‘So is your mom as cute as you?’: Examining patterns of language use in online sexual grooming of children

Linguistic research into online grooming is scarce despite both the communicative essence of this form of online child sexual abuse and a substantial body of literature into it across other Social Sciences. Most of this literature has examined small data sets via qualitative methods, primarily thematic analysis; the exception being a couple of studies that have used automated software (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count - LIWC) that operates at a single-word level. This study evaluates the contribution that a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) approach can make to this body of literature, with a focus on online groomers’ language. The corpus consists of >600 grooming chat logs taken from the Perverted Justice Foundation archive, from which the groomers’ language was extracted (c. 3.3 million words). Lexical dispersion (DPNorm), collocation and concordance analyses were conducted. The corpus was also run through LIWC. Our analysis shows that LIWC may not be the most efficient software to analyse online grooming language due to a lack of general language comparison scores, the non-transparency of some of its analytic variables and a focus on de-contextualised words. Comparatively, CADS methods can shed light upon online groomers’ strategic use of language. They can also reveal the complex and nuanced ways in which discourse features such as (im)explicitness and interpersonal (in)directness operate alongside these strategies

Intentional and Performative Persuasion: The Linguistic Basis for Criminalizing the (Direct and Indirect) Encouragement of Terrorism

Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism requires member states to criminalise “public provocation to commit a terrorist offence”. In the U.K., the realisation of this obligation is found in the “Encouragement of terrorism” offence contained in section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. As well as fulfilling the U.K.’s treaty obligation, this offence was intended to stop the spread of violent extremist ideology. Although the compatibility of this offence with the right to freedom of expression enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been queried, both the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights have held that it complies with Article 10’s demands. So, instead of taking Article 10 as its starting point, this article draws instead on work from the field of linguistics: namely, speech act theory (SAT). By using insights from SAT, and by examining some of the linguistic strategies that may be used to encourage acts of terrorism, the article seeks to advance the legal understanding of the concept of encouragement. In particular, the article draws out two features of encouragement that have important implications for the appropriate boundaries of the encouragement of terrorism offence - encouragement is intentional and it is performative - and argues that, as currently drafted, the offence does not reflect the nature of encouragement as an intentional activity. The article concludes by drawing out from its analysis a series of proposed amendments that together address the rights-based concerns about the offence whilst maintaining its effectiveness as a counterterrorism tool

Violence and victims: Assessing the effect of codes of conduct on representations of male schizophrenia in UK national newspapers (2013-2016)

The British press is moving towards responsible reporting through guidelines drawn up by organizations such as the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). With regard to mental health, these guidelines advise, among others, avoiding links between mental health and violence, as well as the use of stigmatizing representations. However, compliance with these recommendations is not always achieved systematically. This study adopts the discursive news values ​​analysis (DNVA) framework (Bednarek & Caple, 2017) to examine visual and textual representations of men with schizophrenia in the UK press in light of the UK's mental health guidelines. NUJ. Specifically, we analyzed the news values ​​extracted from the text and images contained in all articles about men with schizophrenia published in The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Independent and The Metro the year before and the two years after the publication of the issue. current version of the NUJ guidelines (2014). Our results show the prevalence of four news values: consonance, negativity, personalization and positivity. These values ​​suggest a correspondence between the perpetuation of negative stereotypes associated with schizophrenia (consonance/negativity) and the more positive exploration of men's experiences with this condition (personalization/positivity). Before the guidelines were published, examples of positivity and personalization were more frequent in the texts of the four newspapers than those of consonance and negativity. However, the opposite is true after the guidelines were published. Regarding visual representations, negativity and personalization values ​​are more frequent before publication, while after publication, the frequency of consonance and negativity values ​​is similar. Our study concludes that adoption of the NUJ guidelines has been low and proposes that more sensitive representations of mental health require greater use of positive and contextual details of individuals with schizophrenia

Visual Jihad: Constructing the “Good Muslim” in Online Jihadist Magazines

Images are known to have important effects on human perception and persuasion. Jihadist groups are also known to make strategic use of emotive imagery and symbolism for persuasive ends. Yet until recently studies of the online magazines published by violent jihadist groups largely focused on their textual, not their image, content and, whilst the image content of these magazines is now the subject of a burgeoning number of studies, few of these compare the images used by different groups. This article accordingly offers a cross-group comparison, examining the image content of a total of 39 issues of five online magazines published by four different jihadist groups. Starting with a content analysis, it shows that the images’ most common focus is non-leader jihadis. Using a news values analysis, it then shows how these images of non-leader jihadis are used to visually construct the identity of a ‘good Muslim’. This construct is characterised by three traits, each corresponding to a different news value: fulfilled (personalisation); active (consonance); and, respected (prominence). Moreover, these traits are intertwined: fulfilment comes from responding actively to the call to violent jihad, which in turn promises respect. The article concludes by highlighting some subtle differences between how the news values of personalisation, consonance and prominence are realised in the different magazines, and by discussing the implications of the ‘good Muslim’ construct for efforts to develop counter-messages

Ressenyes

Obra ressenyada: Antoine VITEZ. Le devoir de traduire. Montpellier: Éditions Climats & Maison Antoine Vitez, 199

K -> pi vector form factor with N_f=2+1+1 Twisted Mass fermions

We present a lattice QCD determination of the vector form factor of the kaon semileptonic decay K -> pi l nu which is relevant for the extraction of the CKM matrix element |V_{us}| from experimental data. Our result is based on the gauge configurations produced by the European Twisted Mass Collaboration with N_f=2+1+1 dynamical fermions. We simulated at three different values of the lattice spacing and with pion masses as small as 210 MeV. Our preliminary estimate for the vector form factor at zero momentum transfer is f_+(0)=0.9683(65), where the uncertainty is both statistical and systematic. By combining our result with the experimental value of f_+(0)|V_{us}| we obtain |V_{us}|=0.2234(16), which satisfies the unitarity constraint of the Standard Model at the permille level

Biología floral en albaricoquero y sus implicaciones en la mejora

15 pages, 8 tables, 1 figure.-- Review.[EN] Different aspects related to flower biology have a close link to fruit set failures in apricot and other fruit trees. In this work, studies on pollen viability and germinability, stigma receptivity, ovule development and longevity, the different factors affecting the effective pollination period (EPP), are reviewed. The concept of EPP is based on biological parameters that are the successive steps that take place during the reproductive process and it is the frame within which the factors limiting an appropriate fruit set can be studied. The definition of this concept and its detailed study have allowed determination of the different limiting factors and the design of specific treatments to improve it. Knowledge of the incompatibility phenotype for many apricot cultivars has allowed advising about the planting of singlecultivar orchards. The study of the inheritance of this and other traits in apricot and other fruit trees has allowed planning of hybridisations to minimise or eliminate the production of undesirable seedlings, increasing the efficiency of the breeding programme. Studies on the flower biology of apricot have provided valuable information to help select the appropriate parent cultivars for breeding programmes, also this information is transferred to farmers to avoid losses produced by an inadequate cultivar selection. In this review we intend to give an updated overview of the state of the art in the research and the achievements thus far, as well as considering the implications of these studies for fruit breeding in general, with special attention to apricot breeding.[ES] Diferentes aspectos de la biología de la flor tienen una estrecha relación con los problemas productivos del albaricoquero y otros frutales. En este trabajo se revisan estudios de viabilidad y germinabilidad del polen, receptividad del estigma, desarrollo y longevidad de los óvulos y en definitiva los diferentes aspectos que condicionan el periodo de polinización efectiva (PPE). El concepto de PPE está basado en parámetros biológicos que constituyen los pasos sucesivos que ocurren durante el proceso reproductor y supone el marco dentro del cual se pueden estudiar los factores limitantes para una adecuada fructificación. El establecimiento de este concepto y su estudio detallado han permitido determinar diferentes factores que lo limitan y diseñar tratamientos específicos para mejorarlo. El conocimiento del fenotipo para la incompatibilidad de muchas variedades de albaricoquero ha permitido desaconsejar su establecimiento en plantaciones monovarietales. El estudio del modo de herencia de éste y otros caracteres en albaricoquero y otros frutales, ha permitido la planificación de los cruzamientos para minimizar o eliminar la producción de descendientes indeseables, aumentando así la eficiencia de los programas de mejora. En conjunto, el estudio de la biología floral del albaricoquero ha producido información aplicable tanto en la elección de genitores en el programa de mejora, como transferible directamente al sector productivo para evitar las pérdidas causadas por una incorrecta elección varietal. En esta revisión se ha pretendido dar una visión actualizada del estado de la investigación y las metas alcanzadas, así como de la incidencia de estos estudios en la mejora genética de los frutales en general y del albaricoquero en particular.Peer reviewe