Idioms with a viable literal interpretation in German advertisements

An idiom is a set phrase which is relatively syntactically and semantically fixed, and which produces striking stylistic and rhetorical effects. Advertising is a discourse type which is particularly rich in idioms: around half of all the German advertisements examined from Stern magazine and the RTL television channel contain at least one idiom. The idioms tend to occur in prominent, emphatic textual positions, and approximately half of the idioms which appear are modified in some way. The modifications typically produce deliberately creative effects, suggesting that idioms are not as invariable as has previously been thought. The most common type of idiom incorporated into German advertisements are idioms with not only the definitive figurative interpretation, but also a lexically, syntactically, and semantically feasible literal interpretation. These idioms are consequently referred to in this dissertation as "idioms with a viable literal interpretation" (abbreviated to "VLI idioms" in the text). Their literal sense tends to evoke strong mental imagery, which makes them a useful device for the visually restricted print medium in particular: approximately 42% of all the idioms in the magazine advertisements examined (as opposed to around 16% of all the idioms in the television advertisements) are VLI idioms. It is the uniformity of the mental imagery evoked by VLI idioms which highlights the fact that, contrary to traditional thinking, idioms are conceptual rather than linguistic in nature. Indeed, an idiom may be defined as the linguistic expression of general conceptual metaphors. The viable literal meaning of VLI idioms also makes them ideally suited to modification: around 70% of the VLI idioms in the magazine advertisements, and just over 88% of the VLI idioms in the television advertisements, are modified in some way. Nearly all of these modifications involve punning on the idiom's literal sense by means of the idiom's co-text and/or the advertisement's visual element. In short, linguists have hitherto underestimated the ubiquity and significance of idioms, especially with regard to the frequency with which they are modified. VLI idioms in particular are an important - but thus far overlooked - feature of German magazine and television advertisements

Painting and Materiality: Three Creative Strategies for Transformation

This thesis proposes potential material devices to transform the concerns of painting within an expanded field. It suggests that new knowledge is produced in material and subjective relationships. The research began with a propensity towards the subject of drapery and evolved into finding other material conditions that could create a new space for painting. This investigation is conducted through three distinct Creative Strategies, where each one informs methods of thinking for practice. The overarching themes of the individual strategies are: Creative Strategy 1: proposes a new theory of prosthetics to transform the physical constraints of painting. I argue that the frame is the crux for expansion and physical transformation. It is achieved through a reductive approach to the physical and material elements of painting within a spatial context. Creative Strategy 2: explores the material agency of fetish and fabric in making processes and uncovers the underlying fetishistic meaning of the materials associated with my practice. Creative Strategy 3: reveals the cultural and social significance of drapery in contemporary painting. Significantly, that desire can instigate politicised transformation in painting. The Creative Strategies provoke a series of linkages between subject and object, which progress through specific analysis on fetishism, femininity, desire and materiality. These explorations advance through the transformative effects of hybridity and multiplicity on expanded painting practices. Crucially, Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt’s concepts concerning material practice and emergent methodologies underpin the practice-led research. Bolt’s idea of a double articulation between practice and theory (2002), is further amplified through the addition of feminist empiricism and feminist autoethnographic methods. These methods are critical lenses in which to examine the research. Moreover, Elizabeth Grosz’ notions on materiality structure the philosophical foundation, which evolved from an initial investigation into Gilles Deleuze’s theories on non-linear thinking. These approaches allow generative and additive challenges to the construction, assumptions and principal forms of painting. Through the three Creative Strategies, this PhD delivers a progression of material thinking that will impact upon knowledge around critical modes of enquiry in relation to expanded painting. As an in-depth study of the significance of purposeful tools to enable transformations, the research examines, clarifies and highlights agency in processes and practices. While significant studies have been carried out on materiality, there are few empirical investigations from within the medium of painting with a focus on drapery and that of an expanded field. Therefore, to summarise, this research contributes to current discourse on material thinking by synthesizing three distinct modes of enquiry, which propose a new approach to contemporary painting

The Ticker, February 17, 1987

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York