This article uses a dialogue between memory studies (MS) and ethnographic and interactional sociolinguistics (EIS) to explore the dynamics of interdisciplinarity. MS focuses on the social remembering of high-profile and often traumatic events, and this is relevant to EIS's growing interest in (in)securitization. MS is increasingly keen to explore everyday practices of remembering in interscalar analyses, and EIS’ expertise in the study of mundane communication can provide essential support. But there are major differences in their focal concerns and analytical cultures, as well as in their approaches to interdisciplinarity. This generates asymmetries in their exchange, which we illustrate with studies from Oświęcim/Auschwitz (MS) and Cyprus (EIS). By mapping these differences and highlighting collaborative data sessions as a practical arena for building relationships, the article seeks to deepen our understanding of interdisciplinarity and facilitate its practice. (Everyday practice, cultural memory, (in)securitisation, Mode 1 and Mode 2 interdisciplinarity)

This article explores relations between transcultural processes and historical boundaries. Drawing on the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of assemblage, it examines the selection and organisation of cultural elements in a Japanese-styled Chinese New Year installation at a Hong Kong shopping mall. The article presents three affective regimes produced in this transcultural assemblage: New Year festivity, simulated tourism, and partial historicity. We argue that these regimes are regulated in the processes of erasure (the selective blockage of competing lineages of rituals, traditions, and spaces) and forgetting (the process evoking creative re-organisation of semiotic boundaries between cultural elements selected into the transcultural assemblage). This article suggests two implications. First, transculturality is not only the dialogic transgression and creation of boundaries but also the selection and regulation of cultural elements in an assemblage. Second, historical boundaries are not sidestepped but are regulated by the partial blockage through erasure and re-organisation through forgetting in affective regimes. (Transculturality, assemblage, affective regime, erasure, forgetting, Hong Kong)

Ridicule is often understood as an instrument used by an agent to accomplish a goal. This article, however, investigates ridicule as an indexical phenomenon, a social meaning activated for certain participants in particular situations. Through a detailed analysis of interviews with a scientist, this study shows how storytelling, stance-taking, and entitlement practices help shape the experience of ridicule and the situations where it occurs. The scientist experiences a joke about her research as ridicule when it is reported in the news but experiences the same joke as rapport when it is told by colleagues in the lab. The article demonstrates that the meanings and purposes of humor do not inhere in jokes, and joking rights do not inhere in people; they are negotiated and accomplished in interaction. Drawing on an indexical understanding of context, it further shows how the experience of situations shapes and is shaped by discourse. (Narrative, stance, entitlement, indexicality, humor, literacy, scientific popularization)*

While scholars have long been interested in the formation, meaning, and uses of diminutive morphology across languages, the present study illustrates a novel approach to their examination. Drawing upon a corpus of recordings of Brazilian obstetric and gynecological consultations conducted in Portuguese, our analytic points of departure are action and the sequential progression of interaction. We address these by investigating moments where diminutive forms and base forms of a lexical item are used in close proximity. This approach allows us to unpack and particularize the generic, overarching function of ‘mitigation’ in terms of the specific actions being constituted by the participants—here, offering reassurance, attenuating intrusiveness, pursuing acquiescence, and launching activity transitions. We conclude by discussing some of the implications of this analysis and suggesting some potential avenues for future comparative research. (Portuguese, Brazil, gynecology, obstetrics, healthcare, morphology, pragmatics, granularity, methodology, conversation analysis)*

Deaf signers are typically multilingual, often exposed to a signed language and a spoken and/or written language. One outcome of this type of contact is ‘mouthing’—the silent articulation of spoken/written words with the simultaneous production of a sign. This article focuses on mouthing patterns in the Kufr Qassem deaf community, in which there is contact between Kufr Qassem Sign Language (KQSL), Israeli Sign Language (ISL), as well as Hebrew, and Arabic, which exists as a diglossia. The findings show that mouthing is constrained by the interlocutor and sign language used, with more mouthing with an ISL interlocutor than KQSL interlocutor, and when using ISL signs than KQSL signs. Contact with a diglossic spoken language shows that signers mouth in Palestinian Arabic rather than in Modern Standard Arabic. Furthermore, evidence of diachronic changes in mouthing was found, reflecting changes in education and mobility. (Mouthing, sign language, language contact, Kufr Qassem Sign Language, Israeli Sign Language, Arabic, diglossia)*

Drawing from Erving Goffman's seminal work on face-to-face interaction, this article introduces the concepts of digital face-work and the digital interaction order to make sense of digital interaction. The theoretical framework emphasizes the sociotechnical aspects of face-work, portraying digital platforms not merely as spaces for interaction but as active participants co-shaping users’ face-work. Focusing on the political arena, the study examines how politicians use digital platforms to construct and maintain their digital face in relation to ‘small scandals’. Through a case study of Flemish nationalist politician, Theo Francken, trying to save face after a scandal erupted, it illustrates the complexities of digital face-work in a hybrid media system. The article underscores the challenges of managing face in the digital landscape, where context collapse and platform directives complicate self-presentation strategies. It also explores the interplay between individual agency and platform dynamics in shaping the digital interaction order. (Digital face, digital interaction order, political scandals, small scandals)

This article focuses on the branding of Patriotic Alternative (PA), a British fascist organization and business, in three analytic steps: (i) branding as circulating ideologies as commodities; (ii) branding as creating—and selling—community, and (iii) branding as regimenting meaning. Building on work on the communicability of evil and language, nationalism, and political economy, we explore how PA uses the affordances of platform capitalism in a project that goes beyond ideological normalization: not just rebranding a message as acceptable but selling a product which builds a community aligned with this ideology. Looking at both brand and political websites, YouTube, as well as Telegram channels, we show how PA's branding functions to invest a wide range of mundane practices with racist meaning; they are imagined to forestall the great replacement. Rebranding racism as white community, every cup of tea sold brings back the world of your grandma, each bar of soap protects white skin. (Far-right semiosis, branding, platform capitalism)*