Latest Content

• Reverberations 2024-07-26
  Abstract In the Colombian peace referendum, the 2016 accord with the FARC guerrilla, which sought to end fifty years of war, was rejected by 50.2% of voters. The referendum created new identity divides between ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ voters, product of political “narrative wars” which intersected with myriad pre-existing divisions: between left and right, urban and […]
• Claims of ownership, claims of dignity 2024-07-26
  Abstract In September 2022, Chileans overwhelmingly rejected the draft of a new constitution to replace the inherited from Pinochet’s dictatorship. Existing explanations attribute the failure to a mixture of ill-designed procedures, political dynamics, and ideological distortions and fake news. However, we argue for a different interpretation, emphasizing the collision of normative worlds in the struggle […]
• Demarcating rights in divided social worlds 2024-07-26
  Abstract This article outlines a framework for studying practices of boundary-making as pivotal to the various ways in which “rights” become objects of contention and sources of narrativization in contemporary constitutional democracies. Firstly, we reconsider the dynamics of boundary-making that underline polarization by drawing on the notion of “moral economy”. This concept is well-suited for […]
• Review of Corpas Pastor & Defrancq (2023): Interpreting technologies – current and future trends 2024-07-25
• Face attributes in interviews with Iranian politicians 2024-07-25
  Abstract This study examines face attributes in political interviews involving interviewers working for western broadcasting companies and Iranian politicians. The data consists of 10 hours of talk. The topic raised in the interviews is concerned with Iran’s human rights which have aroused concern and been the focus of international attention. Iranian politicians interviewed on global media […]
• I am a doctor in your shoes 2024-07-25
  Abstract The ability to be empathic with the emotionally-charged personal accounts of patients in a medical consultation is an essential attribute of a qualified doctor. However, there is a lack of empirical research on how empathy is interactionally achieved by Chinese doctors in text-based online medical consultations (OMC). Based on 600 records of text-type online […]
• Exploring positional and dimensional aspects of topographic space for advanced-level British Sign Language learners 2024-07-23
  Abstract This study investigates how British Sign Language (BSL) learners develop positional and dimensional aspects of topographic space. The teaching of BSL has been occurring at an increasing rate, and many people are learning to use BSL to the advanced levels, which are generally referred to in the UK as BSL Levels 4 and 6 […]
• Foot-shift and disyllabification in the history of Chinese 2024-07-22
  Abstract This paper argues that the Chinese language has undergone a foot-shift from the Old Chinese monosyllabic foot to a Modern Chinese disyllabic foot. It will be shown that the natural simplification of Old Chinese syllables has caused the foot-shift, resulting in disyllabification. The disappearance of bimoraic feet in Old Chinese has resulted from the […]
• China’s real estate agents’ persuasion realizations on WeChat Moments 2024-07-22
  Abstract Persuasion is a well-documented language phenomenon in the fields of rhetoric, communication, and sociopsychology. However, there is still a need for further research into persuasion on social media from a pragmatic perspective. The current research contributes to the existing literature on persuasion, particularly in virtual environments, by examining the tactics of online persuasion with […]
• “I want children to see that their languages are respected” 2024-07-19
  Abstract Demand for an understanding and appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity in educational contexts has intensified, given increasing levels of globalization. Moreover, guidelines from educational agencies (e.g., United Nations, 2015b; U.S. Department of Education, 2017) as well as state-level preschool teaching standards call for raising awareness of languages, cultures, and diversity beginning in early […]
• Review of Lee (2022): Locating Translingualism 2024-07-19
• Writing to evaluate 2024-07-19
  Abstract Evaluative language is crucial in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing, particularly in expressing authorial stance and supporting arguments. Among various linguistic frameworks, appraisal in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has been extensively used to map and assess evaluative linguistic features. Since its inception in the early 1990s, appraisal has been widely applied to EAP […]
• Review of Pamela, Bertacco & Soldat-Jaffe (2022): Time, Space, Matter in Translation 2024-07-19
• Bourdieu’s trajectory concept as an approach to microhistorical research in translation 2024-07-19
  Abstract This article explores the potential of Bourdieu’s trajectory concept as an approach to microhistorical research, using the life history of Egypt’s late Minister of Culture Tharwat Okasha as a case study. The focus throughout is on Okasha’s multipositionality throughout his trajectory as a military officer and then as a military attaché in France between […]
• A typology of alternative questions in Chinese and other East Asian languages 2024-07-19
  Abstract This paper presents a typological study of the coding strategies of alternative questions (AQs) in Chinese and its linguistic neighbours in Asia. An AQ is a type of question in which the speaker asks the hearer to decide which of two or more alternatives holds. Previous studies have noted that some languages use a […]
• Review of Pinter (2023): Engaging children in applied linguistics research 2024-07-19
• Insubordination and what happens after it 2024-07-19
  Abstract One of the sources of irrealis markers is former markers of conditional sentences, both protases and apodoses, both factual and counterfactual. The development, amply documented cross-linguistically, is that of insubordination: a former marker of subordination is used as an irrealis marker in main clauses. However, the next stage of development is not commonly observed: […]
• Cultural ergonomics in localization 2024-07-19
  Abstract Cultural ergonomics aims to integrate the dimension of culture into systems and products to make them safer, more useful, and more accessible to a wider range of multicultural users. This makes it an effective conceptual tool to create a localized product that is more inclusive. By using the example of security questions in drop-down […]
• Reception zones of translated Nigerian literature in France 2024-07-19
  Abstract French translations of Nigerian literature have evolved since its introduction in France in 1953. Previous research documented periodic gaps and accounted for an ongoing translation of Nigerian literary texts in France. Since Nigerian literature has emerged as one of France’s most translated Anglophone African works, this study pursues this field by investigating how the […]
• Introduction 2024-07-18