Enhanced magneto-optical Kerr effect in oxidized Co thin films

We have studied the structural and magneto-optical properties of postdeposition oxidized Co thin films. The oxidization process leads to the formation of a double-layered structure of fcc Co3O4 on top of metallic Co. The magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE), measured in the range 0.8 eV ⩽ EPh ⩽ 5.5 eV reveals characteristic dependencies of the MOKE spectra on annealing temperature and time. In particular, we observe resonance-type enhancements of the Kerr effects by up to a factor of 10 compared with unannealed metallic Co. The experimental data are quantitatively reproduced by bilayer optical stack calculations.One of the authors ~B.R.! has been gratefully supported by means of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. One of the authors ~G.A.! thanks the Ministerio De Educacion y Ciencia ~Spain! for financial support.Peer reviewe

Emotions travelling across cultures. Embodied grounding of English vis-\ue0-vis Italian prepositional phrases

This article examines the \u2018AdjEM+PP\u2019 construction in the English-Italian language pair (e.g., angry at my audacity/arrabbiato per la mia audacia) with the aim of identifying the kinaesthetic embodied schemas that motivate the language of emotions. The analysis of corpus data highlights the interplay between culture and mind, and the cross-linguistic comparison offers some interesting observa- tions that appear to undermine some stereotypes about the way in which emo- tions are conceived of in the two cultures. Comparative semantics foregrounds the non-diagrammatic rendition in the translation of emotion language and allows for typological hypotheses about cultural cognition and the connection between Talmy\u2019s dichotomy of manner-framed and path-framed languages

Cognitive Linguistics. Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction

The book under review – Cognitive Linguistics. Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction edited by Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza and Sandra Peña, the 32nd release in the Cognitive Linguistics Research Series - does justice to its title since it offers detailed and multifaceted accounts of how the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics gathers intra- and interdisciplinary evidence which sheds light onto the centrality of the cognitive commitment in current research. The selection of papers collected in the volume is based on the editors’ aim to testify “to the great tolerance of Cognitive Linguistics towards internal variety and towards external interaction with major linguistic discipline and subdisciplines

Space in Languages. Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories

The volume under review – Space in Languages. Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories, edited by Maya Hickmann and Stéphane Robert, the 66th release in the Typological Studies in Language Series, collects a selection of papers delivered at a conference held in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in February 2003 under the same title. The volume gathers fifteen chapters in a three-part subdivision: “Typology of linguistic systems: Universals, variability, and change” , “The nature and uses of space in language and discourse”, and “Space, language, and cognition”. These theoretical approaches and methodologies weave together in a complementary fashion with the aim of tackling the issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. The outcome is a thought-provoking and enlightening volume which sheds light on Space from different scientific areas such as typological and diachronic linguistics, psycholinguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive and developmental psychology

Genre as cognitive construction. An analysis of discourse connectors in academic lectures.

The present article investigates a set of discourse connectors in the academic lecture genre from the viewpoint of the inseparable pair of pragmatics and cognition. Making use of the MICASE corpus for data retrieval, a selection of discourse constructions encoding comparative contrastive meanings are analysed and their distinctive features are critically described and explained. The aim is to show how each particular genre promotes the use of certain constructions. The MICASE database reveals that, among all the subgroups of complementary contrastive constructions, some seem incompatible with the academic lecture contexts by virtue of the particular characteristics of this specific genre

How to do things with metonymy in discourse

This chapter addresses the role of figurative thought at the level of discourse and investigates the metonymic grounding of interpersonal communication. With the focus placed upon illocutionary constructions realized through the interrogative sentence type, it aims to delineate the way in which conceptual metonymy contributes to moulding indirect illocutions. The research is conducted under the umbrella of the 'Cost Benefit Cognitive Model', which conceives of illocutions as entrenched, productive and replicable form-function pairings. The qualitative analysis of attested corpus data retrieved from the BNC, the COCA, and the WebCorp provides a depiction of the variety and complexity of some constructional procedures along with the socio-cultural variables licensing them, and it prompts the proposal of a 'Thinking-for Metonymic-Speaking' (TFMS) process that motivates illocutionary indirectness

New and Renewed Perspectives on Translation: A Selected Bibliography of Translation Studies (2000-2007)

The aim of this selected bibliography is that of providing a picture of some new directions emerging in the field of Translation Studies in the years from 1998 to 2007