277 research outputs found
sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976231170560 – Supplemental material for Thinking Beyond COVID-19: How Has the Pandemic Impacted Future Time Horizons?
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976231170560 for Thinking Beyond COVID-19: How Has the Pandemic Impacted Future Time Horizons? by Samuel Fynes-Clinton and Donna Rose Addis in Psychological Science</p
Gamble_Supplemental_Materials – Supplemental material for Specificity of Future Thinking in Depression: A Meta-Analysis
No full textSupplemental material, Gamble_Supplemental_Materials for Specificity of Future Thinking in Depression: A Meta-Analysis by Beau Gamble, David Moreau, Lynette J. Tippett and Donna Rose Addis in Perspectives on Psychological Science</p
Per un approccio linguistico all'arte verbale: metodi e strumenti diversificati Towards a linguistic approach to verbal art: Theory and practice
No full textThe participants had come together for a symposium in Bologna, Italy in September, 2004 to share their work and exchange views. The debate at the end of that 2-day conference was a lively and fruitful one. One of the questions addressed was indeed , though hardly new, still fundamental: What is literature, and why/ how is it somehow ‘different’ from other text-types? Contrasting, but not for that wholly incompatible, opinions ranged from: literature is whatever a culture considers literature to be, vs. literature is text whose meanings successfully, and lastingly, articulate a generalization on the nature of social existence. It was also noted that such a generalization might be exactly what a specific culture values in, and institutionalizes as, its literature, as well as the fact that many belief and value systems have been, are and will continue to be cross-cultural, if not universal. In any case, as the following quote brings home, the question continues to be a thorny one: ‘[...] the paradox of ‘poetic’ language [is] that there is no such thing [...] but we can all recognize it when we see it’ (Halliday, 1982: 134).
For all that, the participants also had to admit the problem of defining the language in literature as distinct from language in other text types, something further complicated by the co-existence of all sorts of languages and genres in verbal art itself. This was generally recognized, but one strong opinion was that, rather than concentrate on the kinds of language or even genres possible in language in literature, or even on the ‘virtual universe’ this creates, what needs to be engaged with is how the text articulates that universe and the events within that universe, and how it makes these act as a manifestation of, if you will, some profound ‘philosophical’ proposition.
Another question, not unlinked to the preceding one, regarded the idea of context and its importance for the literature text, which no voice denied. What emerged were various, but again not irreconcilable, ways of defining ‘context’. All apparently agreed that the literature text had two orders of context: that from which it came, its ‘real’ context of creation (call it a Malinowskian ‘context of situation’ and/ or ‘culture’, or a ‘pragmatic’ one), (5) and that which it created, as fiction. It was rightfully stressed, however, that context in verbal art has a primacy that may not be quite as apparent in the linguistic criticism of other text types. In short, all language arises out of a context (and Halliday and Hasan, 1980 was cited on this particular point), but the feeling was that there is a special need for coherent forms of contextual involvement on the part of the linguistic critic of the literature text.
Finally, the act of reading was rightly and readily acknowledged to involve its own complex problematics. Some participants clearly felt that space needed to be given to readers’ responses and their negotiation with the meanings of the text; others felt that there were ‘better’ ways of reading, ones that could be articulated and made ‘public’, externalized. In any case, as Butt judiciously puts it (this volume): ‘[...] we interpret by informed and artful inference – by reading off the choices that must have gone into making the text’. This means, however, that readers must be trained to do this. Better ways might also include attempts to put aside one’s own subjective cultural paradigm and intuitive reactions, to be able to better enter into the work, across temporal but also cultural distance, as the author understood it. Such an endeavour would make one a ‘model reader’ in Eco’s terms (1979) , or a ‘super-receiver, in Bakhtin’s (in Todorov, 1984: 110). The organizer is among those who believe in such ‘better’ ways
Language as verbal art
No full textDonna R. Miller
LANGUAGE AS VERBAL ART
chapter abstract
1. Introduction/definitions
The expression ‘verbal art’ is Hasan’s, so the definition summarily and succinctly provided is hers (from chapt. 4 of 1985/1989; 2007). A more detailed description is given in section 3 on issues and topics. What she has dubbed ‘Social Semiotic Stylistics’ is defined as a ‘public discourse’ in which an explicit model of language as its basis is required. In Hasan’s view, for producing any analysis that is ultimately going to be worthwhile, such a framework must be “[...] maximally applicable to the genre [i.e., to literature], irrespective of variations in time, sub-genre, and the critic’s response” (1985/89: 90). Hasan is the only ‘stylistician’ I am aware of who has ever proposed such a model.
Stressed immediately is that, in contrast to mainstream theoretical-methodological approaches to the stylistics as the analysis of the language of literature, the verbal art framework is based on the firm conviction that “Literature is language for its own sake: the only use of language, perhaps, where the aim is to use language.” (Halliday 1964: 245) and, analogously, that “[...] in verbal art the role of language is central. Here language is not as clothing to the body; it is the body.” (Hasan 1985 [1989]: 91).
2. (Recent) Historical perspectives & 3. Critical issues and topics
The Social Semiotic Stylistics perspective is not ‘new’. As Hasan points out, “[...] it actually predates the 1960s’ structural stylistics” (2007: 21). She sees the initial approach to the perspective as having been made by the Russian Neo-Formalists and Prague Circle scholars, especially Mukařovský in his 1928 discussion of ‘foregrounding’ (1977, 1978). She judges ‘Garvin’s little book’ (Prague School Reader 1964) as having been the first to offer the uninitiated an illuminating glimpse of Prague School aesthetics; and she was certainly at least one of the first researchers to use its insights in a full-length study: her unpublished PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh (1964). There is no space for tracing even partial and tentative histories of the discipline of stylistics and its various ‘stages’ (but see, e.g., Introduction to Miller and Turci 2007), yet, while what is often dubbed ‘British’ stylistics was emerging and defining itself in these early years, Hasan – but also Halliday – was actively contributing to that definition. Indeed, as Halliday too has addressed compatible theoretical and methodological issues in the linguistic study of literature and applied his linguistic stylistics to the analysis of various literary texts (such as Golding’s The Inheritors, Priestley’s The Inspector Calls, and Tennyson’s In Memoriam), attention is also drawn here to Halliday’s role in the ‘history’ of the framework of verbal art. Non-linguistic practises of literary criticism are not discussed. Mention is made however of how the verbal art framework distinguishes itself from the related but distinct approach of Pragmatics/ DA/ CDA.
The critical issues delineated firstly by means of a rough sketch of where both Hasan and Halliday might be seen to ‘fit’ into the linguistic approaches to literature being elaborated in the 20th Century. Rather than a concern with establishing who ‘took’ what from whom, emphasis is on how the ideas of these two scholars evolved in criss-cross and parallel fashion, as the ideas of like minds in contact will (cf. Miller 2010).
It is argued that the verbal art model is unique, but also uniquely valid, due both to its holistic, coherent and systematic nature and to their view that literature is ‘different’, indeed ‘special’, a notion which goes against the grain of what mainstream stylisticians (e.g. Simpson 2004) have been preaching more doggedly over time – i.e., that literature is merely another text type, needing none other than the sundry tools brought to the analysis of any register. Connected to this belief is the ‘stylistics’ that focuses on the language of non-literature texts.
Focus is then be on sketching the tools of ‘verbal art’, i.e., Hasan’s analytical model of ‘double-articulation’: the special functional role that language patterns in literature play in construing a specific kind of social meaning exchange, investigated with a mode of analysis that is open to scrutiny, i.e., retrievable and replicable.
(my ) 4. Main Research Methods & (my) 5. Recommendations for Practice
As an example of recommended research method/ application of the model, I would provide a brief example of analysis of the functions of foregrounded patterning in a short poem. A potential candidate is William Blake’s “The Garden of Love”, which was adopted in my courses for years as a primary illustration of the framework, since it is ‘just right’: a text by an author typically comprised in English studies curricula in Italian schools, short, straightforward, and, as Taylor Torsello (1992: 47-53) skilfully demonstrates, replete with linguistic mechanisms that ‘mean’ in all of the ways the model foresees.
(my ) 6. Current contributions and research
As Lukin (to appear) notes, a summary of some of the Halliday-inspired studies of literary texts can be found in Butler (2003: 445-6, cf. Lukin and Webster 2005, and Butt and Lukin 2009). As she also points out, Butler notes Halliday’s influence on a number of monographs on stylistics, including Leech and Short (1981) and Toolan (1988, 1990). I suggest that ‘influence’ might better be put in terms of a payment of lip-service and also that, since it has been easier to ignore Hasan’s authority, it has indeed been unjustly ignored. In short, I ask why it is that, while Halliday often gets a mention (primarily in terms of transitivity analysis), Hasan’s framework should be so glaringly ‘missing’, not only from the canonical stylistics scene but also from the bibliographies of verbal art papers by SFL practitioners, who should know better.
The work of many would by rights be mentioned here: foremost among these being Butt, Lukin, Webster in particular on the Australian scene and here in Italy, Taylor Torsello and myself, but also Turci and Luporini. Special mention should also go to Manfredi and Pagano and Lukin for their work on the translation of verbal art.
7. Future directions
Besides highlighting the aim of continuing to attempt to whittle away at the die-hard resistance to SFL in general and its approach to the language of verbal art in particular, a brief pitch for slotting Jakobson into the social semiotic approach to the analysis of verbal art, to which much of my recent work has been devoted (e.g., Miller 2012), is made. In addition, the extent to which foregrounding is quantifiable is unanswerable without the assistance of corpus linguistics. The SFL (and not only) scholar, Toolan, shows how using corpus evidence to support qualitative analysis can be useful, indeed necessary (2009). Corpus assisted studies need to be part of the ongoing development of a rigorous Social Semiotic Stylistics.
8. References (cited in abstract only)
Butler, C. (2003). Structure and Function: A Guide to Three Major Structural-functional Theories: Part 2: From clause to discourse and beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Halliday M.A.K, MacIntosh A., Strevens P. (1964) The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching, London: Longman.
Hasan R. (1964) ‘A Linguistic Study of Contrasting Linguistic features in the Style of Two Contemporary English Prose Writers’, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.
Hasan R. (1985 [1989]) Linguistics, Language and Verbal Art, Geelong, Vic., Australia: Deakin University Press; Oxford: OUP.
Hasan R. (2007) “Private pleasure, public discourse: reflections on engaging with literature”, in D.R. Miller and M. Turci (eds), 41-67.
Lukin A. (to appear) ‘A linguistics of style: Halliday on literature’, in J.J. Webster (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to M.A.K. Halliday, London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Miller D.R. (2010) ‘The hasanian framework for the study of ‘verbal art’ revisited... and reproposed’, in J. Douthwaite e K. Wales (ed.s), Stylistics and Co. (unlimited) – the range, methods and applications of stylistics, Textus XXIII (2010) (1), 71-94.
Miller D.R. (2012) ‘Slotting Jakobson into the social semiotic approach to “verbal art”: A modest proposal’, in F. Dalziel, S. Gesuato, M.T. Musacchio (eds.), A Lifetime of English Studies: Essays in Honour of Carol Taylor Torsello. Padua: Il Poligrafo, 215-226.
Miller D.R. and Turci M. (eds.) (2007) Language and Verbal Art Revisited: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Literature, London: Equinox.
Mukařovský J. (1964) ‘Standard language and poetic language’, in P. Garvin (ed. and trans.), A Prague School Reader on Aesthetics, Literary Structure and Style, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 17-30.
Mukařovský J. (1977) The Word and Verbal Art: Selected Essays by Jan Mukarovsky, J. Burbank and P. Steiner (eds. and trans.), London: Yale University Press.
Mukařovský J. (1978) Structure, Sign and Function: Selected Essays by Jan Mukarovsky, J. Burbank and P. Steiner (eds. and trans.), London: Yale University Press.
Simpson P. (2004) Stylistics, Routledge, London.
Taylor Torsello C. (1992) Linguistica Sistemica e Educazione Linguistica, Unipress, Padua.
Toolan M. (2009) Narrative Progression in the Short Story, a corpus stylistic approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Thinking Beyond COVID-19: How has the pandemic impacted future time horizons?
No full textData and analyses supporting Fynes-Clinton & Addis (2023
Thinking Beyond COVID-19: How has the pandemic impacted future time horizons?
No full textData and analyses supporting Fynes-Clinton & Addis (2023)
Full article available at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10271815/
http://hdl.handle.net/1807/12770
Displacement of Self-Continuity: An Illuminative Heuristic Inquiry Into Identity Transition in an Allegorical Animation
No full textThis practice-led artistic research considered how a fictional allegory might be employed to examine issues of acculturation, displacement and identity transition. Using the story of a refugee family, the study explored the implications of identity reconstruction inside the body of a new culture.
The narrative of Stella was designed to serve as a provocative vehicle for considering the social implications of identity loss and transition. The practice was provided as a screenplay, a post-visualisation document and an indicative trailer supported by a 45,000 word exegesis.
The project was shaped by an heuristic inquiry that merged existing writing on the methodology with an unique Persian illuminationist ontological and epistemological orientation. Inside the resulting framework a relationship elevated both the self (the writer/director/animator) and the body of knowledge, through the process of making and reflection.
Beyond its contribution to understanding processes and implications of acculturation, displacement and identity transition, the project’s technological significance also lay in its propensity to extend the application and demonstrate the potential of performance capture (using motion capture technology), 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry
Cognitive and brain markers in presymptomatic genetic behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia: a case-control study
No full textThis thesis investigated presymptomatic family members of a kindred carrying the MAPT genetic variant for behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD-MAPT), who are part of the FTDGeNZ study, with the aim of identifying early behavioural, cognitive and neural changes in gene-positive family members.
Study one aimed to characterise signs of neuropsychological and behavioural changes in presymptomatic bvFTD-MAPT, with the novel corollary of exploring episodic memory (EM), autobiographical memory (AM) and episodic future thinking (EFT) to determine whether a ‘true’ medial temporal-based memory deficit is an early feature. Using an age-matched case-control design, participants were stratified into ‘younger’ (40 years old; cases n=3; controls n=8) groups. Results highlight heterogeneous patterns of performance across gene-positive cases. Reduced performance emerged in domains of attention and processing speed, and language/semantic capacity. Findings were not consistent enough to indicate EM, AM and EFT were early markers of change, nor did we observe a true medial temporal-based memory deficit.
Study two sought to identify the earliest neural changes occurring in presymptomatic bvFTD-MAPT by measuring grey matter volume and cortical thickness in a case-control design, covarying for age (cases n=5; controls n=16). Reductions in regions varied across cases, with more extensive reductions in some cases than others. Volumetric and cortical thickness findings showed the amygdala, insula, inferior/superior temporal gyrus most frequently implicated. Medial temporal lobe changes were not as prominent as predicted.
Study three used fMRI to measure neural activity during AM and EFT compared to semantic memory, to determine if differences in activation could be observed in the core network supporting episodic autobiographical thinking in presymptomatic bvFTD-MAPT. Results of this case-control design, covarying for age (cases n=5; controls n=16) showed three of five cases activated a similar spatio-temporal pattern as the control group. The remaining two cases deviated from the control group’s pattern of activation, one showing a compensatory pattern of activation, and the other, dedifferentiation.
Combined, the three studies in this thesis present a nuanced examination of the cognitive, behavioural, and neural characteristics of a presymptomatic bvFTD-MAPT kindred, and contribute to understanding the bvFTD-MAPT disease course
Who am I: Sense of self in individuals with sudden-onset episodic amnesia
No full textFull Text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.Although there is an indisputable relationship between autobiographical memory (AM) and sense of self (SOS), there is still debate concerning the role of episodic and semantic forms of AM in SOS, both in the present moment and over time. In order to assess how episodic AM impairment may differentially affect aspects of SOS, this thesis aimed to examine the SOS of three individuals with varying degrees of sudden-onset episodic amnesia, which is characterised by impaired episodic AM and relatively preserved semantic AM. First, the cases were compared to matched healthy controls on the Autobiographical Interview (AI) to assess the degree of episodic AM impairment. Second, to assess different aspects of SOS we used fine-grained measures that capture various dimensions of self-concept (i.e., objective SOS in the present moment), as well as self continuity, specifically phenomenological continuity (i.e., subjective SOS over time), and two forms of semantic continuity (i.e., objective SOS over time): temporally-extended trait self-knowledge and narrative continuity. Additionally, we measured retrieval of turning point events (i.e., specific events that impact one’s life), since previous research suggest these may be related to coherence of one’s life narrative. Overall, the cases’ impairments in self-concept and all forms of continuity differed based on the degree of their episodic AM impairment. The case with the least amount of episodic AM impairment exhibited intact self-concept and phenomenological continuity, while the two cases with the more severe episodic AM impairments exhibited reductions in both their strength of self-concept and phenomenological continuity. Furthermore, while all three cases exhibited accurate current self-knowledge, one showed reduced accuracy of temporally-extended trait self-knowledge. While the cases were able to identify turning point events, in two of the cases, the quality of their turning point events differed from controls. Lastly, although all three cases exhibited reduced narrative continuity to some extent, they all maintained their ability to perceive themselves as the same person over time (i.e., diachronic unity). Crucially, the current study demonstrates although episodic AM affects one’s SOS in complex ways, one’s SOS can still persist despite these impairments
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