Searchable talk: the linguistic functions of hashtags

An important dimension of social media discourse is its searchability. A key semiotic resource supporting this function is the hashtag, a form of social tagging that allows microbloggers to embed metadata in social media posts. While popularly thought of as topic-markers, hashtags are able to construe a range of complex meanings in social media texts. This paper uses the concept of linguistic metafunctions, to explore how hashtags enact three simultaneous communicative functions: marking experiential topics, enacting interpersonal relationships, and organizing text. Corpus-based discourse analysis of linguistic patterns in a 100 million word Twitter corpus is used to investigate these functions and how they relate to the notion of social search.     

Discourse of decency: white nationalists,white antiracists,and the criminality of color

Contemporary research on white racial attitudes on race and crime reflect a grouping of opinions on a traditional liberal-conservative scale. These two groupings reflect what sociologists and political scientists call ‘issue constraint’ or a ‘clustering’ of ideas into a specific ideological worldview. Many now argue this gulf is growing; a white ‘culture war’ that many interpret as evidence of the increasing fracturing and political bifurcation of white racial identities over ‘hot button’ topics like race and crime. While a substantial literature on race and crime finds white racial attitudes to vary by educational level and political orientation, we know less about shared understandings of crime and race in relation to the processes of white racial identity formation. Rather than view attitudinal statements on race and crime as accurate reflections of essential different and static white racial political positions or ideological orientations, additional scholarship can examine discourse on crime and race as constitutive of the white identities that wield them. Drawing from an ethnographic study with conservative white nationalists and liberal white antiracists, this paper addresses the following question: what is the relationship between discourse on crime and race and the ongoing process of white racial identity formation?     

Conjuring up the next attack: the future-orientedness of terror and the counterterrorist imagination

Although terrorism is widely understood to be the politically motivated creation of fear by means of violence in a target group, the nature of that fear is seldom explained or even considered. The present article attempts to close that gap by proposing a definition of terror as the apprehension of (more) violence to come. Because every terrorist act is perceived to be part of a potential series, terror is oriented towards the future and involves the imaginary anticipation of prospective events. On the basis of this definition, I will examine the problematical role of counterterrorist discourse. As the statements of public officials and security experts in the run-up to, and during, the “War on Terror” demonstrate, the peculiar dynamic of terror is, seemingly paradoxically, reinforced by counterterrorist rhetoric. With its insistence on the escalatory nature of terrorist violence and its repeated prediction of even worse attacks, counterterrorism contributes to the evocation of terror in the sense proposed here.     

两个父系社会家谱的编撰和利用——历史记忆、族群关系及传统建构的人类学研究

汉族周边社会的特殊性使人类学传统亲族研究的理论视角和方法遭到了挑战,摆脱"历史的真实"和结构功能分析理论模式的桎梏,从研究对象之传统建构话语体系的象征分析中寻找理解其自身问题的路径,是研究方法上一种新的尝试。针对两个不同性质父系社会家谱编撰和利用状况的比较,可以为人类学开展家族及亲族研究提供新的视角。     

理解含义:理论、话语和国际关系

近年来,语言在国际关系中的重要作用逐渐引起人们的兴趣和关注,出现国际关系研究的“语言转向”。这一学术转向的意义在于,它试图探索国际关系中的人和事件如何在语言的作用下被赋予含义,以及这种含义反过来如何影响并建构着国际关系“现实”。符号含义的不固定性、多层性和争议性,不仅挑战了国际关系“知识”中的话语霸权现象,而且提醒人们有必要对国际关系的不同“现实”进行理解,并说明国际政治不仅是竞争物质实力的领域,而且还是争夺话语含义的场所。     

论犯罪心理学的研究对象

研究犯罪心理学的根本目的是为了揭示犯罪原因,进行犯罪预测、预防和控制,其狭义和广义之争并不妨碍这一目的的实现。犯罪心理学的研究对象受学科发展状况、研究目的和学科话语霸权的影响。文章从这三个角度出发,对研究对象的狭义说和广义说进行考证,认为犯罪心理学的研究对象仍应立足于狭义说,并兼顾广义说。     

“双刃剑”:负面新闻传播的政治效应

新闻传播与社会政治运行关系密切,特别是负面新闻的传播对政治的影响更为显著,它既可以发挥稳定政治并促进其发展的积极效应,如促进政策法规完善、整合力量化解危机、监督社会引导国民、宣泄民意舒缓矛盾;也可以产生影响政治阻碍其运行的消极作用,如造成社会盲动、引发错误思潮、腐蚀政治关系。新闻工作者所进行的传播活动都是为人民大众、为国家建设服务的,在负面新闻的传播过程中,应努力做到及时公开、真实报道、科学传播以及数量掌控,发挥其正面效应,保障社会政治的健康运行。     

网络话语权的公共领域特征与话语民主的实现

网络作为公共舆论的重要平台,使得公民的话语权在网络空间得到全新的实现。网络公共领域的话语表达所表现出的匿名性、开放性、互动性等特点,使得网络话语权的行使具有传统媒体无可比拟的优势,成为公民问责和实践话语民主的重要形式。     

网络宣传与意识形态话语权研究

网络宣传工作是巩固和增强意识形态话语权的有效途径和手段,意识形态话语权的强弱是检验网络宣传工作成效高低的重要标准。强有力的网络宣传工作有助于我们占领社会舆论的制高点,有助于我们引领多元化思潮的发展方向,是巩固和增强意识形态话语权的有效途径和手段。     

知识产权国际博弈与中国话语的价值取向

美国在知识产权全球治理中呈现出一味强化权利保护的价值倾向。受其影响,知识产权保护的国际规则呈现不断强化之势。但是,美国在国内法中存在对知识产权强化保护的平衡机制,有别于其对外片面输出强化保护规则。一味强化保护的知识产权制度会走向偏颇。我国在知识产权国际博弈和对话中需要提出自己的话语和话语体系,其前提是明确本国话语的价值取向。相比历史、文化取向而言,话语构造的价值取向路径具有优越性。在国际博弈中,我国宜秉持并提倡知识产权法的二元价值取向。二元价值取向契合知识产权法基本原理,体现了世界共同价值,其核心作用在于纠偏,我国应坚持和发扬这一价值取向。