Pub Date : 2025-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.013
Limin Huang , Dengshan Xia
This study aims to trace the evolution of thanking interaction from premodern to modern China, drawing on data collected from dramatic texts in the 16th-18th centuries and the mid-20th century. The results show that in both periods Chinese thanking features a similar interactional structure. However, notable diachronic changes are revealed in three respects. First, our data disclose a significant process of routinization and simplification of rituals in the forms of thanking. Second, there is a remarkable shift in thanking strategies and thanking response strategies. Third, we have identified an attenuation in the functions of thanking. The diachronic changes might be motivated by China's modernization in which the New Culture Movement plays a vital role.
{"title":"Chinese thanking interaction from premodern to modern China: A diachronic analysis","authors":"Limin Huang , Dengshan Xia","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study aims to trace the evolution of thanking interaction from premodern to modern China, drawing on data collected from dramatic texts in the 16th-18th centuries and the mid-20th century. The results show that in both periods Chinese thanking features a similar interactional structure. However, notable diachronic changes are revealed in three respects. First, our data disclose a significant process of routinization and simplification of rituals in the forms of thanking. Second, there is a remarkable shift in thanking strategies and thanking response strategies. Third, we have identified an attenuation in the functions of thanking. The diachronic changes might be motivated by China's modernization in which the New Culture Movement plays a vital role.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"101 ","pages":"Pages 28-45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143154604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.014
Gilles Merminod , Lauri Haapanen
This article examines stancetaking in newswriting situations. It adopts a linguistic ethnographic approach that looks behind-the-scenes of news production. Through two case studies, it first shows how journalists use stancetaking in interviews as a resource for producing newsworthy material, corresponding with news values of negativity and emotion. It then unfolds the processes that lead journalists to erase their own contribution from the final product, presenting instances of their stancetaking as if they only originated from the source. By doing so, journalists incorporate their own views into the news products while ostensibly adhering to the journalistic standard of neutrality and objectivity.
{"title":"Hidden behind the text: A linguistic ethnographic study of stancetaking in news production","authors":"Gilles Merminod , Lauri Haapanen","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines stancetaking in newswriting situations. It adopts a linguistic ethnographic approach that looks behind-the-scenes of news production. Through two case studies, it first shows how journalists use stancetaking in interviews as a resource for producing newsworthy material, corresponding with news values of negativity and emotion. It then unfolds the processes that lead journalists to erase their own contribution from the final product, presenting instances of their stancetaking as if they only originated from the source. By doing so, journalists incorporate their own views into the news products while ostensibly adhering to the journalistic standard of neutrality and objectivity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"101 ","pages":"Pages 15-27"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143154603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-07DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.011
Stefan Norrthon , Jenny Nilsson
This study investigates how humans affiliate with animals’ experiences and emotional states when faced with an animal vocalization in everyday interaction. Multimodal interaction analysis is used to study vocal, bodily and verbal actions and reactions of humans, horses, dogs and cats. The analysis shows humans treat animal vocalizations as meaningful actions, often as signs of affect, that mobilize affiliation and subsequent actions in the next turn. Human responses to animal vocalizations include tokens of surprise or sympathy, verbalizations of emotions, and suggested solutions to problems. The study is part of the inclusive linguistic paradigm, aiming at showing how understanding across species boundaries is achieved and how humans affiliate with animal emotions.
{"title":"Human affiliative responses to companion animal vocalizations","authors":"Stefan Norrthon , Jenny Nilsson","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates how humans affiliate with animals’ experiences and emotional states when faced with an animal vocalization in everyday interaction. Multimodal interaction analysis is used to study vocal, bodily and verbal actions and reactions of humans, horses, dogs and cats. The analysis shows humans treat animal vocalizations as meaningful actions, often as signs of affect, that mobilize affiliation and subsequent actions in the next turn. Human responses to animal vocalizations include tokens of surprise or sympathy, verbalizations of emotions, and suggested solutions to problems. The study is part of the inclusive linguistic paradigm, aiming at showing how understanding across species boundaries is achieved and how humans affiliate with animal emotions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"101 ","pages":"Pages 1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143154602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.005
Peter R. White
This paper offers a demonstration of Appraisal Theory as an analytical framework for dealing with point of view in journalistic discourse. It takes journalistic “persuasiveness” as its central theme and thereby offers novel insights into a key, much scrutinised property of news journalism – its potential for influencing public understandings and expectations of the way the world is and ought to be. In operating with this notion of “persuasiveness”, the paper outlines lines of inquiry for dealing with news journalism texts which are often treated as distinct, both with respect to their stylistic properties and their communicative effects. Specifically, the concern is with the communicative functionality of both news “reporting” and journalistic “commentary”, or with what are here termed “news journalism” and “views journalism”. Appraisal Theory offers an account of the resources for conveying evaluative meanings and the framework is demonstrated through a comparison of a news report and a commentary piece concerned with the same subject matter – a decision by an education scholarship provider to include in its application form optional questions about candidates' sexuality. Specifically the paper demonstrates how similarities and differences in the two pieces’ “persuasiveness” can be discovered through an analysis which attends to four points of interest: (1) tendencies in the different types of attitudinal assessment by which the reader is positioned to adopt negative or positive views, (2) whether attitudinal assessments are conveyed explicitly or implicitly, (3) whether the attitudes being conveyed are authorial or are attributed to external sources and (4) the nature of the entities or phenomena which the reader is being positioned to view positively or negatively.
{"title":"Appraisal theory and the analysis of point of view in news and views journalism – unpacking journalistic “persuasiveness”","authors":"Peter R. White","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper offers a demonstration of Appraisal Theory as an analytical framework for dealing with point of view in journalistic discourse. It takes journalistic “persuasiveness” as its central theme and thereby offers novel insights into a key, much scrutinised property of news journalism – its potential for influencing public understandings and expectations of the way the world is and ought to be. In operating with this notion of “persuasiveness”, the paper outlines lines of inquiry for dealing with news journalism texts which are often treated as distinct, both with respect to their stylistic properties and their communicative effects. Specifically, the concern is with the communicative functionality of both news “reporting” and journalistic “commentary”, or with what are here termed “news journalism” and “views journalism”. Appraisal Theory offers an account of the resources for conveying evaluative meanings and the framework is demonstrated through a comparison of a news report and a commentary piece concerned with the same subject matter – a decision by an education scholarship provider to include in its application form optional questions about candidates' sexuality. Specifically the paper demonstrates how similarities and differences in the two pieces’ “persuasiveness” can be discovered through an analysis which attends to four points of interest: (1) tendencies in the different types of attitudinal assessment by which the reader is positioned to adopt negative or positive views, (2) whether attitudinal assessments are conveyed explicitly or implicitly, (3) whether the attitudes being conveyed are authorial or are attributed to external sources and (4) the nature of the entities or phenomena which the reader is being positioned to view positively or negatively.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 95-107"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.004
Karsten Senkbeil
This paper discusses how the immersive qualities of Social Virtual Reality (SVR) technology – the sense of presence in a simulated space, and a sense of embodiment through motion tracking and avatars – have an impact on verbal communication among its users. It argues that, rather than clearly distinguishing between technology-mediated versus analog types of spaces, bodies, and communicative acts, focusing on hybrid and blended forms of (for example) deictic referents promises deeper insights. This paper discusses results from research on a corpus of audiovisual data acquired in experiments with SVR. Beyond the concrete use case of SVR, adapting existing linguistic conceptualization to user experiences with novel technologies contributes to discourses on the interrelatedness of technological affordances and human action.
{"title":"Virtual spaces, real interactions - Analyzing communication in virtual reality","authors":"Karsten Senkbeil","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper discusses how the immersive qualities of Social Virtual Reality (SVR) technology – the <em>sense of presence</em> in a simulated space, and a <em>sense of embodiment</em> through motion tracking and avatars – have an impact on verbal communication among its users. It argues that, rather than clearly distinguishing between technology-mediated versus analog types of spaces, bodies, and communicative acts, focusing on <em>hybrid</em> and <em>blended</em> forms of (for example) deictic referents promises deeper insights. This paper discusses results from research on a corpus of audiovisual data acquired in experiments with SVR. Beyond the concrete use case of SVR, adapting existing linguistic conceptualization to user experiences with novel technologies contributes to discourses on the interrelatedness of technological affordances and human action.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 212-223"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143101006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.006
Beatrice Szczepek Reed
The study investigates horse-directed vocalizations in English and German. A corpus of human-horse activities contains clicks, trills, and variants of /ho:/. Horse-directed vocalizations show much phonetic and prosodic variation, which makes them adjustable to local interactional contexts. The largest group are clicks (lateral, dental, bilabial), which are used to ask horses to move faster. Trills (bilabial, alveolar) optionally end in alveolar stops. Their duration, intonation, and overall pitch vary considerably. German and English speakers use trills for opposite interactional purposes (slowing down vs. speeding up). /ho:/-type vocalizations vary with regard to first consonants, vowels, final consonants, duration, and intonation. /ho:/-variants are used to calm and/or slow horses down. Unlike non-lexical vocalizations in human talk, horse-directed vocalizations have specific, conventionalized meanings.
{"title":"Horse-directed vocalizations: Clicks, trills, and /ho:/","authors":"Beatrice Szczepek Reed","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study investigates horse-directed vocalizations in English and German. A corpus of human-horse activities contains clicks, trills, and variants of /ho:/. Horse-directed vocalizations show much phonetic and prosodic variation, which makes them adjustable to local interactional contexts. The largest group are clicks (lateral, dental, bilabial), which are used to ask horses to move faster. Trills (bilabial, alveolar) optionally end in alveolar stops. Their duration, intonation, and overall pitch vary considerably. German and English speakers use trills for opposite interactional purposes (slowing down vs. speeding up). /ho:/-type vocalizations vary with regard to first consonants, vowels, final consonants, duration, and intonation. /ho:/-variants are used to calm and/or slow horses down. Unlike non-lexical vocalizations in human talk, horse-directed vocalizations have specific, conventionalized meanings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 25-45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.008
Sopuruchi Christian Aboh, Hans J. Ladegaard
The role of laughter in evaluating language use has received little attention in language attitude research and laughter studies. In this paper, which draws on focus group discussions involving 132 Nigerian university students, we analyse how students use laughter to perform social actions in evaluating language use in Nigeria. The analysis shows that participants use laughter to deride the outgroup, reinforce ingroup coherence, mark their own or others' linguistic inferiority, and mitigate self-face-threatening linguistic behaviour. We argue that a comprehensive theory of laughter should include the functions of laughter: especially how people use it to ‘do things’ in discourse. The implications of the findings vis-à-vis language attitude research are discussed.
{"title":"Laughter and language attitudes in students’ discussions about language use in Nigeria","authors":"Sopuruchi Christian Aboh, Hans J. Ladegaard","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.11.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The role of laughter in evaluating language use has received little attention in language attitude research and laughter studies. In this paper, which draws on focus group discussions involving 132 Nigerian university students, we analyse how students use laughter to perform social actions in evaluating language use in Nigeria. The analysis shows that participants use laughter to deride the outgroup, reinforce ingroup coherence, mark their own or others' linguistic inferiority, and mitigate self-face-threatening linguistic behaviour. We argue that a comprehensive theory of laughter should include the functions of laughter: especially how people use it to ‘do things’ in discourse. The implications of the findings vis-à-vis language attitude research are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 46-59"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.005
Florian Busch
This paper discusses the multifaceted phenomena of time and temporality in smartphone-based communication as a central dimension of communicative and social experience in mediatized and mobilized societies. Although temporal aspects have traditionally been considered in the linguistic study of digital media, there is a notable lack of research explicitly addressing temporal practices, i.e. the temporal agency, of participants in digital communication. The Swiss research project “Texting in Time” investigates these practices using screen capture videos, providing a detailed and immersive view of participants’ smartphone-based interactions. This methodological approach allows for the analysis of various processual phenomena of digitally written communication—from message construction to patterned multi-participation in simultaneous chats. The project examines these dynamics by developing a scalar view of temporalities. Large-scale analyses reveal the temporal patterns structuring everyday smartphone use during days and weeks, while small-scale analyses provide insights into the moment-to-moment organization of digital interactions within minutes and seconds. This paper, by showcasing both analytical perspectives, underscores the significance of revisiting the concept of temporality in digitally mediated interactions, offering relevant insights for advancing our understanding of contemporary mobile communication in linguistic research.
{"title":"Texting in Time: Approaching time and temporalities of smartphone-based interactions","authors":"Florian Busch","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper discusses the multifaceted phenomena of time and temporality in smartphone-based communication as a central dimension of communicative and social experience in mediatized and mobilized societies. Although temporal aspects have traditionally been considered in the linguistic study of digital media, there is a notable lack of research explicitly addressing temporal practices, i.e. the temporal agency, of participants in digital communication. The Swiss research project “Texting in Time” investigates these practices using screen capture videos, providing a detailed and immersive view of participants’ smartphone-based interactions. This methodological approach allows for the analysis of various processual phenomena of digitally written communication—from message construction to patterned multi-participation in simultaneous chats. The project examines these dynamics by developing a scalar view of temporalities. Large-scale analyses reveal the temporal patterns structuring everyday smartphone use during days and weeks, while small-scale analyses provide insights into the moment-to-moment organization of digital interactions within minutes and seconds. This paper, by showcasing both analytical perspectives, underscores the significance of revisiting the concept of temporality in digitally mediated interactions, offering relevant insights for advancing our understanding of contemporary mobile communication in linguistic research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 196-211"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143101007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.07.003
Rachel McKee , Mireille Vale , George Major , Sara Pivac Alexander , Miriam Meyerhoff
The use of a lesser-used or minority language in new media is typically a stimulus for genre development and stylistic variation. This study considers online video texts in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) as a window on such variation and style change, specifically in handedness (whether signs are produced with one or both hands). Sign language research has previously identified that variation in sign handedness is patterned by phonological environment and as well as discourse context: reduction of a two-handed form by dropping the weak hand (WD) is associated with relaxed and spontaneous registers, while the addition of the weak hand to a one-handed sign (‘weak prop’ – asymmetrical, or symmetrical ‘doubling’) has been noted as a feature in performative genres such as poetry and public speaking. To explore whether handedness variation marks an emerging genre of online video posts in NZSL, and whether this may be part of a shift towards greater use of two-handed forms in NZSL, this study examines the distribution of variable features in a corpus of online posts, conversations and personal narratives, and compares usage in recordings made across 17 years. The effect of signers' sociolinguistic characteristics is also analysed. To explore the social meaning of this variation, metapragmatic insights sought from NZSL users about perceived stylistic effects of hand doubling in the data contribute qualitatively to an understanding of genre and style development.
{"title":"“Two hands are powerful”. Handedness variation and genre in New Zealand Sign Language","authors":"Rachel McKee , Mireille Vale , George Major , Sara Pivac Alexander , Miriam Meyerhoff","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.07.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.07.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The use of a lesser-used or minority language in new media is typically a stimulus for genre development and stylistic variation. This study considers online video texts in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) as a window on such variation and style change, specifically in handedness (whether signs are produced with one or both hands). Sign language research has previously identified that variation in sign handedness is patterned by phonological environment and as well as discourse context: reduction of a two-handed form by dropping the weak hand (WD) is associated with relaxed and spontaneous registers, while the addition of the weak hand to a one-handed sign (‘weak prop’ – asymmetrical, or symmetrical ‘doubling’) has been noted as a feature in performative genres such as poetry and public speaking. To explore whether handedness variation marks an emerging genre of online video posts in NZSL, and whether this may be part of a shift towards greater use of two-handed forms in NZSL, this study examines the distribution of variable features in a corpus of online posts, conversations and personal narratives, and compares usage in recordings made across 17 years. The effect of signers' sociolinguistic characteristics is also analysed. To explore the social meaning of this variation, metapragmatic insights sought from NZSL users about perceived stylistic effects of hand doubling in the data contribute qualitatively to an understanding of genre and style development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 60-76"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143100992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.007
Joshua Babcock , Ilana Gershon
For democracy to function, sometimes—even often—people must be ignored, not silenced. In this paper, we turn to U.S. school board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore how people organize to ignore specific speech acts or participant roles in local democratic contexts. Focusing on the semiotic organization of these meetings, we ask: how does the state listen to its citizens—or not? Why do people repeatedly show up to participate in local democratic fora despite widespread disillusionment with their effectiveness? And how are individuals socialized to expect democratic participant structures organized around substantive uptake rather than procedural listening? We analyze the “state ignored subject” and its double, the “state-ignoring subject,” as institutionally structured and inhabited figures in the reflexively public space of the U.S. school board meeting. We show how these positions do not revolve around offering or refusing seats at the metaphorical table but strategically managing what happens after seats are allocated and voices are given space—seats and voices that might need to be categorically ignored for decisions to be made.
{"title":"How does the state ignore? Ideologies and practices of substantive and procedural listening in U.S. school board meetings","authors":"Joshua Babcock , Ilana Gershon","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.langcom.2024.12.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For democracy to function, sometimes—even often—people must be ignored, not silenced. In this paper, we turn to U.S. school board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore how people organize to ignore specific speech acts or participant roles in local democratic contexts. Focusing on the semiotic organization of these meetings, we ask: how does the state listen to its citizens—or not? Why do people repeatedly show up to participate in local democratic fora despite widespread disillusionment with their effectiveness? And how are individuals socialized to expect democratic participant structures organized around substantive uptake rather than procedural listening? We analyze the “state ignored subject” and its double, the “state-ignoring subject,” as institutionally structured and inhabited figures in the reflexively public space of the U.S. school board meeting. We show how these positions do not revolve around offering or refusing seats at the metaphorical table but strategically managing what happens <em>after</em> seats are allocated and voices are given space—seats and voices that might need to be categorically ignored for decisions to be made.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":"100 ","pages":"Pages 186-195"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143101009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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