<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The aim of this paper was to study gender differences in topic choice selection using the corpus of speeches given in the 113th United States Congress. We also looked at whether there are topic choice selection differences with respect to party affiliation and chamber, and finally, whether conversational topics chosen by male and female politicians correlate with any other category we measured in our corpus. The corpus was composed of 672 speeches by the female and 2,983 speeches by the male politicians. The speech transcripts were downloaded from the official repository Thomas and analyzed using the text analysis software <italic>Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count</italic> (LIWC) to identify the use of vocabulary related to seven conversational topics recorded by LIWC. The data was analyzed both quantitatively, using statistical analysis, and qualitatively, to determine if there are significant gender differences in speech topic selection. The analyses showed that there are overall gender and affiliation differences in topic selection by the male and female politicians in the 113th Congress, some confirming the trend of long-standing prevalence of home-related references in women’s speeches, and death and religion references in men’s speeches, others marking a social shift for some of the categories compared to previous studies on the topic, such as the increasing share of references to work, money achievement in women’s speeches, as well as women’s preference for security, and men’s preference for competitiveness, as signaled by their lexical choices. Further correlation test results recorded subtler differences which pointed to linguistic changes in stereotypization, such as women signaling less emotion and choosing more formal ways of expression.</abstract>

Gender and affiliation differences in topic selection in U.S. congressional speeches

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The study explores which languages are predominant in the online use among the targeted participant population in Croatia and Slovenia and examines the association between the participants’ smartphone online use of English and preferred subtitling mode with their perceived communicative competence in English. The findings indicate that in both nationality groups the use of English prevails in receptive language activities, in particular listening and audio-visual reception, while mother tongues are mainly used for productive and interactive activities. Participants who prefer English when engaging in online informal activities through their smartphones and who use English or no subtitles when watching video content also assess their competence in English to be on higher levels.</abstract>

English communicative competence and predominant language for online use through smartphones in Croatia as compared to Slovenia

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This paper aimed to investigate metaphorical images used by master’s students in order to gain an insight into their schemata for thinking about the process of master’s thesis writing. Semistructured interviews on the topic of master’s thesis writing with three students coming from humanities, social sciences and natural sciences served as a corpus from which the data were extracted. The paper analysed participants’ unconscious use of metaphorical language in their narratives, mirroring their perception of the thesis writing process. The results revealed that the participants’ personal experience revolves around the concept of journey as the central image they share and the journey metaphor, along with a group of related specific metaphors, serves to illustrate the complexity of the writing process itself.</abstract>

Journey through the writing process: Metaphors of thesis writing experience

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ExELL

 ExELL (Explorations in English Language and Linguistics) is an international peer-reviewed electronic journal, published as a joint project of the School of English Studies of the University Josip Juraj Strossmayer Osijek, Croatia and English Language and Literature Department of Tuzla University from Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The aim of the journal is to promote and facilitate academic exchange in English theoretical and applied linguistics. Our mission is to provide a linguistics journal based on data drawn from the English language that would reflect a wide range of interests and opinions. We want to create opportunities for scholarly communication by encouraging the dissemination of theoretical and research-informed insights using the Internet as a medium in order to make linguistics accessible to the widest possible audience.  The journal offers a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and educational approaches to English. We encourage submission of various topics about the English language and　 linguistics, such as: theoretical and descriptive approaches to English, synchronic and diachronic variability of English, cognitive approaches to English, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics, applied linguistics, ELT/TEFL/ESP, second language acquisition, translation studies, the structure of contemporary varieties of English (phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) and other topics related to exploration of English language and linguistics.  The journal is interested in papers which focus on defining new problems for the study of the English language and linguistics, providing new insights into the known problems and developing new methodologies to approach old and new problems.  The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

ExELL

Volume 6 (2018): Issue 2 (December 2018)

Gender and affiliation differences in topic selection in U.S. congressional speeches

English communicative competence and predominant language for online use through smartphones in Croatia as compared to Slovenia

Journey through the writing process: Metaphors of thesis writing experience

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