scholarly journals Adjective complementation patterns and judgement: Aligning lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches in appraisal research

Author(s):  
Hang Su ◽  
Susan Hunston

Abstract This study takes a lexical-grammatical approach to exploring the evaluation of human behaviour and/or character. It uses adjective complementation patterns as the starting point to examine the lexical-grammatical resources at risk in the appraisal system of judgement, aiming to explore the extent to which we can arrive at the same categorization of the resources realizing judgement if a formal or lexical-grammatical approach, rather than a discourse-semantic one, is taken. Using a corpus compiled of texts categorized as ‘Biography’ in the British National Corpus, the study, on the one hand, shows that most of the items identified can be very satisfactorily classified in terms posited in the judgement system, suggesting that the nomenclature from that model is useful. On the other hand, a considerable number of items have also been identified which construe attitudes towards emotional types of personality traits, leading to the proposal of a potentially useful new judgement category and further an adjusted system of judgement. The heuristic potential of aligning the lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches to appraisal is further discussed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang

The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of rely on and depend on in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The COCA clearly shows that the expression rely on government is the most preferred by Americans, followed by rely on people, and rely on data. The COCA further indicates that the expression depend on slate is the most preferred by Americans, followed by depend on government, and depend on people. The BNC shows, on the other hand, that the expression rely on others is the most preferred by the British, followed by rely on people, and rely on friends. The BNC further indicates that depend on factors and depend on others are the most preferred by the British, followed by depend on age, and depend on food. Finally, in the COCA, the nouns government, luck, welfare, people, information, state, fossil, water, family, oil, food, and things are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both of them. On the other hand, in the BNC, only the nouns state, chance, government, and others are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both rely on and depend on. It can thus be inferred from this that rely on is slightly different from depend on in its use.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-145
Author(s):  
André Luiz Cruz Sousa

The aim of this paper is to study a set of three issues related to the understanding of partial justice and partial injustice as character dispositions, namely the distinctive circumstance of action, the emotion involved therein and the pleasure or pain following it. Those points are treated in a relatively obscure way by Aristotle, especially in comparison with their treatment in the expositions of other character virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Building on the expression ‘capacity towards the other’ (δύναμις ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἕτερον), the paper highlights the interpersonal nature of the circumstances of just and unjust actions, and points how such nature is directly related to notions such as ‘profit’ (κέρδος) or ‘getting more’(πλεονεκτεῖν) as well as to the unusual conception of excess, defect and intermediacy in Nicomachean Ethics Book V. The interpersonal nature of just and unjust actions works also as the starting-point for the interpretation both of the pleasure briefly mentioned in 1130b4 as characterizing the greedy person and of the emotion involved in acting justly or greedy, which is mentioned in an extremely elliptical way in 1130b1-2: the paper argues, on the one hand, that the pleasure felt in acting justly or unjustly concerns not only the goods that are the object of just or unjust interactions, but also the way such interactions affect the people involved; on the other hand, it argues that the emotion actuated in just or unjust interactions relates to the agent’s concern or lack of concern with the good of those people.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
Mateusz Falkowski

The article is devoted to the famous The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de La Boétie. The author considers the theoretical premises underlying the concept of “voluntary servitude”, juxtaposing them with two modern concepts of will developed by Descartes and Pascal. An important feature of La Boétie’s project is the political and therefore intersubjective – as opposed to the individualistic perspective of Descartes and Pascal – starting point. It is therefore situated against the background of, on the one hand, the historical evolution of early modern states (from feudal monarchies, through so-called Renaissance monarchies up to European absolutisms) and, on the other hand – of the political philosophy of Machiavelli and Hobbes.


Author(s):  
Elke Van Nieuwenhuyze

The aim of this article is to trace the referential value of juffrouw Lina (1888)as part of its narrative organisation by means of the narrativist historical theoryof Frank Ankersmit. This starting point demands a confrontation of thisnaturalist novel by Marcellus Emants with the contemporary medical biographyof the French writer and politician Chateaubriand by the Belgian physicianErnest Masoin on the one hand and with some case studies of hystericsby the famous French docter Jean-Martin Charcot on the other hand. lt willbe argued that the narrativity of the novel plays a key-role in the constructionof its referential value on various levels.


Philologus ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz-Heiner Mutschler

AbstractTacitus and Sima Qian (ca. 140-85 BC, author of the Shiji, the Records of the Historian) are eminent representatives of Roman and ancient Chinese historiography. The starting-point of the paper is a striking parallel between the two historians: During the reign of autocratic emperors (of the last of the Flavian emperors, Domitian, and of the most powerful of the Han-emperors Wudi) both authors undergo experiences which not only affect them on a personal level, but also influence their historiographie practice. The paper traces this influence with respect to the representations of individual historical characters. On the one hand it analyses the representations of rulers: of Tiberius, adoptive son and successor of Augustus, and of Wendi, natural son and (indirect) successor of Gaodi, the founder of the Han-dynasty; on the other hand it studies the representations of second and third rank characters such as senators, ministers, generals, and - in the case of Sima Qian - also of people from other walks of life. The similarities which can be observed between the two authors point to the existence of certain anthropological constants, whereas the differences are to be attributed to basic differences in Roman and Chinese political thinking and to differing degrees of the intensity of the experiences undergone by each historian.


Exchange ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Joas Adiprasetya

Abstract The article criticizes some shortcomings of Asian contextual and liberation theologies that methodologically employ ‘hermeneutical circle’. The method focuses on experience as the starting point of doing theology. Despite its powerful insights that enable theologians to engage with concrete human and social problems, the method can easily preserve a theologian’s blind spot that hinders her/him from perspectives other than his or her own. I also criticize such an experience-based method as being too linear which can easily result in a methodological imperialism. In response to the weakness, I propose a multitextual theology, which on the one hand acknowledges the importance of perspectivism in any theology but also, on the other hand, celebrates theological freedom in viewing reality from ‘manywheres’. Since reality provides plurality of texts, a multitextual theology can begin simultaneously from any text, without being trapped into a procedural rigidity as clearly demonstrated in contextual and liberation theologies.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-355
Author(s):  
Annik Dubied Losa ◽  
Claudine Burton-Jeangros

AbstractNowadays, relationships between nonhuman animals and humans are debated, often in relation to issues associated with the risks they represent for each other. On the one hand, new diseases and accidents indicate that animals are not as innocuous as they were long thought; on the other hand, the now questioned human impact on the natural environment is considered a risk for animals. This research analyzed these contrasting images of animals in the Swiss information media. Of the five main animal figures identified over the last 30 years, this paper focuses on the Undesirable Animal and the Victim Animal. These two figures have existed throughout the observed period; in contrast to Victim Animals, however, who appear fairly infrequently, Undesirable Animals have become more and more common in the last decade, usually in relation to a specific issue (such as the avian flu). This suggests that the media more often convey the dominant anthropocentric relationship to animals, reflecting a preoccupation with the protection of humans against dangerous animals, whereas the protection of animals from humans is considered less important. Recent controversies demonstrate, however, that the frontier between “us” and “them” is regularly renegotiated.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Hoffjann ◽  
Karina Hoffstedde ◽  
Franziska Jaworek

PurposeAlthough the market for communication consultancies has been booming worldwide for many years now, there are still only a handful of theoretical concepts and empirical findings pertaining to communication consulting. This is the fundamental starting point for this paper, which sets out to answer the following research questions: What is the function of communication consulting? What are the differences between consultants' expectations of consulting and those of clients? How do consultants and clients deal with the contradiction between proximity and distance? What are the potential threats to the autonomy of consulting?Design/methodology/approachThe paper combines a theoretical framework of communication consulting with a survey of German communication consultants and clients.FindingsFirst, a theoretical framework is developed in which communication consulting is defined as follows: First, it opens up decision-related contingency and thus produces additional options for managing communicative relationships with internal and external target groups, before helping to close decision-related contingency. The results of the survey show that the expectations of clients and consultants for communication consulting are largely similar. In the closing dimension especially, most clients share the active role of self-conception of most consultants. On the other hand, in some opening activities, clients wish for more critical, independent and courageous consulting.Research limitations/implicationsThe scope of the empirical material is limited to communication consultants and clients in Germany and may therefore not be valid in other cultural contexts.Originality/valueThe paper closes a gap in both theory building and empirical research in communication consulting. The theory presented conceives of communication consulting as a hybrid of management consulting and process consulting and, in addition to the opening dimension, also takes the closing dimension of consulting into consideration for the first time. The study reveals a certain schizophrenia in clients: on the one hand, clients demand more critical consultants and thus call for more distance; on the other hand, clients prefer to be close to their consultants, particularly if they wish to work with them for the long-term.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Hegselmann ◽  
Andreas Flache

AbstractIn this paper we compare two micro foundations for modelling human behaviour and decision making. We focus on perfect strategic rationality on the one hand and a simple reinforcement mechanism on the other hand. Iterated prisoner’s dilemmas serve as the play ground for the comparison. The main lesson of our analysis is that in the space of all possible 2 × 2 PDs different micro foundations do matter. This suggests that researchers can not safely rely on the assumption that implementing simple models of decision making will yield the same results that may be obtained when more sophisticated decision rules are built into the agents.


Author(s):  
Ismael Arinas

Patent claims define the protection scope of the intellectual property sought by the patent applicant or patentee. Broad claims are valuable as they can describe more expansive rights to the invention. Therefore, if these claims are too broad a potential infringer will more easily argue against them. But if the claims are too narrow the scope of protection of the intellectual property is greatly reduced. Patent claims have to be, on the one hand, determinate and precise enough and, on the other hand, as inclusive as possible. Therefore patent applicants must find a balance in the broadness of the scope defined by their claims. This balance can be achieved by the choice of words with a convenient degree of semantic indeterminacy, by the choice of modifiers or other strategies. In fact, vagueness in patent claims is a desirable characteristic for such documents. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of 350 U.S. patents provides a promising starting point to understand the linguistic instruments used to achieve the balance between property claim scope and precision of property description. To conclude, some issues relating vagueness and pragmatics are suggested as a line of further research.


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