Search results for "existential"

Review of Boye (2012): Epistemic Meaning: A crosslinguistic and functionalcognitive study

2013

Pragmatic markers in contrast: The case of well

2008

Well is the most frequently analysed discourse marker. However, its meaning still remains elusive. The question explored in this paper is to what extent a contrastive analysis of a pragmatic marker can help identify its meaning and functions. The answer to this question is supported by an analysis of the occurrences of well in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and their functional equivalents in the Catalan and Spanish dubbed versions. The analysis provides evidence that pragmatic markers such as well exhibit differences in meaning when compared with logical markers such as but. Their meaning is fully pragmatic since it does not refer properly to a propositional content but to structural…

Fixing meaning

2012

This contribution looks into a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the terrorist attack against a high school in the Northern Caucasian town Beslan in September 2004, widely seen as marking the end of the liberal hegemony in the Russia of the post-soviet period. However, a closer look reveals the many possible readings that are made of the speech. According to the reactions found in a corpus of press articles, the speech activates both “internationalist” and “sovereignist” readings in media discourse. By pointing out the polyphonic organization of discourse, I make the case for a productive exchange between the French tradition of discourse analysis, interactionism and critical…

La variación formal de los cuantificadores en catalán: estudio diacrónico (siglos XV‒XX)

2020

AbstractThis article studies the formal variation of the existential quantifiers u/un (‘one; a, an’), algú/algun (‘someone; some’), ningú/ningun (‘no one, anyone; any’) and the distributive universal quantifier cada u/cada un (‘everyone’) in Catalan. The research is based on an extensive diachronic corpus of texts written between the 15th and 20th centuries. The author classifies the syntactic structures of these quantifiers and analyses their meaning and formal vacillations: apocopated form (without ‑n) vs. non-apocopated form (with ‑n). Although hesitations tend to disappear gradually during the period under analysis, the uses of these quantifiers change in Catalan dialects. In fact, dist…

Food meaning: From tasty to flavorful

2016

AbstractConsidering as a starting point Greimas’s last work (De l’imperfection), taken into very little consideration by later semiotic research, I would like to see whether it would be possible to make, in the field of taste, the distinction that Greimas did in the visual field: between a “figurative” taste (that I should call tasty) and a “plastic” taste (that I should call flavorful). Much has been discussed about the synesthetic nature of gustatory sensoriality. But very little has been said about links and differences between an intellectualistic taste perception (i. e., recognition of figures of food through semantic grids) and a taste perception of a pure aesthetic nature, supported …

Interjections and Pragmatic Errors in Dubbing

2006

This paper consists of an analysis of the expressive secondary interjections found in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and their equivalents in the Spanish and Catalan dubbed versions. The contrastive analysis of the interjections in the original English version compared with the Spanish and the Catalan dubbed versions shows that the strategies followed by the translators are different: literal translation is far more frequent in Spanish than in Catalan. Literal translation often implies an error that is pragmatic in nature since it derives from the misunderstanding of the pragmatic meaning that the interjection conveys.

Els pronoms forts en les oracions existencials del català

2018

En aquest article defenso que la distribució restringida dels pronoms forts en les oracions existencials del català és la conseqüència, no pas de l'Efecte de Definitud, com s'ha assumit de manera habitual, sinó de la combinació de les condicions informatives que imposa l'oració existencial, que requereix que el pivot sigui contrastiu, amb la naturalesa pragmàtica del contrast en les formes pronominals, que impedeix la lectura contrastiva justament en aquesta posició. Es proposa, doncs, que els casos de pivot pronominal necessiten obtenir aquesta lectura contrastiva per mitjans alternatius, especialment mitjançant l'aportació de les partícules només i mateix. Aquesta anàlisi es pot estendre …

The malleability behind terms referring to common professional roles: the current meaning of “boss” in British newspapers

2018

L'objectiu de la present recerca és abordar la variació i ductilitat de conceptes aparentment clars i inequívocs relacionats amb els rols professionals habituals. L'estudi se centra en les estructures semàntiques, i subsegüents models cognitius, associats amb el terme 'boss', tal com són expressats i transmesos en l'actualitat a través dels grans mitjans de comunicació britànics. L'anàlisi lingüística, qualitatiu i quantitatiu, d'un corpus significatiu de textos en els quals apareix aquest terme mostra clares diferències en el seu significat, depenent de factors clau com l'orientació sociopolítica i ideològica de la plataforma de publicació.

Literature and Interpretative Communities - Literary Communication: On Relevant Concepts and Empirical Applications in Finland

1990

The interaction between a literary text and its readers is controlled by a variety of commercial, cultural and other factors. In literary communication, that which is aesthetically mediated enters the practical world of moral values or knowledge. Depending on the point of view adopted, we speak of the 'consumption', the 'use', or 'the reception' of literary works and their message The article discusses both the relevant concepts of literary com municatton and their empirical applications in Finland. The main focus is on studies that have shed light on the themes connected with the concept of intepretative community' Research findings concerning the temporal meaning shifts of literary works…

New Approaches in the Analysis of the Contemporary Dramatic Character

2013

Abstract The character is the core of dramaturgy. The current paper aims to present the newest research regarding the contemporary dramatic character. The study looks at the recent theoretical approaches that hold a double perspective on the character: as a writer's composition and as an actor's performance. The character is defined through his name, implication and role in the action, but also through his own discourse. Based on the connection between similarities and differences, each trait of a character facilitates the revelation of the whole image. The result is a microcosmic structure of a specific typology of characters, interconnected and interdependent. Certain specific, defining c…