PRELIMINARES DE UNA HISTORIA: HACIA UNA CARACTERIZACIÓN TAXONÓMICA ESPECÍFICA DE LA FANTASÍA ÉPICA

La historiografía de la fantasía épica sufre de la vaguedad de la teoría sobre esta modalidad ficcional, ya que no se la suele distinguir de otros géneros de ficción con elementos sobrenaturales. Siguiendo las teorías de Waggoner y Trębicki, este ensayo constituye un intento de definir y caracterizar taxonómicamente la fantasía épica, distinguiéndola mediante rasgos estructurales y retóricos de otros tipos afines de fantasía en la ficción, para poder saber específicamente de que se está hablando al acometer una historia comparada de la fantasía épica. Abstract: The historiography of high fantasy suffers from the theoretical vagueness about this kind of fiction, since it is not usually distinguished from other kinds of fiction with supernatural elements. Following the theories of Tolkien, Waggoner and Trębicki, this essay constitutes an attempt to define and describe high fantasy, distinguishing it through structural and rhetorical features from other related fantasy fiction genres in order to establish what we are specifically talking about when we undertake a comparative history of high fantasy.

The Translation of Parallelism in Arabic Political Speeches between Loss and Compensation: A Comparative Study

Political discourse is characterized by stylistic and rhetorical features that distinguish it from other text genres. When a rhetorical feature such as parallelism is used frequently in Arabic political speeches, it becomes significant to highlight the fact that this recurrence of structure is deliberate. According to Islam &Cahyani (2020: 273): [T]he deliberate use of a word or phrase more than once in a sentence or a text to create a sense of pattern or form or to emphasize certain elements in the mind of the reader or listener […] can be utilized [as] a major rhetorical strategy for producing emphasis, clarity, amplification, or emotional effect. The objective of this study is to highlight the loss and the compensation of parallelism when translated from Arabic into English in political speeches at bottom-up level: word, sentence and chunk levels. This study shows that parallelism is used very frequently in Arabic political speeches, and it is very popular among Arab political speakers as a rhetorical device to achieve persuasion, assertion and emotional effect on its audience.

‘Every Cloud has a Silver Lining’

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, images (memes, GIFs, pictures, etc.) were largely consumed via social media. The purpose of the study is to establish a relevant research model in order to contextualize images as transmedia communicative documents during lockdowns (March-June 2020). The research method is a visual semiotic analysis used to evaluate the data for inter-coded reliability. The corpus is comprised of 300 visual representations identified regarding the salient participants metaphorically represented as “real”. On the one hand, the semantic-sensory relationships between images and viewers rhetorically imply a proverbial frame ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’; on the other hand, the persuasive concept of humour is established by multimodal tools, which further shape the audience. The salient domains of ‘staying home’ and ‘going away’ point towards more specific variables, e.g. education or tourism. The results confirm the modality judgement of humorous construct as a valuable document regarding the pandemic situation. According to its unique rhetorical features produced by the image-message-receiver relationships, the consolidation of data sets the ground for strategies and signifiers, with the function of a) presenting the adaptation of norms and b) setting the ground for consequent studies. Conclusively, the survey was conducted at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, which confirmed students’ positive attitudes about using images for visual literacy. New findings are juxtaposed with previous knowledge in order to enforce the proposed research as a model for further narrative cognition. One such example is the burning question of how the media shapes the general public opinion on the coronavirus vaccine.

Representation and Rhetoric: National Identity in the Anonymous Speeches of Thucydides

<p>This thesis is about patterns in the speeches of Thucydides' unnamed ambassadors which create a sense of the national identity of the speakers. While general scholarly opinion had tended to regard Thucydidean speakers as not able to be differentiated, some scholars have demonstrated characterising patterns in the speeches of named individuals, such as Nikias or Archidamos. I focus on three poleis, Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, and base my own investigations on those of the named speeches. I argue that patterns can be discerned in the anonymous speeches which differentiate these three poleis, and which suggest national characterisation. The first part of this thesis considers stylistic features of the anonymous speeches, in the form of a case study of the Spartan anonymous speech, as the statistical evidence highlights some unexpected features of this speech. Thus, I first consider sentence organisation, arguing that while the Spartans in their speech utilise an unusual amount of subordination, the speech retains the brevity and simplicity one would expect of Spartans, relative to speakers of the other poleis. I then consider two features of vocabulary which we would not expect to see in the Spartan speech, arguing that these features suggest an attempt by the Spartans to ingratiate their speech to the Athenians, and that the vocabulary underscores the unusualness of the speech and, due to two programmatic statements in the speech, ultimately serves to re-emphasise Spartan national character. The second part of this thesis considers broader rhetorical features. First, I consider how the speakers frame the persuasive purpose of their speeches, arguing that the Athenians frame their speeches as the giving of advice, as opposed to the Spartans' openness of purpose, while the Corinthians stand between the two. Then I consider the approaches to argumentation, arguing that the Spartans couch their arguments in a conservative, Doric framework, that the Corinthians are also conservative, and that the Athenians highlight the openness to risk-taking of the polis, and consideration of what is profitable, or advantageous. I conclude that differences in organisation of the speeches, length and relative complexity, and rhetorical posturing would suggest national character to a sensitive reader. That is, the Spartan speeches suggest a conservative, Doric polis, the Athenian speeches reflect a democratic state in which sophistic education is freely available, and open to risk-taking, and the Corinthian speeches reflect their geographical and cultural middle point between the poles of Athens and Sparta.</p>

Representation and Rhetoric: National Identity in the Anonymous Speeches of Thucydides

<p>This thesis is about patterns in the speeches of Thucydides' unnamed ambassadors which create a sense of the national identity of the speakers. While general scholarly opinion had tended to regard Thucydidean speakers as not able to be differentiated, some scholars have demonstrated characterising patterns in the speeches of named individuals, such as Nikias or Archidamos. I focus on three poleis, Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, and base my own investigations on those of the named speeches. I argue that patterns can be discerned in the anonymous speeches which differentiate these three poleis, and which suggest national characterisation. The first part of this thesis considers stylistic features of the anonymous speeches, in the form of a case study of the Spartan anonymous speech, as the statistical evidence highlights some unexpected features of this speech. Thus, I first consider sentence organisation, arguing that while the Spartans in their speech utilise an unusual amount of subordination, the speech retains the brevity and simplicity one would expect of Spartans, relative to speakers of the other poleis. I then consider two features of vocabulary which we would not expect to see in the Spartan speech, arguing that these features suggest an attempt by the Spartans to ingratiate their speech to the Athenians, and that the vocabulary underscores the unusualness of the speech and, due to two programmatic statements in the speech, ultimately serves to re-emphasise Spartan national character. The second part of this thesis considers broader rhetorical features. First, I consider how the speakers frame the persuasive purpose of their speeches, arguing that the Athenians frame their speeches as the giving of advice, as opposed to the Spartans' openness of purpose, while the Corinthians stand between the two. Then I consider the approaches to argumentation, arguing that the Spartans couch their arguments in a conservative, Doric framework, that the Corinthians are also conservative, and that the Athenians highlight the openness to risk-taking of the polis, and consideration of what is profitable, or advantageous. I conclude that differences in organisation of the speeches, length and relative complexity, and rhetorical posturing would suggest national character to a sensitive reader. That is, the Spartan speeches suggest a conservative, Doric polis, the Athenian speeches reflect a democratic state in which sophistic education is freely available, and open to risk-taking, and the Corinthian speeches reflect their geographical and cultural middle point between the poles of Athens and Sparta.</p>

Dismantling the Chinese Room with linguistic tools: a framework for elucidating concept-application disputes

Imagine advanced computers that could, by virtue merely of being programmed in the right ways, act, react, communicate, and otherwise behave like humans. Might such computers be capable of understanding, thinking, believing, and the like? The framework developed in this paper for tackling challenging questions of concept application (in any realm of discourse) answers in the affirmative, contrary to Searle’s famous ‘Chinese Room’ thought experiment, which purports to prove that ascribing such mental processes to computers like these would be necessarily incorrect. The paper begins by arguing that the core issue concerns language, specifically the discourse-community-guided mapping of phenomena onto linguistic categories. It then offers a model of how people adapt language to deal with novel states of affairs and thereby lend generality to their words, employing processes of assimilation, lexemic creation, and accommodation (in intersense and intrasense varieties). Attributions of understanding to some computers lie in the middle range on a spectrum of acceptability and are thus reasonable. Possible objections deriving from Searle’s writings require supplementing the model with distinctions between present and future acceptability, and between contemplated and uncontemplated word uses, as well as a literal-figurative distinction that is more sensitive than Searle’s to actual linguistic practice and the multiplicity of subsenses possible within a single literal sense. The paper then critiques two misleading rhetorical features of Searle’s Chinese Room presentation, and addresses a contemporary defense of Searle that seems to confront the sociolinguistic issue, but fails to allow for intrasense accommodation. It concludes with a brief consideration of the proper course for productive future discussion.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE AUDIENCE: METAPHORS IN THE TEXTS OF LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES RUSSIAN CONSERVATIVES

The article presents an attempt to reconstruct the system of thinking of Russian conservative nationalists of the late Empire period based on a comparison of the formal and substantive features of their texts, which were dedicated to the "Finnish question". Taken together, these texts constituted a single "anti-Finnish discourse" created in order to influence the government and public opinion on the status of the Grand Duchy of Finland. However, they were united not only by origin and content, but also by common formal characteristics such as rhetorical features and tricks, vocabulary, and syntactic constructions. Metaphors were the most important formal element of this discourse. They can be combined into four conventional metaphorical models: historical, military, criminal, and physiological. The analysis of metaphorical series allows us to make conclusions not only about how well publicists commanded methods of propaganda influence on the audience, but also about the logic of their thinking. With the help of metaphors and auxiliary linguistic tools linked to them, “one’s own” and “alien” social strata were marked, an ideal society was described, and discourse authors’ attitude to the current situation in the country was demonstrated.

Genre Analysis of Accounts of Methodology in Arabic Educational Research Articles

Genre analysts have conducted studies on research articles (henceforth RAs) written in different languages, giving primary attention to the introduction section. The methodology has not been given similar attention although it is an essential part of empirical RAs. There are no studies, to the best of my knowledge, which have tackled accounts of methodology of Arabic RAs. This research, therefore, aims to identify the rhetorical features of accounts of methodology of Arabic educational RAs with their realisations. In pursuing this aim, 40 method sections were selected from RAs published in refereed Arabic journals in the field of Education. These were analysed based on Swales’ (1990) ‘move and steps’ analysis approach and bottom-up processing. The linguistic features, realising the moves and steps, were analysed using the transitivity framework (Halliday 1985). The findings show that there are five moves representing the methodology: 1- sample and population of study; 2- procedures of study; 3- measure; 4- variables of study; and 5- data analysis procedures. These moves are realised by a number of steps and sub-steps which are represented most often using material and relational process types. The results of this research provide insights into Arabic academic discourse. The results may also help empower beginner academic writers and enhance writing textbooks. Keywords: Methodology, Research articles, Rhetorical structures and transitivity framework.

THE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHISPS IN MIKHAIL SHISHKIN’S ESSAYS ABOUT WRITERS

The article analyses the intersubjective relationships displayed in Mikhail Shiskhin’s essays concerned with other writers, such as Robert Walser, James Joyce, and Vladimir Sharov. The author demonstrates that the narrator’s statements are intersubjective, which is supported by both the system of the transmitting-receiving activity of the subject and the area of the statements’ object. Shishkin pays special attention to Walser. According to Shishkin, the process of becoming a writer is achieved through deprivation, alienation, and being misunderstood, as well as, most importantly, by experiencing the euphory of writing and acceptance of asthenic inability to write. A closer look at the poetics of the essays lets us explore elaborately intertwined series of motifs and repetitions, which appear on the text’s various levels. Rhetorical features, in particular anaphora, geminatio, and anadiplosis, are discussed in the present article most thoroughly. The specific use of repletion allows Shishkin to achieve a convincing dynamic description of Walser’s contradictory impulses in life and writing.