How words make the world: language materialities and the circulation of the Sakha algys

Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenanne Ferguson

Abstract This article investigates contemporary uses of the Sakha language algys (blessing poems) and reveals the “old” and “new” types of language materiality present in this genre of ritual poetry. Focusing primarily on one example of algys shared online in 2018, I discuss how performing algys has always involved close interconnection between language and the material world and present the changing contexts and forms of algys transmission that highlight both fixity and fluidity in the way speakers conceive of language and materiality. Despite the new mobilities and technologies that build upon the previously established written textual forms of this poetry—and contribute to its continued circulation and transmission—certain elements of traditional algys remains salient for speakers, reinforced by ideologies or ontologies of language that foreground the power of the (spoken) word. This is connected to the production of qualia and the invocation of chronotopes. Thus, while textual forms further enable processes of citationality as they are circulated online; the written words alone do not constitute an algys. Rather, here the importance of embodied, spoken language materiality is at the fore.

Author(s):  
Lambros Malafouris ◽  
Maria Danae Koukouti

Merging notions of materiality and intercorporeality is becoming increasingly important in archaeology and anthropology, as material culture has brought the materiality of bodies and the materiality of things back to the center of attention. Material Engagement Theory (MET) offers a new approach to the study of the nature of interactions and relational transactions of people and things as well as understanding their role in shaping the mind. Using the example of pottery making, this paper explores how the material world now becomes an inseparable component of the way we think; mind and matter are one and must be studied as such. This is a new emphasis on the priority of material engagement as a prereflexive, preverbal capacity for basic thought through, with, and about things which emerges from our bodily engagement with the world. It resonates, extends, and complements the concept of “intercorporeality” (intercorporéité) as advanced by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.A. Ganyushina

The article focuses on the problem of the symbolic properties of language and linguistic sign within of the world language image (further WLI). Its solution offers the prospect of a deeper understanding of the relationship of language and culture. As a subject of study the metaphorical rethinkings of different concepts in English and Russian languages with the components of ancient symbols, legends left their mark on the world perception of different nations. The study shows the way the linguistic sign begins to express symbolic ideas, influence the semantics of expressions, closely cooperating with the cultural space, a myth and modern associations.


English Today ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-25
Author(s):  
Manfred Markus

ABSTRACTAn analysis of the need for attention to the spoken word and phonetics in the teaching of English world-wide. It is a truism that English is increasingly becoming a world language. Even in China a ‘craze for English’ has been, in view of the fact that over 200 million children (about 20% of all children in the world) now1 learn English in Chinese schools. McArthur has estimated that c.250 million Indians use English every day. All these speakers of English use it their own way. This localisation of English has been variously detected, for example in Hong Kong. It is also well known from versions of African English and, in fact, from most English varieties that have been attributed to the ‘Outer’ or ‘Extended. However, as early as 1983 Kachru voiced a caveat: ‘A large majority of the non-native speakers of institutionalised varieties of English use a local variety of English, but when told so, they are hesitant to accept the fact’.


Author(s):  
Sylwia Pietrowiak

This essay is a non-linear record of memories from the author’s anthropological field- work in southern Kyrgyzstan. The research concerns a place called Dul-dul at, a site of petroglyphs with a dominant motif of animals interpreted as a pair of horses. The area at the foot of the rock with petroglyphs is also a pilgrimage and ritual site for healing and spiritual practices. The narrative of memories shows the transformation not only of the place of research, but also of the researcher: between the first stay (in 2006) to the last (in 2019). Subsequent studies reveal the dependencies of people involved in social rela- tions on the material and non-material world of Dul-dul at. Consecutive memories reveal layers of knowledge and ignorance, and how the researcher penetrates the community of the Others and the way they perceive the world.


2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Barkas ◽  
Xenia Chryssochoou

Abstract. This research took place just after the end of the protests following the killing of a 16-year-old boy by a policeman in Greece in December 2008. Participants (N = 224) were 16-year-olds in different schools in Attiki. Informed by the Politicized Collective Identity Model ( Simon & Klandermans, 2001 ), a questionnaire measuring grievances, adversarial attributions, emotions, vulnerability, identifications with students and activists, and questions about justice and Greek society in the future, as well as about youngsters’ participation in different actions, was completed. Four profiles of the participants emerged from a cluster analysis using representations of the conflict, emotions, and identifications with activists and students. These profiles differed on beliefs about the future of Greece, participants’ economic vulnerability, and forms of participation. Importantly, the clusters corresponded to students from schools of different socioeconomic areas. The results indicate that the way young people interpret the events and the context, their levels of identification, and the way they represent society are important factors of their political socialization that impacts on their forms of participation. Political socialization seems to be related to youngsters’ position in society which probably constitutes an important anchoring point of their interpretation of the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-443
Author(s):  
Paul Mazey

This article considers how pre-existing music has been employed in British cinema, paying particular attention to the diegetic/nondiegetic boundary and notions of restraint. It explores the significance of the distinction between diegetic music, which exists in the world of the narrative, and nondiegetic music, which does not. It analyses the use of pre-existing operatic music in two British films of the same era and genre: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), and demonstrates how seemingly subtle variations in the way music is used in these films produce markedly different effects. Specifically, it investigates the meaning of the music in its original context and finds that only when this bears a narrative relevance to the film does it cross from the diegetic to the nondiegetic plane. This reveals that whereas music restricted to the diegetic plane may express the outward projection of the characters' emotions, music also heard on the nondiegetic track may reveal a deeper truth about their feelings. In this way, the meaning of the music varies depending upon how it is used. While these two films may differ in whether or not their pre-existing music occupies a nondiegetic or diegetic position in relation to the narrative, both are characteristic of this era of British film-making in using music in an understated manner which expresses a sense of emotional restraint and which marks the films with a particularly British inflection.


The Eye ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (128) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Gregory DeNaeyer

The world-wide use of scleral contact lenses has dramatically increased over the past 10 year and has changed the way that we manage patients with corneal irregularity. Successfully fitting them can be challenging especially for eyes that have significant asymmetries of the cornea or sclera. The future of scleral lens fitting is utilizing corneo-scleral topography to accurately measure the anterior ocular surface and then using software to design lenses that identically match the scleral surface and evenly vault the cornea. This process allows the practitioner to efficiently fit a customized scleral lens that successfully provides the patient with comfortable wear and improved vision.


Author(s):  
Adrián Bertorello

RESUMENEl trabajo examina críticamente la afirmación central de la hermenéutica de Paul Ricoeur, a saber, que el soporte material de la escritura es el rasgo determinante para que una secuencia discursiva sea considerada como un texto. La escritura cancela las condiciones fácticas de la enunciación y crea, de este modo, un ámbito de sentido estable en el que se puede validar una concepción de la subjetividad que está implicada en las dos estrategias de lecturas (el análisis estructural y la apropiación), esto es, un sujeto pasivo que se constituye por la idealidad del significado. Asimismo, el trabajo intentará precisar una serie de ambigüedades en el uso que Ricoeur hace del «ser en el mundo» para sostener la referencialidad del discurso.PALABRAS CLAVETEXTO, ESCRITURA, REFERENCIA, SUBJETIVIDAD, MUNDOABSTRACTThis paper critically examines the main assertion of Paul Ricoeur´s hermeneutics, i.e., that the material base of writing is the determining feature to consider a discursive sequence as a text. Writing cancels the factual conditions of enunciation and creates, in this way, a background of stable meaning where it is possible to validate a conception of subjectivity implicated in the two reading strategies (the structural analysis and the appropriation), i.e., a passive subject constituted by the ideality of meaning. Likewise, this paper aims to clarify some ambiguities in the way Ricoeur uses the «beings in the world» to support the discourse referentiality.KEY WORDSTEXT, WRITING, REFERENCE, SUBJECTIVITY, WORLD


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.


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