BIRACIAL – BLACK? A SURVEY OF LANGUAGE USE AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES IN POLAND AND GERMANY

The paper deals with the construction of race from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics. The focus is upon the perception of mixed-race people of black and white heritage in Poland and Germany compared to the USA, and its reflection in language use. The study clarifies in how far a socially marked perception of biracial people applies in these countries with very small population of black ancestry. Among other things, the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama is used to investigate the occurrence in both countries of mental colouring of biracial people. The paper also reflects the language debate on political correctness of the press language, sparked off by the presidential campaign and its media coverage. It presents claims and arguments by proponents of various solutions regarding referring to biracial people, and paradoxes showing up in the relationship between language use and ideological positions when the race issue is at stake

Scientific and Parascientific Communication

There is an increasing need for scholars and scientists to not only conduct research that has a significant impact on society but also to communicate that research widely. Such research outreach also contributes to engaging wide, diverse audiences. As such, the discursive practices have become more and more complex, multimodal, and multimedia-based for scholars and scientists. Scientific communication is currently shared to a great extent with peers in technology-mediated contexts, which allows formal scientific publications to be opened to public viewing. Alongside this so-called “primary output” (Puschmann 2015), new ways, modes, and discourses are being used to bring science closer to a lay audience and promote citizen participation. The affordances of existing and emergent platforms are fostering a change in audience roles, and with it, the erosion of boundaries between scientific communities and the general public, entailing the dissemination of scientific information and knowledge beyond the former (Trench 2008). We are thus witnessing the development of discursive practices which may be referred to as instances of “parascientific communication”. These practices transcend previously well-delimited communities and spheres of communication. Parascientific genres are evolving based on authoritative or expert knowledge (communicated through conventional, sanctioned scientific genres) but not subjected to the filters of internal, formal science communication (Kelly and Miller 2016). This Special Issue seeks to gain a better understanding of the purposes and specific features of these new scientific communication practices

Computational Sociolinguistics: A Survey

Language is a social phenomenon and variation is inherent to its social nature. Recently, there has been a surge of interest within the computational linguistics (CL) community in the social dimension of language. In this article we present a survey of the emerging field of "Computational Sociolinguistics" that reflects this increased interest. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of CL research on sociolinguistic themes, featuring topics such as the relation between language and social identity, language use in social interaction and multilingual communication. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for synergy between the research communities involved, by showing how the large-scale data-driven methods that are widely used in CL can complement existing sociolinguistic studies, and how sociolinguistics can inform and challenge the methods and assumptions employed in CL studies. We hope to convey the possible benefits of a closer collaboration between the two communities and conclude with a discussion of open challenges.Comment: To appear in Computational Linguistics. Accepted for publication: 18th February, 201

Formulating a Regulatory Stance: The Comparative Politics of E-Cigarette Regulation in Australia, Canada and New Zealand

Depending on who is asked, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are either the worst thing to happen to the fight against tobacco or a godsent technology that will dramatically improve public health. Unlike tobacco cigarettes, where the world has converged on common regulatory policies intent on shrinking the market for those deadly products, jurisdictions diverge immensely in their regulatory goals towards e-cigarettes. Illustratively, in March 2017, the government of New Zealand announced it would legalize the sale of e-cigarettes. In February 2017, Australia’s pharmaceutical regulator rejected a proposal to legalize the sale of nicotine for use in e-cigarettes because evidence of the product’s long-term safety was lacking. Previously, the medicines regulator in each country agreed the sale of e-cigarettes with nicotine should not be legal. Within a month, two wealthy, democratic, neighboring former British colonies, with a history of being leaders in tobacco control policy, led by right-wing governments, parted company on this momentous policy issue. Why? Through a comparative study of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, this study addresses how the concerns of public health advocates, business, bureaucrats, and politicians around e-cigarettes are translated into regulatory policy. Political science has only begun to apply its theories to the study of public health policies, and most of what drives public health policy outcomes remains poorly understood. Here, a qualitative comparative approach of three most-similar country cases is used to determine what factors enabled e-cigarette regulatory policy change or stasis. To imbue meaning to the purpose of a regulatory framework, the study introduces an organizing framework called a regulatory stance, which describes the intent of a regulatory framework to alter the size of a market in the future relative to the present. All three case countries began with a prohibitionist regulatory stance towards e-cigarettes, which intended the market for e-cigarettes should make up none of their economies. New Zealand and Canada soon adopted expansionist regulatory stances, meaning that these countries intended on growing the size of their e-cigarette markets. Australia kept its original regulatory stance. Structured by John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach to agenda-setting, the case studies examine how and why a country’s regulatory stance towards e-cigarettes, changed or did not. I employed qualitative techniques of document collection and key informant interviews to piece together a comparative study of e-cigarette regulatory policy and politics. In the Multiple Streams Approach, the problem and policy streams must become primed before they can merge with the politics stream and open a policy window. The problem stream became primed once the current regulatory policy was deemed a failure when it was rejected by the courts as illegal, rejected by bureaucracies as not worth enforcing, or it failed to advance the fight against smoking. Next, the policy stream became primed once the public health policy community agreed on a consensus alternative regulatory stance expanding the market for e-cigarettes. Finally, the politics stream was primed when conditions in the problem and policy stream granted left-wing politicians’ permission to support a regulatory stance change favored by business groups. This freed right-wing politicians to support regulatory stance change without facing a political penalty. Once all stakeholders agreed they would benefit more by adopting the alternative regulatory stance than by continuing with the failed policy, a policy window to change the failed e-cigarette regulatory stance opened.PHDHealth Services Organization & PolicyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162993/1/acliber_1.pd

Muslim Brothers in Egypt: politics of generational gaps

This thesis is an attempt to address the politics of generational gaps within Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Egypt since mid 1980s till 2011. It sheds light on patterns of generational interactions, issues of concern, and their impact on the future trajectory of the Movement. It conceptually employs the Generational Unit Model, drawn largely from the work of Karl Mannheim. In doing so, the study applies focused semi-structured interviews with the movement\u27s affiliated members from antagonistic generational units. The study addresses the socioeconomic and political context that shape the consciousness of two generational waves within the movement. It descriptively addresses the nature of generational relationship between some of the 1970s generation, young Brothers, and the movement\u27s leadership. It denotes reasons behind the establishment of new political organizations including The Center party (Al Wasat), The Egyptian Current Party (Al Tayar al Masry), and The Renaissance Party (Al Nahda Party). The study highlights different perceptions and schools of thought shared by Brothers towards social reality, and tools of reforming the movement and the Egyptian political system

Code-choice on Twitter: How stance-taking and linguistic accommodation reflect the identity of polyglossic Egyptian users

This study examines the online identity of polyglossic Egyptian users of Twitter. It is descriptive and exploratory utilizing a qualitative design with some frequency count which adds descriptive data. Data were collected using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) where the participants were presented with a number of tweets and were asked to type another tweet in response to each. The findings from the study suggest that polyglossic Egyptians, those who are proficient in English as well as Arabic, exhibited an assertive identity on Twitter. This identity was constructed through the choice of code, the linguistic accommodation to the tweet authors, and the stance they took. Polyglossic Egyptians were found to use English more than any other code, followed by Arabizi, and then Arabic. They linguistically accommodated the tweet authors in their replies to some extent by choosing the same code in replying as that used in the original tweet. Further, and using Du Bois’ (2007) stance triangle framework, it was also found that they expressed their (dis)alignment quite bluntly by taking an epistemic stance achieved through the use of boosters (very few hedges were used), sarcasm, simple present tense (to express an opinion as if stating a fact), and modals (to offer advice). By doing that, polyglossic Egyptians were found to be assertive in expressing their opinions, often showing themselves as informative, superior people who are guided by facts about topics rather than feelings

“You’re trolling because…” – A Corpus-based Study of Perceived Trolling and Motive Attribution in the Comment Threads of Three British Political Blogs

This paper investigates the linguistically marked motives that participants attribute to those they call trolls in 991 comment threads of three British political blogs. The study is concerned with how these motives affect the discursive construction of trolling and trolls. Another goal of the paper is to examine whether the mainly emotional motives ascribed to trolls in the academic literature correspond with those that the participants attribute to the alleged trolls in the analysed threads. The paper identifies five broad motives ascribed to trolls: emotional/mental health-related/social reasons, financial gain, political beliefs, being employed by a political body, and unspecified political affiliation. It also points out that depending on these motives, trolling and trolls are constructed in various ways. Finally, the study argues that participants attribute motives to trolls not only to explain their behaviour but also to insult them