Engaged Observers: connection and entanglement in the practice of amateur astronomy

Gioia Barnbrook (University of Aberdeen) explores the complementarity of ideas of engagement and detachment within an amateur astronomy group in Birmingham

Exploring the Local Grammar of Evaluation: The Case of Adjectival Patterns in American and Italian Judicial Discourse

Based on a 2-million word bilingual comparable corpus of American and Italian judgments, this paper tests the applicability of a local grammar to study evaluative phraseology in judicial discourse in English and Italian. In particular, the study compares the use of two patterns: v-link + ADJ + that pattern / copula + ADJ + che and v-link + ADJ + to-infinitive pattern / copula + ADJ + verbo all’infinito in the disciplinary genre of criminal judgments delivered by the US Supreme Court and the Italian Corte Suprema di Cassazione. It is argued that these two patterns represent a viable and efficient diagnostic tool for retrieving instances of evaluative language and they represent an ideal starting point and a relevant unit of analysis for a cross-language analysis of evaluation in domainrestricted specialised discourse. Further, the findings provided shed light on important interactions occurring among major interactants involved in the judicial discourse

The seven ages of musical theatre: the life cycle of the child performer

The purpose of the research reported here is to explore the part played by children in musical theatre.It aims to do this on two levels.It presents, for the first time, an historical analysis of involvement of children in theatre from its earliest beginnings to the current date. It is clear from this analysis that the role children played in the evolution of theatre has been both substantial and influential, with evidence of a number of recurring themes. Children have invariably made strong contributions in terms of music, dance and spectacle, and have been especially prominent in musical comedy. Playwrights have exploited precocity for comedic purposes, innocence to deliver difficult political messages in a way that is deemed acceptable by theatre audiences, and youth, recognising the emotional leverage to be obtained by appealing to more primitive instincts, notably sentimentality and, more contentiously, prurience. Every age has had its child prodigies and it is they who tend to make the headlines. However the influence of educators and entrepreneurs, artistically and commercially, is often underestimated. Although figures such as Wescott, Henslowe and Harris have been recognised by historians, some of the more recent architects of musical theatre, like Noreen Bush, are largely unheard of outside the theatre community. Theatrical dynasties seem to have been important in protecting and in training young performers, in keeping them `grounded', and in helping to manage the transition to adult performer, although the `edge' enjoyed by the children of theatre families was to some extent eroded by the growth of public/private education provision in the 20th century which improved access and started to `level the playing field'.Secondly, the research investigates how well aspiring young performers are served by the UK education system. Although much is written about the education system in general, what has been written specifically about the performing arts appears to focus only on component parts. Relatively little seems to have been done to assess the system in its entirety, taking into account both state and private provision, let alone the part played by the `third sector' in the form of youth theatre and theatre schools. The research reported here considers the contributions made by the various elements of the performing arts eco-system and the coherence and cohesiveness of the system of the whole. The research goes on to consider the end product1, and the context in which musical theatre operates.<br/

The language of definition A Cobuild sublanguage parser

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN036964 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo