1,721,160 research outputs found
Communicating EU Consumer Rights to Citizens: A Comparison of Tools, Strategies and Messages
No full textEffective communication with citizens is of primary importance for institutions such as the European Union. Research into EU communication has found that EU informative documents also perform a promotional function which can be viewed as part of a consensus-building strategy (cf. Magistro 2007; Giordano / Piga 2018; Silletti 2018; Seracini 2020). The present study contributes to research into how EU institutions communicate with citizens by focusing specifically on the dissemination of knowledge concerning EU law in the area of consumer protection, where legislation has been popularised on the EU website in the form of different text-types and communication tools.
This research takes a comparative approach and aims to establish how these popularised texts differ from one another in terms of their communicative function. The analysis is carried out with a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis approach (Partington 2004) on three corpora containing a set of different text-types popularising EU consumer protection legislation and takes linguistic and visual elements into consideration. Results reveal that the different text-types complement one another by fulfilling different communicative functions. The study also puts forward the idea that a process of ‘redirection’ is carried out, where knowledge is not only communicated, but is also provided as a practical tool for the lay public
Phraseological Patterns in Specialised Translation: Improving the Quality of Translated Texts
No full textThis paper reports on the results of a study that sets out to determine how the use of corpus-based translation practice can help students to improve their use of phraseological patterns in the translation of specialised texts. Using appropriate collocations in the translated text is potentially a problem area for a translator due to interference from the source language (Hatim and Mason 1990: 204). Consequently, one of the main criteria to determine the quality of a translation is the correct use of phraseology in the translated text (Colson 2008: 201). In research into phraseology, Corpus Linguistics is predominant as a methodology since CL tools provide the means to identify “association patterns” (Biber et al. 1998: 5) in language and since CL has an interest in recurring patterns in texts (cf. Olohan 2004; Kenny 1998). This paper investigates the possible benefits of using Corpus Linguistics tools and concepts to build ad hoc materials to help students to improve their use of phraseology in specialised translation. The research aimed, first of all, at identifying the key problem areas for the students as regards, specifically, the translation of collocational patterns of specialised and semi-specialised terms in the fields of economics, management and tourism. The focus of the study was on the translation of prepositional phrases, multi-word terms, term-embedding collocations and on the use of pre- and post-modification in the phraseological patterns. The results provide evidence in favour of an integration between translation and Corpus Linguistics for students of specialised translation. Moreover, learning about Corpus Linguistics tools has the additional benefit for the students of having an effective means to support them when translating any kind of phraseological pattern in a specialised domain (cf. Murphy and Seracini 2017: 168)
The Popularisation of Legal Rights in Brochures: A Multimodal Analysis
No full textThis paper presents the preliminary results of a broader study into the communication of European Union legal rights to citizens. The EU produces its own legislation which is then implemented in the 27 Member States in different ways, depending on the type of law. In order to make legislation accessible to the lay public, one or more simplified versions of the legislation are published on the EU website. The present study analyses a corpus of brochures popularising EU legislation and proposes to investigate how verbal communication is complemented by visual elements in creating a relationship between the various participants. The findings indicate that the linguistic features in the brochures contribute to creating an interpersonal relationship between the EU institutions and the viewers more than the photos. However, despite their limited number, the photos that represent people support the linguistic elements in involving the lay public and to bringing them closer to EU institutions
La popolarizzazione delle leggi europee attraverso i canali multimediali: aspetti linguistici e obiettivi comunicativi
No full textEuropean Union institutions have made EU legislative texts accessible to the lay public by popularising them in a variety of multimedia products which are available on the EU website. Effective communication with the citizens is key not only to facilitate their understanding of their legal rights, but also for the EU institutions to gain credibility and build trust. The present paper investigates how EU laws concerning consumer rights are made accessible to non-specialists through brochures and web pages available on the official website, and videos on the institutional YouTube channel. The study was carried out with a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis approach and compared the corpus of popularised laws with a corpus of original EU legislation from the same area of law. The research aims, firstly, to establish which elements distinguish the popularised texts from the original laws at a lexical and morphosyntactic level and, secondly, to determine what effects the linguistic choices have on the meaning that is being communicated. Findings reveal that the communication in the popularised texts tends to be interactional and direct. It also relies heavily on storytelling as a way of informing citizens of their rights by providing concrete examples they can easily relate to. The analysis has shown how there is an emphasis, on the one hand, on the risks that consumers face and, on the other, on the help and protection that EU institutions offer through the legislation they have adopted. Thus, while informing the citizens of their rights, the various linguistic choices characterising the popularised texts give prominence to the value of the initiatives undertaken by the EU with the overall effect of promoting the image of the EU institutions
British English and Characterization in American Movies
No full textThis paper reports on a study into characterization in American movies by means of language variety, focusing specifically on the use of British English. The analysis is carried out on two different movie genres, with a view to investigating whether different genres use language characterization differently. In particular, the study sets out to establish whether characters in superhero movies displaying fantasy and science fiction elements tend to use speech characterization more stereotypically than movies based on true stories or on realistic fictional movies
Value Metaphors in Films: A Corpus-based Analysis of the Representation of Core Values in American Movies
No full textMetaphors are pervasive in everyday communication, shaping our understanding of abstract concepts and reflecting cultural norms. This paper investigates the role of metaphors in con- veying values in the American Movie Corpus (Forchini 2021–), a collection of manually tran- scribed dialogues of 50 movies produced in the United States. Building upon the definitions of values by Kluckhohn (1951) and Schwartz (1992), the study explores how films mirror and transmit cultural beliefs. The study has two main goals: firstly, to reveal the key values that American movies communicate through language, and secondly, to examine how these values are represented through metaphors.To identify the core values, the study employed the Personal Values Dictionary (Ponizovskiy et al. 2020). A corpus-based approach was then used to uncover and analyse metaphorical patterns underpinning those values (Stefanowitsch 2007). The results suggest implications for domains such as intercultural communication, translation and second- language acquisition where deep understanding of the way reality is perceived in a different culture is crucial
The language of leadership in American movies: a corpus-driven analysis with the AntConc concordancer
No full textThis paper intends to show how corpus linguistics concepts and tools can be used to reveal how language in movies is used to represent business oral communication. In particular, the analysis focuses on how leaders use spoken language to establish and negotiate their role and on how different leadership styles are constructed and represented through talk. Two leaders in the movies The Devil Wears Prada and The Intern were compared in order to investigate how they communicate with their followers. Differences in the use of personal pronouns, deontic modality and discourse markers emerged from the analysis. The results reveal that one leader tends to use a non-collaborative way of communicating and a directive style of leadership, while the other leader tends to adopt a cooperative style of leadership
Modality and argumentation in courtroom examinations
No full textThis paper investigates the use of modality in courtroom examinations. Firstly, the study proposes to determine to what degree the use of modality in argumentative courtroom discourse is similar be- tween legal movies and real trials. Secondly, the study aims to shed light on the function of modal verbs in the argumentative discourse of direct and cross-examinations.
The data reveal a widespread use and a similar distribution of modal verbs in AMtrials, a corpus of legal movies and in ARtC, a corpus of real trials. An in-depth quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out on the modal would, given its high frequency in the subcorpus of questions in movie trials. The results show that would is functional to the argumentation in courtroom examinations: on the one hand, it intensifies the coercive and manipulative force of declarative and choice questions by providing a hypothetical or present predictive connotation to the utterances. On the other hand, in a more subtle way, would contributes to fostering a cooperative attitude on the part of the witness by preventing or mitigating the possible negative impact of the questions s/he is asked, thus helping the attorney to guide the narration in the direction s/he desires.
The analysis provided further evidence in favour of the view that dialogues in movies and natural conversations share similar language features (cf. Forchini 2010, 2013; Bednarek 2015), and that this is also the case where specialised language is involved (cf. Forchini 2017), with obvious implications for both the research and didactics of ESP
I. Šeškauskienė (ed.). Metaphor in Legal Discourse
No full textThis comprehensive collection of studies by different authors brings together the perspectives of linguists and law professionals on the role of metaphors within the domain of legal discourse, investigating their usage in both oral and written texts
B. Pozzo ed., Lingua e Diritto: Oltre l’Europa, Giuffré Editore, Milano 2014, 174 pp
No full textGli studi raccolti nel volume si occupano delle nuove sfide nell’ambito della traduzione giuridic
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