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The article analyses a specialized corpus of texts by a Bulgarian radio host to establish what language items qualify as hate speech. Definitions of hate speech are adapted from the political sphere and given a linguistic dimension within a framework of corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. The concordances of key words in the corpus are searched for labelling, namecalling, denotation-shifting etc.
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The article analyses a little-explored collection of short stories – novellas – by the sixteenth-century Italian novelist Girolamo Parabosco. The argument is developed that in Diporti several innovative features occur for the first time. While following the structure of Boccaccio’s frame novel, the text refrains from imposing a common theme and digresses into several alternative genres, such as discussions, poetry, comment.
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The article tackles the issue of English orthography and the challenges it presents to people with various learning disabilities. A range of experiments is reported to elicit the responses of people with dyslexia to specific problems in the traditional system of English spellings. Approaches are put forwards to deal with such challenges both in the ordinary classroom and with people with disabilities. The author urges for more open-mindedness towards the challenge of English orthography.
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The article outlines the concept INTERLANGUAGE as developed by Larry Selinker and Pit Corder last century. Defined as a complex system, the phenomenon of Interlanguage needs to be taken into consideration both by specialists in foreign language teaching who research the area of linguistics, and by teachers. Then contributions to the topic by Spanish speaking specialists are described with a view of the specifics of learning Spanish.
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The aim of our study is to examine the multiple ways Greek immigrants position themselves in terms of cultural identity. Recent approaches to immigrants’ cultural identities tend to employ the concept of transnationalism to account for their hybridity and fluidity. Here, we intend to show that Georg Simmel’s ([1908] 1971) notion of the ‘stranger’ is also relevant to the analysis and interpretation of such transnational identities. In this context, and drawing on positioning theory (Davies and Harré 1990), we argue that our informants mainly construct hybrid ‘stranger’ identities as both Greeks and Canadians or as feeling Greek but not when in Greece. Our data consists of 15 semi-structured interviews exploring the immigrant experiences of Greeks who migrated to Canada from the mid-1940s until the late 1970s. The analysis focuses on (a) the discursive means the informants employ to construct the hybrid identity of the ‘stranger’, and (b) the specific purposes they fulfill. It appears that hybrid self-positionings are achieved via the use of (a) the disclaimer ‘I am/feel Greek but…’, (b) metaphors, (c) small stories, and (d) repair mechanisms. We also argue that, via constructing ‘stranger’ identities, the immigrants of our data claim Greekness, on the one hand, and legitimize themselves as Canadian citizens on the other, while also distancing themselves from the Greeks living in Greece and the respective negative stereotypes.
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Dzieci przedszkolne i wczesnoszkolne poza komunikowaniem się z otoczeniem często „rozmawiają” same ze sobą – mówią do siebie i dla siebie. Podjęte w niniejszym artykule rozważania dotyczą analizy wypowiedzi dzieci na płaszczyźnie językowej. Na wskazanie cech charakterystycznych mówienia do siebie pozwoliły wypisy z kilku zarejestrowanych zabaw dzieci. Na podstawie przeprowadzonych badań autorka dowodzi, że można mówić o odrębnym stylu „mówienia do siebie”. Cel wewnętrznego komunikowania się jest tylko pozornie inny niż w tradycyjnej komunikacji – ma swojego nadawcę i odbiorcę. Jest on jednak na tyle specyficzny, że komunikacja między nadawcą a odbiorcą generują się w jednym umyśle. Korpus badawczy został przeanalizowany na poziomie leksykalnym, morfologicznym, składniowym oraz na poziomie tekstu. Pozwoliło to na uwypuklenie osobliwości mówienia do siebie dziecka, m.in. spontaniczność wypowiedzi naruszanie spójności wypowiedzi, liczne mikrotematy zabawy, niejasność komunikatu słyszanego „na zewnątrz”, kreatywność, teatralizacja. // Apart from communicating with the outside world, children at kindergarten and early primary school often “speak” to themselves and for themselves. The present article attempts to reflect upon children’s speech in its linguistic dimension, aiming at isolating the characteristic features of speaking to oneself based on a few recorded children’s plays. The results of the analysis demonstrate that there exists a separate style of “speaking to oneself”. The objective of internal communication is not much different from the traditional interaction – it does have its sender and receiver. However, it is peculiar since the interaction between these two persons is generated in a single mind. The research corpus has been analysed on the level of lexis, morphology, syntax and discourse. As a result, idiosyncratic features of a child’s speaking to oneself have been isolated, such as spontaneity of speech, violation of coherence of speech, numerous micro-topics of play, ambiguity of the message when heard “on the outside”, creativity and dramatization.
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Failed humour in conversational exchanges has received increasing attention in humour research (see Bell 2015; Bell & Attardo 2010). However, tensions between what constitutes successful and failed humour have yet to be fully explored outside conversational humour. Drawing on Hay’s (2001) classification of humour stages and using a socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics to examine responses from Spanish L1 and L2 users to differing combinations of structural and content features in cartoons, the present study aims to explore what factors contribute to successful and failed responses to multimodal humour. Previous research has predominantly investigated the role of caricature as one of the prototypical features of cartoons affecting humour communication, suggesting that this feature plays an active role in the recognition of the humoristic genre (Padilla & Gironzetti 2012). Findings from the present study indicate that caricature operates not only in the recognition, but also in the understanding and appreciation stages. In particular, our results point to two other roles of caricature as a secondary incongruity and as a factor that can trigger appreciation through empathy and/or a sense of superiority. Importantly, this investigation indicates that the presence of secondary incongruities can compensate for a partial lack of understanding, highlighting the relevance that this type of incongruity has in humour appreciation.
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The emergence of philosophical affect theory, sourced substantially in Continental philosophy, has intensified scholarly attention around affective potentials in laughter. However, the relationship between laughter’s affect and the comic remains a complicated one for researchers, with some maintaining that the two should be approached separately (Emmerson 2019, Parvulescu 2010). While there is a credible academic rationale for drawing precise distinctions, the present article takes an integrative approach to laughter and the comic. It analyses, then synthesises, points of convergence between key texts in affect philosophy and certain elements of incongruity-based humour theory. Specifically, the article seeks to demonstrate that some integration can bring insight and clarity to discussion of transformative potentials sometimes attributed to forms of comic laughter, especially within cultural studies and social science following the philosophy of Deleuze. This approach may also usefully complicate the concept of incongruity itself.
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Because most theories of humour emphasize its intersubjective and/or semantic nature, they fail to fully appreciate and explain self-directed humour. Through a critical exploration of the implications of different theories of humour and satire, this paper argues that the spectrum of reflexive humour and satire can be categorized according to the figure of the satirist and the target of satire, both of whom can feature individual or collective social selves. Depending on the satirist and the scope of satire, the functions of reflexive humour may range from securing psychological homeostasis to dealing with more impersonal, social and philosophical concerns.
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This article addresses the synthesis of humour and paranoia in portrayals of artificial intelligence (AI) in the popular American podcast Welcome to Night Vale (2012-). It argues that contrary to the Relief Theory, fusing humour and cyber-paranoia does not help release the tension (anxious energy) generated within the narrative. Rather, the synthesis of humour and paranoia maintains suspense by creating within the narratives moments of ambiguity with the potential to leave the reader or audience caught between fear and laughter after the story ends.
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This study aimed to test a hypothesis about the correlation between levels of gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism and understanding of Internet memes as a specific form of humour. Participants were 45 native speakers of Russian (aged 18 –30; 73,3 % female). The levels of Internet memes understanding were assessed independently by two judges with the use of criteria based on the results of a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews. Gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism were assessed with PhoPhiKat <30> questionnaire. J. Raven’s “Standard Progressive Matrices” test was used to control the level of psychometric intelligence. Concordance of judges’ scores for the understanding of memes was assessed with Kendall’s W and ranged from 0.71 to 0.84. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to test the main hypothesis. We found no correlation between the scores for gelotophobia, gelotophilia, and katagelasticism and understanding of Internet memes. Presumably, the type of attitude towards humour does not play a significant role in the understanding of comical texts. The qualitative content analysis of the interview protocols revealed some specific features of cognitive mechanisms of Internet memes understanding. Namely, successful participants with higher levels of understanding of Internet memes reflected more on their thinking process than those with lower levels of understanding of Internet memes, easily switched from an abstract level of reasoning to a concrete one, and tended to consistently develop detailed mental representations of the memes.
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Gelotophobia, or the fear of being laughed at, has been described as an inability to enjoy humour and laughter in social interaction. A number of studies have shown its increased levels under various mental disorders. Gelotophobia in psychiatric patients may appear either as a primary syndrome, or as a secondary disorder connected to the patient’s reaction to their social position (self-stigmatisation). In turn, self-stigmatisation is closely related to the personality of the patient and, in particular, to their attitudes to illness. Since the fear of being laughed at has been studied within both the clinical concept and the continual model of individual differences, the question of differentiation between normal and pathological fear of being laughed at is topical, while borderline groups are of particular interest. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between gelotophobia, attitudes to illness, and self-stigmatisation in patients with minor, non-psychotic mental disorders, as well as those with brain injuries, who also had mild mental disorders, without having the status of psychiatric patients. The sample consisted of 73 patients with non-psychotic mental disorders, and 30 patients with brain injuries. The methods used included PhoPhiKat-30, ISMI-9 (Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Inventory), and TOBOL (Types of the Attitudes to Disease). The results revealed at least a slight level of gelotophobia in 31% patients with non-psychotic mental disorders, and 20% in those with brain injuries. Gelotophobia correlated with certain types of attitude to illness in each group. Subjects displaying high levels of gelotophobia were in general characterised by disadvantageous attitudes to illness. In the group of psychiatric patients, gelotophobia was associated with self-stigmatisation, whereas in the group of neurological patients it was not. Thus, in this study gelotophobia was examined for the first time in patients with non-psychotic mental disorders, as well as in those with brain injuries. Differentmechanisms of gelotophobia development were suggested for the two groups.
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As the European Union’s Strategy for people with disabilities has been extended to 2030, emphasising the need for these people’s social inclusion, which also comprises accessibility to different information and documents, Romania has to align its legislation and best practices in order to solve its problems concerning this topic. Therefore, this paper focuses on an important aspect of social inclusion, namely Easy-to-Read (E2R) language, which is paramount for the disabled people’s access to information, culture and education. It starts by presenting the concept of Easy-to-Read across Europe, its perception and implementation by various countries, to finally delve into the current situation of Easy-to-Read in Romania. By looking at the analysis and reports on the previous governmental strategies regarding people with disabilities (and especially reading disabilities, for the purpose of this paper), it can be said that Romania still faces challenges in this respect and needs to work on making documents and information accessible by first creating E2R guidelines and then implementing them in printed documents (e.g. adapted textbooks, healthcare leaflets) as well as in the electronic information (e.g. government websites). The paper also traces some future perspectives concerning Easy-to-Read in Romania, namely the Train2Validate “Professional training for Easy-to-Read facilitators and validators” (T2V) project, an Erasmus+ programme, a collaboration between various European countries, that Romania is part of, which goes one step further into helping people with reading disabilities and creating professional roles for them, i.e. facilitators and validators, in order to integrate them on the employment market. Moreover, this research will hopefully raise awareness of the importance of conducting other studies on creating Easy-to-Read guidelines and on simplifying the text according to the different target groups of people with reading disabilities or difficulties and to different text types.
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The paper is aimed at studying the results of Ukrainian scientists who developed the theory and practice of suggestopedia.The ideas of the outstanding Bulgarian scholar G. Lozanov serve as the foundation of modern linguistics, including the directions of suggestive language didactics, linguistics of influence, psychological and neurological and marketing linguistics. Thanks to Lozanov's contribution, researchers have learned to find suggestive components in political messages, analyze strategic narratives, find hidden aspects in religious texts, better understand the applied nature of some folk genres and more. The special anthropological value of Lozanov's approaches is objectified by the development of neuroscience, where a person is often positioned as a functionary with electronic chips. Instead, Lozanov's man is a free, conscious and loving man. Although research on suggestion is growing in the scientific literature, there is still a significant gap in this topic, in particular on theoretical and empirical developments on the impact of suggestion on various aspects of communication. A review of recent publications on suggestopedic topics shows that the interest in G. Lozanov’s approaches does not fade and is nourished by the pedagogical search for educational paradigms which are adequate to the real needs of life and capable of combining tradition with innovation. The article presents different approaches to Lozanov's discoveries and aims to encourage new discourses into the area of the linguistic programming of personality.
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Drawing on a range of American, Australian, British and Scandinavian research into laughter,the current paper will use the form of pragmatic analysis typically found in qualitative researchand apply it to data produced by the quantitative methodology common in the author’s owndiscipline of psychology. Laughter will be examined as an indexical that serves both a discoursedeictic function, designating the utterance in which it occurs as non-serious, and a social deicticfunction, marking the laughing person’s preference for social proximity with fellowinterlocutors. The paper will then analyse examples and data pertaining to three types oflaughter bout derived from taking laughter as an indexical. First, solitary listener laughter willbe argued to signify a deferential acknowledgement of continued solidarity with the speaker.Second, solitary speaker laughter will be suggested to mark a simple preference for solidarity.Third, joint laughter will be accepted as a signifier of actual solidarity that may also be used tomark status depending on which party typically initiates the joint laughter. Joint laughter thusacts in a manner closely analogous to the exchange of another set of indexicals, the T and Vversions of second person pronouns in European languages. Finally, the paper will concludeby examining the problematic case of laughing at another interlocutor, before brieflyconsidering the implications of this pragmatic perspective for traditional accounts of laughteras well as for future research.
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