“Harsh realities” and “tender gazes”: Do perceptual extensions function metaphorically or literally? : A corpus-based investigation of haptic adjectives and the “extent of the literal”

This thesis investigates how perceptual adjectives are used to convey non-perceptual experience. The study is corpus-based, and the material consists of adjective-noun pairs in which the premodifying adjective is derived from the haptic modality. The thesis builds on previous research by Winter (2019a) and argues that the multimodal nature of perceptual adjectives complicates metaphorical interpretations. Moreover, following Rakova (2003), it is argued that many perceptual adjectives are double-function and contain a psychological meaning that is equally literal to the physical, negating the need for metaphorical interpretations; this psychological meaning is reflected through the oftentimes evaluative function of perceptual adjectives. Although the results of the investigation do not allow any broad conclusions to be drawn due to the limited nature of the data, evidence is found that the standard assumption of primary meaning, and ideas of conceptual primacy can be questioned for several of the investigated adjectives. Furthermore, it is argued that tools used in the identification of lexical metaphor created from perceptual adjectives are perhaps not optimal and reinforce a belief that only physical meaning can be literal – a notion that the results of this thesis go some way to dispelling

Innovative quotatives - language change or youth-speak? : A corpus-based study of spoken British English

This paper investigates the possible effect of age on quotative variation in spoken British English with focus on the innovative quotative constructions be like and go and the standard construction say. The study is corpus-based and uses the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 as its material. Using the search tools provided in the corpus, datasets were restricted to include material from female speakers only and for each age-bracket in isolation. The results of the study were analysed in apparent time and through real time comparisons with previous studies. Similarly to previous studies, it was found that be like constructions are still favoured by young speakers, but the results also indicate that be like is used at higher frequencies among middle-aged speakers than previous studies have demonstrated. This indicates that be like is indeed an example of language change and not just an age-graded feature. The second innovative quotative investigated was go. The frequency distribution demonstrated by go was very different to that of be like. The results indicate that the ratio of go in comparison to be like (and say) have decreased drastically in the past twenty years when the results of the present study were compared to previous studies. This may indicate that the presence of two or more quotative variants within a speaker community may lead to the reduction in use of one of these variants due to "linguistic competition". The results of this study strengthen previous arguments that the presence of be like may lead to a decrease in the use of quotative go. The standard form say is still the most common variant for most age-brackets, apart from adolescent and young-adult speakers. However, in comparison to earlier studies the ratios of say have decreased for middle-aged speakers and younger. This may be due to an increased choice of quotative variants which are available to the speaker

“Harsh realities” and “tender gazes”: Do perceptual extensions function metaphorically or literally? : A corpus-based investigation of haptic adjectives and the “extent of the literal”

This thesis investigates how perceptual adjectives are used to convey non-perceptual experience. The study is corpus-based, and the material consists of adjective-noun pairs in which the premodifying adjective is derived from the haptic modality. The thesis builds on previous research by Winter (2019a) and argues that the multimodal nature of perceptual adjectives complicates metaphorical interpretations. Moreover, following Rakova (2003), it is argued that many perceptual adjectives are double-function and contain a psychological meaning that is equally literal to the physical, negating the need for metaphorical interpretations; this psychological meaning is reflected through the oftentimes evaluative function of perceptual adjectives. Although the results of the investigation do not allow any broad conclusions to be drawn due to the limited nature of the data, evidence is found that the standard assumption of primary meaning, and ideas of conceptual primacy can be questioned for several of the investigated adjectives. Furthermore, it is argued that tools used in the identification of lexical metaphor created from perceptual adjectives are perhaps not optimal and reinforce a belief that only physical meaning can be literal – a notion that the results of this thesis go some way to dispelling

From Symptomes of Martirdome to Symptoms of Inclination : An Investigation of Symptom in Non-medical Writing in Early Modern English

The signifier term symptom is strongly associated with the medical register, and its history in English medical writing has been studied quite extensively. This study contributes to our knowledge of the non-medical uses of symptom during the Early Modern period. Drawing on the 1.4-billion-word Early English Books Online corpus, the study examines all extant occurrences of symptom and categorises their usage. The diachronic study shows that non-medical uses of symptom emerged almost immediately after the word came into common use, and that despite its semantic association with medical prognostication and ailments of various kinds, symptom has always been used to some extent as a signifier term referring to positive events and states of being

Remaining hopeful in early-stage dementia: a qualitative study

Objectives: Improving the quality of life for people living with dementia is widely accepted as an important outcome in dementia care services. Positive psychology, the systematic study of strengths, capacities, and personal resources, is one framework for understanding how a person with dementia might achieve this. This study investigated the subjective experience of hope–a construct from the discipline of positive psychology in older people with early-stage dementia.Method: Ten volunteer participants over the age of 65 years were recruited from a memory clinic in England. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore participants’ hopes, in terms of their personal meaning, their resources, and the potential barriers and facilitators of hope in dementia. Interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).Results: Eight themes were extracted, subsumed under two higher-order themes: ‘live in hope or die in despair’ and ‘keep living and keep living well’. Participants described how their internalized hope-fostering beliefs that were often learned during childhood were challenged by the reality of hope-hindering experiences associated with old age and dementia. A balancing process of re-appraisal enhanced resolution and this sense of stability then allowed them to develop positive attitudes towards common age-related constraints in their health and social circumstances.Conclusion: The findings offer insight into the existence, nature, and relevance of hope in the lives of people with early-stage dementia. They provide a useful framework for developing hope-fostering strategies in early interventions that aim to assist individuals with dementia to maintain their quality of life