Making sense of political ideology in mediatized political communication: A discourse analytic perspective

Political discourse becomes more and more ‘mediatized’ nowadays but, as I argue in this article, mediatization should be considered neither as a testament to ‘de-ideologization’ nor as a restyling of the ‘inherently ideological’ contemporary political communication. Ideology, I claim, is a potentiality of mediatized political discourse and as such, it rests with the generic capacity of the latter to recontextualize symbolisms from the institutional past serving the ordering of the institutional present. How is the recontextualization of symbolic meanings facilitated by the aesthetic and affective qualities of different media genres? In what ways does recontextualized discourse serve the neoliberal order of the present? Lying at the heart of the ideological analysis of political communication, these are questions which can be insightfully addressed through a discourse analytics of mediatization as the one I apply here on two political advertisements from the Greek general election of January 2015

Sincere Social Capital with Material Status Sensitivity: Index and an Inverted U-Shaped Utility-Wealth Theory

This paper explores a possible effect of social capital on the relationship between utility and wealth. Material status sensitivity is considered in constructing the individual social-capital index. The incorporation of the index into the individual’s utility function leads to the proposition that if utility is directly increased by wealth but indirectly reduced by diminishing intensity and quality of sincere social interaction as the material-status-gape widens, there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between utility and wealth. People located in the lower and upper tails of the wealth distribution are less content and hence more vulnerable to depression.

Wealth, Social Capital and Happiness: The Case of Status Sensitive People

Sensitivity of sincere social communication to economic status disparity is incorporated into the construction of sincere social-capital index. The consideration of this index leads to the depiction of the happiness-wealth relationship as an inverted U-shaped curve that peaks at a larger than the average personal wealth. The deviation of the happiness-maximizing wealth from the community average is positively related to the ratio of the rates of return on wealth and sincere social capital and is compounded by the actual and desired community sizes and by the minimum sincere social capital associated with becoming the community’s ultimate wealth holder.Economic status disparity; Community size; Social capital; Interpersonal communication; Happiness.

Impersonalization Procedures in the City of Seville: A Study on the Pronoun “Oneself”

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en describir el uso del pronombre uno como mecanismo de impersonalización en la comunidad urbana de Sevilla, en concreto, en una muestra de habla compuesta por 72 entrevistas del sociolecto alto, medio y bajo, pertenecientes al Corpus PRESEEA-Sevilla. Esta forma pronominal adquiere en el contexto diferentes funciones semánticas que van desde la generalización (inclusiva o exclusiva) hasta el encubrimiento pragmático del hablante, cuya finalidad consiste en proteger su imagen, buscar acuerdo social o criticar. Además, estos grados de impersonalidad están relacionados con factores sintácticos (la clase semántica del verbo), pragmáticos (temática de la conversación, secuencia discursiva), estilísticos (la relación entre los participantes en la interacción) y, en menor medida, con los criterios sociales (edad, sexo o nivel de instrucción)The aim of this study is to describe the use of “oneself” as an impersonalization strategy in the city of Seville, specifically, in a sample of 72 oral interviews of high, medium and low sociolect, taken from the Corpus PRESEEA-Seville. This pronoun presents in the context different semantic values which go from generalization (both inclusive and exclusive) to pragmatic concealment of the speaker, with the purpose of protecting the latter’s image, criticizing or searching for approval and social acceptation. Furthermore, these different shapes of impersonalization are related to syntactic factors (verb semantic class), pragmatic (theme of the conversation, discourse sequence), stylistic (the relationship between the participants joining the interaction) and, to a lesser extent, with the social aspects (gender, age or educational level)Cette étude se propose de rendre compte de l’emploi du pronom indéfini « soi-même » comme mécanisme d’impersonnalisation dans la ville de Séville. Elle s’appuie sur des entretiens semi-directifs avec 72 sociolectes ayant un niveau éducatif haut, moyenet et bas, et qui font partie du corpus oral PRESEEA-Séville. Cette forme pronominale présente dans le contexte des fonctions sémantiques différentes qui vont de la généralisation (inclusive ou exclusive) á la dissimulation pragmatique du locuteur dont le but consiste à protéger son image, à acquérir l’accord ou à critiquer. En outre, ces degrés d’indétermination sont associés aux facteurs syntactiques (la clase sémantique du verbe), pragmatiques (la thématique de la conversation, la séquence discursive), stylistiques (la relation entre les deux intervenants dans l’interaction) et, dans une moindre mesure, aux critères sociaux (l’âge, le genre ou le niveau éducatif)Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO). España FFI2015- 61871-C5-3-

The semantic-pragmatic interface of authorial presence in academic lecturing phraseology

Epistemic lexical verbs (Hyland, 1998) constitute essential elements in conveying different interpersonal meanings, among those judgment, certainty, doubt, and evidence, aiding speakers both to project themselves into the speech and to maintain interesting relationships with audiences. Supporting Sinclair’s (1991) contention that meanings are clustered into lexicogrammatical patternings, and not in isolated items, this paper explores the phraseology accompanying the most representative epistemic lexical verbs (ELVs) in university lectures. By applying corpus-based methodology, we also illustrate the functional variability of think –the most salient of these lexical verbs–, especially the roles it performs when hedging the discourse and complying with politeness conventions as part of interactional and metadiscoursal strategies. At a textual level, results indicate that lecturing speech favors the proliferation of evaluation markers that appear to be arranged in several recurrent formal patterns. This clearly entails potential for pedagogical purposes and ESP syllabuses

Secure and Trustable Electronic Medical Records Sharing using Blockchain

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are critical, highly sensitive private information in healthcare, and need to be frequently shared among peers. Blockchain provides a shared, immutable and transparent history of all the transactions to build applications with trust, accountability and transparency. This provides a unique opportunity to develop a secure and trustable EMR data management and sharing system using blockchain. In this paper, we present our perspectives on blockchain based healthcare data management, in particular, for EMR data sharing between healthcare providers and for research studies. We propose a framework on managing and sharing EMR data for cancer patient care. In collaboration with Stony Brook University Hospital, we implemented our framework in a prototype that ensures privacy, security, availability, and fine-grained access control over EMR data. The proposed work can significantly reduce the turnaround time for EMR sharing, improve decision making for medical care, and reduce the overall costComment: AMIA 2017 Annual Symposium Proceeding

Code-switching in an institutional setting: Negotiating social roles in bilingual encounters in Guatemala

In this paper, I investigate the ways in which bilingual speakers utilize linguistic resources to negotiate social roles and manage social relationships at an institutional setting in Momostenango, Guatemala. Drawing from studies on code-switching and politeness, I examine the ways in which speakers utilize the available language resources-Spanish and K'iche' on the one hand, and second-person pronouns on the other-to negotiate social roles in institutional interactions. This study contributes to our understanding of the ways in which bilinguals organize and conceptualize social roles in culturally specific and meaningful ways. The qualitative analysis of speech examples can adequately show facets of social life when combined with an ethnographic understanding. In addition, by focusing on actual language use and on a single institutional setting rather than multiple ones, this study brings to light the complex dynamics of using both Spanish and K'iche' as well as formal and familiar pronouns in Guatemala.open0

Spartan Daily, February 3, 1998

Volume 110, Issue 8https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9224/thumbnail.jp