Is 'good' communication achievable in jury instructions? Applying communication theory to instances of instructions in jury trials.

Stating that 'good' communication plays a crucial role in everybody's personal and professional life would be to state the obvious. However, this well-established concept constantly seems to call for a reflection upon basic questions, such as: how can we define 'good' communication? What are the criteria that can be applied  in order to identify it and to discern it, if possible, from 'bad' communication? Is it possible to achieve it? How? Between whom? In which circumstances? What are its consequences

Portrait of a Contender: Patrizia Anesa

This summer, Patrizia Anesa kindly took the time to speak with “Language at Work –Bridging Theory and Practice” about her professional experience at the University of Bergamo, Italy. Teaching at the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Education, Patrizia is also affiliated with CERLIS (Research Centre for the study of Specialized Languages)

Disseminating and Hiding Information in Technical Communication Courses: The Case of Patents from the Perspectives of Digital Humanities

Despite their ostensibly aseptic nature, technical texts involve a multifaceted net of institutional, social and pragmatic functions. Patents, in particular, are characterized by a multi-layered rhetorical exercise in which information is provided, and hidden, in light of patent disclosure lawsDrawing on the Cooperative Patent Classification scheme, a corpus of patents related to environmental issues has been compiled. The objective is to investigate the main keywords emerging in the corpus and to analyse their semantic context in this patent type. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the patents’ semantic preference and semantic prosody in order to pinpoint and examine the semantic complexities emerging in this genre and to identify the strategies employed (such as the use of linguistic vagueness) in order to provide the necessary information while not disclosing precious data. Patents represent a complex, hybrid and cross-disciplinary genre and a finer understanding of their discursive features may contribute to spreading awareness of the importance that semantics plays within the rhetorical pattern of the text. Therefore, they may be fruitfully employed in Technical Communication courses in order to improved reading comprehension and analytical skills

Translating end-user license agreements: issues, strategies and techniques

La quantité de biens et de services vendus sur le marché mondial rend la traduction de contrats de licence d’utilisation particulièrement importante. Cette étude met en évidence la raison pour laquelle les contrats de licence peuvent être considérés comme des textes hybrides, qui incluent certaines des caractéristiques typiques des textes juridiques ainsi que des textes techniques. Elle analyse, du point de vue qualitatif, la mesure dans laquelle ces aspects sont maintenus dans la traduction. L’analyse fait usage d’un petit corpus de contrats de licence en anglais et de leurs traductions italiennes. Un petit corpus comparable de textes italiens a également été rassemblé en vue d’une analyse contrastive. L’étude vise à mettre en évidence les problèmes principaux dans la traduction de ce type de texte spécifique, les approches et les techniques adoptées (telles que transposition, expansion, addition et élimination).The number of goods and services which are sold on the worldwide market makes the translation of end-user license agreements (EULAs) particularly necessary. This study highlights why EULAs may be considered as hybrid texts, which include some of the typical characteristics of legal texts as well as of technical texts, and it observes to what extent these aspects are maintained in the translated text from a qualitative perspective. The analysis makes use of a small corpus of authentic EULAs in English and their Italian translations, and a small comparable corpus of original Italian texts has also been compiled in order to allow for a contrastive analysis. The aim is to highlight the main issues emerging in the translation of this specific text type, as well as the approaches and the techniques adopted (such as transposition, expansion, addition, and elimination)

forms of hybridity in travel blogs

The technological revolution has changed considerably not only the way people travel and but also how they narrate their experiences. In this respect, the analysis of travel blogs can offer insights into the discursive and communicative practices which characterize this hybrid genre. This study is based on the investigation of a corpus of highly visited travel blogs and aims to observe their hybridity from a multitude of perspectives. More specifically, hybridity is seen in terms of genre, (a)synchronicity, collaboration, modes of communication and level of multimodality, style, orientation, levels of subjectivity and pragmatic functions. From a lexical perspective, specific attention is devoted to evaluative adjectives. In particular, the use of adjectives belonging to conceptual classes such as 'assessment' or 'deviance' is a widespread tool to express the blogger's subjectivity and may assume different communicative and pragmatic functions

Courtroom Discourses: An Analysis of the Westerfield Jury Trial

Alla luce del crescente interesse verso le complesse dinamiche che uniscono inestricabilmente i concetti di legge e linguaggio, questo lavoro mira ad osservare tali dinamiche in un particolare evento comunicativo, ovvero un processo con giuria popolare. Pi\uf9 specificatamente, viene analizzato il caso California vs Westerfield, svoltosi in California nel 2002. Lo studio si basa in particolare sull\u2019osservazione dei processi comunicativi che avvengono tra professionisti del mondo legale (in particolare giudice ed avvocati) e i giurati, che per definizione non possiedono una specifica conoscenza in ambito giuridico. La relazione tra esperti e non-esperti in un processo \ue8 inoltre determinata dalla peculiarit\ue0 che da un lato i professionisti detengono una posizione vantaggiosa in termini di potere comunicativo e di conoscenze specifiche, ma al contempo il potere decisionale \ue8 ascritto esclusivamente ai giurati. Lo scopo primario \ue8 quello di giungere ad una migliore comprensione della complessa natura delle tecniche e delle strategie discorsive che emergono nella relazione tra professionisti e non in questo specifico evento. Dal punto di vista delle dinamiche comunicative i giurati sembrano assumere un ruolo di passivi spettatori dell\u2019evento che viene loro presentato e la relazione tra diversi partecipanti \ue8 caratterizzata da un\u2019asimmetrica distribuzione dei turni e delle possibilit\ue0 di intervento. Tale relazione \ue8 determinata da specifiche pratiche e restrizioni procedurali di un evento che \ue8 per definizione altamente istituzionalizzato. Al contempo per\uf2 l\u2019analisi prende in considerazione le molteplici sfumature che definiscono queste dinamiche e le varie possibilit\ue0 che i giurati possiedono per intervenire in modo pi\uf9 attivo nel processo, in particolare alla luce dei recenti sviluppi procedurali. Il lavoro osserva l\u2019ibridit\ue0 del linguaggio usato in tribunale, adottando diverse prospettive. Innanzitutto si studia la complessa relazione che esiste tra la modalit\ue0 scritta e quella orale durante diverse fasi del processo. L\u2019ibridit\ue0 \ue8 anche analizzata dal punto di vista della commistione di diversi stili e registri. Inoltre, lo studio osserva se e in che modo le caratteristiche che vengono generalmente attribuite al linguaggio legale, quali la presenza di lessico altamente specializzato, di strutture sintattiche complesse e di un registro molto formale, emergono in questo specifico tipo di processo. Particolare attenzione \ue8 dedicata all\u2019osservazione delle modalit\ue0 attraverso le quali specifici concetti giuridici vengono illustrati ai giurati in base ai diversi scopi comunicativi. Diversi tipi di tensioni vengono osservati all\u2019interno di questo contesto, quali la giustapposizione di tecnicismi e colloquialismi, o il conflitto tra il desiderio di sensazionalismo e la necessit\ue0 di muoversi all\u2019interno di un quadro standardizzato e caratterizzato da specifici vincoli procedurali.Given the increasing interest in the complex dynamics that inextricably combine the concepts of law and language, this work aims to examine these dynamics focusing on a particular communicative event, namely a trial by jury. More specifically, the case under scrutiny is California vs Westerfield, which was tried in California in 2002. The study is based on the observation of the communicative processes taking place between professionals (specifically, judges and lawyers) and jurors, who by definition do not possess any specific legal knowledge. The relationship between experts and non-experts in a trial is also determined by the peculiarity that professionals assumes an advantageous position in terms of communicative power and specialized knowledge, while the decisional power is ascribed exclusively to the jury. The primary goal of this work is to reach a better understanding of the complex nature of the techniques and discursive strategies that emerge in the communicative relationship between professionals and laymen in this particular event. From a communicative perspective, the jurors seem to assume the role of passive spectators, and the relationship between different participants is characterized by an asymmetric distribution of turns and limited active intervention. These dynamics are determined by the specific practices and procedural restrictions of an event that is by definition highly institutionalized. At the same time, however, the analysis takes into account the many nuances that define these dynamics and the various possibilities that the jurors have to intervene more actively in the process, particularly in the light of recent procedural developments. The work aims to observe the hybridity of the language used in court, adopting different perspectives. First, it investigates the complex relationship that emerges between written and oral communication in different phases of the trial. Hybridity is also observed from the point of view of the combination of different styles and registers. The study also examines to what extent the characteristics that are generally attributed to legal language, such as the presence of highly specialized vocabulary, complex syntactic structures and a very formal register emerge in this specific context. Particular attention is devoted to the observation of the specific strategies adopted to illustrate legal ideas and concepts to the jurors in light of the speaker\u2019s various communicative purposes. Several kinds of tensions are observed within this context, such as the juxtaposition of colloquialisms and jargon, and the conflict between the desire for sensationalism and the need to move within a standardized framework that is characterized by specific procedural constraints

Three discipline collaborative radiation therapy special debate: All head and neck cancer patients with intact tumors/nodes should have scheduled adaptive replanning performed at least once during the course of radiotherapy

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149241/1/acm212587_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149241/2/acm212587.pd

Syncretic modality in slideshows in the era of digital humanities: Towards a reconceptualization of visuals?

The pervasiveness of slideshows in present-day academic lectures calls for a continuous redefinition and problematization of the nature and functions of modes, as well as of their interaction in a multimodal space such as the slide. Indeed, intense visuality in lectures is linked to a growing need for the ability to decipher the complex semiological landscapes that slides represent. This work is based on the analysis of a corpus of lecture slides drawn from the mIT OpenCourseWare initiative. Through a qualitative approach, it observes the fluidity of the different types of resources, with particular attention paid to visuals. This study offers an analytical framework which represents an embryonic rubric for operationalizing the grammar of visuals. It is based on a fluid and dynamic conception of visuals and focuses on the hybridity of the different semiotic resources, which often cannot be ascribed to specific categories without running into reductionist simplifications. The approach adopted aims to go beyond the investigation of the contribution made by individual modes, and to consider the meaning created dynamically by the interaction of the different resources, in a circular process which goes from the singular to the global and vice versa. Results show that the multiple semiotic resources involved develop syncretically and have a reciprocal transformative function in the meaning making process. Also, they synergically convey the information desired through their mutual validationLa generalización de las presentaciones de diapositivas en las clases actuales llama a una continua redefinición y problematización de la naturaleza y de las funciones de los diferentes modos, así como de su interacción en un espacio multimodal como la diapositiva. De hecho, la intensa visualidad de las clases conlleva una creciente necesidad de saber descifrar los complejos paisajes semiológicos que representan las diapositivas. El presente artículo se basa en el análisis de un corpus de presentaciones de diapositivas de clases procedentes de la iniciativa Mit OpenCourseWare. mediante un análisis cualitativo, se analiza la fluidez de los diferentes tipos de recursos, con especial atención a los elementos visuales. Este trabajo ofrece un marco de análisis que representa una rúbrica embrionaria para operacionalizar la gramática de los elementos visuales, que se basa en una concepción fluida y dinámica de los elementos visuales y se centra en el carácter híbrido de los diferentes recursos semióticos, los cuales a menudo no pueden adscribirse a categorías específicas sin incurrir en simplificaciones reduccionistas. La elección de la perspectiva adoptada responde a la intención de no limitarse al análisis de la contribución de modos individuales, sino de considerar el significado creado de manera dinámica por la interacción de diferentes recursos, en un proceso circular que va de lo singular a lo global y viceversa. Los resultados muestran que los múltiples recursos semióticos involucrados se desarrollan de manera sincrética y tienen una función transformadora recíproca en el proceso de creación de significado. Asimismo, transmiten de manera sinérgica la información mediante su validación mutu