Publicitat i contracultura

Since the birth of the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, there has been a mutually fruitful influence between the avant-garde and advertising. It is obvious that the avant-garde has a need for differentiation which it achieves through a great creative vitality. This ability to use differentiated creative language, the use of cuttingedge concepts to attract attention, is what makes avantgarde language and latterly, the esthetic trends of countercultural and “anti-system” movements interesting for advertising. The 60s, characterized by the definitive enthroning of creativity in the advertising message, remind us of the maturity of the sector and the ability of ads to become the principal icons of popular Western culture, in great part thanks to the countercultural language. Critical models are turned into trends which the cool-hunters recognize and adapt to brands of music, sports clothing, design, decoration and entertainment. The dynamic is unstoppable. The acceleration of a globalized world facilitates the appearance of new countercultural forms which, simultaneously, become fashionable

The typicality of academic discourse and its relevance for constructs of academic literacy

Constructs of academic literacy are used both for test and course design.While the discussion is relevant to both, the focus of this article will be on test design. Constructs of academic literacy necessarily depend on definitions that assume that academic discourse is typically different from other kinds of discourse. The more deliberate their dependence, the easier it is to examine such constructs critically, and to improve existing constructs. If we improve our understanding of what makes academic discourse unique, we can therefore potentially improve our test designs. Two perspectives on the typicality of academic discourse are surveyed: Weideman’s (2009) notion of material lingual spheres, and Halliday’s (1978) idea of fields of discourse. These perspectives help us to conceptualise the uniqueness of a discourse type by identifying both theconditions for creating texts and the way that social roles influence the content of what gets expressed in a certain sphere of discourse. Halliday’s notion of nominalisation takes another step in this direction, but may, like other supposedly unique characteristics, fall short of identifying the unique analytical mode that qualifies academic endeavour. The paper argues that when we acknowledge the primacy of the logical or analytical mode in academic discourse, we have a potentially productive perspective: first, on how the various genres and rhetorical modes in academic discourse serve that analytical end; second, on how to define the ability to handle that discourse competently; and third, to suggest how such definitions or constructs of academic literacy may be operationalised or modified.Keywords: academic discourse, academic literacy, language testing, material lingual spheres, test construct

Advertising bans

I show that an advertising ban is more likely to increase -- rather than decrease -- total consumption when advertising does not bring about a large expansion of market demand at given prices and when it increases product differentiation (thus allowing firms to command higher prices). In this case, the main impact of a ban on advertising is to reduce equilibrium prices and thus increase demand. I argue that this is more likely to happen in mature industries where consumer goods are ex--ante (i.e. without advertising) similar and advertising is of the `persuasive' type. The ban is the more likely to increase profits of the firms the weaker the ability of advertising to expand total demand and the less advertising serves to induce product differentiation.Advertising, bans, product differentiation, regulation, tobacco, alcohol

An Issue of First Impression? State Constitutional Law and Judging the Qualifications of Candidates for the House and Senate

Article I, section 5, clause 1, makes each House of Congress the judge of the “Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its members.” But what does that mean? For historical and jurisdictional reasons, there is a lack of federal precedent on the scope of judicial review of constitutional qualifications of candidates for the House or Senate. However, as federal courts encounter this issue, they should not treat it as an issue of first impression. Instead, they should look to state constitutional law, which has a wealth of precedent on the interaction between the power to run elections and the power of each legislative chamber to judge the returns and qualifications of its members—as virtually all of them have an identical clause to section 5, clause 1. Contrary to older commentaries collecting precedent, this paper establishes—for the first time, as far as I can ascertain—that a modern consensus has developed in the states over the last fifty to seventy years of “Sequential Jurisdiction”: pre-election adjudication of legislative candidates’ qualifications is allowed, but post-election disputes must be resolved by the relevant chamber. There are other options: “Judicial Supremacy,” where courts retain the power at any time to judge the qualifications of legislators, and “Legislative Supremacy,” where the appropriate chamber is the only body who can ever judge qualifications. However, they are both minorities in the American system. The consensus of the states should be persuasive for federal courts facing this issue; both the consensus itself and because the reasoning of representative cases is itself persuasive. And in general, federal courts should look to parallel state constitutional law when faced with an issue of “first impression.

She stoops to conquer: the making of a popular success

This thesis is an attempt to answer the question, 'What makes She Stoops to Conquer a successful play?' It is concerned rather with the play's essential comic qualities and content than with the technicalities of construction, since these are what engage and absorb the attention of an audience. The first chapter is a survey of the sources which have been suggested for the play and its characters since its first appearance. The purpose of this is to examine elements traditionally popular in drama which Goldsmith successfully incorporated into She Stoops to Conquer. The second chapter is a study of the eighteenth century theatre. It pays particular attention to contemporary moral attitudes to the theatre and to the relations between the various members of society who made use of the theatre, either as actors, authors, managers or as audience. The third chapter traces the history of the first production of She Stoops to Conquer from its inception to the first performance and through the critical reaction which followed. This is discussed against the background described in the second chapter. The final chapter contains some critical discussion of the play and characters and is an attempt to assess the factors contributing to the play's success and, ultimately, to suggest reasons for its continued popularity. It is followed by three Appendices. The first is a brief history of the play in performance and in print from the first performance to the present. The second is a discussion of a text of the play which came to light during research. In the third are reproduced the five epilogues written for the play and of which only one was used

Increasing Students’ Speaking Ability Through Persuasive Group Presentation

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menemukan perbedaan signifikan pada prestasi berbicara siswa setelah diajarkan melalui teknik persuasive group presentation, mengetahui apakah persuasive group presentation dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa pada aspek kosa kata, kelancaran, pemahaman, pelafalan, dan tata bahasa, serta menganalisa proses belajar mengajar dengan menggunakan teknik tersebut. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penggabungan antara kuantitatif dan kualitatif. Sampel dipilih secara khusus berdasarkan tingginya nilai bahasa Inggris yaitu kelas XI IPA1. Hasil menyimpulkan bahwa adanya perbedaan prestasi belajar siswa secara signifikan pada level 0.05 karena t-ratio lebih besar dari t-table (5746 > 2045), kemampuan berbicara siswa meningkat setelah mereka diajarkan melalui teknik persuasive group presentation, dan proses belajar mengajar melalui teknik tersebut telah berjalan lancar meskipun adanya beberapa masalah yang dihadapi oleh siswa dan guru bahasa Inggris.The aims of this study are to find out significant difference of students’ speaking achievement after being taught through persuasive group presentation technique, whether or not persuasive group presentation can be used to increase students’ speaking aspects in terms of vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, pronunciation, grammar and analyze teaching learning process by using current technique. This research used mix method between quantitative and qualitative. The sample was chosen purposively based on the highest score that was XI IPA1. The results are there is significant difference in level 0.05 because t-ratio is higher than t-table (5746 > 2045), students’ achievement was increasing after they taught through persuasive group presentation technique, and teaching learning process by using current technique ran well although there are problems which faced by students and English teacher.

I wanted her dead more than Voldemort : Examining People\u27s Hatred of Dolores Umbridge

This Plan B thesis explores the question: Why do audience members detest Dolores Umbridge so much? Dolores Umbridge is an incredibly hated woman in the Harry Potter series who has attracted attention from audiences, but Umbridge has not been studied fully by scholarship. When scholars do discuss Umbridge, they typically focus on her cruelty while ignoring her other characteristics. Looking at popular internet audience reactions to Umbridge, however, shows the complexities of Umbridge’s character by revealing what Louise Rosenblatt calls the “transaction” between the audience and the texts, and scholarship has ignored that “transaction.” Using quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze audience comments on six different internet forums, I found audience members claim to hate Umbridge because she is a cruel woman and they can relate her to other people in their lives, but analyzing the comments shows audience members also detest Umbridge because she breaks stereotypical gender roles. Because Umbridge is a woman, her cruelty is perceived more harshly, and people compare her to women in their lives. Thus, gender is central to the negative interpretation of Dolores Umbridge. Using the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book and film and the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and film (those texts in which Umbridge appears), I explore the “transaction” between the audience and the texts. Based on that transaction, Harry Potter scholarship should focus more on Umbridge’s gender specifically and on popular internet audience reactions overall

Conspiracy and bias: argumentative features and persuasiveness of conspiracy theories

This paper deals with the argumentative biases Conspiracy Theories (henceforth CTs) typically suffer from and pursues two goals: (i) the identification of recurring argumentative and rhetorical features of conspiracy theories, which translates into an attempt to elaborate their argumentative profile (see Hansen 2013); (ii) the elaboration of a cognitively-grounded account of CTs in terms of their persuasiveness. To fulfil goal (i), I examine online instances of different cases of CTs (the Moon hoax, 9/11 as an inside job, chemical trails). Building on the general rhetorical features of CTs identified by Byford (2011: 88-93), I elaborate a first argumentative profile surveying types of arguments and argument schemes CTs are likely to rely on to specify how these “crippled epistemologies” (Sunstein & Vermeule 2009) are argumentatively biased. To fulfil goal (ii), I use the Context Selection Constraint model, originally designed to capture deception (Oswald & Maillat 2009, 2011). I examine the cognitive counterpart of the – most often fallacious – arguments found in CTs and advance cognitively motivated reasons why CTs have some prospect of being argumentatively effective. This provides an account of why CTs, while biased, can manage to persuade, that is, precisely by downplaying – or obfuscating – their bias

Myth Puzzles and Stone Pieces - Modes of Citation in Hermann Broch's Die Schuldlosen

This dissertation examines modes of citations in Hermann Broch's work Die Schuldlosen. Focusing on the topoi of romanticism and myth, I discuss tensions between Hermann Broch's theoretical arguments and his last literary work. These tensions are an expression and formal manifestation of an auctorial attempt to implement his self-declared principles of literature, such as the creation of epistemological value, the depiction of world totality, and the creation of a new form of expression, a new language, and a new myth. In each chapter, I focus on a different topos relevant to Broch's work Die Schuldlosen. With the help of close readings and a genetic analysis of the work, I demonstrate how Broch creates the unreliable citations that serve his goals. The first chapter illuminates the tension between Broch's theoretical works and Die Schuldlosen concerning the topos of romanticism. In a case study on stone imagery, I ask whether Broch's modes of citing romanticism can be considered a productive intermediate step to creating a new form. I show that Broch's citations can be qualified as unreliable citations, and how structural correspondences intensify their effect on the reader’s experience. The chapter ends with a discussion of the political function of Broch's citations. The second chapter deals with Broch's concept of myth and discusses the tension between Broch's declared intention to develop a new myth and his actual use of existing myths in his works. In two case studies, I trace Broch's citations of the Faust myth and the Don Juan myth. I show that one can understand Broch's specific citations of myth as an experiment to explore how the interruption of a recurring cultural cycle would allow for a new form to develop