The aim of this study was to contribute with further knowledge about children’s use of metaphors. In the study, 15 children at the age of two were interviewed during an experiment with condensation. In the interview the children were asked to describe the condensation to the interviewer. Most of the children were using subject relevant words, and a few were using pictorial descriptions. There was just one child that was using both pictorial descriptions and subject relevant words in their description of the condensation. The use of both categories can be interpreted as the child deliberately was using a metaphor and that shows, that even children as young as two years of age sometimes use metaphors. From a social constructivist perspective, language is the most important feature in acquiring knowledge, since knowledge is created in social interaction. Therefore the teachers in the younger years have an important role to guide and help children develop a nuanced language. Helping children understand, create and use metaphors in their interactions with others, and in their descriptions of phenomena, will help the children get a deeper sense of meaning in their quest to figure out the world around them. / Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen kring de yngre barnens användande av metaforer i samtal kring experiment i naturvetenskaplig undervisning i förskolan. Ur ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv, är språket en nyckelfaktor i tillägnandet av ny kunskap, då kunskapen skapas i ett socialt sammanhang. Ur detta perspektiv är förskollärarnas roll som guider till ett nyanserat språk avgörande. När förskollärarna stöttar barnen till att inte bara förstå metaforer, utan även skapa egna och använda sig av dem i sina beskrivningar, hjälper de också barnen till att få en djupare förståelse för sin omgivning. I ett experiment med kondens intervjuades 15 barn i tvåårsåldern. De ombads beskriva sina observationer under experimentet för intervjuaren. De flesta barnen använde sig av ämnesrelevanta ord, och några använde sig av bildlika beskrivningar. Endast ett barn använde sig av både bildlika beskrivningar och ämnesrelevanta ord i sina beskrivningar av kondensen. Att barnet använde sig av båda kategorierna kan tolkas som att barnet medvetet använde sig av en metafor, vilket medför ett resultat som tyder på att det förekommer att även så unga barn, som barn i två års ålder använder sig av metaforer.

As the impact of pictures in everyday life and literature is increasing, so is the importance of visual literacy skills. This essay combines theories of visual literacy, pictorial metaphor, image analysis and environmentalism to analyse visual literacy in relation to how Shaun Tan’s pictures create metaphorical ideas related to the environment in Tales from Outer Suburbia. Three pictures from the picture book were analysed for this purpose. The pictures are part of the short stories named “alert but not alarmed”, “no other country”, and “grandpa’s story.” Furthermore, this essay discusses how visual literacy can support students’ English language learning. The analysis found that analysing Tan’s use of symbols and icons in combination with the emotional effect of picture elements reveal several pictorial metaphors related to the environment. The pictorial metaphors reflect humankind’s relationship to nature. This essay concludes that visual literacy skills are necessary to identify pictorial metaphors and that analysing pictures supports students’ visual literacy skills and English language learning.

The city of Philippi was founded as a Roman military colony in 42 BC, directly following one of the largest battles of antiquity, the civil war battle of Philippi. This study shows that one hundred years later, at the time of writing of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, the identity of the city was still deeply connected to its military history. The apostle Paul found in the historical and sociological ties of the Philippians with the military reasons for drafting his letter in a rhetorical arrangement similar to the historical reports of commander’s speeches to his assembled troops before battle. Not only does the vocabulary of Paul’s ethical commands parallel the general’s harangues, as has been previously pointed out by Biblical scholarship, but in Paul’s letter one also finds correspondences to the three largest motifs of the general’s speeches: the objective of the war, the confidence for victory and the rewards for courage and obedience. The major unified theme of Philippians is the mutual military-partnership for the advance of the gospel in a hostile context (Phil. 1:7-12; 1:20; 2:19-24; 2:25-30; 3:12-15; 4:3; 4:10-19). Paul in his letter to the Philippians uses consistently military imagery – and not once athletic imagery, as typically assumed by exegetical scholars – to demonstrate that the courageous sharing of the faith will always result in victory for the one who proclaims Christ. This victory is guaranteed through the unsurpassable abilities of the supreme general, Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross and whose resurrection is portrayed as a military victory and whose exaltation by God the Father acknowledges Christ as the victorious general in an universal extent (Phil. 2:8-11). The victory of the gospel campaign is further guaranteed by the LORD’s initiation of the war for the spread of the faith and by His presence with those who fight in His behalf for the spread of the good news (Phil. 1:5-7; 2:12-13; 2:14-15; 3:1; 4:4). Victory in the Philippian context means either the reception of the gospel by unbelievers or the death of the messenger on account of rejection of and opposition to the gospel; the suffering of the emissary of the gospel serves to glorify Christ and it is compensated by the superior enjoyment of Christ at the resurrection (Phil. 1:19-25). The reward, which God promises to the messenger of the gospel is several times stated in Philippians to be the exalted experience of fellowship with Christ at the resurrection (Phil. 1:21; 3:8-11; 3:20-21; 4:3). The reading of Philippians in light of the appropriation of military terminology confirms that Paul’s main purpose in writing Philippians is to encourage his partners to continue to take risks, to be unafraid of suffering and to make sacrifices in order to boldly testify about Christ and to continue to financially contribute to the mission of spreading the faith. The book of Philippians challenges the contemporary self-centred prosperity culture of the church to take risks and make sacrifices for the proclamation of Christ to unbelievers, sacrifices, which are supremely compensated by a life for the glory of Christ and the surpassing promise of the enjoyment of the glory of God in His Son Christ Jesus. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / New Testament Studies / unrestricted

While it is common to relate to fictional characters, there is a common view that this is all that fiction can provide us with and that we cannot learn from fiction. There are arguments to support this claim, such as the no-evidence argument and the fiction-distortion argument. They claim that due to the nature of the production of fiction and fictional characters, we cannot learn from them. However, fictional characters can be used as a springboard to teach students about many different topics, such as historical periods, different cultures and attitudes. To do this, one should look at the characters as social metaphors. Characters as social metaphors work as labels to teach us about different social types that we can use to understand our friends and enemies. This effect is called the fiction-to-world relation by Noël Carroll and will be used in this essay to analyze different characters from The Great Gatsby and see what they can teach us about the 1920s in the U.S. The Great Gatsby works as a good base novel for this type of analysis because it was produced in the same era it depicts. Furthermore, this essay will fill a gap in research done relating to The Great Gatsby by using this type of text or character analysis and relating it to how it can be used in Swedish Upper secondary school in an effective way to reach the aims for English 7 set forth by Skolverket. As the text and specifically characters were subjected to the analysis, it became clear that one could see traits and trends that would give students insight into the 1920s. Furthermore, this newly acquired knowledge could be used as a springboard for further research for students to find out more about the attitudes, social class struggles and society in general during the roaring 20s.

Forskare och teknologer talar om artificiell intelligens som en revolution lika omvälvande som industrialismen och investerare har skyhöga förväntningar. Detta medan det hos allmänheten finns både okunskap om och rädsla inför AI, även om AI redan i dag tillämpas inom områden som sjukvård och industri. Många tillämpningar innebär att människans livsmiljö behöver anpassas för att AI ska fungera. När ny teknologi växer fram saknar vi ofta uttryck att tala om den och AI är dessutom till stor del osynlig för blotta ögat. Allmänheten blir därför i stor utsträckning beroende av mediernas skildringar. Det ger medierna makt eftersom de får kontroll över de budskap som sprids om AI, vilket gör att de kan påverka våra tankar, känslor och handlingar. Syftet med studien har varit att utforska hur AI har konstruerats i medierna i en tid när varken AI eller diskurserna om AI har hittat sin slutgiltiga form, det vill säga låsts in. Vad säger vi egentligen om AI i form av diskurser, ramar och metaforer? Empirin består av 90 nyhetsartiklar om AI publicerade av TT Nyhetsbyrån från 1980-talet till mars 2020. TT Nyhetsbyrån har en unik plats som nyhetsförmedlare då de når ut till hela Sveriges befolkning och åtnjuter stort förtroende hos allmänheten. Studiens teoretiska ramverk består av tre teorier i samspel: diskursanalys, framingteori och metaforteori. Diskursanalys ser språket som en social handling, vilket innebär att diskurser om AI kan leda oss i en viss riktning. Framingteori studerar hur olika sätt att rama in ett ämne som AI styr hur vi uppfattar och tolkar det. Metaforer ses i studien som centrala tankestrukturer som påverkar hur vi uppfattar, känner och handlar kring AI. Metodval är kvalitativ analys utifrån den undersökningsmodell som konstruerades med det teoretiska ramverket som grund. Resultaten visar att inramningen av TT Nyhetsbyråns artiklar är övervägande positiv, där AI i majoriteten av artiklarna presenteras som ett verktyg med stora möjligheter, som bör utvecklas och tillämpas. Metaforer som förekommer tillskriver maskinen mänskliga egenskaper och motiv och framställer AI-tillämpningar som smarta, läskunniga, nyfikna med flera mänskliga förmågor. Det impliceras i flera artiklar att maskinen skulle ha ett intresse av att konkurrera med människan. En central slutsats är att det förekommer ett spänningsfält med två motsatta huvuddiskurser i empirin. Den ena beskriver AI som ett neutralt verktyg, den andra som en konkurrent till människan. Båda leder till bilden av AI som ett verktyg med stor potential. AI-intressenterna gynnas av spänningsfältet medan läsare missgynnas: de lämnas att själva dra slutsatser om AI:s egentliga fördelar och nackdelar. Andra slutsatser är att de metaforer som förekommer tillskriver AI mänskliga egenskaper och motiv, vilket skapar stora förväntningar. Metaforerna döljer att AI kan förekomma i andra former än som en människoliknande robot, former som inskränker människans livsutrymme. Inramningen har varierat något över tid och tecken finns på att diskurser har låsts in. I empirin finns en klar övervikt för vita män ur elitklassen, vilket gör att TT Nyhetsbyrån kan sägas reproducera existerande maktstrukturer. / According to scientists and technologists, Artificial Intelligence is as revolutionary as the Industrialisation, and investors have soaring expectations. At the same time there is ignorance and fear of AI among the public, even though AI is already being applied in areas such as healthcare and industry. Many applications mean that human life must be adapted to make AI work. As new technologies emerge, we often lack expressions to talk about them, and AI is also largely invisible to the naked eye. The public, therefore, is largely dependent on depictions in media. Newspapers and radio channels decide what messages are spread about AI, messages which influence our thoughts, feelings and actions. The aim of this study was to explore how AI has been constructed in the media at a time when neither AI nor the discourses of AI have found their final form. What do we really say about AI? This study investigates 90 news articles about AI published by TT Nyhetsbyrån from the 1980s to March 2020. TT Nyhetsbyrån has the ability to reach the entire population of Sweden and enjoy great public confidence. The study’s theoretical framework consists of three theories in interaction: discourse analysis, framing theory and metaphor theory. Discourse analysis sees language as a social act, which means that discourses about AI can influence our behaviour. Framing theory studies how different ways of framing a topic such as AI can determine how we perceive and interpret it. In this study, metaphors are defined as central thought structures that influence how we perceive, feel and act. A qualitative analysis was applied in the study, based on a model that was constructed using the theoretical framework. TT Nyhetsbyrån’s articles are found to be predominantly positive, where AI in the majority of articles is framed as a tool with great opportunities, that should be developed and applied. Metaphors ascribe human attributes and motives to the machine, such as smart, literate and curious. It is implied in several articles that the machine has an interest in competing with man. In TT Nyhetsbyrån’s articles two opposite main discourses are visible, creating a tension between the two. One describes AI as a neutral tool, the other as a competitor to humans. Both lead to the image of AI as a tool with great potential. AI stakeholders are favoured by this tension between discourses, while the public is disfavoured: the readers of TT Nyhetsbyrån’s articles are left to draw conclusions about the true advantages and disadvantages of AI. The metaphors in the articles attribute human traits and motives to AI, which creates high expectations. The metaphors hide that AI can exist in forms other than a human-like robot, forms that restrict human life. The framing has varied somewhat over time and there are signs that discourses have been locked in. Since a majority of the interviewees in the articles are white men of the elite class, TT Nyhetsbyrån can also be said to reproduce existing power structures.

Video-based physical training has gained popularity over the years, among both sports practitioners and HCI researchers, whose works ranged from offering computer-assisted solutions for self-correction, to enhancing the learning experience of trainees. This thesis focused on the latter, by investigating the communicative potential of three categories of visual coaching cues and their impact on movement learning, as well as by deriving methodological considerations for similar works. This thesis adopted a Research through Design approach to investigate, from a trainee-centred perspective, three sets of cues: A) abstract visual metaphors (arrows, lines, angles); B) body highlights; and C) material visual metaphors (imagined 3D objects). The cues were informed by a professional trainer’s insights and relevant literature, and were tested with ten participants throughout the course of three sessions. Their reflections were gathered through interviews. The subsequent thematic analysis generated 1) insights on the individual cues (such as their role as reminders, their impact on imagery, and the movement qualities they were able to portray), and 2) design and methodological considerations for future works (such as the importance of involving a professional trainer, clearly defining the learning outcomes of a video session, and choosing the appropriate visual cues).

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This thesis presents a close reading of the award-winning novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood. Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a framework, and the notion of embodiment, the study sheds light on metaphorical linguistic expressions that contribute to the realization of conceptual container metaphors pertinent to the main character’s psychological state. The thesis demonstrates that there are dual results for containment. Firstly, the author conceptualizes the character’s body as a container that is imprisoned because of the patriarchal regime’s control. Secondly, the body is portrayed as a container for safety and love before the regime’s takeover. In addition to this, the thesis examines themes of nature symbolism and time. The containment of nature serves as a metaphor for oppression because of environmental destruction in the country. Nevertheless, it carries a glimpse of hope and freedom and/or different forms of escape. Finally, through time conceptualized as a container, the character enters the past, and the memories it brings. This either provides an escape from the present reality — mental time travel that has positive or negative effects on the character’s mental state, or reminds her of the imprisoned life she is presently in.

Political speeches are complex in nature and call for a thorough exploration to unravel the underlying messages. Politicians tend to simplify their speeches by using conceptual metaphors as a means of taking a shortcut. When examining political speeches, an interesting factor to consider is how politicians utilise conceptual metaphors influenced by their gender, as gender impacts both our language usage and how we are perceived in the world. This research examines the impact of conceptual metaphors used in political discourse pertaining to gender in two African nations: South Africa and Liberia, where one male and one female politician is selected from each country. In order to examine and interpret the corpus, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was conducted, and metaphors were identified using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). Broadly speaking, the research findings indicate that the four politicians established their identities through the utilization of conceptual metaphors. Furthermore, they commonly employed metaphors related to JOURNEY when discussing the progress and growth of their countries. In terms of gender distinctions, women tended to place a higher priority on establishing a sense of togetherness and connectedness with their community.

No description available.