The overall aim of this paper is to investigate impoliteness in a particular on-line polylogal setting – YouTube postings (c. 13,000 words) triggered by the ‘Obama Reggaeton’ video, which was ...released during the 2008 US democratic primaries. This is done through integration of quantitative/qualitative analytic tools and of (im)politeness1 and (im)politeness 2 approaches. A two-prong experimental study is used in order to examine impoliteness realisation
and interpretation in the corpus. Findings reveal clear patterns in the realisation of impoliteness strategies, including a preference for on-record impoliteness saliently oriented towards attacking the positive face needs of one's on-line co-participants. In this respect, findings also call for a refinement of existing taxonomies of impoliteness. Regarding the interpretation of impoliteness, the analysis reveals considerable overlap between ‘lay’ (impoliteness1) and ‘analyst’ (impoliteness2) assessments. The former, in addition, are found to relate principally to norms of public discourse associated with civility.
Brain function is a product of the balance between excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) brain activity. Variation in the regulation of this activity is thought to give rise to normal variation in human ...traits, and disruptions are thought to potentially underlie a spectrum of neuropsychiatric conditions (e.g., Autism, Schizophrenia, Downs' Syndrome, intellectual disability). Hypotheses related to E/I dysfunction have the potential to provide cross-diagnostic explanations and to combine genetic and neurological evidence that exists within and between psychiatric conditions. However, the hypothesis has been difficult to test because: (1) it lacks specificity-an E/I dysfunction could pertain to any level in the neural system- neurotransmitters, single neurons/receptors, local networks of neurons, or global brain balance - most researchers do not define the level at which they are examining E/I function; (2) We lack validated methods for assessing E/I function at any of these neural levels in humans. As a result, it has not been possible to reliably or robustly test the E/I hypothesis of psychiatric disorders in a large cohort or longitudinal patient studies. Currently available, in vivo markers of E/I in humans either carry significant risks (e.g., deep brain electrode recordings or using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with radioactive tracers) and/or are highly restrictive (e.g., limited spatial extent for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). More recently, a range of novel Electroencephalography (EEG) features has been described, which could serve as proxy markers for E/I at a given level of inference. Thus, in this perspective review, we survey the theories and experimental evidence underlying 6 novel EEG markers and their biological underpinnings at a specific neural level. These cheap-to-record and scalable proxy markers may offer clinical utility for identifying subgroups within and between diagnostic categories, thus directing more tailored sub-grouping and, therefore, treatment strategies. However, we argue that studies in clinical populations are premature. To maximize the potential of prospective EEG markers, we first need to understand the link between underlying E/I mechanisms and measurement techniques.
•We apply a genre-approach to analyze impoliteness in polylogal classroom discourse.•We examine impoliteness in small-group discussion practices among adolescents.•We find face-threat witnesses are ...integral to the co-construction of impoliteness.•Face-threat witnesses respond to impoliteness in complex, often constitutive, ways.•We revise extant models of response options to account for polylogal interactions.
Though, in recent years, impoliteness research has embraced a view of impoliteness as dynamically co-constructed in interaction, the role of impoliteness in polylogal discourse is still in need of further examination. Drawing from a corpus of naturally occurring classroom discourse, this paper uses a genre approach (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2010) to examine the role of face-threat witnesses in small-group discussion practices among adolescents. Our research shows that face-threat witnesses respond to impoliteness in complex and dynamic ways that are integral to the co-construction of impoliteness, and that would have been missed entirely if the focus of our analysis had been purely dyadic. In view of our findings, we propose a refinement of extant models of response options (Culpeper et al., 2003; Bousfield, 2007, 2008) that incorporates the response options available to face-threat witnesses, thus moving beyond the dyad. Accounting for the multifunctionality of impoliteness in polylogal interaction allows for an understanding of impoliteness as constitutive, not just disruptive, of social life. With further application, our proposed refinement of extant models can help expand research that examines manifestations of impoliteness in a wide range of (non)institutional, polylogal discourse.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the functionality of conflict talk (Grimshaw, 1990; Bou-Franch and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2014) as an ideologically loaded, indirect index of identity ...construction (Kiesling, 2013). It focuses on the construction of the Latino identity: a transnational (de Fina & Perrino, 2013), top-down identity, that was created in the 1970s by the Nixon administration.
The data for this study comprise the comments posted on a CNN discussion forum in response to Soledad O'Brian's question “What did you think about Latino in America?” A cursory look at the corpus indicated that many Latino participants felt insulted arguing CNN – with its focus on illegal Latinos – had presented the community in a bad light. Thus, transnational identities and the internet, crucially related to globalization, come together in this study.
Results show that conflict talk plays a major role in the construction of intragroup dissociation both thematically and at the microlevel. Furthermore, the fact that complex selective dissociation (Garcia-Bedolla, 2003), rather than simpler dis/affiliation processes routinely associated with the construction of social identities (van Dijk 1998) is more at play in the corpus seems to confirm the need for complexity in the study of culture and identity (Blommaert, 2013a).
•Argues that conflict talk encompasses impoliteness and is a more comprehensive term.•Delves into the functionality of conflict talk as an indirect index of identity construction.•Brings together globalization, transnational identity construction, (Latino identity), conflict talk, and the internet.•Analyzes intragroup selective dissociation processes which have received scant attention.•Looks at the porousness of on/off line social processes.
The aim of this paper is to examine how conflict begins, unfolds and ends in a massive, new media polylogue, specifically, a YouTube polylogue. Extant research has looked into how conflict begins, ...unfolds and/or ends. However, to our knowledge, the models and taxonomies developed so far have not been applied to the analysis of the mediated conflict of massive polylogues. Drawing on the difference between methods of analysis that are natively digital versus those that have been digitized, i.e., they were developed for off-line research and then migrated on-line, one of the goals of this paper is to test whether non-natively digital, extant models and taxonomies, if digitized, would be well equipped to handle massive mediated polylogues. A multilayered methodology was devised and applied to the analysis of a sizeable corpus of comments triggered by a public service announcement on teen homosexuality posted by a Spanish LGBT association. Findings reveal that extant, models and taxonomies of conflict – developed to account mostly for local, synchronic, dyadic conflict –, if solely digitized, would not be well equipped to explain societal, diachronic, massively polylogal conflict such as the one under analysis and that hybrid models that can tackle the affordances of digital technologies need to be developed.
Since YouTube was launched, its emblematic video‐sharing facility has attracted considerable attention as a social networking system of cultural production. In addition to vlogging, YouTube offers a ...text facility through which YouTubers share and negotiate opinions. However, research into the latter is scarce, especially within language‐based disciplines (Androutsopoulos & Beiβwenger 2009; Zelenkauskaite & Herring 2008). This article contributes to addressing this imbalance by focusing on YouTube text‐based ‘conversation’ (Herring 2010a). Specifically, it examines coherence in a corpus of YouTube postings in Spanish. Although coherence has been the object of much academic debate in other forms of computer‐mediated communication, no empirical analysis of coherence in YouTube text has been undertaken to date. Results underline the conversational potential of this facility.
Modern Elekta Neuromag MEG devices include 102 sensor triplets containing one magnetometer and two planar gradiometers. The first processing step is often a signal space separation (SSS), which ...provides a powerful noise reduction. A question commonly raised by researchers and reviewers relates to which data should be employed in analyses: (1) magnetometers only, (2) gradiometers only, (3) magnetometers and gradiometers together. The MEG community is currently divided with regard to the proper answer.
First, we provide theoretical evidence that both gradiometers and magnetometers result from the backprojection of the same SSS components. Then, we compare resting state and task-related sensor and source estimations from magnetometers and gradiometers in real MEG recordings before and after SSS.
SSS introduced a strong increase in the similarity between source time series derived from magnetometers and gradiometers (r² = 0.3-0.8 before SSS and r² > 0.80 after SSS). After SSS, resting state power spectrum and functional connectivity, as well as visual evoked responses, derived from both magnetometers and gradiometers were highly similar (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient > 0.8, r² > 0.8).
After SSS, magnetometer and gradiometer data are estimated from a single set of SSS components (usually ≤ 80). Equivalent results can be obtained with both sensor types in typical MEG experiments.
This paper investigates the interconnections between face-threat and identity construction in the on/offline nexus by focusing on a stigmatized social identity (Goffman, 1963), a local ...ethnographically specific, cultural position (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005) attributed to some (mostly) American women stereotypically middle-aged and white who are positioned by others as Karens. Thus, Karen is attributed as an identity category to a woman “thought to be acting inappropriately, rudely or in an entitled manner” (Greenspan, 2020). Often, this inappropriate behavior is linked to perceived displays of racism against minorities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-masker Karens also gained notoriety. This relates to other well-known facets of the Karen identity kit (Gee, 2014), such as terrorizing services workers and refusing to abide by rules and regulations. To further our understanding of the Karen identity, this paper provides a multimodal analysis of a sizeable corpus, 256 videos of individuals whose actions and the way they were perceived led them to be positioned as Karens. Its goal is to scrutinize general social demographics and locations related to this social identity and, importantly, what actions and patterns of language and other semiotic modes are perceived as impolite i.e., face-threatening, and thus deemed Karen-like.
•Analyzes the connections between face-threat, impoliteness, and identity.•Focuses on the construction of the stigmatized social identity Karen.•Provides a multilayered, multimodal analysis of 256 videos of Karens in action.•Connects the Karen identity to public places' norms and genred interactions.
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