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Notre étude prend l’allure d’un discours argumentatif sur les questions de sens et de signification en musique. Elle s’interroge dans une première partie sur le sens en général et sur la visée musicologique du sens : y a-t-il une réalité ontologique du sens ? Le sens est-il objet, qualité, propriété, état de choses, visée intentionnelle de la chose, etc.Dans une seconde partie, nous engageons une discussion sur la signification musicale et sur le rapport signification/sens en musique. Elle réactive de nombreuses problématiques de la musicologie : l’épineuse question du signe musical, la communication musicale, le langage musical, le rapport son musical/langage verbal — rapport essentiel, eu égard à l’inféodation de l’homme et de sa pensée au langage verbal. Dans une troisième partie, nous envisagerons le sens sous l’angle d’une trilogie, articulant les trois acceptions courantes du sens : la signification, la sensation et la direction. Nous y expliquons notamment ce que l’on peut entendre par « direction » ou « orientation » en musique. Cette partie décrit le processus sémiotique du son musical, et explique, à travers ce processus, la téléologie de la musique : quelle est sa finalité ? Quelle est sa raison d’être ? Quelle est sa fonction dans l’humanité ? Notre étude utilise la philosophie du sens et les théories du langage pour tenter, humblement, d’expliquer la scandaleuse disproportion entre la puissance à dire de la musique et l’inévidence foncière de ce qu’elle dit , disproportion en laquelle réside selon nous tout son mystère. / Our study takes the form of an argumentative speech about the matters of sense and meaning in music. The study will firstly ponder about the Meaning in general and the musicological aim of the sense: Is there an ontological reality to the sense? Is the meaning an object, a quality, a property, a state of object; is it an intentional aim of the object, etc ?In a second part, we do launch a discussion about the musical meaning and about the sense/meaning relation in music. It restarts several musicology issues: the delicate question of the musical sign, musical communication, musical language, musical/verbal language relation –a crucial relationship, with regard to the indentureship of the human and his mind to the verbal language. In a third section, we will consider the sense as a trilogy which structures the three current senses of the word: meaning, feeling and direction. We will especially explain what can be implied by “direction” or “orientation” in music. This part describes the semiotics process of the musical sound, and explain through this process the teleology of music: What is its ambition? What is its reason of being? What is its function in humanity? Our study uses the philosophy of the sense and the language theories to make an, humble, attempt to explain the outrageous disproportion between music’s power of saying and basic non obviousness of it says, disproportion in which lies, according to us, all its mystery.

In an effort to assist self-guided artists in constructing meaning and creativity through the technique of printmaking, the author has compiled a curriculum to engage these artist/students in thoughtful research, discussion, art-making, and critique. In this qualitative case study there are eight participants from age 14 to 79, with varying educational and art experience, who enrolled in a relief print workshop with no recompense other than participation. The particular benefits of learning relief printing are described. The author's goal is exploration of student responses to a curriculum centered around constructing meaning and engaging in introspective and informed discussion. In fostering open inquiry and analysis, the author was able to cultivate a place of personal discovery in a community class and gain insights into teaching, learning, and curriculum design.

The study was designed to explore and describe the relationship between young adults' sense of meaning and purpose in life and the experience of depression. The relationship between the existential constructs of meaning and purpose in life, assessed using Reker's (1992) Life Attitude Profile - Revised (LAP-R) instrument, and depression, assessed using Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), was explored in young adults.

This thesis presents a theoretical discussion of meaning creation in general, and interpretive functions of English adjectives in particular. The discussion rests on a dynamic view of meaning and interpretation, according to which there are no fixed linguistics meanings – not even for single lexemes. Instead of symbolising meaning in a more or less static and ‘eternal’ fashion, linguistic items are assumed to effect the creation of meaning and to shape meaning dynamically in the particular communicative event at hand, from some kind of underlying ‘raw material’ (also referred to as purport and schemas). It is suggested that the interpretive functions of linguistic items – that is the effects that such items have in the creation of meaning – may be approached in two main ways, namely from the formal and from the semantic point of view respectively. Effects triggered by the form of a certain item are referred to as formal interpretive functions (FIFs), and effects prompted by the meaning created for the form are referred to as semantic interpretive functions (SIFs). FIFs are claimed to be the same for all items – namely to activate, delimit and shape underlying purport and schemas – whereas SIFs are said to differ between items, and also for one and the same item on different occasions of use. It is furthermore suggested that FIFs affect the creation of meaning for the relevant item itself, whereas SIFs affect the creation of meaning for other items, on any level of conceptual organisation. For instance, a form such as tall typically activates and delimits purport and schemas to do with some kind of extension (notably in space), thereby shaping a basic word meaning tall. The meaning thus created may in turn affect other meaning in the larger context. For instance, tall, as created in default interpretation of a tall man entered the room, affects the meaning of the noun phrase a tall man as a whole, in that it specifies the interpreter’s conception of a certain something that entered a specific room. In this case, the relevant SIF is thus to specify. Other SIFs suggested for adjectives are kind identification, element identification, identity provision and stipulation. The aim of the thesis is two-fold: on the one hand to outline a suggestive theory of meaning creation and interpretive function in general, and, on the other hand, to present a theoretical discussion of adjective functions in particular, with the ultimate goal of providing a general framework from which more specific models for in-depth empirical research can be obtained.

Disertacijoje analizuojami būsimų muzikos mokytojų meninės individualybės raiškos muzikinėje veikloje ypatumai. Iškelta mokslinė problema: kaip ir kokią įtaką muzikinė veikla gali daryti būsimų muzikos mokytojų meninei individualybei ir kiek šią įtaką įmanoma optimizuoti. Sudarytas ir teoriškai bei empiriškai pagrįstas būsimų muzikos mokytojų meninės individualybės raiškos modelis, apimantis refleksyvumo (išreiškiamo per muzikos interpretavimo autentiškumą, savo gebėjimų vertinimą ir savo orumo jautimą), kūrybiškumo (per muzikos interpretavimo originalumą, vertinimų savitumą ir išgyvenimų intensyvumą), meniškumo (per muzikos interpretavimo harmoningumą, vertinimų gilumą ir išgyvenimų estetiškumą) ir atsakingumo (per prisiėmimą atsakomybės už muzikos kūrinių interpretavimą, vertinimų dorovingumą ir pareigos jautimą) komponentus. Atlikus diagnostinį tyrimą atskleista būsimų muzikos mokytojų meninės individualybės muzikinėje veikloje apraiškos, jų tarpusavio sąsajos, raiškos lygis, priklausomybė nuo išorinių (aukštosios mokyklos tipo ir studentų kurso) bei vidinių (muzikiniai gebėjimai, meniniai išgyvenimai ir vertybių reikšmingumo pripažinimas) veiksnių. Atlikto ugdymo projekto metu atskleisti meninės individualybės raiškos pokyčiai ir pagrįstos būsimų muzikos mokytojų meninės individualybės raiškos plėtojimo strategijos. Remiantis atlikto disertacinio tyrimo rezultatais, pateiktos rekomendacijos pedagogams muzikos mokytojų rengimo praktikoje taikyti praktiškai patikrintas... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Peculiarities of the expression of artistic individuality of future teachers are analysed in the dissertation. Problem of the investigation has been formulated: in what way and what impact the musical activity can exert on artistic individuality of future music teachers and to what extent this impact can be optimised. The model of the expression of artistic individuality of future music teachers has been created and substantiated both theoretically and empirically. The model encompasses the components of reflexivity, creativity, high artistic value and responsibility. Manifestations of artistic individuality in musical activity of future teachers and the level of expression of these manifestations, interrelations between components of artistic individuality and their dependence on the external factors (the type of higher education institution that provides different musical education (university, non-university) and the year the students are in, as well as internal factors (musical abilities, artistic experiences and recognition of the significance of values) have been revealed by the diagnostic examination. Statistically significant changes in the expression of artistic individuality of future music teachers have been determined and strategies for developing the expression of artistic individuality of future music teachers have been brought out and tested in the course of the education project. On the basis of the data of the research work the basic brought out strategies... [to full text]

This thesis is concerned with an exploration into the reconsideration of meaning of the embodied subject whose figuration is defined as abnormal relative to the prevailing hierarchical structures of western Cartesian dualism. Evidence of the degree of subordinate representation and treatment of the marginalized body is so far-reaching and the variety of classification so extensive that it becomes necessary to frame my research within a lens whose focus isolates more specific parameters for the purposes of an interrogative and pointed analysis. This narrowing of my viewpoint of the process of absention allows more specific areas of interest to be highlighted—since this reductive convention is, ironically, both sweepingly consuming yet tends toward the categorical in its often taxonomic classification. Hence, for the purposes of this analysis, I concentrate on the representations of the body marked as animal, criminal and disabled relative to their normalised ‘other’—interrogating the overt construction of their difference and their consequent, emergent, points of similarity. This exercise not only points to their architecture but simultaneously implies the erosion of their distinctiveness as separate representations of abnormality—as well as emphasizing the contrived act of pairing them with their presupposed ‘normal’ binary counterparts. I argue that the visualization seemingly inhering in the bodies of those absented from dominant ideological structures is necessarily limited, its fixity emerging from stultification; an othering that maintains the subject via carceral structures that are socially and politically informed. The confines of this paradigm are prescribed through a consensual ascription to a governing norm that stipulates the superiority of the artificially normalised body—thereby constructing a dualism of constraint that polices the acceptance and rejection of individual physicality—within a wider public sphere of normalisation. This is evident in the representation of the body on a cultural and political level and undeniably intersects its conceptual interpretation and lived experience in both public and private spaces. The thesis introduces a body of theory that operates on a number of levels and performs a variety of functions—none of which can be easily, or even successfully, separated from the content and role of the significant presence of performance work that comprises the final script. The latter is presented in the form of photographic documentation that links its own process of visualization to the thesis whilst maintaining an active locus of critique—produced as response to the multifaceted problematic of political and personal othering emerging from culturally inscribed figurations of animality, disability and criminality. The theoretical analysis and performance practice exist in a symbiotic relationship—creating a mutual dialectical analysis that aims to avoid the fixities inhering in the extremes of either approach. Instead, one is invited to consider the contrasts, comparisons and complements emerging from the intricacies of their relationship—thereby avoiding the redundancies accompanying their binarist opposition and by extension, the dualisms of visual figuring I have isolated for examination. Utilizing my performative practice as a point of entry into this analysis, I have focused on the problematization of these reified representations of the body within western modalities of seeing, with a view to introducing a different space of articulation so as to encourage alternative inscriptions of meaning. This approach exemplifies my search to undermine the overriding cultural motif that maintains and perpetuates the oppression of the body marked as ‘other’. The spectacle of incarceration that western society continues to tolerate is thereby tirelessly interrogated, with the aim of exposing the secrets whose shame, if allowed to remain hidden, will never allow for release of the abnormal body from the society that birthed its difference.

The purpose of this study was to determine managers' perceptions of the relationship between spirituality and work performance. The sample consisted of twelve senior managers from different organisations. Semi structured interviews were used to gather the data. The data was qualitatively analysed and themes were identified. The findings indicated that spirituality promotes the healthy development of individuals by assisting with their own self-awareness, helping them find inner peace and dealing with stress and depression. Respondents also felt that spirituality enhances teamwork and redefines the concept of success in terms of engaging in competition, having unselfish motives and encouraging honesty. Based on the findings, recommendations were made for practice and for future research. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

Magister Artium - MA / Through a literary analysis of two contemporary novels, J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K (1983) and Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006), in which a common concern seems to be an exploration of what it means to be human, the thesis seeks to explore the relationship between human consciousness and language. This dissertation considers the development of a conception of the human based on rationality, and which begins in the Italian Renaissance and gains momentum in the Enlightenment. This conception models the human as a stable knowable self. This is drawn in contrast to the novels, which figure the absence of a stable knowable self in the representation of their protagonists. The thesis thus interrogates language's capacity to provide definitional meanings of the ''human.'' On the other hand, although language's capacity to provide essential meanings is questioned, its abundant expressive forms give voice to the experience of human being. Drawing on a range of fields of enquiry, both philosophical, linguistic, and bio-ethical, this thesis seeks to explore the connection between human consciousness and the medium of language. It considers how the two novels in question play with the concept of language to produce or imagine other ways of thinking about human existence, and other ways of creating meaning to human existence through the representation of their novels.

Pervasive in spontaneous informal conversation, general extenders (GEs) are vague multiword expressions (e.g. or something (like that), and stuff (like that) vs. nebo něco (takovýho), a tak(ový věci)) that have been shown to fulfil a number of communicative functions, ranging from propositional to expressive. But while the English extenders have received a lot of meticulous attention in nearly four decades of research, the corresponding Czech constructions remain largely overlooked (perhaps with the exception of Tárnyiková 2009 and Novotný & Malá 2018). The current study aims to (1) present a wide range of English and Czech GE forms (collected using the method of collocational frames (Aijmer 2015) and then categorised according to structural similarities, thus suggesting possible GE patterns); and (2) examine their communicative functions in contemporary English and Czech as represented in comparable corpora of informal spoken discourse (Spoken BNC2014 and ORAL2013, respectively). Relying extensively on functional frameworks introduced in previous research (e.g. Overstreet 1999, 2014), this study confirms what has been known about English GEs and investigates the degree of applicability to the respective Czech constructions. A close qualitative analysis of some of the collected GE forms (in total,...