Positive self-evaluation versus negative other-evaluation in the political genre of pre-election debates.

The present study explores the language of evaluation in a sub-genre of political discourse, pre-electoral debates, and its potential persuasive function for gaining voters via a contraposition of positive self-evaluation and negative evaluation of the other candidate. A further aim of this research is to check whether the candidate¿s ideology has a bearing on the entities that get evaluated. After a brief examination of the characteristics of the sub-genre at hand, specifically in the Spanish context, we present the results of an evaluation analysis carried out in a corpus of 19,849 words, which is the extension of the most recent pre-electoral debate held in Spain between the candidates of the two main political parties. Taking into account Van Dijk¿s CDA framework (2005) for parliamentary debates as global semantic strategies of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation, Martin and White¿s (2005) method was adopted as an analytical tool. The results showed that, although each candidate had different preferences in the choice of evaluative devices, they both used them as a strategy to win electoral votes while deprecating the opposing party and, therefore, minimizing their chances of winning the elections. On the other hand, and despite their opposing ideology, they both seem to defend those policies that are more widely accepted in order not to risk losing voters: public services and egalitarian social policies

Evaluational adjectives

This paper demarcates a theoretically interesting class of "evaluational adjectives." This class includes predicates expressing various kinds of normative and epistemic evaluation, such as predicates of personal taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral adjectives, and epistemic adjectives, among others. Evaluational adjectives are distinguished, empirically, in exhibiting phenomena such as discourse-oriented use, felicitous embedding under the attitude verb `find', and sorites-susceptibility in the comparative form. A unified degree-based semantics is developed: What distinguishes evaluational adjectives, semantically, is that they denote context-dependent measure functions ("evaluational perspectives")—context-dependent mappings to degrees of taste, beauty, probability, etc., depending on the adjective. This perspective-sensitivity characterizing the class of evaluational adjectives cannot be assimilated to vagueness, sensitivity to an experiencer argument, or multidimensionality; and it cannot be demarcated in terms of pretheoretic notions of subjectivity, common in the literature. I propose that certain diagnostics for "subjective" expressions be analyzed instead in terms of a precisely specified kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. I close by applying the account to `find x PRED' ascriptions

Discourse and identity in a corpus of lesbian erotica

This article uses corpus linguistic methodologies to explore representations of lesbian desires and identities in a corpus of lesbian erotica from the 1980s and 1990s. We provide a critical examination of the ways in which “lesbian gender,” power, and desire are represented, (re-)produced, and enacted, often in ways that challenge hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality. By examining word frequencies and collocations, we critically analyze some of the themes, processes, and patterns of representation in the texts. Although rooted in linguistics, we hope this article provides an accessible, interdisciplinary, and timely contribution toward developing understandings of discursive practices surrounding gender and sexuality

'What is this corpus about?': Using topic modelling to explore a specialised corpus

This paper introduces topic modelling, a machine learning technique that automatically identifies 'topics' in a given corpus. The paper illustrates its use in the exploration of a corpus of academic English. It first offers the intuitive explanation of the underlying mechanism of topic modelling and describes the procedure for building a model, including the decisions involved in the model-building process. The paper then explores the model. A topic in topic models is characterised by a set of co-occurring words, and we will demonstrate that such topics bring us rich insights into the nature of a corpus. As exemplary tasks, this paper identifies the prominent topics in different parts of papers, investigates the chronological change of a journal, and reveals different types of papers in the journal. The paper further compares topic modelling to two more traditional techniques in corpus linguistics, semantic annotation and keywords analysis, and highlights the strengths of topic modelling.We believe that topic modelling is particularly useful in the initial exploration of a corpus

Framing interculturality: a corpus-based analysis of on-line promotional discourse of higher education intercultural communication courses

This paper examines how intercultural communication (ICC) and the notion of culture are framed in on-line promotional discourse of higher education intercultural communication courses. It analyses a specialised corpus comprised of 14,842 words from 43 course websites of master’s programmes in intercultural communication in the UK and the US—internationally, the two largest providers of such programmes. Through combining corpus tools with a ‘situated meaning’ approach, the analysis reveals that while a small number of courses acknowledge cultural ‘complexity’, culture is still very often reduced to an essentialised and static notion, despite growing criticism against such an approach in ICC literature. Intercultural communication is valorised as a combination of desirable skills and knowledge conducive to effective communication of different cultural groups and for those working in international arenas. Significant differences between the UK and US courses are identified with regard to the extent of associations with diversity-related social categories. The lack of interpretive, critical and constructivist positions on culture in promotional discourse is discussed in the context of neoliberal discourse and the current thinking towards professional competences dominant in Britain, North America, and other parts of the world

Corpus-assisted literary evaluation

Fleur Adcock’s poem, Street Song, is evaluated by the stylistician, Roger Fowler, as ‘dynamic and disturbing’. I agree with his literary evaluation. These unsettling effects take place in initial response to the poem, effects which attract me into the work. In other words, they are experienced before proper reflection and analysis of the poem and individual interpretation of it. Implicit within Fowler’s evaluation is that this is likely to apply for readers generally. The purpose of this article is to show how empirical corpus evidence can usefully provide substantiation of such initial evaluations of literary works, showing whether or not they are likely to be stereotypically experienced by readers. In drawing on both schema theory and corpus analysis to achieve this, the article makes links between cognitive stylistic and corpus stylistic foci

Formulaic Language in Native and Second Language Speakers: Psycholinguistics, Corpus Linguistics, and TESOL

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89473/1/j.1545-7249.2008.tb00137.x.pd

Assessing social responsibility::A quantitative analysis of Appraisal in BP’s and IKEA’s social reports

A growing public awareness of the potential negative impacts of corporate activities on the natural environment and society compels large companies to invest increasing resources in the communication of their responsible conduct. This article employs Appraisal theory in a comparative analysis of BP’s and IKEA’s 2009 social reports, each company’s record of their non-financial performance. The main objective is to explore how, through Appraisal resources, BP and IKEA construct their corporate identity and relationship with their stakeholders. The analysis reveals two markedly different approaches to the construction of a responsible corporate identity. While BP deploys interpersonal resources to portray itself as a trustworthy and authoritative expert, IKEA discloses itself as a sensitive and caring corporation, engaged in a continual effort to improve. These differences are interpreted in light of the legitimization challenges the two companies face

Protection Group Effects During α,γ-Diol Lignin Stabilization Promote High-Selectivity Monomer Production

Protection groups were introduced during biomass pretreatment to stabilize lignin's α,γ-diol group during its extraction and prevent its condensation. Acetaldehyde and propionaldehyde stabilized the α,γ-diol without any aromatic ring alkylation, which significantly increased final product selectivity. The subsequent hydrogenolysis catalyzed by Pd/C generated lignin monomers at near-theoretical yields based on Klason lignin (48 % from birch, 20 % from spruce, 70 % from high-syringyl transgenic poplar), and with high selectivity to a single 4-n-propanolsyringol product (80 %) in the case of the poplar. Unlike direct hydrogenation of native wood, hydrogenolysis of protected lignin with Ni/C also led to high selectivity to this single product (78 %), paving the way to high-selectivity lignin upgrading with base metal catalysts. The use of extracted lignin facilitated valorization of polysaccharides, leading to high yields of all three major biomass polymers to a single major product