We present the first algorithm that computes optimal orderings of sentences into a locally coherent discourse. The algorithm runs very efficiently on a variety of coherence measures from the literature. We also show that the discourse ordering problem is NP-complete and cannot be approximated.

The Internet enables entirely new forms of interactive mass communication, which require novel ways of sociotechnological system design. It is argued that the e-democracy domain is an ideal field of application for what is here called ‘social intelligence design’. We suggest that the democratic and communicative potential of the Internet can be exploited in order to help strengthening the legit...

This chapter explores the use of a feminist website that raises awareness about issues related to Lebanese women. By uniting women’s voices via blogging, story narration, and comic strips, the Nasawiya feminists strive to challenge the hegemonic discourses that currently constitute the reality of women from Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon. The author inspects the discourses in that spa...

This paper maps the discursive struggles between different versions of nationalization in post 1997 Hong Kong. Once a de-nationalized colony, Hong Kong has been caught up in the cross road where previous de-sinicized discourses of localism, internationalism and cosmopolitism are re-negotiating with the new discourses of nationalism and patriotism. Visible top-down call for patriotism has been m...

This paper explores one case study from PhD research into students’ writing in the context of the transition from school to university, particularly focusing on ‘discourses of writing and learning to write’ (Ivanič, 2004) evident across the two educational levels. The data are taken from a two-year engagement in the field, following students from their last year of A-levels to their first year ...

Vocational rehabilitation for people experiencing work disability is a social practice often situated within health services, but the social and political drivers and effects of this practice are rarely critically analysed in health research or policy. In this study we used a Foucauldian theoretical perspective to analyse the ways in which current vocational rehabilitation practices in New Zeal...

This study aimed to understand the meanings women who possess health plans hold regarding pregnancy and get to know their care needs in this phase of the vital cycle. It was based on the qualitative research of phenomenological inspiration. The discourses analysis was based on the sociologist and fenomenologist Alfred Schutz's thought. Having health plans and being attended in private instituti...

This paper outlines the complex contemporary milieu of Australian teacher education within which curriculum leaders responsible for designing teacher education programs must make their program design decisions. Particular attention is paid to the collision of vertical (‘hierarchical’ or 'academic rationalist') and horizontal (‘flat’ or 'student-centred') curriculum discourses as a program desig...

In recent years linguistic research has turned increasing attention to covert/overt strategies to modulate authorial stance and positioning in scientific texts, and to the recipients' response. This study discussed some theoretical implications of the use of rhetoric in scientific communication and analysed qualitative data from the authoritative The Cognitive Neurosciences III (2004) volume. I...

In this article transmodernity will be described as the symbolic context within which, in the last decades, new formulations of selfhood and community have emerged that challenge consolidated representations of the world. The aim will be to examine and map out an illustrative range of discourses at the core of the transmodern scenario, highlighting the counterhegemonic potential of its symbolic...