Introduction Most current formal theories of discourse incorporate some insight concerning the contribution of aspect to discourse structure, and many draw upon Hans Kamp’s analysis of the aspectual contribution of tenses, as well as Vlach’s notion of tenses as aspect-shift operators (cf. Vlach 1981). Thus, Kamp & Rohrer (1983) argue that the French imparfait acts as a ‘stativizer’, mapping non...

This paper presents a methodology for supporting the moderation phase in DCC (Democratic Citizenship Community), a virtual community for supporting e-democratic processes in e-life systems and applications. Based on the Government-Citizen Interactive Model, the DCC encompasses an innovative debate structure, as well as the moderator’s participation based on Discourse Theory, specially concernin...

Traditionally, CSR discourse has focused on multinational corporations. However, the present work’s starting point was the following question: can consumer-leaders and responsible SMEs help foster societal change toward sustainable consumption? By drawing on the literature about ethical consumption and community-based social marketing, we suggest community leaders and small organizations can pl...

This article consists of a qualitative analysis of discussion forums in online mental health communities whose members routinely write about diagnosis. The analysis concerns the function of diagnosis from the perspective of personal identity, with particular focus on the status of official diagnosis, as well as community members' discussions of symptoms and psychiatric syndromes that amount to ...

This study examines understandings of misfortune among east London Bangladeshis, particularly with respect to the role of jinn spirits. It reports on the findings of ethnographic interviews among 40 members of this community. Appeal to jinn explanations is commonplace at times of psychological disturbance and unexplained physical symptoms. Resort to traditional healers is frequent. These explan...

Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) and empowerment are critical issues in contemporary discourse within both development studies and disability studies. These issues have long been fraught with controversy, yet there remains little understanding of how CBR and empowerment interrelate, not only within programmes but also in a normative sense. There is even less understanding of what the outcom...

What forms of knowledge have legitimacy in the contemporary university? By using Actor-Network Theory to unravel the strands in a recent dispute about access to skeletons from a burial ground in Cape Town, this paper shows how circulating systems of references connect institutions, historical trajectories and differing sets of interests to form competing knowledge systems. Rather than falling b...

The IS research community has paid significant attention to climate change and other ecological problems. However, the communities own environmental footprint has been subject to little research so far. This work reports on the results of a Life Cycle Assessment that was conducted to identify the main determinants for the environmental footprint of an IS conference. It brings up the painful sub...

This paper presents findings from the pattern of participation and discourse analysis of the online interaction among in-service teachers in the teacher training institute in Singapore. It was found that the teachers formed a knowledge-building community and jointly discussed issues related to integrating information technology into the classroom. There was evidence that teachers formed a socia...

Political blogs as a form of social media allow for an uniquely interactive form of political discourse. This is especially evident in focused blogs with a strong ideological identity. We investigate techniques to identify topics within the context of the community, which when discussed in a blog post evoke a discernible positive or negative collective opinion from readers who respond to posts ...