Common-sense anti-racism in book group talk: The role of reported speech

This paper explores the rhetorical accomplishment by British book group members of anti-racist identities through their discussions of fictional texts exploring themes of race and immigration. ‘Common-sense anti-racism’ is a social action or stance that is presented as self-evidently taken by speakers, yet explicitly flagged at the same time. Speakers in book group discussions routinely display enlightened, anti-racist views principally by invoking the figure of the ‘racist other’ and their reported speech. Many of the examples of reported speech do not involve explicit markers of quotation or shifts in footing, meaning that the attribution of certain utterances to a racist ‘other’ relies on an assumption of shared values. The paper questions why anti-racism tends to be packaged as an accountable matter in need of some impression management in the way that racism often is, and concludes that this is linked to the way in which it operates in contexts where anxieties around issues of race and racism continue to exist

Pittosporum kororoense (Pittosporaceae, Apiales), a new species from Coffs Harbour, Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia

A new species of rainforest shrub, described here as Pittosporum kororoense Benwell (Pittosporaceae, Apiales), was recently discovered at Kororo, 3 km north of the centre of Coffs Harbour on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. Current information on the distribution, habitat, and population of this highly localised, endemic species is presented. An updated key to Pittosporum species in NSW is provided

New sexism?: Readers' responses to the use of irony in men's magazines

A common motif of “new” forms of masculinity in recent years has been the adoption of what have been termed “new sexism” discourses. This involves the legitimation of male power in new and creative ways, often by the strategic accommodation or negotiation of liberal, progressive or feminist discourses. This paper examines one particular “new sexism” device—irony. Irony is a versatile device in men's magazines which allows a speaker to articulate both anti-feminist sentiments as well as engage in discourses of femininity, whilst disclaiming responsibility for or ownership of both. This strategic use of irony in relation to the expression of sexist or homophobic views is a common device in the “new lad” magazines examined in this paper. Compounding the slipperiness of the ironic utterance is the acknowledgement that it may be read variously by different audiences. For this reason, my analysis attempts to move beyond the rather narrow textual focus normally favoured in language analysis, to consider the multiple, often contradictory responses produced by audiences. The paper examines firstly, the reading habits and dispositions of two groups of dedicated readers of men's magazines. Then the paper considers detailed responses to the texts under discussion and specifically the meaning of the ironic utterance. The lack of consensus elicited by such an exercise arguably problematises our initial reading of irony as a device of “new sexism”

'Lucky this is Anonymous.' Ethnographies of reception in men’s magazines: A 'textual culture' approach

In this article I address the contribution that a study of reader reception might make to our understanding of the cultural meanings of the discourses to be found in and around men’s magazines. Reception is a cultural site often neglected in linguistic analyses of popular cultural texts, which are commonly treated as discrete, autonomous and ahistorical within these approaches. Conversation Analysis of unstructured interviews with magazine readers is one means of accessing contexts of reception, which, unlike many ethnographic approaches, is properly reflexive about the ontological status of its data. The drawback of a strict ethnomethodological approach, however, is its limited ability in recreating the original context of reading: the interview is arguably a situated account rather than a transparent report of reception. In order to expand the terms of ‘context’ for these interviews, therefore, the article proposes a triangulated method whereby the discourses and categories identified in talk can be intertextually linked (and indeed are sometimes intertextually indexed within the talk itself) to other communicative contexts in the circuit of culture, such as the magazine text, media debates, editorial identities and everyday talk. This ‘textual culture’1 approach to the analysis of popular culture effectively aims to analyse with ethnographic breadth and in discursive depth, the various, intersecting sites of culture within which the material text is formed - of which reception serves as the focal point for this article - and mirrors recent developments in Critical Discourse Analysis

Mapping global violence and health information

Este articulo describe la producción de un atlas mundial sobre violencia y salud. El Atlas ha sido publicado por el Centro para el Desarrollo de la Salud de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), en Kobe (Japón). Los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) han jusgado un significativo papel en la recogida, integración, gestión, análisis y presentación de la información. El formato y estilo del Atlas es a la vez audaz e innovador. En el artículo se describen el proceso seguido y la producción del mismo.This paper describes the production of an atlas on global violence and health. The World Health Organization, Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe Centre), Kobe, Japan has published the Atlas. GIS has played a significant role in the collection, collation, management, analysis and presentation of the information. The form and style of the Atlas is both bold and innovative. The paper describes the process and production

No interaction between tDCS current strength and baseline performance: a conceptual replication

Several recent studies have reported non-linear effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which has been attributed to an interaction between the stimulation parameters (e.g., current strength, duration) and the neural state of the cortex being stimulated (e.g., indexed by baseline performance ability, age) (see Fertonani and Miniussi, 2016). We have recently described one such non-linear interaction between current strength and baseline performance on a visuospatial attention (landmark) task (Benwell et al., 2015). In this previous study, we induced a small overall rightward shift of spatial attention across 38 participants using bi-hemispheric tDCS applied for 20 min (concurrent left posterior parietal (P5) anode and right posterior parietal (P6) cathode) relative to a sham protocol. Importantly, this shift in bias was driven by a state-dependent interaction between current intensity and the discrimination sensitivity of the participant at baseline (pre-stimulation) for the landmark task. Individuals with high discrimination sensitivity (HDS) shifted rightward in response to low- (1 mA) but not high-intensity (2 mA) tDCS, whereas individuals with low discrimination sensitivity (LDS) shifted rightward with high- but not low-intensity stimulation. However, in Benwell et al. (2015) current strength was applied as a between-groups factor, where half of the participants received 1 mA and half received 2 mA tDCS, thus we were unable to compare high and low-intensity tDCS directly within each individual. Here we aimed to replicate these findings using a within-group design. Thirty young adults received 15 min of 1 and 2 mA tDCS, and a sham protocol, each on different days, to test the concept of an interaction between baseline performance and current strength. We found no overall rightward shift of spatial attention with either current strength, and no interaction between performance and current strength. These results provide further evidence of low replicability of non-invasive brain stimulation protocols, and the need for further attempts to replicate the key experimental findings within this field

Mapping global violence and health information

Este articulo describe la producción de un atlas mundial sobre violencia y salud. El Atlas ha sido publicado por el Centro para el Desarrollo de la Salud de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), en Kobe (Japón). Los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) han jusgado un significativo papel en la recogida, integración, gestión, análisis y presentación de la información. El formato y estilo del Atlas es a la vez audaz e innovador. En el artículo se describen el proceso seguido y la producción del mismo.This paper describes the production of an atlas on global violence and health. The World Health Organization, Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe Centre), Kobe, Japan has published the Atlas. GIS has played a significant role in the collection, collation, management, analysis and presentation of the information. The form and style of the Atlas is both bold and innovative. The paper describes the process and production

Food availability in Eatonville, Florida

Food availability is a serious problem for some low-income neighborhoods. This study examines food access in Eatonville, Florida, a small town in Orlando, Florida. Eatonville was one of the first African American towns incorporated into the United States after emancipation. It is a low-income community with 25% of the overall population and 30% of children living below the poverty line. This study will examine the state of food availability through food store and resident surveys in hopes of diagnosing need in order to alleviate it. There are serious implications for residents of cities with inadequate access to nutritious, affordable food. Children living with unequal access will face many future disadvantages in education, employment, and health. These compounding problems lead to a cycle of poverty that can be alleviated with appropriate public policy measures and other neighborhood changes that address food access in low-income neighborhoods

Keeping "small talk" small in health-care encounters: negotiating the boundaries between on- and off-task talk

Healthcare interactions often involve social, relational, small-talk or ‘off-task’ sequences which are largely topically distinct from the institutional business of the setting. In this paper we examine data from pre-operative assessment sessions in a Scottish hospital in order to explore the transitions between on- and off-task talk. In the majority of instances the movement between social and medical talk is routine and unproblematic, and both nurse and patient orient to the boundaried nature of off-topic talk. However, occasionally patients’ social talk evolves into personal disclosure and troubles telling which may disrupt the institutional agenda and which can lead to difficulties in the negotiation of sequence closure. Data are in British English