Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media

There has been growing concern about the role social media plays in political polarization. We investigated whether out-group animosity was particularly successful at generating engagement on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. Analyzing posts from news media accounts and US congressional members (n = 2,730,215), we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language—both established predictors of social media engagement. Language about the out-group was a very strong predictor of “angry” reactions (the most popular reactions across all datasets), and language about the in-group was a strong predictor of “love” reactions, reflecting in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. This out-group effect was not moderated by political orientation or social media platform, but stronger effects were found among political leaders than among news media accounts. In sum, out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement across all relevant predictors measured, suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity.

Tokooos! as a linguistic fashion: The recontextualization and appropriation of Lingala youth language

This paper focuses on Lingala youth language (Bantu; DR Congo) and its recontextualization and use in the media and advertising industry, promoting music(ians), lifestyle products and telecommunication companies. Adolescents’ linguistic practices are often picked up and diffused by musicians and other public individuals, or at times even appropriated by them. This is exemplified by the innovative expression tokooos, which was used and diffused by the Congolese musician Fally Ipupa. The paper discusses the changing youth language practice Lingala ya Bayankee/Yanké from in-group language (of Congolese street-based adolescents) to a recontextualized commodified register, diffused beyond its community of practice and perceived as a “linguistic fashion”.

Questioning Questions in Language, Culture and Cognition

The motivation for questioning questions arose in the research group Language, Culture and Cognition in 2018 when several members were working on material that included questions. In this work, a series of problems appeared, including: How do we classify questions based on their functions? What is the cognitive basis for questions? How do we account for the specific functions that questions serve in activity types? The problems led to consideration as to whether there was a basis for a broader discussion of questions, and when the group invited to the open symposium Questioning Questions in Language, Culture and Cognition, it turned out that there was a widespread interest within the international linguistic research community. At the symposium held at Roskilde University on November 15, 2018, 14 papers were presented, and following the research group’s call for papers for a special issue, several new proposals came along - each contributing to the classification, analysis and characteriation of questions. This indicates not only that there is a lively interest in questions, but also that there is a need to discuss and add to the existing classifications, analyses and characterisations of questions. In this issue we have gathered the 11 most relevant contributions.

Analysis of Docudrama Techniques and Negotiating One’s Identity in David Edgar’s Pentecost

Edgar manages to invert the subordinate function of generally accepted objective indicators of membership of a particular national group—language, religion, common history, and territory—into the essential mode of imperative distinction shaping the unique national identity. In other words, it is the fresco and the value assigned to it that defines and consigns meaning to Catholic or Orthodox denomination, the refugees, and their hostages in Pentecost, not vice versa. The fact that it is only after they learn about the hypothetically enormous estimated value of the painting that Fr Petr Karolyi and FrSergei Bojovic fervently announce the fresco (as well as the abandoned church where it was discovered) as belonging to their particular denomination, which enunciates that each of the national constituents in their lack of distinctive features suffers from processes similar to the major redesigning and reconstruction of the sense of identity in the nation.

Vitality, Language Use, and Life Satisfaction: A Study of Bilingual Hungarian Adolescents Living in Romania

This study examined the relationship between objective and subjective vitality, in-group language use, and life satisfaction among two groups of bilingual Hungarians adolescents living in Romania: a low objective vitality group from Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár, where Hungarians are the demographic minority, and a high objective vitality group from Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, where Hungarians are the demographic majority. Consistent with predictions, the high objective vitality group reported higher subjective Hungarian vitality, lower subjective Romanian vitality, more frequent use of the Hungarian language, and higher life satisfaction, compared with the low objective vitality group. The effects of objective vitality on language use were partially mediated by subjective Romanian (but not Hungarian) vitality. Conversely, the effects of objective vitality on life satisfaction were fully mediated by subjective Hungarian (but not Romanian) vitality.

PENGEMBANGAN LEMBAR KERJA MAHASISWA (LKM) BERBASIS INQUIRI PADA MATA KULIAH STRATEGI PEMBELAJARAN KIMIA

Research of development that held to produce student worksheet (SWS) based on valid inquiry, practice, and effective to complete courses of chemistry learning strategy. The method that used is research of development. The research used consists of four steps, namely define, design, develop, and disseminate, because the limit of time and cost, research just used until to development step. Data of research collected through evaluation sheets filled by validator. Internal validation of SWS describe that SWS writing contain indicators assessment, writing use capital letters, the distance between topic letter with information letter was different, but still used more than 10 words in line. For contain assessment can used by students with various understanding, yet include steps to find, but give various activities (read, discuss, and answer). SWS give opportunities to find different information because instruction that used in exercise requires students to read paper and another book. This activity can develop social and emotional relation, because students werediscuss in their group. Language that used has same with intellectual level of students. Format assessment describe that SWS have a title, purpose, resume, work steps, questions and include reference, also table. It requires students to implement the examples in learning activity.

BAHASA DAN IDENTITAS BUDAYA

Language is an arbitrary system of sound used by members of a social group to cooperate, communicate, and identify one self. The paper discusses the use of language to identify personal identity, social class, ethnicity, and nationality. Language can determine the identity of an individual and a group. Language is also used to identify or to show the personal identity of a person. Furthermore, language shows the social class of a person. A person who comes from the low level class has a different language style from those of the higher level class. As ethnic identity, language can be used to denote ethnicity or the membership of a person or group in a certain ethnic group. Language can also become the national identity as well. Thus, every country has its own national language