The visual construction of language hierarchy

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Sebba

This paper analyses the way in which the text displayed on bilingual and multilingual currency (banknotes and coins) and stamps constructs and reproduces linguistic hierarchies, reflecting the relative status of the languages within the issuing country. The paper briefly discusses the selection of languages which appear on stamps and money, which is nearly always in accordance with the dominant language ideologies. It then goes on to show how the choice of language and the relative positioning and size of texts in those languages constructs the languages involved as of equal or unequal status. Two case studies are considered: the construction of equality between English and Afrikaans in South Africa on stamps and banknotes of the period 1910 to 1994, reflecting the constitutional requirement that those languages be treated ‘on a footing of equality’; and the construction of linguistic inequality in the stamps of Palestine and Israel, where first English (under the British Mandate) was displayed as dominant over Arabic and Hebrew, and later Hebrew (in Israel) was shown to dominate over the other two. The paper argues for a dual analysis of text in public texts like stamps and banknotes: on the one hand text is language, and is subject to a (socio)linguistic analysis, while on the other, text has a physical form and dimensions which means that texts are interpreted in terms of their visual features and spatial relationships to other texts. The language hierarchies which are reproduced and transported by stamps and money are thus discursively constructed through a combination of text as language and text as image.

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 395-407
Author(s):  
S. Henriksen

The first question to be answered, in seeking coordinate systems for geodynamics, is: what is geodynamics? The answer is, of course, that geodynamics is that part of geophysics which is concerned with movements of the Earth, as opposed to geostatics which is the physics of the stationary Earth. But as far as we know, there is no stationary Earth – epur sic monere. So geodynamics is actually coextensive with geophysics, and coordinate systems suitable for the one should be suitable for the other. At the present time, there are not many coordinate systems, if any, that can be identified with a static Earth. Certainly the only coordinate of aeronomic (atmospheric) interest is the height, and this is usually either as geodynamic height or as pressure. In oceanology, the most important coordinate is depth, and this, like heights in the atmosphere, is expressed as metric depth from mean sea level, as geodynamic depth, or as pressure. Only for the earth do we find “static” systems in use, ana even here there is real question as to whether the systems are dynamic or static. So it would seem that our answer to the question, of what kind, of coordinate systems are we seeking, must be that we are looking for the same systems as are used in geophysics, and these systems are dynamic in nature already – that is, their definition involvestime.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Dalsgaard

This article refers to carbon valuation as the practice of ascribing value to, and assessing the value of, actions and objects in terms of carbon emissions. Due to the pervasiveness of carbon emissions in the actions and objects of everyday lives of human beings, the making of carbon offsets and credits offers almost unlimited repertoires of alternatives to be included in contemporary carbon valuation schemes. Consequently, the article unpacks how discussions of carbon valuation are interpreted through different registers of alternatives - as the commensuration and substitution of variants on the one hand, and the confrontational comparison of radical difference on the other. Through the reading of a wide selection of the social science literature on carbon markets and trading, the article argues that the value of carbon emissions itself depends on the construction of alternative, hypothetical scenarios, and that emissions have become both a moral and a virtual measure pitting diverse forms of actualised actions or objects against each other or against corresponding nonactions and non-objects as alternatives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Malykhin ◽  
Nataliia Oleksandrivna Aristova ◽  
Liudmyla Kalinina ◽  
Tetyana Opaliuk

The present paper addresses the issue of determining the best international practices for developing soft skills among students of different specialties through carrying out a theoretical review. Basing on literature on present-day theory the authors make an attempt to explain soft skills dichotomies, summarize existing approaches to classifying soft skills, consolidate and document best international practices for soft skills development among potential employees of different specialties including bachelor students, master students, doctoral and postdoctoral students. The data obtained in the theoretical analysis reveal that the possible ambiguities in the interpretation of the concept of “soft skills” are caused, on the one hand, by the dichotomic perception of their nature by present-day researchers and educators and, on the other hand, by the absence of the common language which makes it difficult to provide a more unified definition most satisfactory to all concerned. The authors are convinced that soft skills have a cross-cutting nature and regard them as personal and interpersonal meta-qualities and meta-abilities that are vital to any potential employee who is going to make positive contributions not only to his/her professional development but to the development of a company he/she is going to work for. The results of the conducted theoretical review clearly indicate that the absence of the unified understanding of the concept of “soft skills” is reflected in the existence of different approaches to classifying soft skills, let alone, the selection of didactic tools for developing soft skills among potential employees.


2020 ◽  
pp. 292-344
Author(s):  
Vuk Vukotić

This article compares the language ideologies of language experts (both academic and non-academic) in online news media in Lithuania, Norway and Serbia. The results will reveal that language is understood in diametrically opposed ways amongst Lithuanian and Serbian academic experts on the one, and Norwegian academic experts on the other hand. Lithuanian and Serbian academic experts are influenced by modernist ideas of language as a single, homogenous entity, whose borders ideally match the borders of an ethnic group. Norwegian academic experts function in the public sphere as those who try to deconstruct the modernist notion of language by employing an understanding of language as a cognitive tool that performs communicative and other functions. On the other hand, non-academic experts in all the three countries exhibit a striking similarity in their language ideologies, as the great majority expresses modernist ideals of language.


Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Grigorichev ◽  
Natalia P. Koptseva

The article provides a selection of studies on the problem of developing languages for the mutual description of migrants and the host society. The authors consider the problem, on the one hand, through the prism of heterogeneity of the language for describing migrants in the host society, and on the other, through the absence of legitimate representatives of migrants representing them in the dialogue with the Russian society. It offers a point of view on the reasons for the dominance of ethnic discourse in the description of migrants and the migration situation, and wide pluralism in the use of ethnic categories in describing migration. It is shown that migrants do not participate in the development of rhetoric of organisations recognised by the authorities as their legitimate representatives. The article raises the question about the formation of new representatives of migrant groups, whose legitimacy is based not on powers delegated by the authorities, but on recognition by horizontal communities. It is assumed that, on the basis of the network representations, a mechanism is being formed for the humanisation of the image of migrants through the return of subjectivity in communication with the host society


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-20
Author(s):  
Andrey Kurtenkov

It is related leg problems to the realization of the necessity of doing a detailed analysis of the phenotype correlations between body weight and exterior measurements. As a result of the study, lower coefficients have been obtained of the correlation between the girth of the tarso metatarsus on one hand, and the body weight and the girth behind the wings, on the other hand (respectively 0.563 and 0.608), compared with the one between the body weight and the girth behind the wings (0.898). It is advisable in the selection of ostriches to take into consideration the necessity of a higher phenotypic correlation between the girth of the tarso metatarsus on the one hand, and the body weight and the girth behind the wings on the other hand, with a view to preventing leg problems.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-42
Author(s):  
Isabelle Génin

The article discusses the interaction between reading and translating, in the case of the first unabridged translation of Moby-Dick into French by Jean Giono, Lucien Jacques and Joan Smith, published by Gallimard in 1941. After a brief survey of the status of that translation—an important cultural landmark in France—the paper examines what the paratext (Giono’s diary, notes and letters) and the typescripts reveal about a seemingly paradoxical situation: Giono’s keen reading of Moby-Dick on the one hand and the simplification and clarification strategies adopted in the translation on the other hand. A selection of stylistic analyses illustrates both the choices made by the translators and the part played by each participant in the project. It appears that Giono did not necessarily misread Moby-Dick, underestimating its scope and significance. Instead, after reading the novel, he grew indifferent to its translation and concentrated his energy on his own writing in which he re-invested his reading experience. As to the other co-translators, Joan Smith provided a word-for-word translation of the text that made no attempt at interpreting the text, while Lucien Jacques strove to re-write Smith’s literal first draft, in spite of his difficult position as a non-reader (albeit an enthusiastic one) of Moby-Dick.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanja Kovic ◽  
Jovana Pejovic

A number of studies have demonstrated sound-symbolism effects in adults and in children. Moreover, recently, ERP studies have shown that the sensitivity to sound-symbolic label–object associations occurs within 200 ms of object presentation (Kovic et al., 2010). It was argued that this effect may reflect a more general process of auditory–visual feature integration where properties of auditory stimuli facilitate a mapping to specific visual features. Here we demonstrate that the sound-symbolism effect is design dependent, namely — it occurs only when mapping from auditory to visual stimuli and not vice verse. Two groups of participants were recruited for solving the categorization task. They were presented them with 12 visual stimuli, half of which were rounded and another half of angular shapes. One group was trained to classify the rounded objects as ‘takete’ and the rounded ones as ‘maluma’, whereas the other group mapped ‘takete’ to rounded and ‘maluma’ to angular shapes. Moreover, half of these two groups heard the label before seeing the objects, whereas the other half was given the label after perceiving the object. The results revealed the sound-symbolism effect only in the group which was trained on the auditory–visual objects mapping and not in the one trained on the visual–auditory mappings. Thus, despite the previous findings we demonstrate that the sound-symbolism effect is not significant per se, but design-dependent and we argue that the sound brings up a mental image that is more constrained than the sounds brought up by a picture.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-24
Author(s):  
Kamel Khaldi

Abstract Research students usually encounter great difficulties in setting up a viable research project mainly because, on the one hand they lack familiarity with the philosophical underpinnings of major paradigms used in educational research: quantitative, qualitative or mixed, and on the other hand , they do not associate the corresponding research types with these paradigms : experimental, non experimental for the former, and interactive or non interactive for the second and the for the latter whether it is explanatory or exploratory, in addition to the importance of triangulation in any research study . These paradigms determine not only the formulation of the problem chosen for research and the associated research questions or hypothesis but also and more importantly, the sampling procedure as well as the selection of the appropriate research tools and the way the collected data is analysed and discussed. This survey of the major paradigms in educational research and their implications for the design of any research study will hopefully provide them with the necessary guidance to approach their research project with more confidence et more efficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Isabela De Marco Leandro ◽  
Thaissa Souza Da Silva ◽  
Flávia Fernandes Barbosa ◽  
Ana Carolina Custodio De Barros ◽  
Monaliza Mendes Carvalho Da Cruz ◽  
...  

INTRODUCTION: The idea of the article arose during a course in which students were organized in groups to discuss a bioethics subject and the subject chosen was "saviour siblings". “Saviour sibling” is a child conceived in the hope of being genetically compatible with an older brother who has some pathology whose treatment consists of the donation of tissues. OBJECTIVE: To debate the conception of saviour siblings and the delicacy and complexity of the theme from a bioethical perspective. METHODOLOGY: Literature review carried out in August 2019, in the PubMed database, using the keyword “saviour siblings”. The material obtained was used for discussion and elaboration of a clinical case. RESULTS: 40 articles were found, nine of which were excluded from the abstract for diverging from the topic. The clinical case was developed collectively and the authors delegated with putting themselves in the place of those involved in this decision and narrating the possible thoughts and feelings of each one of them. Then, bibliographic references were used to discuss the constructed clinical case, from the bioethical perspective. CONCLUSION: Saviour siblings related bioethical issues are delicate and complex. On the one hand, there's a benefit of saving a sick child and bringing relief to the parents. But, on the other hand, this technique can bear on eugenic practices such as the selection of individuals based on their genetics. The violation of the saviour sibling's autonomy needs to be the focus of future ethical discussions in order to protect his rights. Teaching bioethics is essential for the training of health professionals.


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