Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Japanese Modernism And Cine-Text : Fragments And Flows At Empire\u27s Edge In Kitagawa Fuyuhiko And Yokomitsu Riichi

This article notes that Kitagawa Fuyuhiko\u27s writings from the 1920s and 1930s, together with the contemporaneous works of prose author Yokomitsu Riichi, are strongly marked by the confluence of the literary and the cinematic. Kitagawa and Yokomitsu\u27s engagement with film was not limited to a fascination with the precision, objectivity, or mobility of the “camera eye.” Rather, it extended to the entire ability of the cinematic apparatus to capture the temporality of objects in motion, and of the ability of the filmmaker to organize segments of space into a new synthetic whole. The article explores this confluence through a brief examination of four instances of “cine-text”: Kitagawa\u27 poetry collection War, Yokomitsu\u27 novel Shanghai, the concept of literary formalism Yokomitsu proposed around the year 1930, and the theory of the “prose film” that Kitagawa unveiled in the following decade

Wearable performance

This is the post-print version of the article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & FrancisWearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment. Wearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment

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This article analyses the idea of "cool" and its production in relation to cities and their representation in film. It focuses on Wim Wenders' 1995 film "Lisbon Story" and Fatih Akin's "Crossing the Bridge" (2005) and examines how they represent their respective cities and how this image relates to other representations of the cities

Accounting for causal constructions within the framework of the Lexical Constructional Model

Este artículo se propone examinar las construcciones de causalidad, centrándose en una clase verbal en particular, a saber, los verbos de cambio de estado específico. El paso más importante consiste en encontrar un marco teórico capaz de dar cuenta del complejo comportamiento sintáctico de estos verbos y de lograr un equilibrio entre las configuraciones de bajo y alto nivel. El presente estudio también demuestra que los constrictores externos formulados por el Modelo Léxico Construccional constituyen herramientas analíticas útiles para la subsunción de esta clase verbal en la construcción intransitiva de causalidad. Los constrictores externos se refieren a mecanismos cognitivos como la metáfora y la metonimia de alto nivel. Estos producen un cambio en la perspectiva de un predicado que le permite subsumirse fácilmente en una construcción dada. This article sets out to examine causal constructions by focusing on a particular verbal class, namely, entity-specific change-of-state verbs. The most important step consisted in finding a theoretical framework capable of accounting for the intricate syntactic behavior of these verbs and of giving equal importance to the contribution of both lower-level and high-level configurations. The present study also shows that the external constraints formulated by the Lexical Constructional Model constitute useful analytical tools for the integration of this verbal class into the intransitive causal construction. The external constraints involve cognitive mechanisms such as high-level metaphor and metonymy, which produce a change in perspective of a lexical predicate and allow it to be easily subsumed into a given construction

Teaching of the Fiction and Film Unit in the High School with Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and Bluestone’s Bartleby as Models

Because literature teachers have little understanding of the art of film, they often consider the film to be a frill rather than an aid to learning. The author contends in this study that literature teachers must be convinced that the motion picture is an art, and that the motion picture teaches the student to appreciate and understand literature more thoroughly. The problem is to convince the literature teacher of the art and the power of the film

Film as Embodied Art

How do the visuals of Kubrick’s work convey complex concepts and abstractions without the traditional reliance on words? And how does the pure instrumental music in his films express meaning when music, in essence, is an abstract art form? Drawing on state-of-the-art research in embodied cognitive science, this book sets out to explore these questions by revealing Kubrick as a genuine conceptual artist, a filmmaker who perhaps more than any other director, uses all the non-verbal resources of filmmaking in such a controlled and dense manner as to elicit the bodily structures necessary to achieve a level of conceptual understanding

STORY: A hierarchical animation and storyboarding system for alpha-1

Journal ArticleWe introduce an integrated animation and storyboarding system that simplifies the creation and refinement of computer generated animations. The framework models both the process and product of an animated sequence, making animation more accessible for communication and as an art form. The system adopts a novel approach to animation by integrating storyboards and the traditional film hierarchy in a computer animation system. Traditional animation begins with storyboards representing important moments in a film. These storyboards are structured into shots and scenes which form a standard hierarchy. This hierarchy is important to long animations because it reduces the complexity to manageable proportions. We also introduce the animation proof reader, a tool for identifying awkward camera placement and motion sequences using traditional film production rules