Time and the Text of Sex and the City: The Last Conversation among the Four Female Characters in the American TV Series

In HBO’s Sex and the City (1998-2004), such topics as sex, love and friendship are discussed by four Manhattan-based white middle-class women in their late thirties who typify varied and contrasting role models. In this article, through conversation analysis, pragmatics and stylistics, the author examines the text of the final conversation among the four characters, which occurs in the penultimate episode of the last season (2004). The objective is to identify the linguistic features through which the four protagonists’ different personalities and ideologies are delineated, to study whether their identities and worldviews on sex, love and life have changed since the 1997 pilot show, and to reveal how and why their distinct value systems have altered over time. Linguistic scrutiny, validated by a more extensive consideration of the text of the entire TV series, uncovers that Carrie, throughout the six seasons, evolves from an open-minded inquisitive nature to a value-laden traditionally female dramatis persona. What is more, the fact that even the ideologically groundbreaking figures of Samantha and Miranda, along with Charlotte and Carrie, are finally provided with a regular partner and family and with a standard white middle-class lifestyle clearly conveys that, over time, the text of Sex and the City has gradually incarnated a mainstream value system and has increasingly come to represent more stereotypically female characters

“Lay down branch roads, provide town sites, build barracks”: A Practical Stylistic Investigation of Hyde Clarke’s Colonization, Defence, and Railways in Our Indian Empire (1857)

In his treatise Colonization, Defence, and Railways in Our Indian Empire (1857), Hyde Clarke wholeheartedly approves of Indian colonial railways and advocates the need for the British to bring about technological progress in the subcontinent. The main research purpose of this article is to provide stylistic evidence of how Clarke relays and constructs his Anglocentric and imperial viewpoint on Indian railways. The article firstly introduces the figure of Clarke and his railway pamphlet, and discusses the keywords colonialism and colonization as defined in two authoritative nineteenthcentury dictionaries of the English language and in colonial and postcolonial studies. Secondly, moving from this field and from the field of postcolonial stylistics, the stylistic methodology defined by Ron Carter as “practical stylistics” is applied to thirteen sequences from the treatise including the keyword colonization. Finally, the definitions of colonialism and colonization are compared with Clarke’s notion of colonization as emerging from the text. This linguistic analysis hence identifies and explores the stylistic strategies utilised by the author – mainly stylistic choices at word- and phrase-level, syntactic structures and the pragmatic functions of these devices – and reveals the ways in which he conveys his colonial mental attitude to the Indian reality

Ecostylistics: Texts, Methodologies and Approaches

This Special Issue of the Journal of World Languages has the specific aim and objective to further the state of research in the cutting-edge field of ecostylistics. More precisely, this Special Issue features research contributions by scholars whose work falls within the aims and scope of stylistics, and who apply the theoretical framework of this discipline and its diverse methodologies to the examination of several literary and non-literary texts with ecological and environmental concerns

‘Water is our element’. Metaphors of the Sea and Water in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

The sea was omnipresent in many parts of ancient Western life, and Greek mythology is rich in tales of female gods or mortals assisting—or hindering—humans in their struggle with the sea. Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005) is one of the most recent rewrites of Greek mythology to depart from a male-oriented perspective, as it tells the story of Homer’s epic from the perspective of Penelope. This article will analyse the literary representations of sea and water, as well as the relationship between women and the sea, through a stylistic analysis of sea- and water-related conceptual metaphors in The Penelopiad and its Italian translation by Margherita Crepax (2018). Atwood shares some of the contradictory view of classic symbolism, in which the sea is both a maternal symbol of creation and the boundary between life and death. However, she also redefines the traditional perspective through the use of anthropomorphism, which transforms water into a postfeminist metaphor that, rather than being empowering, critically highlights women’s current situation in society

Studio dei tratti immunofenotipici e valutazione del loro contributo nell'insorgenza di patologie

The regulation of the immune response has been intensively studied for decades, however, the effect of the genetic factors affecting the immune cell levels is largely unknown. In order to better understand the immune system regulation and its involvement in diseases, we evaluated the quantitative variation of several leuckocyte populations in peripheral blood including monocytes, granulocytes, circulating dendritic cells and lymphocytes divided in NK, B and T cell subsets. Immunophenotypes, assessed by flow cytometry, were initially measured in 1,629 volunteers,belonging to the SardiNIA project, who have been genotipically characterized with the MetaboChip and ImmuoChip arrays. For each of the 272 assessed traits, we performed a sequenced-based GWAS approach with 8.2 million genotyped and imputed variants derived from the gene arrays and from a reference panel of 1,146 low pass whole-genome sequenced Sardinians. Our results showed that, on the average, the genetic component accounts for 40% (min 3% max 87%) of the phenotypic variation of the immune traits analyzed. Furthermore, we identified, and confirmed in a total of 2,870 volunteers, comprising 1,241 additional individuals, 23 independent signals at 13 loci (p-value<5.26x10-10). Among the associated loci, four of them (HLA, IL2RA, CIITA, ATXN2/SH2B3) are known to be associated with immune and non-immune diseases, indicating the relevance of this approach for identification of immune-related genetic factors in health and disease

REPRESENTING POSTFEMINIST FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE CONTEMPORARY MEDIASCAPE: THE DISCURSIVE FUNCTION OF IRONY

Addressing the interdisciplinary area of language &amp; gender as applied to television and media stu­dies, this article summarises the detailed analysis of some extremely popular contemporary TV series and media. With all their specificities, these significant cultural products share a reinvention of the codes of romance, by representing an up-to-date, somehow fashionable version of the traditional, and traditionally female, genre of romance geared to postfeminist consumer culture. The femininities and sexualities enacted in these cultural narratives may appear to be unsparingly and humorously critical of conventionally female linguistic and cultural stereotypes, and could therefore be regarded as radical feminist embodiments. Nevertheless, by means of an ironic and hyperbolic approach, they are in fact not only romantic and mainstream, but also ideologically biased, preserving a normative heterosexual white middle-class status quo, and restoring a patriarchal value system. A close critical scrutiny thus shows the stylistic and discursive strategies by which feminism has switched to postfemi­nist romance, and has thereby yielded to postfeminist backlash

Stereotyping Scotland: Groundskeeper Willie’s illocutionary acts in The Simpsons

An earlier version of this article was published as: Virdis, D. F. 2012. Friendliness, aggressiveness and coarseness: Scottish Groundskeeper Willie’s linguistic features in The Simpsons. NAWA: Journal of Language and Communication 6.1: 127-150.This article explores the Scottish character of Groundskeeper Willie in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons with a pragmatic and social-psychological approach. It firstly introduces Willie’s linguistic and visual features, the sample of three episodes the analysis is based on, Scottish stereotypes in Lindsay’s (1997) sociological research, and Searle’s (1976) taxonomy of illocutionary acts (representatives or assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations). Secondly, the turns uttered by the groundskeeper in the sample are classified by applying Searle’s taxonomy, and his illocutionary acts are examined in their contexts and compared with the list of national-ethnic Scottish stereotypes compiled by Lindsay. This study demonstrates that Willie’s illocutionary acts and the stereotypes they convey depict him as a figure characterised by positive traits; nevertheless, the responses his illocutionary acts are met with not only counter his pleasant aspects, but also ultimately represent the Scottish groundskeeper as a ludicrous victim of his American fellow [email protected] Francesca Virdis is an Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Cagliari. She is a steering group member of the International Ecolinguistics Association. She is the author of Serialised Gender: A Linguistic Analysis of Femininities in Contemporary TV Series and Media (2012), which was awarded the Italian Association of English Studies Book Prize 2013. Her current research interests include ecostylistics and metaphor theory.University of Cagliari, ItalyAitken, A. J. & McArthur, T. (eds.). 1979. Languages of Scotland. Edinburgh: Chambers.Alberti, J. (ed.). 2003. Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Armstrong, N. 2004. Voicing The Simpsons from English into French: A story of variable success. The Journal of Specialised Translation 2: 97-109.Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Barra, L. 2008. Springfield, Italia. Processi produttivi e variazioni di significato nell’adattamento italiano di una serie televisiva statunitense. Observatorio (OBS*) Journal 4: 113-136.Beard, D. S. 2003. Local satire with global reach: Ethnic stereotyping and cross-cultural conflicts in The Simpsons. In: J. Alberti (ed.), Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture, 273-291. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Brown, A. & Logan, C. (eds). 2006. The Psychology of The Simpsons. Dallas: BenBella Books.Cantor, P. A. 1999. The Simpsons: Atomistic politics and the nuclear family. Political Theory 27.6: 734-749.Cohen, E. A. 1998. Homer Simpson: Classic clown. The Simpsons Archive, available at http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/papers/eac.paper.html, last accessed December 2020.Dossena, M. 2005. Scotticisms in Grammar and Vocabulary: Like Runes upon a Standin’ Stane?. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers.Ferrari, C. 2009. Dubbing The Simpsons: Or how Groundskeeper Willie lost his kilt in Sardinia. Journal of Film and Video 61.2: 19-37.Fusari, S. 2007. Idioletti e dialetti nel doppiaggio italiano de I Simpson. Quaderni del CeSLiC: Occasional Papers, Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), Bologna, available at http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002182/01/Fusari_OP_COMPLETO.pdf, last accessed December 2020.Gray, J. 2006. Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. London/ New York: Routledge.Groening, M. 2001-2010. The Simpsons. Seasons 1-20 (home video releases). Fox Broadcasting CompanyGrundy, P. 2008. Doing Pragmatics, 3rd edition. London: Arnold.Hopkins, N. & Reicher, S. 1997. Constructing the nation and collective mobilization: A case study of politicians’ arguments about the meaning of Scottishness. In: C.C. Barfoot (ed.), Beyond Pug’s Tour: National and Ethnic Stereotyping in Theory and Literary Practice, 313-338. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.Horowitz, J. 1999. Mmm ... television: A study of the audience of The Simpsons. The Simpsons Archive, available at http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/papers/jh.paper.html, last accessed December 2020.Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (eds). 2005. English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles. London: Arnold.Lamont, C. 1997. The stereotype Scot and the idea of Britain. In: C. C. Barfoot (ed.), Beyond Pug’s Tour: National and Ethnic Stereotyping in Theory and Literary Practice, 339-350. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.Levinson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Lindsay, I. 1997. The uses and abuses of national stereotypes. Scottish Affairs 20: 133-148.Mazzon, G. 1994. Le lingue inglesi: Aspetti storici e geografici. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.McCrum, R. et al. 1987. The Story of English. London: Faber and Faber/BBC Books.Mullin, B. 1999. The Simpsons, American satire. The Simpsons Archive, available at http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/papers/bm.paper.html, last accessed December 2020.Puddu, N. & Virdis, D. F. 2014. Dalla Scozia alla Sardegna: Stereotipi e tratti bandiera di Groundskeeper Willie/Willie il Giardiniere dei Simpson. In: A. Dettori (ed.), Dalla Sardegna all’Europa: Lingue e letterature regionali, 338-354. Milan: Franco Angeli.Rodaway, P. 2003. Space, character and critique: South Asian identity in The Simpsons. In: T. Shakur and K. D’Souza (eds.), Picturing South Asian Culture in English: Textual and Visual Representations, 162-175. Liverpool: Open House Press.Sbisà, M. 2009. Speech act theory. In: J. Verschueren & J.-O. Östman (eds.), Key Notions for Pragmatics, 229-244. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Searle, J. R. 1976. A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society 5.1: 1-23.Stangor, C. (ed.). 2000. Stereotypes and Prejudice: Essential Readings. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.Tomaiuolo, S. 2007. Translating “America’s most nuclear family” into Italian: Dubbing and cultural adaptation in The Simpsons. Translation and Interpreting Studies 2.2: 43-73.Turner, C. 2005. Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation. Cambridge (MA): Da Capo Press.Turpin, A. 2005. The strange world of oor grown-up Wullie. The Sunday Times 23rd October.Verschueren, J. & Östman, J.-O. (eds.). 2009. Key Notions for Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Waltonen, K. 2000. We’re all pigs: Representations of masculinity in The Simpsons. The Simpsons Archive, available at http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/other/papers/kw.paper.html, last accessed December 2020.Weinstein, D. 1998. Of mice and Bart: The Simpsons and the postmodern. In: C. DegliEsposti (ed.), Postmodernism in the Cinema, 61-72. New York: Berghahn Books.32 (1/2021)163

Forme di comunicazione in sanità rurale in Sardegna:

Among the main parasitic diseases which concern dogs and affect humans, are those transmitted by helminths, in particular tapeworms. Transmission is amplified by environmental contamination and non-application of simple hygiene standards. Echinococcosis is endemic in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Mongolia, People’s Chinese Republic, south Asia and south-east Australia, and in all those regions where, like in Sardinia, sheep-farming flourishes. Echinococcosis is now considered to be the most important zoonosis in the Mediterranean Region. Hookworm is a pathology caused by a nematode (roundworm). It was once considered a pathology exclusive to miners, furnace-workers, and field workers. This parasitosis is present mainly in parts of the world where hygienic conditions are scarce and a warm and humid climate favour their spread. A sick person is contagious for other humans, transmitting the eggs of the parasite in the environment with their faeces. While hookworm infection is currently limited to depressed areas of the world and a circumscribed area of the national territory, echinococcosis – while decreasing – is still present in a significant way mostly in Sardinia, despite the prevention campaigns and innumerable resources allocated to it, both human and economic. In this work we shall examine the use of videos produced and disseminated for information and prevention, by ENPI, INAIL and Cagliari University in Sardinia in the second half of the XXth century, in the light of two territorial enquiries carried out by the University of Cagliari and the Zooprophylactic Institute of Sardinia.Tra le principali malattie parassitarie che interessano il cane e colpiscono l’uomo ci sono quelle trasmesse da elminti, in particolare cestodi. La contaminazione ambientale e la mancata applicazione di semplici norme igieniche ne amplificano la trasmissione. L’echinococcosi (endemica in America Latina, Africa sub-Sahariana, Mongolia, Repubblica Popolare Cinese, Asia del sud e sud Est e Australia, e in tutte le regioni, dove, come in Sardegna, è fiorente la pastorizia) è considerata oggi come la zoonosi più importante della Regione Mediterranea. L’anchilostomiasi, patologia causata da un nematode, un tempo considerata patologia esclusiva di minatori, fornaciari, lavoratori della terra, è una parassitosi presente per lo più in aree del mondo dove la scarsità di adeguati presidi igienici e il clima caldo umido ne facilitano la diffusione; l’uomo malato trasmette con le feci le uova del parassita nell’ambiente, diventando contagioso per i propri simili. Mentre l’anchilostomiasi è ormai limitata ad aree del mondo depresse e a un’area circoscritta del territorio nazionale, l’echinococcosi pur in calo, è ancora presente in modo significativo soprattutto in Sardegna, nonostante le campagne di prevenzione e le innumerevoli risorse stanziate, economiche e umane. In questo lavoro si esamina l’utilizzo dei filmati prodotti e diffusi per informazione e prevenzione da ENPI, INAIL e Università degli Studi di Cagliari nella seconda metà del Novecento, alla luce di due inchieste territoriali condotte da Università di Cagliari e Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna

Antibiotic Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase Negative Staphylococci Isolated from Goats with Subclinical Mastitis

Antimicrobial resistance patterns and gene coding for methicillin resistance (mecA) were determined in 25 S. aureus and 75 Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CNS) strains isolates from half-udder milk samples collected from goats with subclinical mastitis. Fourteen (56.0%) S. aureus and thirty-one (41.3%) CNS isolates were resistant to one or more antimicrobial agents. S. aureus showed the highest resistance rate against kanamycin (28.0%), oxytetracycline (16.0%), and ampicillin (12.0%). The CNS tested were more frequently resistant to ampicillin (36.0%) and kanamycin (6.7%). Multiple antimicrobial resistance was observed in eight isolates, and one Staphylococcus epidermidis was found to be resistant to six antibiotics. The mecA gene was not found in any of the tested isolates. Single resistance against β-lactamics or aminoglicosides is the most common trait observed while multiresistance is less frequent

Luteolin Prevents Cardiometabolic Alterations and Vascular Dysfunction in Mice With HFD-Induced Obesity

Purpose: Luteolin exerts beneficial effects against obesity-associated comorbidities, although its influence on vascular dysfunction remains undetermined. We examined the effects of luteolin on endothelial dysfunction in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity. Methods: Standard diet (SD) or high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice were treated daily with luteolin intragastrically. After 8 weeks, body and epididymal fat weight, as well as blood cholesterol, glucose, and triglycerides were evaluated. Endothelium-dependent relaxations of resistance mesenteric vessels was assessed by a concentration-response curve to acetylcholine, repeated upon Nw-nitro-L-arginine methylester (L-NAME) or ascorbic acid infusion to investigate the influence of nitric oxide (NO) availability and reactive oxygen species (ROS) on endothelial function, respectively. Intravascular ROS production and TNF levels were measured by dihydroethidium dye and ELISA, respectively. Endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) and superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), as well as microRNA-214-3p expression were examined by Western blot and RT-PCR assays, respectively. Results: HFD animals displayed elevated body weight, epididymal fat weight and metabolic indexes. Endothelium-dependent relaxation was resistant to L-NAME and enhanced by ascorbic acid, which restored also the inhibitory effect of L-NAME, suggesting a ROS-dependent reduction of NO availability in HFD vessels. Moreover, media-lumen ratio, intravascular superoxide anion and TNF levels were increased, while vascular eNOS, SOD1, and microRNA-214-3p expression were decreased. In HFD mice, luteolin counteracted the increase in body and epididymal fat weight, and metabolic alterations. Luteolin restored vascular endothelial NO availability, normalized the media-lumen ratio, decreased ROS and TNF levels, and normalized eNOS, SOD1 and microRNA-214-3p expression. Conclusion: Luteolin prevents systemic metabolic alterations and vascular dysfunction associated with obesity, likely through antioxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms