How rumors diffuse in the infodemic: Evidence from the healthy online social change in China

Infodemic is defined as 'an overabundance of information-some accurate and some not-that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it' by the World Health Organization. As unverified information, rumors can widely spread in online society, further diffusing infodemic. Existed studies mainly focused on rumor detection and prediction from the statement itself and give the probability that it will evolve into a rumor in the future. However, the detection and prediction from rumors production perspective is lack. This research explores the production mechanism from the uncertainty perspective using the data from Weibo and public rumor data set. Specifically, we identify the public uncertainty through usergenerated content on social media based on systemic functional linguistics theory. Then we empirically verify the promoting effect of uncertainty on rumor production and constructed a model for rumor prediction. The fitting effect of the empirical model with the public uncertainty is significantly better than that with only control variables, indicating that our framework identifies public uncertainty well and uncertainty has a significantly predictive effect on rumors. Our study contributes to the research of rumor prediction and uncertainty identification, providing implications for healthy online social change in the post-epidemic era.

Language in Conspiracy Theories Outlines of a Research Project

Due to their inflammatory social and political nature, conspiracy theories have long been the subject of extensive research in various areas such as sociology, psychology, philosophy, media studies, history and political science. However, linguists have hitherto neglected to discover conspiracy theories as an area of investigation. This article outlines the research project Language in Conspiracy Theories, which has been funded by the DFG since October 2022. This project investigates how conspiracy theories are constructed as social reality with and through language. It aims to make a necessary complementation to previous research on conspiracy theories and, by focusing on the hitherto excluded language aspect, to contribute to an urgently needed, more comprehensive understanding of conspiracy theories. Therefore, the rhetorical strategies, specific linguistic means and practices that are characteristic of talking about alleged conspiracies are placed at the center of examination, as they contribute to the plausibility of conspiracy theories.

Linguistic Construction of a Conspiracy Myth: Radio Maria and the Covid-19 Pandemic

In the following article a religious conspiracy narrative will be examined from a linguistic perspective. The basis is a radio broadcast by Don Livio Fonzaga, director of the clerical station Radio Maria. In the program, broadcast on November 10, 2020, he argues that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a work of the devil and is being used by his demonic henchmen to create a new atheistic world order. After introductory remarks on the concept of conspiracy, the paper then elaborates the conspiracy narrative on the lexical, semantic, phraseological, and metaphorical level. As a conclusion, it can be stated that Don Livio Fonzaga's hypotheses and options are only argumentation surrogates that do not stand up to plausibility standards.

Bear in a Window: Australian children's perspectives on lockdown and experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic

This paper examines the reflections of a cohort of Australian children who lived through the 2020–21 COVID‐19 pandemic and experienced being in 'lockdown';a state of largely being confined to the home for long periods daily. We report how children reflect on their experiences and illustrate how reflections draw on similar topics focused on localised child concerns regarding health, education, family, digital engagement, mealtimes and food. Further, we argue for the importance of including children's own voices of lived experience in reports regarding life during the pandemic since these perspectives may differ from those reported by adults on children's behalf.

From #HoloCough to #GreatReset. Anti-Semitic Theories about the Corona Virus

Global health crises such as the Corona pandemic are and elusive situations that trigger uncertainty for people, and at the same time bring concrete and directly tangible consequences and effects on them. In the current context of media, characterised by an almost uncontrollable number of active users, such situations provide a fertile space for the dissemination of an untamed mass of news, in which, in addition to truthful and relevant information, disinformation is also disseminated, often proving to be a breeding ground for stigmatising and conspiratorial content. Based on a survey of the most widespread social media, this article aims to analyse the conspiratorial elements present in Covid-19 communication in Germany and Italy, specifically surveying the presence of the recurrent anti-Semitic traits that seem to characterise conspiracy theories.

Exploring the echo chamber concept A linguistic perspective

Echo chambers have often been analyzed in social media studies as dysfunctions of communication fostering the polarization of debates and the spreading of conspiracy theories. On the other hand, from a linguistic perspective, very little research has been conducted on these themes. Our work aims to investigate the linguistic dimension of echo chambers, exploring them as ideological structures that are observable when ideological conflict occurs. Using word embedding and corpus-based discourse analysis, we investigate mediatic discourse on COVID-19 in the Coronavirus Corpus and in the Public Coronavirus Twitter Data Set. The analysis focuses on the semantic and pragmatic status of the word hoax, which emerges as a keyword characterizing the Twitter dataset. Our study shows how linguistic markers of ideological conflict can act as markers of position and affective/social identity. © 2022 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

An Investigation on the Online Learning Engagement of Malaysian Secondary School Students from Different School Types

This study explored the perceptions of students from different types of schools in Malaysia towards their online learning engagement during COVID-19's movement control order using Fredricks et al.'s framework of behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement. In addition to these variables, external support provided to the students was also considered. To this end, a questionnaire that examined the students' general online practices and online learning engagement was administered. Seven hundred sixty-eight students from four different types of secondary schools (national, Chinese, international, and high performing schools) responded to the questionnaire. The findings from the ANOVA analysis indicated that generally the respondents demonstrated positive online learning practices. However, the amount of time spent interacting with teachers online should be much improved. The findings also indicated significant differences in perceptions towards online learning engagement and external support based on school types.

Examining a technology-focused language teacher community on Facebook during a crisis situation

Due to the chaos and confusion caused by the sudden transition from face-to-face teaching to online and remote teaching in early 2020, numerous language teachers had no choice but to rely on online communities on social networking sites. The current study therefore examined how some language teachers were utilising online communities on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing a mixed-methods approach, data were mainly collected through: (1) an eight-month observation of a technology-focused language teacher community on Facebook to identify different types of posts generated by its members before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 340);(2) a questionnaire to understand the community members' backgrounds and experiences of being in the community (n = 51);(3) semi-structured interviews with some of the questionnaire participants (n = 13);and (4) a post-interview questionnaire (n = 12) to get a better understanding of their responses. A content analysis of online posts and community members' responses suggest that language teacher communities on Facebook were supporting teachers during the stressful periods of the pandemic professionally and emotionally. The main findings are discussed in terms of the benefits and drawbacks of using online language teacher communities for professional purposes. The overall goal of the study is to offer much-needed answers on how pre-existing communities can be used to assist language teachers in times of a crisis.

Brave New Worlds? COVID-19 and Irish-Language Theatre Produced under Lockdown in Northern Ireland

Taking a closer look at the digital monologue series Go mBeire Muid Beo (May We Be Alive [to See Each Other Again]), which was produced by the Belfast-based Irish-language theatre company Aisling Ghéar, this article seeks to document Irish-language theatre produced under coronavirus lockdown measures in Northern Ireland, whilst acknowledging the various issues that continue to haunt the Irish language, and highlighting the particular dangers and potential pitfalls in a context where very limited funding for theatre continues to dwindle. Through an analysis of the monologue series, its content, and the wider sociopolitical context that engulfs Irish-language theatre in Northern Ireland, this article also provides an important snapshot of current and ongoing debates within Irish-language theatre at a critical juncture.

Technology Integration and SkELL: A Novelty in English Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

The development of technology and its web-applicative tools in reference a variety of fields of contemporary interest, has flourished even the horizons of education. Due to the necessity of the rapid growth of Technology, its integration was considered as a solution to the covid-19 pandemic worldwide situation that caught humanity unskilled on such frequent and easy-to-follow use of ‘learning by doing' when dealing with knowledge. On purpose, the present study introduces the implementation of SkELL (Sketch Engine for Language Learning) in English Foreign Language (EFL) learning and teaching as a rich source of free online linguistic data, provided the use of authentic texts (hereby to corpus data). All of these constituents autonomously yield both sides: learners and teachers to learner-learner interaction, learner-teacher interaction. Throughout the exploitation of its various web-applicative tools such as: Word Sketch, Thesaurus, Wordlist, Concordance, and Visualization among a range of others made possible and available EFL learning, and assisted teaching during the hard educational situation. It consequently may serve as a pre-requisite for language practitioners, curriculum designers to facilitate overall EFL teaching and learning process. © 2022 Published by ISRES Publishing: www.isres.org.

ERT-Based EFL Instruction and Assessment: Student Reflections on L2 Skill Development

This paper presents a reflective account of tertiary level Turkish learners of English language about their emergency remote learning experiences amid Covid-19 pandemic. The participants of this case study were the preparatory year students of the English Language and Literature undergraduate programme at Iğdır University in two successive years, covering the second half of the 2019 - 2020 spring semester and the entire 2020 - 2021 academic year. In an online survey form of open-ended questions, the students were asked to reflect on their experiences during the instruction and assessment processes of pandemic-driven Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) with a specific focus on the development of foreign language skills. Student answers were coded through thematic analysis, and the main themes and categories were determined. The findings indicated both the affordances and shortcomings of ERT. Reflecting on their performance in the instruction and assessment practices, the students reported improvement in all language skill areas to varying extents, most effectively in writing, along with challenges, especially in the development of oral skills (speaking and listening) and in the assessment of productive skills (writing and speaking). The reasons are discussed in the light of available literature, and implications for future experiences are provided.

Editorial

I have to honestly admit that writing this editorial feels very different from writing the one for the December of 2011 when Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching had just completed its first year of existence. At that time, I was feeling a lot of uncertainty and trepidation about the future of the journal, wondering whether it would survive beyond the first year or two as well as whether it would stand a chance of becoming internationally recognizable. Today the situation is very different. Even though this has been an unprecedented year because of the COVID pandemic with all the havoc it has been wreaking all over the world, 2020 has proved to be exceptionally gracious to SSLLT. For one thing, not only has the journal survived and it is now turning 10 years of age, but it has also managed to secure its place among the most influential journals in the field, as can be seen, for example, from its ever-increasing indices in Scopus. Even more importantly, SSLLT has at last been included in some of the databases in Web of Science, most notably Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Journal Citation Reports Social Sciences (JCRSS). Needless to say, we have been waiting for this momentous turn of events for quite a few years and now we cannot wait again to find out the impact factor for the journal, which should be announced some time in 2021. Once again, I cannot stress enough that the huge success of the journal is the outcome of the contribution of numerous individuals, in particular the consecutive associate editors, authors, reviewers, as well as editors of special issues. All of this certainly calls for a celebration and it is our intention to do so by organizing a conference that would bring together all those who have been involved in SSLLT and supported it from its inception, in whatever capacity this might have happened. We are sincerely hoping to be able to hold this event in October 2021 and will be sending out a call for papers some time in December. We do realize that the pandemic can foil any plan now, but we are determined to celebrate the success of the journal. Should autumn 2021 turn out to be unfeasible, we will be aiming for spring 2022 and we are very confident that sooner rather than later we will be able to finally meet face-to-face to discuss key issues involved in the process of second language learning and teaching. While there is surely nothing wrong with online conferences, I am convinced that we would all rather have a chance to talk in person at along last and we will do our best to make this happen. One thing is for sure, whatever the timing, the Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts in Kalisz, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, will be the venue for this event. After all, this is where the idea for SSLLT was conceived well over 10 years ago and where the journal has been published from the get-go.

Deutsch-französischer Schüleraustausch zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und neuen Perspektiven infolge der Corona-Pandemie

The present paper examines the impact of the COVID 19-pandemic on school exchanges between Germany and France. Furthermore, it investigates teachers' and students' experiences with distance learning during this period. We highlight that the pandemic has generated many exceptional challenges, especially for vulnerable students. However, the pandemic-induced constraints have also stimulated the development of new didactic approaches, tools and methods. Therefore, we can speak about the new opportunities in the domain of education, and most precisely, for school exchanges.

Critical reflections on three popular computational linguistic approaches to examine Twitter discourses

Although computational linguistic methods—such as topic modelling, sentiment analysis and emotion detection—can provide social media researchers with insights into online public discourses, it is not inherent as to how these methods should be used, with a lack of transparent instructions on how to apply them in a critical way. There is a growing body of work focusing on the strengths and shortcomings of these methods. Through applying best practices for using these methods within the literature, we focus on setting expectations, presenting trajectories, examining with context and critically reflecting on the diachronic Twitter discourse of two case studies: the longitudinal discourse of the NHS Covid-19 digital contact-tracing app and the snapshot discourse of the Ofqual A Level grade calculation algorithm, both related to the UK. We identified difficulties in interpretation and potential application in all three of the approaches. Other shortcomings, such the detection of negation and sarcasm, were also found. We discuss the need for further transparency of these methods for diachronic social media researchers, including the potential for combining these approaches with qualitative ones—such as corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis—in a more formal framework.

LEXICOMETRIC EXPLORATION OF THE DISCOURSE ON COVID-19: ANALYSIS OF FOUR STATE AND SUPRANATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic. Within weeks, the virus infected thousands, paralyzing the global economy. Countries rolled out urgent measures to stem the spread of coronavirus and limit the strain on their healthcare systems.This paper reports on a lexicometric analysis of a corpus comprised of four comparable subcorpora (in English, French and Spanish). It analyzes speeches concerning pandemic management delivered by the leaders of the WHO, European Commission (EC), Government of Spain (ES), and Presidency of the French Republic (FR) between January 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021.Drawing on corpus-based linguistics, discourse analysis and lexicometrics, the study considers the vocabulary used in WHO speeches, qualitatively analyzing the most frequently used units and comparing these to the subcorpus as a whole. Terms described relate to a range of emergency measures, war imagery, and vocabulary related to values, qualities and abilities.

Overview of Rest-Mex at IberLEF 2021: Recommendation System for Text Mexican Tourism

This paper presents the framework and results from the Rest-Mex track at IberLEF 2021. This track considered two tasks: Recommendation System and Sentiment Analysis, using texts from Mexican touristic places. The Recommendation System task consists in predicting the degree of satisfaction that a tourist may have when recommending a destination of Nayarit, Mexico, based on places visited by the tourists and their opinions. On the other hand, the Sentiment Analysis task predicts the polarity of an opinion issued by a tourist who traveled to the most representative places in Guanajuato, Mexico. For both tasks, we have built new corpora considering Spanish opinions from the TripAdvisor website. This paper compares and discusses the results of the participants for both tasks.

A Corpus-Based Comparison of Inclusiveness in L2 Reading Materials for Refugee Children

Despite increased emphasis on the role of inclusive practices and materials in post-COVID-19 classrooms and warnings about implicit biases against disadvantaged groups, the textbook problem has rarely been approached with equity measures in mind. This multimethod study aimed to investigate to what extent L2 reading materials, locally produced and used for refugee education in Turkey and New Zealand, include all children with different proficiency levels, gender identities and cultural backgrounds using corpus-driven methods. All verbal and nonverbal texts from ten thematically similar third-grade storybooks were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. Comparisons against measures of grammatical and lexical complexity, and of gender and cultural equity revealed that despite both being far from achieving the ideal composition for creating inclusive learning-friendly environments, TSL materials were lagging further behind ESL counterparts. They depended on almost uniform sets of easy-to-read narratives embodying simpler grammatical features and high-frequency words, and thus needed extension with relatively elaborate ones to accommodate mixed-abilities. Gender disparities were institutionalised through male overrepresentation in hero-making, negative stereotyping, familial and occupational identification, and engagement in monetary and mobility activities, but occasionally ameliorated, in the ESL case, by reversing conventionally-gendered domestic, technical and intellectual skills in texts and illustrations. The widest gap was observed in cultural representations because TSL materials, written from a tourist's perspective, focused on imposing superficial knowledge of target-culture elements, and ESL materials on ensuring relevance through greater use of elements from diverse cultures. Therefore, egalitarian representations in gendered and cultural contents are required for their rehabilitation.

'Linguist' or 'Global Graduate'? A Matter of Identity for the Global Graduate with Language Skills

In this chapter, I examine the problematic issue of identifying as a 'linguist' for graduates who have studied languages, in an employability context. I challenge them to reframe their identity as 'global graduates', with reference to the competencies outlined in the "Global Graduates into Global Leaders" report (NCUB, 2011). In the process, I also demonstrate why a truly global graduate needs also to be a linguist, in spite of the hegemony of English as a global "lingua franca," and in the context of Brexit. I provide a framework for use by students, with support from educators, to translate their skill sets and experiences into the language of employers. I hope that this will provide a clear guide to the importance not just of developing, but also articulating cogently a range of competencies which are transferable to the global economy and global society, and a convincing argument for the importance of language and intercultural skills within that portfolio. [For the complete volume, "Languages at Work, Competent Multilinguals and the Pedagogical Challenges of COVID-19," see ED612070.]

Well-Rounded Graduates -- What Languages Can Do

The School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University (OU) radically re-designed its modern languages curriculum in 2014, launching its first suite of new modules in 2017. The institution as a whole has since also developed a new employability framework. Our paper describes the principles underpinning the design of the new curriculum, demonstrates how it is being implemented, and focuses on an initiative that involved our Associate Lecturers (ALs) in defining a 'well-rounded graduate' and reflecting on plurilingualism and their roles as language teachers in a distance-teaching institution. Presenting our Teaching Excellence project, its processes, and findings in this paper will allow colleagues who teach modern languages to replicate or adapt parts of our approach in their own settings, exemplifying to the wider world how language skills can become an inherent element of the well-rounded graduate in the 21st century. [For the complete volume, "Languages at Work, Competent Multilinguals and the Pedagogical Challenges of COVID-19," see ED612070.]

Tracing Machine and Human Translation Errors in Some Literary Texts with Some Implications for EFL Translators

This research study aims at drawing a comparison between some internet emerging applications used for machine translation (MT) and a human translation (HT) to two of Alphonse Daudet's short stories: "The Siege of Berlin" and "The Bad Zouave." The automatic translation has been carried out by four MT online applications (i.e. Translate Dict, Yandex, Mem-Source, and Reverso) that have come to light in the wake of COVID-19 breakout, whereas the HT was carried out by Hassouna in 2018. The results revealed that MT and HT made some errors related to (a) polysemy, (b) homonymy, (c) syntactic ambiguities, (d) fuzzy hedges, (e) synonyms, (f) metaphors and symbols. The results also showed that Yandex has dealt with polysemy much better than HT in "The Siege of Berlin," but the opposite has been noticed in "The Bad Zouave." Another crucial result is that HT has excelled all MT systems in homonymy and syntactic ambiguities in the two literary texts. A final result is that both MT and HT have dealt with fuzzy hedges at similar rates with little supremacy on the part of Reverso, whereas MemSource and Translate Dict have dealt with synonyms in the two literary texts much better than HT. The study concluded that EFL learners should be aware of the fact that in spite of the advantageousness of MT systems, their inadequacies should not be overlooked and handled with post-editing.