bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Presupposition, perceptional relativity and translation theory
Authors: El-Gamal Ayman
Published: April 2016

The intertwining of assertions and presuppositions in utterances affects the way a text is perceived in the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). Presuppositions can be thought of as shared assumptions that form the background of the asserted meaning. To translate presuppositions as assertions, or vice versa, can distort the thematic meaning of the SL text and produce a text with a different information structure. Since a good translation is not simply concerned with transferring the propositional content of the SL text, but also its other semantic and pragmatic components, including thematic meaning, a special attention should be accorded to the translation of presupposition. This article examines the intrinsic relation between presupposition and thematic meaning, why the concept is relevant to translation theory, and how presupposition can affect the structure and understanding of discourse. Unshared presuppositions are major obstacles in translation, as cultural concepts may be conveyed through expressions that yield presuppositions. To attain an optimal proximity to the SL text, presupposition needs to be singled out as a distinct aspect of meaning, and distinctions need to be made between definite and indefinite meaning, topic and comment, topic and focus, presupposition and entailment, and presupposition and implicature.
Interpretive use: translating intensification
Authors: López Folgado Vicente
Published: April 2016

My aim here is to discuss first the fitness of a cognitive theory like RT when approaching the interpretive operations taking place in the translating activity. The basic notion of interpretive resemblance is put forward instead of the traditional one of equivalence. Secondly, the application of this cognitive framework is here discussed so as to tackle the case of intensifiers as a vague, "connotative" field of interpretation that puts to test the inferential work of translators. I then focus on a few varied examples of actual translations which illustrate some of the contextual effects conveyed by intensifiers of various kinds.
Transferring communicative clues in translation
Authors: Navarro Errasti María Pilar
Published: April 2016

In this essay I make use of the category communicative clue, as defined by Gutt (1991/2000), to explain certain differences between an original work and its various translations. Communicative clues are very useful analytical devices that show nuances of meaning and style. In the source texts, they sometimes go unnoticed. But when a translation is done the translator may come across these features and must desirably transfer them. Very frequently, however, they are ignored. Here a particular experience with translators shows how often these clues are overlooked.
The transference of discourse values in translation via lexis: obscene language as a case in point
Authors: Pérez Quintero María Jesús , Toledano Buendía Carmen
Published: April 2016

The aim of this paper is to show the important role played by lexical choices in translation, considered not only as a means of rendering a direct equivalent in the target language, but also a means of manipulation motivated by the target reader's demands. We will present the new conception of the lexicon provided by the Functional-Lexematic Model in order to analyze, later, the advantages of this model for the study of lexical choices in translation. In analyzing different translations from this point of view, we will concentrate on the lexical field of obscenity.
Types and degrees of interpretive resemblance in translation
Authors: Rosales Sequeiros Xosé
Published: April 2016

This articles explores one of the types of interpretive resemblance found in translation, namely, resemblance between concepts. These are cases where the concept encoded involves a resemblance relation between its literal import and the meaning it communicates, i.e. cases in which words do not literally communicate the concepts they encode. It is argued that translations are often carried out not on the basis of the concept encoded in the original text but on the basis of the actual concept communicated. This constitutes one of the sources of discrepancy found between original and target texts. In these cases, the translation encodes not what was encoded originally but (the translator's interpretation of what) the source concept was intended to communicate. There are three ways in which what is communicated by a concept may depart from what it encodes: concept narrowing, concept loosening, and echoic uses of concepts. In addition to discussing these processes in relation to translation, arguments are put forward for the existence of a further resemblance possibility: concept widening.
Pragmatics and semiotics: the relevance of addressee expectations in the translation of newspaper texts
Authors: Samaniego Fernández Eva
Published: April 2016

Newspaper and advertising texts have traditionally been 'difficult children' for translation studies to deal with, mainly for one thing: they seem to be systematically norm-flouting. In fact, in traditional approaches, they were customarily quoted as typical examples of 'free translation', 'unfaithfulness' or, in some cases, out right creation of a new text. Although it is true that these texts present certain translation peculiarities, this is by no means a random process of transfer where translators set their 'wild imagination' to work. Quite on the contrary, it is argued here that it is precisely these texts that demonstrate how systematically translators are capable of forecasting the average target recipient and of adapting the texts to reader expectations by fulfilling pragmatic and semiotic considerations in the process of transfer; these seem to be the two guiding parameters for the occurrence of 'translation incidences' in newspaper binomials. To prove this claim, we present the results obtained from a descriptive study carried out with a selection of semiotic and pragmatic factors on a corpus of newspaper texts published by The Guardian and their subsequent translations into Spanish, published by El Mundo.
Generic multiplicity in Alasdair Gray's Lanark: a life in 4 books
Authors: Juan Hatchard Luis de
Published: April 2016

This paper begins by acknowledging the ontological multiplicity which characterises the fictional world(s) of Lanark: A Life in 4 Books, and suggests the need to complement this reading by looking into its generic multiplicity. In doing so, my analysis initially focuses on the opposition between the realistic and fantastic narratives, and the revitalising effect that such a relationship brings about; then it looks into how the novel blurs the frontiers between dystopian and utopian writing as well as between fantasy and science fiction, and contends that such a melange is an effective way of providing a panoramic view of contemporary Western society; finally, my analysis pays special attention to the Epilogue, which adds a metafictional dimension to the novel, and comments on the different interpretations that may be given to this display of narrative experimentation.
Stylistic gender differences in the literary representation of detective talk
Authors: Ortells Montón Elena , Posteguillo Gómez Santiago
Published: April 2016

Although substantial work has already been done on the variation between men and women in real speech, not so much has been carried out on the representation of speech in literature. The ample presence of dialogic interactions in the detective novel turns the genre into an extremely productive field of research in relation to represented conversation. In this paper, a corpus consisting of 79 one-to-one dialogues from eight different novels written by four well-known and best-selling authors is analysed according to six research questions. We believe it is the context, the pragmatic situation which makes women either maintain their speech style and represent it in fiction as it is or change it because they want to ascribe themselves and their written representations to a specific genre and a particular profession respectively.
Blending versus conceptual interaction in the construction of illocutionary meaning: counterfactual pieces of advice
Authors: Pérez Hernández Lorena
Published: April 2016

The cognitive operation of conceptual integration or blending as described by Fauconnier and Turner (1994,1996) includes the notion of emergent structure, that is to say, conceptual structure, which is part of the blend and which is independent and/or inconsistent with that of the input spaces. Emergent structure is especially noticeable in counter factual pieces of advice of the type If I were you, I would..., which involve the construction of a mental space which is contrary-to-fact with respect to both input spaces. Nevertheless, as argued by Ruiz de Mendoza (1998), this type of blend-internal asymmetries and inconsistencies are little desirable from the point of view of cognitive economy. In connection with this observation, this paper attempts to reanalyse and explain the performance of conterfactual advising by adequately combining data from as many input spaces as necessary to yield implicated information. In doing so, our account is free from the cognitive cost which may derive from the need of making sense of independent (and contradictory) emergent structure.
Liaison interpreting in the ELF classroom: a case study
Authors: Prieto Arranz José Igor
Published: April 2016

Leaving aside old prejudices against the use of translation in foreign language teaching, the new integrative approaches show how translation (and interpreting)-based activities can also potentially fall into the communicative task category. Liaison interpreting is one such and it is our aim in this paper to investigate how it works with a group of 4th year English Philology students at the University of Oviedo. Results being clearly positive, and taking into account such factors as the importance of the student's L1 in the learning process, the enormous array of translation-communication strategies produced and the intercultural dimension present in every translation context, we shall finish by arguing for the inclusion of this kind of activities in the L2 classroom.
Post-colonial girl-children in Olive Senior's short stories
Authors: Vilouta Vázquez Begoña
Published: April 2016

Three short stories by the Jamaican author Olive Senior deal with how difficult it is for a girl to grow up in post-colonial Jamaican society. From a post-colonial feminist stance, my analysis of the short stories considers how predetermined conceptions about race, colour, gender, or social class affect their protagonists as individuals. Their progress towards adulthood is deeply marked by the transference between two households, a rather common experience for Jamaican children. These changes of residence give Olive Senior the chance to explore the different and often opposing conceptions regarding issues such as race, language, social class, female sexuality, religion or marriage. The socialisation of girl-children is also influenced by the stereotype of the "angel of the house", a racialised construct characterised by silence, delicacy, and submissiveness. When it comes to physical appearance, paleness is one of the essential characteristics, referring to the superiority of white women. The construction of black women as Jezebels will be also analysed. The different conceptions about the aforementioned issues and the predetermined patterns of behaviour make it difficult for the protagonists to reconcile both worlds: one of the most common results shown by Senior is alienation and isolation. Girls usually end up not knowing where they belong.
Integrating English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) skills into mainstream English courses
Authors: Sánchez Hernández Purificación , Pérez Paredes Pascual Francisco
Published: April 2016

This paper examines the design and implementation stages of a course of English given at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Murcia, Spain. The course was programmed regardless of the particular individuals and no previous requirements were needed. Two initial tests were passed to the students at the beginning of the semester: the first one to evaluate their needs and motivation and the second one to measure their general communicative competence. The results were heterogeneous. The students were informed of their results and also of the level they should reach to pass the course, especially those with low marks. With respect to their motivation they manifested two orientations: Labour and integrative reasons. Taking into account their 'labour reasons' some units closely related to their speciality were included and the final evaluation was modified giving some weight also to the specific English component (75 % GE, 25 % ESAP). The analysis reveals that, according to our initial assumption, those students with a better communicative competence at the beginning of the course obtained the best results in the final exam. A correlation between those students with intrinsic motivation and communicative competence and the best final marks has also been found.
Hiromi Goto's Chorus of Mushrooms : cultural difference, visibility and the Canadian tradition
Authors: Darias Beautell Eva
Published: April 2016

This essay focuses on the role of visual codes to construct cultural identities within a national framework in contemporary Canadian literature and culture, and analyses the novel Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto (1994) as an interesting study of such strategies of identitary formation in Canada. Clearly springing from the Asian Canadian rapidly growing field of writing, the novel sets itself to break institutional expectations in a number of ways. First, it exposes the asymmetries in the conditions of production of cultural identities in Canada and denounces the power of the codes of visibility in the production of cultural difference. Second, it recognizes, appropriates and reverses the functioning of cultural stereotypes, unveiling in the process their arbitrary nature. Third, it inscribes itself right into the Canadian tradition, putting into question the awkward division between mainstream and minority literature in Canada. This is done by means of a double move consisting of writing explicitly within the field of Asian Canadian tradition, specially because of its intertextual engagement with the multiaward-winning novel Obasan, by Joy Kogawa (1983), while entering and appropriating, at the same time, the texts of Canadian regionalism, specifically prairie fiction, as well as the larger national contexts of literature.
A parable of the African condition: the interface of postmodernism and postcolonialism in Biyi Bandele-Thomas's fiction
Authors: Kehinde Ayo
Published: April 2016

The emergence of postmodernist fiction in Africa has become both a literary phenomenon and an answer to the all-important question of evolving a style that adequately presents the subject matter. Plagued by the density and morbidity of societal ills, the African novelist rises to the challenge by coming out with a new style that literally oozes out with the chaos and disorder s/he observes in her/his society. The contemporary African novel can thus be perceived as going through a period of stylistic innovation. This innovative artistic thrust is not inadvertent; rather, it is a reflection of the socio-historical realities of its enabling society. Thus, the contemporary African novel is mostly couched in postmodernist mode in an attempt to signify the anomic nature of the African postcolonial milieu. It is against the backdrop of the foregoing that this paper attempts an examination of the blend of the features of Postcolonial literatures and Postmodernism in the contemporary African novel. Bandele–Thomas’s The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond and The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams are used as the launching pad of the discourse. A thorough analysis of both novels reveals that Bandele-Thomas’s fiction is considerably shaped by the discursive strategies of both postcolonialism and postmodernism.
Narratives of displacement : V.S. Naipaul's Indians in exile
Authors: Varela Zapata Jesús
Published: April 2016

This paper analyses the characterization of Willie Chandran, the protagonist of Naipaul's latest fictional work Half a Life (2001), within the context of the fabric of Naipaul's fiction, in which exiled Indians constitute the most identifiable type or category of characters. This is only to be expected from a writer who has championed the condition of the third-world expatriate and has never lost contact with the Indian roots of his ancestors. As happens in the case of previous characters, Willie attempts to improve his present condition by remaking his past and his own personality. He also complies with the stereotype of the Indian expatriate who feels displaced in a metropolis he had presumed to be acquainted with (because of the cultural impositions of colonialism) but which proves to be a totally unknown, not to say hostile, environment. Finally, taking into account that the most significant characters in Naipaul's work are the protagonists of works such as The Mimic Men, A Bend in the River or The Enigma of Arrival, all of them first-person narrators of their stories, we will consider to what extent does Willie Chandran, portrayed mainly through third-person narrative, depart from the overall positive characterization accorded to them.
Voice onset time and foreign accent detection : are L2 learners better than monolinguals?
Authors: Alba-Salas Josep
Published: April 2016

Using an audiovisual perception task, two groups of native English listeners (monolinguals, and L2 learners of Spanish) were asked to identify which /p,t,k/ tokens had been produced by native English speakers and which ones by foreigners. The experiment found that self-reported criteria for foreign accent detection tended to be consistent with actual perceptual behavior, and that the L2 learners performed better, both at the group and at the individual level. These results suggest that foreign accent detection is cued by Voice Onset Time differences and taps into both our tacit knowledge of the native segmental norm and our implicit awareness of what constitutes a particular deviation from that norm. Moreover, the results suggest that, contrary to what some have assumed, monolinguals are not necessarily more sensitive to foreign accents than second language learners.
Can pronunciation be taught? A review of research and implications for teaching
Authors: Barrera Pardo Darío
Published: April 2016

Pronunciation teaching has often been relegated to a subsidiary role of broader language performance skills such as speaking and listening, but in the past few years instruction on specific features of the spoken language have been reassessed and consequently fostered in many programs. Many teachers, nonetheless, remain skeptical about the teachability of pronunciation, and in consequence continue to consider explicit pronunciation instruction of relatively little importance in their practice. This paper offers a comprehensive review of twenty five empirical studies that explore the effect of pronunciation instruction, and their implications for teaching, in a reasoned attempt to reconsider the role of this area of the spoken language in the teaching practice.
"The taint of a fault" : purgatory, relativism and humanism in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
Authors: Phillips Bill
Published: April 2016

Far from being a poem about the chivalric code, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is essentially concerned with religion. The Romance genre is used to reveal the shortcomings of the Church in the late fourteenth century, just as it begins to feel the first effects of early Renaissance humanism, and of religious reformers such as John Wyclif. Early and medieval Church doctrine, like the chivalric code, imposed a set of conditions which were effectively impossible to fulfill, and it must have seemed to many people that however strenuously they strove to comply, they were inevitably doomed to hell. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, possibly influenced by the teachings of John Wyclif, is a religious allegory in which the intractability of the chivalric code stands in for a Church assailed both for its corruption and intransigent absolutism. The doctrine of purgatory, which became orthodox only by the late thirteenth century, symbolizes the kind of relativist development envisioned by the Gawain author in his/her critique of obsolete and unworkable codes.
"Father to my story": writing Foe, de-authorizing (De)Foe
Authors: Almagro Jiménez Manuel
Published: April 2016

Foe is probably not J.M. Coetzee's best known novel, although it is a text of great importance because of the way in which its political, literary and theoretical values are interrelated. The novel addresses a foundational myth of Western societies in the figure of Robinson Crusoe, and draws attention to its textual quality. This concern with the process of representation and the narrative quality of our beliefs is also manifested throughout the novel in other issues. Thus, in the text there is a whole panoply of reflections about the central issues affecting the very mechanics of constructing a text, such as, for example, the proper way a story should be written, the relationship between representation and its referent in the real, the problem of realism, or the question of authorship.
Linguistic imperialism: a critical study
Authors: González Fernández Paula
Published: April 2016

Today, there is a rising need of an international language for infinite purposes and, so far, English seems to be that language. However, its use is being discriminative and unfair in different aspects. These have been discussed in the academic circles, but little is being considered of the general public's ideas. Furthermore, the different consequences that the notion of Linguistic Imperialism has, and all the various issues mentioned in the scholarly debate, do not seem to reach far beyond the academic spheres. The main goal of this study is to deal with perceptions of English Imperialism. Due to space limitations, we cannot present here the whole study. Hence, we will concentrate on the spread of English in the world and the agency behind it. We will first revise the opinion found in the literature, of scholars and linguists, to concentrate later on the feelings of the general public. To this end, we will use data collected both through a questionnaire and some personal interviews. The comparison of the two sources will show that what is being discussed by many authors is not generally reaching the general public and that the latter's opinion is rather complex and inconsistent, with little linguistic awareness.
What may words say, or what may words not say. A corpus-based approach to linguistic action
Authors: Martínez Vázquez Monserrat
Published: April 2016

In this paper I present an empirical approach to the analysis of the way English speakers conceptualize the communicative process in English. Most linguistic expressions about language in English are surface manifestations of what Reddy termed the "conduit metaphor". Reddy's model implies several interrelated cognitive associations: words are conceived as containers in which speakers introduce their ideas and send them to listeners, who will take these ideas out of these containers. Central to this model is the metaphor words are containers. It has also been claimed that there are other ways of perspectivizing the language process apart from the notion of containment (Vanparys 1995). In fact, Reddy himself notes that there is approximately a 30% of metalanguage not based on the conduit metaphor. The pervasiveness of the container metaphor would reasonably be most directly tested in expressions with the lexeme word. In order to measure what falls inside and outside these containers I carry out a corpus analysis of the lexeme word excerpted from the British National Corpus (BNC). The systematic evidence obtained from a large but delimited corpus gives us more reliable information about the frequency and use of this metaphor than an intuition based analysis or an arbitrary search in multi-source corpora.
On the phatic interpretation of utterances: a complementary relevance-theoretic proposal
Authors: Padilla Cruz Manuel
Published: April 2016

In this paper, I suggest a theoretical approach to the production and interpretation of phatic utterances aimed at complementing other previous accounts. These argue that utterances are normally interpreted as phatic either because of their occurrence in particular conversational phases forming fixed adjacency pairs with other utterances, or because interlocutors activate specific frames and process them in a particular way. Besides, the extant relevance theoretic (Sperber and Wilson, 1986, 1995) analysis of these utterances has focused on the linguistic properties that make utterances be interpreted as phatic, but has not explained how a speaker has to produce an utterance so that the hearer interprets it as phatic and why phatic utterances contribute to the creation of a feeling of solidarity and ties of union between interlocutors.
Charles Dickens makes fun of idiolects in Martin Chuzzlewit
Authors: Soto Vázquez Adolfo Luis
Published: April 2016

Martin Chuzzlewit is considered a very rich linguistic mosaic where a number of characters are in the habit of speaking 'private languages' or idiolects. In this travel-book we find a source of Dickens's impressions of America and a treatment of a linguistic problem: to make each class, each group and profession speak in its own characteristic way. In the representation of American speech the Victorian writer uses features such as deviant spellings, unusual morpho-syntactic patterns, standard words used in a different context, extralinguistic capitals and hyphens. The technique in the dialogues of Martin Chuzzlewit is especially the graphic and humorous, by means of which he exhibits the most trifling and commonplace things in a new and amusing light.
Multimodality and relevance in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games televised promotion
Authors: Ifantidou Elly , Tzanne Angeliki
Published: April 2016

This paper is concerned with a multimodal communicative act, the televised promotion of the 'Athens 2004 Olympic Games' on National Hellenic television. The first aim of the paper is to show that the commercial examined constitutes a "multimodal metaphor" (Forceville, 2004 and 2005) through which the audience is essentially invited to interpret the 'Athens 2004 Olympic Games' in terms of a 'festival'. The second aim of the paper is to explain how it is that a commercial such as this one, which foregrounds entertainment and celebrations, is almost unanimously received by a multicultural audience as successfully advertising the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. In the framework of Relevance Theory, the pragmatic and cognitive benefits of the specific multimodal metaphor are discussed in terms of positive cognitive effects and processing effort (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995; Wilson and Sperber, 2004). Experimental evidence on native and non-native audiences' reaction to this televised promo suggests that the intended interpretation is recovered in terms of a range of strongly implicated assumptions that viewers unanimously reckon, rather than in terms of a range of weak implicatures (Forceville, 1996). Drawing on the Cognitive and Communicative Principles of Relevance and the key concept of Optimal relevance, the paradoxical finding of 'irrelevant scenes' contributing to a fruitful interpretation process and recovery of 'relevant meaning(s)' is explained.
GHD advertising campaign across cultures. A case study
Authors: Maci Stefania M.
Published: April 2016

The type of advertisements addressed to young people seem to reinforce values conveyed by music, films and fashion. In this new cultural trend, GHD advertising apparently proceeds in an opposite direction, as the visual element of the new GHD advertising campaign is strongly interrelated with religion. Yet the new religious values GHD is offering appear to be more in line with urban trends than with asceticism. It is the aim of this paper to illustrate how the GHD advertising campaign in the UK establishes the identity and success thanks to intertextuality. I will further compare the same ad as it appeared in the Italian press and will point out how the GHD Italian version not only loses its grasp of religion but is also less incisive in style than the English advertisement text. The result is a text in strong opposition to the visual it is linked with.
A systemic functional analysis of two multimodal covers
Authors: Martínez Lirola María
Published: April 2016

Our society is influenced by new texts, which are clearly characterised by the increasing dominance of the visual mode; this implies that new literacies need to be developed as a way of enabling the readers to question the texts they are exposed to. We argue for a multimodal and situated approach for understanding and interpreting writing on magazine covers because they are examples of an increased emphasis on modes of representation other than the written, especially an increased dominance of the visual mode. This is the reason why we are going to analyse two covers of free British magazines (published in London on July 14, 2003) to see the different resources they use to attract people's attention and to encourage readership, particularly because they were delivered at the exit of underground stations. Systemic Functional Linguistics will be our theoretical framework in this article because for this linguistic school the text is the basic unit of analysis and it studies language in relation to society. SFL will help us to understand why a text is written as it is by paying attention to its context and textual organisation.
"Honourable Bigotry"? Relevance theory, conversation analysis and radio talk-backs
Authors: Pattemore Stephen
Published: April 2016

Relevance Theory (RT) and Conversation Analysis (CA), two disciplines with a shared interest in the pragmatics of conversation, have interacted very little. This essay shows that they have much in common in their understanding of the nature of context and its progressive construction through a conversation, and should thus be able to benefit from each other's insights into the process of communication. By means of examining the transcript of a broadcast radio-talk back conversation, two points are established. Firstly, CA can helpfully apply insights from RT to its treatment of the cooperative construction of meaning in conversation. And secondly, application of RT does not need to be restricted to fragments of invented conversation but can profitably be extended to the more complex situations of actual language in use.
Speeches and declarations: a war of words
Authors: Reyes Rodríguez Antonio
Published: April 2016

The use of language is always manipulated to convey a goal of the speaker in order to have an effect on the hearer. Symbolic power is always present in speech. Politicians understand and harness the power of words to explain or justify acts in order to encourage, perhaps even force, people to support them, even if this support implies a risk to their lives. Following Bourdieu's (2001), Elster's (1986, 1994) and van Dijk's (1993, 1997a, 1997b, 2005) ideas, in particular, amongst others', this paper analyzes the speeches and declarations of George W. Bush, President of the United States, from September 11,2001 leading up to the 2003 attack on Iraq, in an attempt to decode the underlying intentions of the messages and strategies which he has used to justify military action, in what he and his administration call 'the war on terrorism'. This paper focuses on the linguistic representations of war and their implications (van Dijk, 2005), on the way in which war is linguistically and rhetorically constructed, particularly in the period of build-up to action. This study will propose a theoretical model of the chronological discursive phases of development of a rhetoric of war, culminating in military action with general public support domestically. Finally, I would like to introduce the term 'ideologically suggestive co- placement' as a linguistic power tactic to link factually unrelated objects (persons, nations, events, concepts) by presenting them within a simple clause or sentence, to intentionally create a link between these objects, between their connotations in the listener's mind, simply by their simultaneous mention. This term is presented as a new tool for future discourse analysis studies.
The discursive construction of anti-European sentiment in the times.co.uk texts
Authors: Valdeón García Roberto Antonio
Published: April 2016

The critical study of language has payed particular attention to the discursive construction of concepts such as national identity, ideology or hegemony. In this paper we applied Fairclough's three-dimensional model of CDA to the presentation of European matters in the online texts of The Times, a mass medium noted for its traditional alliance with the British political and economic establishment, analysing the discursive strategies used by text producers in the headlines, leads and stories of 84 reports, opinion articles and editorials in an attempt to identify the ideological components imbued by the text producers and, thus, establish the degree of impartiality towards the European issue and whether the discourse used by this mass medium is an example of the traditional British resistance towards EU integration.
Digital reading strategies in computer English
Authors: Curado Fuentes Alejandro
Published: April 2016

This paper focuses on the use of web-based discourse by three Spanish undergraduate students in Computer Engineering. Key lexico-grammatical features in Computer English have been analysed by means of corpus linguistics techniques, for which word statistics and collocation functions in the WordSmith concordancer have been highly useful. The information was then used to compare the students' results. The students' reading skills have been evaluated in the documentation process of the three final projects, required prior to their graduation as engineers. Overall observations point to code-switching, re-wording, and key vocabulary identification as strategies that the students demonstrate to be able to operate with significantly after on-line reading. The students also rely more on Internet discourse as a main source of feedback for their projects and useful tool for work. Two of the projects have dealt with the design and use of interactive platforms for language learning (via two different approaches), while the third project has focused on the management of e-learning with the use of Squeak, a special language for programming. The assessment of the three students' reading / interpretation skills has taken place by means of written tasks and personal interviews.
Scientific writing: following Robert Boyle's principles in experimental essays -1704 and 1998
Authors: Lareo Martín Inés , Montoya Reyes Ana
Published: April 2016

Science and scientific method have evolved in parallel with changes in philosophical ideas. One aspect of the discipline affected by these changes is the way in which scientists' results should be shown to the world. However, it was not until the second half of the 17th century that the first recommendations or guidelines for reporting scientific discoveries appeared. The Royal Society became the first institution to concern itself with the form this new discourse should take. The aim of this paper is to analyse the linguistic evolution experienced by two pieces of scientific writing and to examine to what extent the two texts follow the recommendations of Robert Boyle and the Royal Society concerning the patterns scientific discourse should observe. Two texts were selected for the task, one published at the beginning of the 18th century, the other at the end of the 20th. For the purposes of comparison, the texts analysed are from the same discipline and both report an experiment on Optics.
Bernard Cohen’s Snowdome: somewhere in a postmodern time
Authors: Romero Jódar Andrés
Published: April 2016

Occidental societies, according to certain visions of a postmodern future as reflected in literature and arts, are heading towards a dystopian decadent world order. It is inside this perspective that I place the following essay with the aim to analyse the representation of Postmodernism and Postmodernity in Bernard Cohen’s experimental work, Snowdome. This novel can be conceived as a complex portrayal of contemporary existence and life in the city. By means of three different narrations and two stories separated by the unstable boundary of time, Cohen depicts contemporary Sidney from a nightmarish present of noise that leads to the complete isolation of the subject in a near future. The novel emphasises the multiplicity of information in contemporary society and the way in which that information becomes a constant noise flooding the city. The individual is unable to grasp a bit of that “pure reality” outside the simulacrum offered by the media and by the terrifying museum. Sidney and Australia become, in Cohen’s work, a prolongation of contemporary North-American invasive culture, based on the power of the TV screen and the falsehood of simulacrum, whereas individuals are plunged into a new time-space dimension which is placed somewhere in a postmodern time.
Intertextuality in the news: the Spanish terrorist attack on March 11
Authors: Seghezzi Natalia Andrea
Published: April 2016

We can define intertextuality as the relationship between one text and other texts. In this paper we analyze intertextuality in news reports focusing upon reporting speech, i.e. the presence of others' words in a text. We argue that when text producers choose to employ reported discourse they pursue a clear objective. Reporters may want, for instance, to detach themselves from what is said or adopt somebody else's words as if they were their own. Thus, intertextuality constitutes a powerful tool at reporters' disposal to suit their own purposes and make texts more persuasive. In the two articles on the Spanish terrorist attack from different newspapers we analyze this is highly significant because after the attack it was not certain who the perpetrators had been. However, authorship was to play a decisive role in the general elections to be held three days later: ETA's hypothesis favoured the political party in power while the fact that Al Qa'ida was behind the attack was beneficial to the opposition. In this paper we show how both newspapers, drawing mainly on the same external voices, succeed in building two different arguments and lead readers towards a biased interpretation of the facts.
Why are you late?: cross-cultural pragmatic study of complaints in American English and Ukrainian
Authors: Prykarpatska Iryna
Published: April 2016

This article examines culture-specific differences in the way a sample of native speakers of American English and Ukrainian make a complaint to their friends. The communication behaviour of both groups of respondents is analyzed within the models of their respective cultures. The research is based on empirical data collected with the help of a questionnaire.
An ethnological approach to Sister Nations’ verse: new insights into native American de-colonial discourse
Authors: Sancho Guinda Carmen
Published: April 2016

With an integrative approach combining critical discourse analysis, Gricean pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, this paper seeks to provide new insights into Native American women’s verse as a lingua franca for the dissemination of social discourses at the intra and intercultural levels. To this end, it starts from the ethnographic notions of speech and discourse communities, applies them to the recently coined concept of Sister Nations, and goes on to explore their poetic production as a multidimensional anthropological practice performing cognitive, mediating and dialogical functions. Sister Nations’ poems not only call into question the traditional definitions of genre and interpretative communities or serve as vehicles for the expression of a dual discourse of reconciliation and resistance, but also evidence the importance of figurative language in the interpretation of cultures and act as ceremonial dialogues between societies in conflict.
Beyond mood and modality: epistemic modality markers as hedges in research articles. A cross-disciplinary study
Authors: Vázquez Orta Ignacio , Giner Diana
Published: April 2016

In this paper a cross-disciplinary study of the use of epistemic markers as hedging rhetorical strategies in research articles in English is carried out. Based on computer readable data, and combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the article argues that the use of modal expressions can be better explained as reflecting the strategies of hedging used by writers for dealing with the social conditions involved in the event of publishing an article, which is addressed to different discourse communities. Three different disciplines (Marketing, Biology and Mechanical Engineering) belonging to the soft knowledge vs. hard knowledge discipline continuum are investigated here. Our analysis of hedging in these three different disciplines has revealed, not only that there are differences in the occurrence of hedges in the RAs selected, but also that these differences depend on the nature of the data used for the research in each discipline. Each discipline tries to fulfil social needs in different areas. The sociological features of each discipline may be shaping the discourse in their RAs differently. This is reflected in the varied presence of hedging devices in Marketing, Biology and Mechanical Engineering research articles.
Issues of persuasion in academic law abstracts
Authors: Breeze Ruth
Published: April 2016

Across the academic world, abstracts may often serve a primary promotional function. However, it has also long been accepted that each academic field has its own perception of exactly what it means to be interesting and authoritative. Although abstracts in many disciplines have been extensively researched, so far those from the academic area of law have received little attention. This paper applies techniques of qualitative and quantitative analysis to 200 abstracts from four academic law journals (two European, two US based), and finds that their structure and language reflect specifically legal discourses of persuasion. Areas of commonality between the abstracts from European and US journals are discussed, while differences are analysed in terms of the underlying legal cultures.
Phraseological units: persuasion and translation
Authors: Díez Arroyo Marisa
Published: April 2016

This paper explores the persuasive power of phraseological units (PUs) in cosmetics leaflets written either in English or French, together with their translation into French or English, respectively, as well as into Spanish. The approach rests upon, firstly, the concept of genre, determined, in agreement with Swales (1990), on the basis of the purpose of the text. Cosmetics leaflets are argued to be a manifestation of advertising. Hence, their ultimate aim is to persuade the (potential) buyer about the benefits of the product. Secondly, the occurrence of the phraseological units in this type of genre has important consequences for rhetoric and stylistics. Thirdly, we deal with the definition of phraseological units and their relation to metaphor, which will permit us to study how persuasion is achieved through this particular text type. Finally, by comparing the source text with its translation into two other languages, we analyse whether the translator has grasped the stylistic effect of the phraseological units and has succeeded in conveying a similar value in the target language text.
Don’t get mad, get persuasive!: anger management and persuasion in TV discourses
Authors: García Gómez Antonio
Published: April 2016

Although social scientists, journalists, and tv presenters have made great efforts to justify the relevance and importance of audience discussion programmes, these programmes have been commonly labelled as “trash television”. Among the most frequent criticisms in the literature are the accusations that these programmes turn serious matters into sensationalist spectacle and indulge emotional outbursts while pretending to offer some kind of public service. The point of departure for the present paper is that a linguistic analysis of conflict talk in an institutional context may throw light on the insights offered by these programmes. More precisely, the present paper argues that conflict talk in an institutional context can build normative legitimacy by exemplifying values and moral obligations – as can be seen in the topics and guests selected for each programme. All in all, this study suggests that conflict talk is not only used as an ideological vehicle for attitude change, but that it also exerts a powerful force of social cohesion on the audience.
Leaving the New World, entering history: Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, John Smith and the problems of describing the New World
Authors: Gómez Galisteo María del Carmen
Published: April 2016

Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and British explorer John Smith went to the New World for different reasons but both shared the experience of being a captive to the Native Americans. After their return to Europe, both of them undertook the task of putting pen to paper to describe their New World experiences so as to inform their fellow countrymen. Writing in different countries and separated by a century of colonial discoveries and experiences, nevertheless, they encountered very similar difficulties in being trusted by professional historians. Both had to strive in order to be regarded as authoritative and valid sources of knowledge about a continent where they, contrary to most historians, had actually traveled to and lived in. This essay examines what their problems were and the strategies they made use of in order to persuade their readers of their trustworthiness.
Fight metaphors in Spain’s presidential speeches: J.L. Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2007)
Authors: Hellín García María Josefa
Published: April 2016

This article investigates the metaphorical conceptualization of terrorism by president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who came into power soon after the biggest terrorist attack in Spain on March 11th, 2004. Specifically, it examines how terrorism is conceptualized via metaphors through the notion of fight, and their conceptual implication in discourse. I will refer to these as Fight Metaphors. The research questions addressed are as follows: 1. What Fight Metaphors are used in the discursive construction of terrorism? 2. How do Fight Metaphors contribute to support Zapatero’s anti-terrorism political agenda? I follow a combination of a cognitive and a pragmatic approach from a corpus-based analysis perspective. The cognitive approach is based on Lakoff’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (1993), and the pragmatic one is based on Charteris-Back’s Critical Metaphor Analysis (2004). The corpus of investigation comprises 58 Spanish political speeches over a three-year period (2004-2007). Findings reveal that Fight Metaphors constitute the pivotal node that simultaneously performs various functions at several levels: cognitive, rhetorical, and ideological in order to promote his anti-terrorism political ideology.