The article examines and analyzes the linguistic and psychological features of political discourse using a computer-based Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) content analysis program to explore the relationship between political discourse and the personality of politicians. As for political discourse, it is perhaps the communicator, the linguistic personality, who plays the most important role in the communication. The linguistic personality of a politician is of particular interest in political discourse content-analysis, since it has the greatest influence on the public consciousness via mass media. Using text as a source of psychological and cognitive information has been gaining popularity. Researchers use a variety of methods to analyze texts, but Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) has proved to be the most common technique. The analysis of linguistic patterns of political discourse shows that in the context of political speech events such as media interviews, politicians make a unique choice of lexical units, which can be interpreted as a manifestation of certain personality traits. However, despite the significance of the results, there are clear limitations to the use of computerized methodologies to make political discourse content-analysis, such as the limited interpretive capacity of software to understand pragmatic and contextual use of lexical units.
Analyzing ideological discourse even in the age of LLMs remains a challenge, as these models often struggle to capture the key elements that shape real-world narratives. Specifically, LLMs fail to focus on characteristic elements driving dominant discourses and lack the ability to integrate contextual information required for understanding abstract ideological views. To address these limitations, we propose a framework motivated by the theory of ideological discourse analysis to analyze news articles related to real-world events. Our framework represents the news articles using a relational structure - talking points, which captures the interaction between entities, their roles, and media frames along with a topic of discussion. It then constructs a vocabulary of repeating themes - prominent talking points, that are used to generate ideology-specific viewpoints (or partisan perspectives). We evaluate our framework's ability to generate these perspectives through automated tasks - ideology and partisan classification tasks, supplemented by human validation. Additionally, we demonstrate straightforward applicability of our framework in creating event snapshots, a visual way of interpreting event discourse. We release resulting dataset and model to the community to support further research.
This paper critically analyzes the discourse of the 'AI executive elite,' a group of highly influential individuals shaping the way AI is funded, developed, and deployed worldwide. The primary objective is to examine the presence and dynamics of the 'Techno-Supremacy Doctrine' (TSD), a term introduced in this study to describe a belief system characterized by an excessive trust in technology's alleged inherent superiority in solving complex societal problems. This study integrates quantitative heuristics with in-depth qualitative investigations. Its methodology is operationalized in a two-phase critical discourse analysis of 14 texts published by elite members between 2017 and 2025. The findings demonstrate that the elite is not a monolithic bloc but exhibits a broad spectrum of stances. The discourse is highly dynamic, showing a marked polarization and general increase in pro-TSD discourse following the launch of ChatGPT. The analysis identifies key discursive patterns, including a dominant pro-TSD narrative that combines utopian promises with claims of inevitable progress, and the common tactic of acknowledging risks only as a strategic preamble to proposing further technological solutions. This paper presents TSD as a comprehensive analytical framework and provides a 'diagnostic toolkit' for identifying its manifestations, from insidious to benign. It argues that fostering critical awareness of these discursive patterns is essential for AI practitioners, policymakers, and the public to actively navigate the future of AI.
The metaphor of the Church as the “bride of Christ” holds profound theological significance, offering insights into the identity, purpose, and eschatological hope of the Christian community. Despite its richness, this metaphor has received limited scholarly engagement within African theological discourse, leading to a gap in its contextual application. This article addresses that gap by critically examining the implications of bridal ecclesiology for the African Church. Using conceptual analysis and a comprehensive review of existing literature, the study demonstrates that the bridal imagery not only illuminates the Church’s participatory role in Christ’s redemptive mission but also inspires a deeper communal spirituality, ethical commitment, and missional consciousness. The paper argues that integrating this metaphor into African ecclesiology can promote the church’s qualitative growth, enhance communal engagement, and invigorate its spiritual and missional vitality. In doing so, the article contributes to a more robust and contextually relevant African ecclesiological framework.
Abdullah Affandi, M. Mu'tashim Billah, Muh. Syaifudin
This research explores the potential of maqāṣidī exegesis as a framework for interpreting the Qur'an that can promote gender equality in contemporary Islamic discourse. Starting from the reality that classical exegesis often reflects patriarchal social constructs, this study offers an alternative approach that emphasizes the main objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah), such as justice, welfare, and the protection of human dignity. Using qualitative content analysis, comparative analysis, and a hermeneutic approach, this study examines several key verses related to gender—including polygamy, inheritance, testimony, and qiwāmah—through the lens of maqāṣidī. The research findings indicate that this approach not only reconstructs the understanding of gender relations in Islam in a more just and equitable manner but also challenges the patriarchal interpretative legacy that has been entrenched in the tradition of exegesis. The novelty of this study lies in the systematic application of maqāṣidī exegesis to gender issues comprehensively, not merely through a feminist approach, but by asserting that the values of gender justice are inherent in maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah itself. These findings provide a conceptual contribution to the development of value-based and ethical Islamic exegesis. They are relevant for reforming Islamic law to be more responsive to contemporary social dynamics.
Aqil al hasoon, Seyed Abbas Hashemi, Narges Hamidian
The financing policies implemented by managers play a pivotal role in risk management and shareholder wealth creation. Consequently, identifying the factors that influence managerial financing decisions is critically important. This study examines the impact of managerial ability on short-term debt usage, incorporating the moderating effects of financial constraints and financial reporting quality. The sample includes 100 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, selected through systematic elimination for the period 2012–2023. A multivariate regression model based on panel data analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The findings demonstrate that managerial ability has a positive effect on debt maturity. Additionally, while financial constraints do not significantly moderate this relationship, financial reporting quality strengthens the influence of managerial ability on short-term debt utilization. Specifically, high-ability managers—equipped with superior business acumen and strong incentives to signal their competence—tend to employ greater short-term debt to mitigate information asymmetry and enhance their reputational capital.Keywords: Debt Structure, Managers' Ability, Financial Constraints, Financial Reporting QualityJEL Classification: M40, H63, D04, M41 IntroductionDebt financing is a fundamental component of corporate capital structure, playing a crucial role in firm sustainability and growth. The composition of debt—particularly its maturity structure—serves as a key determinant of financial stability and long-term success. Consequently, decisions regarding debt structure are critical, as misjudgments can expose firms to financial distress or even bankruptcy. Prior research has examined various determinants of debt maturity structure, including macroeconomic and institutional factors such as financial and political environments, legal and tax systems, information asymmetry, and capital provider characteristics. Another stream of literature focuses on firm-specific influences, particularly managerial traits, given their significance in mitigating agency conflicts between shareholders and managers. Among these traits, managerial ability stands out as a pivotal factor shaping debt maturity decisions. Aligned with theoretical foundations, this study proposes the following hypotheses:H₁: Managerial ability positively influences debt maturity.H₂: Financial constraints attenuate the effect of managerial ability on debt maturity.H₃: Financial reporting quality amplifies the impact of managerial ability on debt maturity.Materials & Methods and dataThe study examines firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) over the period 2012–2023. The sample was selected through systematic elimination to ensure data integrity and representativeness. To test the hypotheses, we employed panel regression analysis using the Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimator, which accounts for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the data. Managerial ability was operationalized following Demerjian et al. (2012), while financial reporting quality was measured using the Dechow and Dichev (2002) accruals quality model. FindingThe empirical results demonstrate several key insights. As presented in Table 2, managerial ability exhibits a statistically significant positive relationship with firms' utilization of short-term debt. This finding aligns with theoretical expectations, as short-term debt instruments can serve as effective mechanisms to mitigate information asymmetry between managers and investors. Moreover, the preferential use of short-term debt may function as a positive market signal, conveying managers' confidence in the firm's near-term financial prospects. Table 3 reveals that financial constraints do not significantly moderate the relationship between managerial ability and debt maturity structure. This suggests that capable managers maintain their influence over financing decisions regardless of external financial limitations. Finally, Table 4 presents evidence that financial reporting quality strengthens the positive association between managerial ability and short-term debt usage. This amplification effect likely occurs because high-quality financial reporting enhances transparency, thereby increasing the credibility of managers' financing decisions. Discussion and ConclusionCorporate financing decisions are predominantly shaped by managerial discretion, with short-term debt instruments gaining increasing prominence over the past three decades. Our findings align with signaling theory, which posits that short-term debt issuance serves dual purposes: it reduces information asymmetry while simultaneously functioning as a positive market signal of managerial competence. Conversely, agency theory would predict an inverse relationship, suggesting that higher managerial ability might correlate with reduced short-term debt due to inherent agency conflicts in firms where managerial capabilities are less observable. The empirical evidence supports the signaling perspective, demonstrating that high-ability managers strategically utilize short-term debt to distinguish themselves from their less competent counterparts. This behavior stems from their superior capacity to assess market conditions and capitalize on favorable financing opportunities. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that managerial ability plays a particularly significant role in firms with higher reporting quality. In such organizations, which typically possess more robust project portfolios, short-term debt issuance serves as an additional quality indicator. High-ability managers in these firms are more inclined to employ short-term debt instruments, thereby reinforcing their reputation for financial acumen and strengthening market confidence. These findings contribute to the ongoing theoretical discourse by reconciling competing perspectives from signaling and agency theories. They also offer practical implications for corporate governance, suggesting that boards should consider managerial ability as a key factor in financing policy decisions, particularly in firms with transparent financial reporting environments.
Rayane Ghilene, Dimitra Niaouri, Michele Linardi
et al.
Socially Unacceptable Discourse (SUD) analysis is crucial for maintaining online positive environments. We investigate the effectiveness of Entailment-based zero-shot text classification (unsupervised method) for SUD detection and characterization by leveraging pre-trained transformer models and prompting techniques. The results demonstrate good generalization capabilities of these models to unseen data and highlight the promising nature of this approach for generating labeled datasets for the analysis and characterization of extremist narratives. The findings of this research contribute to the development of robust tools for studying SUD and promoting responsible communication online.
Existing discourse corpora are annotated based on different frameworks, which show significant dissimilarities in definitions of arguments and relations and structural constraints. Despite surface differences, these frameworks share basic understandings of discourse relations. The relationship between these frameworks has been an open research question, especially the correlation between relation inventories utilized in different frameworks. Better understanding of this question is helpful for integrating discourse theories and enabling interoperability of discourse corpora annotated under different frameworks. However, studies that explore correlations between discourse relation inventories are hindered by different criteria of discourse segmentation, and expert knowledge and manual examination are typically needed. Some semi-automatic methods have been proposed, but they rely on corpora annotated in multiple frameworks in parallel. In this paper, we introduce a fully automatic approach to address the challenges. Specifically, we extend the label-anchored contrastive learning method introduced by Zhang et al. (2022b) to learn label embeddings during a classification task. These embeddings are then utilized to map discourse relations from different frameworks. We show experimental results on RST-DT (Carlson et al., 2001) and PDTB 3.0 (Prasad et al., 2018).
Objective/context: This article analyzes testimonies of religious and military men, produced between 1770 and 1812, which give an account of Chumash, Juaneño and Yuma indigenous men of Alta California who were in the habit of dressing as women and joining them in the tasks corresponding to the feminine roles in these societies. The documents analyzed include two military diaries on the exploration expeditions and three chronicles of Franciscans who, starting in 1769, were in charge of founding missions in this area. Methodology: Through a gender perspective analysis, we examine the terms and categories used in the sources to describe and give meaning to the sexual roles and practices of the Coyas/Joyas, Cuút or Uluqi. Originality: The few works dedicated to the analysis of California Indians “in the habit of women” have focused on the missionary discourse or on the denunciation of the supposed “extermination” of dissident sexual practices. This paper argues that while the testimonies unanimously condemned these practices, they differed in the categories used to name and classify them and, thus, in the meaning attributed to them, which resulted in different legal and theological implications. Conclusions: The existence of men who dressed as women persisted, according to the sources analyzed, until the beginning of the 19th century in the region from the Gila and Colorado rivers to the Santa Barbara canal in northwestern New Spain. The categories of sodomy, amaricados or hermaphrodites, and male-female were understood under the single-sex model. And, although by the end of the eighteenth century, the principles of modern legal medicine were beginning to change, the meaning given to the Coyas/Joyas was linked to the justification of the advances or difficulties of colonization rather than to the scientific debates of the time
History (General) and history of Europe, History (General)
The present article aims to demonstrate how Mīrzāyī Nāʾīnī, within the tradition of the Shiite political theology and by employing the concepts and teachings of this intellectual tradition, has addressed theoretical questions and concerns about politics during his time. Thus, through textual analysis and within the framework of semantic theories, the article seeks to answer how he arrived at a stance supportive of constitutionalism from the core principles and tenets of Shiite theology. This study reveals that the outcome of his work, in comparison with other jurists of his time, lies in the particular formulation of concepts and doctrines from this old tradition in response to newly emerging issues regarding modern politics. This formulation has two key features: first, the inescapability of theological discourse on the guardianship of the jurist, which arises from his adherence to the Shiite theological tradition; second, the theological reflection on the foundations and various aspects of constitutionalism, which stems from his attention to the nature of the politics of his time. This analysis highlights Nāʾīnī's prominent role in the evolutionary process of Shiite political theology.
Haris Bin Zia, Ehsan Ul Haq, Ignacio Castro
et al.
On the 21st of February 2022, Russia recognised the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, three days before launching an invasion of Ukraine. Since then, an active debate has taken place on social media, mixing organic discussions with coordinated information campaigns. The scale of this discourse, alongside the role that information warfare has played in the invasion, make it vital to better understand this ecosystem. We therefore present a study of pro-Ukrainian vs. pro-Russian discourse through the lens of Twitter. We do so from two perspectives: (i) the content that is shared; and (ii) the users who participate in the sharing. We first explore the scale and nature of conversations, including analysis of hashtags, toxicity and media sharing. We then study the users who drive this, highlighting a significant presence of new users and bots.
This article investigates the use and pragmatic functions of the swear word fuck in the “BoJack Horseman” produced by Netflix and bridges the gap in the linguistic research on this particular TV show. Incorporating corpus linguistics tools, the BoJack Horseman Corpus was compiled and the lemma fuck has been investigated and analysed from the multimodal perspective. It occurs six times, just once per every season of the show, every time when the interlocutor expresses strong emotions, usually towards the eponymous character. The use of a swear word provides a vent for anger, disappointment, or surprise and creates an extralinguistic narrative frame, due to its economic use by the writers of the show.
Abstract Background We present an analysis of interviews with 27 self-identified progressive white-male physics faculty and graduate students discussing race and gender in physics. White cis men dominate most STEM fields and are particularly overrepresented in positions of status and influence (i.e., full professors, chairs, deans, etc.), positioning them as a potentially powerful demographic for enacting systemic reform. Despite their proclaimed outrage at and interest in addressing inequity, they frequently engage in patterns of belief, speech and (in)action that ultimately support the status quo of white male privilege in opposition to their intentions. Results The white male physicists we interviewed used numerous discourses which support racist and sexist norms and position them as powerless to disrupt their own privilege. We present and discuss three overarching themes, seen in our data, demonstrating how highly educated, well-intentioned people of privilege maintain their power and privilege despite their own intentions: (1) denying inequity is physically near them; (2) locating causes of inequity in large societal systems over which they have little influence; and (3) justifying inaction. Conclusions Despite being progressively minded and highly educated, these men are frequently complicit in racism and sexism. We end with recommendations for helping cis men engage the power they hold to better work with marginalized people to disrupt inequity.