Search results for "Figurative language"
showing 10 items of 41 documents
Słowo, które staje się obrazem, w tradycji chrześcijan syryjskich
2017
Word which becomes an image in the tradition of Syriac Christians. The paper examines the subject of figurative art in the theological space of the tradition of Syriac Churches. Even if in the early stage of their existence those communities were an integral part of Byzantine Empire, they developed a totally different pattern of the imaging, which didn’t consist in icons or in the other forms of the traditional art. The main focus of the Syriac theological painting was to use the written word. Such an approach wasn’t a result of any prohibition inherited from the Jewish tradition or of an internal iconoclasm, but it arises from the mentality and spiritual sensitivity of the people from the …
Prospective mathematics teachers’ self-referential metaphors as indicators of the emerging professional identity
2019
Ideals play a key role in a student teachers’ identity work. They form targets to strive for and a mirror for reflection. In this paper, we examine Finnish mathematics student teachers’ metaphors for the teacher’s role (N= 188). We classified the metaphors according to a model that identified teachers as subject matter experts, didactical experts, and pedagogical experts, with the addition of another two categories, self-referential and contextual. For the exploration of emerging professional identities, we studied the self-referential metaphors, which formed the most common category in the data. We observed that every third metaphor described either student teachers’ personalities or their…
Figurative language and multicultural education: metaphors of language acquisition and retention
2015
Linguistics has long recognised that figurative language in the form of metaphorical expressions structures and communicates attitudes towards the ideas and concepts being expressed and that multilingual students also employ linguistic figures frequently in their writing. In this study, multilingual students use figurative language to both critique and describe experiences related to language acquisition and retention. Faced with the task of using three or more languages, the L3 English language students studied often turn to metaphor to describe the relationships between their languages and the different contexts in which they use the linguistic resources available to them. The following a…
New media and perennial problems in foreign language learning and teaching
2015
The book concerns the ways in which the new media shape communication along with educational expectations and practices in foreign language classrooms. Although foreign language learners have cheap and easy access to information and ways of communication, they also wrestle with problems that have always accompanied language learning. The focus of the book is two-fold. On the one hand, the authors demonstrate how using social networks, videoconferencing, mobile phones, wikis, and computer-mediated interaction contributes to the development of language skills, negotiated interaction, autonomy, and intercultural competence. On the other, they discuss “old” issues pertaining to the role of voca…
How the Context Matters. Literal and Figurative Meaning in the Embodied Language Paradigm
2014
The involvement of the sensorimotor system in language understanding has been widely demonstrated. However, the role of context in these studies has only recently started to be addressed. Though words are bearers of a semantic potential, meaning is the product of a pragmatic process. It needs to be situated in a context to be disambiguated. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that embodied simulation occurring during linguistic processing is contextually modulated to the extent that the same sentence, depending on the context of utterance, leads to the activation of different effector-specific brain motor areas. In order to test this hypothesis, we asked subjects to give a moto…
Understanding metaphors and idioms: A single-case neuropsychological study in a person with Down syndrome
2001
The ability of subject F.F., diagnosed with Down syndrome, to appreciate nonliteral (interpreting metaphors and idioms) and literal (vocabulary knowledge, including highly specific and unusual items) aspects of language was investigated. F.F. was impaired in understanding both metaphors and idioms, while her phonological, syntactic and lexical–semantic skills were largely preserved. By contrast, some aspects of F.F.'s executive functions and many visuospatial abilities were defective. The suggestion is made that the interpretation of metaphors and idioms is largely independent of that of literal language, preserved in F.F., and that some executive aspects of working memory and visuospatial …
Estela antropomorfa con inscripción ibérica del Mas de Barberán (Nogueruelas, Teruel)
1998
The subject of this paper is a little known Iberian gravestele from Nogueruelas (Teruel). The find-spot, the Mas de Barberán, is close to the boundary with Cortes de Arenoso (Castellón). The piece is one of a class of stele charactised by figurative decoration and an inscription. The discussion focusses on the anthropomorphic shape of the piece, its iconography —the disk-cuirass—, and the inscription.
Differentiating among pragmatic uses of words through timed sensicality judgments
2013
Pragmatic and cognitive accounts of figurative language posit a difference between metaphor and metonymy in terms of underlying conceptual operations. Recently, other pragmatic uses of words have been accounted for in the Relevance Theory framework, such as approximation, described in terms of conceptual adjustment that varies in degree and direction with respect to the case of metaphor. Despite the theoretical distinctions, there is very poor experimental evidence addressing the metaphor/metonymy distinction, and none concerning approximation. Here we used meticulously built materials to investigate the interpretation mechanisms of these three phenomena through timed sensicality judgments.…
A Novel Approach for Supporting Italian Satire Detection Through Deep Learning
2021
Satire is a way of criticizing people (or ideas) by ridiculing them on political, social, and morals topics often used to denounce political and societal problems, leveraging comedic devices such as parody exaggeration, incongruity, etc.etera. Detecting satire is one of the most challenging computational linguistics tasks, natural language processing, and social multimedia sentiment analysis. In particular, as satirical texts include figurative communication for expressing ideas/opinions concerning people, sentiment analysis systems may be negatively affected; therefore, satire should be adequately addressed to avoid such systems’ performance degradation. This paper tackles automatic satire…
Comprehension of metaphors and idioms in patients with Alzheimer's disease - A longitudinal study
2001
Language in patients with Alzheimer's disease has been extensively studied, with the exception of non-literal language comprehension. However, in our speech, we often make use of expressions, which are not necessarily interpreted on a literal ground. Comprehension of metaphors and idioms was examined in 39 patients with probable early Alzheimer's disease. The results showed that the decline of figurative language is not an early symptom of dementia and can occur independently from the impairment of propositional language. It was also found that metaphors and idioms differ as far as the predominant kind of error is concerned.