With the increasing rates of cancer worldwide, a great deal of scientific discourse is devoted to arguments and statements about cancer and its causes. Scientists from different fields try to seize any available chance to warn people of the risk of consuming and exposing to carcinogens that have, unfortunately, become essential parts of modern life. The present paper attempts to investigate the proximization strategy through which scientists construct carcinogen risk to enhance people’s preventive actions against these carcinogens. The paper targets the construction which depends on producing the conflict between the values of the people themselves and the contrasting values assigned to carcinogens. To achieve this aim, Cap’s (2013) cognitive pragmatic theory of proximization is employed for analysis. The theory is a component of three proximization strategies: spatial, temporal and axiological. Of these three proximization strategies, axiological proximization strategy is applied to a corpus from scientific discourse. To arrive at more objective results, the analysis procedure is both qualitative and quantitative. Mathematical calculations are performed through corpus linguistics using Anthony’s AntConc (2019) corpus linguistics software. Eventually, the paper has arrive at certain conclusions that reveal the way actors (producers of scientific discourse) utilize axiological proximization strategy to portray carcinogen risk as a means for promoting people to take preventive measures.
Criticism is inherently impolite and a face-threatening act generally leading to conflicts among interlocutors. It is equally challenging for both native and non-native speakers, and needs pre-planning before performing it. The current research examines the production of non-institutional criticism by Iraqi EFL university learners and American native speakers. More specifically, it explores to what extent Iraqi EFL learners and American native speakers vary in (i) performing criticism, (ii) mitigating criticism, and (iii) their pragmatic choices according to the contextual variables of power and distance. To collect data, a discourse-completion task was used to elicit written data from 20 Iraqi EFL learners and 20 American native speakers. Findings revealed that though both groups regularly used all strategy types, Iraqi EFL learners criticized differently from American speakers. When expressing criticism, Iraqi learners tended to be indirect whereas American speakers tended to be direct. In mitigating their criticism, Iraqi learners were significantly different from American speakers in their use of internal and external modifiers. Furthermore, both groups substantially varied their pragmatic choices according to context. The differences in their pragmatic performance could be attributed to a number of interplaying factors such as EFL learners’ limited linguistic and pragmatic knowledge, the context of learning and L1 pragmatic transfer. Finally, a number of conclusions and pedagogical implications are presented.
The present study examined the genre of Iraqi wedding invitation cards (WICs) in terms of its textual and visual components, and the impact of the social norms and assumptions on the articulation of these components. Drawing upon three analytic tools, namely, genre analysis proposed by Swales (1990) and Bhatia (2004), semiotic analysis suggested by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), and critical discourse analysis advocated by Fairclough (2010), a sample of 250 WICs was selected to be considered for analysis. Corpus analysis showed that Iraqi WICs varied in terms of their non-linguistic features like printed forms, colors, layouts, calligraphy, graphics, and paper materials. On the other hand, the underlying schematic organization of Iraqi WICs was built around seven component moves. Furthermore, Islamic religious beliefs and Iraqi socio-cultural system were clearly encoded in these wedding invitation texts affecting their organization structure.
Many Arabic scientific debates are devoted to disputes on cancer and its causes. Scientists tend to inform people about the danger of consuming and being exposed to carcinogens. The paper aims to explore the proximization strategy that Arab scientists rely on to construct carcinogen risk to promote people’s preventive actions against carcinogens. The paper intends to answer the main question: how does the Arabic scientific discourse employ ideological conflict to construct carcinogen risk? It is hoped that the paper can provide insights into the linguistic construction of concepts through the ideological conflict between two different poles in the Arabic scientific discourse. It provides insights for Arab scientists by promoting their awareness of the potential of Arabic for presenting a fully intellectual reflection of scientific knowledge. It focuses on the construction of carcinogen risk that generates tension between the values held by people and the opposing values ascribed to carcinogens. This aim is achieved by employing Cap’s (2013) cognitive pragmatic theory of proximization. The theory comprises three proximization strategies: spatial, temporal and axiological. The axiological proximization strategy is applied to a corpus of Arabic scientific discourse. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used in the analysis to produce more objective results. Anthony’s AntConc (2019) corpus linguistics software is used for conducting mathematical calculations through corpus linguistics. The paper has arrived at some conclusions that show how axiological proximization is employed to construct carcinogen risk which encourages people to take preventive actions.
Cancer is one of the critical health concerns. Health authorities around the world have devoted great attention to cancer and cancer causing factors to achieve control against the increasing rate of cancer. Carcinogens are the most salient factors that are accused of causing a considerable rate of cancer cases. Scientists, in different fields of knowledge, keep warning people of the imminent attack of carcinogens which are surrounding people in the environment and may launch their attack at any moment. The present paper aims to investigate the linguistic construction of the imminent carcinogen attack in English and Arabic scientific discourse. Such an investigation contributes to enhancing the scientists’ awareness of the linguistic conduct they follow in attracting people’s attention towards the risk of the approaching attack. The linguistic awareness also helps maintain better promotion of people’s pre-emptive responses that can reduce the potential for cancer cases. To achieve this aim, the paper adopts dual methodological procedures of qualitative and quantitative analyses. Cap’s (2013) proximization theory of threat and crisis construction is adopted for both qualitative and quantitative procedures. The mathematical calculations and statistical results for discourses in both languages are maintained by corpus linguistic analysis using Anthony’s (2019) software, AntConc. The paper has come up to certain conclusions that shed light on the similarities and differences in the construction of the imminent carcinogen attack in both languages. English scientific discourse has shown more reliance on temporal proximization to envisage the imminent attack of carcinogens against human bodies. Categories 1, 2, 3 and 5 are all more dominant in the English scientific discourse. However, both English and Arabic discourses show diversity in the density and employment of the lexico- grammatical tools (categories) that manifest the carcinogen attack.
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