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In the article, a stylistic and discourse-oriented characterization of plain language is presented, and it is examined within a set of tensions: difficult – easy, written – spoken, formal – colloquial, asymmetric – inclusive. Plain language is not merely a simplification of institutional discourse; it also entails a reconfiguration of how reception is conceptualized. The text thus becomes an instrument of inclusivity, understood as the cooperative inclusion of individuals with limited communicative competence, while simultaneously maintaining the sender’s dominant.

The Russian-Ukrainian war is one of the most disruptive and devastating contemporary armed conflicts in Europe.However, it is not only a fight with missiles and drones, but also a fight of meanings and discourses.The war over words happens in news coverage, social media interactions, political narratives, and public interpretations.Understanding the persuasive dimensions of discourse production, construction, circulation, and reception has become an important task for scholars in many fields -including rhetoric.The 2026 collection of essays and studies in the book Mediated Discourses of Conflict Across Languages and Genres: Coverage and Reception of the War in Ukraine, edited by Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska and Simina-Maria Terian, offers valuable insights into these problems based on the tailored multilingual corpus of media texts covering the war from various perspectives.The book is a result of the international project named The coverage and reception of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Polish, Romanian, and English--language media.A comparative critical discourse study with recommendations for journalism training (CORECON), which was funded by NextGen EU instrument and realized at the "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu throughout 2024-2026.Sixteen authors who contributed fourteen chapters of this volume represent a variety of academic disciplines and build on diverse theories and methodologies to study representations and narratives of conflicts related to the Russian-Ukrainian war.All of the authors come from Poland and Romania -post-Soviet, Central--Eastern European countries, EU and NATO members -a which means that the book represents a regionally situated, and pro-Ukrainian positionality and perspective

W artykule postawiono następującą tezę: mediacja stanowi wyjątkowy przypadek retoryczny, w którym skuteczność perswazji jest odwrotnie proporcjonalna do jej widoczności. Aby być efektywnym perswadującym, mediator musi zrezygnować z pozycji oratorskiej – buduje ethos przez abdykację, a perswazję realizuje przez jej delegację stronom konfliktu. Komunikacja inkluzywna nie jest w tej perspektywie wartością dodaną mediacji, lecz warunkiem koniecznym owej delegacji: tylko w przestrzeni bezpiecznej i opartej na wzajemnym szacunku każda ze stron może stać się perswazyjnie fortunnym rzecznikiem własnej sprawy. Teza ta została zweryfikowana poprzez retoryczną analizę trzech elementów: tzw. korpusu mediacyjnego – monologu mediatora, modelu Porozumienia bez Przemocy (PbP) oraz „komunikatu JA” – z zastosowaniem neoarystotelesowskiej ramy analitycznej (inventio, dispositio, elocutio; etos, patos, logos) uzupełnionej o teorię audytorium Chaïma Perelmana i Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteki. Wykorzystano też metodę close reading do analizy autentycznego przykładu, ujawniającej konkretne zabiegi językowe konstytuujące mediacyjną perswazję.

Studium w ramach krytycznej analizy dyskursu (KAD) dotyczy tematów i toposów, utrwalonych w memach na Facebookowej grupie dyskusyjnej poświęconej bezdzietności z wyboru. Materiał, publikowany od 5 stycznia 2025 do 1 lutego 2026 roku, obejmuje 104 przykładów. Analiza wykazuje wysoką monotematyczność memów, które w większości dotyczą posiadania dzieci. Wśród toposów wyróżniono: topos dziecka jako szkodnika/intruza, topos rodziny międzygatunkowej, topos matni pronatalistycznej, topos rodzicielstwa jako jałowego męczeństwa, topos patologii prokreacyjnej oraz topos zabezpieczonej starości (szklanki wody). Choć wykaz toposów pozostaje otwarty, już te wymienione pozwalają przybliżyć sposób widzenia świata osób bezdzietnych z wyboru. Memy normalizują i afirmują bezdzietność, racjonalizując postawę i decyzję o bezdzietności, m.in. demitologizując rodzicielstwo, a także walczą ze stereotypami, tworzą wspólnotę śmiechu i wspólnotę myśli, umożliwiając wyrażanie radykalnych opinii bez konsekwencji. Pełnią funkcje terapeutyczne i obronne, wyznaczając granice grupy poprzez polaryzację. Strategie te, będące rodzajem „agresji obronnej”, służą inkluzywności i walce o społeczną akceptację.

W artykule przedstawiono strategie narracyjne podmiotów politycznych i społecznych w tajwańskim dyskursie publicznym prowadzonym w kontekście równości małżeńskiej. Przedmiot badań to ustalenie filarów retorycznych toczonego dyskursu publicznego. Celem analizy jest zidentyfikowanie schematów argumentacyjnych w strategiach retorycznych prowadzonych dla pozyskania poparcia opinii publicznej w komunikowaniu kontrowersyjnych decyzji politycznych. Analiza przypadku (case study) Tajwanu została przeprowadzona metodą opisową (descriptive research) na podstawie danych zastanych (data research). W badaniu wykorzystano również przegląd innych źródeł, w tym artykułów prasowych. Wyniki badania potwierdziły, że zbudowanie skutecznej retoryki włączającej wymaga zastosowania odpowiednich schematów argumentacyjnych oraz ich modyfikacji na różnych etapach procesów komunikowania, uwzględniając zmieniające się okoliczności.

Celem artykułu jest scharakteryzowanie ewolucji użycia języka inkluzywnego w hiszpańskim dyskursie politycznym na przestrzeni ostatnich 20 lat. Przeanalizowano występowanie konstrukcji inkluzywnych w orędziach noworocznych prezydentów wybranych wspólnot autonomicznych. Wyniki badania wskazują, że formy te mają funkcję integracyjną i więziotwórczą, a korelacja między stosowaniem języka inkluzywnego a przynależnością partyjną nie jest jednoznaczna. Zaobserwowano także zbieżność czasową między pojawieniem się w Hiszpanii skrajnej prawicy a spadkiem częstości użycia języka inkluzywnego w analizowanych przemówieniach.

Przedmiotem artykułu jest analiza wykorzystanych technik perswazyjnych w kampanii #ZmieniamyNarracje, która została poświęcona kwestii inkluzyjności, a przede wszystkim językowi inkluzywnemu. Za pomocą różnych technik nakłaniania, m.in. wartościujących epitetów, definicji perswazyjnej, presupozycji, zabiegów służących budowaniu poczucia wspólnoty, starano się zbudować określoną wizję inkluzywności – działań określanych jako empatyczne, dobre, słowem: pozytywne.

Inclusive leadership is most commonly conceptualized as a behavioral style, psychological climate or managerial practice that promotes participation, belongingness and recognition. While these approaches have generated important insights, they provide only limited explanation of how inclusion is communicatively sustained within organizations. This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding inclusive leadership as a discursive-rhetorical practice of power. Drawing on a critical narrative synthesis of rhetorical theory, discourse studies and leadership scholarship, the article argues that inclusion is not a stable organizational condition, but a communicative accomplishment. The study proposes a three-dimensional framework composed of discursive construction, identity formation and power mediation that explains how rhetorical mechanisms (particularly logos, ethos and pathos) shape the meanings of inclusion, legitimize organizational identities and regulate participation under different institutional conditions. By integrating classical rhetoric and contemporary leadership theory, the article contributes a more precise account of how inclusion is rhetorically enabled, constrained and contested.

Artykuł rekonstruuje ewolucję edukacji retorycznej na kierunku dziennikarstwo i komunikacja społeczna w Uniwersytecie Rzeszowskim. Na podstawie jakościowej analizy programów, sylabusów oraz dokumentów ewaluacyjnych i konsultacyjnych ukazano przejście od pojedynczego kursu do sekwencyjnego, integracyjnego modelu łączącego podstawy retoryki z argumentacją i praktyką medialną. Wnioski dotyczą konstrukcji programu, nie pomiaru kompetencji studentów.

This text outlines a rationale for a concerted, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral research agenda, called “Democracy Rebound,” as a reaction against contemporary autocratization and the rise of authoritarianism. The agenda proposes research activities that explain the historical and political contexts and the social, discursive and psychological drivers of authoritarian tendencies in Europe today. It recommends four steps towards explaining how authoritarian projects mobilize identity and affect via digital discourse to normalize leader-centered power and illiberal, anti-rational ideologies, often disguised as tradition. The agenda is rooted in a comprehensive literature review and motivated by the need for Europe-wide actions and research-based recommendations that equip policymakers, journalists, educators, and civil society with actionable intelligence, tools, and early warnings to detect and reverse democratic backsliding.

Research has recognized the potential of Generative AI (GenAI) to support writing assessment. However, the responsible and effective application of GenAI in writing assessment remains underexplored, and consequently, university instructors are uncertain about how to integrate these tools into their assessment practices. Drawing on Mills et al.’s (2024) three-dimensional GenAI literacy framework, this qualitative study examined professors’ beliefs about incorporating GenAI into L2 writing assessment and their recommendations for responsible and effective integration. Twenty-four professors from universities in Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore were recruited. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and stimulated recall tasks. The findings revealed that while professors recognized benefits of incorporating GenAI in writing assessment, they expressed concerns about certain critical issues. They emphasized the essential role of human agency and offered practical recommendations for effective, responsible, and supportive use. Based on these findings, the study proposes seven evidence-based and actionable recommendations, including enhancing instructors’ GenAI literacy, adopting multiple sources of feedback, prioritizing teacher judgment and modification for reliability, validity, and discriminative power, ensuring transparent and ethical use of GenAI, foster socio-emotional awareness, as well as establishing and implementing institutional policies and training for GenAI adoption in writing assessment. These recommendations help guide the development of institutional policies and enable university instructors of L2 writing and other disciplines to integrate GenAI into assessment practices with responsibility, ethics, and effectiveness.

Calls for greater learner involvement in assessment have highlighted a need for rating scales that are not only technically sound but also pedagogically meaningful. However, in second language (L2) writing, students are largely absent from scale design, with most instruments being developed by teachers or test developers. Previous co-construction studies have often positioned students as the primary agents, with comparative underuse of teacher expertise and limited curricular alignment. This study addresses this gap by investigating how collaborative agency between teachers and students can inform the development of a rating scale for academic writing in a Saudi higher education context. Drawing on a multi-source framework, four meshed teacher–student focus groups and a follow-up focus group were conducted to negotiate the scale criteria, properties, and level descriptors. Qualitative content analysis revealed both convergence and divergence: while grammar, organization, and development were prioritized, students argued for a stronger recognition of ideas and discourse-level features, whereas teachers emphasized accuracy and feasibility. Through cycles of debate and compromise, the process yielded a five-level analytic rating scale with six criteria grounded in curricular objectives and stakeholder perspectives. This study shows how collaborative agency was enacted through a dialogic process of negotiating and integrating teacher and student perspectives in rating scale development. It extends participatory assessment research in L2 writing by illustrating a context-sensitive, theoretically informed, and curriculum-aligned approach to analytic rating scale co-construction for classroom use.

This study investigates developmental changes in grammatical subjects in the English writing of Japanese learners, focusing on subject position as an index of syntactic growth. Previous L2 assessment research has emphasized clausal subordination and global complexity indices; noun phrase complexity has attracted growing attention, but the subject position itself has rarely been isolated as a unit of analysis. Drawing on a longitudinal corpus of 26,399 texts written by 1,086 Japanese high school students over three years, subjects were automatically extracted and annotated using SubjEx, a dependency-parsing system developed for this purpose (accuracy: 93.5%). Mean subject length increased steadily across grades and CEFR proficiency bands, with clearer differentiation from B1 onward; a mixed-effects model with a random slope further indicates increasing divergence in learners’ growth trajectories. Subjects shifted from pronoun-dominant forms toward more complex noun phrases, with greater use of adjectival modification, possessives, compound nouns, and prepositional phrases, while lexical analyses showed a decline in first-person subjects and a rise in informationally dense nominal patterns. Subject position thus emerges as a sensitive indicator of L2 writing development, reflecting a shift from personal expression toward condensed informational packaging, with implications for complexity research and proficiency assessment.

Although previous research has explored how L2 writers allocate their time and how time limits influence writing scores, many of these studies focus solely on final texts, providing only a partial understanding of the writing process. A more comprehensive investigation is essential for enhancing the construct validity of writing assessments. Drawing on empirical research on timed writing and on theoretical models of the writing process, this study explores how time constraints affect L2 learners' written texts and fluency behaviors. A total of 123 participants (60 high-intermediate and 63 advanced EFL learners) completed an argumentative writing task with keystroke logging software under either a 30-minute or 60-minute condition, and stimulated recalls were conducted with a subset. The texts were analyzed for syntactic and lexical complexity, fluency, and overall quality. Results indicate that time constraints did not significantly affect linguistic complexity or writing quality, although fluency behaviors differed across conditions. Time constraints thus affected learners' writing processes more than the linguistic quality of their texts. The core implication for L2 writing assessment is that, for test takers experienced with timed writing, shortening the time allotted to an argumentative task changes composing processes without compromising the product-based scores on which assessment decisions rest.

Previous studies on L2 phrase complexity predominantly focused on noun phrases, while the verb phrase complexity are few and mostly simple verb phrase structures, they have limited expressive capacity. Complex verb phrase structures (e.g., n-grams, VACs) also have limitations. The present study proposes a set of 41 Chinese complex verb phrase structures and are meaningful. A total of 246 verb phrase complexity measures are calculated from the dimensions of account, frequency, diversity, and density. The ability of these measures to predict writing quality is compared with that of 10 large-grained syntactic complexity measures. The results show that large-grained measures (Average sentence length) and verb phrase complexity measures (two verb-object structures and three adverbial-head structures) can respectively explain 14.4% and 41.9% of variance in writing scores. Our results illustrate the importance of Chinese complex verb phrase structures in assessing L2 writing quality.

As automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems proliferate, it is important to assess them for the extent to which they serve an authentic formative assessment purpose. We developed eRevise as an AWE system to engage upper elementary students in text-based writing, receive automated feedback, and revise their essay based on that feedback. In past work, we presented a validity argument for a response-to-text formative assessment. Here, we replicate evidence for the mediational processes we identified with a second response-to-text formative assessment. Beyond replication, we expand the validity argument in several ways: We examine multiple writing outcomes to understand whether the relationships in the data generalize. We also explore patterns of relationships to better understand which students are most likely to benefit from eRevise . Furthermore, we expand the investigation from feature score improvement alone to also consider students’ conceptual development over time. Our findings provide further evidence for sociocultural mechanisms supporting students’ conceptual development of evidence use in writing. We discuss the implications of our findings for future design of eRevise and AWE systems, in general. We also discuss the need for a recursive process where our findings also contribute to refined theory development and design of future AWE systems. (1). Formative Assessment; (2) Argumentative Writing; (3) Adaptive Expertise; (4) Conceptual Change; (5) Validity Argument.

This study investigates how English as a foreign language (EFL) student reviewers engage in open-ended, dialogic interactions with generative artificial intelligence (AI) during the feedback generation process in peer assessment within EFL writing classrooms. It examines the impact of these interactions on feedback quality perceived by recipients, emotional responses (task enjoyment and anxiety), and feedback literacy. A quasi-experimental design was employed with 60 Chinese undergraduate students, divided into an experimental group (EG) that used generative AI (Doubao) for support and a control group (CG) that did not. Over three intervention cycles, data from chat histories, feedback quality ratings by recipients, and pre/post questionnaires on emotions and feedback literacy were analyzed. The results indicated that EG students primarily employed AI for linguistic refinement of their comments, with limited use for enhancing the content or structure. Nevertheless, AI support led to significant, progressive improvements in the perceived quality of feedback, particularly in affect, description, justification, and constructiveness. Furthermore, EG students reported significantly higher task enjoyment and lower anxiety compared to the CG. The intervention also positively enhanced all dimensions of feedback literacy: knowledge and abilities, willingness to participate, cooperative learning, and appreciation of peer feedback. The findings suggest that generative AI can serve as a powerful scaffold, reducing the emotional and cognitive burdens of peer assessment while fostering a more supportive and effective feedback environment. This study underscores the value of integrating AI into peer feedback practices to develop students’ feedback literacy and improve the overall quality of peer learning experiences.

Feedback agency is a key concept in enhancing student writing performance. While growing attention has been paid to student feedback agency, existing research remains largely theoretical and qualitative. As a result, there is a lack of psychometrically supported instruments to measure this construct. To address this gap, the present two-phase study aimed to develop and evaluate a Student Feedback Agency Scale (SFAS), drawing on social cognitive theory. In the development stage, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted on a sample of 235 Chinese international postgraduate students. The results yielded a 23-item SFAS comprising six components: Action Taking, Goal Setting, Processing, Generating, Self-efficacy, and Seeking. Using an independent sample of 349 participants from the same population, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted in the evaluation stage. The results supported a good model fit (RMSEA = .055, IFI = .923, TLI = .908, and CFI = .922). Multi-group CFAs further confirmed the structural invariance across gender, academic level, and discipline. Overall, the findings provide psychometric evidence to support the interpretation and use of the SFAS scores to measure student agency in writing feedback processes. Based on these results, the factor structure and subscales of the SFAS are discussed, and implications are outlined.

Discussions of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) focus on describing AI as either a tool or a collaborator. Such discussions do not fully grasp GenAI's transformative impact. This article proposes a model of cyborg learning that outlines the skills necessary for using GenAI effectively: background knowledge, critical evaluation of AI output, and rhetorical integration of AI output. Presenting multiple use cases from the literature in technical and professional communication and the author's own experience, the article illustrates how to write as a cyborg.

This article revisits Richard Weaver’s concept of spaciousness as a rhetorical effect and repositions it within contemporary visual rhetoric, particularly data visualizations. Although Weaver’s account of spaciousness is rooted in a political ideology that presumes shared cultural values, the concept offers a useful lens for understanding how style operates in visual communication. Drawing on the classical Ciceronian styles, this article argues that spaciousness functions as a visual analogue of the grand style, emphasizing abstraction rather than detail. Analyses of sparklines, cartographic maps, network visualizations, and metaphor-based displays show how plain style prioritizes instruction and transparency, grand style cultivates openness and shared meaning, and middle style modulates between visual scales through perceptual or interactive zooming. The article demonstrates how stylistic spaciousness in data visualization reinforces cultural assumptions about connectivity, complexity, and knowledge, offering a rhetorically grounded approach to studying visual style.

This experiment tested the impacts of demographic congruence between synthetic humanlike spokesperson avatars and learners. Among 437 U.S. working adults, congruence did not affect knowledge transfer, and effects on perceived effectiveness and belonging were confined to one subgroup: Heterosexual White men rated incongruent avatars as more effective yet reported lower belonging with avatars of the same race but different gender. No other subgroup showed significant effects. Behavioral avatar choices mirrored this pattern. These findings identify a precise intersectional boundary condition, suggesting that effectiveness ratings alone may mask inclusion gaps. Implications for corporate training and business communication pedagogy are discussed.

In Unorganized Women, Jane Greer compellingly argues that low-wage, white women workers deployed activist, repetitious rhetorical labor at the turn of the nineteenth century to shape public percept...

This article contributes to conversations among feminist rhetoricians about the rhetoricity of work by investigating the affordances of “career” as a chronotope that both disrupts and reinforces sexist and racist hierarchies. A case study, this article focuses on a scrapbook assembled by Helen Jacobson Richardson, one of the first stewardesses hired by Northwest Airlines in 1939. Like most early stewardesses, Richardson’s employment ended when she married in 1942. This essay argues Richardson’s uptake of the career chronotope invested her work life with greater dignity and contravened assumptions about the inconsequential nature of women’s workforce participation in the mid-twentieth century.

This article historicizes the emergence of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an Islamic counterpublic in the U.S. public sphere prior to 9/11. The study analyzes how CAIR functioned as an Islamic counterpublic to contest entrenched Islamophobic rhetorics that positioned Muslims as collective threats to U.S. public safety. It highlights how CAIR performed counterpublic rhetorical moves by using oppositional interpretations to construct Muslim ethos and moral identities; coalitional rhetoric to highlight Muslims’ civic engagement; and world-making to advance new ways of seeing Muslims. The study provides a critical history to CAIR’s contemporary advocacy, contributing to scholarship on Islamic/Muslim counterpublicity.

Technical editing research has examined the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, yet empirical studies on their effectiveness remain limited. This quasi-experimental study investigates whether an AI-assisted tool improves copyediting performance and explores editor perceptions. The study compared 33 students’ editing performance with and without AI assistance. The results showed that an AI tool provided selective benefits, failing to raise overall correction rates but improving detection of AI-flagged errors. Perceptions varied by skill level, with stronger editors finding AI to be more distracting than helpful. The authors consider the teaching implications of this study and suggest that future research should test the effectiveness of various AI tools across different technical content types.

This case study examines how technical communication students used generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in user-experience (UX) design via Figma. Over a semester, they engaged with Figma Jambot, AI plug-ins, and other GenAI tools. Reporting on the findings from students’ individual and team reflections, the authors explore how students used AI-assistance in UX work. Using activity theory's knotworking, the authors study how students articulate GenAI as object, tool, genre, text, and person. In functioning as a boundary object, AI helped to coordinate team workflows and translate design ideas. Then students employed rework strategies to refine designs. Finally, the authors reflect on implications for AI-assisted UX design as a cocreative process.