scholarly journals Revisiting the Role of Social Dimensions in Metaphorical Conceptualization: Implications for Comparative Literature and Translation

Author(s):  
Yaser Hadidi ◽  
Ali Jahangiri ◽  
Samin Taghipour

Cross-cultural and within-culture variation in conceptual metaphors is a much-debated subject in Cognitive Linguistics research. The theory points out that such variation occurs on a series of dimensions, like social, ethnic, regional, stylistic and subcultural dimensions. The social dimensions consist of the separation of society into people, youthful and old, and working class and average workers. The purpose of this study was to undertake a deeper look at the distinctions caused in metaphorical conceptualization due to the attitude each individual or group of individuals possesses, especially with regard to the economic status of each group. To this end, twenty individuals were selected, with the only variable existing amongst them being their financial status. Each person was asked to write three paragraphs on three separate topics, adding up to sixty paragraphs, in an attempt to try and determine differences in metaphorical conceptualization. The results reveal interesting insights largely supporting the thinking in the theory on individual and cross-cultural variation in Conceptual Metaphors rooted in social agents’ financial statuses. Other research like the current one would contribute to our Cognitive Linguistics understanding of the social dimensions of Conceptual Metaphor variation and universality.

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Kanngiesser ◽  
Shoji Itakura ◽  
Yue Zhou ◽  
Takayuki Kanda ◽  
Hiroshi Ishiguro ◽  
...  

Young children often treat robots as social agents after they have witnessed interactions that can be interpreted as social. We studied in three experiments whether four-year-olds from three cultures (China, Japan, UK) and adults from two cultures (Japan, UK) will attribute ownership of objects to a robot that engages in social gaze with a human. Participants watched videos of robot-human interactions, in which objects were possessed or new objects were created. Children and adults applied the same ownership rules to humans and robots – irrespective of whether the robot engaged in social gaze or not. However, there was cultural variation in the types of ownership rules used. In Experiment 3, we removed further social cues, finding that just showing a pair of self-propelled robot-arms elicited ownership attributions. The role of social gaze in social attributions to robots and cross-cultural differences in ownership understanding are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (17) ◽  
pp. 4688-4693 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Clark Barrett ◽  
Alexander Bolyanatz ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Daniel M. T. Fessler ◽  
Simon Fitzpatrick ◽  
...  

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110441
Author(s):  
Cristina Maria Bostan ◽  
Tudor Stanciu ◽  
Răzvan-Lucian Andronic

Concordant with classical theoretical guidelines (i.e., social facilitation, social constructivism theory, and the Pygmalion effect) we tested the need for competition and perception of being valued by teachers to be better motivated for learning in school. We extend knowledge by testing these associations mediated by the social economic status given by the well-being of the family (i.e., controlling for gender and socio-economic status). A total of 214 Romanian students (45.3% boys) with ages between 13 and 17 years were administered the PEER questionnaire (i.e., perception of being valued by teachers, school-children motivation, and the need for competition). Results show a positive relation between the need for competition and motivation for learning. We also found positive relations between the perception of being valued by the teacher and motivation for learning and the need for competition. We conclude that motivation is higher when the need for competition is higher and the perception of being valued by teachers is higher.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 957-991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Pérez-Sobrino ◽  
Jeannette Littlemore ◽  
David Houghton

Abstract To date, research in advertising has focussed almost exclusively on metaphor, with linguists and marketing scholars paying very little attention to alternative types of figurative expression. Beyond the finding that metaphor leads to an increased appreciation of advertisements, there has been surprisingly little research into how consumer response is affected by metonymy, or by metaphor–metonymy interactions. In this article, we present findings from a study that investigated the depth to which participants (n = 90) from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds (the UK, Spain, and China) were found to process 30 real-world adverts featuring creative metaphor and metonymy in multimodal format. We focus on the cross-cultural variation in terms of time taken to process, appreciation and perceived effectiveness of adverts, and on individual differences explained by different levels of need for cognition. We found significant variation in the understanding of advertisements containing metaphor, metonymy, and combinations of the two, between subjects and across nationalities in terms of (i) processing time, (ii) overall appeal, and (iii) the way in which participants interpreted the advertisements.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück ◽  
Alex Davies

Bronze Age metal objects are widely viewed as markers of wealth and status. Items of other materials, such as jet, amber and glass, tend either to be framed in similar terms as ‘prestige goods’, or to be viewed as decorative trifles of limited research value. In this paper, we argue that such simplistic models dramatically underplay the social role and ‘agentive’ capacities of objects. The occurrence of non-metal ‘valuables’ in British Early Bronze Age graves is well-documented, but their use during the later part of the period remains poorly understood. We will examine the deposition of objects of amber, jet and jet-like materials in Late Bronze Age Britain, addressing in particular their contexts and associations as well as patterns of breakage to consider the cultural meanings and values ascribed to such items and to explore how human and object biographies were intertwined. These materials are rarely found in burials during this period but occur instead on settlements, in hoards and caves. In many cases, these finds appear to have been deliberately deposited in the context of ritual acts relating to rites of passage. In this way, the role of such objects as social agents will be explored, illuminating their changing significance in the creation of social identities and systems of value.


2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Mitchell

What is the work of economics? How does it operate to establish facts and make them stable? Is it sometimes able to use the world as a laboratory? If so, what measures are necessary to organize the world as a laboratory for economic experiments? To what extent do these measures rely upon the efforts of nonacademic economists, and of other social agents and arrangements including think tanks, government policies, development programs, NGOs, and social movements? A recent “natural experiment” using the social world as a laboratory, carried out in Peru, produced remarkable results, enthusiastically received by economists in the United States and by international development agencies. The paper examines the work of organizing the socio-technical world required to produce this knowledge, the curious kind of facts that were produced, the connections among those involved in this work, in particular the organized work of the neoliberal movement, and the role of the new facts in making possible further efforts at economic experimentation.


Author(s):  
Katrina Hutchison ◽  
Catriona Mackenzie ◽  
Marina Oshana

This introduction distinguishes ways the social dimensions of moral responsibility have been investigated in recent philosophical literature: some theories highlight the interpersonal dimensions of moral responsibility practices; some explicate the interlocutive properties of morally reactive exchanges; while others seek to explain the role of the social environment in scaffolding agency. Despite the rise of social approaches, philosophers have paid scant attention to the implications of inequalities of power for theorizing about moral responsibility. The remainder of the introduction articulates a set of problems posed by contexts of structural injustice for theories of moral responsibility and highlights the relevance of recent work in feminist philosophy on relational autonomy and social epistemology for understanding and addressing these problems. The introduction notes the overlaps and differences between the concepts of autonomy and moral responsibility and offers preliminary reflections on how debates about relational autonomy might bear on social theories of moral responsibility.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Elvira N. Gilemkhanova

Under current conditions, the scientific request for the study of both internal and external factors of socio-psychological safety becomes important. In the literature there are very contradictory data on the role of contextual factors in ensuring the socio-psychological safety of schools. In our work, we consider the role of socio-economic and geographical conditions in ensuring the socio-psychological safety of the educational environment of the school from the standpoint of environmental psychology. Research questions: How does the social and economic status of the region affect the subject level of the school’s socio-psychological safety? How does the type of settlement affect the personal level of the school’s socio-psychological safety? The economic, social, and geographical status of the region affects the socio-psychological safety of the school. Therefore, contextual factors influence, but do not determine the socio-psychological safety of the educational environment of the school. Multilevel approaches, which are intended for individual, psychosocial, and contextual factors, can contribute to the promotion of the theme of the socio-psychological safety of the school.


Author(s):  
Victor A. Pestoff

The role of co-operatives as providers of goods and services, as in the industrial age, more recently became overshadowed by their potential as providers of social services. In the post-industrial or service society, co-operatives are found in a growing number of countries. Co-operative enterprises have a unique capacity to mobilize social capital and provide relational goods that neither public nor private for-profit providers demonstrate. This brings co-operative enterprises full-circle in terms of their historical political role as democratic pioneers, since they can now also contribute to reducing the growing democratic deficit. This chapter explores the political and social dimensions of co-operative enterprises that pursue multiple goals. It also introduces a dynamic model of co-operative development that can be fruitfully employed for analysing the social and political dilemmas faced by co-operative enterprises.


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