scholarly journals Hyperbole and emotionalisation: Escalation of pragmatic effects of proverb and metaphor in the “Brexit” debate

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-644
Author(s):  
Andreas Musolff

(How) Can the use of hyperbole in metaphorical idioms and scenarios contribute to an increase in emotionalisation of public debates? Using a research corpus of quotations from British politicians speeches and interviews and of press texts 2016-2020, this paper investigates hyperbolic formulations in Brexit-related applications of the proverb You cannot have your cake and eat it and related scenarios of national liberation, which appear to have strongly boosted emotionalised public debates. For instance, Brexit proponents reversal of the cake proverb into the assertion, We can have our cake and eat it, and their figurative interpretation of Brexit as a war of liberation (against the EU) triggered highly emotional reactions: triumphant affirmation among followers, fear and resentment among opponents. The paper argues that the combination of figurative speech (proverb, metaphor) with hyperbole heightened the emotional and polemical impact of the pro-Brexit argument. Whilst this effect may be deemed to have been rhetorically successful in the short term (e.g. in referendum and election campaigns), its long-term effect on political discourse is more ambivalent, for it leads to a polarisation and radicalisation of political discourse in Britain (as evidenced, for instance, in the massive use of hyperbole in COVID-19 debates). The study of hyperbole as a means of emotionalisation thus seems most promising as part of a discourse-historical investigation of socio-pragmatic effects of figurative (mainly, metaphorical) language use, rather than as an isolated, one-off rhetorical phenomenon.

2003 ◽  
Vol 182 (5) ◽  
pp. 412-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Cooper ◽  
Lynne Murray ◽  
Anji Wilson ◽  
Helena Romaniuk

BackgroundPsychological interventions for postnatal depression can be beneficial in the short term but their longer-term impact is unknown.AimsTo evaluate the long-term effect on maternal mood of three psychological treatments in relation to routine primary care.MethodWomen with post-partum depression (n=193) were assigned randomly to one of four conditions: routine primary care, non-directive counselling, cognitive–behavioural therapy or psychodynamic therapy. They were assessed immediately after the treatment phase (at 4.5 months) and at 9, 18 and 60 months post-partum.ResultsCompared with the control, all three treatments had a significant impact at 4.5 months on maternal mood (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, EPDS). Only psychodynamic therapy produced a rate of reduction in depression (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–III–R) significantly superior to that of the control. The benefit of treatment was no longer apparent by 9 months post-partum. Treatment did not reduce subsequent episodes of post-partum depression.ConclusionsPsychological intervention for post-partum depression improves maternal mood (EPDS) in the short term. However, this benefit is not superior to spontaneous remission in the long term.


Modern Italy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaella A. Del Sarto ◽  
Nathalie Tocci

Focusing on Italy's Middle East policies under the second Berlusconi (2001–2006) and the second Prodi (2006–2008) governments, this article assesses the manner and extent to which the observed foreign policy shifts between the two governments can be explained in terms of the rebalancing between a ‘Europeanist’ and a transatlantic orientation. Arguing that Rome's policy towards the Middle East hinges less on Italy's specific interests and objectives in the region and more on whether the preference of the government in power is to foster closer ties to the United States or concentrate on the European Union, the analysis highlights how these swings of the pendulum along the EU–US axis are inextricably linked to a number of underlying structural weaknesses of Rome's foreign policy. In particular, the oscillations can be explained by the prevalence of short-term political (and domestic) considerations and the absence of long-term, substantive political strategies, or, in short, by the phenomenon of ‘politics without policy’ that often characterises Italy's foreign policy.


Author(s):  
Stefano Battiston ◽  
Monica Billio ◽  
Irene Monasterolo

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the containment measures are having an unprecedented socio-economic impact in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere. The policies introduced so far in the EU countries promote a ‘business as usual’ economic recovery. This short-term strategy may jeopardise the mid-to-long-term sustainability and financial stability objectives. In contrast, strengthening the socio-economic resilience against future pandemics, as well as other shocks, calls for recovery measures that are fully aligned to the objectives of the EU Green Deal and of the EU corporate taxation policy. Tackling these long-term objectives is not more costly than funding the current short-term measures. Remarkably, it may be the only way to build resilience to future crises.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 5969
Author(s):  
Kateryna Yakovenko ◽  
Matúš Mišík

The COVID-19 pandemic appeared in the midst of developing the European Green Deal, the most ambitious project to decarbonise the EU’s economy to date. Among other issues, the project highlighted the challenges connected to the long-term role of natural gas as a fossil fuel in the European economy. Moreover, the changes to the gas architecture caused by the development of new import infrastructure (especially Nord Stream and its extension, which is currently under construction) put additional pressure on the transit countries, mainly of which are linked to the Brotherhood pipeline. These have been strong supporters of natural gas utilisation and harsh critics of new pipelines that circumvent their territories, as they consider energy transit to be an important part of their energy sectors. This research examines the political discourse on gas transit in Slovakia and Ukraine in order to identify the main arguments connected to these positions. The paper examines a total of 233 textual units from both countries for the period 2014–2018. It concludes that, while Ukraine sees transit predominantly through the lens of cooperation with the EU and other actors, the Slovak political discourse considers gas transit in terms of energy security and the availability of gas for the national economy.


1996 ◽  
Vol 1996 ◽  
pp. 174-174
Author(s):  
A.M. Sibbald

Voluntary food intake is generally inversely related to body condition or fatness in mature sheep (Foot, 1972). Since the intake of pelleted diets by housed sheep consists of a number of discrete feeding bouts or 'meals' (e.g. Bermudez et al., 1989), the relatively long-term effect of body condition on intake will be achieved through changes in feeding behaviour at the level of a single meal. The aim of this experiment was to compare the effects of body condition and short-term food restriction on meal patterns in sheep, to investigate the mechanism by which body condition influences daily food intake.


1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Luo ◽  
Ji-Chu Chen ◽  
Yu-Ju Zhao

Cytokinins can cause de-etiolation of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. seedlings growing in the dark. Brassinosteroids (BRs) have been considered to regulate negatively the de-etiolation in dark-grown Arabidopsis seedlings. We show here that epi-brassinolide (epi-BL) can partially produce the phenotype of de-etiolation as caused by treatment with cytokinins in the dark, including the development of leaves and epicotyls in the wild-type and the BR-deficient mutant det2. But BRs cannot inhibit hypocotyl elongation, nor restore all the inhibition caused by cytokinins and light. We have found that there are distinct short term and long term phases of induction of de-etiolation by cytokinins. The short-term effect is probably coupled to ethylene in the inhibition of the hypocotyl elongation; the long-term effect causes morphogenesis of leaves and epicotyls. BRs can only regulate de-etiolation in the long term. We propose that the inhibition of hypocotyl elongation of det2 in darkness is caused by the absence of BR-dependent elongation rather than the inhibition caused by the expression of genes for photomorphogenesis. We propose that BRs resemble cytokinins in regulating de-etiolation as positive regulators, and that the inhibition of hypocotyl elongation and the development of leaves and epicotyls in de-etiolation are independent processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 293 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Marco Gribaudo ◽  
Illés Horváth ◽  
Daniele Manini ◽  
Miklós Telek

Abstract The performance of service units may depend on various randomly changing environmental effects. It is quite often the case that these effects vary on different timescales. In this paper, we consider small and large scale (short and long term) service variability, where the short term variability affects the instantaneous service speed of the service unit and a modulating background Markov chain characterizes the long term effect. The main modelling challenge in this work is that the considered small and long term variation results in randomness along different axes: short term variability along the time axis and long term variability along the work axis. We present a simulation approach and an explicit analytic formula for the service time distribution in the double transform domain that allows for the efficient computation of service time moments. Finally, we compare the simulation results with analytic ones.


1985 ◽  
Vol 248 (6) ◽  
pp. E706-E711 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. van Putten ◽  
H. M. Krans

Catecholamines are known to have short-term regulatory effects on fat cell hexose uptake. We examined the long-term effects of catecholamines on the insulin-sensitive 2-deoxyglucose (dGlc) uptake in cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Prolonged exposure (48 h) to isoproterenol (beta-adrenergic agonist) stimulated the basal dGlc uptake up to 90%. The effect was specific, time, concentration, and protein synthesis dependent and reversible. The effect of insulin was unaltered and superimposed on the increase in basal dGlc uptake. The long-term effect of isoproterenol was mimicked by epinephrine, dibutyryl cAMP (DBcAMP), and 1-methyl-3-isobutylxanthine (IBMX). By contrast, short-term exposure to isoproterenol (and epinephrine) induced a protein synthesis-independent increase in basal dGlc uptake (30%) not accompanied by an increase in insulin responsiveness. Moreover, on short-term basis, DBcAMP and IBMX suppressed both the basal and insulin-stimulated uptake up to 50%. Determination of the intracellular nonphosphorylated dGlc during the uptake and of the hexokinase activity revealed that the long-term effect of isoproterenol was most likely due to alterations low in dGlc transport. In conclusion, long-term regulators of hexose uptake are in cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes, isoproterenol, and other cAMP stimulators. The long-term effect is independent from the short-term regulatory effect of the agents and from the effect of insulin.


10.5912/jcb31 ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Moses

This study was not intended as a catalogue, but as a comparative overview of the range of opportunities for education in biotechnology open to citizens in the various member states of the EU – opportunities organised by governments and their agencies, by educational establishments, by a wide variety of organisations and institutions variously interested in informing/influencing public attitudes and, of course, by the media in its many forms. Switzerland was included because of its experience of a referendum on genetics and biotechnology as well as the USA, where it all started. A number of suggestions are made for improving public understanding of biotechnology and for establishing a code of best practice taking into account the cultural differences between countries. Perhaps the most important is that biotechnology education is a long-term issue requiring a long-term view; it should not be constrained by short-term funding.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document