English Text Construction - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2018

Abstract

Critics reading narratives as progressions, that’s to say, from beginning to end, prefer to see meaning emerge as a result of the interaction between different elements in the narrative, rather than of the imposition of a priori cultural schemata. This article, however, argues for the possibility of using a priori cultural schemata, as long as these pass through the filters established by theories of narrative progression. To show how this is done, I will interpret Frank Miller’s comic 300 by letting a tool of cultural-semantic analysis interact with narrative tension in the form of suspense, curiosity, and surprise. I argue that the back and forth between narrative tension and the tool accounts not only for the content of the comic but also for its basic narrative rhythm.

Abstract

This article explores dimensions of dramatic structure which the literary linguistic analysis of a play text can illuminate within an integrated model of dramatic significance. The play to be examined is John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, known for its lexical richness, denseness of dramatic expression and not least the structural creativity of its Hiberno-English, all of which provide an abundant fund of textual semiotics for the present drama-specific literary linguistic analysis. The dimensions of the play investigated are (i) those of its ‘constitution’, which linguistically comprises dialogue and stage directions, and characterisation, plot and setting as traditional constituents of dramatic structure in their own right; and (ii) those of its ‘realisation’ as literary work, staging production and theatre performance and the associated addressivity of materially the same play text at each of these levels. As such, it will be shown that the employment of, and further development of, a linguistic model of social semiotics (after Halliday 1978; Fairclough 2003) enables a unified account to be given of the dramatic meanings a play text expresses at these two levels of its internal construction and its external actualisation.

Abstract

This paper provides an examination of the use of metadiscourse in the two versions of The Birth of Mankind, the first midwifery manual to be printed in English during the sixteenth century. It is a translation of a Latin text, which itself is a translation of the German Rosengarten. While much has been made of the differences in the use of medical terminology in various versions, little attention has been paid to what differences – if any – exist in the ways the various authors/translators signal text structure or use other overt markers to the reader as to how the text is to be read or understood. Corpus linguistic methods are employed to provide a quantitative angle on the analysis of these texts.

Abstract

The aim of the study is to explore online conference announcements as sites for disciplinary communication and the way they are realized linguistically. A corpus of 50 conference announcements included in a major listserv in the field of linguistics is analysed, focusing on rhetorical structure and major interpersonal features, namely self mentions, engagement markers, modal verbs and the use of passive voice. Results show that linguistic interpersonal markers are deployed in the text according to the various communicative functions the text has and also the role played by the writer at each stage and, subsequently, the roles ascribed to readers. Moreover, it is claimed that the wide distribution of conference announcements ensured through electronic platforms reinforces the strategic role of these texts as vehicles of communication and interaction among disciplinary members.

Abstract

This article uses Text World Theory (Werth 1999; Gavins 2007) in conjunction with VUE (Visual Understanding Environment) concept mapping software to analyze three statements from the trial of Amanda Knox, who was charged (along with her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito) with the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007. We compare the cognitive patterns (i.e. text-worlds) as reflected in Knox’s statements and use the insights gained to guide an examination of their individual linguistic features and associated potential legal implications. In the first two dictated statements, Knox is projected as an actor responsible for the reported actions/events that implicate her in the crime, whereas in the third statement (handwritten in English), she is projected as a senser, presenting more prominent epistemic uncertainty and indicating bewilderment. Further micro-level linguistic comparison indicates signs of textual alteration in the first two statements, i.e. crucial text was altered and thus resulted in a change of meaning and legal significance.

This article reviews Shakespeare and Conceptual Blending: Cognition, Creativity, Criticism978-3-319-62186-9.

This article reviews The Abstraction Engine: Extracting Patterns in Language, Mind and Brain978-90-2721-361-7.