Dimensions of Metaphorical Meaning

Recent work suggests that concreteness and imageability play an important role in the meanings of figurative expressions. We investigate this idea in several ways. First, we try to define more precisely the context within which a figurative expression may occur, by parsing a corpus annotated for metaphor. Next, we add both concreteness and imageability as “features” to the parsed metaphor corpus, by marking up words in this corpus using a psycholinguistic database of scores for concreteness and imageability. Finally, we carry out detailed statistical analyses of the augmented version of the original metaphor corpus, cross-matching the features of concreteness and imageability with others in the corpus such as parts of speech and dependency relations, in order to investigate in detail the use of such features in predicting whether a given expression is metaphorical or not

The Meaning of Dimensions

We review the current status of dimensions, as the result of a long and controversial history that includes input from philosophy and physics. Our conclusion is that they are subjective but essential concepts which provide a kind of book-keeping device, their number increasing as required by advances in physics. The world almost certainly has more than the four dimensions of space and time, but the introduction of the fifth and higher dimensions requires a careful approach wherein known results are embedded and new ones are couched in the most productive manner

A Bi-Polar Theory of Nominal and Clause Structure and Function

It is taken as axiomatic that grammar encodes meaning. Two key dimensions of meaning that get grammatically encoded are referential meaning and relational meaning. The key claim is that, in English, these two dimensions of meaning are typically encoded in distinct grammatical poles—a referential pole and a relational pole—with a specifier functioning as the locus of the referential pole and a head functioning as the locus of the relational pole. Specifiers and heads combine to form referring expressions corresponding to the syntactic notion of a maximal projection. Lexical items and expressions functioning as modifiers are preferentially attracted to one pole or the other. If the head of an expression describes a relation, one or more complements may be associated with the head. The four grammatical functions specifier, head, modifier and complement are generally adequate to represent much of the basic structure and function of nominals and clauses. These terms are borrowed from X-Bar Theory, but they are motivated on semantic grounds having to do with their grammatical function to encode referential and relational meaning

Homelessness and the meaning of home: rooflessness or rootlessness?

This paper has several objectives. These are: (1) to analyse the meaning of homelessness in the light of recent contributions on the meaning of home: (2) to criticize some current perspectives on homelessness as a social problem; (3) to identify and explore a number of different dimensions of the meaning of home and homelessness; (4) to reassess the evidence on the context of home and homelessness, and re-examine the meaning of homelessness in the light of that reassessed evidence; and (5) to explain the political meaning of homelessness as expressed in official definitions, legislation and state provision (or lack of it)

Dimensions of social meaning in post-classical Greek towards an integrated approach

Especially in the first half of the twentieth century, language was viewed as a vehicle for the transmission of facts and ideas. Later on, scholars working in linguistic frameworks such as Functional and Cognitive Linguistics, (Historical) Sociolinguistics and Functional Sociolinguistics, have emphasized the social relevance of language, focusing, for example, on linguistic concepts such as deixis, modality, or honorific language, or embedding larger linguistic patterns in their social contexts, through notions such as register, sociolect, genre, etc. The main aim of this article is to systematize these observations, through an investigation of how the central, though ill-understood notion of “social meaning” can be captured. The starting point for the discussion is the work that has been done in the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. This framework distinguishes “social” (“interpersonal”) meaning from two other types of meaning, and offers a typology of different types of contexts with which these different meanings resonate. In order to achieve a more satisfactory account of social meaning, however, I argue that we need to connect to a theory of how signs convey meaning. The discussion is relevant for Ancient Greek in its entirety, but focuses specifically on Post-classical Greek: as a case study, I discuss five private letters from the so-called Theophanes archive

Dimensionally continued Oppenheimer-Snyder gravitational collapse II: solutions in odd dimensions

The Lovelock gravity extends the theory of general relativity to higher dimensions in such a way that the field equations remain of second order. The theory has many constant coefficients with no a priori meaning. Nevertheless it is possible to reduce them to two, the cosmological constant and Newton's constant. In this process one separates theories in even dimensions from theories in odd dimensions. In a previous work gravitational collapse in even dimensions was analysed. In this work attention is given to odd dimensions. It is found that black holes also emerge as the final state of gravitational collapse of a regular dust fluid.Comment: 16 pages, 3figures, latex Journal: to appear in Journal of Mathematical Physic

Measuring meaning in life

The present studies addressed the need for a comprehensive, economical, and psychometrically adequate measure of existential meaning. In Study 1, principal-axis factor analysis of participants’ responses to popular meaning measures identified five latent constructs underlying them, labelled purposeful life, principled life, valued life, exciting life, and accomplished life. These dimensions resonate with the meaning in life concept as= understood by Frankl (1963) and the panoply of subsequent theoretical definitions (e.g. Battista and Almond 1973). Study 2 used these results as a foundation for developing a psychometrically satisfactory self-report questionnaire of each of these aspects of meaning in life. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) validated a five-factor structure, with each factor loading on a common second-order factor. Study 3 provided evidence for this new measure’s convergent validity and economic property. The final Meaningful Life Measure is reported and provides comprehensive but differentiated measurement of the meaning in life construct

Meaning in midlife : content or process? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University

This study takes a qualititative approach to examine midlife experiences of meaning. The trend in previous research has been to find sources of meaning in people's lives. Reker and Wong's (1988) theory of the structure of meaning is explored in relation to previous studies. Depth of meaning is reviewed, and a model proposed of the dimensions of meaning including sources; cognitive, motivational and affective components; breadth; and depth. There were difficulties with the measurement of depth which was found to be non-linear. The model was confirmed by in-depth interviews with 38 adults in midlife, especially the dimensions of components and categories. The results support a process (dimensions) approach to meaning in life. The model was revised in the light of the data, to incorporate the dynamic movement between dimensions, and the formation of cognitive frameworks of meaning

Identifying key Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) dimensions associated with academic success amongst postgraduate medical students

Many elements have been identified as contributors of academic success amongst medical students but to group these components in order to develop guidelines for intervention strategies is atypical. One such tool which could allow this possibility is the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) developed by the University of Bristol. ELLI is an online self-assessment instrument which identifies and measures the dimensions of learner development. It comprises of 90 key questions used to measure the seven dimensions of learning power: changing and learning; meaning making; critical curiosity; creativity; learning relationships; strategic awareness and resilience. This study used ELLI to explore learning dimensions as potential drivers for academic success. A small cohort of thirty-three first year postgraduate medical students consented and completed the first ELLI before starting formal classes. Only eighteen of these completed it a second time, 45 days later. The data from the ELLI questionnaires were analysed both for the whole cohort and separately for each academic performance group (defined using grade point averages). The results showed that the students obtained the highest scores for the meaning making or changing and learning dimensions, and the lowest scores for creativity or resilience. After a period of postgraduate study, only the successful students displayed significant improvements in the mean ELLI scores, with increases for all ELLI dimensions apart from resilience. Those who were less successful made declines in more than one dimension. It was concluded that ELLI is an effective instrument for identifying key learning dispositions and it is proposed that an intervention could be developed in the future to improve academic achievement