Realismo grottesco e ambiguità cultural-culinarie in Constance Fenimore Woolson

Fosco Maraini once wrote that, during his childhood, if he complained about the food, his aunt Violet, an English Protestant lady, always rebuked him by saying that food is supposed to feed and not to give pleasure, thus it has no need to be tasty. This frame of mind is the complete opposite of the one of the Middle Ages with its happy banquet, where drinking and eating were considered to lead to happiness and to be capable of defeating any fear. Bachtin, in his "Rabelais and Folk Culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance", states that the juxtaposition between food as nourishment and food as pleasure is like the one between the classic and the grotesque, considering the classic a world incapable of merriment and laughter, and the grotesque its polar opposite. The essay analyses this juxtaposition in some of Constance Fenimore Woolson’s ‘Italian’ short stories, in which the food becomes a means to articulate the opposition between two very different point of views. Finally, from the grotesque realism of the stories, emerges Woolson’s ambivalence, her love-hate relationship with the Italian culture and its cuisine

Krigagem ordinária para precipitação pluviométrica no oeste paulista com tendência no tempo e no espaço.

Este trabalho teve o objetivo de utilizar a geoestatística para interpolar os dados de precipitação pluviométrica com tendência temporal e espacial no Oeste Paulista. O período de estudo foi de 1970 a 2008, utilizando o ano padrão chuvoso de 1983 para representar esse período, utilizando um transecto de 10 pontos para a direção x e o tempo na direção y. Após a constatação de tendência nos dados em estudo foi necessário remover essa tendência a fim de obter o mapa pela krigagem Ordinária com correção de tendência. O mapa de precipitação, depois da retirada de tendência, mostrou um aumento de chuva no inicio (janeiro a março) e final (outubro a dezembro) do ano e os meses restantes tenderam a ser mais secos. Houve uma suavização na superfície e com a retirada de tendência foi identificada a dependência espacial e o dado pode ser interpolado em relação a direção do transecto para a precipitação no decorrer do ano de 1983

An Evolving Dialectic: Contesting Conceptions of Nature in American Ideas, from Transcendentalism to Pragmatism

This essay explores one way of understanding how concepts of human nature and the natural world evolved during the course of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American philosophical thought. It traces changing conceptions of human nature in relation to the natural world through the respective philosophies of transcendentalism (as represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson), idealism (as represented by Josiah Royce), and pragmatism (as represented by John Dewey), with reference to environmental historian Donald Worster’s discussion of the “arcadian” and “imperial” intellectual traditions in his book Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. It argues that Worster’s thesis regarding the dialectical relationship between these two traditions and the eventual ascendancy of the imperial perspective to predominance in American culture generally is also applicable to certain successive transformations that occurred in American philosophy specifically, as exemplified by Emerson, Royce, and Dewey. However, as Worster also suggests, although American history reflects this dialectical trend, none of its philosophical exemplars conform simplistically to either an arcadian or imperial ideology, and the arcadian-imperial dialectic should be regarded as only one limited — albeit illuminating — view of the intellectual tradition from the early nineteenth century through the progressive era to today, and from which environmental conservation thought has emerged

The Language of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Gerry Adams vs. Ian Paisley

In Northern Ireland, the conflict between Unionists and Republicans, Catholic and Protestants saw its peak during the ‘Troubles' of 1969-1993. Today, after four decades of physical violence, the peace process has reached a successful ending and a war of words has finally replaced real war.     To study how this move from arms to political debate occurred, a written corpus was collected, comprising annual party conference speeches given during the years 1993-2004 by the leaders of the two main and opposed political parties of Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. By comparing these texts, it was possible to observe the development of their discourse from a short-term diachronic perspective.     A Critical Discourse Analysis approach is considered particularly suitable for dealing with political speeches, but contributions from different fields and disciplines are also considered.    The discourse analysis of the texts collected is supported by computer-aided analysis. Two aspects are being focussed on, in particular: 1) the use of same/different linguistic resources by the same orators to discuss same/different subjects over the years; and 2) the overall influence of language on politics, i.e. how words are used to exercise power.     It is hoped that the present study may help clarify aspects of the evolution of political discourse in Northern Ireland, in general, and of the argumentative skills and strategies of the above two politicians, in particular

Federico Hernández: poeta vrs. Político esperanza de una nación Centroamericana

El destino de los pueblos, usualmente, está determinado por personas que, coyunturalmente, han asumido responsabilidades de dirección y liderazgo. Con el tiempo esas personas devienen en personaje s y con ellos se teje la historia y leyendas de esos pueblos. Latinoamérica en general y la República de El Salvador en especial, están experimentando cambios, ya sean políticos, económicos o culturales y en el caso concreto de El Salvador, se están creando condiciones para que, de una vez por todas, la pequeña república centroamericana logre despegar y retomar el rumbo y crecimiento que alguna vez llevaba y que tuvo que detener para atender asuntos de estructura social básica que debían, en aquel momento, ser atendidas

Tony Harrison : a war poet

"Tony Harrison poeta di guerra contemporaneo" (Tony Harrison: A Contemporary War Poet): come tradurre il linguaggio della guerra, aspetti lessicali e discorsivi L'intervento all'interno della tavola rotonda ripercorre una selezione di componimenti dell'autore dedicati al conflitto e alla guerra, ed esamina le scelte traduttive nelle versioni in italiano. In particolare, sono esaminati gli aspetti lessicali e discorsivi che emergono sia dagli originali sia dalle traduzioni, in un'ottica comparatistica anglo-italiana. Viene inoltre proposto un confronto con il pi\uf9 famoso gruppo di war poets, quelli che hanno scritto della prima guerra mondiale, i.e. Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, Rupert Brooke, Herbert Read, W.N. Hodgson, Wilfred Gibson. L'intervento parte dalla considerazione che, quando si nominano i \u201cwar poets\u201d della letteratura inglese, ci si riferisce prettamente a Sassoon e poeti coevi, che hanno descritto la prima guerra mondiale. Tuttavia, ci sono ovviamente state altre guerre dopo quella, cos\uec come ci sono stati altri poeti che ne hanno cantato la storia. Successivamente, ci si concentra su Tony Harrison, noto come un poeta di guerra, e si affrontano le seguenti domande di ricerca. - Di quale guerra \ue8 poeta TH? - come \ue8 cambiata la guerra dalla WWI? - come \ue8 cambiato il poeta di guerra? - come \ue8 cambiato il linguaggio del poeta di guerra? Le risposte a tali domande e le relative considerazioni sono corredate da esempi da confronti di poesie di Tony Harrison e dei poeti della prima guerra mondiale, tratti da entrambe le versioni inglese e italiana e analizzati anche in prospettiva comparatistica

Age.Vol.A. – Ageing, Volunteers, Assistants. Linguistic Resources to Improve Communication between the Ageing, Caregivers and Institutions : a Multidisciplinary Project

Age.Vol.A. is a recently (2017) funded research project on ageing issues in northern Italy. It concentrates on the demographic and social situation of Varese, an 80,000-inhabitant city in NorthWest Italy, with 13% of its population over 55 and foreigners representing over 8% of the province\u2019s population, a significant proportion of whom are employed as caregivers to assist elderly people at home (Euromonitor International 2015, Provincia di Varese 2017, Urbistat 2017). Age.Vol.A. starts from the assumption that, between home-assisted Italian seniors and their non-Italian caregivers, there exist a linguistic and cultural barrier as well as a digital divide, which tend to increase the physical and social isolation of the elderly population. Such barriers can be reduced by creating and introducing multilingual tools (a web portal and a smart device application) aimed at providing the carers with terminology and practical information related to their assisted and the institutions (healthcare systems, health associations, etc.) they usually deal with in the caregivers\u2019 own language(s). The methodology will be primarily based on Applied Linguistics, particularly Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 2003; Flowerdew/Richardson 2018), domain-specific discourse (Coupland et al. 1991; Clark-Cotton et al. 2007; Bait 2009) and Translation Studies (Baker 2010); secondarily, the study will derive methods from social sciences (anthropology and sociology), especially as regards the quantitative tools to be used in describing the populations considered and for data collection and analysis (Agresti/Finlay 2015), and the qualitative framework for interpreting their spatial conditions and communicative needs. After conducting preliminary interviews with foreign communities, volunteers, doctors and social workers in Varese to study their experiences and needs in relation to domestic care, a thorough survey of both the seniors and the caregivers\u2019 populations of the territory considered (Varese province) has been launched to hear the voices of both seniors and caregivers discussing the communicative gaps from their own experience and point of view. The survey is designed to analyse the same aspects from the viewpoint of the social actors involved and will be administered using an online survey tool as well as in a paper-based format