Television news, narrative conventions and national imagination

By and large, contemporary news stories are stories about a particular nation, told to an audience that is seen and addressed in national terms. However, the understanding of the exact ways in which national imagination becomes engrained in the narrative conventions of news reporting is still rather limited, in particular when it comes to audiovisual genres. This article aims to fill a part of this blank by examining the links between national imagination and the narrative conventions of television news. Building on existing debates about different modes of news reporting, the article distinguishes two distinct sets of narrative conventions at work in television news: one typically found in routine reporting, the other characteristic of crisis and celebratory reporting. It is argued that each of these two sets of conventions is tied to a different form of nationalism, and normally arises in a different political climate. Links between national imagination and narrative conventions vary accordingly. To demonstrate this, the article provides a comparative analysis of narrative structures in selected samples of television news bulletins broadcast in the early 1990s in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The concluding section reflects on the external validity of the chosen case study and surveys supportive evidence from four other relevant cases, drawn from the UK and Israel

Double deixis in second person pronouns as a metaleptic device

This paper discusses double deixis (i.e. when a deictic form points at two referents simultaneously) in second person referential forms. A contribution to cognitive poetics, the article presents a theoretical discussion of the cognitive hinterland behind double-deictic uses of second person forms in which a simple interactional frame (i.e. a cognitive model representing conceptualization of a recurring type of communicative situation) is proposed as a model that readers of literary fiction call upon. Moreover, it is held, drawing on an admittedly “lite” version of text world theory, that – due to the above-mentioned interactional frame – this is what enables double-deictic use of second person forms along with other metaleptic devices to make sense and have the empathy-generating effect on readers that they have. For illustrative purposes, examples of double deixis in a particular genre of literature called solitaire adventures will be discussed

The use of English referring expressions by Chinese children living in Britain

This thesis examined the English referring expressions used by the Chinese children living in Britain and English children matched by English language ability to the Chinese children. Two adult groups (one Chinese and one English) were used as controls. Two experiments were conducted in a year time apart, involving 166 participants in total. In the experiments, participants described stories presented in pictures to listeners who could (El) or could not (E2) see the pictures. The stories in El described two protagonists of different genders, those in E2 described two of the same gender. Predictions concerned the use of appropriate referring expressions on first mention of novel entities and on second mention of familiar entities; whether a thematic subject strategy was used; whether Chinese children's choice of specific referring expressions (Bare Nouns, Demonstratives, and Zero Anaphors) was influenced by their first language; and which factors (Fist Language, English Language Ability, Cognitive Ability, and Age) were significant predictors of the children's use of English referring expressions. The main results were as follows: Both groups of children used definite references on second mention more frequently than they used indefinite references on first mention. There were hardly any transcripts showing use of a thematic subject strategy. Instead, participants used either an explicit strategy, in which full explicit noun phrases were used throughout or a strategy in which the subject slot is reserved for the current topic, which may change a the discourse proceeds. English parents predominantly used this second strategy. Regression analyses showed that cognitive ability was the best predictor of first mention indefinites in both experiments and of second mention definites in El, where definite articles were appropriate for identifying the referent. English language ability was the best predictor of second mention definites in both experiments. These results were discussed in relation to previous studies and the notion of mental models. It was concluded that Chinese children did not use an inter-language that contained information about specific words or phrases. The major effect of first language may be discourse level strategies, but this was only appeared with the parents

Exploring the micro-politics of place: lifestyle migrants, collective identities and modes of belonging

Taking up Hopkins and Dixon’s (2006) call to attend to the micro-politics of everyday constructions of space and place, which necessarily involves psychological concepts such as identity, belonging and attachment, this paper aims to show how a critical socio-cognitive approach to discourse analysis is an effective means of unpacking the ways in which versions of place are (re)produced and negotiated through discursive practices, and in particular the ways in which ‘legitimate’ collective identities are constructed in relation to place. I focus on the contemporary social phenomenon of lifestyle migration. Within Europe, this typically involves relatively affluent northern Europeans moving to destinations in southern Europe that are strongly linked to tourism. Although lifestyle migrants are generally viewed by their hosts as ‘desirable’ migrants due to their perceived economic and socio-cultural capital, their integration into destination communities is often minimal. The question arises as to how these migrants construct modes of belonging in relation to their adopted home-place and how they relate to the other social groups with whom they share it. Using texts from a variety of sources, including in-depth interviews with British migrants in Portugal, I explore not only how migrants position themselves (and others) discursively in relation to places, but also how they are already positioned by discursive practices in the public sphere. I also examine to what extent the construction of a ‘legitimate’ mode of belonging involves the construction of intergroup cooperation within that place

Gesture as a Communication Strategy in Second Language Discourse : A Study of Learners of French and Swedish

Gesture is always mentioned in descriptions of compensatory behaviour in second language discourse, yet it has never been adequately integrated into any theory of Communication Strategies (CSs). This study suggests a method for achieving such an integration. By combining a cognitive theory of speech-associated gestures with a process-oriented framework for CSs, gesture and speech can be seen as reflections of similar underlying processes with different output modes. This approach allows oral and gestural CSs to be classified and analysed within a unified framework. The respective fields are presented in introductory surveys, and a review is provided of studies dealing specifically with compensatory gesture–in aphasia as well as in first and second language acquisition. The experimental part of this work consists of two studies. The production study examines the gestures exploited strategically by Swedish learners of French and French learners of Swedish. The subjects retold a cartoon story in their foreign language to native speakers in conversational narratives. To enable comparisons between learners and proficiency conditions both at individual and group level, subjects performed the task in both their first and their second language. The results show that, contrary to expectations in both fields, strategic gestures do not replace speech, but complement it. Moreover, although strategic gestures are used to solve lexical problems by depicting referential features, most learner gestures instead serve either to maintain visual co-reference at discourse level, or to provide metalinguistic comments on the communicative act itself. These latter functions have hitherto been ignored in CS research. Both similarities and differences can be found between oral and gestural CSs regarding the effect of proficiency, culture, task, and success. The influence of individual communicative style and strategic communicative competence is also discussed. Finally, native listeners’ gestural behaviour is shown to be related to the co-operative effort invested by them to ensure continued interaction, which in turn depends on the proficiency levels of the non-native narrators. The evaluation study investigates native speakers’ assessments of subjects’ gestures, and the effect of gestures on evaluations of proficiency. Native speakers rank all subjects as showing normal or reduced gesture rates and ranges–irrespective of proficiency condition. The influence of gestures on proficiency assessments is modest, but tends to be positive. The results concerning the effectiveness of gestural strategies are inconclusive, however. When exposed to auditory learner data only, listeners believe gestures would improve comprehension, but when learner gestures can be seen, they are not regarded as helpful. This study stresses the need to further examine the effect of strategic behaviour on assessments, and the perception of gestures in interaction. An integrated theory of Communication Strategies has to consider that gestures operate in two ways: as local measures of communicative ‘first-aid’, and as global communication enhancement for speakers and listeners alike. A probabilistic framework is outlined, where variability in performance as well as psycholinguistic and interactional aspects of gesture use are taken into account

There's No Place Like Home: Dwelling and Being at Home in Digital Games

This chapter considers the presence, in digital games, of experiences of dwelling. Starting with an engagement with the philosopher Edward S. Casey's distinction between hestial and hermetic spatial modes, the chapter argues that the player's spatial engagement with digital game worlds has tended to align with the hermetic pole, emphasizing movement, traversal and exploration. By contrast, hestial spatial practices, characterized by centrality, lingering and return, are far less prevalent both in digital games themselves and in discussions on spatiality in the game studies discourse. To counter this lack, this chapter draws upon philosophical work on space by Casey, Martin Heidegger, Yi-Fu Tuan and Christian Norberg-Schulz, using these as a conceptual lens to identify spatial structures and practices in digital games that diverge from the hermetic mode. Attention is paid to games that invite pausing and lingering in place, games where the player's relation to place is structured around practices of building, the phenomenology of home and dwelling in games, and familiarity and identity as experiential characteristics of being at home. Minecraft and Animal Crossing: New Leaf are examined in detail as case studies, though the chapter also refers to examples from other games

‘I felt like I’d stepped out of a different reality’: possible worlds theory, metalepsis and digital fiction

This chapter offers a possible worlds theory (e.g. Ryan 1991, Bell 2010) approach to metalepsis and, through its application to digital fiction in particular, shows how possible worlds theory can offer as a transmedial approach (Ryan 2005) to this ontologically transgressive fictional device (cf. Bell and Alber 2012). In narrative theory, a metalepsis refers to a point in a text when an entity appears to move between narrative levels such as when a character talks to the narrator of the text s/he is in or when an author becomes a character in the novel s/he is writing (Genette 1980, Fludernik 2003). This chapter argues that conceptualising metalepses as transgressions between worlds as opposed to the more abstract concept of diegetic levels more accurately accounts for what readers are asked to imagine happens when they encounter a metalepsis. It then shows how Possible Worlds Theory - and the concepts of counterparthood and transworld identity in particular - provides a systematic and replicable means of conceptualising and analyzing metalepsis. By combining the Possible-Worlds approach with the stylistic and multimodal analyses of Campbell and Alston's (2010) digital fiction Nightingale's Playground the chapter show how metalepses occur, not just through verbal language as is common in print texts, but also through non-textual elements such as sound, images and interactive interface elements. Further, it shows that digital fiction allows metalepses to take place across the actual-fictional world boundary so as to insert the reader within the fiction in a way that is simply not possible in print. The chapter concludes that possible worlds theory is able to model metalepses more accurately than other theories of narrative that do not have an ontological focus and also that the approach can facilitate both a transmedial and media-specific analysis of metalepses

Text World Theory and real world readers: From literature to life in a Belfast prison

Cognitive stylistics offers a range of frameworks for understanding (amongst other things) what producers of literary texts 'do' with language and how they 'do' it. Less prevalent, however, is an understanding of the ways in which these same frameworks offer insights into what readers 'do' (and how they 'do' it). Text World Theory (Werth, 1999; Gavins, 2007; Whiteley, 2011) has proved useful for understanding how and why readers construct mental representations engendered by the act of reading. However, research on readers' responses to literature has largely focused on an 'idealised' reader or an 'experimental' subject-reader often derived from within the academy and conducted using contrived or amended literary fiction. Moreover, the format of traditional book groups (participants read texts privately and discuss them at a later date) as well as online community forums such as Goodreads, means that such studies derive data from post-hoc, rather than real-time textual encounters and discussions. The current study is the first of its kind in analysing real-time reading contexts with real readers during a researcher-led literary project ('read.live.learn') in Northern Ireland's only female prison. In doing so, the study is unique in addressing experimental and post hoc bias. Using Text World Theory, the paper considers the personal and social impact of reader engagement in the talk of the participants. As such, it has three interrelated aims: to argue for the social and personal benefits of reading stylistically rich literature in real-time reading groups; to demonstrate the efficacy of stylistics for understanding how those benefits come about, and to demonstrate the inter-disciplinary value of stylistics, particularly its potential for traversing traditional research parameters

Young children's use of the definite and in definite articles in referring expressions

It is argued that the theoretical framework used in earlier studies of children's use of the articles is inadequate, failing in some important ways to capture even normal adult usage. A new theory of article usage is proposed which is based on the concept of mental models. Previous psychological investigations are evaluated in the light of this theory and the major issues raised are investigated experimentally. Nine experiments involving approximately 310 three to seven-year old children and 65 parents are reported. The experiments were designed to investigate the effects of two main factors on children’s use of the articles, namely, the knowledge of the listener and the composition of the referential array. Different kinds of tasks were employed which required responses varying from article plus noun to single sentences and extended narratives. The results of the experiments showed that although young children can, and do, take into account the status of an object within a referential array, the over-riding factor in their choice of referring expression is their perception of the knowledge of the listener. When they judge that the listener's model does not contain the same number and kind of objects as their own (the listener is ignorant), children will use an indefinite description to introduce a referent regardless of the status of that referent in the array. However, when the listener is knowledgeable indefinite descriptions are reserved for one of several identical or similar objects and definite descriptions are used for objects which are known to be unique in the listener's model. Other factors which influence children’s use of the articles include the difficulty of the task, the child’s perception of the purpose of the task, and the range of descriptions in the child's linguistic repertoire

Cycle construction and character development in central Algonkian Trickster tales

The fundamental question is whether these conclusions about the nature of the Trickster figure, dependent as they are upon the material conditions of the received texts upon which they are based, can be sustained by an examination of trickster cycles as actually performed. With few exceptions, such as Bloomfield's recording of Maggie Achenam's Cree Trickster cycle performance discussed here--the performance that first alerted me to these questions--the publication of trickster materials has usually taken the form of collections of single tales, regardless of whether they were originally performed singly or as parts of cycles.Not