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This paper aims to demonstrate how fundamental social and psychological drivers can affect the language used by people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their carers.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate how fundamental social and psychological drivers can affect the language used by people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their carers.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model is used to predict four ways in which communicative priorities in a given context will generate formulaic linguistic responses in interaction. Evidence from the language of both people with AD and their carers illustrates each point. Moreover, the model offers an explanation for several effective approaches for improving interaction.
Findings
The paper explains the dynamics of a downward spiral in interaction that features more and more “formulaic” language, and indicates how carers can help create a context for greater empowerment of people with AD.
Practical implications
Since people with AD need the stimulation of meaningful and targeted interaction, the downward spiral arising from carers' formulaic responses is potentially damaging. To improve the quality of communication between people with AD and their carers, the negative impact of formulaic language in interaction needs to be transformed into something more positive and productive. Indications are offered for how this can be achieved.
Originality/value
The paper offers significant new insights into the causes of the well‐recognised patterns of repetitive language in people with AD, and explains how they can trigger unhelpful responses in carers. The theoretical underpinning offers opportunities for understanding how best to support carers in engaging more positively with people with AD, resulting in a richer type of communication for the latter and reduced stress levels for the former.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a linguistic perspective for corporate brochures. Corporate brochures are published to introduce an organization and to provide information…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a linguistic perspective for corporate brochures. Corporate brochures are published to introduce an organization and to provide information about it but the brochures have been claimed to include promotional elements. By conducting a genre analysis the paper aims to confirm that genre-based writing is not formulaic but instead demonstrates versatility and creativity.
Design/methodology/approach
Corporate brochures from a specific industry, oil and gas were sourced from the websites and a total of 16 were available. The method of analysis was genre analysis to establish the generic structure of the brochures by examining the rhetorical moves and strategies, and to identify the textual features of the texts to explain why they are written the way they are.
Findings
The oil and gas brochures display a five-move generic structure with a number of strategies. The moves show high occurrence proving the industry as a specialized one. Although the moves are the same, the contents are varied. Versatility is also seen in the presentation style in terms of form, content and language.
Practical implications
Findings on generic structure and textual features of brochures can be used as a guide for corporate writers, as well as trainees and students of corporate communication.
Originality/value
The data for this research represent one industry which has not been explored before thus contributing to the body of knowledge in the field of genre analysis. Although generic in form, genre-based writing has proven to be versatile. The textual features show how companies project their corporate image via brochures.
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Erwin Maria Gierlinger, Harald Spann and Thomas Wagner
The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the potentials and challenges of variation theory when adopting learning study in Austrian initial EFL (English as a Foreign Language…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the potentials and challenges of variation theory when adopting learning study in Austrian initial EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher education.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a hermeneutic and epistemological approach, projects, and publications employing variation theory in the context of EFL are critically evaluated.
Findings
Variation theory and learning study turn out to have great potential for EFL teaching and learning in Austria. However, three critical issues need further conceptual and empirical research before new learning cycles can be implemented and evaluated: the object of learning, the SLA-variation theory interface, and the roles of variation theory on different educational levels.
Originality/value
By identifying and discussing important critical issues within the current practice of variation-theory-oriented EFL teaching, this study could lead to further theoretical and empirical deliberations in various areas of modern language teaching. This in turn could help pave the way for both the development of theoretical underpinning and methodological refinement, ultimately fostering international co-operations in implementing learning cycles.
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This paper aims to describe a proverb game where the themes of work and money introduce participants to world perspectives on handling social transactions and establishing “fair…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe a proverb game where the themes of work and money introduce participants to world perspectives on handling social transactions and establishing “fair play” between people.
Design/methodology/approach
Students are involved in a “serious game” where they work in international groups to piece together parts of a linguistic puzzle drawing on the language competencies of the group. They exchange viewpoints about “fair play”. This experiential learning opportunity introduces an ethics and cross-cultural framework into the curriculum.
Findings
The game has been used to “break the ice” at the start of international business programs and allow exchange students greater opportunity to become involved in problem solving activities.
Practical implications
In three versions, the authors have tested over three academic years, the proverb game has allowed the participants to reach the objectives: become involved with international classmates, co-produce cultural knowledge with peers (an alternative to a teacher-driven seminar on culture), develop awareness of cultural self, study world values through proverbs, and examine the importance of rule-based behavior and fair play.
Originality/value
To the authors' knowledge, there are no “language” games suitable for the international business classroom whose purpose is actually ethical.
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Syihabuddin Syihabuddin, Nurul Murtadho, Yusring Sanusi Baso, Hikmah Maulani and Shofa Musthofa Khalid
Assessing whether a book is relevant or suitable for use in teaching materials is not an easy and haphazard matter, various methods and theories have been offered by researchers…
Abstract
Purpose
Assessing whether a book is relevant or suitable for use in teaching materials is not an easy and haphazard matter, various methods and theories have been offered by researchers in studying this matter. Taking a study of the context of textbooks, researchers found the urgency that textbooks are a foundation for education, socialization and transmission of knowledge and its construction. Researchers offer another approach, namely by using praxeology as a study tool so that the goals of the textbooks previously intended are fulfilled.
Design/methodology/approach
The researcher uses a qualitative approach through grounded theory. Grounded theory procedures are designed to develop a well-integrated set of concepts that provide a thorough theoretical explanation of the social phenomena under study. A grounded theory must explain as well as describe. It may also implicitly provide some degree of predictability, but only with respect to certain conditions (Corbin and Strauss, 1990). Document analysis in conducting this research study. Document analysis itself examines systematic procedures for reviewing or evaluating documents, both printed and electronic materials.
Findings
Two issues regarding gender acquisition have been investigated in L2 Arabic acquisition studies; the order in which L2 Arabic learners acquire certain grammatical features of the gender system and the effect of L1 on the acquisition of some grammatical features from L2 grammatical gender. Arabic has a two-gender system that classifies all nouns, animate and inanimate, as masculine or feminine. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, personal, demonstrative and relative pronouns related to nouns in the syntactic structure of sentences show gender agreement.
Research limitations/implications
In practice, as a book intended for non-speakers, the book is presented using a general view of linguistic theory. In relation to the gender agreement, the presentation of the book begins and is inserted with the concepts of nouns and verbs. Returning to the praxeology context, First, The Know How (Praxis) explains practice (i.e. the tasks performed and the techniques used). Second, To Know Why or Knowledge (logos) which explains and justifies practice from a technological and theoretical point of view. Answering the first concept, the exercise presented in the book is a concept with three clusters explained at the beginning of the discussion. And the second concept, explained with a task design approach which includes word categorization by separating masculine and feminine word forms.
Practical implications
Practically, this research obtains perspectives studied from a textbook, namely the Arabic gender agreement is presented with various examples of noun contexts; textbook authors present book concepts in a particular way with regard to curriculum features and this task design affects student performance, and which approach is more effective for developing student understanding. Empirically, the material is in line with the formulation of competency standards for non-Arabic speakers in Indonesia.
Originality/value
With this computational search, the researcher found a novelty that was considered accurate by taking the praxeology context as a review in the analysis of non-speaking Arabic textbooks, especially in the year 2022 (last data collection in September) there has been no study on this context. So then, the researcher finds other interests in that praxeology can examine more broadly parts of the task of the contents of the book with the approach of relevant linguistic theories.
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The paper aims to explain the character and causes of obsolescence in assigned subject descriptors.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explain the character and causes of obsolescence in assigned subject descriptors.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes the form of a conceptual analysis with examples and reference to existing literature.
Findings
Subject description comes in two forms: assigning the name or code of a subject to a document and assigning a document to a named subject category. Each method associates a document with the name of a subject. This naming activity is the site of tensions between the procedural need of information systems for stable records and the inherent multiplicity and instability of linguistic expressions. As languages change, previously assigned subject descriptions become obsolescent. The issues, tensions, and compromises involved are introduced.
Originality/value
Drawing on the work of Robert Fairthorne and others, an explanation of the unavoidable obsolescence of assigned subject headings is presented. The discussion relates to libraries, but the same issues arise in any context in which subject description is expected to remain useful for an extended period of time.
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As mastering the two-minute entrepreneurial pitch is a key skill required of entrepreneurs and all those who have to sell an idea in a business context, the purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
As mastering the two-minute entrepreneurial pitch is a key skill required of entrepreneurs and all those who have to sell an idea in a business context, the purpose of this paper is to analyse successful entrepreneurial pitches in order to provide practical pitch-related advice to entrepreneurs and to business school instructors developing pedagogical materials.
Design/methodology/approach
As mastering the two-minute entrepreneurial pitch is a key skill required of entrepreneurs and all those who have to sell an idea in a business context, this paper aims to analyse successful entrepreneurial pitches in order to provide practical pitch-related advice to entrepreneurs and to business school instructors developing pedagogical materials.
Findings
A ten-stage discourse framework was shown to underlie most pitches and typical linguistic exponents and rhetorical devices were identified. While there was a strong correlation between linguistic exponents and particular organisational stages, it was not possible to map the rhetorical strategies or tropes onto the organisational stages. The rhetorical framework provides a macro-structure to help entrepreneurs manipulate key content, whereas the linguistic framework highlights the salient grammatical, organisational, syntactic and lexical features of a successful pitch.
Research limitation
The sample of entrepreneurial pitches analysed is too small to be totally representative of the entrepreneurial pitch in general. However, this in-depth multi-dimensional analysis provides initial research into the canonical features of the entrepreneurial pitch.
Practical implication
This study provides an actionable, best practice, discoursal template for the entrepreneurial pitch together with the typical linguistic exponents and rhetorical features. The findings should sensitise entrepreneurs and instructors to salient macro- and micro-features of the entrepreneurial pitch.
Originality value
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has been carried out that takes a multi-dimensional analysis approach (both rhetorical and linguistic/discourse analysis) to deconstruct the entrepreneurial pitch.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyse how standardisation influences home care work practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse how standardisation influences home care work practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a qualitative interview‐based case study from the elderly care sector in a Danish council. The interviews reveal care workers and administrative staffs' interpretation of how the implementation of IT and standards affects their work situation. Findings from the case study are supported by a large‐scale quantitative study regarding organisational transformations in the elderly care sector.
Findings
The paper discusses how standardisation, in the form of implementation of IT‐systems and categorization tools, influences the potential for development of competencies. The findings show that an engaged practice is difficult to maintain when working under circumstances characterized by lack of time and a requirement for standardisation and documentation.
Originality/value
The study provides insight into the divergence between standards and the importance of relying on experience‐based knowledge and value rational skills in relation to care work. The paper stresses the point that standards are necessary to coordinate workflow activities and support decision making. Nevertheless, it is shown that when reification dominates, the degree of standardisation will lend itself to an instrumental practice not supportive of growing competencies within the field of care giving.
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