The syntax of metaphor

This paper analyses diachronic changes which result from metaphorical extension. Its aim is to assess whether such semantic shifts may lead to further semantic and syntactic differentiation between the verb senses and whether they can be described as shifts away or towards prototypical transitivity (cf. Hopper & Thompson 1980). It focusses on changes the verb derail underwent in the 19th and 20th centuries. In a corpus-based analysis, it utilises CART trees and a random forest to determine which syntactic and semantic properties differentiate literal and metaphorical uses of derail. Results reveal a syntactic shift from transitive to intransitive in the older literal construction which hardly affects the younger metaphorical one. This indicates that differentiation can be an epiphenomenon of semantic shifts.

Multiculturalism in Canada : Symbolic Boundaries and the Institutionalization of Difference

This paper explores how people are constructed into groups, and how these constructions are reinforced by the ideology of multiculturalism in Canada. I am primarily concerned with the metaphorical use of the border concept in the context of Multicultural Canada, and if and how the current ideology of multiculturalism reifies cultural distinctions and, in complex ways, contributes to divisiveness and disunity within Canada. The goal of Canada's Multicultural policy is integration via acceptance of difference. Yet, the principle or logic underlying the policy rests on the premise that cultural variation is discontinuous. Thus, Canadian multiculturalism's undue emphasis on cultural differences means that such differences, whether superficial or substantive, are abstracted into meaningful difference through the metaphorical extension of border concepts. As such, multiculturalism has left unchanged the structural organization of power in the cultural and political landscape of Canada.

Multiculturalism in Canada : Symbolic Boundaries and the Institutionalization of Difference

This paper explores how people are constructed into groups, and how these constructions are reinforced by the ideology of multiculturalism in Canada. I am primarily concerned with the metaphorical use of the border concept in the context of Multicultural Canada, and if and how the current ideology of multiculturalism reifies cultural distinctions and, in complex ways, contributes to divisiveness and disunity within Canada. The goal of Canada's Multicultural policy is integration via acceptance of difference. Yet, the principle or logic underlying the policy rests on the premise that cultural variation is discontinuous. Thus, Canadian multiculturalism's undue emphasis on cultural differences means that such differences, whether superficial or substantive, are abstracted into meaningful difference through the metaphorical extension of border concepts. As such, multiculturalism has left unchanged the structural organization of power in the cultural and political landscape of Canada.

Two dialogical theorisations of children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor

This article generates two dialogical theorisations of young children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor. The first theorisation devises metaphor as an entry point into the dialogues of more-than-humans and includes rare attention to metaphors as multimodal intra-action. The second theorisation provides an alternative to Linell’s view that relation with non-humans would be merely a metaphorical extension of dialogue, ‘as if’ they were human. Instead, a new model recognises the potential for dialogue as a relational engagement with otherness in a more-than-human-centric approach. The theorisations underpin interpretations of a range of early childhood play episodes with protagonists: sand, paper, tissue and plastic. The materials are beyond any assumed instrumental interaction waiting to be acted upon by humans; rather, they can be in social and material worlds, meeting places, of more-than-humans intra-acting. Penny Lawrence has proposed attending to the quality of relation in dialogues. The significance of these theorisations is for more-than-human study of any encounter to take account of the potential for dialogue, and for studies of dialogue to take account of the more-than-human. In particular, the processes of blending in multimodal metaphorical co-constitutive processes offer notable insights into intra-actions within more-than-human dialogues.

Committee as Witness

This article explores the ethics review committee as a contemporary witness to the conduct of biomedical research. Ethics committee work is an internationally growing form of deliberation and decision making, a technology of anticipation that grants researchers access to experimental spaces, research funds and publication venues. Drawing on ethnographic work with a range of ethics committees across the Asia-Pacific region, I explore the metaphorical extension of logics of seeing into bureaucratic forms of ethics review. My analysis untethers the witnessing voice from an individual ‘point of view’, focusing on the attestive assemblage and its documentation. By exploring the committee as a form of collective attestation, I aim to show witnessing as a form of ethical work, for ethical ends.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE ARCHETYPE OF THE WAY ON THE FORMATION OF THE PERSONALITY IN THE NOVEL PAPER TOWNS BY JOHN GREEN

The article deals with the influence of the archetype of the way on the formation of the personality in the novel Paper Towns by John Green. The purpose of this article is to determine the originality of the image of an American teenager and to identify the influence of the archetype of the way on the formation of the personality, as well as to consider the archetype of the way as a real path of the character in the novel Paper Towns by John Green, taking into account the individual author’s interpretation. This object of research has been chosen because through it one can comprehend the specifics of the psychology of a teenager and define the artistic features that distinguish the author’s stylistics and worldview. The comprehensive research methodology has been used in the work: the synthesis of the comparative historical method, holistic analysis, elements of mythopoetic and hermeneutic methods. In the novel Paper Towns by John Green mythopoetic consciousness presupposes ontological ambivalent intentions in the archetype of the child / teenager (good and evil children). The metaphorical extension of the archetype of the child / teenager has been revealed in this article. All the images of teenagers are given in the development, on the way to growing up. The originality of the archetype of the way here lies in the fact that it merges with the concepts of Space and Chaos, confirming the idea of the unity of mankind. The metaphors themselves are also peculiar, associated with the archetype of the way: inanimate strings, gradually turning into living blades of grass, intertwined with roots with all that exists. During the search for Margo, Quentin grows up significantly, becomes more tolerant to their friends, and he learns to take responsibility for him. The image of Margo is the image of a rebel against any lack of freedom that it is inevitable in the “golden cage”. It is also revealed how Quentin is influenced by the new world opened during his trips, and his personal environment: for example, Radar opens his eyes to the fact that he does not need to demand too much from others. Both Margo is changed (from a “paper” girl – to a real one) and Ben and Radar are changed (false interests go into the background; everyone learns to expose himself to risks and troubles for the sake of friendship and human salvation). Ben and Radar are also shown in the development, in a short time they learn to understand each other and distinguish false values from true ones. These changes occur with all the teenagers, regardless of their skin color and nationality, and such an interpretation of the insignificance of formal differences is also a new word of the author.

‘Tramontare’ nei dialetti italiani: un excursus onomasiologico e motivazionale

Setting’ in Italian Dialects: an Onomasiological and Motivational Excursus. This study aims to identify and analyze the main lexotypes for the notion of ‘setting’ in Italian dialects. The comparative analysis of data offered by the Italian Linguistic Atlas and by some regional atlases reveals a fair variety of lexical types which in most cases are distributed in continuous and homogeneous areas, even though the most recent regional atlases reveal an evident process of Italianization signaled by the affirmation of the Italian type ‘tramontare’. On the motivational level, it can be observed that the most productive category is made up of verbal forms that express a descending motion for which the meaning ‘setting’ represents a metaphorical extension of the semantic value of the predicate.

Murphy and the Tao of Autism

The purpose of this chapter is not to discover the presence of autism in Samuel Beckett’s Murphy, but to bury its recent discovery in order to relocate autism as a magnetising and mobilising absence in the novel – not something that is lacking or deficient in itself, as the ableist constructions of autism propose, but a difference that is lacking, or better yet wanting, in the eponymous non-autistic protagonist and, by metaphorical extension, in neurotypical subjectivity as such. I denominate this lack, this want, the objet petit a(u), with the translingual pun that entails on the Lacanian Other.