Pragmatic ambivalence refers to a linguistic phenomenon in which the communicator uses vague or ambiguous words convey illocutionary force other party in specific context. It is an indispensable communicative strategy for successful communication daily activities. Relevance theory can explain pragmatic ambivalence from three aspects: intentional relevance, contextual relevance and reasoni...

Does party ambivalence, that is, simultaneously evaluating positively more than one political party, decrease turnout? The extant literature on this question is limited to the American case, and findings are rather mixed. Using data from Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project, paper provides a first large-scale comparative analysis ambivalence-turnout nexus in 46 countries. Based two di...

There is widespread concern about the health and social consequences of excessive alcohol consumption among young men. Interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm will be affected by ambivalence toward alcohol, because ambivalent attitudes are worse predictors of behaviour than are homogeneous attitudes. It is therefore important to identify aspects of alcohol consumption about which young men...

Issues of responsibility in the world of nanotechnology are becoming explicit with the emergence of a discourse on 'responsible development' of nanoscience and nanotechnologies. Much of this discourse centres on the ambivalences of nanotechnology and of promising technology in general. Actors must find means of dealing with these ambivalences. Actors' actions and responses to ambivalence are sh...

At once fearful and dependent, hopeful and distrustful, our contemporary relationship with technology is highly ambivalent. Using experiential accounts from an ongoing Facebook-based qualitative study (N = 231), I both diagnose and articulate this ambivalence. I argue that technological ambivalence is rooted primarily in the deeply embedded moral prescription to lead a meaningful life, and a re...