0000000000918624
AUTHOR
Cinzia Giacinta Spinzi
showing 28 related works from this author
The 'terroridiom' principle between spoken and written discourse
2008
This paper focuses on phraseology used within the domain of politics, both in written and spoken discourse. We concentrate on the lemma TERROR and on the recurrent sequences in which it is embedded, reflecting how native speakers, both American and British, tend to use it in preferred environments making routinized blocks of language. The data come from two corpora: the spoken corpus includes speeches of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, and the written corpus is made up of articles from The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. Since text is nothing but phraseology of one kind or another (Sinclair 2008), our attempt here is to uncover which of the two varieties lends itself more willingly to…
Negotiating the Terminological Borders of ‘Language Mediation’ in English and Italian. A Discussion on the Repercussions of Terminology on the Practi…
2015
Linguistic and cultural mediation has been playing an increasingly important role in contemporary society as a result of the intensification of international exchanges and migration flows; however, the definitions that have been given of it are still rather vague and inconsistent. In some cases linguistic and cultural mediation is seen as a broad superordinate category, comprising a range of different interlinguistic and intercultural activities serving the purpose of facilitating communication across languages, cultures and societies in various areas of civil society: industry, business, trade, law, literature, academia, institutions, public services, etc. In other cases, instead, the defi…
‘I don’t know the answer to that question’: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of White House Press Briefings
2013
White House Press Briefings, daily meetings with the press held by the White House Press Secretary, are the main information conduit for the White House (Kumar 2007). They are considered a “political chess game” where the Press Secretary and the press face a “wrestling match” (Partington 2006: 16). Our analysis is carried out on a corpus comprising all the Press Briefings across three presidencies from Clinton to Obama. The additional mark-up includes information about individual speakers and their role, allowing us to compare different discourse strategies adopted by the participants in the briefings at different points in time. This leads us to determine the extent of the differences in t…
Managing Relations: a study of positioning strategies in British international discourse
2008
This work deals with corpus-assisted research into speaker ideological positioning in the language of diplomacy. It concentrates on the resources used by the foreign minister Margaret Beckett to construe the speaker “orientation” (Lemke 1992) through the analysis of the main participant in the discourse that is international community and the subject matter being debated namely terrorism. The findings have shown assertiveness and determination from the speaker by the use of contractive mechanisms. The image of the international community is based on cooperation and unity just like a family and it is appraised mainly through judgements of tenacity. These are the resources required to fight t…
Using Corpus Linguistics as a research and training tool for Public Service Interpreting (PSI) in the legal sector
2017
Public Service Translation has for long been the ‘forgotten voice’ in PSI studies but it is arguably a valuable linguistic support for legal institutions and for training interpreters in the legal sector. Given that interpreters in the legal system in Italy often tend to ‘double-up’ as legal translators (to make a living) the line between the two is often hazy. Hybrid modalities like sight translation of legal and administrative documents is also a ‘borderline’ feature of these intertwined professions. The main aim of this paper is to describe how parallel and monolingual corpora can be used to train public service interpreters in double roles (translators, interpreters), namely by using co…
Analyzing American Public Diplomacy: The case of Brand USA. When Tourism becomes an Ideological Tool
2016
This paper aims to study the communicative strategies used in the American campaign of public diplomacy.Our objective in this work is twofold: first, to verify whether behind the action of rebranding the image of the U.S.A. there is an ideological agenda; second, to identify the communication dynamics - both textual and semiotic - which have contributed to make the campaign successful and whether they are in line with the communicative profile of the U.S.A., adopting a handful of current models in intercultural studies.
The Man of Action vs the Blunders of Politicians. Rappresentazioni ideologiche e identitarie nella Stampa Fascista dell'Inghilterra degli anno Trenta
2016
In uno studio precedente (Spinzi 2015) basato sulla versione italiana della rivista fascista Legioni e Falangi è stato rilevato come l’intrecciarsi dei vari ‘discorsi’ (Fairclough 1989), da quello storico a quello geografico, da quello spirituale a quello sentimentale, fosse utile al fine di giustificare ideologicamente un comportamento e un profilo avido, opportunista, perfido e poco sensibile quale quello attribuito dall’identità fascista italiana e spagnola a quella inglese. Quella stessa ideologia dell’insularità che nel discorso geografico di Legioni e Falangi era un elemento di critica nei confronti dell’Inghilterra la si ritrova in questa analisi come elemento di forza che caratteriz…
Reading figurative images in the political discourse of the British Press
2017
The present work aims to study visual metaphors and multimodal metaphors in the political cartoons published in the British press during the Brexit campaign. The theoretical approach adopted draws upon the theories elaborated by Halliday (), Forceville (; ), Ruiz de Mendoza and Diez (), and Hart (), with the objective of identifying the three analytical steps that lead to the conceptual frames structuring the political event under investigation. Results show the extent to which the visual representation of the Brexit campaign proposes novel and original perspectives of interpretation, and further evidence of the relevance of metaphors and metonymies in the narration of e…
It's up to all of us: social identity in the language of public warnings
2010
the paper investigates the features of the language used by the Bitish and Italian publica warning which aim to protect and advise citizens. It mainly relies on critical discourse analysis and cultural studies (Hofstede's cultural dimensions).
A diachronic corpus-based analysis of epistemic adverbials in the White House press briefings
2011
This article is part of a wider project aimed at outlining the evolotionary trends in the White House press Briefings as a genre.
L'egemonia anglosassone nella rivista Legioni e Falangi. Costruzioni ideologiche e identitarie
2015
L’analisi linguistica funzionale (Halliday 1985) di alcuni articoli del mensile Legioni e Falangi. Rivista d’Italia e di Spagna (1940-43), caso singolare di collaborazione editoriale fra la Spagna falangista e l’Italia fascista, consente di effettuare uno studio sull’ideologia che li ha intessuti, in relazione alla costruzione di una identità inglese di tipo egemonico; uno studio più ravvicinato e critico rispetto per esempio ad un approccio più politico-sociologico. Quanto asserito non cela una pretesa di oggettività ma solo la convinzione che l’adozione di uno sguardo più contestuale e testuale aiuti a districarsi nell’interpretazione di quei concetti ideologici che determinano l’identità…
La Comunicazione Interculturale e l'impatto dei fattori culturali sull'interprete giuridico
2015
La proposta presenta aspetti della comunicazione interculturale che dovrebbero essere presi in considerazione nell'ambito dei corsi di formazione dei mediatori linguistici nonchè dell'interpretariato presso i servizi pubblici. Il contributo si sofferma in particolare sui modelli di comunicazione interculturale tradizionali e introduce il modello di Richard Lewis attualmente poco considerato nell'ambito in questione.
The multifaceted nature of language mediation and interpreting. A personal case of disempowerment
2015
This work aims at examining the similarities and differences between Community/Public Service Interpreter and Cultural- and Language Mediator. A personal case will be illustrated to show that delicate and complex interface of privatepublic- institutional-social discourse forms and discourse roles that are played out in the process of language mediation.
Corpus Linguistics and Intercultural communicative approach: a synergy
2011
The article looks at the relationships between corpora studies and Intercultural communication and suggests a synergy betwen the two disciplines
The 'terroridiom' principle between spoken and written discourse
2010
This paper focuses on phraseology used within the domain of politics, both in written and spoken discourse. We concentrate on the lemma terror and on teh recurrent sequences in which it is embedded, reflecting how native speakers, both American and British, tend to use it in preferred environments making routinized blocks of language.
La Comunicazione Giuridica
2015
Il presente lavoro si occupa dello studio della fraseologia del linguaggio legale ai fini traduttivi, soprattutto per la mediazione linguistico culturale in campo legale.
Tracking the change in an Institutional Genre: A Diachronic Corpus-based study of White House Press Briefings
2013
The aim of the paper is to study the evolution of the language of the specific genre of white house press briefings across 18 years. Phraseologies will be taken into consideration in order to compare and contrast the language of the 'podium' during three different administrations: Clinton, Bush and Obama.
The Voices of the Foreign Ministers: a Corpus-assisted Study of Ideological Positioning in the Language of Diplomacy
2012
“One of the major aims of a politician is to gain the people’s allegiance, to have them believe that the decisions that are being made are the right ones” (Wilson 1990: 76). The basic idea is that the way we see the world, think about it and act on it, is largely determined by how we 'frame' it, and this in turn may be influenced by our choice of rhetorical device. In the context of diplomacy, language choices, which carry significant communicative intent, are regularly made “to galvanize the audience to achieve a commonality of purpose” (Burhanudeen 2005: 37) through the enactment of specific linguistic mechanisms. This work is part of an ongoing research into register-specific features of…
A corpus-based discourse analysis of security in White House press briefings
2016
White House press briefings are daily meetings between the White House press secretary and the press. As one of the main official channels of communication for the White House, they play a crucial role in the administration communication strategies (Kumar 2007). Security has always been a key concept in political debate (Buzan 2000), particularly after the events of 9/11 and the rising of a new regime of international security (Fairclough 2007). Our analysis of a corpus of press briefings ranging across five presidencies, from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, will focus on the lexical item security from a modern diachronic corpus-assisted discourse studies perspective (Partington 2010). The an…
Language Mediation and Aspects of Accommodation in the Use of ELF
2014
There are numerous varieties of English spoken in Italy today, each repre-sented by one or more of the various migrant communities living in the country. These manifestations of World englishes reflect a wide range of lexical, syntactical, phonetic, pragmatic, interpersonal and cultural features. This paper argues that an interpreter or language mediator trained in standard English may not necessarily be able to comprehend or make him/herself understood adequately in other varieties of English. Thus, the recruitment of mediators/interpreters requires a certain amount of caution in terms of language choice. In order to investigate intelligibility, comprehensibility and accommodation in the c…
The Eco-tourist in Canadian and Italian national Parks
2013
The present paper aims to compare the image of the eco-tourist across languages and cultures, Canadian and Italian. An ad-hoc comparable corpus has been created from the official websites of National Parks which represent a kind of eco-tourist destination. The analysis attempts to trace a profile of Canadian and Italian eco-tourists Drawing upon the Functional Grammar (Halliday 1985) and addresses issues connected with Hall’s model (1983): Are Canadian and Italian ecotourism discourses shaped by their own cultural orientation, or do they attempt to speak in the tongue of the displaced tourist?
La mediazione linguistico-culturale nelle istituzioni giuridiche italiane: il contesto demografico, etnico e detentivo
2013
Il presente articolo analizza la situazione tutta italiana degli immigrati e soprattutto degli immigrati negli istituti di pena e le difficoltà di mediazione linguistica e culturale.
English, Language and Communication
2005
The main aim of English, Language and Communication is to offer Italian learners of English a valuable tool to deal with this field not only from a theoretical point of view, but also from a pragmatic perspective, which looks upon contributions from the young branch of Linguistics, known as Corpus Linguistics. The book is also intended for those who are interested in how language, English in this case, works in general and in a particular context of communication.
Behind the institutional identity: shifting from we-clusters to I-clusters in diplomatic discourse
2011
As research on subjectivity has already shown (Bühler 1934; Mushin 2001), speakers do not just neutrally and mechanically describe states and affairs in the world sorting to objective and prefabricated linguistic formulations, but their personal identity sometimes crops up through a range of viewpoints. This paper is both a contribution to the literature on diplomatic discourse seen as the expression of the foreign policy of a country (Marshall 1990) and to the representation of political identities in specialized discourse (Fairclough 2003). The Diplomatic Corpus (DiCo), investigated in this study, comprises all the speeches delivered by the three British foreign ministers (Cook, Straw and…
Discursive Strategies in the Language of Foreign Policy. The Semantics and the Appraisal of Security
2016
As globalization has produced more complex interconnections among states, and borders have become more permeable, foreign policy practitioners deal with issues directly affecting the lives of individuals. From terrorism to climate change, from immigration to human rights, the term security appears in all of them. By combining different approaches, mainly Corpus Linguistics and Appraisal Theory, this book provides insights into the linguistic features of the discourse of security of British foreign ministers from a phraseological perspective. Through the interrogation of a corpus of political speeches, the study discloses those discursive strategies by which speakers and writers reveal impli…
"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts". Metaphors of inclusion and exclusion in the British and Italian Fascist Discourse of the 1930s
2016
The rationale behind this work lies in the current economic, political, and social turmoil and the crisis of modern democracies. Adopting a Cognitive Linguistics standpoint, the paper looks at metaphorical instantiations of nationalistic issues in the British and Italian Fascist press of the 1930s. More particularly, it explores what metaphors are employed in English and Italian to convey the notion of “totality” implied in the theory of totalitarianism. Furthermore, it investigates how metaphors contribute to the legitimation of inclusion and exclusion strategies which are at the basis of nationalism. Findings show the presence of universal conceptual framings across cultures such as PEOPL…
Treading lightly on the Earth. Metaphorical frames in the discourse of ecotourism
2013
The present contribution aims to analyse the underlying metaphorical conceptualizations which frame the discourse of ecotourism and their similar or different surface realisations across languages and cultures (American English, British English and Italian). It addresses the issue of ideological categories construed by the discourse of ecotourism to promote its message in order to “persuade potential customers into becoming actual clients by addressing their cultural needs and personal motivations to travel” (Edwards and Curado 2003: 26). Ideology, in this work, relies on van Dijk’s (1998: 9) conceptualization as ‘social cognition’, namely a system of values, beliefs, thoughts shared by mem…
La Comunicazione specializzata: un approccio fraseologico al discorso diplomatico britannico (1997-2007)
2009
Questo volumetto prende in esame la fraseologia della parola 'security' nellambito dei discorsi dei ministeri degli esteri britannici del governo Blair. Si nota a partire da John Cook una estensione semantica del termine 'security' che attira diversi collocati fino all'unico ministro donna Margaret Beckett.