Aggressive Language in Literature: A Pragmatic Approach

Aggression is a negative form of an anti-social behavior. It is produced because of a particular reason, desire, want, need, or due to the psychological state of the aggressor. It injures others physically or psychologically. Aggressive behaviors in human interactions cause discomfort and disharmony among interlocutors. The paper aims to identify how aggressive language manifests itself in the data under scrutiny in terms of the pragmatic paradigm. Two British literary works are the data; namely, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (1956), and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (1957). This paper endeavors to answer the question of how aggressive language is represented in literature pragmatically? It is hoped to be significant to linguistic and psychological studies in that it clarifies how aggression is displayed in human communications linguistically. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are conducted to verify the findings. It ends with some concluding remarks, the most important of which are: insulting, belittling, ridiculing and threatening are prevalent speech acts; simile, hyperbole, metaphor and repetition appear due to Grice’s maxims breaching while the use of taboo words, calling names, or abusive words are the impoliteness strategies that are distinguished in the data.

Aggressive Language in Literature: A Pragmatic Approach

Aggression is a negative form of an anti-social behavior. It is produced because of a particular reason, desire, want, need, or due to the psychological state of the aggressor. It injures others physically or psychologically. Aggressive behaviors in human interactions cause discomfort and disharmony among interlocutors. The paper aims to identify how aggressive language manifests itself in the data under scrutiny in terms of the pragmatic paradigm. Two British literary works are the data; namely, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (1956), and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (1957). This paper endeavors to answer the question of how aggressive language is represented in literature pragmatically? It is hoped to be significant to linguistic and psychological studies in that it clarifies how aggression is displayed in human communications linguistically. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are conducted to verify the findings. It ends with some concluding remarks, the most important of which are: insulting, belittling, ridiculing and threatening are prevalent speech acts; simile, hyperbole, metaphor and repetition appear due to Grice’s maxims breaching while the use of taboo words, calling names, or abusive words are the impoliteness strategies that are distinguished in the data.

The Golden Rule as a Paradigm for Fostering Prosocial Behavior With Virtual Reality

The Golden Rule of ethics in its negative form states that you should not do to others what you would not want others to do to you, and in its positive form states that you should do to others as you would want them to do to you. The Golden Rule is an ethical principle, but in virtual reality (VR), it can also be thought of as a paradigm for the promotion of prosocial behavior. This is because in VR, you can directly experience harm that you inflicted or were complicit in inflicting from the embodied perspective of the victim. This use of what we refer to as the Golden Rule Embodiment Paradigm (GREP) relies on participants in VR having the illusion of body ownership over a virtual body. In this article, we introduce virtual embodiment and the consequent illusion of ownership over the virtual body, and describe how this phenomenon has been utilized to influence implicit attitudes. We then introduce the GREP and give examples of studies in which it enhanced helping behavior.

Functional Verification of Novel ELMO1 Variants By Live Imaging in Zebrafish

ELMO1 (Engulfment and Cell Motility1) is a gene involved in regulating cell motility through the ELMO1-DOCK2-RAC complex. Contrary to DOCK2 (Dedicator of Cytokinesis 2) deficiency, which has been reported to be associated with immunodeficiency diseases, variants of ELMO1 have been associated with autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). To explore the function of ELMO1 in immune cells and to verify the functions of novel ELMO1 variants in vivo, we established a zebrafish elmo1 mutant model. Live imaging revealed that similar to mammals, the motility of neutrophils and T-cells was largely attenuated in zebrafish mutants. Consequently, the response of neutrophils to injury or bacterial infection was significantly reduced in the mutants. Furthermore, the reduced mobility of neutrophils could be rescued by the expression of constitutively activated Rac proteins, suggesting that zebrafish elmo1 mutant functions via a conserved mechanism. With this mutant, three novel human ELMO1 variants were transiently and specifically expressed in zebrafish neutrophils. Two variants, p.E90K (c.268G>A) and p.D194G (c.581A>G) could efficiently recover the motility defect of neutrophils in the elmo1 mutant; however, the p.R354X (c.1060C>T) variant failed to rescue the mutant. Acts as a dominant-negative form, p.R354X (c.1060C>T) which failed to rescue the elmo1 mutant and inhibited neutrophil movement in siblings. Based on those results, we identified that zebrafish elmo1 played conserved roles in cell motility, similar to higher vertebrates. Using the transient-expression assay, zebrafish elmo1 mutants could serve as an effective model for human variant verification in vivo. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Unique functions for Notch4 in murine embryonic lymphangiogenesis

In mice, embryonic dermal lymphatic development is well understood and used to study gene functions in lymphangiogenesis. Notch signaling is an evolutionarily conserved pathway that modulates cell fate decisions, which has been shown to both inhibit and promote dermal lymphangiogenesis. Here, we demonstrate distinct roles for Notch4 signaling versus canonical Notch signaling in embryonic dermal lymphangiogenesis. Actively growing embryonic dermal lymphatics expressed NOTCH1, NOTCH4, and DLL4 which correlated with Notch activity. In lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs), DLL4 activation of Notch induced a subset of Notch effectors and lymphatic genes, which were distinctly regulated by Notch1 and Notch4 activation. Treatment of LECs with VEGF-A or VEGF-C upregulated Dll4 transcripts and differentially and temporally regulated the expression of Notch1 and Hes/Hey genes. Mice nullizygous for Notch4 had an increase in the closure of the lymphangiogenic fronts which correlated with reduced vessel caliber in the maturing lymphatic plexus at E14.5 and reduced branching at E16.5. Activation of Notch4 suppressed LEC migration in a wounding assay significantly more than Notch1, suggesting a dominant role for Notch4 in regulating LEC migration. Unlike Notch4 nulls, inhibition of canonical Notch signaling by expressing a dominant negative form of MAML1 (DNMAML) in Prox1+ LECs led to increased lymphatic density consistent with an increase in LEC proliferation, described for the loss of LEC Notch1. Moreover, loss of Notch4 did not affect LEC canonical Notch signaling. Thus, we propose that Notch4 signaling and canonical Notch signaling have distinct functions in the coordination of embryonic dermal lymphangiogenesis.

Morality from Compassion

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, compassion is the basis of morality. He sees concern for justice as a negative form of compassion, directed at not harming anyone, as opposed to the more far-reaching, positive form of benefiting. He thinks a higher degree of compassion involves realizing that the spatio-temporal separation of individuals is illusory and that in reality they are all identical. Such compassion is impartial and all-encompassing. Compassion is suited to be the centre of morality because its object are negative feelings, and only these are real. Contrary to these Schopenhauerian claims, it is here argued that compassion must be supplemented with attitudes like sympathy and benevolence because positive feelings exist alongside negative feelings; that a concern for justice, though morally essential, is independent of these attitudes which are based on empathy; that these attitudes involve not identifying oneself with others, but taking personal identity as insignificant in empathically imagining how others feel. Schopenhauer is, however, right that, though these attitudes are spontaneously partial, this can be corrected. His morality is also interesting in raising the question rarely discussed in philosophical ethics of how moral virtue relates to ascetic self-renunciation. Both of these ideals are highly demanding, but the book ends by arguing that this is no objection to their validity.

YAP and TAZ are transcriptional co-activators of AP-1 proteins and STAT3 during breast cellular transformation

The YAP and TAZ paralogs are transcriptional co-activators recruited to target sites by TEAD proteins. Here, we show that YAP and TAZ are also recruited by JUNB (a member of the AP-1 family) and STAT3, key transcription factors that mediate an epigenetic switch linking inflammation to cellular transformation. YAP and TAZ directly interact with JUNB and STAT3 via a WW domain important for transformation, and they stimulate transcriptional activation by AP-1 proteins. JUNB, STAT3, and TEAD co-localize at virtually all YAP/TAZ target sites, yet many target sites only contain individual AP-1, TEAD, or STAT3 motifs. This observation and differences in relative crosslinking efficiencies of JUNB, TEAD, and STAT3 at YAP/TAZ target sites suggest that YAP/TAZ is recruited by different forms of an AP-1/STAT3/TEAD complex depending on the recruiting motif. The different classes of YAP/TAZ target sites are associated with largely non-overlapping genes with distinct functions. A small minority of target sites are YAP- or TAZ-specific, and they are associated with different sequence motifs and gene classes from shared YAP/TAZ target sites. Genes containing either the AP-1 or TEAD class of YAP/TAZ sites are associated with poor survival of breast cancer patients with the triple-negative form of the disease.

Conclusion: How to Run an Unethical Business

One way to illustrate how to manage a business or oneself for ethical performance is to teach the lesson in a negative form. How would one run a business if one wanted to induce others and oneself to act worse? One would want to create structures that impose perverse incentives, encourage moral blindness, promote moral confusion, create stress and tight deadlines which encourage employees to cut corners, make a mockery of ethics, push people to conform to others’ bad behavior, and reduce their willpower.

22. Easements

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter is concerned with easements. An easement is the proprietary right to enjoy limited use of the land of another, which may exist in both positive and negative form. To constitute an easement, a right over the land of another must display certain characteristics. If these characteristics are not present, the right over the land of another is merely a personal right. An easement may be created by express, implied, or presumed grant. As a proprietary right, an easement is not easy to extinguish, but, in the case of freehold land, easement will be extinguished where the dominant and servient land come into common ownership and an easement attached to a lease may sometimes be extinguished upon the termination of that lease.

YAP and TAZ are transcriptional co-activators of AP-1 proteins and STAT3 during breast cellular transformation

ABSTRACTThe YAP and TAZ paralogues are transcriptional co-activators recruited to target sites, primarily by TEAD proteins. Here, we show that YAP and TAZ are also recruited by JUNB and STAT3, key factors that mediate an epigenetic switch linking inflammation to cellular transformation. YAP and TAZ directly interact with JUNB and STAT3 via a WW domain important for transformation, co-occupy many target sites in vivo via AP-1 and (to a lesser extent) STAT3 sequence motifs, and stimulate transcriptional activation by AP-1 proteins. A few target sites are YAP- or TAZ-specific, and they are associated with different sequence motifs and gene classes. YAP/TAZ, JUNB, and STAT3 directly regulate a common set of target genes that overlap, but are distinct from, those regulated by YAP/TAZ and TEADs. The set of genes regulated by YAP/TAZ, STAT3, and JUNB is associated with poor survival in breast cancer patients with the triple-negative form of the disease.