Context from a social semiotic perspective: a discourse analytical study of the children TV show,Bubble Guppies

In mainstream linguistics, context is either entirely ignored or dominantly viewed as an objective property of the external world. For instance, in sociolinguistics or pragmatics, scholars frequently attempt to learn about the meaning of words or sentences given certain social context. The social semiotic method presented in this paper challenges the objectivity of context and explores the dynamic between content and context from the perspective of Peircian semiotics. An episode of a children animations series, Bubble Guppies, where human-like mermaids learn about the mysteries of ancient Egypt, is used as a point of departure to show that content and context recursively co-construct with viewers’ participation. For instance, while there is little physical similarity between where the Guppies meet in the show’s story and a typical classroom, the context of a classroom is clearly established through the way the Guppies interact with each other and with objects they encounter. Additionally, the results indicate that learning is an important product of such context-construction, as TV viewers must constantly elaborate on events and link interactions that are perceived not as objects but as signs entangled in a growing web of symbolic system.     

Introduction: the politics of public justification

ABSTRACT

Introducing the special issue, this introduction sketches a broad frame for studying public justification. Addressing the relevance of studying this phenomenon, we contend that justificatory processes are very much at the core today’s politics. Defining the concept inclusively, we highlight the relevance of communicative agency and, at the same time, the salience of communicative contexts that enable this agency. Casting our net widely, we show how public justification is related to other, more thoroughly studied concepts, such as legitimacy, authority and power. Encouraging students of public justification to add to our understanding of justificatory processes, we highlight multiple fruitful methodological avenues for studying the concept.     

UNSTRUCTURED SOCIALIZING AND RATES OF DELINQUENCY

This article applies an individual-level routine activities perspective to explaining rates of delinquency. The theoretical analysis also links the opportunity processes of that perspective to key themes of social disorganization theory. Multilevel analyses of 4, 358 eighth-grade students from thirty-six schools in ten cities support the central hypothesis: Time spent in unstructured socializing with peers has both individual and contextual effects that explain a large share of the variation in rates of delinquency across groups of adolescents who attend different schools. In addition, parental monitoring has a very strong contextual effect on unstructured socializing, which supports the proposed integration of routine activity and social disorganization perspectives.     

论全球环境问题与现代性之检省

现代性在给人类带来福祉的同时,也使人类付出了沉重代价。在许多方面,现代社会的生态环境危机与现代性有着正相关。市场制度、工业化、消费主义以及作为现代性哲学基础的思维方式与价值观念,是导致今天环境与发展的深刻矛盾的根源。基于对传统现代性方案的反省,需要同时改变过时的观念,代之以新的理念。     

自然法、家庭伦理和女权主义?——《安提戈涅》重新解读及其方法论意义

西方学者对于古希腊著名悲剧《安提戈涅》的法理学或法理学意义的解释在当代中国较有影响的大致有三种,但都有缺憾,且在其中也显现出中国学者在方法论上存在的问题。反对本质主义,坚持语境化进路来解读文本,关注细节,进行多视角的理解和反思,将会避免借助第二手资料做出一种教义化的概括。同时,关注不同文化或学术视角和思路之间的紧张关系亦可在阐释学意义上拓展我们的视野。     

语用学在文化翻译中的应用——中国古典诗词英译比较个案分析

跨文化翻译中,文化信息的传达是翻译的本质。在文化翻译中,译者要结合语用学知识,立足原文语境,充分把握原语作者的语用用意,通过推理,寻找原文与语境的最佳关联,并深刻把握原文文化底蕴,从而达到准确传达文化信息的的目的。     

Context Effects in Forensic Entomology and Use of Sequential Unmasking in Casework

Context effects are pervasive in forensic science, and are being recognized by a growing number of disciplines as a threat to objectivity. Cognitive processes can be affected by extraneous context information, and many proactive scientists are therefore introducing context‐minimizing systems into their laboratories. Forensic entomologists are also subject to context effects, both in the processes they undertake (e.g., evidence collection) and decisions they make (e.g., whether an invertebrate taxon is found in a certain geographic area). We stratify the risk of bias into low, medium, and high for the decisions and processes undertaken by forensic entomologists, and propose that knowledge of the time the deceased was last seen alive is the most potentially biasing piece of information for forensic entomologists. Sequential unmasking is identified as the best system for minimizing context information, illustrated with the results of a casework trial (n = 19) using this approach in Victoria, Australia.     

The effect of odour reinstatement on children's episodic memory

Children's memory reports are often sparse, which increases the need for efficient interview methods. The present study investigated whether odour reinstatement can aid children's memory and increase the amount of information recalled from an experienced event. Children (N = 106, mean age 10 years, 8 months) experienced a magic show where a vanilla odour was present and were interviewed about their memory of the event either one week, or six months, after the magic show. During the interview, half of the children re-experienced the same vanilla odour. In contrast to studies on adult participants, no odour-reinstatement effect was found with the child participants in the present study. On the other hand, odour reinstatement reduced the children's ratings of how strong their emotions were during the event. Thus, odour reinstatement may affect different forensically relevant factors, and this should be considered in future research.     

Electoral context,habit-formation and voter turnout: A new analysis

Drawing on the concept of habitual voting (Plutzer, 2002), Franklin (2004) argues that the effects of electoral context on voter turnout will be largely limited to the cohorts who have experienced few elections in their lifetime. Those with more electoral experience would thus remain unaffected. Testing the above hypothesis is a way of a feasible indirect examination of the concept of habitual voting. Such tests have so far focused primarily on the impact of electoral competitiveness on turnout. I propose a new superior analysis of Franklin's hypothesis that, I claim, approaches the standards of a natural experiment. My test – focusing on the national election cycles as a contextual trait of the European Parliament elections – delivers new evidence supporting this hypothesis.