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- Volume 33, Issue 1, 2020
AILA Review - Volume 33, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 33, Issue 1, 2020
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The invisible supporters
Author(s): Eva-Maria Jakobs and Claas Digmayerpp.: 21–46 (26)More LessAbstractThis article examines how written feedback is used to support the production of texts for purposes of reuse. The case study refers to an entrepreneur training program at the University of Texas at Austin. In the program, Korean startups are trained in understanding the US market, and developing pitches that convince US investors. They are supported by Quicklook® reports. A Quicklook report delivers snapshots of the market receptivity for the startup’s product. Market analysts write the reports. In the final stage of drafting, program staff members supervise the report author. This study investigates how supervisors use commenting and how the goal of creating a highly reusable text source guides the feedback process. The database was examined quantitatively (frequency of drafting and commenting) and qualitatively (functional comment types). The results offer valuable insights into actual writing processes in business settings and how professionals interact to ensure a reusable product. The findings indicate a broad range of comment functions. Overall, we distinguish two main categories: feedback activities focusing on Quicklook reports as reusable resource, and feedback activities focusing on collaboration and workflow. Each category includes functional comment types. Further research is needed to learn more about professional strategies of reflecting on text quality, the quality of assessments, or the ratio between detected and real deficiencies of a document.
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Linguistic recycling and its relationship to academic conflict
Author(s): Sally Burgess and Pedro Martín-Martínpp.: 47–66 (20)More LessAbstractReaching an understanding of how scholarly writers manage linguistic recycling remains a focus of many studies in applied linguistics, bibliometrics, and the sociology of science. The value apportioned to citations in research assessment protocols is one factor in this sustained interest, the challenges that managing intertextuality present for novice scholars, another. Applied linguists such as Harwood (2009) and Hyland and Jiang (2017) alongside sociologists of science have studied citation practices largely from the point of view of writers’ reasons for citing (see Erikson & Erlandson, 2014 for a review) or readers’ understanding of the function of the citation (e.g., Willett, 2013). Linguistic recycling as direct quotation of previously published research has received less attention from applied linguists, a notable exception being Petrić’s (2012) examination of students’ quotation practices. Her study focuses on quoting writers’ intentions. We know less, however, about cited authors’ responses to quotations of their work. It is these responses that form the focus of our study. Taking our two most frequently cited publications, we compiled a corpus of direct quotations noting the quotation strategy and our responses to each instance of the reuse of our words. These responses ranged from pride and satisfaction through to annoyance at an instance of blatant misquotation. We then extended our corpus to include quotations from publications by three scholars who have played a role in debate around a key controversy in the English for research publication purposes (ERPP) literature. We presented these scholars with a representative sample of quotations of their publications related to the controversy and asked them to indicate which instances they regarded as unwarranted. Analysis of these authors’ responses provides insights into the relationship of direct quotation to the rhetorical management of academic conflict. We suggest possible parallels with the expression of discrepancy in other domains.
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Recycling a genre for news automation
Author(s): Lauri Haapanen and Leo Leppänenpp.: 67–85 (19)More LessAbstractThe amount of available digital data is increasing at a tremendous rate. These data, however, are of limited use unless converted into a user-friendly form. We took on this task and built a natural language generation (NLG) driven system that generates journalistic news stories about elections without human intervention. In this paper, after presenting an overview of state-of-the-art technologies in NLG, we explain systematically how we identified and then recontextualized the determinant aspects of the genre of an online news story in the algorithm of our NLG software. In the discussion, we introduce the key results of a user test we carried out and some improvements that these results suggest. Then, after relating the news items that our NLG system generates to general aspects of genres and their evolution, we conclude by questioning the idea that journalistic NLG systems should mimic journalism written by humans. Instead, we suggest that developmental work in the field of news automation should aim to create a new genre based on the inherent strengths of NLG. Finally, we present a few suggestions as to what this genre could include.
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Linguistic recycling in language acquisition
Author(s): Klaus Laalo and Reili Arguspp.: 86–103 (18)More LessAbstractThe paper examines how children quote their parents’ utterances. In other words, it investigates linguistic recycling as an aspect of language learning and how the child-directed speech (CDS) of adults influences child speech (CS). This topic is examined especially in the light of research made in the crosslinguistic project on pre- and protomorphology in language acquisition. Premorphology is characterized by rote-learned forms, which the child has memorized and stored as chunks from CDS (e.g., Finn vettä, Est vett ‘water,’ partitive form). During protomorphology, the child imitates CDS and produces analogical forms (e.g. Finn CDS: söi vs. CS: syöi ‘ate’, Est CDS: ütles vs. CS: ükki ‘said’), which then gradually evolve into adult-like grammar. Usage-based approaches to language acquisition rely on the assumption that language structures are learned from language use. Typical material in present-day child language research is based on tape recordings and transcripts made from these recordings. This kind of data makes it possible to take into account the influence of CDS to CS in a more accurate way than the earlier data collecting methods, such as diary material, which usually contains mostly utterances produced by the child do. The article examines how CDS gives models to CS and how the acquisition proceeds from early rote-learned forms to adult-like grammar from the perspective of frequency distributions of inflectional patterns and elaboration on linguistic forms in CDS – CS interaction. On the basis of analyzed speech samples and previous results, it is obvious that the quoting in children’s and adults’ speech is present on different levels of language and is often bidirectional in nature.
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Narrative analysis applied to text production
Author(s): Gilles Merminodpp.: 104–119 (16)More LessAbstractThe following paper adopts the vantage point of a linguistic ethnographic approach to news production, focused on the process of quoting, and combined with narrative analysis. The starting point of the analysis is an account given by a person who lived through a dramatic event. The paper investigates how the processes of recontextualization affects the account during the making of a broadcast news story. It explains how and why news practitioners adjust stretches of talk to the news text they are producing, and it reveals to what extent a pre-existing version of what happened (that of the account) can be reshaped by one in the making (that of the news story in which the account is going to figure). In the case study, the processes of recontextualization relates to three narrative issues: (1) quoting involves adapting the account’s characters’ categorizations to those of the news story; (2) quoting entails choosing between different schemes of incidence that depict what happened slightly differently; (3) quoting asks for a delimitation of the account’s spatiotemporal parameters that corresponds with those of the news story. Such a narrative adjustment is neither a tightly planned nor an arbitrary process but is embedded in the professional practice as it unfolds in the social and material world.
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Reuse in STEM research writing
Author(s): Chris M. Anson, Susanne Hall, Michael Pemberton and Cary Moskovitzpp.: 120–135 (16)More LessAbstractText recycling (hereafter TR), sometimes problematically called “self-plagiarism,” involves the verbatim reuse of text from one’s own existing documents in a newly created text – such as the duplication of a paragraph or section from a published article in a new article. Although plagiarism is widely eschewed across academia and the publishing industry, the ethics of TR are not agreed upon and are currently being vigorously debated. As part of a federally funded (US) National Science Foundation grant, we have been studying TR patterns using several methodologies, including interviews with editors about TR values and practices (Pemberton, Hall, Moskovitz, & Anson, 2019) and digitally mediated text-analytic processes to determine the extent of TR in academic publications in the biological sciences, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences, and social, behavioral, and economic sciences (Anson, Moskovitz, & Anson, 2019). In this article, we first describe and illustrate TR in the context of academic writing. We then explain and document several themes that emerged from interviews with publishers of peer-reviewed academic journals. These themes demonstrate the vexed and unsettled nature of TR as a discursive phenomenon in academic writing and publishing. In doing so, we focus on the complex relationships between personal (role-based) and social (norm-based) aspects of scientific publication, complicating conventional models of the writing process that have inadequately accounted for authorial decisions about accuracy, efficiency, self-representation, adherence to existing or imagined rules and norms, perceptions of ownership and copyright, and fears of impropriety.
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Quoting to persuade
Author(s): Jen Copepp.: 136–156 (21)More LessAbstractThis paper examines how quotations are linguistically constructed by expert contributors in US, UK, and Australian opinion texts, vis-à-vis their form, function, and processes. Cope’s (2016) study found that authoritative expert contributors integrated a considerable number of quotations on blame and responsibility for the global financial crisis in single-authored US, UK, and Australian opinion texts. By examining the form, function, and processes of quoting in this paper, she found evidence that quoting is an intertextual form of positioning. Empirically grounded linguistic analyses investigate the language of quoting frames – how the quoted source is specified, the quoting verb used, e.g., strong meanings (demanded, thundered, promised) or neutral (said, told) – and evaluate the language of propositional content in quotations. Such analyses reveal authorial positions taken in quoting. A greater number of quotations incorporated by general newspaper opinion authors, than by specialized financial newspaper opinion authors, furthermore implies that quoting increases a writer’s authority in non-specialized media sources. The specially created integrated linguistic framework draws on Martin & White’s (2005) Appraisal system from systemic-functional linguistics, White’s (2012, 2015) attribution and endorsement, and Bazerman’s (2004) intertextuality techniques. Contextual factors in language use and quoting are evaluated throughout. This paper thus provides evidence of, and implications for, quoting in cross-cultural opinion texts, and contributes to knowledge on the increasingly mediatized practice of language recycling and to media literacy.
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Reporting quotable yet untranslatable speech
Author(s): Kayo Matsushitapp.: 157–175 (19)More LessAbstractWhen a newsmaker (i.e., a newsworthy subject) is speaking or being spoken about in a foreign language, quoting requires translation. In such “translingual quoting” (Haapanen, 2017), it is not only the content of the speech but also its translatability that determines newsworthiness. While news media in some countries prefer indirect quotation, Japanese media favor direct quotes (Matsushita, 2019). This practice yields relatively clear source text (ST)-target text (TT) relationships in translingual quoting, especially when a political speech is directly quoted by newspapers, offering abundant data for news translation research (Matsushita, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019). However, this research approach has been challenged by the rise of a public figure known for making headlines with his extemporaneous remarks: US President Donald J. Trump. Translingual quoting of Trump in the non-English media has proven at times a “nearly impossible quest” (Lichfield, 2016) because of the unique features of his utterances, such as unorthodox word choices, run-on sentences and disjointed syntax (Viennot, 2016). This difficulty is heightened for Japanese newspapers, which uphold a longstanding journalistic standard of reporting speech as faithfully as possible, even in the case of translingual quoting (Matsushita, 2019). Against this backdrop, this article examines the often-conflicting relationship between “quotability” and “translatability” by analyzing how Japanese newspaper articles have quoted Donald Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama, through comparison of original speeches and news texts produced by Japanese newspapers. The comparison shows that institutional conventions of Japanese newspaper companies regarding direct quotes are frequently neglected by the journalists trans-quoting Trump (e.g., changed to indirect quotes or reproduced less faithfully), leading to marked differences in the textual portrayals of the newsmakers in terms of eloquence and assertiveness.
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Visuo-material performances
Author(s): Elisabeth Reberpp.: 176–203 (28)More LessAbstractDrawn from a larger project on reported speech in parliamentary interaction (Reber, forthcoming), this paper studies visuo-material performances of so-called “literalized” (Rumsey, 1992) quoting, i.e., verbatim reproductions of original utterances. Taking an interactional-linguistic perspective, I analyze how participants accomplish ‘literalized’ reported speech through vocal, verbal, and visual cues, recruiting their material documents. The data are culled from video recordings of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), a parliamentary session where the Prime Minister (PM) takes questions from the Leader of the Opposition (LO) and Members of Parliament (MPs) at the British House of Commons. I place my focus on cases where speakers use original documents as visual aids, a classic rhetoric device of persuasion, and show how paper documents are constituted, celebrated, and rhetorically enacted as (seemingly) original documents in embodied, situated ways. As a conclusion, I argue that the display of original documents allows the speaker to make claims of having not only evidential but also experiential access to their sources, a practice that underpins their evidential authority.
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More than recycled snippets of news
Author(s): Daniel Pfurtschellerpp.: 204–226 (23)More LessAbstractFocusing on Facebook pages from public broadcasters in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, this paper looks at ways in which written quotations and snippets of news are reused and shared in social media posts. Drawing on recent theorization of digital quotations as recontextualized discourse, the study deals with a specific genre of digital news: quote cards. The qualitative analysis identifies common design patterns, examines the functions of quote cards and shows how text and image are remixed and integrated into multimodal offerings, providing affordances for news-sharing practices and responses into political discourses.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 37 (2024)
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Volume 36 (2023)
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Volume 35 (2022)
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Volume 34 (2021)
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Volume 33 (2020)
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Volume 32 (2019)
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Volume 31 (2018)
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Volume 30 (2017)
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Volume 29 (2016)
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Volume 28 (2015)
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Volume 27 (2014)
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Volume 26 (2013)
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Volume 25 (2012)
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Volume 24 (2011)
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Volume 23 (2010)
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Volume 22 (2009)
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Volume 21 (2008)
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Volume 20 (2007)
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Volume 19 (2006)
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Volume 18 (2005)
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Volume 17 (2004)
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Volume 16 (2003)
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Language and Culture
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