zohar livnat - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by zohar livnat

Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of th... more Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of the texts that constitute a certain genre and their communicative purpose. Concession structures are prevalent in academic papers of all kinds, since they offer an excellent opportunity to allow the voice of others to be heard and confronted in the text. However, while in less confronta- tional papers concession structures act inside the limitations of politeness or the conventions of the genre, at the more confrontational pole, their conflictual potential is manifest. In this search for the linguistic manifestation of confrontation, a high-resolution microanalysis of concession structures was carried out. Findings show that this syntactic or textual form may contain various linguistic elements that serve to bolster the differences in opinions and make a criticism more direct and more personal, including pronouns, personal names, unspecific terms of reference, passive voice, hedging, inten...

Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of th... more Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of the texts that constitute a certain genre and their communicative purpose. Concession structures are prevalent in academic papers of all kinds, since they offer an excellent opportunity to allow the voice of others to be heard and confronted in the text. However, while in less confrontational papers concession structures act inside the limitations of politeness or the conventions of the genre, at the more confrontational pole, their conflictual potential is manifest. In this search for the linguistic manifestation of confrontation, a high-resolution microanalysis of concession structures was carried out. Findings show that this syntactic or textual form may contain various linguistic elements that serve to bolster the differences in opinions and make a criticism more direct and more personal, including pronouns, personal names, unspecific terms of reference, passive voice, hedging, intensifiers, direct negation and direct evaluation of self-and other's arguments. The substantial distribution of concession structures with their evident confrontational potential in all kinds of academic papers may provide further indication of the argumentative and persuasive nature of this genre.

Folia Linguistica, 2001

This paper will discuss the constraints and limitation on the morphological derivation of adverbs... more This paper will discuss the constraints and limitation on the morphological derivation of adverbs from nominal kernels and will examine a growing tendency in Modern Hebrew to create novel adverbs from existing nouns with the addition of the suffix +it. A delicate equilibrium is ...

Language Sciences, Mar 1, 2011

In this paper, I will propose an extended concept of 'quantity' that may include not only a quant... more In this paper, I will propose an extended concept of 'quantity' that may include not only a quantity of information, but also of verbiage, punctuation, emotion and intonation. I will suggest that we can find flouting of conventions or of expectations in relation to any of these aspects, so that redundancy in any of them can create an ironic effect. I also maintain that the matter of quantity is intriguingly connected to that of untruthfulness, and moreover, that in some cases, the path that leads from the flouting of the Maxim of Quantity to an ironic interpretation goes through untruthfulness. Flouting of the Maxim of Quantity is itself already a cue for the presence of indirect meaning. However, it can also help to reveal the untruthfulness of a particular component of the utterance, and in this way, cues for yet another flouting of the Cooperative Principle, adding yet another cue for the presence of indirect meaning. I further suggest that both aspects of the Maxim of Quantity-both an excess as well as a paucity of information-are relevant to the ironic interpretation. 'Too little information' can also evoke an ironic effect, as is implicitly suggested in the literature by the mention of litotes (understatement) in the context of irony.

Pragmatics & Cognition, Jun 10, 2004

The aim of this paper is to examine some actual examples of written verbal irony that contain app... more The aim of this paper is to examine some actual examples of written verbal irony that contain apposition. Meta-linguistic knowledge about apposition as a syntactic structure is claimed to be involved in the interpretation process of the utterance and especially in recognizing the victim of the irony. This discussion demonstrates the interdependence between apposition, its echoic quality in particular cases, and the victim of the irony. Since syntactic structure may serve as a cue to indirect meaning, pointing at the specific meta-linguistic knowledge used for interpreting ironic utterances may enrich the discussion and enhance the description of the interpretation process. Different types of echoing are demonstrated and examined. The analysis also suggests that untruthfulness may serve mainly as a cue to the presence of irony, rather than as an essential component of this phenomenon.

Journal of Argumentation in Context, Dec 31, 2016

Reviewed by Zohar Livnat This interesting book on the use of imaginary scenarios as arguments in ... more Reviewed by Zohar Livnat This interesting book on the use of imaginary scenarios as arguments in science is a fine contribution to the study of scientific argumentation. Its contribution to the body of knowledge in this field is grounded both on solid theory and a detailed and cautious analysis of thought experiments as a context-situated argumentative practice. Contrary to the logico-epistemological approach, which proposes a reconstruction of thought experiments from the perspective of the cognitive process involved (e.g. Norton, 1996), the author, following Kuhn (1977a) and others, chooses an argumentative point of view that reconstructs thought experiments focusing on their reliability and innovation. Theoretically, the study follows the pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation, which provides a reconstruction method that makes it possible to convincingly connect the 'raw' versions of a thought experiment to its reconstructed version. In addition to developing a set of analytical instruments for the reconstruction of thought experiments "that does justice to the interactional dimension of the practice" (p. 16), the author also specifies the empirical resources that can be employed in order to warrant these reconstructive transformations, based on analysis of disputes in the history of science, from Plato up to the present, in various fields in which thought experiments were proposed to promote a certain argument. These disputes in their context provide explicit and implicit pieces of information regarding the communicative event under study and the institutional context in which that event took place, which may be used as empirical resources for reconstruction. These resources are of three kinds: textual, intertextual, i.e. those found in other texts written by members of the discourse community, and contextual, mainly conventions and norms that govern academic disputes. The first four analytical chapters (2-5) refer to the ideal model of a critical discussion (e.g. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984; 2004), which notes four dialectical stages in a critical discussion: A 'confrontation stage' in which the discussants first establish that they have a difference of opinion; an 'opening stage' , in which they decide to resolve this difference of opinion and determine their points

Science & education, Feb 20, 2019

Learning the unique linguistic forms and structures that construct and communicate scientific pri... more Learning the unique linguistic forms and structures that construct and communicate scientific principles, knowledge, and beliefs is important for developing students' disciplinary literacy. The use of scientific language is apparent in the texts that scientists produce to communicate their findings to other scientists-the research articles. Texts are underused in the science classroom and the texts that students do read often do not reflect the core attributes of authentic scientific reasoning. Adapted primary literature (APL) refers to an educational genre that enables the use of scientific articles in high school. In the adaptation process, the language of the article is changed to make it more accessible for high school students. Here, we present a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) analysis of an APL article compared to the original research article and to a popular article. The three texts were systematically scanned and compared for specific lexicogrammatical items that characterize five linguistic features of scientific writing: informational density, abstraction, technicality, authoritativeness, and hedging. We found that the adaptation process lowered the lexical complexity, while retaining the authenticity of the scientific writing. APL articles, as suggested by the linguistic analysis presented here, may serve as models of scientific reasoning and communication and may promote students' language awareness and disciplinary literacy. We suggest using APL articles as an apprenticeship genre, for learning about the unique features of authentic scientific texts, and the reasoning that is reflected in the way the articles are written.

Language in Society, Oct 26, 2011

It should be noted, however, that some authors are still constrained by a somewhat ethnocentric m... more It should be noted, however, that some authors are still constrained by a somewhat ethnocentric mindset, which leads to biased positions in a few chapters, where authors try to elevate Western ideology and depreciate oriental values, or confirm one variation of discourses as represented by Taiwan or Hong Kong and downplay other variations as represented by Mainland China. As to the research methodology, content analysis serves as the predominant approach to speeches, interviews, and news items. While it is a most direct and convenient approach, the acclaimed approach "discourse analysis" can in the future incorporate more sociofriendly linguistic theories as frameworks of analysis. It seems inevitable that a book like this-when read by people from Mainland China-will be bound to stimulate some complicated feelings due to the different discourses used in different parts of "Greater China." In this sense, it is invaluable "original data" for future research in this area. With more efforts of the scholars in this promising field, it can be predicated that some more penetrating analysis will emerge in the near future.

Yod, May 6, 2021

Revue des études hébraïques et juives 23 | 2021 Le Voyage de l'hébreu à travers le temps et la so... more Revue des études hébraïques et juives 23 | 2021 Le Voyage de l'hébreu à travers le temps et la société Référence électronique Il-Il Yatziv-Malibert et Zohar Livnat, « Usages non déictiques et impersonnels de la deuxième personne du singulier en hébreu moderne parlé : trois approches »,

Argumentation, Jun 10, 2009

This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining t... more This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining the rhetorical and the sociological perspectives. The scientific fact is presented as an entity having both an epistemic and a social meaning, and the scientific paper is presented as a discourse that has both an epistemic value and role related to knowledge and to the description

... this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/ds Editor Edda Weigand University of Mün... more ... this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/ds Editor Edda Weigand University of Münster Assistant Editor Sebastian Feller Institute ... Taylor College of William and Mary Wolfgang Teubert University of Birmingham Linda R. Waugh University of Arizona Elda Weizman Bar ...

International journal of legal discourse, Apr 1, 2017

Legal interpretation often includes a profusion of meta-pragmatic comments about the interpretati... more Legal interpretation often includes a profusion of meta-pragmatic comments about the interpretation process itself. Thus, while pragmatic theories refer to the interpretation processes as natural, mostly unconscious processes, in legal interpretation the inference processes take on a conscious form. Meta-pragmatic comments provide a glimpse into this process and surface various aspects of it that have been described theoretically. The aim of this study is to examine the possibility of applying theoretical pragmatic terms to the legal interpretation discourse.A semantic-pragmatic analysis of a few cases shows that while the linguistic component of the legal interpretation makes it easy to apply pragmatic theory, some of the procedures performed by judges are incompatible with a semantic-pragmatic interpretation and contradict its theoretical assumptions. The purposive approach to interpretation that has developed in the Israeli legal system raises some serious problems in that sense. Applying the objective purpose of a statute even when it is obvious that the legislators could not have desired that in order to change the law cannot be considered "interpretation" in the pragmatic sense, since the central element of speaker's intentions has been given a completely different meaning, and the aim of the interpretation procedure, namely identifying the speaker's intentions, has for the most part been lost. This paper suggests that these cases should be viewed as exceptions to pragmatic interpretation and they do not permit application of pragmatic theory to them, at least not of the types of approaches attributed to Grice's legacy. Nevertheless, this does not mean that theoretical pragmatic tools are not applicable to judicial opinions and to other kinds of legal text.

Journal of Argumentation in Context, Sep 22, 2014

The aim of this paper is to provide a rhetorical-linguistic analysis of academic ‘conflict articl... more The aim of this paper is to provide a rhetorical-linguistic analysis of academic ‘conflict articles’ that are part of an actual academic controversy in the field of archaeology, focusing on the concept of scientificethos. In contexts of conflict, the act of establishing one’s ethos and attacking the rival’s ethos can become a central issue. Scientific ethos is a discursive construction reciprocally established and negotiated through various linguistic practices. First-person pronouns, citations, rhetorical questions, irony, positive and negative evaluations are all resources available to the authors, as well as labeling, quotation marks and punctuation. Scientific norms ofdisinterestednessandskepticism, as well as the values ofconsistency,simplicityandfruitfulnessare realized in this argumentative context. Due to the ideological, political and religious implications of the subject,emotional neutralityas a scientific value was found to be especially significant.

Journal of Language and Politics, Jul 19, 2011

This paper discusses the Israeli newspaper coverage of a single event of considerable public sign... more This paper discusses the Israeli newspaper coverage of a single event of considerable public significance in the Israeli-Palestinian context. A dominant analogy in the coverage that played various argumentative roles and its responses are analyzed. When trying to answer the question of how to respond to an analogy put forward by a participant in a communication, various methods available to the interlocutor are mentioned, two of which are shown to be rhetorically effective in this case: (1) acceptance of the analogy enables the interlocutor to expand and enrich it into new argumentative directions; (2) a mere rejection of an analogy, without explicitly pointing to specific deficiencies in it or offering an alternative analogy, is shown to be potentially effective when its power stems from the use of irony: Ironic utterances allow for the explicit mention of the analogy, while at the same time holding it up to ridicule, thereby causing the rival's arguments to be indirectly rejected. This method of rejection is not discussed in the literature on analogy. The analysis demonstrates the ways in which a figurative analogy might be effective although there is no difficulty to attack and refute it. In a complex context such as the political arena, the pragmatic effectiveness may be more relevant than incoherence, thus an analogy is not necessarily judged according to normative criteria.

Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of th... more Drawing from genre analysis, this article assumes a fundamental connection between the form of the texts that constitute a certain genre and their communicative purpose. Concession structures are prevalent in academic papers of all kinds, since they offer an excellent opportunity to allow the voice of others to be heard and confronted in the text. However, while in less confrontational papers concession structures act inside the limitations of politeness or the conventions of the genre, at the more confrontational pole, their conflictual potential is manifest. In this search for the linguistic manifestation of confrontation, a high-resolution microanalysis of concession structures was carried out. Findings show that this syntactic or textual form may contain various linguistic elements that serve to bolster the differences in opinions and make a criticism more direct and more personal, including pronouns, personal names, unspecific terms of reference, passive voice, hedging, intensifiers, direct negation and direct evaluation of self-and other's arguments. The substantial distribution of concession structures with their evident confrontational potential in all kinds of academic papers may provide further indication of the argumentative and persuasive nature of this genre.