Deontic Variation in the ‘Advice’ for the Cure of the Plague by the Royal College of Physicians of London (1665 vs 1636 editions)

The ‘Advice’ drawn up by the College of Physicians for the prevention and cure of the plague was first published in 1578. It was attached to the Orders, a list of directions drawn up by the Privy Council to prevent or limit the spread of the disease. Like the Orders to which it was appended, the ‘Advice’ went through several reprints until 1630, when it had to be rewritten. The 1630 edition of the ‘Advice’ no longer confined itself to medical prescriptions, but included advice about medical provision in the city, the movement of goods and people, and referred to the political measures taken in foreign cities. In this revised, extended version, the ‘Advice’ was reprinted in 1636 and in 1665, when it finally appeared without the preceding Orders. This paper focuses on the pragma-linguistic changes displayed by the 1665 edition as compared with the 1636 edition of the ‘Advice’ in terms of mood and modality (Palmer 1986) and argues that the more mitigated expression of deontic modality and the preference for assertive acts over directive ones (Searle 1985) characterizing the later edition reflect the new editorial and historical context in which the text was produced

Power, (Im)Politeness and Aggressiveness in Early Modern Master-Servant Relations (1660-1750)

The article explores the ways in which in early modern England masters exercised power over servants by means of threats and reproaches. More precisely, it investigates power-(im)politeness and the power-aggressiveness interfaces using data collected manually from a non-electronic corpus of advice manuals for masters (and mistresses), servants and apprentices published in English between 1660 and 1750. As we approach the mid-eighteenth century there is a growing concern for servants’ feelings and insistence on masters’ empathy towards servants. This was probably due to the new form of politeness emerging in the period, one which emphasised complaisance and social harmony. From a strictly linguistic viewpoint, I argue that in these texts (but this may apply to others too) threats are not presented as inherently impolite acts but as aggressive ones, and that impoliteness is only a contextual property aggravating intimidation and affirmation of power. Whatever the master’s degree of power and social status, therefore, they cannot be considered forms of ‘politic unmarked behaviour’. Reproaches share with threats a potentially intimidating perlocutionary effect, but unlike threats, they are not inherently aggressive, and can be a form of politic or contextually appropriate behaviour on the part of a master.

Representations of Femininity in Seventeenth Century Conduct Manuals for Gentlemen

Abstract This paper investigates conceptual representations of women in 17th century conduct manuals for gentlemen published in England before and after the Civil War. The aim is to see whether the socio-cultural transformations produced by the Revolution are reflected in the metaphorical expressions referring to the female sex in a highly conservative textual genr

Power, (Im)Politeness and Aggressiveness in Early Modern Master-Servant Relations (1660-1750)

The article explores the ways in which in early modern England masters exercised power over servants by means of threats and reproaches. More precisely, it investigates power-(im)politeness and the power-aggressiveness interfaces using data collected manually from a non-electronic corpus of advice manuals for masters (and mistresses), servants and apprentices published in English between 1660 and 1750. As we approach the mid-eighteenth century there is a growing concern for servants’ feelings and insistence on masters’ empathy towards servants. This was probably due to the new form of politeness emerging in the period, one which emphasised complaisance and social harmony. From a strictly linguistic viewpoint, I argue that in these texts (but this may apply to others too) threats are not presented as inherently impolite acts but as aggressive ones, and that impoliteness is only a contextual property aggravating intimidation and affirmation of power. Whatever the master’s degree of power and social status, therefore, they cannot be considered forms of ‘politic unmarked behaviour’. Reproaches share with threats a potentially intimidating perlocutionary effect, but unlike threats, they are not inherently aggressive, and can be a form of politic or contextually appropriate behaviour on the part of a master.

Space oddity: What fashion terms can reveal about English and Italian cognitive systems

This article aims to explore cognitive and cultural differences through a contrastive analysis of English and Italian fashion terms. The analysis places the focus on nominal compounds that exhibit a location-located semantic structure [e.g. E. Capri pants (It. pantaloni Capri); E. beach dress (It. copricostume); It soprabito (E. overcoat), It. tacco college (E. college heel)] and their correspondent forms in either language. Data extracted from three fashion dictionaries (Lorusso 2017; Canonica-Sawina 1994; Tortora & Keiser 2014) reveal that locative nominal compounds are far more frequent in English than in Italian, and that, therefore, different cognitive schemas (and morphotactic means) are used in the two languages to conceptualise the same entity. Since fashion spatial compounds are mostly metonymy and/or metaphor-based, data are analysed within a Cognitive Linguistic framework, i.e. by means of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) and metonymy theory (Radden & K\uf6vecses 1999)

Fashion Culture and Society Notebook 2019

This edition of the Notebook is dedicated to multiplicity, sustainability and inclusion. The essays contained in the volume deal with these topics from different points of view ranging from gender representation to the globalisation of the fashion system, from the practices of the body to urban practices in relation to fashion and the relationship with the inhabitants of an increasingly complex and interconnected world

A machine-learning parsimonious multivariable predictive model of mortality risk in patients with Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is impressively challenging the healthcare system. Several prognostic models have been validated but few of them are implemented in daily practice. The objective of the study was to validate a machine-learning risk prediction model using easy-to-obtain parameters to help to identify patients with COVID-19 who are at higher risk of death. The training cohort included all patients admitted to Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli with COVID-19 from March 5, 2020, to November 5, 2020. Afterward, the model was tested on all patients admitted to the same hospital with COVID-19 from November 6, 2020, to February 5, 2021. The primary outcome was in-hospital case-fatality risk. The out-of-sample performance of the model was estimated from the training set in terms of Area under the Receiving Operator Curve (AUROC) and classification matrix statistics by averaging the results of fivefold cross validation repeated 3-times and comparing the results with those obtained on the test set. An explanation analysis of the model, based on the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), is also presented. To assess the subsequent time evolution, the change in paO2/FiO2 (P/F) at 48 h after the baseline measurement was plotted against its baseline value. Among the 921 patients included in the training cohort, 120 died (13%). Variables selected for the model were age, platelet count, SpO2, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), hemoglobin, C-reactive protein, neutrophil count, and sodium. The results of the fivefold cross-validation repeated 3-times gave AUROC of 0.87, and statistics of the classification matrix to the Youden index as follows: sensitivity 0.840, specificity 0.774, negative predictive value 0.971. Then, the model was tested on a new population (n=1463) in which the case-fatality rate was 22.6%. The test model showed AUROC 0.818, sensitivity 0.813, specificity 0.650, negative predictive value 0.922. Considering the first quartile of the predicted risk score (low-risk score group), the case-fatality rate was 1.6%, 17.8% in the second and third quartile (high-risk score group) and 53.5% in the fourth quartile (very high-risk score group). The three risk score groups showed good discrimination for the P/F value at admission, and a positive correlation was found for the low-risk class to P/F at 48 h after admission (adjusted R-squared=0.48). We developed a predictive model of death for people with SARS-CoV-2 infection by including only easy-to-obtain variables (abnormal blood count, BUN, C-reactive protein, sodium and lower SpO2). It demonstrated good accuracy and high power of discrimination. The simplicity of the model makes the risk prediction applicable for patients in the Emergency Department, or during hospitalization. Although it is reasonable to assume that the model is also applicable in not-hospitalized persons, only appropriate studies can assess the accuracy of the model also for persons at home