Metonymy in scientific linguistic discourse

The purpose of the article was to show the features of the functioning of different types of metonymy in scientific linguistic discourse, which is understood as a verbalized epistemic situation common to the scientific sphere of communication, taken in the entire totality of linguistic and extralinguistic factors and enshrined in the form of texts (oral and written ones). The article deals with metonymy from the point of view of langue / parole: lexicalized metonymy in langue is a semantic transposition mechanism on contiguity and carries out a terminological nomination; discursive metonymy in parole becomes the result of syntagmatic contiguity of syntactic constructions. Linguistic metonymic terms are grouped by types of knowledge: declarative and procedural ones. The shifts of meaning between the logical terms “object”, “subject”, “general” and “specific”, “abstract” and “concrete”, “form”, “content”, etc., directed towards each other, are observed in metonymic terms of declarative type. Metonymy can reflect the processes due to the causality between adjacent objects. Transitional phenomena between lexicalized (linguistic) and discursive (speech) metonymy reflect those models that contain onyms; they are related to the designation of the subject of knowledge (linguist) and his scientific discovery.

„Ich bringe euch in die Wüste der Völker“ (Ez 20,35)

Among many other peculiarities of the Book of Ezekiel, the numerous movements and spatial terms mentioned in it stand out. Using the cultural-anthropological concept that underlies rites of passage and related transitional phenomena (A. van Gennep, V. Turner) some of them can be taken as elements of a transitional process. Therefore, the spatial structure in Ezek. 20 and in the overall layout of the Book of Ezekiel is used to illustrate that the Babylonian exile is a necessary liminal phase of the transition from Israel’s status as an apostate people to a new status given by JHWH.

Agency, Ownership and the Potential Space

The potential space, the space between the experiencer and the experience, is at the heart of Winnicott’s theory. The concepts of agency of one’s actions and ownership of one’s experience have been recently applied to such a space lying in between the experiencing self and the mental (cognitive) map she creates, representing her surroundings. Agency is defined as “the sense that I am the one who is generating the experience represented on a mental map”, while ownership is defined as “the sense that I am the one who is undergoing an experience, represented on a mental map”. Here these concepts are introduced and applied to five main realizations of Winnicott’s potential space: Playing, transitional phenomena, the therapeutic space, culture and creativity. Through theoretical constructs and clinical analyses, it is shown how agency and ownership, and their mutual interrelations, may help to better understand Winnicott’s theory with implications to clinical practice.

Co-parent therapy and the parenting plan as transitional phenomena: working psychoanalytically with high-conflict separating and divorcing couples

High-conflict separating and divorcing couples often struggle with unconscious conflicts that are projected onto arguments about the children resulting in interminable disputes. Approaches that primarily emphasise parenting and communication skills, without a more in-depth focus, are insufficient to address these complicated dynamics. In contrast, I offer a model of psychoanalytic co-parent therapy that enables the promotion of containment, reduces splitting, destructive aggression, and defensive projection, helps the partners become more psychologically separate, and allows access to feelings of loss. A key component of this model is the development of the parenting plan, a shared agreement about coparenting the children that functions on both a conscious and unconscious level. The therapist works with high-conflict couples to create the parenting plan, whilst at the same time addressing the underlying psychological vulnerabilities. The parenting plan may serve as a type of transitional object for the couple, facilitating their psychological development, and aiding in their transition from a separating or divorcing couple to a co-parent couple. This process can be internalised, communicated to the children, create less conflict, mitigate the enduring impact of the loss, and benefit the entire family.

Hoarding and Animal Hoarding: Psychodynamic and Transitional Aspects

Hoarding is a disorder that has only recently begun to be understood by researchers and clinicians. This disorder has been examined from a biopsychosocial perspective and has features that overlap with obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as some unique characteristics. Hoarding disorder is widespread and maybe related to the evolution of collecting and storing resources among humans and other animals. While there have been a number of non-analytic theories related to hoarding and its treatment, psychoanalytic thinkers have rarely described the disorder or explored its underlying psychodynamics. Beginning with Freud, it is possible to understand hoarding in relationship to the vicissitudes of the anal stage of development. However, loss of a loved object, especially loss of the mother, can play an important role in the development of hoarding behavior in adults. The hoarding of inanimate items, examined from a developmental object-relations perspective, appears to involve transitional phenomena. Animal hoarding also involves transitional phenomena, but animals, which can serve as animated transitional objects, also have a repetition compulsion function. These psychodynamic characteristics are relevant for establishing a working transference with the analyst or therapist, in order to promote positive therapeutic outcomes.

Russian lexical and collocative calques in the Czech and Polish insular dialects in Russia

The paper reports on a study of immigrant Czech and Polish dialects in Russia that have been strongly influenced by the dominant language of their surroundings. The author discusses problems detecting Russian lexical calques in the examined dialects, in particular differentiating calques and adapted borrowings. These difficulties appear to be due to the close affinity of the Russian language and the influenced dialects, which have common Slavic origin. The article proposes approaches for solving the problems by observing various aspects of calque formation, taking into consideration the fact that the border between the analyzed phenomena is vague and the calques are often firmly bounded with certain collocations. There are numerous transitional phenomena at the intersection of lexical calques and adapted borrowings, such as hybrid formations, formations in which the Russian affixal or root morphemes are transformed based on regular correspondences between idioms, cases of the formation of new lexical units in the recipient idiom according to the Russian model based on the semantics of correlated morphemes. In order to adequately describe such phenomena, it is proposed to introduce a more general concept of “collocative calques”.

Indexing degrees of adverbialization and modalization of such word forms as «truth», «fact» in the function of modal circumstance

The purpose of the study is to analyze the degrees of transposition of substantive word forms into the inter-parts-ofspeech semantic-syntactic category of introductory-modal units in the context of combined modalization and adverbialization. The relevance of the work is due to the ever-increasing influence of the subjective-modal factor in the language, the need to study syncretic structures that make it possible to comprehensively assess the content and form of what is communicated. The novelty of the approach lies in the use of the method of indexing the degrees of linguistic units transposition, which makes it possible to minimize the factor of subjectivity in assessing transitional phenomena. The work also used general scientific and general linguistic, special methods of the analysis (comparison, generalization; descriptive method, oppositional analysis; elements of component, distributive and transformational analysis). The focus is on word forms such as «truth» and «fact», demonstrating in the function of modal circumstances a different degree of convergence with interacting nouns, adverbs and introductory modal words in their structure. A study of the degrees of their adverbialization and modalization has shown that such formations synthesize differential characteristics of nouns, adverbs and introductory-modal units in various proportions and combinatorics. Used interpositively in the syncretic context of adverbialization and modalization, syncretes of the «truth» type show 17 % compliance of their differential features with the features of the original noun, 89 % compliance with the features of adverbs in the function of a modal circumstance (“really”) and 20 % compliance with the features of nuclear from adjective introductory-modal units («of course»). The results of the study can be used in the further research into thefacts of transitivity and syncretism in the system of parts of speech and inter-parts-of-speech divisions of introductory modal words and predicatives using the indexing method.