What we mean when we talk about bisexuality : a critical discourse analysis of self-definitions by bi-identified people online

A Critical Discourse Analysis on the language used by bisexual people when defining bisexuality. The aim of the thesis is to define current discourses about bisexuality within the modern frameworks of sexuality and gender and explain why bisexuality lacks the stability and visibility of other minority sexualities. The material is gathered from profiles submitted to a website with the purpose to educate about and bring visibility to bisexuality. Research is conducted according to Fairclough’s methodology and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics within the framework of postmodern critical theory. Despite the frequent use of relational intensive process verbs, clauses defining bisexuality are marked as subjective with the choice of Subject and circumstantial information. Bisexuality is defined by what it is not by rejection of stereotypes. The lack of established cultural imagery shows that bisexuality cannot be performed as an identity. Additionally, it cannot be categorized as a sexual orientation, because it is not supported by the gender frameworks that define sexual attraction. For bisexuality to exist as a solid sexual identity, sexual and gender frameworks need to be redefined

Simple Goodness and Ethical Theory

This work is an examination of the concept of simple goodness and its role in ethicaltheory. I argue on pragmatic and epistemic grounds that simple goodness (SG), commonly referred to as good simpliciter, is problematic for ethical theory and for ethical discourse generally. I begin by defining SG, focusing on the original account developed by G.E. Moore, and I argue that it is an intrinsic value in several senses. I review the arguments of prominent critics of SG, namely Peter Geach, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Richard Kraut, who focus on the logical and metaphysical puzzles inherent to the concept of SG. I argue that concerns raised in these critiques can be traced back to Aristotle\u27s critique of the Platonic form of the good. I do share some of these concerns, but I argue that SG faces more serious problems when used in contemporary ethical theory. I apply insights from feminist ethics and applied ethics to demonstrate how SG is used to support faulty methods of moral justification that privilege the perspectives of those with social power to the exclusion of alternative views. I argue SG is primarily invoked to support theoretical idealizations that offer the impression of philosophical sophistication at the expense of moral understanding. Relying on SG obscures moral justification and the lived experience of making and defending moral claims, thereby encouraging us to unreflectively endorse established moral norms. Finally, I suggest that new methods of moral justification being developed by feminist ethicists can provide a solution to the problems that emerge in the wake of my critique of SG

The Role of Lexical Morphology, In Light of Recent Developments.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in psycholinguistic approaches to modelling morphology. Theorists working within this framework claim that the formal theory of lexical stratification is untenable in light of recent discoveries. In order to address these claims, this paper engages closely with a number of lexical stratification models, with a particular focus on Giegerich’s base-driven stratal model, as well as a number of cognitive based approaches. A critical discussion of some “problematic” circumstances — which arise as a result of derivational suffixation as well as compounding — that have identified in the psycholinguistic and lexicalist literature reveals some interesting similarities between the stratal model and the cognitive approaches. To investigate these apparent similarities, this paper examines a number of theories that model the way words are accessed from the mental lexicon, and their applicability to the stratal model. Finally, key data from a number of neuro-imaging studies is brought to bear upon the stratal model. Engaging closely with this data, it became clear that the neuro-linguistic findings are not incompatible with the features of stratal models. By exploiting this data, some ideas regarding a potential synthesis between the two theoretical frameworks are tentatively put forward, and some key issues are highlighted as possible areas of interest for future research

Prevođenje neologizama u fantastici: analiza romana The Name of the Wind Patricka Rothfussa i njegovog hrvatskog prijevoda

This paper deals with the creation and translation of neologisms in the fantasy genre on the example of the novel The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and its Croatian translation. By extracting neologisms unique to the novel and isolating their creation processes and translation procedures, it aims to examine the amount of lexical creativity and innovation in the novel and its translation. In doing so, it investigates how and why neologisms are created and translated in fantasy literature and what challenges they entail. Drawing on theoretical models proposed by P. Stockwell, Algeo, Minkova and R. Stockwell, and Newmark, the study assumes that transference and naturalization are the least frequent translation procedures, while creations de novo or entirely new coinages are the most productive neologism creation processes. The results show the dominance of transference and naturalization and the dominance of compounded forms, as opposed to creations de novo. Although Rothfuss’ highly inventive and creative language poses challenges to the translator, she manages to retain lexical creativity and innovation. These findings on neologisms as specificities of the fantasy genre can be expanded on and applied to other works by the author or other Croatian translations of fantasy novels.Ovaj se rad bavi stvaranjem i prijevodom neologizama u fantastici na primjeru romana The Name of the Wind Patricka Rothfussa i njegova hrvatskog prijevoda. Izdvajanjem neologizama koji se javljaju isključivo u tom djelu te određivanjem procesa stvaranja neologizama i njihovih prijevodnih postupaka, istraživanjem se želi utvrditi količina leksičke kreativnosti i inovativnosti u romanu i njegovu prijevodu. Cilj je doznati kako i zašto dolazi do stvaranja i prevođenja neologizama u fantastici te na koje se izazove pritom nailazi. Teorijski modeli P. Stockwella, Algea, Minkove i R. Stockwella te Newmarka predstavljaju temelj hipoteza da su prijenos i naturalizacija najmanje zastupljeni prijevodni postupci, a da su tvorenice de novo odnosno potpuno nove kovanice najproduktivniji procesi stvaranja neologizama. Rezultati pokazuju da su prijenos i naturalizacija najzastupljeniji postupci, dok među procesima stvaranja neologizama prevladavaju složeni oblici, a ne tvorenice de novo. Iako Rothfussov iznimno inovativan i kreativan način izražavanja prevoditeljici predstavlja mnoge izazove, ona ih svladava uz očuvanje leksičke kreativnosti i inovativnosti. Ova saznanja o neologizmima, posebnostima fantastične književnosti mogla bi se dalje proširiti i primijeniti u istraživanjima drugih Rothfussovih djela ili drugih hrvatskih prijevoda fantastičnih romana

Prevođenje neologizama u fantastici: analiza romana The Name of the Wind Patricka Rothfussa i njegovog hrvatskog prijevoda

This paper deals with the creation and translation of neologisms in the fantasy genre on the example of the novel The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and its Croatian translation. By extracting neologisms unique to the novel and isolating their creation processes and translation procedures, it aims to examine the amount of lexical creativity and innovation in the novel and its translation. In doing so, it investigates how and why neologisms are created and translated in fantasy literature and what challenges they entail. Drawing on theoretical models proposed by P. Stockwell, Algeo, Minkova and R. Stockwell, and Newmark, the study assumes that transference and naturalization are the least frequent translation procedures, while creations de novo or entirely new coinages are the most productive neologism creation processes. The results show the dominance of transference and naturalization and the dominance of compounded forms, as opposed to creations de novo. Although Rothfuss’ highly inventive and creative language poses challenges to the translator, she manages to retain lexical creativity and innovation. These findings on neologisms as specificities of the fantasy genre can be expanded on and applied to other works by the author or other Croatian translations of fantasy novels.Ovaj se rad bavi stvaranjem i prijevodom neologizama u fantastici na primjeru romana The Name of the Wind Patricka Rothfussa i njegova hrvatskog prijevoda. Izdvajanjem neologizama koji se javljaju isključivo u tom djelu te određivanjem procesa stvaranja neologizama i njihovih prijevodnih postupaka, istraživanjem se želi utvrditi količina leksičke kreativnosti i inovativnosti u romanu i njegovu prijevodu. Cilj je doznati kako i zašto dolazi do stvaranja i prevođenja neologizama u fantastici te na koje se izazove pritom nailazi. Teorijski modeli P. Stockwella, Algea, Minkove i R. Stockwella te Newmarka predstavljaju temelj hipoteza da su prijenos i naturalizacija najmanje zastupljeni prijevodni postupci, a da su tvorenice de novo odnosno potpuno nove kovanice najproduktivniji procesi stvaranja neologizama. Rezultati pokazuju da su prijenos i naturalizacija najzastupljeniji postupci, dok među procesima stvaranja neologizama prevladavaju složeni oblici, a ne tvorenice de novo. Iako Rothfussov iznimno inovativan i kreativan način izražavanja prevoditeljici predstavlja mnoge izazove, ona ih svladava uz očuvanje leksičke kreativnosti i inovativnosti. Ova saznanja o neologizmima, posebnostima fantastične književnosti mogla bi se dalje proširiti i primijeniti u istraživanjima drugih Rothfussovih djela ili drugih hrvatskih prijevoda fantastičnih romana

Graph Theory and Universal Grammar

Tese arquivada ao abrigo da Portaria nº 227/2017 de 25 de Julho-Registo de Grau EstrangeiroIn the last few years, Noam Chomsky (1994; 1995; 2000; 2001) has gone quite far in the direction of simplifying syntax, including eliminating X-bar theory and the levels of D-structure and S-structure entirely, as well as reducing movement rules to a combination of the more primitive operations of Copy and Merge. What remain in the Minimalist Program are the operations Merge and Agree and the levels of LF (Logical Form) and PF (Phonological form). My doctoral thesis attempts to offer an economical theory of syntactic structure from a graph-theoretic point of view (cf. Diestel, 2005), with special emphases on the elimination of category and projection labels and the Inclusiveness Condition (Chomsky 1994). The major influences for the development of such a theory have been Chris Collins’ (2002) seminal paper “Eliminating labels”, John Bowers (2001) unpublished manuscript “Syntactic Relations” and the Cartographic Paradigm (see Belletti, Cinque and Rizzi’s volumes on OUP for a starting point regarding this paradigm). A syntactic structure will be regarded here as a graph consisting of the set of lexical items, the set of relations among them and nothing more

The Anxiety of Social Influence

The paper ostensibly refers to Harold Bloom’s categories of the anxiety of influence. Bloom’s theory is treated as an immanentist one, i.e. text/aesthetics/personality-oriented, which is specific to the period in which the theory was developed. However, at least from the 80s of the XXth century, there occurs a visible change towards sociologization of all the human sciences. The paper appropriates and resignificates Bloom’s categories and intermingles them with the concepts of social psychology in order to enable a description of the condition of writers in the current social contex

Considerations on the Meaning of Maps and Territories in the Letter by Pêro Vaz de Caminha (1500) and in the poem “Tabacaria” [Tobacco Shop] (1928) by Álvaro de Campos/Fernando Pessoa

We explore the thematic universe of the voyage as seen, first, in an important historical document written by Pêro Vaz de Caminha [c. 1450-1500], who relates – as the sole or the most important scribe, historically speaking, present in Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet – the moment of the Portuguese discovery of the Brazilian coast in 1500 and, secondly, in regard to Álvaro de Campos [1889-1933, according to his “biographer” Fernando Pessoa], who observes from his window the (modernist) boundary between senseborne reality and metaphysical otherness, i.e., the intersection of speculative consciousness at the edge of communicability with the infinite, as seen in the poem “Tabacaria” (1928). By way of Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes (The Selfish Gene, 1976), as well as Edward T. Hall’s theory of proxemics (The Hidden Dimension, 1966) we examine aspects of maps (as models and narratives of otherness within the logic of empire) and the nature of territories (as an analogue to Barthes’ theory of the text(e). Specifically, our reading of the two documents contrasts Caminha’s material and mental map making as a tool implicit within the larger narrative of empire with Campos’ use of territory as an aspect of textuality, exemplifying Pessoa’s artistic project of creating a renewed civilization of the spirit or immaterial being.authorsversionpublishe