This article examines how cultural schema theory has been employed to explore some aspects of Aboriginal English oral discourse. The merit of this approach lies in the explanatory tools provided by cultural schema theory in accounting for those features of oral discourse in Aboriginal English which are distinctive and which often impair its lucidity to non-Aboriginal speakers. In particular, we have focused on the exploration of recurrent semantic and formal patterning across a large body of narratives, (...) evidence of speakers' use of indigenous schemas in associative responses as well as in processing oral narrative, and schema maintenance in discourse in non-traditional settings and in the context of non-traditional subjects. (shrink)

During normal aging there is a decline in cognitive functions that includes deficits in oral discourse production. A higher level of education and more frequent reading and writing habits might delay the onset of the cognitive decline during aging. This study aimed at investigating the effect of education and RWH on oral discourse production in older adults. Picture-based narratives were collected from 117 healthy adults, aged between 51 and 82 years with 0–20 years of formal education. (...) Measures of macro, microlinguistic and modalizations were computed and entered as dependent variables in hierarchical regression analyses that included age, education and RWH as regressors. Results revealed that higher education explained a better performance at the macrostructure and microstructure dimensions. Higher frequency of RWH explained the production of fewer modalizations. These results demonstrate the positive effect of education and RWH in oral discourse production in older adults. Therefore, higher attention should be given to these social factors. (shrink)

In On Repentance, noted scholar Pinchas Peli has gathered the major points of Rabbi Soloveitchik's teachings on teshuvah (repentance), based on the annual series of lectures on the theme of teshuvah, presented on the anniversary of his ...

Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous présentons une expérimentation menée auprès d’un public allophone inscrit à une formation universitaire. Ce travail a pour objectif de relever, d’une part, les spécificités dans les productions orales de ce public, et d’autre part, de démontrer l’intérêt d’un apprentissage sur corpus afin de construire un exposé structuré. Cette étude permet de s’ouvrir à d’autres perspectives didactiques en partant d’un corpus d’apprenants.

South Africa has a long history of orality deeply embedded in the archival memory of the ‘Other’ or the history of the poor and oppressed. Their untold stories, undocumented histories with displacing identities are how the historical ‘Other’ has been perceived by colonialism and the apartheid regime. The ‘Other’ or primary oral communities in the context of this article can be seen by a name, a face and a particular identity, namely, indigenous people. This article will engage the work (...) of Finnegan on what is ‘Orality – if anything’. The term ‘orality’, as a conceptual tool, can help us to widen our horizons and attention to forms of human creativity and imagination which was neglected or unnoticed by scholars. Orality has forced scholars to ask new questions on what is the meaning of ‘text’ and encouraged and challenge scholars in orality and literacy research with a new analysis of what we thought we already knew. The article engages oral and written research and how it can assist in understanding the discourse of the ‘Other’ and the power relation in reconstructing and re-ordering of their social universe through collective memory, songs, rituals, satire, drama and political protest which at large was perceived by the apartheid era and Western colonisers as savage, uncivilised and barbaric. The oral discourse of the ‘Other’ has become part of the power struggles politically and educationally in South Africa. Orality has further reshaped the Christian discourse in South Africa and Africa as the poor and oppressed find new power in a discourse of metaphysics of presence of the Gospel through preaching and bearing witness of their new encounter spiritually. (shrink)

By applying Multi-Dimensional Analysis, this study has provided a thorough description of the lexico-grammatical characteristics of courtroom discourse to see to what extent it employs both linguistic features of oral registers and literate registers. In particular, this study focuses on language used in the four public sub-registers of courtroom discourse and analyzes how oral/literate each sub-register is, instead of characterizing courtroom discourse as oral/literate overall. Detailed interpretation of results focuses on Dimension 1 and 2 (...) as these two dimensions are identified as universal parameters of register variation. A corpus of high-profile courtroom trials was compiled for this study that includes the O. J. Simpson criminal trial, the Boston Marathon bombing trial, and the Oklahoma bombing trial. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both (...) across and within stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal – narrator, character, reader – is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Fundamentally, viewpoint alignment is grounded in oral narrative interaction and, from this conversation, transferred to the written narrative situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and guiding readers’ route of processing the narrative (experientialversusreflective). Our claim is that variations in viewpoint alignment are functional to the communicative context and intended outcomes of narratives. This is illustrated with the analysis of a corporate journalistic narrative that comprises both interactional and non-interactional aspects of storytelling. The concept of viewpoint alignment further explains the oral fundaments of narrative discourse in conversational storytelling and poses new questions on the relation between the dynamic processing of stories on the one hand and their static outcomes on the other. (shrink)

This article explores the role that markers play in the pragmatic discourse structure of Catalan and English oral narratives. It is argued that their meaning is directly related to the sort of coherence relation that they establish with preceding and following propositions and discourse segments, centring the discussion on four discourse structures/components: ideational, rhetorical, sequential and inferential. The aim is to show the textual form-pragmatic function relationship by means of specific lexical units placed at specific parts (...) of the narrative. The hypothesis held in this article is that pragmatic markers help in the organization of narrative segments and that their semanticopragmatic traits make them appropriate for their use in specific segments. (shrink)

Oral history makes a critical contribution in articulating the perspectives of people often overlooked in histories written from the standpoint of dominating class, gender, ethnic or professional groups. Using three interrelated approaches — life stories, oral history, and narrative analysis — this paper analyzes family responses to psychiatric care and mental illness in oral history interviews with family members who experienced mental illness themselves or within their family between 1930 and 1975. Interviews with three family members in (...) Alberta, Canada are the primary focus. These stories provide an important avenue to understand the meaning and transformations of mental health‐care from the point of view of families. Family members’ stories reveal contradictory responses to the dominant cultural discourse. Using a performative framework of interpretation, the narratives reveal a complex interplay between medical, social and cultural conceptions of mental illness, deepening our understanding of its meaning. The history of mental health‐care can be substantially enriched by the analysis of family members’ stories, not only revealing the constructed nature of mental illness, but also illustrating the family as a mediating context in which the meaning of mental illness is negotiated. (shrink)

RESUMO O Discourse Diversity Database (3D) é um corpus desenvolvido para a pesquisa em linguística clínica. Ele consiste de amostras de fala oral de três gêneros diferentes: narrativas induzidas por imagens, histórias pessoais e instruções baseadas em imagens. As subdivisões do 3D incluem gravações de falantes de russo de três grupos independentes: pessoas com tumores cerebrais antes e depois da remoção do tumor, pessoas com esquizofrenia e indivíduos neurologicamente saudáveis. O presente artigo é dedicado à descrição do procedimento (...) de coleta de dados, do esquema de anotação e das características específicas de cada subdivisão do corpus. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle’s Phantasia in the Rhetoric:Lexis, Appearance, and the Epideictic Function of DiscourseNed O’GormanIntroductionThe well-known opening line of Aristotle's Rhetoric, where he defines rhetoric as a "counterpart" (antistrophos) to dialectic, has spurred many conversations on Aristotelian rhetoric and motivated the widespread interpretation of Aristotle's theory of civic discourse as heavily rationalistic. This study starts from a statement in the Rhetoric less discussed, yet still important, that suggests that a (...) visual aspect inheres in Aristotle's theory of rhetoric. Near the beginning of book 3, which deals with lexis (style, sometimes subsuming delivery1 ), Aristotle conjoins lexis and phantasia with the copula "is" (eimi): "The subject of expression [lexeôs], however, has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another does make some difference in regard to clarity, though not a great difference; but all these things are forms of outward show [phantasia] and intended to affect the audience" (1404a).2 Whereas scholars exploring the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic have compared and contrasted the Rhetoric and the Topics, I explore rhetoric's relationship with phantasia by reading the Rhetoric alongside De Anima. De Anima is Aristotle's seminal account of the senses and their relationship to psychê (often translated "soul"). It addresses topics intimately connected to rhetoric: perception, cognition, deliberation, visualization, imagination, and the image. Phantasia is integral to each of these psychic processes and to Aristotle's understanding of the function of appearance in human experience. Hence, itis a lens suitable for exploring the relationship between Aristotle's conception of civic discourse and his notions of sight and appearances as they relate to perception, interpretation, deliberation, and judgment. I find in Aristotle's phantasia a tie between his art of rhetoric and his psychology and phenomenology (anachronistic though these terms are). Aristotle's psychological works, as Richard McKeon points out, are foundational to Aristotle's philosophy, and thus to his Rhetoric. [End Page 16] "Psychological inquiries occupy an extremely important position in the philosophy of Aristotle, for the conception of the psychê lays the foundation for the continuity of functions in nature" (1947, 142). De Anima, especially, articulates the psychological and phenomenological conceptions often tacitly at work in the Rhetoric.The importance of phantasia for the trajectory of ancient rhetorical and aesthetic theory is seen in the parallels between the visual arts, rhetoric, and poetics in Greek and Roman thought.3 As David Freedberg states (perhaps, slightly overstates), parallels between painting and poetry are "to be found everywhere in classical literature" (1989, 50). With respect to such visual-verbal parallels in Aristotle, D. Thomas Benediktson's reading of Aristotle's psychological, poetic, and rhetorical works concludes that phantasia ties together the visual and the literary. "[Aristotle's passages on phantasia] do help to see why Aristotle took for granted the similarity, almost the identity, of literature and the visual arts. Both types of art are imagistic; they present to the viewer either an image, as in visual art, or as in literature, a set of moving images that the soul then uses as raw data (phantasia) to enable thought to occur" (2000, 170). Phantasia developed a legacy in Hellenistic aesthetics, where it came to designate suprarealism in painting, moving art "beyond imitation" (Fowler 1989, 180–81). In later Greco-Roman works, phantasia was used to designate vivid imagery in written and oral discourse, imagery that could create sights and scenes in the minds of audience members. As Quintilian noted in his discussion of forensic rhetoric, in Latin phantasiai were termed visiones. Here, phantasiabecame a mode of displacing narrative in rhetorical discourse:There are certain experiences which the Greeks call phantasiai, and the Romans visions [visiones], whereby things absent are presented to our imagination with such extreme vividness that they seem actually to be before our very eyes.... From such impressions arises that enargeia which Cicero calls illumination [illustration] and actuality [evidential], which makes us seem not so much to narrate [dicere] as to exhibit [ostendere] the actual scene.(Institutio Oratoria 4.2.29, 32)Quintilian's invocations of phantasia and enargeia can be traced to Aristotle's discussion of rhetorical style in book... (shrink)

The volume addresses a variety of issues on Stance and Inter/Subjectivity, and the expression of Identity in discourse. It focuses on the multifaceted nature of stance, and the use of resources of epistemicity, effectivity, and evaluation and metaphor, as well as other dimensions within the domain of stance, such as mirativity, emotion and attribution. In this way it provides a more in-depth and a wider perspective into the nature of stance. The contributions feature the use of stance resources in (...) several languages, and in various discourse domains and genres, such as oral discourse, political and newspaper discourse, and science popularization and medical research articles, as well as online fora on social issues, mental health and peer support platforms. (shrink)

With the present paper I study and translate a discourse in the Ekottarika-?gama preserved in Chinese of which no parallel in other discourse collections is known. This situation relates to the wider issue of what significance to accord to the absence of parallels from the viewpoint of the early Buddhist oral transmission. The main topic of the discourse itself is perception of impermanence, which is of central importance in the early Buddhist scheme of the path for (...) cultivating liberating insight. A description of the results of such practice in this Ekottarika-?gama discourse has a somewhat ambivalent formulation that suggests a possible relation to the notion of rebirth in the Pure Abodes, suddh?v?sa. This notion, attested in a P?li discourse, in turn might have provided a precedent for the aspiration, prominent in later Buddhist traditions, to be reborn in the Pure Land. (shrink)

One might argue that Epictetus has been the most influential Stoic writer of all time. A former slave, he lectured and taught in Rome and later in Nicopolis during the late first and early second centuries C.E. He was famous in his own lifetime, exercised considerable impact on Marcus Aurelius, and inspired one of his students, Lucius Flavianus Arrianus, to preserve the record of his oral teaching and publish it for posterity. Four books of Discourses, plus the compendium of (...) Epictetus’s thought entitled The Handbook, have survived. The latter was so important in later antiquity that the Neoplatonist Simplicius devoted a massive commentary to it. Widely read in the Renaissance and the early modern period, The Handbook was imitated by many and translated often. In our own century, the influence of Epictetus is attested by so unlikely a figure as the naval fighter pilot, Vice Admiral James Bond Stockwell. (shrink)

The proposed multilevel framework of discourse comprehension includes the surface code, the textbase, the situation model, the genre and rhetorical structure, and the pragmatic communication level. We describe these five levels when comprehension succeeds and also when there are communication misalignments and comprehension breakdowns. A computer tool has been developed, called Coh-Metrix, that scales discourse (oral or print) on dozens of measures associated with the first four discourse levels. The measurement of these levels with an automated (...) tool helps researchers track and better understand multilevel discourse comprehension. Two sets of analyses illustrate the utility of Coh-Metrix in discourse theory and educational practice. First, Coh-Metrix was used to measure the cohesion of the text base and situation model, as well as potential extraneous variables, in a sample of published studies that manipulated text cohesion. This analysis helped us better understand what was precisely manipulated in these studies and the implications for discourse comprehension mechanisms. Second, Coh-Metrix analyses are reported for samples of narrative and science texts in order to advance the argument that traditional text difficulty measures are limited because they fail to accommodate most of the levels of the multilevel discourse comprehension framework. (shrink)

Understanding a sentence and integrating it into the discourse depends upon the identification of its focus, which, in spoken German, is marked by accentuation. In the case of written language, which lacks explicit cues to accent, readers have to draw on other kinds of information to determine the focus. We study the joint or interactive effects of two kinds of information that have no direct representation in print but have each been shown to be influential in the reader’s text (...) comprehension: i. the (low-level) rhythmic-prosodic structure that is based on the distribution of lexically stressed syllables, and ii. the (high-level) discourse context that is grounded in the memory of previous linguistic content. Systematically manipulating these factors, we examine the way readers resolve a syntactic ambiguity involving the scopally ambiguous focus operator auch (engl. `too') in both oral (Experiment 1) and silent reading (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments attest that discourse context and local linguistic rhythm conspire to guide the syntactic and, concomitantly, the focus-structural analysis of ambiguous sentences. We argue that reading comprehension requires the (implicit) assignment of accents according to the focus structure and that, by establishing a prominence profile, the implicit prosodic rhythm directly affects accent assignment. (shrink)

Oral testimony, oral tradition and documents, as represented by written accounts of the facts and the material instruments of the acts and the records, are all ways of indirectly accessing the past. In both cases of oral and written records, what is considered ‘true’ is entirely dependent on the trustworthiness of its source. African societies have been communicating and storing valuable information through memory, murals and rock art paintings since time immemorial. The dominant Western canons have previously (...) classified this memory as prelegal and nonlegal. This study, using a literature review, mainly through previous work of this author, explores oral memory as a trusted record in troubled times. It is concluded that, like digital records, oral memory requires proactive efforts to be preserved, as in both instances the content migrates from one carrier to another. Therefore, oral memory is trustworthy when transmitted in its context. Oral memory, it is argued, perfectly fits the description of a record and thus cannot be classified as either prelegal or nonlegal. The transmitter of information through oral history is no different from other media of records.Contribution: The study contributes to the ongoing academic discourse of decolonising and Africanising archives. The study is linked to the scope of the journal for advocating the inclusion of silenced voices into the national archival system. (shrink)

One of the assumptions that impregnate academic discourse, even that of social scientists committed to the re-incorporation of their disciplines, is its extra-corporeal character. This article analyzes the scholastic construction of producing and perceiving oral, written or silent discourses as non-corporeal acts. First, it argues that there is a certain continuity between monastic rituals that build the spirit as something different from and higher than the body and academic rituals that train people to place the source of (...) class='Hi'>discourse in the mind. Second, it explores how the separation of discourse from the discourse-producing body is currently built and reproduced through participation in university and academic rituals. It holds that such participation installs in the bodies of academics an identification with the habit of producing discourses. Finally, it suggests that the fact that attempts to re-incorporate body to social life are performed by academics who have been trained in disembodying their discourses conditions the results of such attempts. (shrink)

In archival footage uploaded online of a concert at the University of the Western Cape in 1988 musician Robbie Jansen declared that the next composition to be performed was named 'Freedom Where Have You Been'.1 Before counting the band in, Jansen offered a short discourse on the meaning of the phrase hoya chibongo. Hearing the Afrikaans hoorie (meaning listen here) in the expression hoya, Jansen proceeded to split up the word chibongo to accentuate chi- as aurally reminiscent of the (...) suffix -tjie that is used in Afrikaans to mark the diminutive. bongo, in this context as Jansen remarked, is the drum, leading Jansen to exclaim that the phrase hoya chibongo means to 'listen to the (small) drum', the drum that is, according to Jansen, 'the truth'. In Jansen's exact words, 'the drum speaks the truth and the drum has always been our language before these funny words that we are speaking now'. Jansen's translation was markedly oral, not only in its expression of speech and languaging but also in its invocation of a historicity through the oral; an oral tradition, for all intents and purposes. In its locatedness in a musically expressive and performative moment, Jansen expressed a duality of sound that exceeds the oral itself: calling attention to how language might be a conduit for the instrument, and how in some sense the drum might speak across time and space. It usefully deepens the often cliché proclamation rehearsed in and out of music studies in particular that music is universal, or that sound might be thought of as a kind of connective tissue that allows a specific sense-making of the social.2 In Jansens invocation of 'before' in his statement about the drum as language, and in debates around the meaning of sound to the social, it is history - or, a representation of pastness - that is called upon to bring about a set of futures where sound mediates the experience of a temporal matrix where truth, or freedom, might be found. What Jansen does/did was not necessarily an act of translation into a local vernacular as it is the blurring of the oral and the aural in a moment that might express the relation between sound, its interpretation, and its social life, obliquely. The truth for Jansen was what the drum expressed; but it was also the drum itself. The oral is aural, as the aural is oral. (shrink)

The awareness of the last 20 years about embodied cognition is directing multidisciplinary attention to the musical domain and impacting psychological research approaches from the 4E cognition. Based on previous research regarding musical teaching and learning conceptions of 30 young guitar apprentices of advanced level in three learning cultures: Western classical, jazz, and flamenco of oral tradition, two participants of flamenco with polarised profiles of learning were selected as instrumental cases for a prospective ex post facto design. Discourse (...) and practice of the two flamenco guitarists were analysed in-depth to describe bodily issues and verbal discourse on the learning practice in their natural contexts. Qualitative analysis is performed on the posture, gestures, verbal discourse, and musical practice of the participants through the System for the Analysis of Music Teaching and Learning Practices. The results are organised attending: the Embodied mind through differential postures and gestures of flamenco participants that showed a fusion among verbal, body language, and musical discourse with respect to the musical literacy cultures; the Embedded mind and a detailed description of circumstances and relationships of the two flamenco participants, and how music is embedded in their way of life, family and social context, and therefore transcends musical activity itself; the Enactive mind, regarding the active processes that make differences between the reproductive and the transformative flamenco apprentices, then tentative relationship are observed in the discourse of each apprentice and the way in which they practice; finally, the Extended mind through the bodily, technical and symbolic tools they use during learning. Flamenco culture of oral tradition made use of listening, and temporary external representations instead of notational, but also the body played a central role in a holistic rhythm processing through multimodality, such as singing, playing, and dancing. Conclusions point out the embodied mind as a result of the culture of learning reflected through the body and the gesture in instrumental learning. (shrink)

The study of pragmatic competence has gained increasing importance within second language assessment over the last three decades. However, its study in L2 language testing is still scarce. The aim of this paper is to research the extent to which pragmatic competence as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has been accommodated in the task descriptions and rating scales of two of the most popular Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) at a C1 level: Cambridge’s Certificate (...) in Advanced English (CAE) and Trinity’s Integrated Skills in English (ISE) III. To carry out this research, OPI tests are first defined, highlighting their differences from L2 pragmatic tests. After pragmatic competence in the CEFR is examined, focusing on the updates in the new descriptors, CAE and ISE III formats, structure and task characteristics are compared, showing that, while the formats and some characteristics are found to differ, the structures and task types are comparable. Finally, we systematically analyse CEFR pragmatic competence in the task skills and rating scale descriptors of both OPIs. The findings show that the task descriptions incorporate mostly aspects of discourse and design competence. Additionally, we find that each OPI is seen to prioritise different aspects of pragmatic competence within their rating scale, with CAE focusing mostly on discourse competence and fluency, and ISE III on functional competence. Our study shows that the tests fail to fully accommodate all aspects of pragmatic competence in the task skills and rating scales, although the aspects they do incorporate follow the CEFR descriptors on pragmatic competence. It also reveals a mismatch between the task competences being tested and the rating scale. To conclude, some research lines are proposed. (shrink)

This article places the textual production of classical Islamic law in its proper historical context. It does so by examining a transcript of an eleventh-century oral debate, or disputation, between the Shafiʿi and Hanafi jurists Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṭāliqānī on the subject of the pre-emptive expiation for broken oaths. The comparison between the disputation transcript and al-Ṭabarī’s lengthy legal manual al-Taʿlīqa al-kubrā reveals that the complexity and argumentative detail of disputations far exceeded jurists’ writings. Even the (...) lengthiest legal manuals of the time are shown to be highly summarized accounts of juristic thought. The article explains how these summaries were essential to the proper training of jurists in the age of ijtihād: jurists were expected to learn these summaries before exploring the law in greater depth through disputations. These disputations were rarely recorded in writing, and few survive. The disparity between the oral and written legal discourse of jurists leads to a disquieting conclusion: much of the thought that produced classical legal opinions is lost to us today. We are therefore left with access to an attenuated version of classical law. (shrink)

The article attempts to account for some conversational strategies for the thematic construction of discourse in a 30,000 word corpus of contemporary oral French. The sub-genre studied is that of the ‘memory-activation interview’, a speech situation, or ‘activity-type’ in which dialogues and meaning are co-constructed with the purpose of reviving memories. The general analytical framework is that of ‘interactional sociolinguistics’ as defined by Schiffrin, in which the more specific aspects of ratification, legitimization and modes of contribution are redefined (...) and diversified. Also central in the memory-activation process is the interviewer%'s role which, although not of a therapeutical nature is shown as being fully involved both at macro- and micro- levels. The article also tries to widen the range of the currently available tools for the analysis of speech seen as a thematic–rhematic process through the alternation of speech turns. The notion of thematic-discursive perimeter is introduced to account for thematic consistency. (shrink)

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture Barry Hallen Reveals everyday language as the key to understanding morals and ethics in Yoruba culture. "This contrasts with any suggestion that in Yoruba or, more generally, African society, moral thinking manifests nothing much more than a supine acquiescence in long established communal values.... Hallen renders a great service to African philosophy." —Kwasi Wiredu In Yoruba culture, morality and moral values are intimately linked to aesthetics. The (...) purest expression of beauty, at least for human beings, is to possess good moral character. But how is moral character judged? How do actions, and especially words, reveal good moral character in a culture that is still significantly based on oral tradition? In this original and intimate look at Yoruba culture, Barry Hallen asks the Yoruba onisegun—the wisest and most accomplished herbalists or traditional healers, individuals justly reputed to be well versed in Yoruba thought and expression—what it means to be good and beautiful. Posed as an outsider wanting to gain understanding of how to speak Yoruba correctly, Hallen engages the onisegun and has them explain the subtleties and intricacies of Yoruba language use and the philosophy behind particular word choices. Their instructions reveal a striking and profound depiction of Yoruba aesthetic and ethical thought. The detailed interpretations of everyday language that Hallen supplies challenge prevailing Western views that African thought is nothing more than acquiescence to long-established religious or communal values. The philosophy of ordinary language reveals that moral reflection is indeed individual and that evaluations of action and character take place on the basis of clearly and logically delineated criteria. With the onisegun as his guides, Hallen identifies the priorities of Yoruba philosophy and culture through everyday expression and shows that there are rational pathways to both truth and beauty. Barry Hallen has taught philosophy at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. He is a Fellow at the W. E. B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College. He is coauthor of Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. Contents Ordinary Language and African Philosophy Moral Epistemology Me, My Self, and My Destiny The Good and the Bad The Beautiful Rationality, Individuality, Secularity, and the Proverbial Appendix of Yoruba-Language Quotations Glossary of Yoruba Terms. (shrink)

Today, there is a growing consensus among philosophers in Africa, Latin America and other regions of the world that the history of philosophy has to consider both written and oral sources in the reconstruction of the history of philosophy. Even though it is usually not denied that philosophy also expresses itself in oral practices, such as conversation or instruction, the question remains as to how oral philosophical traditions can become part of a history of philosophy. This is (...) subject to a number of methodological questions. On the basis of discourses in contemporary African philosophy as well as examples from other regions of the world, this article discusses selected methodological challenges that oral traditions pose for the historiography of philosophy, with a focus on the relation between philosophy and written texts and philosophy and practice. It is argued that a turn to philosophical practices can offer new insights into philosophy in oral societies. (shrink)

Background Respect for patient autonomy, the principle that patients are capable to make informed decisions about medical interventions, is fundamental in present-day medicine. However, if a patient’s request is medically not indicated, the practitioner faces an ethical dilemma represented by the conflict of the principles of patient autonomy, beneficence, and maleficence. Adjacent to topics such as medical assistance in dying and healthy limb amputation, this ethical dilemma also manifests in the care of the maxillofacial region (the oral cavity and (...) its surroundings), an area crucial to esthetic appearance, but also to everyday functions including mastication, speech, and facial expression, all of which are related to well-being. Our aim was to explore the manifestations and resolutions of the conflict between oral health and patient autonomy in relevant literature in order to contribute to the discourse of ethical challenges concerning patient autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. Methods We screened all journal articles discussing the researched ethical dilemma obtained from three databases. Two researchers developed a hierarchical coding scheme, where the parent and grandparent codes were designated deductively as: Case (situations involving the researched ethical dilemma), Judgement (decisions made in the ethical dilemma), and Principle (ideas, rules, propositions explaining the judgements); child codes were developed inductively. After coding the sources, we utilized thematic analysis to construct code constellations. Results Most themes identified in our sources advocated for the practitioner to choose the alternative that benefits the patient from a medical perspective, although no theme excluded the consideration of patient autonomy. Instances where respect for patient autonomy was encouraged concerned oral preventive care or when the requested intervention was expected to have an insignificant impact on oral health. Conclusions Ethical conflicts concerning patient autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence have a marked presence in oral care. These conflicts arise through the issue of body modification, evident in cosmetic dentistry and requests for tooth extraction. Our sources generally support the argumentation for beneficence, despite the rise of cosmetic procedures in dentistry. (shrink)

BackgroundWhat can the analysis of the evolution of a code of ethics tell us about the dental profession and the association that develops it? The establishment of codes of ethics are foundational events in the social history of a profession. Within these documents it is possible to find statements of values and culture that serve a variety of purposes. Codes of ethics in dentistry have not frequently presented as the subjects of analyses despite containing rich information about the priorities and (...) anxieties within the profession’s membership at the time that the code was written.Main textThis essay uses critical discourse analysis to explore the 2012 and 2018 versions of the Code of Ethics produced by the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Dental Association. This method of discourse analysis examines contradictions between the discourses within the codes and how these relate to broader social realties that surround the dental profession in New South Wales. By analysing the 2012 and 2018 codes together, it is possible to understand how the dental profession views its commitments to society as established through the social contract. Through this assessment, it will be demonstrated that both codes suffer due to their failure to consider the public as a key stakeholder in the creation and curation of the Code of Ethics and how this this relates intimately with the social contract between the profession and the public.ConclusionWithout the public being the central consideration, both codes amount to declarations of professional privilege and dominance. Although the more recent 2018 Code of Ethics demonstrates insight into the changes in public trust placed in the professions, this analysis shows that that the current code of ethics is still reluctant to recognise and engage with the public as an equal stakeholder in the planning and provision of oral health care and the development of the profession’s values and cultural trajectory. (shrink)

The beginning of the new realm in philosophical research, which is the oral history of phiosophy, is followed by the consequential set of serious ethical issues. The purpose of this article is to identify moral orientations a historian of philosophy can rely on in oral communication with respondents. The starting point of the analysis is the ethical standards of interviews developed by the Oral History Society. An example to test these standards based on the principle of maximum (...) tolerance is the case of Martin Heidegger. Considering the ambiguity of some outstanding philosophical figures, the main task of the article is to find the line between propagation of the dangerous views of the philosopher and objective philosophical analysis. As a guide to the ethics of interviewing philosophers, I propose the approach suggested by Alain Badieu and Barbara Cassin regarding Heidegger. They claim that a great philosopher can simultaneously be a Nazi and an anti-Semite. I outlined the general feature of interaction with ambiguous personalities in a philosophical interview: (1) the interviewer should not make extreme judgments in advance; (2) We have no right to remove some ambiguous philosophers from discourse, and communication with them is a personal matter of the interviewer. But philosophical community should produce the criteria for exact distinction between the sphere of ethically unacceptable and realm of uncertain. (shrink)

La présente contribution propose une étude de la périphérie gauche au sein d’un corpus oral multigenres, représentant douze activités de communication orale, annoté syntaxiquement et prosodiquement. La segmentation discursive du corpus en unités de base du discours (BDU) résulte d’une coïncidence entre unités syntaxiques et prosodiques, correspondant à des encodages linguistiques distincts mais complémentaires. Partant du postulat selon lequel ces unités discursives remplissent une fonction cognitive dans la planification et l’interprétation du discours, nous nous intéressons à l’étude de leur (...) périphérie gauche. Ce lieu, qui constitue le point d’ancrage du message, joue en effet un rôle important dans la négociation de la structure discursive. Dans l’objectif d’étudier les stratégies discursives à l’œuvre dans les différents genres du corpus, nous faisons l’inventaire des types formels observés et étudions finalement les fonctions discursives que ces éléments périphériques peuvent revêtir. (shrink)

In ancient Greek the line between direct and indirect discourse appears blurred. In this essay I examine the tendency of Greek writers to slip from indirect into direct speech. I explain the apparent difference between modern English and ancient Greek speech reporting in terms of a development from orality to literacy.

This study examines the relationship between person-referencing terms and attorney and judges’ stances during oral argument in three US state supreme courts as each considered whether its existing state law could restrict marriage to one man and one woman. After reviewing past work on stancetaking and person referencing, I provide background on appellate oral argument and the three cases. Combining discourse analysis with simple quantitative coding, the study shows that attorneys’ and judges’ choices of terms for gay (...) parties and the frequency of their use marked the stance of appellate parties toward same-sex marriage. Then, I describe how person-referencing terms for gays, both in the larger society and in appellate courts, changed in the 20 years preceding the cases. The article concludes by arguing for the value of studying state appellate court discourse; I also reflect about the complexities in linking changes in usage of person-referencing terms with attitudinal stance changes. (shrink)

This article argues that in the contests between Demosthenes and Aeschines, their insulting depictions of each other highlight the mouth as a prominent vehicle for communicating ideas about intemperance. Much of the imagery in the speeches lampoons oratorical delivery, especially vocal tone and deportment, which perceptibly project the speakers' characters. While Demosthenes is a piping chatterbox and Aeschines a voluble shouter, both extremes are characterized by an overuse or misuse of the mouth and its vocal organs. These insulting portrayals of (...) the mouth's capacities contribute to a larger abusive discourse that develops around professional speakers during this period. (shrink)

This paper examines evidentiality and epistemic modality in Quechua narrative discourse from the central highlands of Peru. Huamalíes Quechua falls into the broad Quechua ‘I’ dialect grouping established by Alfredo Torero ; evidential usage here can be compared to that of southern Conchucos Quechua as studied by Diane and Daniel Hintz while it differs in interesting ways from the Quechua ‘II’ dialects of southern Peru as studied by Faller. The analysis focuses on an orally performed traditional narrative that deals (...) with the theme of social interaction between a human protagonist and a spirit being of the ‘other world’. It describes the human protagonist’s gradual realization of the nature of the spirit being with whom he has become involved; evidential and epistemic markings grammatically structure this transition from conjecture, to supposition, to direct witness. The aim is to show how the story’s cultural content, and the way in which evidentials and epistemic modality are operationalized, are mutually entailing. Form and content taken together throw light both on how evidentiality and epistemic modality work in social interaction and on how Amerindian understandings of the interface between the ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ worlds, and between ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’, inform grammatical usage. (shrink)

Ownership is an important identity marker. It provides people with a sense of autonomy, rootedness and opportunity. This essay examines the oral submissions of civil organisations to the Joint Constitutional Review Committee about the issue of land expropriation without compensation. The discussion pays specific attention to the philosophical understandings of land and identity that emerged during the hearings. Three dominant trajectories came into play, namely land as commodity, land as social space and land as spiritual inheritance. Some submissions espoused (...) more than one view, which indicates that the boundaries between the identified paradigms are permeable. However, even those presentations tended to prioritise one approach above the others. Besides identifying the main approaches to land and identity, this essay also provides an immanent critique of their moral assumptions. In contrast to a transcendental approach, an immanent critique asks questions from 'within' and evaluates paradigms in terms of their plausibility, universal applicability, ethical consistency and moral integrity. (shrink)

Disruptions in theory of mind faculties and the ability to relate to an intersubjective reality are widely thought to be crucial to schizophrenic symptomology. This paper applies a cognitive linguistic framework to analyze spontaneous perspective-taking in two corpora of stories told by people with a schizophrenia diagnosis. We elicited natural narrative language use through life story interviews and a guided storytelling task and analyzed the linguistic construal of viewpoint in these stories. For this analysis, we developed a reliable and widely (...) applicable viewpoint model that allows for the categorization and quantification of speakers’ linguistic presentation and navigation of spatiotemporal domains. We found that our participants skillfully presented, navigated and embedded different narrative viewpoints through a variety of linguistic viewpoint devices. They presented complex viewpoints of other people in both the here-and-now of the interaction and the there-and-then of a narrative, and made use of transition markers to demarcate spatiotemporal discourse domains. We found no differences in viewpoint variables when comparing their guided stories to a control group. If problems with intersubjectivity are indeed an essential part of schizophrenia, an explanation of how this group can take on and navigate complex linguistic viewpoints in natural narrative interaction is called for. (shrink)

An important but unstudied event in US legal institutions is when judges question plaintiff and defense attorneys about the issue that brings them to an appeals hearing before a state supreme court. In this article I analyze judges' questioning during the oral argument phase of the New York Court of Appeals' hearing of Hernandez v. Robles, a case concerning whether the state was violating same-sex couples' constitutional rights by denying them access to marriage. The article's purpose is to show (...) how the content, format, and language style of judges' questioning turns constructs the judges as persons possessing particular attitudes, judicial philosophies, political leanings, and personalities. The article provides a quantitative overview of the 186 questioning turns and analyzes the discourse in selected episodes to evidence how features of questioning generate identity inferences. The conclusion considers how the oral argument phase of Appeals Court proceedings contributes to larger discourses of the law. (shrink)

The first concrete presentation of phenomenological method in the philosophy of communication and the first systematic look at Henry Grattan, 18thó19th century Irish statesman. Individual chapters cover the method of semiotic phenomenology as it applies to the specific practice of rhetorical criticism and to the general use of phenomenology as a research procedure. Co-published with the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology.

Our thesis is that reasoning plays a greater—or at least a different—role in understanding oral discourse such as lectures and speeches than it does in understanding comparatively long written discourse. For example, both reading and listening involve framing hypotheses about the direction the discourse is headed. But since a reader can skip around to check and revise hypotheses, the reader’s stake in initially getting it right is not as great as the listener’s, who runs the risk (...) of getting hopelessly lost. We also consider how representing the content of discourse and dealing with its pragmatic logic differs in reading and listening. (shrink)

Una de las características más notables de los numerosos estudios sobre lectura en voz alta es que no han prestado atención a los jóvenes universitarios. Es más, casi en la totalidad de casos, la lectura en ambientes universitarios se asocia a la lectura silenciosa (Duncan, 2015). Tal como señala la profesora Duncan (2015, 2018, 2020; Duncan y Freeman, 2019), una de las mayores expertas británicas en cuestiones de lectura en voz alta y alfabetización oral en adultos, existen cientos de (...) investigaciones sobre los efectos de la lectura en voz alta en niños, adolescentes y en la tercera edad. Ortlieb y Young (2016) explican que esto se debe a que las ayudas económicas a la investigación buscan, por un lado, potenciar la educación infantil y prevenir dificultades de aprendizaje y, por el otro, frenar algunas enfermedades mentales degenerativas propias de la vejez. Del mismo modo, existe una creencia generalizada que dice que esta lectura es cosa de niños, que es una práctica para llevarse a cabo en clases de primaria y secundaria y que, con suerte, algunos padres la implementan cada noche con sus vástagos con la esperanza de despertarles el hábito de la lectura por placer (Cassany, 2007; Israel y Duffy, 2014). Pero a nivel universitario, se presenta como un procedimiento casi anecdótico, entre otras razones, por la falta de formación del profesorado (Warner et al., 2016). Incluso en el reciente estudio de Duncan (2020), esta afirma que su libro no trata sobre cómo trabajar esta lectura en el aula universitaria sino más bien de examinar los hábitos de lectura en voz alta de adultos en el siglo XXI. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Scrivere nell'anima: verità, dialettica e persuasione in Platone; and: Oralità e scrittura in PlatoneFrancisco J. GonzalezFranco Trabattoni. Scrivere nell'anima: verità, dialettica e persuasione in Platone. Firenze: La Nouva Italia Editrice, 1994. Pp. 396. Paper, 24000 Lire.Franco Trabattoni. Oralità e scrittura in Platone. Milano: Università Degli Studi di Milano, 1999. Pp. 125. Paper, 16000 Lire.Trabattoni's masterful 1994 book, which the shorter 1999 book supplements in important ways, offers nothing (...) less than a refreshingly new and provocative interpretation of Plato's philosophy as a whole that makes it neither "conclusive-dogmatic" nor "problematic-sceptical" (7, 41-47, 161, 361-3). For Plato, on Trabattoni's account, while objective truth exists, any logos is incapable of fully expressing it and therefore refutable (158). On the other hand, dialectic can arrive at a logos sufficient (hikanos) for persuading a particular interlocutor in the context of a particular discussion (119-120), and thus for ethical and political action (330). Truth is therefore to be found onlyin dialogue (75-6, 338): that is, only where one person persuades another (249, 252, 328-9; 1999, 75). Persuasion and homologia are thus a necessary, though not sufficient condition of truth: only when capable of responding repeatedly to a wide variety of questions and objections does a persuasion deserve to be called "true" (158-9, 252, 329). This view rejects both the sophistical identification of truth with persuasion as such and the dogmatic identification of truth with universal doctrines.Because persuasion and homologia are thus essential to it, philosophy cannot be an objective science but must always be at its core a form of rhetoric (239, and thus protreptic and ad hominem, 165-6, 355, 359), which is what Trabattoni takes the Phaedrus to show (48-99). In 1999 Trabattoni brilliantly demonstrated the unity of the Phaedrus by showing how both the discussion of eros and the critique of writing are closely linked to this conception of philosophy as rhetoric (54-93). Philosophy is not, however, the kind of rhetoric that, focused on words rather than truth, fails to persuade in a way that is stable and enduring (87; 1999, 75-6).In the course of defending his "dialectical-dialogical" interpretation, Trabattoni provides an extraordinarily thorough and insightful critique of another interpretation that claims to offer a new Plato and that has become very influential in Trabattoni's native Italy: the "esotericist" interpretation, according to which fundamental questions left open by the dialogues are answered by a doctrine of principles which Plato communicated only orally. Trabattoni's 1999 book provides a very helpful account of the history and motives of the debate surrounding Plato's unwritten teachings, with regard to both their content and their significance (1-42). I see the following points of Trabattoni's critique as seriously challenging and, if unanswered, even discrediting the esotericist position: [End Page 269]1) While the esotericists interpret the critique of writing in the Phaedrus as arguing for the superiority of oral discourse as such, Trabattoni interprets it as arguing instead for the superiority of the dialogical situation in which interlocutors can be chosen and their questions and objections addressed (19-26; 1999, 83). Fixed oral doctrines would be no more dialogical than written doctrines and thus no more capable of engendering knowledge "in the soul" (63), much less of constituting this knowledge (25). What would be superior to Plato's writings, according to the Phaedrus, is a dialogue with Plato, not what Plato said orally, lifted out of its dialogical context and reported in writing by Aristotle (115; 1999, 84-5, 124). Trabattoni interprets the Seventh Letter, in his complementary accounts of 1994 and 1999, as similarly contradicting, rather than confirming, the esotericist interpretation (210-11; 1999, 116-9).2) Thomas Szlezàk has interpreted those passages where the main interlocutor deliberately leaves something out of the discussion ("Aussparungstellen") as referring to unwritten doctrines. Trabattoni argues that they are instead meant to indicate to the unknown reader, whose possible objections and questions cannot be anticipated, the possibility of proceeding further in the discussion (112-3, 182; 1999, 124). "[W]hen the dialogues are silent, they are silent always where there no... (shrink)

Drawing from the works of Plato and more contemporary philosophers such as Bakhtin, Buber, Taylor, and Gadamer, On Dialogue explores the necessity of dialogue to being. Author Dmitri Nikulin argues that dialogue is not just a form of communication, but it is the very conditio humana. Nikulin provides a systematic account of dialogue and its role in philosophy, literature, and oral discourse.

According to a philosophical tradition, it is trivial to speak about dissensus: the incompatibility of meaning and the dispute are charcteritics of the life of the philosopical reflection. In its most radical sense, though, the notion of dissensus is not only opposed to the possibility of reaching consensus, but concerns the possibility of discourse itself. As such, dissensus confronts philosophy with an impossibility that challenges its evidence. How to approach this impossibility? I argue that the problem of dissensus is (...) not just a question of language, but that it is necessary to take into consideration the relation between language and subjectivity. This relation is a central issue in the writings of Maurice Blanchot as well as in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas: for both of them, ‘language’ is in the phenomenological sense of the word an ‘experience’ in which the whole problem of subjectivity is involved. But at the same time, this experience is the origin of a profound difference between the two friends. Analysing the question of subjectivity in its relation to the other, Levinas is able to show why language plays a fundamental role in the promotion and the constitution of a subjectivity that is obliged to respond in the first person. Blanchot, however, approaches language in the experience of writing where subjectivity looses grip and cannot but disappear. The distinction between written language and oral discourse therefore seems to be crucial with regard to the problem of subjectivity. The explicitation of this distinction enables me to specify the condition of dissensus. (shrink)

This paper examines disagreement strategies employed by speakers of Jordanian Spoken Arabic with a view to finding out whether variables like gender and social status affect the linguistic choices and disagreement strategies they employ. The subjects are 28 Jordanian Arabic-speaking students at the University of Jordan. The researchers analyze the students’ interactional recorded responses to a set of stimuli included in an oral discourse completion task prepared for this purpose. The ODCT comprises six scenarios in which the respondent (...) is requested to disagree with two peers, two higher-status interlocutors and two lower-status interlocutors. The findings show that male and female subjects’ disagreement strategies tend to be influenced by the topic under discussion rather than by the gender and status of their interlocutor. However, some topics are found to be more provocative to females than to males. (shrink)