Metaphors of cancer in scientific popularisation articles in the English and Spanish press

This thesis provides an account of the metaphors of cancer in a comparable English and Spanish corpus of 300 press popularisation articles. The aim is to identify relevant source domains that are employed in these articles to conceptualise the disease. Although a number of studies have explored the use of WAR metaphors in the discourse on cancer, there is still little understanding of the actual way cancer is presented metaphorically to the lay public in the press or of the range of source domains that conceptualise the target domain. Thus, in addition to the WAR, VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION source domain, this study focuses on other metaphorical systems exploited to elucidate such aspects as metastasis, apoptosis, cancer treatments and cancer research. A text analysis was carried out with the aid of a corpus software program. The metaphors in the two subcorpora were compared quantitatively and qualitatively for cross-cultural differences in terms of their functions and patterning. Although cancer knowledge is popularised through similar metaphorical expressions, subtle differences have been identified in terms of metaphor density, choice of metaphor and the functions performed by these expressions.Esta tesis describe las metáforas del cáncer en un corpus bilingüe inglés-español de 300 artículos de divulgación en la prensa. El objetivo ha sido identificar los distintos dominios fuente relevantes que se emplean en la conceptualización de la enfermedad. Aunque varios trabajos han estudiado las metáforas bélicas utilizadas en el discurso del cáncer, todavía se sabe poco de la forma en la que el cáncer se representa mediante metáforas al público lego y de la variedad de dominios fuente que conceptualizan el dominio meta. Así, además del dominio fuente de la GUERRA, VIOLENCIA Y AGRESIÓN, este estudio se centra en otros sistemas metafóricos empleados para clarificar diversos aspectos como la metástasis, la apoptosis, los tratamientos del cáncer y la investigación oncológica. El análisis textual se ha realizado con la ayuda de un programa informático de análisis de corpus textuales. Las metáforas de ambos subcorpus se han comparado cuantitativa y cualitativamente con el fin de identificar diferencias transculturales en relación a las funciones y a los patrones de las mismas. Aunque el conocimiento sobre el cáncer se divulga a través de expresiones metafóricas similares, se pueden apreciar pequeñas diferencias en relación a la densidad metafórica, la elección de las metáforas y las funciones que estas expresiones desempeñan

A Novel Graphic Syntax: An investigation into how a GPS-enabled wayfinding interface can be designed to visually support urban recreational walkers’ situation awareness

GPS-enabled wayfinding interfaces (i.e. digital maps) are now commonly used as wayfinding devices in urban locations. While these wayfinding interfaces provide increasingly accurate geographic and routing information, little attention has been paid to how novel information design approaches may support particular user-experiences within particular use-contexts. This practice-based research focuses on the design of GPS-enabled wayfinding interfaces within the use-context of urban recreational walking/wandering. In particular, it investigates how these interfaces could be designed to visually support situation awarenessin use. That is, awareness of one’s embodied involvement in the surrounding environment while using the interface. The enquiry progresses through two phases. In the first phase, a programme of semi-structured interviews are conducted with urban recreational walkers/wanderers. Analysis of the data reveals participants’ motivations to walk, their experience of exploratory wayfinding, as well as their use of wayfinding materials in general and GPS-enabled technology in particular. With regard to the latter,attention is paid to ways in which these wayfinding interfaces are negatively perceived.Here, it is identified that, amongst the group as a whole, the undermining of situation awareness (SA) and the negation of exploratory wayfinding practices are seen as significant issues. Having made this identification, an area for experimentation is framed and, within this, a design hypothesis is formulated. Next, in the enquiry’s second phase, a series of design experiments are undertaken in order to develop a novel wayfinding interface in response to this hypothesis. Here, an iterative development cycle leads to the design and testing of a mixed-fidelity working prototype interface through the application of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. By integrating and assessing the results, it is possible to assert that,for the majority of participants, SA-in-use was supported, thus verifying the hypothesis.Thereafter, the interface is presented as a practical response to the primary research question of the enquiry and, as such, is positioned as an artefactual contribution to knowledge.Then, through a graphic syntax analysis (Engelhardt 2002) of this artefact, a contextualised graphic syntax for design is generated. In setting out a series of principles, it provides an outline for the design of a GPS-enabled WI to visually support an urban recreational walker’s/wanderer’s situation awareness in use and, so, may guide/inform future designs.Further to this, in graphic syntax analysis, a reflection on the dynamic and interactive aspects of the interface leads to an extension of Engelhardt’s graphic syntax framework(2002) being proposed. Here, by expanding the framework’s scope, the description of the dynamic and interactive aspects of graphic representations is now made possible. It is held that this, in turn, may support the development of an expanded theory of graphic syntax