Search results for " Literatures"
showing 10 items of 16 documents
Co-occurrence of discourse markers in English : from juxtaposition to composition
2019
Abstract In this paper, we report on a qualitative analysis of co-occurring discourse markers, that is, sequences of adjacent discourse markers that belong to the same unit but may express different functions. We examine several formal and functional features of these co-occurring strings on the basis of corpus examples extracted from conversational data in English. In particular, we focus on scope, meaning-in-context (or functions), syntactic category and position. Our analysis reveals several degrees of integration: differences in scope allow us to differentiate juxtaposition and combination of markers. In the case of combination, difference in meaning integration allows us to distinguish…
Combinations of discourse markers with repairs and repetitions in English, French and Spanish
2020
Abstract Discourse markers have a central role in planning and repairing processes of speech production. They relate with fluency and disfluency phenomena such as pauses, repetitions and reformulations. Their polyfunctionality is challenging and few form-function mappings are stable cross-linguistically. This study combines a functional and a structural approach to discourse markers and their combination with and within repetitions and self-repairs in native English, French and Spanish, in order to establish the inter-relation between these three fluency-related devices and to find potentially universal patterns of use. Qualitative coding and quantitative analyses of categories of markers a…
Do Androids Have Nightmares About Electric Sheep? Science Fiction Portrayals of Trauma Manifestations in the Posthuman Subject in Frankenstein, Do An…
2018
This essay draws upon the contention that posthuman subjects, such as androids, clones, and robots, can experience psychological trauma. The aim of the paper is to examine this notion in three science fiction texts: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , and Ursula Le Guin’s short story ‘Nine Lives’. What these narratives illustrate is that trauma manifestations contribute to a disruption of ontological frameworks that regard categories such as ‘human’ and ‘non-human’ as permanent and distinct. As a result, it might be argued that these texts undermine anthropocentrism and invite a reconceptualising around the term ‘human’, but also around trau…
Cinq theses sur la litterature-monde en français: une polémique
2010
Le concept de littérature-monde n’est pas dénué de contradictions internes. Le présent article tente de s’interroger sur les fondements idéologiques de cette notion et la conjoncture internationale qui l’a fait naître. Sous formes de thèses et de manière volontairement polémique, l’article tente de montrer que la notion même est le résultat d’une littérature française dont la primauté est de plus en plus contestée. Par ailleurs, lorsque les fondateurs de ce concept déclarent la fin de la Francophonie, il est peu clair de quelle francophonie ils parlent et ils ne semblent guère familiers avec les organisations francophones. Par ailleurs, elle peut être considérée comme une adaptation fidèle …
Al di qua e al di là della colonia: satira come opposizione al regime coloniale in un racconto di 'Ali Mustafà al-Misrati
2012
Italian scholars and Arabists have only recently started to pay attention towards Libya and this country's rich and fascinating literary production. Libyan writers are, in fact, still unknown to most people in Italy, where merely a few Italian translations of Libyan works and critical essays on Libyan literature have been published until now. Yet, Libya's contemporary literary scene features outstanding figures, such as the eclectic writer 'Ali Mustafà al-Misrati, whose novels, short stories and essays deal with significant historical, political and social themes. Starting from the analysis of one of author's tales focused on the Libyan opposition against Italian colonialism, this article p…
Exploring the nature of the ‘subject’-preference: Evidence from the online comprehension of simple sentences in Mandarin Chinese
2009
In two visual ERP studies, we investigated whether Mandarin Chinese shows a subject-preference in spite of the controversial status of grammatical relations in this language. We compared ERP responses at the position of the verb and the second NP in object-verb-subject (OVS) and subject-verb-object (SVO) structures. While SVO is the basic word order in Chinese and OV with subject-drop is possible, OVS is strongly dispreferred. At the position of the verb, which disambiguated towards an object or a subject reading of NP1, Experiment 1 revealed an N400 for both subject-initial control conditions in comparison with the critical object-initial condition. Experiment 2 showed that this result was…
Evidential markers derived from visual perception in Spanish dialects : a contrastive study of por lo visto and se ve (que)
2019
Verbs of perception (PV) are known to frequently give rise to discursive uses. PVs are used, for example, as evidential markers through grammaticalization processes. This study focuses on two evidential markers of Spanish derived from the visual PVs ver ('to see'), namely, 'por lo visto' and 'se ve (que)'. Although the attention dedicated to these evidential markers in Spanish has increased considerably in recent years, contrastive studies have not taken into account the dialectal variation of this phenomenon. We aspire to take a first step in filling this gap by contrastively studying 'por lo visto' and 'se ve (que)' in different dialects of Spanish by means of a comprehensive, empirical s…
La vita e le strane sorprendenti avventure di Arturo. Per un confronto con Robinson Crusoe
2020
he life and strange surprising adventures of Arturo. Cues for a comparison with Robinson Crusoe · The article displays a comparative reading between L’isola di Arturo and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, inspired by a statement made by Elsa Morante in a 1957 interview after the awarding of the ‘Strega’ prize. In the first place, the press coverage of the novel is studied with particular attention to confrontations with Robinson. Secondly, I aim to trace the steps of the possibility that Morante actually took into account Defoe’s novel. Afterward, a short, comparative study concerning a possible impact of Robinson on Arturo is proposed. The confrontation goes through several issues: narrative patter…
Premessa a: Cultura visuale in Italia : immagini, sguardi, dispositivi
2022
Questo volume raccoglie le riflessioni maturate durante il convegno internazionale “Cultura visuale in Italia. Prospettive della ricerca” svoltosi a Palermo tra il 19 e il 21 marzo 2018. Si è trattato di un incontro che ha visto la partecipazio- ne di molti dei protagonisti della ricerca italiana in quell’ambito “indisciplinato” – per usare una felice espressione di W.J.T. Mitchell – che è la cultura visuale, accademica e non, un campo di studi che ha ormai solide tradizioni internazionali e anche notevoli ricadute accademiche, come dimostra la presenza a Palermo di docenti che, pur provenendo da “altre” discipline, la comparatistica letteraria, l’estetica, la storia dell’arte, la mediologi…
Discourse Markers in Speech: Distinctive Features and Corpus Annotation
2017
It is generally acknowledged that discourse markers are used differently in speech and writing, yet many general descriptions and most annotation frameworks are written-based, thus partially unfit to be applied in spoken corpora. This paper identifies the major distinctive features of discourse markers in spoken language, which can be associated with problems related to their scope and structure, their meaning and their tendency to co-occur. The description is based on authentic examples and is followed by methodological recommendations on how to deal with these phenomena in more exhaustive, speech-friendly annotation models.