The article discusses the problems of the understanding of the future. The author suggests to consider this problem in accordance with the analysis of its discourse and types. He distinguishes the following kinds of temporal discourse: event time; contains the past; present; future; future reconstruction created on the basis of reconstructions of past and present; present actions in accordance with the images of future, finally, practices aimed at the implementation of the future as the plan or project. Based (...) on the analysis of several cases and general considerations the author introduces his classification of the types of the future discourse. Firstly, it is “uncertain future" (“future as a thing in itself") as the most relevant type for modernity. Secondly, it is “objectively subjective future" that could be considered both as religious vision of the future and as the rational concept allowing a person to participate in the future constructing. Thirdly, it is “local technological future" that is considered on the example of the analysis of the US and the USSR nuclear project. The current understanding of the future is analysed as an attempt to predict and to build the same future for everybody. The author argues that this attempt doesn't seem to be feasible. Implementing different ideas and projects of the future and acting spontaneously without any particular image of the future, one cannot create the same future for everyone. Probably, it is necessary to accept the fact that there're a number of images of the future and each of them is narrow. Somehow, they all are involved in the formation of the future, although we do not know how exactly. It is better to assume that any of them, even inadequate and destructive are involved in the formation and flow of social processes. That's why it is so important to analyze them in order to understand their action and place in the structure of life. (shrink)

The volume starts with the paper of Lynn Maurice Ferguson Arnold, former Premier of South Australia and former Minister of Education of Australia, concerning the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) that was held from 25 May to 25 November 1937 in Paris, France. The organization of the world exhibition had placed the Nazi German and the Soviet pavilions directly across from each other. Many papers are devoted (...) to the interpretation of this opposition. Arnold’s paper considers the differences in the two totalitarian states’ architectural and design discourse styles. Although each of them communicated a totalitarian language of purposes, permissions, and boundaries, they essentially differed in the styles of discourse represented by the architecture and design of their respective pavilions. They were opposites of each other and the liberal ideals they contested. The internationalist viewpoint reflecting the multi-ethnic mix of the USSR is contrasted to the ein Volk homogeneity represented in the German pavilion. The Soviet pavilion opted for a utopian future to be arrived at by “benign” leadership, whereas the German pavilion anchored itself in the myth of Teutonic history with the nostalgic pride protected by the swastika-bearing eagle. Jean-Yves Béziau is best known as a logician and founder of Universal Logic. However, in this paper, he poses a new philosophical question: why philosophical discourse does not use images? The paper begins with a general analysis of different types of philosophical discourses. Then, he focuses on why images have been and are still rejected in philosophical discourse. He explains various ways to use images in a fruitful way to develop philosophical thinking and discourse and illustrates his view by providing several examples. He concludes with a promising programmatic declaration about founding a new journal entitled World Journal of Pictorial Philosophy to stimulate the usage of images for developing philosophical thinking. Although complaints about the obscurity of many philosophers’ discourse are widespread, Tatiana Denisova, ex-professor of the Surgut University and a research associate of the University of the Aegean undertakes a positive attitude to this problem. She explains that the reasons for the obscurity of philosophical texts, the subsequent complexity in communicating philosophers’ meanings and their eventual incomplete understanding is not a sign of their inferiority. On the contrary, it is a sign of the fruitfulness of philosophical discourse, which can generate new meanings. Thus, the darkness of philosophical discourse is like the life-giving chaos, and the obscurity that it inevitably contains can be the keeper of implicit meanings and even their generator. Katarzyna Gan-Krzywoszyńska and Piotr Leśniewski, authors of a monograph on Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890 – 1963), make a comparative analysis of his educational style with that of Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (1921 – 1997). The authors highlight that these scholars have distinctly different backgrounds. The former was an educator, philosopher and a leading advocate of critical pedagogy connected with the dialogical Latin-American tradition. The latter was a philosopher and logician, a notable representative of the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic with significant contributions to semantics, model theory and the philosophy of science. Despite their apparent difference, the authors identify some striking similarities regarding their attitudes towards education; notably, their approaches are essentially dialogical. Gilah Yelin Hirsch is a multidisciplinary artist who works as a painter, writer, curator, educator, and filmmaker. In her experiential paper, he explains how and why she uses four channels of communication in her creative expression: writing, painting, filmmaking, and teaching, as dialogic inquiry. She considers that these channels compose a continuum of discourse styles, each reaching a different facet of kaleidoscopic consciousness. She claims that her choice of medium is prompted by a need to communicate her insights profoundly. Thus, for instance, she created painted allegories to express narratives based on dreams and visions emerging from her subconscious. Art and healing is another Tibetan-rooted type of discourse practised by the author. Creating and observing a healing image produces a positive psychophysiological change in both the artist and the viewer. The discourse here is tripartite between creator, image, and viewer. Filmmaking is another type of discourse she practices between the filmmaker/artist as shaman or healer and the viewer as respondent or participant. These films are meant to be experienced frame by frame, physically and emotionally in both the body and mind. Jocelyn Ireson-Paine is a cartoonist and programmer. His paper offers an original attempt to use category theory in cartooning. Category theory is a branch of mathematics that provides concepts and methods to describe general abstract structures in terms of a labelled directed graph called category, whose nodes are called objects, and whose labelled directed edges are called arrows (or morphisms or transformations or mappings). The author explores different ways to define “style” in art using category theory and a relational view of art. Moreover, he examines how “translation” (transformation) between styles could be defined and reveals the difficulties of how it could be implemented in a computer using special software. Jens Lemanski is a philosopher who has revived research in Arthur Schopenhauer’s legacy by exploring his work on mathematical evidence, logic diagrams, and problems of semantics. In this paper, he advances a new approach to eristic as an art of protecting oneself from the one who deliberately violates norms of discourse ethics to win an argument. The author attributes the origins of this view to Schopenhauer, suggesting a new reading of his work. According to the author, eristic is a prohibitive technique that takes effect when the norms of discourse ethics are transgressed and violated. Thus, eristic is viewed as a discipline of Enlightenment philosophy and a correlate of discourse ethics. Roshdi Rashed is an authority on the history of Arabic mathematical sciences. Proceeding from Gilles-Gaston Granger’s definition of mathematical style, he studies the question of whether a mathematical work can be characterized by a single style or by a multitude of styles. This question is explored within the style of a single work, namely Menelaus’s Sphaerica, and through the study of the development of a single problem over time, namely the isoperimetric problem. He indicates Menelaus’s divergence from the Euclidean style of (plane and stereometric) geometry caused by the drop of the Parallel Postulate, which associated it with hyperbolic geometry. Hence, the author concludes that Menelaus’s Sphaerica incorporates the well-known Euclidean style with a variation of the non-Euclidean one. On the other hand, examining the isoperimetric problem reveals another interesting historical picture. A succession of different styles (cosmological, geometric, infinitesimalistic, style of the calculus of variations, of synthetic geometry) can be observed due to the transformation of the research object over time. Boris Shalyutin, a Russian social philosopher, and Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Kurgan Region, explores the origins of discourse in combination with the birth of society and law. He claims that legal discourse marks the historical emergence of discourse in general. Homo Juridicus generated Homo Sapiens, which have created new spheres of discourse, notably moral discourse and further philosophical, political, and scientific discourse. Petros Stefaneas, a logician, computer scientist and novelist, suggests an alternative to the traditional narratology approach for studying (interactive) social media discourse. He claims that style describes how the parts of a narrative are blended into a whole. The author relies upon Goguen’s and Harrel’s concept of style as a choice of blending principles and transfers to the study of the social media narratives elements from the methodology of studying Web-based collaborative search for mathematical proofs like those implemented within the Polymath project. The last paper belongs to Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, a linguist, language revivalist, and proponent of a model of the emergence of Israeli Hebrew, according to which Hebrew and Yiddish were the primary sources of Modern Hebrew. This paper explores the fascinating and multifaceted Yiddish language and its survival in Israeli. Yiddish is characterized by a unique style that embeds psycho-ostensive expressions throughout its discourse. The author highlights the cross-fertilization between Hebrew and Yiddish as it manifests itself in any aspect of the Israeli language. He claims that Yiddish survives beneath Israeli phonetics, phonology, discourse, syntax, semantics, lexis, and even morphology, although traditional and institutional linguists have been most reluctant to admit it. (shrink)

The multiplicity of Islamic interpretations is reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the Romanian Muslim communities. The internal fragmentation and disunity of Muslim communities, intra-Islamic difficulties, ideological and sectarian rivalry, success of Salafism among certain groups, the absence of stronger and more visible Islamic alternative discourses and the lack of interest in finding adequate mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the new Muslims in society are some of the general problems of the Romanian Muslims. Local Islamic revival has an ethno-cultural (...) dimension, a religious and even a political one as external disputes are imported in the Romanian context and affects the way Muslims define and practice Islam. Some Rroma and indigenous Tatar-Turkish adopted the neo-traditionalism consolidated in the second half of the last century and promoted by the most active Sunni NGOs in Romania. Some converts emancipated from the ideological control by conservative and neoconservative Islamic currents and are in search of progressive or mystical interpretations; other new Muslims found safety in the Salafi’s certitudes and rigid rules. Case study findings presented in this article may suggest that the more it depends on formal rituals, external behavior and rigid canonical displays of religiosity, the more fragile the Muslim identity becomes. A vulnerable constructed Self conceives differences and alterity as an attack against personal identity, hence the increasing aggressive and intolerant, superior Salafi attitudes. The more it is built on universal values, inner experience, ethical convictions, the more open and capable of integrating alterity and fostering positive relations with people of different religions becomes Muslim identity. (shrink)

A contrast is drawn between two types of externalism, one based on ideas of Wittgenstein, the other on arguments from Putnam. Gregory McCulloch’s attempt to combine the two types is then examined and criticized. Putnamian externalism is ambiguous. It can be interpreted either as the empirical claim that we give priority to scientific as opposed to other forms of discourse, or as a metaphysical claim that our language attempts to conform to the structure of the world ‘in itself’. But (...) the first claim is simply false, and the second involves a form of metaphysical realism that a Wittgensteinian must reject as unintelligible. McCulloch’s attempted synthesis of the two types is therefore either incoherent, or else simply adds an empirical falsehood to Wittgenstein’s conceptual point. It is also noted that Putnam himself has progressively retreated from his original claims, and now appears to be a Wittgensteinian, but not a ‘Putnamian’, externalist. (shrink)

Exploration of INTERSUBJECTIVITY is continued. Different kinds of if are differentiated and signs for its presence and effects are shown. The difference between it, subjectivity and objectivity are explored. Intersubjectivity is crucial and universal for general everyday discourse in all cultures, sub-cultures, institutions, communities and socio-cultural practices such as religion, sport, etc or the so-called Manifest Image. It is essential for specialized areas, for example religion, sport and disciplines such as the humanities, arts, sciences, philosophy and all institutions. It (...) is a necessity for both cultural, social, interpersonal as well as intra-personal existence, emotions, attitudes, values and norms. But, it is not limited to human existence, life-worlds, realities and worlds, but also required for animals and all organisms. Object Oriented Ontology would emphasize that is it not merely something anthropocentric and restricted to human existence and consciousness (and anthropocentric interpretations of and projections on other objects, non-human creatures and all organisms, as well as all objects.. In the case of the latter one would probably replace the notion of intersubjectivity with terms such as energy and other ways of action and interaction for example intra- and inter-atoms.) In the Appendix is included work related to the above by others such as Sellars, Brandom (and his two images, Manifest and Scientific), Davidson, Dennett, Habermas, Nagel, etc. (shrink)

Persons with visual impairments (hereafter PVI) detect and discover obstacles and road conditions by touching with a white cane when walking on the streets. In one training session, an Orientation and Mobility specialist (hereafter SPT) guided a PVI by grasping and moving the cane that the PVI was holding. We conducted a multimodal analysis of two instruction sequences, one a "proving and achieving" demonstration (Sacks in Lectures on conversation, Blackwell, 1992) and the other a "learnable" (Zemel and Koschmann, in (...) class='Hi'>Discourse Stud 16:163–183, 2014) demonstration. The achieving demonstration proved the assessment of the PVI's performance. In the "learnable" demonstration, the PVI was able to receive and perform the most critical part of the "learnable" of the long contact touch without the aid of talk. Sharing a single cane touch is an efficient way for both the guiding SPT and the guided PVI to jointly experience and understand the environmental features. The SPT did not need to verbally confirm that the guided touch was accountable to the PVI and seemed confident that intersubjectivity with the PVI had been established. A unique form of being with others and achieving intersubjectivity in society was identified. In traditional learning instruction, it has been assumed that the learnable is presented and communicated visually and audibly. However, through guided touch learnable is presented and conveyed effectively in the cases of this paper. It seems that the sense of touch has been considered to be just for the occasion, but this is an example of something that is not just for the occasion but is consequential, that is, usable for further occasions. The data is in Japanese. (shrink)

Xuanzang (602–664) is famous for his legendary life, his important translation works, and also his Discourse on the Realisation of Consciousness-Only (Vijñapti-mātratā-siddhi, 成唯識論). This text, which is considered as a synthesis of Yogācāra thought, has been diversely interpreted by modern scholars and is still discussed, in particular about the status of external things. Nevertheless, this issue seems to be of little interest for Yogācāra thinkers compared to other topics such as the Noble Path, or else the three types of (...) wisdom (trividhā prajñā, 三慧): learning (śruta, 聞), reasoning (cintā, 思), and cultivating (bhāvanā, 修). As emphasized in recent research, this topic represents a major issue for Buddhist practitioners. In an attempt to analyse it in Xuanzang’s Discourse, and more generally in Yogācāra thought, this paper will first discuss Asaṅga’s and Vasubandhu’s thought on the three types of wisdom. Secondly, since it is important to replace the three types of wisdom in the general argumentation of Xuanzang’s Discourse, we will present the structure of his text which is modelled on a “path” leading progressively to Supreme Awakening. Then, we will present the main elements of the Noble Path and situate the three types of wisdom into it. Finally, we will explain that Xuanzang follows Asaṅga’s and Vasubandhu’s conceptions and eventually confirm the importance of the three types of wisdom in Yogācāra thought. (shrink)

The last decades have seen major advances in the study of gestures both in humans and non-human primates. In this paper, we seriously examine the idea that there may be gestural form types that are shared across great ape species, including humans, which may underlie gestural universals, both in form and meaning. We focus on one case study, the hand fling gesture common to chimpanzees and humans, and provide a semantic analysis of this gesture.

The emergence of a `new' discourse on science in connection with events to do with the environment, food safety or public health has caused questions to be raised concerning the suitability of the triangular communication model generally applied to scientific popularization, i.e. in which there is an `intermediary' discourse plying between science and the general public. This `traditional' discourse would appear, then, to co-exist alongside the new discourse. The pragmatic functions of these two separate discourses on (...) science are compared here by looking at the linguistic and discursive variations which characterize their communicative and cognitive dimensions. In the new discourse on science, which has come to light over the past few years, the strict task of `popularizing' appears to have been dropped in favour of explaining the social stakes of the issues in question: thus the typically didactic and scientific nature of the cognitivo-discursive category, explanation can be seen to make way for a different type of explanation, which uses an interdiscursive memory bank built upon the productions of the mass media destined for the general public. (shrink)

This article sets out to define an approach to discourse that takes into account the characteristics of the phenomenon of social communication. First, the article examines different conceptions of discourse analysis such as `cognitive', `representational' and `communicational'. These distinctions are made using various criteria: definitions of the subject of analysis, the nature of the speaker, the corpus of data resulting from the discourse. This is followed by an examination of the types of competence that have to be (...) satisfied by speakers if they are to produce a speech act: for example, `situational', `discursive', `semantic' and `semiolinguistic competence'. The article then analyses how speakers stage their discourse, i.e. their consideration of the constraints of the communicative situation and their use of `discursive strategies'. The article concludes by demonstrating the necessity of relating the `communicative situation' to the `positioning' of the speaker. (shrink)

Co-speech gestures are closely connected to speech, but little attention has been paid to the associations between gesture and L2 speech performance. This study explored the associations between four types of co-speech gestures and the meaning, form, and discourse dimensions of L2 speech performance. Gesture and speech data were collected by asking 61 lower-intermediate English learners whose first language is Chinese to retell a cartoon clip. Results showed that all the four types of co-speech gestures had positive associations with (...) meaning and discourse L2 speech measures but no association with form-related speech measures, except the positive association between metaphorics and the percentage of error-free clauses. The findings suggest that co-speech gestures may have a tighter connection with meaning construction in producing L2 speech. (shrink)

In Reasonable Democracy, Simone Chambers describes, explains, and defends a discursive politics inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas. In addition to comparing Habermas's ideas with other non-Kantian liberal theories in clear and accessible prose, Chambers develops her own views regarding the role of discourse and its importance within liberal democracies. Beginning with a deceptively simple question—"Why is talking better than fighting?"—Chambers explains how the idea of talking provides a rich and compelling view of morality, rationality, and political stability. (...) She considers talking as a way for people to respect each other as moral agents, as a way to reach reasonable and legitimate solutions to disputes, and as a way to reproduce and strengthen shared understandings. In the course of this argument, she defends modern universalist ethics, communicative rationality, and what she calls a "discursive political culture," a concept that locates the political power of discourse and deliberation not so much in institutions of democratic decision-making as in the type of conversations that go on around these institutions. While discourse and deliberation cannot replace voting, bargaining, or compromise, Chambers argues, it is important to maintain a background moral conversation in which to anchor other activities. As an extended case study, Chambers examines the conversation about language rights that has been taking place for more than twenty years in Quebec. A culture of dialogue, she shows, has proved a positive and powerful force in resolving some of the disagreements between the two linguistic communities there. (shrink)

This paper discusses the history of the confusion and controversies over whether the definition of consequence presented in the 11-page 1936 Tarski consequence-definition paper is based on a monistic fixed-universe framework?like Begriffsschrift and Principia Mathematica. Monistic fixed-universe frameworks, common in pre-WWII logic, keep the range of the individual variables fixed as the class of all individuals. The contrary alternative is that the definition is predicated on a pluralistic multiple-universe framework?like the 1931 Gödel incompleteness paper. A pluralistic multiple-universe framework recognizes multiple (...) universes of discourse serving as different ranges of the individual variables in different interpretations?as in post-WWII model theory. In the early 1960s, many logicians?mistakenly, as we show?held the ?contrary alternative? that Tarski 1936 had already adopted a Gödel-type, pluralistic, multiple-universe framework. We explain that Tarski had not yet shifted out of the monistic, Frege?Russell, fixed-universe paradigm. We further argue that between his Principia-influenced pre-WWII Warsaw period and his model-theoretic post-WWII Berkeley period, Tarski's philosophy underwent many other radical changes. (shrink)

The article deals with larger stretches of talk-in-interaction and argues in favor of a descriptive approach, which integrates the structural requirements of global organization, the special type of sequential orderliness within larger units as well as the genre-orientation of these units. Drawing on previous work in conversation analysis, discourse analysis and the sociological genre analysis, the article introduces GLOBE as an analytical tool which functionally links discourse units to conventionalized communicative purposes. GLOBE reconstructs the interactive achievement of (...) genre-oriented discourse units in a three-branch analysis of jobs, devices and forms. The analytical potential of GLOBE is demonstrated in the exemplary genre-contrastive analysis of a narrative, an explanative and an argumentative excerpt. On the basis of the analyses of the three genres, the overarching constitution of genre-oriented global units is then explicated. (shrink)

In this essay, we propose that Peirce’s Existential Graphs can derive the desired uniqueness implication (or in a weaker claim, the definite description readings) of donkey pronouns in conjunctive discourse (A man walks in the park. He whistles), without postulating a separate category of E-type pronouns.

Using video recordings of one-on-one writing conferences as data, this conversation analytic study provides a sequential analysis of student-initiated question–answer sequences and demonstrates that the building of social interaction is contingent upon the composition of a turn as well as its position in the larger sequence. In particular, the article focuses on the distinct sequential environments in which students use yes/no interrogatives and yes/no declaratives. In the context of writing conference, the epistemic asymmetry between the participants is made relevant throughout (...) the session; in general, the teacher is in a more knowledgeable position, whereas the student is in a less knowledgeable position concerning writing practices. Nonetheless, students invoke a different degree of knowledge gap between the participants by using different forms of polar questions. This article illustrates how students convey their epistemic positions with different syntactic structures and how such distinct positions are ratified in the unfolding sequence. The analysis of this study contributes to finding new aspects of question–answer sequences and pedagogical practices. (shrink)

Deixis is the thing referred to by linguistic units outside the text or the discourse. The act of demonstrating or indicating the elements of a state through gestures or linguistic units is called deixis. Deictic is the name given to the linguistic elements such as pronouns, demonstrative nouns and adverbs which refer to the personal, spatial or temporal aspects of a speech act and which are, therefore, all directly related to the context surrounding its act of communication. Since the (...) references of the deixis expressions can only be identified within the context of actual communication, the subject is considered as a part of the pragmatics. This study aims to analyse the demonstrative nouns used in Qur’anic verses within the context of deixis and types of deixis, which are research areas of pragmatics, and to identify the types of deixis used in Qur’an. This study also aims to provide insight about how to present the references of demonstrative nouns especially in Qur’anic translations to be understood correctly by the readers. This is because the translations of Qur’an are presented in written form and the references of the deictic units are not expressed clearly in some of them. In this case, it is assumed that the reader might have difficulty understanding the meanings of the deixis such as “this, to this, these”. This study, firstly by studying deixis and types of deixis from the modern linguistics and pragmatics resources, aims to form a conceptual framework. After the first chapter, upon which the main problem of the study will be built, is completed, the demonstrative nouns are analysed in terms of their structural and referential aspects within balâg̲h̲a and tafsîr sources, classical Arabic language nahw sources being in the first place. After the obtained data is analysed, by associating the demonstrative nouns in Qur’anic verses to types of deixis, anaphora and cataphora, their references are determined. In this direction, firstly the demonstrative nouns in Qur’an will be identified and the type of deixis is tried to be explained by providing one example for each one of the demonstrative nouns in terms of their referential variety. For this purpose, this study highlights the demonstrative nouns which cannot be directly understood but only can be identified by checking the context. That is, the demonstrative nouns which take adjectives or which are adjectives themselves will not be included in the scope. The references of these nouns existing in the verses will be specifically analysed within the classical tafsîr works. This study is significant as it reveals the references of the demonstrative nouns by analysing the types of deixis in order to understand Qur’an more accurately. Though there are various studies regarding the demonstrative nouns, there are no studies found analysing the references of these nouns according to their types of deixis. With this study, it is understood that classical tafsîrs mention the deixis, types of deixis, and the references anaphora and cataphora for demonstrative nouns. As the demonstrative nouns, which are deictic elements, are used to point to all types of living and non-living creatures, they are considered as indefinite things. It is understood that for the other interpreters, the vagueness can only be eliminated by taking pragmatic factors such as the speaker, listener and the context of communication into consideration. 20 types of demonstrative nouns were used for a total of 1047 times in 89 different surahs. These demonstrative nouns are as following: “ذا، هذا، هذان، هاتين، هؤلاء، ذلك، ذانك، ذلكما، ذلكم، تلك، ذلكن، هذه، أولئك، أولئكم، أولاء، كذلك، كذلكم، هاهنا هنالك، ثم”. The fact that demonstrative nouns are used so often in Qur’an prove that these nouns are quite important in understanding the Qur’an. This study addresses the verses with demonstrative nouns in terms of types of deixis, as part of pragmatics, by referring to classical tafsîr and linguistic sources. It has been determined that demonstrative nouns in Qur’an make personal, spatial or temporal references, discourse deixis, anaphora and cataphora, however they do not perform as social deixis. It has been concluded that identifying the references of demonstrative nouns is quite important in understanding and interpreting Qur’an correctly. It is also understood that the methods to determine the references of demonstrative nouns by the sources used in the study have pragmatic characteristics. It is observed that the references of the demonstrative nouns are not presented in certain Qur’an translations. In this context, it has been concluded that stating the references of these nouns in written form for the translation of Qur’an into different languages is vital for these references to be understood correctly. It has also been concluded that it is a requirement in terms of pragmatics to take the references of the deictic elements mentioned especially in the primary sources into consideration. (shrink)

A character in a novel pulls a book from a shelf and starts to read about himself in a novel. Puzzling, but what does it really mean? Does it force us to fundamentally reconsider the nature of fiction? Does it turn the novel into a kind of liar's paradox? And what exactly is a liar's paradox, anyway? Does the liar's paradox, despite its name, have anything to do with lying? What, if anything, does the liar's paradox have to tell us (...) about reality, beliefs, and fictional discourse? (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to defend and justify the hypothesis that Perelman’s New Rhetoric can enable the French school of Discourse Analysis to readjust its theoretical positions concerning the ethics of discourse. While it is no longer necessary, in the wake of linguists such as Benveniste and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, to point out the founding role of the inscription of subjectivity in language, it is, paradoxically, still necessary to justify the legitimacy of choosing the axiological dimension of (...) class='Hi'>discourse and its ethical issues as a scientific object. Indeed, very few linguists view Perelman’s New Rhetoric as a logic and a “pragmatics” of values; most of them prefer to view it as a technical reservoir of types of arguments (Cf. concerning the critical enumeration and classification of references to the NR, raised in approximately forty linguistic works, Koren 2002: 197–228). So far, the notions of “guarantee” and “commitment” are integrated in pragmatic linguistic theories; but these notions have mostly to do with a “commitment” vis-à-vis a referential truth. Truth is still considered as the ultimate value, as the normative reference to every questioning on discursive rectitude. We are thus left with an epistemological lacuna, namely the integration of the responsibility for value judgments in linguistic theories, that could be partially answered for by the New Rhetoric. An editorial from Le Monde will be analyzed to illustrate this point of view. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle’s Phantasia in the Rhetoric:Lexis, Appearance, and the Epideictic Function of DiscourseNed O’GormanIntroductionThe well-known opening line of Aristotle's Rhetoric, where he defines rhetoric as a "counterpart" (antistrophos) to dialectic, has spurred many conversations on Aristotelian rhetoric and motivated the widespread interpretation of Aristotle's theory of civic discourse as heavily rationalistic. This study starts from a statement in the Rhetoric less discussed, yet still important, that suggests that a (...) visual aspect inheres in Aristotle's theory of rhetoric. Near the beginning of book 3, which deals with lexis (style, sometimes subsuming delivery1 ), Aristotle conjoins lexis and phantasia with the copula "is" (eimi): "The subject of expression [lexeôs], however, has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another does make some difference in regard to clarity, though not a great difference; but all these things are forms of outward show [phantasia] and intended to affect the audience" (1404a).2 Whereas scholars exploring the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic have compared and contrasted the Rhetoric and the Topics, I explore rhetoric's relationship with phantasia by reading the Rhetoric alongside De Anima. De Anima is Aristotle's seminal account of the senses and their relationship to psychê (often translated "soul"). It addresses topics intimately connected to rhetoric: perception, cognition, deliberation, visualization, imagination, and the image. Phantasia is integral to each of these psychic processes and to Aristotle's understanding of the function of appearance in human experience. Hence, itis a lens suitable for exploring the relationship between Aristotle's conception of civic discourse and his notions of sight and appearances as they relate to perception, interpretation, deliberation, and judgment. I find in Aristotle's phantasia a tie between his art of rhetoric and his psychology and phenomenology (anachronistic though these terms are). Aristotle's psychological works, as Richard McKeon points out, are foundational to Aristotle's philosophy, and thus to his Rhetoric. [End Page 16] "Psychological inquiries occupy an extremely important position in the philosophy of Aristotle, for the conception of the psychê lays the foundation for the continuity of functions in nature" (1947, 142). De Anima, especially, articulates the psychological and phenomenological conceptions often tacitly at work in the Rhetoric.The importance of phantasia for the trajectory of ancient rhetorical and aesthetic theory is seen in the parallels between the visual arts, rhetoric, and poetics in Greek and Roman thought.3 As David Freedberg states (perhaps, slightly overstates), parallels between painting and poetry are "to be found everywhere in classical literature" (1989, 50). With respect to such visual-verbal parallels in Aristotle, D. Thomas Benediktson's reading of Aristotle's psychological, poetic, and rhetorical works concludes that phantasia ties together the visual and the literary. "[Aristotle's passages on phantasia] do help to see why Aristotle took for granted the similarity, almost the identity, of literature and the visual arts. Both types of art are imagistic; they present to the viewer either an image, as in visual art, or as in literature, a set of moving images that the soul then uses as raw data (phantasia) to enable thought to occur" (2000, 170). Phantasia developed a legacy in Hellenistic aesthetics, where it came to designate suprarealism in painting, moving art "beyond imitation" (Fowler 1989, 180–81). In later Greco-Roman works, phantasia was used to designate vivid imagery in written and oral discourse, imagery that could create sights and scenes in the minds of audience members. As Quintilian noted in his discussion of forensic rhetoric, in Latin phantasiai were termed visiones. Here, phantasiabecame a mode of displacing narrative in rhetorical discourse:There are certain experiences which the Greeks call phantasiai, and the Romans visions [visiones], whereby things absent are presented to our imagination with such extreme vividness that they seem actually to be before our very eyes.... From such impressions arises that enargeia which Cicero calls illumination [illustration] and actuality [evidential], which makes us seem not so much to narrate [dicere] as to exhibit [ostendere] the actual scene.(Institutio Oratoria 4.2.29, 32)Quintilian's invocations of phantasia and enargeia can be traced to Aristotle's discussion of rhetorical style in book... (shrink)

The skopos of this new type of church Bible is: ‘How would the source texts of the Bible have sounded in Afrikaans in the context envisaged for its hypothesised first audience?’ Fully acknowledging the complexities of language as a dynamic and complex system embedded in the culture and conceptual world of its speakers, as well as the wide range of frames that are involved in the process of Bible translation as a difficult form of secondary communication, this article addresses (...) two of the challenges of this ambitious project. In the first section the incongruence between the world of the Old Testament and speakers of Afrikaans is treated. Examples are provided of instances where both the nature of difficult secondary intercultural communication as well as the subjective theories of the host audience constrains the ‘directness’ of the translation. In the second section, some of the challenges of distinguishing between the formal and functional features of Biblical Hebrew are dealt with. The article concludes that, although the notion ‘communicative clue’ provides a useful heuristic device to act as point of departure for negotiations on the construal of the meaning of the text in the source language and host language respectively, the notion has to be supplemented by insights from the fields of cultural anthropology, cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology. A better understanding of how meaning ‘works’ provides members of a translation team with some criteria to make informed decisions when they negotiate how the meaning of specific Biblical Hebrew constructions are to be construed ‘directly’ in Afrikaans.Keywords: Afrikaans Bibles; Bible translation; Biblical Hebrew; church Bible; code model; cognitive linguistics; cognitive semantics; communication model; communicative clue; direct translation; discourse marker; dynamic equivalent translation; functionalist tran. (shrink)

Grice's Quantity maxims have been widely misinterpreted as enjoining a speaker to make the strongest claim that she can, while respecting the other conversational maxims. Although many writers on the topic of conversational implicature interpret the Quantity maxims as enjoining such volubility, so construed the Quantity maxims are unreasonable norms for conversation. Appreciating this calls for attending more closely to the notion of what a conversation requires. When we do so, we see that eschewing an injunction to maximal informativeness need (...) not deprive us of any ability to predict or explain genuine cases of implicature. Crucial to this explanation is an appreciation of how what a conversation, or a given stage of a conversation, requires, depends upon what kind of conversation is taking place. I close with an outline of this dependence relation that distinguishes among three importantly distinct types of conversation. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the review and analysis of journalistic discourse from the perspective of its pragmatic characteristics. It has been suggested that any written text published on the pages of periodicals is a dialectical unity of language and media features, formed by three levels of mediaspeech: verbal text, the level of funds and the level of iconic graphic image is a part of a journalistic discourse. This type of discourse is related to the institutional (...) discourse. In order to identify characteristic features of journalistic discourse in the selected angle of study its definition is discussed, the notions of journalistic discourse and media text are divided, and on a material of modern German language the characteristics of the language code in the texts of journalistic discourse are identified. It is found that with the development of the theory of discourse, including journalistic discourse, the text is moving to the center of linguistic studies and it is analyzed in its interaction with the pragmatic factors. That linguistic pragmatics provides the basis for theoretical studies of the text as an appropriate discourse component and treats it as intentional communicative action, which is realized by means of appropriate lexical and morphological tools, terminology and grammar structures. The peculiar language of the text code is predetermined, first of all, communicative-pragmatic function performed by the analyzed text. (shrink)

Conventionally, proposals to improve working relations between sociology and history have been interdisciplinary. The present essay advances an alternative approach-consolidation of sociohistorical inquiry as a transdisciplinary enterprise. All socio-historical inquiry depends on four elemental forms of discourse: discourse on values, narrative discourse, social theoretical discourse, and the discourse of explanation. Though inquiry is transdisciplinary in the problematics of these discourses, concrete methodology typically is oriented either toward theorization in relation to cases (historical sociology) or toward (...) comprehensive analysis of a single phenomenon (sociological history). Varying the articulated relations among the four forms of discourse once for historical sociology and again for sociological history yields eight ideal typical strategies of inquiry. The four strategies of historical sociology include universal history, theory application, macro-analytic history, and contrast-oriented comparison. The parallel strategies for sociological history are situational history, specific history, configurational history, and historicism. These ideal types offer standard reference points that help clarify the underpinnings of a diverse range of scholarly practices. (shrink)

Discourse particles have received a considerable amount of scholarly attention in linguistic research. Although their use in specific text types has been discussed, few studies have actually attempted to look at the effect of text type on their use. Therefore, how the use of discourse particles is related to the situational context in which they are produced remains a largely unexplored area. In this article, the use of one of the most frequently occurring yet often overlooked (...) class='Hi'>discourse particles, so, in a number of monologic and dialogic texts is examined. Drawing on data from a spoken corpus of Hong Kong English, the present study shows that the frequency rates and functions of so as a discourse particle vary according to the text type in which it occurs. Findings from the study thus argue that the full range of functions realized by so as a discourse particle cannot be determined without taking into account the wide range of communicative events in which the particle is used. This highlights the fact that contextual cues are indispensable in the interpretation of the pragmatic meanings of discourse particles. (shrink)

This paper discusses the history of the confusion and controversies over whether the definition of consequence presented in the 11-page Tarski consequence-definition paper is based on a monistic fixed-universe framework—like Begriffsschrift and Principia Mathematica. Monistic fixed-universe frameworks, common in pre-WWII logic, keep the range of the individual variables fixed as ‘the class of all individuals’. The contrary alternative is that the definition is predicated on a pluralistic multiple-universe framework—like the Gödel incompleteness paper. A pluralistic multiple-universe framework recognizes multiple universes of (...) discourse serving as different ranges of the individual variables in different interpretations—as in post-WWII model theory. In the early 1960s, many logicians—mistakenly, as we show—held the ‘contrary alternative’ that Tarski had already adopted a Gödel-type, pluralistic, multiple-universe framework. We explain that Tarski had not yet shifted out of the monistic, Frege-Russell, fixed-universe paradigm. We further argue that between his Principia-influenced pre-WWII Warsaw period and his model-theoretic post-WWII Berkeley period, Tarski’s philosophy underwent many other radical changes. (shrink)

The author discusses the rational argumentation of the values from a proposal defended by the legal philosopher Robert Alexy. The paper shows that discourse for Alexy is essentially a regulated activity. A model of certain rules ensure the rationality and correctness of practical discourse oriented towards resolving conflicts of value. Firstly, the types of rules responsible for the rationality of practical argumentation are described. Secondly, some open problems relating to the claim to correctness of reasoned practical discourse (...) are posed, namely problems derived from the idea of consensus and that of a single correct answer to certain practical issues that include conflicts of values and raise basic disagreements. (shrink)

Context: The relation between language and reality, the problem of truth, and ontological questions in general belong to the perennial problems of philosophy. Although non-dualism deals with these problems and their presuppositions, it still remains at the periphery of philosophical discourse. Problem: How to deal with ontological questions within the non-dualizing mode of discourse. Method: The paper tries to reconstruct the origin of, and the interest in, ontological questions addressed to non-dualists; it discusses the possible types of answers (...) to these questions and proposes an alternative way of dealing with them. Results: Ontological questions cannot be formulated within a non-dualist conceptual framework and hence they cannot be answered. Implications: This paper tries to pave the way for leaving ontological questions behind and moving on to a different range of philosophical queries ensuing from a non-dualizing perspective. (shrink)

This article begins by identifying three key features of the traditional approach to defense and shows how these features reflect ideas from our philosophical tradition. It then presents an interpersonal reconceptualization of defense, which is guided by an alternative philosophical perspective based on what Merleau–Ponty referred to as "involved subjectivity." This reconceptualization, or theory of "interpersonal defense," calls for viewing defense primarily as interpersonal behavior, attending to the functional role it plays in ongoing interactions, and recognizing that defensive behavior is (...) a special type of problematic interpersonal pattern. Interpersonal defenses often are quite effective when it comes to avoiding clear-cut versions of feared interaction outcomes, but they make it virtually impossible for clear-cut versions of wished-for outcomes to occur, promote indirect versions of feared outcomes, and lead to highly distorted forms of wished-for consequences. They are characterized by a failure in how individuals integrate their behaviors in the context of interactions in which they are engaged as participants. This is a breach precisely in what the alternative philosophical perspective takes to be the core of human behavior. Defense represents a struggle against the person’s fundamental involvement in the world, and viewing it in this light helps us understand concrete features of the phenomena of interest. Implications of the theory of interpersonal defense for research and practice are discussed, including using discourse analysis to operationalize defensive behavior. The article concludes with the suggestion that the basis for defense involves a "fundamental fault-line" in human nature which concerns a delicate balance between integrating our actions in the contexts that make up our lives and attempting to control constraints of those situations. (shrink)

This article offers a descriptive and analytic view of the different stages leading to the constitution of a corpus that is representative of the issues of climate and energy justice. Overall, the corpus contains over five million words and gathers reports, newsletters and web-pages dealing with the most equitable ways of moving to a low-carbon future in the aim of limiting climate change. It can be divided into six sub-corpora, according to types of discourse communities, and methods of constitution. (...) We begin by presenting the small Do It Yourself (DIY) corpora which were used as a starting point. Three discourse communities were selected to observe possible variation in their treatment of the issue: Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), United-Nation institutions, and the Renewable Energy Sector (RES). The sources are selected according to author, date, keywords in title. Using the concordance Antconc and WMatrix software we test the reliability of the corpora for their thematic content, terminology and lexical unit classification. Our first results enable us to confirm variation between the discourse communities. The discrepancy in sizes and the time-consuming nature of the initial DIY corpus constitution lead us to use BootCat to extend them, using keywords from the corpora as seeds to retrieve and download webpages. We thus contrast a more traditional approach to corpus building to web-as-corpus data gathering methods. We compare the results found in the BootCat corpora to test if they are as specific as those in the DIY corpora. This enables us to draw conclusions on the possible uses and advantages of relatively small corpora for the study of specialised discourse. (shrink)

The word «history» can always be understood in two different meanings: as what happened in the past and as a story about the past. One and the same past can be described in different ways. The gap between historical events and representations of these events determines the diversity of historical discourses. Shifting the focus of the philosophy of history from identifying the con- ditions for the possibility of historical knowledge to the analysis of the process of historiography reflects an understanding (...) of the fundamental nature of historical discourses for the formation of pictures of the past. But the fascination with the subject of historical representation often overshadows what makes it possible in principle. Historical discourse is a modern narrative of the past. Thus, the condition for the possibility of historical discursiveness is the mediation of the horizons of the present and the past, which is a fundamental feature of the historicity of human existence. This article explains the discourses of memory and oppositional critical scientific history. Discourses of memory are considered as modern forms of manifestation of the historicity of human existence, because it is in them that the constant mediation of time horizons of the past and present becomes thematic. Critical history declaratively opposes the discourses of memory, but reveals the dependence of its methodological foundations on predetermined forms of under- standing the past presented in memory. The opposition between the discourses of memory and critical history structurally repeats the opposition of tradition and scientific history revealed in hermeneutics. The conceptual shift from tradition to memory reflects the fundamental changes in the modern understanding of historicity associated with the further detraditionalization and globalization of the world. Me- mory appears as a new form of understanding the past, associated with the fear of losing it, as well as understanding the distances and gaps in relation to it. Based on the differentiation of collective memory types, the corresponding types of dis- courses are distinguished. It is argued that historical discourses of identity cannot be identified with historical discourses of power, and historical-didactic and historical-aesthetic discourses are independent forms of modern attitude to the past. In an effort to separate critical reconstruc- tion from memory, scientific discourses become counterfactual to the taken for granted past, represented in the narratives of collective memory. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper, an attempt at an institutional history of ideas, compares patterns of reproduction of scientific knowledge in Catholic and Protestant educational institutions. Franciscus Eschinardus'Cursus Physico-Mathematicusand Jean-Robert Chouet'sSyntagma Physicumare examined for the strategies which allow for accommodation of new contents and new practices within traditional institutional frameworks. The texts manifest two different styles of inquiry about nature, each adapted to the peculiar constraints implied by its environment. The interpretative drive of Eschinardus and a whole group of “modern astronomers” is (...) here seen as pushing beyond the traditional task of “saving the phenomena,” towards celestial hermeneutics which is thoroughly experimental and mathematical. In spite of the insistence on physical interpretation of celestial phenomena, Eschinardus' astronomical discourse is yet constrained by a complex game of intellectual-political considerations. Commitment to the Thomistic organization of knowledge, which sets a boundary between a science of motion and the “geometry of heavens”, suppresses any impulse to ask about the mechanical causes of celestial appearances. The Copernican cosmology is thus rejected qua an attempt to cross this guarded boundary. Chouet in Geneva, by contrast, frees himself from these constraints on the organization of natural knowledge. By strictly separating philosophy from theology, he can combine physics and astronomy, favor a Copernican cosmology and adopt a Cartesian mechanistic worldview. Moreover, unlike the Jesuit Eschinardus, Chouet seeks toexplainnatural phenomena in terms of causes, rather than justinterpretthem. Yet he does so within a philosophical discourse largely scholastic in nature, which best suits the conservative institutional framework in which he teaches. Whereas the Jesuit Eschinardus employs a new type of discourse without severing his links with the traditional Thomistic worldview, the Calvinist Chouet adopts a new Cartesian worldview and adapts it to a largely traditional type of discourse. (shrink)

Public and professional debates have come to rely heavily on a special type of reasoning: the argument-from-ignorance, in which conclusions depend on the _lack_ of compelling information. "I win my argument," says the skillful advocate, "unless you can prove that I am wrong." This extraordinary gambit has been largely ignored in modern rhetorical and philosophical studies. Yet its broad force can be demonstrated by analogy with the modern legal system, where courts have long manipulated burdens of proof with skill (...) and subtlety. This legal, philosophical, and rhetorical study by Richard H. Gaskins provides the first systematic treatment of arguments-from-ignorance across a wide range of modern discourse—from constitutional law, scientific inquiry, and moral philosophy to organizational behavior, computer operation, and personal interaction. Gaskins reviews the historic shifts in constitutional proof burdens that have shaped public debate on fundamental rights and, by analogy, on the fundamental status of intellectual and cultural authority. He shows how similar shifts have dominated polemical battles between scientific and ethical modes of authority, affecting both academic and popular discussion. Finally, he discovers the philosophical roots of default reasoning strategies in the arguments of Kant and nineteenth-century Kantian schools. Concluding that shifting proof burdens are inescapable in a world of scientific and moral uncertainty, Gaskins emphasizes the common strategic ground shared by dogmatic and skeptical reasoning. Using Hegelian strategies, he describes a more pluralistic temper that can move critical thinking beyond polemics and strengthen our capacities for common discourse. (shrink)

The study is devoted to construct a typology of discourses about a miracle. Discourses are interpreted in this case not in a linguistic, but in a philosophical sense, as a certain “way of talking” about a chosen phenomenon. This includes the ontological and ideological position of the speaker (writer), emotional and value pathos, a communicative attitude or lack thereof, a message to the listener (reader) of specific views and beliefs. The author distinguishes three groups of discourses on the ideological basis: (...) 1) a miracle, understood as supernatural, but accessible for communication; 2) a miracle understood as a man-made, purely human phenomenon; 3) a miracle as the result of a “dual determination” coming from both the transcendent and the person himself. The miracle is initially interpreted in the article as a positive phenomenon that can be described and expressed in speech without directly naming the word itself. Within the first group of discourses, the following are considered: religious (Christian), mythological and fairy-tale discourse, and the fate-providentialist discourse is also highlighted. The second approach, connected with the denial of the supernatural, speaks of a miracle in the context of its scientific and technical creation, as well as hopes for a miracle within the framework of progressive and utopian concepts. The third type of discourses, combining the view of a miracle as coming from above and from the person himself, includes mystical-magical, existential and creativistic discourses - interpreting the theme of creativity. The mystical-magical discourse describes a miracle as the result of illumination and as a consequence of persistent spiritual searches. In the existential discourse, represented by fiction, there is also a place for describing a miracle as a magical nature and a magical fate. In creative discourse, the miracle is the very act of the birth of a new one. Summing up what has been said, the author emphasizes that he presents readers with nothing more than a sketch that requires further work and thematic disclosure. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article is devoted to describing results of conceptualization of the idea of mind at the stage of maturity. Delineated the acquisition by the energy system (mind) of stable morphological characteristics, which associated with such a pivotal formation as the discourse. A qualitative structural and ontological sign of the system transition to this stage is the transformation of the verbal morphology of the mind into a discursive one. The analysis of the poststructuralist understanding of discourse in the context (...) of the dispersion of meanings (Foucault) made it possible to formulate a notion of it as a meaning that is constituted by the relation between the discursive practice and the worldview, regarded as a meta-discourse or a global discursive formation. In consequence of this relationship, a discrete and simultaneous scattering of meanings arises, the procedural side of which is a concrete discourse, and its productive aspect is linked with the creation of a local discursive formation. Based on this view it is proposed a logical formula of discourse, which takes into account the entropy of the language and the entropy of the worldview, as a particular manifestation of the mind entropy. Using this formula and considering the reactive nature of discourse, it was developed a classification, which included such types of discourses as reactive, suggestive, synthetic and creative. In turn, the proposed types of discourses are correlated with the specific characteristics of certain activities, as a psychological category. Also, it was considered the translation of the structure of discourse dissipation from the cognitive plan into the affective sphere because of which it is formed a hierarchy of significances, which performs the sense-forming function. It was analyzed the inverse influence of the hierarchy of significances on the structure of meanings dispersion and for respective account it was introduced a conditional coefficient of the value deviation of the significance of the meanings. This parameter reflects the sense correction of the meaning that occurs in the process of the emergence of discourse from discursive practice. Thus, the discourse is presented as a complex dynamic formation of the mind arising at the maturity stage of the system as a result of the combined effect of entropic dispersion of meanings and the value deviation of their significances. (shrink)

The Franciscan William of Ockham (c.1285-c.1347) was the greatest theologian and philosopher of the first half of the fourteenth century. Spurred on by the activities of a papacy which he saw as destroying the very foundations of his Order, he devoted the last part of his life to examining the extent of papal power over Christians and its relationship to the secular government of people. On the Power of Emperors and Popes (1347) is his last work. Short, passionate and lucid, (...) it represents a distillation of his thought on these questions and forms an excellent and accessible introduction to his political thought as a whole. The extensive new annotations to the text bring to light the range of sources on which Ockham drew, while the new introduction places the work in its historical context and relates it to other works of medieval Franciscan political discourse. Translated here into English for the first time, the work will be of interest to all students and researchers in the field of medieval political thought. --the first English translation of Ockham's classic work, plus extensive new introduction, textual annotation, and bibliography --modern editorial apparatus connects the work with the whole body of Ockham's political thought --the new annotation provides historical and intellectual context and translations of Ockham's source references. (shrink)

The paper investigates various definitions of the concept of opinion as opposed to factual or evidence-based statements and proposes a taxonomy of opinions expressed in English as identified in selected social media. A discussion situates opinions in the realm of pragmatics and reaches to philosophy of language and cognitive science. The research methodology combines a thorough linguistic analysis of opinions, proposing their multifaceted taxonomy with the automatically generated lexical embeddings of positive and negative lexicon acquired from the analysed opinionated texts. (...) As proposed, the definition of the concept of opinion is best apprehended when looked upon in terms of an opinion event, with a number of necessary conditions on the one hand, and those that are characteristic of an explicit opinion prototype on the other. Lists of opinion discourse markers show their preferential uses either in positive or negative opinionated texts; however, no sets of necessary and/or sufficient opinion markers properties have been acquired from the analysed texts. The conclusions indicate a polysemous understanding of naturally occurring social media opinionated texts and a definitional flexibility of the boundaries around lexical positive and negative types of opinion markers. (shrink)

This paper examines a little studied type of perspective shift that I call protagonist projection, following Holton :625–628, 1997). PP is a way of describing the mental state of a protagonist that conveys, to some extent, her perspective. Similarly to its better known cousin free indirect discourse, the shift in perspective is achieved without an overt operator. Unlike FID, PP is not based on a presumed speech-act of a protagonist. Rather, it gives a linguistic form to pre-verbal perceptual (...) content, sensations, feelings or implicit beliefs. I propose to analyse PP in a bi-contextual framework, extending Eckardt’s approach to FID. Under the resulting analysis, FID and PP are two instances of a more general category of perspective shift. (shrink)

A framework for pragmatic analysis is proposed which treats discourse as a game, with context as a scoreboard organized around the questions under discussion by the interlocutors. The framework is intended to be coordinated with a dynamic compositional semantics. Accordingly, the context of utterance is modeled as a tuple of different types of information, and the questions therein — modeled, as is usual in formal semantics, as alternative sets of propositions — constrain the felicitous flow of discourse. A (...) requirement of Relevance is satisfied by an utterance (whether an assertion, a question or a suggestion) iff it addresses the question under discussion. Finally, it is argued that the prosodic focus of an utterance canonically serves to reflect the question under discussion (at least in English), placing additional constraints on felicity in context. (shrink)

I argue that imperatives express contents that are both cognitively and semantically related to, but nevertheless distinct from, modal propositions. Imperatives, on this analysis, semantically encode features of planning that are modally specified. Uttering an imperative amounts to tokening this feature in discourse, and thereby proffering it for adoption by the audience. This analysis deals smoothly with the problems afflicting Portner's Dynamic Pragmatic account and Kaufmann's Modal account. It also suggests an appealing reorientation of clause-type theorizing, in which (...) the cognitive act of updating on a typed sentence plays a central role in theorizing about both its semantics and role in discourse. (shrink)

In recent years scholars have begun to question the usefulness of the category of ''religion'' to describe a distinctive form of human experience and behavior. In his last book, The Ideology of Religious Studies (OUP 2000), Timothy Fitzgerald argued that ''religion'' was not a private area of human existence that could be separated from the public realm and that the study of religion as such was thus impossibility. In this new book he examines a wide range of English-language texts to (...) show how religion became transformed from a very specific category indigenous to Christian culture into a universalist claim about human nature and society. These claims, he shows, are implied by and frequently explicit in theories and methods of comparative religion. But they are also tacitly reproduced throughout the humanities in the relatively indiscriminate use of ''religion'' as an a priori valid cross-cultural analytical concept, for example in historiography, sociology, and social anthropology. Fitzgerald seeks to link the argument about religion to the parallel formation of the ''non-religious'' and such dichotomies as church-state, sacred-profane, ecclesiastical-civil, spiritual-temporal, supernatural-natural, and irrational-rational. Part of his argument is that the category ''religion'' has a different logic compared to the category ''sacred,'' but the two have been consistently confused by major writers, including Durkheim and Eliade. Fitzgerald contends that ''religion'' imagined as a private belief in the supernatural was a necessary conceptual space for the simultaneous imagining of ''secular'' practices and institutions such as politics, economics, and the Nation State. The invention of ''religion'' as a universal type of experience, practice, and institution was partly the result of sacralizing new concepts of exchange, ownership, and labor practices, applying ''scientific'' rationality to human behavior, administering the colonies and classifying native institutions. In contrast, shows Fitzgerald, the sacred-profane dichotomy has a different logic of use. (shrink)

This study analyses of the Living Memorial: a counter-monumental installation located since 2014 in the highly contested Szabadság (‘Liberty’) Square in central Budapest, Hungary. The focus on the LM allows showcasing it as a unique type of commemorative installation that not only contests the current Hungarian top-down, hegemonic narrations and practices of memory but also counteracts the country’s politicised and ideologised narrations of the past. The LM is explored as a dialogical ‘nexus’ of, on the one hand, individual, lived (...) experiences of the Holocaust in Hungary in 1944–45 and, on the other, of the wider historical and contemporary socio-historical narratives as well as commemorating practices. Presented in the article – and set against the wider input from memory and commemoration research – the systematic, discourse-ethnographic analysis of the Living Memorial links its discursive and visual as well as spatial aspects with the exploration of various types of spectator engagement. In doing so, the article connects the wider context of memory and commemoration in the national and city spaces – and specifically in the often strongly politicised capital milieus – to the specific, localised contexts of ‘commemorative battlegrounds’ wherein ‘official’ displays of memory clash with, and are opposed by, their bottom-up, counterhegemonic contestations. (shrink)

This article focuses on discursive regularities that can generally be observed in text corpora produced in similar communication situations (medical interviews, political debates, teaching classes, etc.). One type of such regularities is related to the so-called ‘discourse genres’, considered as a set of tacit instructions broadly constraining the forms of utterances in a given discursive practice. Those regularities highlight the relatively regulated, non-random nature of most of our discursive practices and epitomize the necessary constrained creativity of meaning making (...) in discourse. In this perspective, we suggest that the concepts of Thirdness and Habit, as theorized by Charles S. Peirce, can be fruitful in describing the role and importance of such regularities in our sociodiscursive life. More specifically, we believe that discourse regularities are ideal case studies if one wishes to investigate instances of predictability in semiotic (discursive) processes. Overall, we suggest that their study can be one of many research orientations through which a prediction-based scientific conception of semiotics could be applied. (shrink)

The debates on the scientificity of social sciences in general, and sociology in particular, are recurring. From the original methodenstreitat the end the 19th Century to the contemporary controversy on the legitimacy of “regional epistemologies”, a same set of interrogations reappears. Are social sciences really scientific? And if so, are they sciences like other sciences? How should we conceive “research programs” Lakatos (1978) or “research traditions” for Laudan (1977) able to produce advancement of knowledge in the field of social and (...) human phenomena? Is the progress of knowledge in social sciences similar to the one generally observed in natural sciences? Is it possible to evaluate the relative merits of each one of these research programs? -/- These debates are important vectors of social and intellectual polarization. The historical divide between the positivist and the hermeneutics poles precedes the structure of the contemporary debate around the epistemic space of social sciences, It is not only a question of renewing the opposition between a monist view of sciences (e.g. McIntyre, 1996) and a dualistic one (e.g. Geertz, 1973) or even a trialist view of sciences (e.g. Lepenies, 1985). It is also a question of asserting dichotomies transformed into framework (including when it is a question of exceeding them): nature-culture, nomothetic-idiographic, models-narrative, structure-history, cause-reason, explanation-comprehension. -/- In this short introduction, we provide, in section 2, a first overview of this epistemological debate in social science. Section 3 proposes a different standpoint on the same questions, by introducing both ontological and methodological aspects in this basic epistemological debate. Namely, following (Hollis, 1994) oppositions of the explanation - understanding, causes - meaning, etc., types discussed in the firsts ection are comparatively examined together with oppositions of the structure - action, holism - individualism types. This allows us to discus show multi-agent design, by integrating various dimensions and standpoints in the same framework (Phan, Amblard, 2007, Chapters 1, 5, 14) can help us to shift these boundaries, and to bypass these oppositions. As model building and ontology design are at the core of this process (Phan, Amblard, 2007, Chapter 12), Section4 discusses various issues of the art of modelling, starting both from economists’ and sociologists’ current standpoints. (shrink)