6,779 research outputs found
Generative AI for corpus approaches to discourse studies: a critical evaluation of ChatGPT
This paper explores the potential of generative artificial intelligence technology, specifically ChatGPT, for advancing corpus approaches to discourse studies. The contribution of artificial intelligence technologies to linguistics research has been transformational, both in the contexts of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. However, shortcomings in the efficacy of such technologies for conducting automated qualitative analysis have limited their utility for corpus approaches to discourse studies. Acknowledging that new technologies in data analysis can replace and supplement existing approaches, and in view of the potential affordances of ChatGPT for automated qualitative analysis, this paper presents three replication case studies designed to investigate the applicability of ChatGPT for supporting automated qualitative analysis within studies using corpus approaches to discourse analysis.
The findings indicate that, generally, ChatGPT performs reasonably well when semantically categorising keywords; however, as the categorisation is based on decontextualised keywords, the categories can appear quite generic, limiting the value of such an approach for analysing corpora representing specialised genres and/or contexts. For concordance analysis, ChatGPT performs poorly, as the results include false inferences about the concordance lines and, at times, modifications of the input data. Finally, for function-to-form analysis, ChatGPT also performs poorly, as it fails to identify and analyse direct and indirect questions. Overall, the results raise questions about the affordances of ChatGPT for supporting automated qualitative analysis within corpus approaches to discourse studies, signalling issues of repeatability and replicability, ethical challenges surrounding data integrity, and the challenges associated with using non-deterministic technology for empirical linguistic research
Alʔilbīrī’s Book of the rational conclusions. Introduction, Critical Edition of the Arabic Text and Materials for the History of the Ḫawāṣṣic Genre in Early Andalus
[eng] The Book of the rational conclusions, written perhaps somewhen in the 10th c. by a physician from Ilbīrah (Andalus), is a multi-section medical pandect. The author brings together, from a diversity of sources, materials dealing with matters related to drug-handling, natural philosophy, therapeutics, medical applications of the specific properties of things, a regimen, and a dispensatory. This dissertation includes three different parts. First the transmission of the text, its contents, and its possible context are discussed. Then a critical edition of the Arabic text is offered. Last, but certainly not least, the subject of the specific properties is approached from several points of view. The analysis of Section III of the original book leads to an exploration of the early Andalusī assimilation of this epistemic tradition and to the establishment of a well-defined textual family in which our text must be inscribed. On the other hand, the concept itself of ‘specific property’ is often misconstrued and it is usually made synonymous to magic and superstition. Upon closer inspection, however, the alleged irrationality of the knowledge of these properties appears to be largely the result of anachronistic interpretation. As a complement of this particular research and as an illustration of the genre, a sample from an ongoing integral commentary on this section of the book is presented.[cat] El Llibre de les conclusions racionals d’un desconegut metge d’Ilbīrah (l’Àndalus) va ser compilat probablement durant la segona meitat del s. X. Es tracta d’un rudimentari però notablement complet kunnaix (un gènere epistèmic que és definit sovint com a ‘enciclopèdia mèdica’) en què l’autor aplega materials manllevats (sovint de manera literal i no-explícita) de diversos gèneres. El llibre obre amb una secció sobre apoteconomia (una mena de manual d’apotecaris) però se centra després en les diferents branques de la medicina. A continuació d’uns prolegòmens filosòfics l’autor copia, amb mínima adaptació lingüística, un tractat sencer de terapèutica, després un altre sobre les aplicacions mèdiques de les propietats específiques de les coses, una sèrie de fragments relacionats amb la dietètica (un règim en termes tradicionals) i, finalment, una col·lecció de receptes mèdiques. Cadascuna d’aquestes seccions mostren evidents lligams d’intertextualitat que apunten cap a una intensa activitat sintetitzadora de diverses tradicions aliades a la medicina a l’Àndalus califal. El text és, de fet, un magnífic objecte sobre el qual aplicar la metodologia de la crítica textual i de fonts. L’edició crítica del text incorpora la dimensió cronològica dins l’aparat, que esdevé així un element contextualitzador. Quant l’estudi de les fonts, si tot al llarg de la primera part d’aquesta tesi és només secundari, aquesta disciplina pren un protagonisme gairebé absolut en la tercera part, especialment en el capítol dedicat a l’anàlisi individual de cada passatge recollit en la secció sobre les propietats específiques de les coses
Displacement and the Humanities: Manifestos from the Ancient to the Present
This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordThis is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/Manifestos Ancient Present)This volume brings together the work of practitioners, communities, artists and other researchers from multiple disciplines. Seeking to provoke a discourse around displacement within and beyond the field of Humanities, it positions historical cases and debates, some reaching into the ancient past, within diverse geo-chronological contexts and current world urgencies. In adopting an innovative dialogic structure, between practitioners on the ground - from architects and urban planners to artists - and academics working across subject areas, the volume is a proposition to: remap priorities for current research agendas; open up disciplines, critically analysing their approaches; address the socio-political responsibilities that we have as scholars and practitioners; and provide an alternative site of discourse for contemporary concerns about displacement. Ultimately, this volume aims to provoke future work and collaborations - hence, manifestos - not only in the historical and literary fields, but wider research concerned with human mobility and the challenges confronting people who are out of place of rights, protection and belonging
Individualism and the Christian Call: Catholic Theology of Vocation in an Emersonian Key
Might we hope for a form of individualism that is at once vocational and Catholic? This dissertation answers in the affirmative. In the course of doing so, it enlists the services of one of individualism’s great champions, Ralph Waldo Emerson, for Catholics an unlikely ally, to be sure, but one whom Catholics, by the end of this rapprochement, will come to appreciate as a kindred spirit. The species of individualism associated with the name of Emerson resonates with themes sounded by the Church through the Second Vatican Council and in magisterial documents since. These themes invite us to consider the conditions of possibility for a ‘culture of vocation.’ Both the contemporary Catholic vision of a culture of vocation and the Emersonian vision of ‘self-reliance’ share a set of metaphysical presumptions that are best described as a sort of ‘Platonism.’ It is against the background of their shared Platonic imaginations—a background often obscured and misunderstood—that a theology of vocation not only begins to make the most sense but also to come across as compelling. The Platonic metaphysics of vocation organize phenomena associated with the subject-side of salvation such that vocation itself might be appreciated as a mode of divine self-communication—the form that revelation takes when it is addressed personally to the individual. In the absence of a well-formed Platonic imagination, one tends to understand vocation within the boundaries of the Epicurean imagination – the ‘default’ position in much of contemporary society – in which the very idea of being called personally by God can only seem like ‘hearing voices,’ something either miraculous or pathological, perhaps even bordering on madness. In conclusion, we establish that Emersonian individualism might even have something constructive to offer those engaged in efforts to reconcile People of God and commuio approaches to contemporary Catholic ecclesiology
Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies
Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial
Genealogical Violence: Mormon (Mis)Appropriation of Māori Cultural Memory through Falsification of Whakapapa
The study examines how members of the historically white possessive and supremacist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States (mis)appropriated Māori genealogy, known as whakapapa. The Mormon use of whakapapa to promote Mormon cultural memory and narratives perpetuates settler/invader colonialism and white supremacy, as this paper shows. The research discusses Church racism against Native Americans and Pacific Peoples. This paper uses Anthropologist Thomas Murphy’s scholarship to demonstrate how problematic the Book of Mormon’s religio-colonial identity of Lamanites is for these groups. Application of Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s white possessive doctrine and Hemopereki Simon’s adaptation to cover Church-Indigenous relations and the salvation contract is discussed. We explore collective and cultural memory, and discuss key Māori concepts like Mana, Taonga, Tapu, and Whakapapa. A brief review of LDS scholar Louis C. Midgley’s views on Church culture, including Herewini Jone’s whakapapa wānanga, is followed by a discussion of Māori cultural considerations and issues. The paper concludes that the alteration perpetuates settler/invader colonialism and Pacific peoples’ racialization and white supremacy. Genetic science and human migration studies contradict Mormon identity narratives and suggest the BOM is spiritual rather than historical. Finally, the paper suggests promoting intercultural engagement on Mormon (mis)appropriation of taonga Māor
Cultures of Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on a Legal Concept
In the early twenty-first century, the concept of citizenship is more contested than ever. As refugees set out to cross the Mediterranean, European nation-states refer to "cultural integrity" and "immigrant inassimilability," revealing citizenship to be much more than a legal concept. The contributors to this volume take an interdisciplinary approach to considering how cultures of citizenship are being envisioned and interrogated in literary and cultural (con)texts. Through this framework, they attend to the tension between the citizen and its spectral others - a tension determined by how a country defines difference at a given moment
Is Kant a Kantian constitutivist?
This thesis argues that Kant is too imprecise about his metaethics for it to be possible to settle whether or not he is a constitutivist. The first chapter argues for a definition of constitutivism, and distinguishes constitutivism from a position dubbed “agentialism.” Constitutivism rejects the ontology of robust forms of metanormative realism, but still seeks to secure the objectivity and categoricity of its norms. It does so by claiming that conforming to those norms is the only or the best way of pursuing an aim which agents cannot help but have. This definition is motivated by appeals to the literature, and by an appeal specifically to an argument of Christine Korsgaard’s against a rationalist conception of normative facts as knowledge to be applied. For assistance in defining agentialism, a parallel is explored between the metaethical literature and the literature on the normativity of logical laws. Agentialism is defined as a family of views which, like constitutivist ones, reject a robust realist ontology but still seek to secure the objectivity and categoricity of their norms. However, instead of the authority of those norms’ being grounded in an inescapable aim, some other explanation is offered which ties together being an agent and being subject to those norms. Henry Allison, Oliver Sensen, and Jens Timmermann are suggested to be advocates of agentialist readings of Kant. The second chapter collects a range of passages from Kant’s corpus which could be taken to be evidence of his constitutivism. Most of these are loaned from the work of Korsgaard, Barbara Herman, Andrews Reath, and Stephen Engstrom. The readings of those four authors are compared, so as to illustrate the ways in which one can disagree about Kant’s theory while agreeing that it should be read as constitutivist. The third chapter argues that all of the passages collected in the second are equally consistent with an agentialist, and so nonconstitutivist, interpretation of Kant’s metaethics. Constitutivist readings of Kant are, however, defended against objections. The conclusion is ultimately drawn that there is insufficient evidence to settle the question of whether Kant is a constitutivist or an agentialist
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