For Kant, education was understood as the ‘means’ to become human—and that is to say, rational. For Rousseau by contrast, and the many child‐centred educators that followed him, the adult world, far from representing reason, is essentially corrupt and given over to the superficialities of worldly vanity. On this view, the child, as a product of nature, is essentially good and will learn all she needs to know from experience. Both positions have their own problems, but beyond this ‘internal debate’, (...) the change in the content of education (i.e. child‐rearing and schooling) is now furthermore due to a radical pluralism that has swept the world. Moreover, there may be differences in value between individual parents and between values held within the family and those held in society at large. Among other reasons this has put more generally children's (and parents’) ‘rights’ on the agenda, which differs from thinking of education in terms of a ‘practice’. The paper develops this latter concept and the criticisms to which it has been subject and argues that there is no necessary incompatibility between initiation into an existing practice and transforming that practice in some way, if it is emphasized how practices are learned and enacted. It then turns to the tendency in education and child‐rearing, as in other spheres of human interaction, for more laws and codes of conduct and to call upon experts for all kind of matters. It argues that performativity rules on the level of the practitioner, of the experts, and even on the level of educational research. It argues that many governments have adopted in matters of schooling the language of output and school effectiveness and that something similar is now bound to happen in the sphere of child‐rearing (with talk of parenting skills and courses). This is made credible due to a particular model of educational research, i.e. an empiricist quasi‐causal model of explaining human behaviour. The paper then discusses the problems with this stance and argues that we should part company from the entrepreneurial manipulative educator to open up a sphere of responsiveness for the child and that for these reasons, the concept of the ‘practice of child‐rearing’ should be revisited. Insisting on the complexities that have to be taken into account and thus surpassing a discourse of effectiveness and output as well as of codes of conduct and rulings of courts of law, may help us to focus on what is really at stake: to lead a meaningful life, to be initiated into what is ‘real for us’ and what we value. It concludes that thus restoring a place for child‐rearing as a practice will do justice to the responsiveness to which each child is entitled. (shrink)

The article is focused on some aspects of development adult learning and education policy in Ukraine from stakeholders` perspective, and active role of the Ukrainian civil society in this discourse. This was facilitated by conducting analytical research and further advocacy activities on the protection and representation of interests in Ukraine in 2018-2019. Adult learning and education following the change in UNESCO’s terminology from «adult education» to «adult learning and education» (abbreviated - ALE), is interpreted as a permanent activity aimed (...) at acquiring, recognizing and applying key skills. Acquisition of new skills, abilities and knowledge by adults usually occurs after they receive basic education and enter the labour market. In European practice, this covers formal, non-formal and informal forms of adult learning. Stakeholders were involved in the analytical re- search through a survey of experts; participation in a practical seminar on peer review workshop, which was held in the format of a progress meeting to present the Policy Research Report and discuss the preliminary results; virtual discussion of analytical documents. Usually, adult learning policy promotes social well-being and integration, employment and active civil participation. Ukraine lack of consolidate active state adult learning policy during the whole period of its independence since 1991. The problem-solving options proposed in the research and validated by stakeholders are presented in this article. The article will be interesting for social philosophy, educational & learning academic and non-academic researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. (shrink)

The present study investigates the collocation-induced semiosis of the linguistic sign AFRICA as being used in the academic section of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (known as COCA) (Davies, Mark. 2008. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): one billion words, 1990-present. Available online at https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/). Drawing on a hybrid theoretical framework, the study utilizes Charles Peirce’s (1931–58) semiotic model of the sign and Roman Jakobson’s theory of “markedness” (Jakobson, Roman. 1972. Verbal communication. Scientific American (Special Issue, September 1). (...) 73–80) as well as Stuart Hall’s treatment of “code” (Hall, Stuart. 1980. Encoding/decoding. In Stuart Hall, Doothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, & Paul Willis (eds.), Culture, media, language: Working papers in cultural studies, 1972–79, 117–127. New York: Routledge) and John Swales’ notion of “discourse community” (Swales, John M. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). The study empirically tests the hypothesis that, in a given discourse domain, the relevant interpretant can decode a linguistic sign (representamen) in the co-text of its marked collocates in a way that is collocationally used via the two modes of iconic and indexical signification. The concordance-based analysis conducted in the present study offers two findings, theoretical and practical. First, the study proposes the theoretical concept of collocational semiosis as one way of methodologically integrating the study of collocation into a structural-linguistic analytic framework that richly intersects with the genre-based notion of “discourse community.” Second, in the academic discourse community of the COCA, to the expert interpretant, the representamen AFRICA has been decoded due to its marked collocates which have been technically used in two modes of signification, viz. iconic and indexical. (shrink)

This article explores some of the issues raised by Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) and the relationship between medicine and law, specifically the discourses which feature in the courtroom portraying motherhood and expectations of parenting. These discourses are often hidden yet play a determining role in prosecutions for alleged maltreatment of children involving medically unexplained infant death syndrome. We offer a critique of MSbP and seek to unveil the assumptions about mothers, the parent predominantly affected by the ‘diagnosis’, and mothering (...) that underlie the association of women accused of deliberating harming their children. We suggest such insights are valuable because although the syndrome has never acquired a clear medical or legal definition, it has had repeated appearances in the literature and courtroom over the last 25 years and has more recently attracted attention from government, health care practitioners, academics and the media. We explore these issues through an examination of two recent Court of Appeal decisions in England: those of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings. (shrink)

This article examines the role of expertise in public debate, specifically the ways in which expertise can be mimicked and deployed as “pseudo-expert discourse” to generate legitimacy for views that have otherwise been discredited. The article argues that pseudo-expert discourse having a clear public health or safety impact should be regulated. There have been some attempts to legally regulate this speech through various means; however, these attempts at regulation have been met with fierce resistance, because of free-speech concerns. (...) The article suggests that these appeals to free speech in the context of pseudo-expert discourse are both misguided and misplaced. Moreover, because speakers with the relevant expertise or perceived expertise are able to secure uptake of their views, they have a moral responsibility to not deceive or mislead audiences, and may also have various legal responsibilities. (shrink)

This investigation examines the discursive history and contemporary courtroom discourse of expert witnesses in Anglo-American courts, incorporating the methods of Michel Foucault into a Critical Discourse Analysis framework. The history of experts is marked by a profound discontinuity in the role of experts, during the late medieval period, with experts relegated to a witness role instead of a juror role - that of the privately knowledgeable investigator - they previously held. Examination of the discourse (...) of contemporary experts in three high-profile US trials documents a different witness status for experts along three parameters: amplification of question responses; the use of the contrastive discourse marker well to express professional disagreement with their interlocutors; and the embedding of professional practices into so clauses. These parameters stand in sharp contrast to ordinary witness discourse. The study concludes with a discussion of the stakes in legal control of expert witnesses including asymmetrical access to experts by economic status, the possible suppression of some expert testimony by recent US Supreme Court decisions, and the hierarchicalization of expert knowledge. (shrink)

There are certain areas of study where present-day semiotics of law can learn from history. This study examines the discursive history and historical courtroom discourse of expert witnesses in eighteenth-century American court. The aim of the study is to explore the use of linguistic strategies and resources in constructing an expert identity in relation to the factors which influence those choices. Instead of taking expertise as being lodged in the pre-given label, such as a doctor, this article argues that (...) such an identity has to be constructed and negotiated, and reveals how such an identity is constructed and negotiated through trial talk during a hostile discursive environment. The historical courtroom is an interesting site in this regard, as it was the period when expert witnesses did not enjoy the same social status as their present-day peers, which came with the absence of discursive privileges as well. It is found that experts mainly relied on expansions of response as the resources to counterbalance skeptical attitudes and hostile attempts aimed to undermine their testimony that accompanied their vulnerable status and image and to gain discursive control during the interaction. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to (...) treat COVID-19. To comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

The human microbiome is changing the way experts and non-experts think about germs and microorganisms. This essay is a gender analysis of contemporary discourses surrounding the human reproductive microbiome, specifically the vaginal microbiota and the penile microbiota. I first historically situate the human reproductive microbiome within the germ theory of disease. Then, I draw on Heather Paxson’s Foucauldian and Latourian concept of microbiopolitics to argue that microbiopolitics is not only about how humans should live with microorganisms; but it (...) also impacts how humans and microbes live together as gendered beings. I illustrate this gendering through two figures: the microbial mother and the independent organ. (shrink)

Paul Smeyers’ keynote address to the PESA 2007 Conference, ‘The Entrepreneurial Self and Informal Education: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’ provides a timely call for questioning the governing of the family. This paper draws upon Smeyers’ key concerns to explore both historical and contemporary trends in clustering government agencies, under the guidance of child development experts. The guidance of two expert groups is problematised, with particular attention to an absence of commitment to Māori perspectives (...) of education and child‐rearing. Such an absence reflects, in New Zealand, a dangerous undermining of the historic treaty between the British and Māori. The paper then challenges, with brief reference to Jacques Derrida's discussions on autobiography and Freud's Legacy, the identity of expert groups advocating early intervention in the lives of families measured as a burden on economic and social progress. The paper posits that perhaps it is the developmental expert that requires some form of early intervention. (shrink)

The high predictive accuracy of contemporary machine learning-based AI systems has led some scholars to argue that, in certain cases, we should grant them epistemic expertise and authority over humans. This approach suggests that humans would have the epistemic obligation of relying on the predictions of a highly accurate AI system. Contrary to this view, in this work we claim that it is not possible to endow AI systems with a genuine account of epistemic expertise. In fact, relying on accounts (...) of expertise and authority from virtue epistemology, we show that epistemic expertise requires a relation with understanding that AI systems do not satisfy and intellectual abilities that these systems do not manifest. Further, following the Distribution Cognition theory and adapting an account by Croce on the virtues of collective epistemic agents to the case of human-AI interactions we show that, if an AI system is successfully appropriated by a human agent, a _hybrid_ epistemic agent emerges, which can become both an epistemic expert and an authority. Consequently, we claim that the aforementioned hybrid agent is the appropriate object of a discourse around trust in AI and the epistemic obligations that stem from its epistemic superiority. (shrink)

In this study, I examined 12 reports published by a neoliberal think tank proposing to reshape public education in New Zealand. In terms of the larger social processes and structures involved, the think tank’s self-declared positioning of this advocacy is that of a primary definer, ostensibly an expert voice, communicating through the media. My two research goals in this study were to identify the types of educational change being promoted and to uncover the discursive means employed. The sample of 12 (...) reports, published from 2013 to 2018, comprised 647 pages of text. I performed three types of analysis: thematic analysis to identify the ideology of the advocacy, genre analysis of their discursive resources and corpus analysis. The thematic findings reveal proposals to reshape public education through performativity, managerialism and marketization. The genre analysis found the reports followed the structure of the business case genre and drew on elements of business memos, data presentation, sound bite and opinion journalism. The corpus findings provide further linguistic evidence for the main themes. (shrink)

Over recent years, science and technology have been reassessed increasingly in ethical terms. Particularly for life science governance, ethics has become the dominant discourse. In the course of this ‘‘ethical turn’’ national ethics councils were set up throughout Europe and in the United States to advice politics in ethically controversial issues such as stem cell research and genetic testing. Ethics experts have become subject to traditional warnings against expertocracy: they are suspected to unduly influence political decision-making. However, any (...) reliable ethics expertise has to reflect societal disagreements in moral issues. Therefore, expert dissent is a normal feature of legitimate ethics expertise. Based on theoretical considerations we argue that in principle, expert dissent does not cause problems for political legitimacy; rather, it enhances the salience of politics: obviously decisions on ethical issues cannot be taken on the basis of expert knowledge alone. We therefore conclude that expert dissent, not consent, supports politics. Focussing on Germany and Austria, we show how politics deal with expert dissent in practice. While in Germany politics acknowledge dissent and use it to foster a fundamental political debate, Austrian politics attribute authoritative power to ethics expertise and try to construct an overall consensus. This illustrates how the drawing of boundaries between politic and expertise differs. (shrink)

Making use of Kafka's The Trial, this book explores the theory behind modern legal discourse. In order to investigate the subject the author explores a range of questions: how and why does the legal discourse of a modern state conceal the experienced meanings of a non-knower; if one has been harmed, does the legal discourse recognize the harm; does the harm sometimes slip through the juridical categorizations; if recognized, is the harm re-presented through a vocabulary, grammar and (...) gestural style which are familiar to the expert knowers but not to the person harmed? (shrink)

Drawing upon lived experiences, this article explores challenges facing feminist academics sharing work in the media, and the gendered, raced intersections of ‘being visible’ in digital cultures which enable direct, public response. We examine online backlash following publication of an article about representations of Meghan Markle’s feminism being co-opted by the patriarchal monarchy. While in it we argued against vilification of Markle, we encountered what we term distortions of research remediation as news outlets reported our work under headlines such as (...) ‘academics accuse Meghan of dropping feminism like a hot potato’. Negative responses were polarised: anti-Meghan, and pro-Meghan. In response, we received accusations of sexist, racist bullying, debate over definitions of feminism, claims feminism has gone ‘too far’, variously worded directives to ‘shut up’, gendered personal insults, and threats of doxxing. This article examines the tenor of public discourse around feminism and visible feminists. It questions the responsibility of institutions benefiting from public intellectuals for the wellbeing of employees in the public eye, particularly in the anti-intellectual socio-political context of Brexit and Donald Trump, where the costs for ‘visible’ women and feminist activism are ever higher. It also considers our responsibility as researchers to ensure our contributions to public discourse do not exacerbate existing harms of a white-supremacist, classist society. This article interrogates the risks – of misrepresentation, hyper-visibility, and reputational, psychological and potentially physical harm – faced by those engaging in acts of public feminism. (shrink)

In his Discourses, Rousseau argues that inequalities of rank, wealth, and power are the inevitable result of the civilizing process. If inequality is intolerable - and Rousseau shows with unparalledled eloquence how it robs us not only of our material but also of our psychological independence - then how can we recover the peaceful self-sufficiency of life in the state of nature? We cannot return to a simpler time, but measuring the costs of progress may help us to imagine alternatives (...) to the corruption and oppressive conformity of modern society. Rousseau's sweeping account of humanity's social and political development epitomizes the innovative boldness of the Englightment, and it is one of the most provocative and influential works of the eighteenth century. This new translation includes all Rousseau's own notes, and Patrick Coleman's introduction builds on recent key scholarship, considering particularly the relationship between political and aesthetic thought. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a one-year project examining British press coverage of the genetically modified food debate during the first half of 2003, and both expert and non-expert reactions to that coverage. Two pro-GM newspapers and two anti-GM newspapers were selected for analysis, and all articles mentioning GM during the period in question were stored in a machine readable database. This was then analyzed using corpus linguistic and discourse analytic techniques to reveal recurrent wording, themes and content. (...) This text analysis was complemented by 12 interviews with experts involved in the communication of GM issues, and 12 focus-group sessions in which members of the public reacted to selected newspaper texts and other GM material. Both in the press and in public reaction, the issue of GM was found to be intimately associated with other political events of the time, notably the invasion of Iraq. Except among experts, there was little awareness of the official national debate and issues were approached in more general terms. Pro-GM characterization of the issues as primarily scientific, both by newspapers and experts, was rejected by the anti-GM press and campaigners, and by the focus-group participants. They assessed the issues in a more global frame, rejecting scientists and companies as unreliable. In addition, they linked both US and British GM policy to the invasion of Iraq, and, by analogy, rejected pro-GM arguments as untrustworthy. (shrink)

How can laypeople justifiably distinguish between reliable experts and unreliable experts? This problem, usually called the 'problem of expert identification', is highly debated in recent social epistemology. A great amount of work has been undertaken in order to find satisfactory criteria for identifying experts in different branches of the empirical sciences, but hardly in the domain of moral knowledge. This asymmetry between social and moral epistemology is the motivation behind my paper. I reconsider the epistemological problem of (...) identifying moral experts by applying identification criteria developed in general social epistemology to the area of morality. As I will show, all of these criteria turn out to be inappropriate for identifying moral experts. This result seems implausible, because it conflicts with the observation that moral experts play an important role in public and scientific discourse, in ethics committees and boards. But this is not a real contradiction as I will illustrate by explaining which tasks these experts can, in my view, fulfill. (shrink)

Through the analysis of the discourse of an interpreter-mediated expert witness examination in a Korean criminal courtroom, this paper examines challenges in obtaining evidence from an expert witness through unskilled interpreters and the related complexity of participation status during the multiparty interactions, namely the courtroom examination. This paper, drawing on the participation framework theories, demonstrates how all participants are engaged in negotiation and interpretation of the meaning of the expert testimony. The two unskilled interpreters, who are primarily responsible for (...) interpreting, collaborate with each other in order to achieve communication when they face problems or difficulties in the other’s interpreted rendition. However, despite the collective efforts to accurately obtain and understand the expert evidence accurately, such efforts are not always successful in the absence of skilled interpreters. Based on these findings, this paper argues that a team of unskilled interpreters is not sufficient to accomplish the demanding task of interpreting expert evidence, and further, the court needs to be meticulous about the quality of courtroom interpreting which have potential implications for achieving just legal outcomes. (shrink)

Research on an expert system regarding unemployment insurance law has pointed to the difficulties of explicitly representing temporal relations. The question has been addressed in the artificial intelligence literature with respect to planning systems and linguistic analysis. The approaches adopted do not appear to be directly transposable to legal discourse. The problem seems so far to have escaped notice amongst researchers attempting to develop legal expert systems. The paper explores in a preliminary way how lawyers use temporal concepts. It (...) is submitted that “legal time” only partly overlaps with real time. A sketch of a formalization of temporal relations in law, following J. F. Allen's approach, is presented. (shrink)

Discourse is central in promoting – or hindering – social change. This paper discusses the ethical-political dilemmas that academics face in developing progressive discourses on social welfare in the hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism. A central dilemma concerns the (implicit or explicit) target of their discourse. Speaking to elites reproduces dominant values and interests, reinforcing central elements of neoliberalism such as economisation and de-politicisation. Moreover, this approach remains technocratic (i.e. academics act as experts), thereby failing to address citizens’ (...) distrust towards ‘scientific evidence’ that characterises the hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism. A possible alternative is to work together with civil society and marginalised groups for promoting an oppositional discourse. In this way scholars may contribute to the democratisation of the public sphere but may fail to influence the content of policies, remaining trapped in marginal political positions. The paper illustrates this tension focusing on ‘social investment’. This discourse – which is today the most important framework for welfare reform among academics – emphasises the economic benefits of social policy for promoting alternatives to welfare retrenchment. Building on a research project aimed at re-thinking social investment from Sen's capability perspective, the paper discusses the conditions for developing a post-neoliberal discourse on social welfare. (shrink)

Offering a cautionary tale about the abuses of paradigm‐shift rhetoric in secondary school reforms, the paper shows potential misuses and ethical effects of the relativistic language‐game in post‐compulsory education. Those initiating the shift often shelter their reform from the criticism of non‐adepts, marginalizing expert teachers that adhere to ‘antiquated’ or ‘folk’ pedagogies. The rhetoric herds educators uncritically into the citadel of new discourses and policies that often lack practical foundations; consequently, teachers often dissimulate compliance to the reform in order to (...) evade surveillance within such disciplinary apparatuses as teacher training and regimes of inspection. Turning to Foucault, the author views education reforms in terms of power relations within a form of governance: ‘games of truth’, or political and veridical discourses in which dividing practices for sorting out ‘sound’ and ‘unsound’ teaching practices become institutionalised. Wittgenstein's attention to initiate training in practices points to an alternative to naïve forms of relativism; educators must incorporate the new techniques they gradually master and adapt within a viable, shared form of life. Instead of teachers’ normalization and subjugation in what Foucault refers to as education ‘blocks’, new pedagogic practices are better adopted ‘freely’ as arts of self‐transformation. With Hacking, Foucault and Wittgenstein's accounts of the true‐and‐false are blended into an ‘historical ontology’ of present and emergent paradigms: a critique of the limits set down within education reforms that sanction or legitimize certain conduct. Sympathetic to the journal call, this kind of philosophical investigation and genealogical critique of teaching practices gives us a perspicuous view of the local, contingent and at times arbitrary nature of change initiatives. Critical awareness of how our pictures of education can captivate us heightens respect for professional eclecticism. Without ignoring the mandates and official scripts of public education reforms, experienced educators need to be able to conserve their tried and warranted ‘best practices’, while negotiating ranges of tolerance for alternative means. (shrink)

The role of scientists as experts is crucial to public policymaking. However, the expert role is contested and unsettled in both public and scholarly discourse. In this paper, I provide a systematic account of the role of scientists as experts in policymaking by examining whether there are any normatively relevant differences between this role and the role of scientists as researchers. Two different interpretations can be given of how the two roles relate to each other. The separability (...) view states that there is a normatively relevant difference between the two roles, whereas the inseparability view denies that there is such a difference. Based on a systematic analysis of the central aspects of the role of scientists as experts – that is, its aim, context, mode of output, and standards, I propose a moderate version of the separability view. Whereas the aim of scientific research is typically to produce new knowledge through the use of scientific method for evaluation and dissemination in internal settings, the aim of the expert is to provide policymakers and the public with relevant and applicable knowledge that can premise political reasoning and deliberation. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines an exemplary part of the Soviet media discussion following the Chernobyl disaster. She traces transformations in this discourse affecting the concepts of risk and uncertainty and indicates their relevance for the reconfiguration of the relationships between the state, scientific experts, and the public. Chernobyl occurred during a period of unprecedented potential for change: in the wake of Gorbachev’s perestroika, newly emerging environmental groups gradually managed to gain access to a previously closed forum, (...) the national print media. During the ensuing public debates between environmentalists and energy officials, nuclear risks or uncertainties were used as powerful, yet flexible, rhetorical tools for articulating political positions, for assigning or denying authority and legitimacy, and for reconceptualizing “the public.” The shorthand “Chernobyl” came to be deployed strategically to solicit change, to challenge old practices, and to legitimize the continuation and extension of these practices. (shrink)

The University of Michigan conference “Where Religion, Policy, and Bioethics Meet: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Islamic Bioethics and End-of-Life Care” in April 2011 addressed the issue of brain death as the prototype for a discourse that would reflect the emergence of Islamic bioethics as a formal field of study. In considering the issue of brain death, various Muslim legal experts have raised concerns over the lack of certainty in the scientific criteria as applied to the definition and diagnosis (...) of brain death by the medical community. In contrast, the medical community at large has not required absolute certainty in its process, but has sought to eliminate doubt through cumulative diagnostic modalities and supportive scientific evidence. This has recently become a principal model, with increased interest in data analysis and evidence-based medicine with the intent to analyze and ultimately improve outcomes. Islamic law has also long employed a systematic methodology with the goal of eliminating doubt from rulings regarding the question of certainty. While ample criticism of the scientific criteria of brain death (Harvard criteria) by traditional legal sources now exists, an analysis of the legal process in assessing brain death, geared toward informing the clinician’s perspective on the issue, is lacking. In this article, we explore the role of certainty in the diagnostic modalities used to establish diagnoses of brain death in current medical practice. We further examine the Islamic jurisprudential approach vis-à-vis the concept of certainty (yaqīn). Finally, we contrast the two at times divergent philosophies and consider what each perspective may contribute to the global discourse on brain death, understanding that the interdependence that exists between the theological, juridical, ethical, and medical/scientific fields necessitates an open discussion and active collaboration between all parties. We hope that this article serves to continue the discourse that was successfully begun by this initial interdisciplinary endeavor at the University of Michigan. (shrink)

Expertise is commonly viewed as a professionalized competence in a specific field. Expert professional identities are produced and reproduced through professional training and other socialization mechanisms, which work to generate for a specific group of individuals a specific set of expert skills and knowledge. In this paper, I examine participants’ orientations to their distinct expert professional identities from the perspective of deontic authority. Drawing on 15 video-recorded church workplace meetings between pastors and cantors as data, and conversation analysis as a (...) theoretical and methodological framework, I analyze situations where a non-expert participant makes a proposal that the expert participant orients to as reasonable to comply with. Specifically, I demonstrate how the expert participants respond to these proposals with displays of deontic authority, arguably in an attempt to maintain their expert identities in the face of their de facto compliance with the proposals. In these situations, the expert participants are shown to invoke a past decision of their own, a future decision of their own, or a pattern that is beyond both participants’ control. Each of these practices involves the expert participant balancing resistance and compliance by minimally acknowledging the content of the non-expert participant’s proposal, while excluding the non-expert from those who have deontic authority in the matter. In so doing, the expert speaker implies that the non-expert proposal speaker lacks procedural knowledge about the specific matters about which it is relevant to make proposals to experts and access to the distinct experiential perspective that characterizes expert perception of things. It is thus argued that, in this context, the mere claims of deontic authority, produced without any substantial displays of expert knowledge, can serve the maintenance of expert professional identities. (shrink)

The late antique rabbis of Roman Palestine were seasoned jurists, experts on exegesis and legal interpretation. Yet rabbinic literature does not theorize. A positive account of rabbinic conceptions of language therefore remains a desideratum. I choose an alternative approach. Legal reasoning relies on language to ground the determinacy of the law. Jurists must thus confront language when it threatens to undermine the latter. Conversely, they may hold language to safeguard legal determinacy. Drawing on insights from legal theory, I turn (...) to an unusual rabbinic rule of inference. Its earliest attested version suggests a universal possibility of inference “from the category of yes that of no, from the category of no that of yes.” I show that the ever-evolving uses of this rule allow us to observe a shift in linguistic attitude, increasingly acknowledging linguistic uncertainty. My findings tie in with recent advances in the study of rabbinic exegesis. (shrink)

Research on entrepreneurship as a policy discourse has focused mostly on relations between the discourse and targets of the policy, that is, actors intended to become entrepreneurial or entrepreneurs, while the role of policy implementers has received much less attention. The present study examines the ‘rationality’ of entrepreneurship policies by analyzing how actors in charge of the grassroots level policy implementation in the farming context use entrepreneurship discourse and argue for the communicative and interactive viability of their (...) mission. The analysis of stances and positioning in interview talk reveals that policy implementers are active discourse users who, on the one hand, are able to reflect on the dilemmas and problems inherent in their task but, on the other hand, use their rhetorical agency to maintain and defend their mission as promoters of entrepreneurship policy and to save and support their own face as experts. As a result, the implementation emerges as a delicately managed interaction process. (shrink)

This paper serves as a logical continuation of the article "Fake Science and Simulacra of Culture: Illusory Ideas about Slavic Paganism in Modern Russian Humanities", published in the journal "Voprosy Filosofii" in 2022. This paper was about the mechanism of the origin of illusory ideas about Slavic paganism and the reasons for their intrusion into scientific publications. Here we analyze the socio-cultural consequences that the functioning of this mechanism eventually leads to. The object of study in this article is the (...) modern scientific and parascientific ideas of Russians about the paganism of the ancient Slavs, and the subject of study is the infiltration of parascientific opinions about the ancient Slavs’ paganism in scientific and official business discourses in modern Russia. The methodological basis of the research work is a case study. The methodological arsenal includes also the hermeneutic analysis of a number of texts published in Russian scientific periodicals and serving as material for the author's reflection. In the course of the study, it was revealed that illusory ideas about Slavic paganism very easily infiltrate into various publications presented both in proceedings of the scientific conferences and in scientific journals. As a result, various parascientific (in particular, neo-pagan) constructs gain weight due to their transmission in scientific periodicals. The infiltration of simulacra of traditional culture into scientific discourse leads to the fact that representatives of the scientific community, performing various expert functions, become guides of these simulacra into official business discourse. Given the state's policy of preserving and developing traditional values, it can be expected that under the guise of preserving various folk traditions, modern parascientific constructs that actually have nothing to do with genuine historical and cultural heritage can receive support. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Konrad Lorenz's popularity in the United States has to be understood in the context of social concern about the mother‐infant dyad after World War II. Child analysts David Levy, René Spitz, Margarethe Ribble, Therese Benedek, and John Bowlby argued that many psychopathologies were caused by a disruption in the mother‐infant bond. Lorenz extended his work on imprinting to humans and argued that maternal care was also instinctual. The conjunction of psychoanalysis and ethology helped shore up the view that the (...) mother‐child dyad rests on an instinctual basis and is the cradle of personality formation. Amidst the Cold War emphasis on rebuilding an emotionally sound society, these views received widespread attention. Thus Lorenz built on the social relevance of psychoanalysis, while analysts gained legitimacy by drawing on the scientific authority of biology. Lorenz's work was central in a rising discourse that blamed the mother for emotional degeneration and helped him recast his eugenic fears in a socially acceptable way. (shrink)

Analysing how news media portray A.I. reveals what interpretative frameworks around the technology circulate in public discourses. This allows for critical reflections on the making of meaning in prevalent narratives about A.I. and its impact. While research on the public perception of datafication and automation is growing, only a few studies investigate news framing practices. The present study connects to this nascent research area by charting A.I. news frames in four internationally renowned media outlets: The New York Times, The Guardian, (...) Wired, and Gizmodo. The main goals are to identify dominant emphasis frames in AI news reporting over the past decade, to explore whether certain A.I. frames are associated with specific data risks, and what journalists and experts contribute to the media discourse. An automated content analysis serves for inductive frame detection, identification of risk references, and network analysis of news writers. The results show how A.I.’s ubiquity emerged rapidly in the mid-2010s, and that the news discourse became more critical over time. It is further argued that A.I. news reporting is an important factor in building critical data literacy among lay audiences. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to analyze how English-language versions of e-newspapers in the first two countries affected, China and Japan, which are non-English-speaking countries and have different socio-economic and political settings, have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic news and informed the global community. Design/methodology/approach A text-mining approach was used to explore experts’ thoughts as published by the two leading English-language newspapers in China and Japan from January to March 2020. This study analyzes the Opinion section, which mainly comprises editorial (...) and the op-ed section. The current study groups all editorial discussions and highlights into ten major aspects, which cover health, economy, politics, culture and others. Findings Within the first three months, the media in both China and Japan shifted their focus from health and preparedness to the economy, politics and social welfare. Governance and social welfare were key concerns in China’s news media, while, in contrast, global politics received the highest level of attention from experts in Japan’s news media. Environment and technologies aspects did not receive much attention by the expert’s columns. Originality/value At the initial stage of a world crisis, how leading nations and initially affected nations deal with the problem, how media play their role and guide mass population with experts’ thoughts are highlighted here. The understanding developed in this study can provide guidance to news media in other countries in playing effective roles in the management of this health crisis and catastrophes. (shrink)

ArgumentFranco's fascist regime in Spain (1939-1975) offers the possibility of exploring the complex relationship between media communication practices and the processes of production, circulation, and management of knowledge. The regime persistently used film, and later on television, as indoctrination and disciplining devices. These media thus served to shape the regime's representation, which largely relied on the generation of positive attitudes of adherence to the rulers through people's submission and obedience to experts. This article examines the changing nature of modernization (...) discourses and practices, as a fundamental element of the regime's propaganda strategies, and as portrayed in documentaries produced under its rule. The rhetoric of modernization involved an explicit deficit model of knowledge management, which aimed at legitimating the regime's deeds and policies in its first decades, as we shall see regarding colonial-medical documentaries produced for the official newsreel in the 1940s. However, the focus of such rhetoric, despite its enduring political aims, had to somehow open up as the relationship between experts and non-experts changed, both in epistemological and practical terms, such as in wildlife documentary films produced for television in the 1970s, the regime's last decade. (shrink)

Digital peddling of fake news is influential to persuasive political participation, with veritable social media platforms. Social media, with their instantaneous and widespread usage, have been exploited by ‘anonymous’ political influencers who fabricate and inundate internet community with unverified and false information. Using van Leeuwen’s Discourse Legitimation approach and insights from Discourse Analysis, this study analyses 120 purposively sampled fake news posts on Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter, shared during the 2019 general elections in Nigeria. WhatsApp allows for the (...) easy and fast sharing of fake news as it pulled the largest occurrence of legitimation strategies, followed by Facebook. Authorisation is the highest occurring legitimation strategy at 46.6% frequency; this is followed by Moralisation which has 27% and Rationalisation at 26.4%; while Mythopoesis did not feature at all in the sampled data, leaving it at 0%. In particular, expert and role model authority are most often deployed to validate fake news such as the demise and cloning of President Buhari, ruling party’s plan to rig and destabilise the 2019 election, massive corruption in the current administration and imminent ethnic violence. The study argues that these strategies are viable persuasive tools owing to their use of discourse markers like make-believe images, emotive language, appeal to emotions, rational conclusions, hateful comments, verbal indictment and coercive verbs. (shrink)

Analysing Representation: A Corpus and Discourse Textbook guides readers through the process of researching how people and phenomena are represented in discourse and introduces them to key tools they can use from corpus linguistics and (critical) discourse analysis. The book takes a step-by-step approach to introducing each concept and includes exercises and further reading to help readers check their progress and prepare for independent research. It is unique in introducing readers to a range of experts representing (...) the full range of work in this area. It is aimed at final-year undergraduate, taught postgraduate and doctoral level students, as well as scholars who are new to combining corpus and discourse methods to investigating representation. (shrink)

This study examined the relation between professional affiliation and the framing of expert congressional testimony about nicotine's addictiveness. Experts were chosen from three different types of sponsoring organizations: the tobacco industry, government, and independent research organizations, both pro- and anti-tobacco. The study sought to identify common technical biases and policy concerns that could define an overall “expert” attitude, as well as differences where the experts’ framing of nicotine addiction would reveal attempts to favor their own institutions. Semantic network (...) analysis was applied to each group's discourse, thereby clustering associated words that represented major themes in each type of expert group. Clusters revealed a common preoccupation with narrowly defined, lab-based evidence, but more locally, each group framed the issues to support its sponsor's strategy. (shrink)

Rights of nature is an idea that has come of age. In recent years, a diverse range of countries and jurisdictions have adopted these norms, which involve granting legal rights to nature or natural objects, such as rivers, forests, or ecosystems. This book critically examines the idea of natural objects as right-holders, and analyses legal cases, policies, and philosophical issues relating to this development. -/- Drawing on contributions from a range of experts in the field, Rights of Nature: A (...) Re-examination investigates the potential for this innovative idea to revolutionize the concepts of rights, standing, and recognition as traditionally understood in many legal systems. Taking as its starting point Stone’s influential 1972 article ‘Should Trees Have Standing?’, the book examines the progress rights of nature have made since that time, by identifying central themes, unifying principles, and key distinctions in how rights of nature discourse has been operationalized in the disciplines of law, philosophy, and the social sciences. These themes and principles are illustrated through a wide variety of examples, including ecosystem services, indigenous thinking, and ecological restoration, demonstrating how the relationship between humanity and the natural world may be transforming. -/- Taking a philosophical, political, and legal perspective, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law and policy, environmental ethics, and philosophy. (shrink)

In 2019 public trust in politicians was at an all-time low in many parts of the world. Then again, it had been low for quite some time.1 Public trust in epistemic authority is a more complicated matter. The success of many right-wing politicians—Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, etc.—is partly due to their efforts to discredit traditional sources of information, including the “mainstream media” and whichever scientific institutions prove inconvenient to their political interests. But worries about the erosion of epistemic standards in public (...) discourse are easily overstated, and some polling data have shown that publics are not as distrustful of experts as we might fear.2Nonetheless, there are some political and social... (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to explore and unravel the contents portrayed in online news discourses on massive open online courses (MOOCs). Considering sociological dimensions and journalistic strategies, this study examines how online news media reflects, shapes and informs narratives about the social acceptance and use of the MOOC model of learning. Design/methodology/approach Using the Gioia methodology as the overarching framework, this study adopted a two-staged qualitative content analysis of 1,162 online news items from the websites of the top seven online (...) English newspapers of India, published between May 2012 and September 2023. In subsequent semi-structured interviews with subject matter experts, broad themes were identified. In addition, this study integrated Van Dijk’s ideological square model with media content theories to comprehensively analyze the intricate complexities in media depictions of MOOCs. Findings While manifest content analysis revealed the emergence of 25 categories, latent content analysis unveiled six broad themes: “announcements, user stages, characteristics, benefits, changing facets, and educational inequalities,” which are associated with the MOOC model. Application of Van Dijk’s model evidenced the usage of a positive self-representation strategy by Indian online news media until mid-2020. The application of media content theories underscored the predominant usage of reframing as a journalistic strategy to maintain reader interest in MOOC-related content in online news items, emphasizing the dynamic nature of media portrayals of social phenomena such as MOOCs. Practical implications The depth of MOOC-related coverage and the increasing number of news articles discussing MOOCs in Indian online media signify a growing acceptance of this educational innovation in society. Insights from emergent themes can aid administrators and platforms to effectively design and deliver future courses. In addition, understanding these themes can guide the development of media strategies to address contextual issues such as educational inequalities arising from MOOCs. This study also focuses on the necessity of upholding journalistic ethics in content dissemination. Originality/value This study provides a comprehensive synthesis of various themes and journalistic strategies adopted by online news media over the last decade in MOOC-based narratives in India. Given the distinctive Indian context, wherein MOOCs are growing rapidly amid widening digital inequalities, this research addresses calls within information systems literature to explore this phenomenon. It pioneers the integration of communication and mass media theories to analyze the complex sociological dynamics in news discourses on MOOCs, offering a novel perspective on the intersection of media representation and educational innovation. (shrink)

Nuclear waste is ethically contentious, concerning institutional trust, community engagement and the role nuclear plays in different sociotechnical configurations of energy futures. Using Q-methodology with a diverse UK-based stakeholder group, we find three emergent discourses: a) ‘Managing a distrustful public’, b) ‘Fair and democratic nuclear waste decision-making’, and c) ‘Putting the experts in control’. Although multi-stakeholder support is expressed for geological disposal of wastes, disagreements arise toward the ethics of nuclear-powered energy futures and for community decision-making roles. We recommend (...) that policy authorities must first strengthen community withdrawal rights, and second, renew deliberative democratic decision-making mechanisms within energy policy strategy. (shrink)

In his 2007 PESA keynote address, Paul Smeyers discussed the increasing regulation of child‐rearing through government intervention and the generation of ‘experts’, citing particular examples from Europe where cases of childhood obesity and parental neglect have stirred public opinion and political debate. In his paper (‘Child‐Rearing: On government intervention and the discourse of experts’, this issue), Smeyers touches on a number of tensions before concluding that child‐rearing qualifies as a practice in which liberal governments should be reluctant (...) to intervene. In response, I draw on recent experiences in Australia and argue that certain tragic events of late are the result of an ethical, moral and social vacuum in which these tensions coalesce. While I agree with Smeyers that governments should be reluctant to ‘intervene’ in the private domain of the family, I argue that there is a difference between intervention and support. In concluding, I maintain that if certain Western liberal democracies did a more comprehensive job of supporting children and their families through active social investment in primary school education, then schools would be better equipped to deal with the challenges they now face. (shrink)

The news media form major sources of information to the general public in matters of science and health. And yet journalists and experts differ in what they consider as newsworthy and relevant. This article analyses in detail a current affair interview with a health expert reporting on a new research on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Applying Bamberg’s three-level model for positioning analysis, the interview is searched for the stories that speakers introduce, attend to their embedding in the design of (...) questions and answers and examine how their tellers are positioned therein as knowledgeable regarding ADHD. The narratives identified are shown to enable the adopting and shifting between various expert positions including that of the scientific researcher, the advice-giving expert and the more specific identity of the public health clinician. Shifts between these positions are shown to reflect the claims and counter-claims that the interviewee and interviewers are making and backing. These findings are discussed for their implications regarding the use of narratives in presenting science to media audiences. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept of applied Islamic ethics, the facts, its challenges, and its future. I aim to highlight some of the deep-rooted issues that Muslims have faced historically and continue to experience today as they apply religious guidance to their daily lives. I consider the causes and rationale behind the current situation and look beyond to suggest ways in which this may evolve, calling for a radical reform. Muslims throughout the world are experiencing a deepening crisis (...) of identity and confusion about their faith's principles and practices. I suggest how improvements might be achieved, in order to gain more coherence and understanding. This approach recognizes the importance of inviting an in-depth, deliberate analysis of relevant dialogues between religious experts of the text (scholars) and practitioners, those working at the grassroots. This approach remains faithful to the fundamental principles of the Islamic sources but also considers our present context. I recommend a shift in authority from scholars alone to a more inclusive, critical engagement of practitioners. Through this more comprehensive methodology of applied Islamic ethics, I suggest that Muslim communities, organizations, and individuals can remain faithful to their religious principles while, at the same time, actively participating in and contributing to our evolving societies. While I recognize that this will be a long process, I am confident that with applied Islamic ethics, the current feelings of confusion, self-doubt, and even apathy, given the previous failed processes of adaptation and reform, will give way to a new confidence in knowing how to address contemporary challenges. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les principales caractéristiques d’un réseau d’organisations civiles mobilisées autour de la biodiversité. Il revient sur le discours produit par ces ONG autour de la thématique de la biodiversité, sur sa structuration en réseau, sur ses activités particulières de production et de diffusion d’informations, ainsi que sur son positionnement hybride entre expertise et militantisme.This article analyses the main characteristics of a network of civil society organisations involved in biodiversity advocacy. It investigates the discourse on biodiversity produced by (...) these NGOs, the formation of a structured network, its specific activities in the production and dissemination of information and its hybrid position combining expertise and activism. (shrink)

This edited volume offers expert insights into core questions of ethics, education, and religion during what is often termed the "Golden Age" of Islamic culture and intellectual history. It focuses on the scholarly oeuvre of the Muslim philosopher and historian Miskawayh (d. 1030), who is known in the contemporary Muslim world as the "founder of Islamic ethics". Written by internationally renowned scholars in Islamic studies, the chapters trace the significance of ancient Greek, Iranian, and Arabic intellectual traditions, among others, in (...) the Islamic educational discourse. They also show how historical research on concepts of education and ethics specific to religion and culture can help find answers to key issues in contemporary societies. (shrink)

Stories are an important indicator of our vision of the future. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), dominant stories are polarized between notions of threat and myopic solutionism. The central storytellers—big tech, popular media, and authors of science fiction—represent particular demographics and motivations. Many stories, and storytellers, are missing. This paper details the accounts of missing AI narratives by leading scholars from a range of disciplines interested in AI Futures. Participants focused on the gaps between dominant narratives and the (...) untold stories of the capabilities, issues, and everyday realities of the technology. One participant proposed a “story crisis” in which these narratives compete to shape the public discourse on AI. Our findings indicate that dominant narratives distract and mislead public understandings and conceptions of AI. This suggests a need to pay closer attention to missing AI narratives. It is not simply about telling new stories, it is about listening to existing stories and asking what is wanted from AI. We call for realistic, nuanced, and inclusive stories, working with and for diverse voices, which consider (1) story-teller; (2) genre, and (3) communicative purpose. Such stories can then inspire the next generation of thinkers, technologists, and storytellers. (shrink)

Today, social engineering techniques are the most common way of committing cybercrimes through the intrusion and infection of computer systems. Cybersecurity experts use the term “social engineering” to highlight the “human factor” in digitized systems, as social engineering attacks aim at manipulating people to reveal sensitive information. In this paper, we explore how discursive framings of individual versus collective security by cybersecurity experts redefine roles and responsibilities at the digitalized workplace. We will first show how the rhetorical figure (...) of the deficient user is constructed vis-à-vis notions of security in social engineering discourses. Second, we will investigate the normative tensions that these practices create. To do so, we link work in science and technology studies on the politics of deficit construction to recent work in critical security studies on securitization and resilience. Empirically, our analysis builds on a multi-sited conference ethnography during three cybersecurity conferences as well as an extensive document analysis. Our findings suggest a redistribution of institutional responsibility to the individual user through three distinct social engineering story lines—“the oblivious employee,” “speaking code and social,” and “fixing human flaws.” Finally, we propose to open up the discourse on social engineering and its inscribed politics of deficit construction and securitization and advocate for companies and policy makers to establish and foster a culture of collective cyber in/security and corporate responsibility. (shrink)

The discourse on CRS began late in Spain. Its permeation into political institutions also began later than in many Western countries. The Spanish government neither contributed nor reacted to the green paper Corporate social responsibility. A business contribution sustainable development, published by the European Commission in 2002. However, the publication of this document gave the definitive impulse for the start of the Spanish debate on CSR. After this initial impulse, the debate rapidly developed into a consolidated field of (...) class='Hi'>discourse. This field is the object of the present paper. Here, we seek to elaborate on a concept of corporate social citizenship viewed as a "field of discourse", which is being produced by an epistemic community, at Spanish yet also at a global level. Thus, we seek to depict the contours of the Spanish discourse on CSR, researching its evolution over the last 5 years. We focus on its main actors, the central topics on its agendas, the conflicts that are appearing, and how they are being dealt with. In order to in to achieve these objectives, we focus primarily on the transcription of 61 speeches made by different stakeholders at the Spanish Parliament during 2005. This initiative of the Spanish Parliament is unique of its kind. A special sub-commission was created to discuss the role that Spanish public institutions should play regarding corporate social responsibility. Sixty-one experts from different areas (academia, business, trade unions, and NGOs) were invited to present their views on CSR. Members of the sub-commission had the opportunity to discuss with these experts the nature, limits, results and evolution of CSR, seeking with special interest their opinions on the role that the Spanish Government should play in the consolidation of CSR in Spain. The thesis of this paper is that through an exhaustive analysis of the transcriptions of these interventions at the Spanish Parliament, we can identify who constitutes the Spanish epistemic community on CSR. We can also trace the main contours of this field of discourse, to identify the main actors in its development (particularly, of course, on the binding point between CRS and government) and the main issues discussed, as well as the "hot topics". The presentation will also locate the uniqueness of this debate generated in parliament within the context of the wider Spanish debate on CSR. (shrink)

Semiotics has been making progressively inroads into marketing research over the past thirty years. Despite the amply demonstrated conceptual appeal and empirical pertinence of semiotic perspectives in various marketing research streams, spanning consumer research, brand communications, branding and consumer cultural studies, there has been a marked deficit in terms of consolidating semiotic brand-related research under a coherent disciplinary umbrella with identifiable boundaries and research agenda. -/- The Handbook of Brand Semiotics furnishes a compass for the perplexed, a set of anchors (...) for the inquisitive and a solid corpus for scholars, while highlighting the conceptual richness and methodological diversity of semiotic perspectives. -/- Written by a team of expert scholars in various semiotics and branding related fields, such as John A. Bateman, David Machin, Xavier Ruiz Collantes, Kay L. O’Halloran, Dario Mangano, George Rossolatos, Merce Oliva, Per Ledin, Gianfranco Marrone, Francesco Mangiapane, Jennie Mazur, Carlos Scolari, Ilaria Ventura, and edited by George Rossolatos, Chief Editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, the Handbook is intended as a point of reference for researchers who wish to enter the ‘House of Brand Semiotics’ and explore its marvels. -/- The Handbook of Brand Semiotics, actively geared towards an inter-disciplinary dialogue between perspectives from marketing and semiotics, features the state-of-the-art, but also offers directions for future research in key streams, such as: -/- · Analyzing and designing brand language across media · Brand image, brand symbols, brand icons vs. iconicity · The contribution of semiotics to transmedia storytelling · Narrativity and rhetorical approaches to branding · Semiotic roadmap for designing brand identity · Semiotic roadmap for designing logos and packaging · Sociosemiotic accounts of building brand identity online · Multimodality and Multimodal critical discourse analysis · Challenging the omnipotence of cognitivism in brand- related research · Semiotics and (inter)cultural branding · Brand equity semiotics Comparative readings of structuralist, Peircean and sociosemiotic approaches to brandcomms . (shrink)