Sex similarities and differences in stance in informal American conversation1

This study compares men's and women's use of stance: the expression of attitude, emotion, certainty, doubt and commitment. A corpus of nearly 900,000 words of informal conversation in social and work contexts was examined with a computer program that measured stance. The main categories, subcategories and the 180 most frequent stance expressions were analyzed with multiple ANOVAs. The main stance categories of affect, evidentials, and quantifiers showed no significant differences between men and women. In terms of subcategories, general affect, boulomaic verbs, general evidentials, mental verbs, hedges and emphatics had no significant differences between men and women; only expletives had a significant difference between men and women. Of the individual stance expressions, only 35 showed a significant difference between men and women. Examples from actual conversations are given to compare men's and women's speech. Cooperative work between qualitative and quantitative researchers is recommended.     

On ‘flip‐flopping’: Branded stance‐taking in U.S. electoral politics1

This article examines stance in U.S. political discourse, taking as its empirical point of departure Democratic candidate John Kerry's epistemic stance‐taking in the televised 2004 presidential debates. Kerry's stance‐taking is shown to help display the characterological attribute of ‘conviction’ and serve as a rejoinder to critics who had branded him as a ‘flip‐flopper.’ His stance‐taking is thus not primarily ‘to’ or ‘for’ copresent interactants, but is largely interdiscursive in character. ‘Conviction’ and its opposite, ‘flip‐flopping,’ suggest further how stance‐taking itself has been an object of typification in the agonistic dynamics of candidate branding and counter‐branding. In moving from epistemic stance‐taking in discourse to models of the stance‐taker as a social type, this article addresses questions about the units and levels of analysis needed to study stance in contemporary political discourse.     

Push or Carry? Pragmatic Opportunities for Language Development in Strollers versus Backpacks

Strollers and backpacks are employed early, frequently, and throughout the first year, with parents overwhelmingly using strollers. However, because these transport modalities put infants in different proximities to caregivers, postures, and states of alertness, their use may translate to different opportunities that are of developmental consequence, particularly with regard to language. We used GoPro technology in a within‐subjects counterbalanced design to measure dyadic vocalizations in strollers and backpacks with 7‐ to 11‐month‐old infants. Parent‐infant dyads (N = 36) who regularly used both transport modes took two 8‐min walks in their own neighborhoods using their own carriers while wearing lightweight head‐mounted GoPros. There was significantly more parent speech, infant vocalizations, dyadic conversations, and infant‐initiated speech in backpacks, as well as more head motion consistent with visual scanning by infants. Backpacks appear to be a practical way to encourage more engaging, language‐enriched developmental opportunities in the critical first year.     

Mastering authority: J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year

J.M. Coetzee’s fiction has, from its inception, parodied language which claims to speak as the public use of reason. Diary of a Bad Year departs from this position to some degree by offering a series of public reflections on the times; however, these reflections are embedded within a narrative structure which disallows us from taking them at face value. Such narrative framing raises the question of authority: not only the authority of the reflections themselves, but the authority of the voice and the voice in the text. The relationship between fiction and the public sphere is such that fiction foregrounds the problem of authority in public discourse and seeks to capture the position of authority through heightened forms of mimesis and self‐consciousness.     

Youth,slang, and pragmatic expressions: Examples from Brazilian Portuguese1

This article draws on an ethnographic study of the stigmatized speech style of poor black male youth in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These youth are said to speak gíria (‘slang’), and their speech is often described as incomprehensible to the Brazilian middle class. Speakers and listeners point to a wide range of pragmatic expressions as some of the most salient linguistic features associated with this speech style. This article presents examples from Brazilian Portuguese slang, in which youth draw on sound words, obscenities, address forms, and addressee‐oriented tags to create new pragmatic markers and forms of indefinite reference. It is argued that these pragmatic expressions offer multiple opportunities for speakers to convey stance, novelty, and style, social goals long associated with slang. This data suggests that we broaden the purview of slang beyond the lexicon to investigate the ways in which speakers actively innovate within the area of pragmatics.     

Civil society,social accountability and service delivery in Zimbabwe

Post‐2000, the deterioration of Zimbabwe's socioeconomic and political conditions is widely acknowledged as phenomenal and unprecedented. Consequently, government and local authorities are struggling to provide basic services. At the same time, civil society initiatives are promoting transparency and accountability in service delivery. The article explains how civil society coalitions and citizens are promoting and demanding accountability in the delivery of public services by local authorities. In particular, it focuses on four critical issues; namely local authority–citizen engagement, social accountability focus areas, social accountability tools and emerging social accountability issues. The article concludes that civil society‐led social accountability initiatives are effective under conditions of civil society capacity, institutionalization of social accountability by local authorities, and negotiating local political dynamics.     

Intertextual stancetaking and the local negotiation of cultural identities by a binational couple1

Recent approaches to stance emphasize the dialogic nature of stancetaking, drawing attention to turn‐by‐turn negotiation of stance. This study expands that view by focusing upon cases where the stancetaker responds not to a stance in the immediately prior turn, but to prior stances in the ongoing relationship between interlocutors, to construct distinct identities. The data come from a sociolinguistic interview conducted with a couple who constructed contrasting identities through stances related to cultural differences. I examine the linguistic strategies this couple uses to take divergent stances: constructed dialogue; verb tense; and time adverbials. I introduce the term constructed stance in parallel with constructed dialogue. Analysis of stances taken by attributing a stance to oneself or another through constructed dialogue supplements previous research by demonstrating how a longitudinal dimension can be introduced even with a single interaction as data source. This underscores how local stances can contribute to more enduring identities.     

The role of professional judgement in social work assessment: a comparison between Norway and England

ABSTRACT

Good quality assessment has a significant role to play in contributing to better outcomes for children in need of protection, so it is important to understand what supports best practice. This paper focuses on the role of professional judgement in assessment, and compares two very different national approaches. In England, governmental responses to perceived failings in the child protection system have led to a highly proceduralised and bureaucratised system and a corresponding down playing of the role of professional judgement. In Norway, professional discretion and judgement have been seen as key to the assessment process, and governmental response to criticism of child protection practice has been to support their use through provision of increased resources. However, too much emphasis on professional judgement and too little procedure may be as problematic as the reverse [Report of Auditor General of Norway. (2012). Document 3:15. Norway: Fagbokforlaget]. So this paper explores the different ways in which professional judgement is understood and addressed in each system and asks what we can learn from them in terms of best assessment practice. Acknowledging child protection as a ‘wicked problem’, we propose a model of Grounded Professional Judgement based on notions of epistemic responsibility and accountability to support the exercise of professional judgement in situations of uncertainty.     

Media Discussion on the Naturalization Policy for Syrians in Turkey

This study focuses on the public opinion on the naturalization policy for Syrians in Turkey. It analyses news media coverage in the religious, far‐right newspaper (Yeni Akit), a centre‐right newspaper (Hürriyet), a social democrat newspaper (Cumhuriyet), and a socialist‐left news portal (Solportal). The research question is: What are the metaphors, arguments, and omissions produced by media of different ideologies about the possible citizenship of Syrians in Turkey? The results show that metaphors and arguments differ according to ideological stance, suggesting that the current political polarization in Turkey affects the public's acceptance of Syrians and challenges Turkey's established migration policy. Each ideological stance accepts Syrians on a selective basis, implying that universal naturalization of Syrians is not welcome; instead, there seems to be consensus favouring naturalization according to socio‐economic criteria. These results indicate a need for a change in migration policy, especially concerning disadvantaged Syrians.     

On the narrative vs non-narrative functions of reported speech: A socio-pragmatic study

Reported utterances have often been analyzed with regard to their narrative function. While it is true that this narrative function applies to a large group of cases, we have observed that reported speech can fulfil other functions, which are incompatible with the properties of a narrative utterance. This study, based on spontaneous discourse, will focus on the non-narrative functions of reported speech, that is, the appreciative, the support and the authority functions. We will first define the semantico-pragmatic properties of these functions of reported speech, on the basis of examples that are univocal in their contexts. Next, we will turn to examples more complex, in which there seems to be a conflict between functions considered to be incompatible. Finally, we will present the results of a distributional analysis, relating the functions of reported speech to linguistic and extralinguistic factors. The results will lead us to propose hypotheses concerning the strategic diversification of discourse behaviours by speakers.     

Incremental cost sharing: Characterization by coalition strategy-proofness

Each one of n users consumes an idiosyncratic commodity produced in indivisible units. The n commodities are jointly produced by a central facility and total cost must be shared by the users.  A “sequential stand alone mechanism” shares costs incrementally according to a fixed ordering of the users: the first user always pays stand alone cost, the second pays the stand alone cost of the first two users minus that of the first and so on. If the second derivatives of costs are of a constant sign, such a method yields a unique strong equilibrium at every profile of convex preferences in the game where each user chooses his own demand. This equilibrium, in turn, defines a coalition strategy-proof social choice function.  Under decreasing marginal costs and submodular costs, the sequential stand alone mechanisms are almost characterized by these properties; the only exception is the binary demand case (each agent consumes zero or one unit) where a rich family of cost sharing methods (the Shapley value among them) yields a coalition strategy-proof equilibrium selection. Under increasing marginal costs and supermodular costs, coalition strategy-proofness characterizes a richer family of cost sharing methods: they give out one unit at a time while charging marginal costs, with the users taking turns according to a sequence fixed in advance. These methods contain serial cost sharing as a limit case. Received: 8 July 1997/Accepted: 22 January 1998     

Visual accountability

In this article, we draw attention to the way in which accountability relations are manifested in and through the use of visual evidence. Through their status as representations of what is the case, evidentiary visual images frequently provide a basis for giving accounts and for raising questions regarding distributions of accountability. At the same time, and in a similar manner to numbers (Munro, 2001), such images become part of organized relations of accountability that can be noted as having ‘hailing’ effects: they call for and prefigure a certain kind of response and dispersing of responsibility. Here we examine how the use of visual evidence is embedded in discursive and material practices that variously create or inhibit possibilities for questioning, or interrogating, this evidence. Drawing on elements of ethnomethodology and actor‐network theory, we use ‘interrogation’ as the basis for depicting a three‐part analytical schema focused on opening up, closing down and temporality to explore how visual accountability is worked out in surveillance, traffic management and breast screening images.     

Age‐Related Changes in Prosodic Features of Maternal Speech to Prelingually Deaf Infants with Cochlear Implants

This study investigated prosodic and structural characteristics of infant‐directed speech to hearing‐impaired infants as they gain hearing experience with a cochlear implant over a 12‐month period of time. Mothers were recorded during a play interaction with their HI infants (N = 27, mean age 18.4 months) at 3, 6, and 12 months postimplantation. Two separate control groups of mothers with age‐matched normal‐hearing infants (NH‐AM) (N = 21, mean age 18.1 months) and hearing experience‐matched normal‐hearing infants (NH‐EM) (N = 24, mean age 3.1 months) were recorded at three testing sessions. Mothers produced less exaggerated pitch characteristics, a larger number of syllables per utterance, and faster speaking rate when interacting with NH‐AM as compared to HI infants. Mothers also produced more syllables and demonstrated a trend suggesting faster speaking rate in speech to NH‐EM relative to HI infants. Age‐related modifications included decreased pitch standard deviation and increased number of syllables in speech to NH‐AM infants and increased number of syllables in speech to HI and NH‐EM infants across the 12‐month period. These results suggest that mothers are sensitive to the hearing status of their infants and modify characteristics of infant‐directed speech over time.     

Homosexuality,Religion, and Science: Moral Authority and the Persistence of Negative Attitudes*

The liberalization of attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States over the past 30 years is well documented. Despite these changes, substantial resistance to equality for gay men and lesbians remains. Previous studies indicate that beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality are central to this discussion. Those who believe homosexuality is innate are more favorable, while those who believe it is the result of a choice are more negative. Moreover, experimental research indicates that those with negative views actually become more opposed when a natural explanation is proposed. This study highlights the importance of perceived sources of epistemic and moral authority for understanding views of homosexuality. Using stances on culturally controversial issues involving “science and religion” as indicators of where individuals place authority, we outline the connection between perceptions of moral authority and attributions about homosexuality. Analyses of a national survey of American adults show that, net of controls, one’s stance on moral authority is the strongest predictor of attributions about whether homosexuality is chosen or innate.     

A Privileged Status for Male Infant‐Directed Speech in Infants of Depressed Mothers? Role of Father Involvement

Prior research showed that 5‐ to 13‐month‐old infants of chronically depressed mothers did not learn to associate a segment of infant‐directed speech produced by their own mothers or an unfamiliar nondepressed mother with a smiling female face, but showed better‐than‐normal learning when a segment of infant‐directed speech produced by an unfamiliar nondepressed father signaled the face. Here, learning in response to an unfamiliar nondepressed father’s infant‐directed speech was studied as a function both of the mother’s depression and marital status, a proxy measure of father involvement. Infants of unmarried mothers on average did not show significant learning in response to the unfamiliar nondepressed father’s infant‐directed speech. Infants of married mothers showed significant learning in response to male infant‐directed speech, and infants of depressed, married mothers showed significantly stronger learning in response to that stimulus than did infants of nondepressed, married mothers. Several ways in which father involvement may positively or negatively affect infant responsiveness to male infant‐directed speech are discussed.     

Remittances,Transnational Dahiras and Governance in Senegal

The potential role of transnational organisations in fostering effective governance goes unexplored despite the increasing positive role that these organisations are playing today. In Senegal, a whole range of non‐state actors have always played a substantial socio‐economic role, even before the rise of the post‐colonial state. The Murid brotherhood can be regarded as part of this category of customary non‐state actors. In the 1980s, young Murids started to organize themselves in what can be viewed as self‐help community‐based organisations whose functions included the provision of social safety nets to their adherents. By the late 1980s, the scope of these youth organisations, or dahiras, expanded beyond the national boundaries. Mention of these dahiras in the vast development literature has so far been confined to the socio‐economic importance of the money they remit. This paper offers to transcend this focus on financial remittances, to explore the potential political role of international dahiras in their home country. By playing the role of alternative providers of social services, dahiras have propelled themselves to a position of legitimate non‐state actors with political clout. Today, some of them are starting to hold government to account for their actions. Their political power is not only derived from their affiliation with customary centres of authority, but it is also the resultant of their increased financial autonomy. Because transnational dahira interventions in Senegal are mostly associated with the role of remittances, their relations with the state are analysed through the lens of revenue generation and other processes of state formation such as internal bargaining between the state and societal forces. The paper is an examination of the potential role of transnational dahiras in demands for responsive governance. Its analytical orientation is placed within the theoretical premises of the “drivers of change” approach, fiscal sociology of state making and governance.     

From sociolinguistic variation to socially strategic stylisation1

This article investigates the indexical relation between language, interactional stance and social class. Quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of a linguistic variable (the first person possessive singular) is combined with interactional analysis of the way one particular variant (possessive ‘me’, as in Me pencil's up me jumper) is used by speakers in ‘stylised’ interactional performances. The aim of this analysis is to explore: (1) how possessive ‘me’ is implicated in the construction and management of local identities and relationships; and (2) how macro‐social categories, such as social class, relate to linguistic choice. The data for this analysis comes from an ethnographic study of the language practices of nine‐ to ten‐year‐old children in two socially‐differentiated primary schools in north‐east England. A secondary aim of the article is to spotlight the sociolinguistic sophistication of these young children, in particular, the working‐class participants, who challenge the notion that the speech of working‐class children is in any way ‘impoverished’.     

Role of Clinical Diagnosis and Medication Use in Effects of Maternal Depression on Infant‐Directed Speech

Infant‐directed (ID) speech was recorded from mothers as they interacted with their 4‐ to 12‐month‐old infants. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that two variables, age of the mother and mother's diagnosed depression, independently accounted for significant proportions of the variance in the extent of change in fundamental frequency (ΔF0). Specifically, depressed mothers produced ID speech with smaller ΔF0 than did nondepressed mothers, and older mothers produced ID speech with larger ΔF0 than did younger mothers. Mothers who were taking antidepressant medication and who were diagnosed as being in at least partial remission produced ID speech with mean ΔF0 values that were comparable to those of nondepressed mothers. These results demonstrate explicit associations between major depressive disorder and an acoustic attribute of ID speech that is highly salient to young infants.     

Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun

The paper documents the early stages of grammaticalisation of a new first person singular pronoun, man, used in multi‐ethnic adolescent peer groups in inner cities of the U.K. I argue that the pronoun derives from a plural noun man, which is used in the peer groups to refer to a group of individuals whose precise composition is defined by the linguistic or situational context. The recruitment of man as a pronoun is encouraged by the frequent use of its homonym as a pragmatic marker and address form in the peer groups, and by the locally salient connotations of some uses of the singular noun man. The functions of the plural noun and the pragmatic marker are reflected in the two main rhetorical functions of the new pronoun: adolescent speakers use the man pronoun to position themselves as members of a contextually defined group and thereby provide authority for their opinions or mitigate a potentially face‐threatening act, and they also use it to solicit empathy from their interlocutor or construct solidarity. I suggest that a compositional model of the semantics of pronouns can account for the emergence of the new pronoun.     

Discourse marker ‘oh’ as a means for realizing the identity potential of constructed dialogue in interaction1

This research explores how discourse marker oh works with constructed dialogue (quoted speech), identifying a use of oh not discussed in previous research in which it can serve to signal speaker stance towards quoted material. While both discourse markers and constructed dialogue have been widely discussed as identity resources in the discourse analytic and interactional‐sociolinguistic tradition, there has been little work considering how these linguistic features may work together. In this paper, I address this gap by illustrating how Bakhtin's (1984) notions of uni‐directional and vari‐directional double voicing articulate with information display and evaluation functions of oh identified by Schiffrin (1987) , suggesting that oh (when occurring as a preface to constructed dialogue), works both to display and evaluate quoted material for the purposes of identity construction in interaction. Such uses of this discourse marker provide illustration of how footing works together with related concepts of evaluation, positioning, and alignment as part of a process of stancetaking in interaction ( Du Bois 2007 ). Examples are taken from ethnographic interviews collected as part of a larger study of the linguistic style of a community of improv performers in Washington, D.C. focusing primarily on examples contributed by one speaker, Josh.