- Table View
- List View
Practising Social Work Research
by Rachel Birnbaum Barbara Decker Pierce Rick CsiernikResearch is as critical to social work practice as individual and group counseling skills, policy analysis, or community development. Using an approach similar to those adopted in direct practice courses, this book integrates research with social work practice and in so doing, promotes an understanding and appreciation of the research process to social work students.Sixteen case studies adapted from actual events and case files illustrate different research approaches, including quantitative, qualitative, single subject, and mixed methods. Through these real-life examples, the authors demonstrate the processes of conceptualization, operationalization, sampling, data collection and processing, and implementation. Designed to help the student and practitioner become more comfortable with the research process, Practising Social Work Research uses a student-centered approach that capitalizes on the strengths that social work students bring to assessment and problem solving.
Practising Social Work Research: Case Studies for Learning, Third Edition
by Rick Csiernik Rachel BirnbaumResearch skills are as critical to social work practitioners as skills in individual and group counselling, policy analysis, and community development. Adopting strategies similar to those used in direct practice courses, this book integrates research with social work practice, and in so doing promotes an understanding and appreciation of the research process. The third edition of Practising Social Work Research comprises twenty-seven case studies that illustrate different research approaches, including quantitative, qualitative, single-subject, and mixed methods. The third edition also adopts a greater equity, diversity, and inclusivity focus than the previous editions. Through the use of applied, real-life examples, the authors demonstrate the processes of conceptualization, operationalization, sampling, data collection and processing, and implementation. Designed to help the student and practitioner become more comfortable with research procedures, Practising Social Work Research capitalizes on the strengths that social work students bring to assessment and problem solving.
Practising the Symbolic: Pierre Bourdieu's Contribution
by Sheena JainA powerful theory of the symbolic embedded within a remarkable and original theory of practice is a nodal aspect of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who was a leading social thinker of our times (1930-2002). Against the backdrop of the significance of symbolic practice in social life, this book explains the intellectual warp and woof of his theory of the symbolic; presents a brief excursus that explores its potential to illuminate social contexts other than those in which it was conceived; examines its links with Bourdieu's role of social critic and public intellectual; and engages critically with scholarly assessments of his contribution. The book thus seeks to provide a comprehensive and in depth analysis and understanding of a central dimension of Bourdieu's work.
Practising Welfare Rights (The Social Work Skills Series)
by Neil BatemanPractising Welfare Rights aims to improve awareness among people working in social work and advice agencies about the skills required for effective welfare rights work, and offers guidance for managers and other professionals about how to develop a welfare rights service. Written by a well-known author, trainer and adviser on welfare rights issues, this book includes: learning objectives activities to test understanding illustrative case studies. It also covers core welfare rights skills, such as interviewing, legal research, negotiation and advocacy, and discusses the historical, social and economic forces which have shaped welfare rights practice as well as the politics of welfare. An accessible book which highlights the place of welfare rights practice in modern society.
The Practitioner Guide to Participatory Research with Groups and Communities
by Lucy Maynard Kaz StuartAvoiding both over-simplification and jargon-riddled complexity, this book is an invaluable, straightforward guide to participatory research for you and your fellow practitioners working with community groups and organisations. The book offers a route map for co-research projects with groups and communities, taking you through each stage of the participatory research process, from planning a project to sharing the findings. Keeping in mind imperatives such as engagement and voice, the book explores how to carry out research in ways that are meaningful for communities. This book includes valuable resources such as reflection points, tasks and further reading lists, offering support to practitioners to plan and undertake participatory research projects with confidence.
Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage (Routledge Guides to Practice in Museums, Galleries and Heritage)
by Joanne OrrPractitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage provides an accessible introduction to the Intangible Cultural Heritage field. Summarising the major changes that have taken place over the last two decades, the book explores ongoing debates and changes in thinking about best practice. Drawing on the author’s own experience of operationalising the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in a variety of contexts, Orr also incorporates international case studies from practitioners and provides valuable insights about best practices. Demonstrating that the top-down, state-driven hierarchy for the safeguarding of heritage is starting to shift to a model of shared ownership and values driven by communities and practitioners, the book shows that the notion of the ‘expert’ is also diversifying to include other forms of transmission of traditional knowledge. Orr argues that these different perspectives provide a platform to enrich understanding and knowledge and create a stronger basis for the safeguarding of heritage - both intangible and tangible. Exploring some of the policy developments that have laid the foundations for the future involvement of community and practitioners in the global discourse, the book also suggests how practitioners can expand networks and contribute to the global discourse. Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage will appeal to museum curators and other heritage professionals, as well as students and academics engaged in the study of museums and heritage, art, and cultural policy and management.
Practitioner Research for Social Work, Nursing, and the Health Professions
by Payam Sheikhattari Michael T. Wright Gillian B. Silver Cyrilla van der Donk Bas van LanenAn invaluable tool for health and social work students and professionals who want to improve their practice through collaborative research with patients, clients, and colleagues.Throughout history, some of the most prominent contributors to health and social sciences have been men and women comfortable with both practice and academia. But today, research in health-related fields is increasingly conducted in specialized settings by people who are first and foremost researchers. Critics bemoan this loss of practice-based research, long considered a vital part of the contribution that doctors, nurses, public health workers, and social workers can make both to their field and the communities in which they work. Unfortunately, the explosion of new discoveries in health-related fields, along with the exponential increase in the amount of knowledge being produced and the growing demands of practice, have caused both the production and application of knowledge to become highly specialized and increasingly complex. This has resulted in a widening gap between research and practice.Recognizing the need for a guide to this type of research, Practitioner Research for Social Work, Nursing, and the Health Professions is a thoroughly reimagined version of a book originally published in 2011 in the Netherlands. Aimed at American practitioners, it is a highly practical guide for anyone in social work, nursing, and other health care and social welfare settings. Its seven-step Practitioner Research Method offers readers a tried-and-true approach to conducting research in their own work environments, and the authors use real-world examples to highlight strategies for overcoming barriers and incorporating research.While leading practitioners through each stage of the research process, the authors explain in detail how to apply a variety of field-tested tools and techniques. A unique and indispensable resource for students in undergraduate and graduate research courses, as well as for seasoned professionals who seek a practical guide for developing and implementing their own research projects in social work, nursing, and the health professions, this book is also the first textbook to introduce the concept and practice of practitioner research to an American audience.
A Practitioner's Guide to State and Local Population Projections (The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis #37)
by David A. Swanson Stanley K. Smith Jeff TaymanThis book focuses on the methodology and analysis of state and local population projections. It describes the most commonly used data sources and application techniques for four types of projection methods: cohort-component, trend extrapolation, structural models, and microsimulation. It covers the components of population growth, sources of data, the formation of assumptions, the development of evaluation criteria, and the determinants of forecast accuracy. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of various projection methods and pays special attention to the unique problems that characterize small-area projections. The authors provide practical guidance to demographers, planners, market analysts, and others called on to construct state and local population projections. They use many examples and illustrations and present suggestions for dealing with special populations, unique circumstances, and inadequate or unreliable data. They describe techniques for controlling one set of projections to another, for interpolating between time points, for sub-dividing age groups, and for constructing projections of population-related variables (e. g. , school enrollment, households). They discuss the role of judgment and the importance of the political context in which projections are made. They emphasize the "utility" of projections, or their usefulness for decision making in a world of competing demands and limited resources. This comprehensive book will provide readers with an understanding not only of the mechanics of the most commonly used population projection methods, but also of the many complex issues affecting their construction, interpretation, evaluation, and use.
Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice
by Allen Rubin Jennifer BellamyThe latest edition of an essential text to help students and practitioners distinguish between research studies that should and should not influence practice decisions Now in its third edition, Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice delivers an essential and practical guide to integrating research appraisal into evidence-informed practice. The book walks you through the skills, knowledge, and strategies you can use to identify significant strengths and limitations in research. The ability to appraise the veracity and validity of research will improve your service provision and practice decisions. By teaching you to be a critical consumer of modern research, this book helps you avoid treatments based on fatally flawed research and methodologies. Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice, Third Edition offers: An extensive introduction to evidence-informed practice, including explorations of unethical research and discussions of social justice in the context of evidence-informed practice. Explanations of how to appraise studies on intervention efficacy, including the criteria for inferring effectiveness and critically examining experiments. Discussions of how to critically appraise studies for alternative evidence-informed practice questions, including nonexperimental quantitative studies and qualitative studies. A comprehensive and authoritative blueprint for critically assessing research studies, interventions, programs, policies, and assessment tools, Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice belongs in the bookshelves of students and practitioners of the social sciences.
The Practitioner’s & Professional’s Guide to Intimate Partner Violence Advocacy in the Digital Age
by Laura ElizabethThis book presents a pioneering framework tailored for professionals involved in addressing intimate partner violence (IPV), specifically targeting the mitigation of social media misinformation. Utilizing effective communication strategies across platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, it seeks to bridge the divide between academic expertise and public comprehension, addressing key challenges encountered by practitioners. Beginning with foundational chapters defining IPV, tracing the evolution of social media, and dissecting misinformation, it sheds light on prevalent knowledge gaps underscored by cases like the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial. The latter section serves as a comprehensive guide, furnishing industry-specific communication insights for law enforcement, counselors, researchers, and more. Culminating with actionable recommendations for future research and practice, this work is poised to enhance understanding and combat misinformation in the realm of IPV intervention.
A Practitioners' Tool for Child Protection and the Assessment of Parents
by Jeff FowlerA practical tool for the assessment of children and their families, this guide enables professionals to make informed decisions about child protection issues. Firmly rooted in current practice, it draws on the expertise of a practising consultant and experienced qualified social worker Jeff Fowler, whose work has already formed the basis of guidance reports for child protection agencies and court proceedings. Providing detailed checklists for collecting and interpreting information vital to a best practice assessment, it also includes practical sections that focus on assessing attachment issues, childhood experiences, alcohol and drug abuse, and parenting skills and abilities. It presents a central case study leading to an assessment report which can be used for case conferences, as a core assessment in care proceedings, or for statements in public and private law matters. This is a helpful tool for anyone undertaking assessments but also for others who may be involved in aspects of child protection work such as social workers, health professionals, teachers, and legal and criminal justice professionals.
Prägende Medienerlebnisse: Eine Mixed-Methods-Untersuchung aus resonanztheoretischer Perspektive
by Larissa LeonhardImmer wieder berichten Menschen von Erlebnissen mit Medieninhalten, die für sie individuell bedeutsam, besonders nachhaltig und mit weitreichenden Konsequenzen verbunden waren. Dabei ist die Bandbreite solcher seltenen und im Gedächtnis verwurzelten prägenden Medienerlebnisse sowie der damit einhergehenden Auswirkungen groß und kann etwa von einer anhaltenden Auseinandersetzung mit bestimmten Themen über neue Perspektiven auf die Welt bis hin zu Auswirkungen wie einer Ernährungsumstellung oder Einflüssen auf berufliche Entscheidungen reichen. Solche Erlebnisse sind ein bislang in kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Forschung weitgehend vernachlässigtes Phänomen. In der Arbeit wird deshalb zum einen eine grundlegende theoretische Konzeptualisierung prägender Medienerlebnisse anhand einer Kombination resonanztheoretischer Überlegungen mit Implikationen des Erlebnisbegriffs vorgenommen. Zum anderen erfolgt eine breit angelegte empirische Untersuchung des Phänomens mittels eines Mixed-Methods-Ansatzes. Der Ertrag der Arbeit besteht somit in der Erarbeitung eines (resonanz-)theoretisch informierten Verständnisses prägender Medienerlebnisse als individuellem Medienwirkungsphänomen sowie dessen erstmaliger umfassender empirischer Untersuchung.
A Pragmatic Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease (Philosophy and Medicine #151)
by Maartje Schermer Nicholas BinneyThis open access book is an integrated historical and philosophical investigation of several problematic situations that emerge from diverse areas of medical practice. These include (but are not limited to): Paying less attention to patients who are suffering with symptoms because no identifiable pathological lesion or pathophysiological process can be found. Paying too much attention to patients who are not suffering with symptoms because pathological lesions or pathophysiological processes have been found. The tendency to understand patients at risk of developing pathology as being diseased. The tendency to disregard the importance of wider societal consequences of definitions of disease and health. The book shows that many of these problems are related to what disease and health are considered to be and argues that these problems can be addressed by reconsidering the concepts of health and disease employed in practice. It argues for a pragmatic reconceptualization of health and disease that allows clinicians, researchers, and lay people to understand health and disease in many ways, depending on the specific context in which they find themselves and the problems they are trying to solve. In doing so, authors are careful to show how this pragmatism does not endorse “silly” forms of relativism, in which knowledge is reduced to belief or to whatever people find expedient to believe. This work is relevant for philosophers and historians a well as for doctors, health policy makers and other health professionals because it addresses problems sourced from medical practice, albeit using philosophical and historical methods.
Pragmatic Children's Nursing: A Theory for Children and their Childhoods (Routledge Research in Nursing and Midwifery)
by Duncan C. RandallPragmatic Children’s Nursing is the first attempt to create a paediatric nursing theory which argues for the importance of giving children living with illness access to a childhood which is, as far as possible, equal to that of their peers. Set in the historical context of the development of children’s nursing, this theory is presented in detail as an educational process, complete with eight outcome measures which allow the practitioner to evaluate its effectiveness. This book explores the triad relationship between children, carers and nurses within the context of healthcare delivery. Ht analyses the moral and ethical implications of pragmatic children’s nursing, which challenges the established ideas of family-centred care. In addition to offering theoretical grounding and debate, Randall presents four practical case studies which model how this theory may work within various hospital and community settings. Establishing a link between the concepts inherent in pragmatism and our understanding of childhood within society, this accessible book will appeal to a global audience of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students, researchers and policy makers. Discover more about this subject on our author Duncan C. Randall's website, which provides extra resources and information here: http://pragmaticchildrensnursing.com/
Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy: Intimacy, Intuition, and the Search for Meaning
by Jerrold L. ShapiroPragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy integrates concepts of positive psychology and strengths based therapy into existential therapy. Turning existential therapy on its head, this exciting, all-new title approaches the theory from a positive, rather than the traditional deficit model. Authored by a leading figure in existential therapy, Jerrold Lee Shapiro, the aim is to make existential therapy positive and easily accessible to a wide audience through a pragmatic, stage wise model. Shapiro expands on the work of Viktor Frankl and focuses on delivery to individuals and groups, men and women, and evidence based therapy. The key to his work is to help the client focus on resistance and to use it as a means of achieving therapeutic breakthroughs. Filled with vignettes and rich case examples, the book is comprehensive, accessible, concrete, pragmatic and very human in connection between author and reader. “This is a masterful primer on existential therapy that has been forged from the pen of a highly seasoned theorist, researcher, and practitioner. In Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy we gain the insight and personal experience of one who has lived and breathed the field for over 50 years—alongside some of the greatest practitioners of the craft, most notably Viktor Frankl. This volume is superb for students interested in a broad and substantive overview of the field.” —Kirk Schneider, Columbia University
Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy: Intimacy, Intuition, and the Search for Meaning
by Jerrold L. ShapiroPragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy integrates concepts of positive psychology and strengths based therapy into existential therapy. Turning existential therapy on its head, this exciting, all-new title approaches the theory from a positive, rather than the traditional deficit model. Authored by a leading figure in existential therapy, Jerrold Lee Shapiro, the aim is to make existential therapy positive and easily accessible to a wide audience through a pragmatic, stage wise model. Shapiro expands on the work of Viktor Frankl and focuses on delivery to individuals and groups, men and women, and evidence based therapy. The key to his work is to help the client focus on resistance and to use it as a means of achieving therapeutic breakthroughs. Filled with vignettes and rich case examples, the book is comprehensive, accessible, concrete, pragmatic and very human in connection between author and reader. “This is a masterful primer on existential therapy that has been forged from the pen of a highly seasoned theorist, researcher, and practitioner. In Pragmatic Existential Counseling and Psychotherapy we gain the insight and personal experience of one who has lived and breathed the field for over 50 years—alongside some of the greatest practitioners of the craft, most notably Viktor Frankl. This volume is superb for students interested in a broad and substantive overview of the field.” —Kirk Schneider, Columbia University
Pragmatic Healthcare Ethnography: Methods to Study and Improve Healthcare
by Alison B. Hamilton Gemmae M. Fix Erin P. FinleyThis practical and accessible textbook provides an overview of the key principles for conducting ethnography in healthcare settings. Shedding new light on healthcare delivery and experiences, ethnographic research methods provide a useful set of tools for observing how people act in the world and help us understand why people act as they do. Increasingly recognized for their explanatory power, especially around behavior and social context, ethnographic methods are an invaluable approach for understanding challenges and processes in healthcare services and delivery.This guide takes the reader step-by-step through the research process, from grant writing and study design to data collection and analysis. Each chapter, illustrated by a range of examples, introduces ethnographic concepts and techniques, considers how to apply them in pragmatic research, and includes suggestions for tips and tricks. An in-depth case study describing real-world ethnographic research in a healthcare setting follows each chapter to demonstrate both the “how to” and the value of ethnographic approaches. The case studies discuss why the researcher used ethnography, the specific approach taken, the setting for the work, and key lessons that demonstrate ethnographic principles covered in the related chapter.This is an essential text for researchers from a range of health-related backgrounds new to ethnographic methods, including students taking courses on qualitative research methods in health, implementation science, and applied anthropology.
Pragmatic Humanism: On the Nature and Value of Sociological Knowledge (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Marcus MorganIs sociology best understood as simply chipping away at our ignorance about society, or does it have broader roles and responsibilities? If so, to what—or perhaps to whom—are these responsibilities? Installing humanity as its epistemological and normative start and endpoint, this book shows how humanism recasts sociology as an activity that does not merely do things, or effect things, but is also self-consciously for something. Rather than resurrecting problematic classical conceptions of humanism, the book instead constructs its arguments on pragmatic grounds, showing how a pragmatic humanism presents an improved picture of both the nature and value of the discipline. This picture is based less around the claim that sociology is capable of providing authoritative revelations about society, and more upon its capacity to offer representations of the social in epistemologically open, transformative, ethical, and hopeful ways. Ultimately, it argues that sociology’s real value can only be disclosed by replacing its image as a discipline aimed towards disinterested social enlightenment with one of itself as a practice both dependent upon, and at its best self-consciously aimed towards, human ends and imperatives. It will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences, and to those working in social theory, sociology, and philosophy of the social sciences in particular.
The Pragmatic Ideal: Mary Field Parton and the Pursuit of a Progressive Society
by Mark Douglas McGarvieFollowing the life of a charismatic woman committed to reform, The Pragmatic Ideal provides an introduction to the politics that dominated the early decades of the twentieth century, ideas that are the basis for much of today's progressive thought. As one of the "new women" who came of age during the Progressive era, Mary Field Parton, a close friend of Clarence Darrow, pursued social justice as a settlement house worker and as a leading writer on labor organizing, transforming pragmatic principles into action.Mark Douglas McGarvie shows how, following the upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, liberals such as Mary Field Parton turned to pragmatism, hoping to generate greater social awareness from constructions of values rooted in personal experiences instead of philosophical or religious truths. The Pragmatic Ideal reveals how Mary Field Parton sought to expand her rights as a woman while nonetheless denigrating rights as artificial legal impediments to social progress. The issues she faced and the options she considered find important currency in the political divisions confronting Americans a century later.
Pragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology (Routledge Studies in Anthropology and Museums)
by Christina J Hodge Christina KrepsPragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology shifts museum anthropology’s relationship to the broader field from marginal to central by revealing the sophisticated transdisciplinary praxis (theory + practice) at the heart of current museum anthropologies. The book features international case studies that operate at the interfaces of critical museology, anthropology, material culture studies, art practice, and more. The theory of pragmatics proposes that meaning-making is collaborative and best evaluated through its impact in the world. Collectively the chapters in this volume evidence a ‘pragmatic imagination’ at work as museum anthropology practitioners ingeniously combine inventiveness (the possible) and practicality (the actual) in ways that drive the field forward. Defining museum anthropology as a pragmatic practice explicitly theorizes this work in order to mark its significance; demystify its processes of knowledge production; connect it more readily to debates within and beyond anthropology; and facilitate critique.
Pragmatic Inquiry: Critical Concepts for Social Sciences
by John R. BowenThis book examines a range of critical concepts that are central to a shift in the social sciences toward "pragmatic inquiry," reflecting a twenty-first century concern with particular problems and themes rather than grand theory. Taking a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, the collection demonstrates a shared commitment to using analytical concepts for empirical exploration and a general orientation to research that favors an attention to objects, techniques, and practices. The chapters draw from broad-based and far-reaching social theory in order to analyze new, specific challenges, from grasping the everyday workings of markets, courtrooms, and clinics, to inscribing the transformations of practice within research disciplines themselves. Each contributor takes a key concept and then explores its genealogies and its circulations across scholarly communities, as well as its proven payoffs for the social sciences and, often, critical reflections on its present and future uses. This carefully crafted volume will significantly expand and improve the analytical repertoires or toolkits available to social scientists, including scholars in sociology or anthropology and those working in science and technology studies, public health, and related fields.
Pragmatic Program Evaluation for Social Work: An Introduction
by Allen RubinBe prepared for your future role in a service-oriented agency. This textbook provides practical guidance on program evaluation while avoiding replicating other course material. Drawing on over 40 years of subject knowledge, Allen Rubin describes outcome designs that are feasible for service-oriented agencies and that match the degree of certainty needed by key users of outcome evaluations. The utility and easy calculation of within-group effect sizes are outlined, which enhance the value of evaluations that lack control groups. Instructions are also given on how to write and disseminate an evaluation report in a way maximizes its chances of being used. Conducting focus group interviews and capitalising on the value of non-probabilitysamples will become second nature after following the effective and pragmatic advice mapped out chapter-by-chapter.
Pragmatic Spirituality: The Christian Faith through an Africentric Lens
by Gayraud S. WilmoreGayraud S. Wilmore, an internationally renowned scholar of the history of the African American church, is one of the founders of black theology and author of Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Pragmatic Spirituality brings together some of his most compelling writings to speak to continuing issues in African American Christianity and black theology. The volume makes available for the first time several of Wilmore's previously unpublished essays, including a new chapter on womanist theology written for this book. Each chapter has been thoroughly reviewed and where appropriate reworked for this volume in order to create a coherent work which reveals a consistent "pragmatic spirituality" in African and African American religious practice. This book presents a view of the Christian faith and life at variance with the quest for personal sanctity by emphasizing communal empowerment for humanization and justice. Pragmatic Spirituality incorporates some of the most engaging of Wilmore's voluminous writings to reinstate a persistent theme: that black or Africentric faith transposes itself from basically numinous and ecstatic elements in African and African diasporic religions to the immediate and practical work of healing and empowering the poor and marginalized. This book transcends a narrow Africentrism to call for a broad acquaintance with a historic motif in black faith that has to do with compassion, justice, equality, and the liberation of all people. This illuminating volume displays Wilmore's influence on the development of black theology for over fifty years, and introduces his work to a new generation of scholars.
The Pragmatics of Governmental Discourse: Resilience, Sustainability and Wellbeing (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Ayan-Yue GuptaThis book presents a novel methodological framework for analysing governmental discourse. It involves combining pragmatist perspectives on language with computational sociolinguistics and large language models (LLMs).The first half discusses traditional critical approaches to investigating discursive practices, principally those employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and those based on methods developed by Michel Foucault. These are critiqued in terms of pragmatist views on meaning, which are rarely taken up in this area. It is argued that to understand the grounding of social structures and power relations in discourse, we must begin with a systematic account of how meaning is contextually fixed. It is proposed that a pragmatist reading of Foucault’s arguments about governmentality offers a productive framework for discourse analysis. To illustrate the advantages of this framework, the book presents a case study of the British government’s adoption of resilience, sustainability, and wellbeing discourses in the period 2000-2020. A dataset of 179 million tokens sampled from approximately 170,000 government documents is used to illustrate how this framework can be combined with natural language processing (NLP) to make robust inferences.This study will be of interest to both sociologists interested in language and in the methodological potential of recent developments in NLP. Importantly, the book demonstrates how LLMs can be harnessed to bring new perspectives to long-standing sociological questions.
Pragmatics of Internet Humour
by Francisco YusThis book provides a first thorough analysis of internet humour from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective, covering a wide range of discourses that are pervasive online and focusing especially on messaging interactions, social networking sites and memes. Its chapters describe the inferential strategies implemented to turn online coded discourses into meaningful interpretations, which in turn can be devised and manipulated for the sake of humour. Furthermore, and apart from the typical object of pragmatic research (humorous discourses), the book emphasises the importance of the interfaces’ design and of the qualities of the users engaged in humorous interactions (called contextual constraints), additionally highlighting the parallel significance of the various effects, shaped as feelings and emotions, that stem from humorous communication on the internet. In sum, the book delivers a rich and detailed account of humorous internet discourses through dissecting their affordances as a medium, tracking the users’ intentions, and predicting the audiences’ interpretive strategies, with the goal of helping the reader obtain a better understanding of internet humour and its role in today’s online interactions.