Disagreement Studies Reviewed and My Coy Disagreements

Through reviewing and combing the previous studies on linguistic disagreement over the past three decades from four dimensions or research hotspots—definitions of disagreement, classifications of disagreement, factors affecting the ways of raising disagreement, and strategies to present disagreement, this study shows that disagreement has experienced the transformation from being regarded as a marginal impolite phenomenon to an important, common socio-pragmatic phenomenon catching a mounting number of linguists’ attention. They define disagreement via directions or discoveries of corresponding studies, but the vague boundary between the synonymous concepts restrains the definition progress. The criteria of taxonomies, with their respective merits and demerits, contain the forms, functions and levels of disagreement. As to the factors affecting the disagreement raising, contextualization becomes the trend. But the overlaps of the specific factors’ scopes leave space for scrutinization. It is found that, given significant multi-perspective findings, disagreement literature often rents ideas from Impoliteness Theory, conducive to the discount of objectivity and pertinence of their elaboration. The disagreement-response or disagreement-reaction part, overtly rarely studied, makes a breakthrough for further research

Using an Online Dictionary for Identifying the Meanings of Verb Phrases by Chinese EFL Learners

This article reports on the results of a study which investigated the use of an online dictionary by Chinese EFL learners in identifying the meanings of verb phrases. Thirty-two stu-dents with English as major subject participated in a meaning determination task with and without the help of the Macmillan English Dictionary Online (MEDO). Introspective and retrospective ques-tionnaires were used to establish the participants' perception of the usefulness of the online dic-tionary, and how they used the online dictionary to search for their needed information. The results of the study show that learners improved in doing the task after consulting the online dic-tionary, but they also encountered some problems which led to incorrect choices. It is suggested that dictionary skills training should be provided, and improvements to online dictionaries should also be made.Keywords: Online dictionary, Macmillan English Dictionary Online, verb phrases, meaning identification, dictionary use, dictionary skills, entry structure and informatio

Geography-mediated institutionalised cultural capital: Regional inequalities in graduate employment

This article investigates how regional inequalities shape the employment seeking experiences and behaviour of graduates by drawing on the case of Chinese Master’s graduates under COVID19. Based on interviews with graduates who chose to work as the ‘targeted selected graduates’ (TSG) of University A, located in the underdeveloped regions of North-western China, we show how their employment seeking was jointly impacted by three different but inter-related fields, the national economic, higher education, and graduate employment fields. These students were situated in a unique juncture across these fields; while their elite credentials from University A qualified them for these elite TSG programmes, they were disadvantaged by being excluded from TSG recruitments at economically developed regions. Importantly, we highlight that institutionalised cultural capital in the form of academic credentials from elite HEIs does not work in a ‘straightforward’ manner, but it has to be considered in conjunction with the geo-economic locations of their HEIs. We, therefore, propose the notion of ‘geography-mediated institutionalised cultural capital’ to capture this significant but under-theorised aspect of the graduate employment scene. This conceptual innovation enlightens the analysis of regional differences in different countries by considering how official or unofficial regional authorities’ interventions shape graduate employment

Canonical nilpotent structure under bounded Ricci curvature and Reifenberg local covering geometry over regular limits

It is known that a closed collapsed Riemannian $n$-manifold $(M,g)$ of bounded Ricci curvature and Reifenberg local covering geometry admits a nilpotent structure in the sense of Cheeger-Fukaya-Gromov with respect to a smoothed metric $g(t)$. We prove that a canonical nilpotent structure over a regular limit space that describes the collapsing of original metric $g$ can be defined and uniquely determined up to a conjugation, and prove that the nilpotent structures arising from nearby metrics $g_\epsilon$ with respect to $g_\epsilon$'s sectional curvature bound are equivalent to the canonical one.Comment: 26 page

Noncollinearity-modulated electronic properties of the monolayer CrI3_3

Introducing noncollinear magnetization into a monolayer CrI$_3$ is proposed to be an effective approach to modulate the local electronic properties of the two-dimensional (2D) magnetic material. Using first-principles calculation, we illustrate that both the conduction and valence bands in the monolayer CrI$_3$ are lowered down by spin spiral states. The distinct electronic structure of the monolayer noncollinear CrI$_3$ can be applied in nanoscale functional devices. As a proof of concept, we show that a magnetic domain wall can form a one-dimensional conducting channel in the 2D semiconductor via proper gating. Other possible applications such as electron-hole separation and identical quantum dots are also discussed

Understanding Information Rating Intention Based on Ant Foraging Behavior

This study focuses on an understudied topic: What are the factors influencing individual intention to share their information (e.g., news) rating with others in an online community? Drawing on social foraging theory, particularly on ant information sharing behavior, we proposed that information rating intention is affected by four factors: altruistic motives, identification with the community, information quality, and knowledge self-efficacy. The model was tested in the context of news communities, using survey data from 150 subjects. Altruistic motives were found to predict intention for both positive rating and negative rating. In addition, higher positive rating intention was predicted by stronger identification with the community, while higher negative rating intention was predicted by lower information quality and higher knowledge self-efficacy. The findings advance our knowledge about information rating, and provide implications for practitioners of rating systems. The adaptation of foraging theories for information systems research is a promising future research area