hyperarticulation (VHH) was investigated in Swedish infant-directed speech (IDS) to Swedish 12-month-olds using a measure that normalizes across speakers and vowels: the vhh-index. The vhh-index gives the degree of VHH for each individual vowel token, which allows for analysis of the dynamics of VHH within a conversation. Using both the vhh-index and traditional measures of VHH, the degree of VHH was compared between Swedish IDS and ADS. The vowel space area was larger in IDS than in ADS, and the average vhh-index as well as the modal value was higher in IDS than in ADS. Further, the proportion of vowel tokens that were highly hyperarticulated (vhh-index > 75th percentile) were fewer in ADS than in IDS. Vowels in Swedish IDS to 12-month-olds are thus concluded to be hyperarticulated compared to vowels in Swedish ADS, both in terms of degree and frequency. Findings are in line with previous reports on VHH in Swedish IDS as well as on VHH in IDS to infants around 12 months in other languages. The study considers the importance of robust formant estimation, highlights the need for replication of studies on VHH in IDS on previously studied languages and ages, and discusses the benefits of the vhh-index. Those benefits include that it normalizes across speakers and vowels, can be used for dynamic measures within speech samples, and permits analyses on token-level.
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| 27. |
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| 28. |
- Serafis, Dimitris, et al.
(författare)
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The front page as a canvas for multimodal argumentation : Brexit in the Greek press
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we analyze the front pages of mainstream Greek newspapers with the highest circulation reporting the official result of the Brexit referendum in 2016. Our analysis seeks to extract the standpoints and arguments that circulated in the Greek mainstream press on that day by studying the headlines and visuals on the front page. We study the front page not merely as an informative genre but crucially as an argumentative one, where the arguments can be reconstructed with the help of tools from argumentation theory combined with principles from multimodal critical discourse analysis. The proposed approach makes it possible to compare how the different ideological orientations in the Greek public sphere were steered by the representation of this piece of news. We show that, despite their ideological background, the newspapers under study converge to the construction of Brexit as a menacing phenomenon that puts the EU integration to the test and, as such, as an event that should have been avoided.
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| 29. |
- Sjölander Lindqvist, Annelie, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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Communicating about COVID-19 in four European countries: Similarities and differences in national discourses in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden
- 2020
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2297-900X. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The pandemic spread of COVID-19 grew inexorably to be the main topic of global news after it was first identified in 2019 in China. This article analyzes how heads of state and heads of government in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden framed the problems and solutions to the spread of the virus during the pandemic's initial phase. A Foucauldian-inspired method of problematization guides the narrative analysis, complemented by governmentality, risk communication, and taskscape theories. The results of the analysis show how the individual is conceptualized as a central actor and whose practices are framed as crucial to overcoming the crisis. Through invoking a sense of responsibility, sacrifice, and current life during the pandemic as a difficult time, the speeches allude to how people through changed behavior can/sould, contribute to the greater good. The individual is positioned as a key cause of, and solution to the problem; however, construing the individual as an indispensable actor to overcoming the crisis also means that the individual is laid open for reprehension. To facilitate the spread of the containment message and to support individual understanding of overt risk, the four countries' leadership also augment their conceptualization of the crisis with ideas of national identity to inspire the individual to contribute to the "battle"and "defeat"of the virus. The leadership does also embrace the important role of the national government in controlling the outbreak and the role of science, and trust in science, are also emphasized. The speeches analyzed in this paper can be understood as governance technologies; the spatial disciplining and self-governance demanded by the regimes create subject positions for individuals or groups. A debate on the rights and responsibilities of the citizen is another aspect that comes to the fore, considering how the containment strategies in all four countries proclaim the individual as a core agent in circumscribing the virus, and hence the individual's activities as potentially damaging to the fight against the pandemic. This throws into question the connection between individual autonomy as a democratic right and disciplinary mechanisms, sometimes phrased encouragingly and at other times in an enforcing way.
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| 30. |
- Stokke, Andreas
(författare)
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Free Indirect Discourse in Non-Fiction
- 2021
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper considers some uses of Free Indirect Discourse within non-fictional discourse. It is shown that these differ from ordinary uses in that they do not attribute actual thoughts or utterances. I argue that the explanation for this is that these uses of Free Indirect Discourse are not assertoric. Instead, it is argued here that they are fictional uses, that is, they are used with fictional force like utterances used to tell a fictional story. Rather than making assertions about the actual world, these occurrences of Free Indirect Discourse introduce localized fictional scenarios from which audiences are meant to learn factual information. As such, they exhibit some of the ways in which the involvement of perspective in historical fiction has been shown to facilitate learning and retention of information.
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| 31. |
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| 32. |
- Tagliacozzo, Serena, et al.
(författare)
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Public agencies tweeting the COVID-19 pandemic : cross-country comparison of must have and forgotten communication topics
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Despite the importance of national-level public health agenciesin times of a pandemic, there is limited comparative understanding of their must-have and forgotten pandemic-related communication topics.Methods: To fill this gap in the literature, this article presents an analysis of COVID related communication topics by national-level health agencies in Italy, Sweden, and the United States using the IDEA (Internalization, Distribution, Explanation,Action) model on crisis message framing. The public health agencies included in the study are the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità;ISS), the Public Health Agency of Sweden (Folkhälsomyndigheten), and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US.Results: Based on these agencies’ Twitter posts (n = 856) in the first 3 monthsof the pandemic, the article reveals a greater attention paid to action oriented (e.g., disease prevention) and explanatory messages (e.g., disease trends) than to distribution (e.g., transmission) and internalizing messages (e.g., risk factors) inall three countries. The study also highlights dierences in terms of referrals to other communication channels and communication topics, especially in terms of these agencies’ emphasis on individual risk factors (related to the risk of a personsuering from serious COVID-19-related health consequences) and social risk factors (related to the chance of an individual to become infected with COVID-19 because of the social context).Discussion: The study’s findings call for better incorporation of information that is directly relevant to the receivers (internalizing messages) by public health agencies.
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| 33. |
- Taipale, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Individual Sensitivity to Change in the Lingua Franca Use of English
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 6, s. 1-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The study of ongoing change in English typically focuses on studying evidence from codified varieties of the language. Recent corpus studies show, however, that advanced non-native users of English may display heightened sensitivity to features undergoing frequency shifts similar to that experienced by native speakers. In addition, most studies aiming to detect patterns of linguistic regularity utilize large data sets that attempt to minimize the presence of the individual. In this study, we focus on change in ELF and place non-native individuals at the center of attention. Our empirical section examines how aggregated features that are currently undergoing change in codified varieties of English vary in the repertoires of ELF users of Twitter. To carry out this task, this study utilizes geo-tagged tweets retrieved from the Nordic Tweet Stream. The data obtained from this real-time monitor corpus are freely available for research and re-use at . For the analysis itself, we selected the idiolects of 150 individual users who actively tweet in English from geographically varying locations in Finland. As American English predominates with several patterns of linguistic change in codified varieties of English, a simplified dichotomy between American and British features is utilized as a conceptual tool for inspecting variation. The idiolects are analyzed from the perspective of spelling and lexico-grammatical and morphological variation, such as V + -ing |V + infinitive (e.g. start doing | start to do) and expanded predicates (e.g. take a look | have a look). The quantitative observations show that, particularly in the case of grammatical features, ELF speakers appear to have generally adhered to ongoing linguistic change.
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| 34. |
- Tárcia, Lorena, et al.
(författare)
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Transmedia educommunication method for social sustainability in low-income communities
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Communication. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2297-900X. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the post-pandemic world, we see the exacerbation of digital connections but also inequalities between countries with higher or lower degrees of access to fast Internet services. Digitization processes enable and intensify global exchanges and yet expand disconnections as they globalize debates and solutions without considering the different levels of accessibility, digital literacy, and Internet infrastructure in less privileged communities. Such discrepancies are reflected in learning levels and, consequently, in the development of social sustainability. As a theoretical-methodological contribution, this paper draws on the concepts of transmedia logic, educommunication, and social sustainability. The original transmedia educommunication method discussed here consists of a week-long gamified intervention in schools with students between 11 and 14 years old, in Portuguese speaking countries. The objective is to give them the tools to distinguish between textual genres and their purposes. The results obtained by the transmedia educommunication projects highlight the importance of thinking about methodologies based on the reality of each community, with their respective cultures and levels of accessibility to different on- and offline technologies.
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| 35. |
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