Biochar in the British print news media: an analysis of promissory discourse and the creation of expectations about carbon removal.

Biochar is amongst a growing suite of approaches developed to address the climate crisis by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; yet public awareness of biochar is low. In this situation, mass-media reporting plays an important role in making an issue public and in creating expectations about its risks and benefits. In British broadsheet newspapers, a promissory, future-oriented discourse on biochar has emerged that is rhetorically configured through, for example, evaluative adjectives, verbs, hyperbole, and allusions to literary and cultural symbols that confer a sense of mystique. Biochar is promoted as an almost magical fix, based on its ability to soak up and store carbon, improve soil health, increase crops yields, and reduce pollutants. Conversely, some of the possible negative aspects of biochar are couched in the form of sarcasm and parody, while others are made invisible. This sets biochar up as a moral good that the public ought to accept, rather than opening up a public debate about its risks and benefits. Engaging in a fine-grained rhetorical analysis of the way promises about biochar are constructed expands the methodological and empirical repertoire of the sociology of expectations and, in future, can be applied to the analysis of other emerging climate change technologies, especially those relating to carbon removal.

"That bastard chose me": the use of metaphor in women's cancer blogs.

Metaphors play a significant role in how cancer is experienced and discussed. This study delves into the utilization of metaphors by women bloggers grappling with colorectal and gynecological cancers. By focusing on cancer types less represented in mainstream media, we aim to shed light on cancer cultures associated with body areas often considered taboo. Our findings reveal that widely recognized expressions and stories about cancer, such as the metaphors of battle and narratives promoting optimism and heroism in the face of illness, are deeply ingrained. However, a notable discovery is the prevalence of personification alongside these conventional expressions. Personifying cancer endows it with human characteristics, providing an outlet for bloggers to express their fear and frustration, including articulating feelings of sadness and anger, diverging from narratives centered on heroism and positive thinking. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a significant emphasis on death, underscoring that despite advancements in treatment, bloggers still perceive cancer as highly lethal. Personification can serve both detrimental and therapeutic purposes for bloggers and for societal perceptions of cancer survivorship, both reinforcing and opposing dominant Western discourses surrounding the illness. These findings enrich our understanding of cognitive and cultural tools used to describe cancer within contemporary Western society.

Work-family interface during COVID-19: a sociolinguistic study of working mums' identity and mental health.

BACKGROUND: The dramatic reconfigurations of work-family roles and social boundaries resulting from the social restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic led working mums to look for online sites as spaces of emotional support and regulation where they could vent their emotions, share their concerns and griefs, and seek advice. They also became interactional spaces where mums' relevant identities were reassessed and enacted as they aimed to balance work-family roles and improve their wellbeing. The paper explores how working mums discursively negotiated their multiple identities in an online support forum during times of global struggle, how these identity constructions reflect the domains of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and how working mums perceived these identities are related to their mental health. METHODS: 127 posts of Chilean working mums published in a public online support forum for working mums collected during the first half of 2020 were analysed in three phases. The first one involved a thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes related to working mums' identity construction in the data. The second phase involved conducting a narrative analysis of working mums' microstorias in order to identify a master narrative crafted by these working mums, and contesting and conforming ideologies of motherhood, among others. Finally, the third phase involved a fine-grained discourse analysis of the most representative extracts illustrating working mums' identity negotiation. RESULTS: The sociolinguistic analysis showed that working mums' discourses displayed three themes of self-reflection, namely, diminishing self-care, reassessing their self, and enhancing self through self-care. Identity-related sub-themes for each main theme are discussed and discursively analysed. Two main points are emphasised: (1) the identity that was most salient in working mums' discourse was their personal identity (rather than work-family roles and identities), and (2) microstorias allowed working mums to challenge the hegemonic power of dominant discourses around their identities and their work-family roles. CONCLUSIONS: The study shows that a sociolinguistic approach to the exploration of working mums' identity negotiation is useful to highlight the ways in which mums contest binary assumptions of work-family roles and the need to reconsider working mums' life domains so that they reflect working mums' actual identity needs and lived experiences. Future lines of research are outlined.

Deconstructing stigmatising narratives: a qualitative analysis of contrast devices in interviews with mothers with a mental illness.

BACKGROUND: In the context of stigma and mental health research, limited empirical studies examine stigma through the positioning of individuals within interview contexts. This study addresses this gap by investigating the positioning processes in interviews with mothers with a mental illness, with a specific focus on the use of contrast devices as a strategy identified through analysis. By analysing how mothers position themselves through contrast devices and to which discourses they refer, this study provides insights into how stigmatising discourses are evident in the narratives of mothers with a mental illness. METHODS: This study is based on 20 semi-narrative interviews with mothers with a mental illness who participated in the Village Project (a pilot project co-created for children of parents with mental illness in Tyrol, Austria). Our analysis focuses on identifying stigmatising discourses related to motherhood and mental illness by examining the use of contrast devices in their accounts. RESULTS: The analysis shows insights into mothers' efforts to distance themselves from labels such as 'bad mother', 'not normal/crazy women' and 'weak person'. These positions often carry a gendered dimension, with motherhood emerging as a central position. Our study highlights the challenges mothers with a mental illness face in navigating societal norms and expectations related to motherhood during research interviews. CONCLUSION: The research contributes to a deeper understanding of mental health stigma in the context of motherhood, emphasising the importance of considering gendered dynamics and societal expectations in mental health research.

"I'm not an anxious person": end-of-life care workers constructing positive psychological states.

BACKGROUND: Mental health is an issue of social and economic importance. Sociocultural and scholarly attention has largely focused on the negative aspects of mental health. That is, on mental disorders and illness and how they adversely impact our lives. In contrast, this paper forms part of a recent alternative empirical perspective in discourse-based research, by focusing on the positive aspects of mental health. In this article, we investigate how end-of-life care workers construct their positive psychological states. METHODS: Our data are 38 audio-recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews with end-of-life care workers from Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. We utilized thematic analysis to identify common categorial strands across the data and discourse analysis to identify the linguistic strategies that these interviewees used to talk about their mental health. RESULTS: Our thematic analysis generated a superordinate theme across the interviews-namely, that of end-of-life care workers talking about their positive psychological states. We identify three generic ways that end-of-life care workers talked about these psychological states; by "foregrounding the positive," "reformulating the negative," and "dismissing the negative." Our analysis also explicates how interviewees connected social and organizational support to being a benefit to their psychological states. CONCLUSIONS: Our work contributes to existing discourse-based and sociolinguistic research on mental health by turning their focus towards a consideration of its positive dimensions. We also identify recurrent linguistics strategies used by people to construct their mental health. Our analyses point to the importance of investigating mental health as a multidimensional concept that considers participants' own reflections on their mental health.

Health, human rights and freedom at stake? A critical discourse analysis of the Swedish media debate on the national COVID-19 pandemic strategy.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to, in the Swedish media debate, explore the discursive constructions of challenges in human rights and freedoms following the national spatial strategy for health and survival during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The study, inspired by a critical discourse analytic approach, focused particularly on the issues addressed, subject positions, relations and rhetoric. Seventeen opinion articles published in Swedish national newspapers December 2019 - February 2022 were analysed. RESULTS: The main contents were threats to democracy, threats to the freedom and rights of specific groups, and threats to the debate itself. Contents were expressed through three discourse dichotomies: contribution vs interjection, documented vs alarmistic, and active on the stage vs commenting from the balcony. CONCLUSIONS: Striking about the results is the absence of dialogue, the one-way communication, and the absent politicians. It seems that the analysed debate on the challenges of the Swedish COVID-19 pandemic strategy, based on its impact on overall freedoms and rights, has not been the focus of decision-makers during the pandemic. They have neither addressed the threats highlighted in the articles, nor contributed to the discourse. This is worrying for the long-term maintenance and development of a healthy democracy.

Assessment and theoretical interpretation of spoken discourse and cognitive skills in two adolescents with acquired brain injury.

PURPOSE: Although discourse assessment is recommended, few tools exist for adolescent acquired brain injury (ABI) and few theories describe the contribution of cognition to discourse impairment. This study explored whether a novel discourse protocol can identify difficulties following ABI and whether a discourse processing model provides a useful account of impairment. METHOD: Using a case-control design, two adolescent males with moderate ABI (12 and 14 years) were compared to a neurotypical sample on a range of language and cognitive assessments. Patterns in performance were interpreted using a theoretical model. Participants completed a standardised omnibus language assessment, discourse assessment, and battery of cognitive tasks. RESULT: Analyses revealed significant differences in discourse and cognition between adolescents with and without ABI. No impairment was detected on a standardised language assessment. Patterns in discourse and cognition aligned with a contemporary model of discourse processing. CONCLUSION: Participants with ABI demonstrated discourse deficits relative to the neurotypical reference sample. The findings demonstrate the value of discourse sampling across multiple genres and analysis of microlinguistic to superstructural features. A structure-building framework (SBF) model, originating in schizophrenia, provides a promising theory with which to interpret discourse impairment and has the potential to inform intervention for discourse in ABI.

Feature reassembly and L1 preemption: Acquiring CLLD in L2 Italian and L2 Romanian.

This study investigates feature acquisition and feature reassembly associated with Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD). The article compares the acquisition of CLLD in second language (L2) Italian to L2 Romanian to examine effects of first language (L1) transfer, construction frequency and the type of interface involved (external vs. internal interface) within the same syntactic construction. The results from an acceptability judgment task and a written elicitation task show that while English near-native speakers of Italian/Romanian acquired the L2 constraints on CLLD, which is [+anaphor] for Italian and [+specific] for Romanian, data from both Romanian L2 learners of Italian and Italian L2 learners of Romanian showed persistent L1 transfer effects. Target-like acquisition for these groups requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Romanian CLLD requires the addition of an L1-unavailable [+specific] feature and the loss of a [+anaphor] feature, while Italian CLLD requires the addition of an L1-unavailable [+anaphor] and the loss of a [+specific] feature. The reported findings extend evidence in favour of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis to the syntax-discourse interface, as reassembly of interpretational features associated with CLLD proved more difficult than feature acquisition. While learners at the near-native levels were able to broaden the contexts that allow a clitic in the L2 (grammatical expansion), L1 preemption difficulties were attested as well. This was the case regardless of the frequency of the relevant construction in the input and the type of L2 feature that needed to be added/removed.

Assessing the Linguistic Capacity Across Alzheimer's Disease and Its Preclinical Stages: Evidence from Narrative Macrostructure in Elderly Speakers of Greek.

Background: The assessment of language deficits can be valuable in the early clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Objective: The present study aims to explore whether language markers at the macrostructural level could assist with the placement of an individual across the dementia continuum employing production data from structured narratives. Methods: We administered a Picture Sequence Narrative Discourse Task to 170 speakers of Greek: young healthy controls (yHC), cognitively intact healthy elders (eHC), elder participants with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and with AD dementia at the mild/moderate stages. Structural MRIs, medical history, neurological examination, and neuropsychological/cognitive screening determined the status of each speaker to appropriately groupthem. Results: The data analysis revealed that the Macrostructure Index, Irrelevant Info, and Narration Density markers can track cognitive decline and AD (p < 0.001; Macrostructural Index: eHC versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 74.4%, MCI versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 66.7%; Narration Density: eHC versus AD Sensitivity 90.6%, Specificity 71.8%, MCI versus AD Sensitivity 93.8%, Specificity 66.7%). Moreover, Narrative Complexity was significantly affected for subjects with AD, Irrelevant Info increased in the narrations of speakers with MCI and AD, while Narration Length did not appear to indubitably differentiate between the cognitively intact groups and the clinical ones. Conclusions: Narrative Macrostructure Indices provide valuable information on the language profile of speakers with(out) intact cognition revealing subtle early signs of cognitive decline and AD suggesting that the inclusion of language-based assessment tools would facilitate the clinical process.

The role of metaphor in the corporate political strategies of health harming industries: Comparing the concept of balance in the gambling and opioid industry discourses.

Scholars have identified notable similarities between the political strategies employed by health-harming industries. This includes similarities in the narratives employed by industry actors seeking to oppose public health regulations that threaten their commercial interests. This study seeks to examine the use of a specific concept - the balance metaphor - in the policy discourses of two health-harming industries. Namely, the pharmaceutical industry implicated in the prescription opioid crisis in the US, and the UK gambling industry, whose products and practices are associated with a serious, but largely neglected, series of harms. We first review research on metaphors, demonstrating how this provides additional theoretically-informed concepts with which to understand how industry discourse circumscribes the terrain of policy debates in ways amenable to commercial interests. Building from these insights, we conducted a rhetorical analysis, examining how the concept of balance is employed by different actors in distinct contexts to shape understandings of the social and policy problems associated with gambling and opioid products and to promote industry-favourable regulatory responses to these. This brings a micro-level of analysis to supplement previous meso- and macro-level scholarship in this space. We use our findings to argue that the depoliticization of the policy process and objectivization of the policy space - in ways that obscure its contingent and political nature - through discourses of balance is itself an arch political act. Examining the metaphors used in policy debates and their functions provides important insights that can be used to inform the construction of counter-narratives to industry-favourable discourses, including the creative use of novel metaphors in the service of public health goals.

Social justice in Canadian nursing professional documents: A Foucauldian discourse analysis.

Social justice is widely advanced as a central nursing value, and yet conceptual understandings of social justice remain inconsistent and vague. Further, despite persistently articulated commitments to upholding social justice, the profession of nursing has been implicated in perpetuating inequities in health and health care. In this context, it is essential to establish both conceptual clarity and tangible guidance for nurses in enacting practices to advance social justice-particularly through regulatory, education and accreditation documents that shape the nursing profession. This Foucauldian discourse analysis examines how social justice is discursively positioned within nursing professional documents in Canada, and illustrates that social justice was largely discursively excluded from these texts. Where social justice discourses were invoked, we identified that four central discursive patterns obscured and de-centred this nursing value: (i) Vague language undermined professional commitments to social justice; (ii) Constructions of knowledge and awareness de-emphasized practice; (iii) Individualism discourses minimized institutional/professional responsibility; and (iv) Aspirational language obscured present action. Extending from this analysis, we contend that the nursing profession must re-examine how social justice is understood and articulated, and call for a re-conceptualization of social justice grounded in nursing practice toward remediating inequities in health and health care.

Body-Related Existential Dilemmas During Gender Transition: Research in the Italian Context.

The scientific literature shows that gender transition is effective in improving the general well-being of transgender people. However, so far, little attention has been paid to the actual role of the body concerning the existential dilemma that holds the person hostage during transition. This study investigates the relationship between the body-here considered in its concrete, experienced, imagined, and intersubjective dimensions-and gender identity. Twenty-five transgender people who live in Italy were interviewed to identify interpretive repertoires and identity positionings. Four main repertoires and positionings emerged: 1) Interpretative repertoires on the body in transition, where an enduring influence of gender binarism and biological determinants were observed; 2) Expectations regarding medically induced modifications of the body ranging from self-confidence to uncertainty; 3) Positionings toward medically induced bodily modifications, ranging from enthusiasm to resignation; and 4) Inter- and Intrapersonal positionings, where the other than self was found to act as a self-confirming resource or as a constant unpredictable and potentially threatening source of disconfirmation. Practitioners need to develop a stronger awareness of the different dimensions, meanings, and discourses surrounding bodily experience to more effectively intervene in their clinical practice with transgender people.

Advancing the deliberate implementation of the concept of sustainability and its alternatives in physical therapy research, practice, and education.

BACKGROUND: Sustainability has become a ubiquitous imperative across all sectors of society, including healthcare. Building on the broader discourse on sustainable development, sustainability is used in relation to social, ecological, and economic concerns with varying degrees of emphasis and often related to a sense of durability. OBJECTIVE: To provide a detailed analysis of the concept of sustainability in current physical therapy literature and advance its deliberate future implementation. METHODS: Setting out from a critical exposition of prevalent models of sustainability, we conducted a critical discourse analysis to (1) examine the implementation of the concept of sustainability in physical therapy academic literature and (2) critically evaluate its hitherto use in light of the broader discourse surrounding sustainability. RESULTS: Our analysis identified a focus on the cost-effectiveness of healthcare interventions, and the use of so-called "weak" and "strong sustainability" models in the physical therapy literature. Other models and the broader critical discourse surrounding sustainability are only gradually finding their way into physical therapy literature. CONCLUSION: Physical therapy lacks comprehensive exploration of both general and profession-specific understandings of sustainability. Nuanced engagement with sustainability and its alternatives is necessary to ensure its meaningful implementation in physical therapy research, education, and practice.

Discursive (mis)alignments in internationalization: The case of International Medical Programmes.

PURPOSE: International Medical Programmes (IMPs) form a distinctive modality in medical education, with diverse student populations, English as a language of instruction and 'globalized' curricula. A lack of common understanding of IMPs' purposes and role in the medical education landscape triggers critiques. This study aims to document the effects of different discourses used to justify the purpose of IMPs. METHODS: We use a discourse analysis approach to explore the different ways in which the purposes of IMPs are constructed at the regulatory, institutional, and individual level, and how these discourses interact. The research situates in two IMPs, in the Netherlands and in Hungary. Key-informant interviews, policy documents, and scholarly literature form the archive. RESULTS: The purpose of IMPs is constructed discursively around three distinct narratives and associated practices: around serving the institutions that host them, around serving the (global) public interest, and around serving individual students. Co-existence and misalignments of these three discourses cause conflicting practices and confusion among stakeholders. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates how diverging perspectives on internationalization in medical education create tensions for learners and staff. Articulating a clear and explicit meaning to internationalization may reduce uncertainties, and may reinforce realistic expectations of what constitutes a good outcome.

Navigating Complexity: Spiritual Care Discourses Among Swedish Palliative Care Professionals.

Through discourse analysis of focus groups, this study investigates how palliative care professionals in Sweden engage with "spiritual care," "religion" and "spirituality." Our results reveal a common assumption that religion is "visible," but at the same time private. Furthermore, we observed a secular and nonreligious positioning, marked by frequent "us versus them" rhetoric, especially in discussions about truth telling. The findings illustrate a view of belonging to a secular society in which a discourse of static understanding of religion dominated, indicating a vague religious literacy. This study indicates a need among healthcare professionals to discern, understand and relate to non-visible forms of religion.

Easy read health information for people with intellectual disabilities: A linguistic discourse analysis. What happens to language when it is simplified?

INTRODUCTION: Easy Read health documents prepared for people with intellectual disabilities are often generated from Standard Texts. Language in Easy Read versions is typically assumed to be simpler. However, simplification of language may have unintended consequences. This study aimed to explore the differences in language used between Easy Read health material and the Standard Text versions of the same material produced for the general population. METHODS: Five Easy Read/Standard Text pairs were sampled and analysed using Systemic Functional Linguistics. This addressed: how people with intellectual disabilities and others were represented by language, the author stance in relation to the reader and the overall organisation of the text. RESULTS: The Easy Read versions often used language that was less empowering and inclusive. CONCLUSION: Increased awareness of author power and better knowledge of the impact of language choice could help to redress these issues.

The Public's Perception of Florence Nightingale's Legacy in the Digital Media: A Critical Discourse Analysis.

This study critically examines the public's perception of Florence Nightingale's legacy through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of digital media, specifically podcasts and YouTube. Nightingale, who is often remembered as "The Lady with the Lamp", holds a complex identity within modern narratives that is celebrated for her pioneering contributions to nursing and public health, even if there are some disagreements about her, given the colonialist setting that may have shaped some of her opinions and decisions. This research employed CDA to analyze 25 podcasts and 18 YouTube videos, which were systematically included according to a priori inclusion criteria. The study synthesized how these media products portray Nightingale and, by extension, shape public discourse about the nursing profession. The findings reveal five thematic representations of Nightingale: as a legendary figure, a modern feminist, a dedicated statistician, a pioneer in public health, and a pivotal STEM contributor. These portrayals challenge traditional nursing stereotypes by emphasizing Nightingale's role as a rigorous scientist and reformer, suggesting broader perceptions of nurses that encompass leadership, analytical skills, and strategic thinking. The study supports the hypothesis that digital narratives significantly influence the public's understanding and appreciation of nursing, advocating for a more nuanced professional identity that integrates traditional caregiving roles with critical and analytical capabilities.

Neuropsychology and Politics Collide in the 2024 US Presdiential Election: Pitfalls of attacks on age, language, and memory.

Public perception of dementia has emerged as a key factor in the 2024 United States presidential election. The first televised presidential debate (27 June 2024) evoked a groundswell of concern about the neuropsychological health and political viability of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. A rapid erosion of public support ensued, culminating in the collapse of the reelection campaign the following month. Political attacks on the cognitive fitness of world leaders create dissonance for clinical neuroscientists. We are ethically prohibited from remotely diagnosing public figures. Yet, we are also citizens with the right to feel and express personal concerns. In this commentary, I will address an often-uneasy relationship between politics and neuropsychology with a focus on the history and rationale for ethical guidelines such as the Goldwater Rule. I will also discuss lessons learned from recent events in the 2024 US election cycle about neurological health literacy (e.g. How is dementia diagnosed?) and broader impacts of age-based political attacks on global public health initiatives that target stigma reduction and improved early detection of dementia.

Why study the discourses that shape professional training in nursing? / ¿Por qué estudiar los discursos que configuran la formación profesional en enfermería? / Por que estudar os discursos que conformam a formação profissional em enfermagem?

The configuration of nursing knowledge cannot be analyzed without knowing the contextual reality and the social recognition that nursing goes through at each moment in history. Thus, this societal knowledge ­ also called discourse ­ is fundamental to identify the role that the nursing community has in the production and reproduction of this knowledge. In this context, the following reflection is presented on the importance of studying the discourses that shape professional training in nursing, in order to understand the development that this profession has had as a profession and discipline in the different contexts where it is practiced.

No se puede analizar la configuración del saber enfermero sin conocer la realidad contextual y el reconocimiento social por el que atraviesa a la enfermería en cada momento de la historia. Siendo así, ese conocimiento societal ­también llamado discurso­ es fundamental para identificar el protagonismo que tiene la comunidad de enfermería en la producción y reproducción de dicho saber. En ese contexto, se presenta la siguiente reflexión sobre la importancia de estudiar los discursos que configuran la formación profesional en enfermería, para comprender el desarrollo que como profesión y disciplina ha tenido esta profesión en los diferentes contextos donde se practica.

"Do not inject our babies": a social listening analysis of public opinion about authorizing pediatric COVID-19 vaccines.

Designing effective childhood vaccination counseling guidelines, public health campaigns, and school-entry mandates requires a nuanced understanding of the information ecology in which parents make vaccination decisions. However, evidence is lacking on how best to "catch the signal" about the public's attitudes, beliefs, and misperceptions. In this study, we characterize public sentiment and discourse about vaccinating children against SARS-CoV-2 with mRNA vaccines to identify prevalent concerns about the vaccine and to understand anti-vaccine rhetorical strategies. We applied computational topic modeling to 149 897 comments submitted to regulations.gov in October 2021 and February 2022 regarding the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee's emergency use authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines for children. We used a latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling algorithm to generate topics and then used iterative thematic and discursive analysis to identify relevant domains, themes, and rhetorical strategies. Three domains emerged: (1) specific concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines; (2) foundational beliefs shaping vaccine attitudes; and (3) rhetorical strategies deployed in anti-vaccine arguments. Computational social listening approaches can contribute to misinformation surveillance and evidence-based guidelines for vaccine counseling and public health promotion campaigns.