Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-85). Also available via the Internet.

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This thesis proposes an account of the effects achieved by the poetic use of rhetorical tropes and schemes in the light of recent developments in pragmatic theory. More specifically it discusses and attempts to develop the relevance theory account of poetic effects. Much recent debate in literary studies has centred on the question as to whether literary communication is best explained in terms of text-internal linguistic properties or socio-cultural phenomena. This thesis considers such views in the light of the theories of language and communication they assume. It then proposes an alternative theoretical account of literary communication grounded in cognitive pragmatic theory. It argues that the relevance theory account of poetic effects may make a significant contribution to such an account. A brief outline of relevance theory is followed by a more detailed analysis of metaphor and a brief consideration of epizeuxis and various verse effects, insofar as they contribute to poetic style. it is natural for pragmatic theory to concentrate on the communication of assumptions, propositional forms with a logical structure over which inferences can be performed. Although the account of poetic effects and poetic thoughts developed here will be partially characterised in such terms, an attempt will also be made to account for the communication of affective and other non-propositional effects. Any theory of stylistic effects in general, and poetic style in particular, must, it will be argued, include such an account. This will necessitate a broader philosophical discussion of issues having a bearing on the question of what it is that is communicated non-propositionally. More particularly it will require some discussion of emotion, phenomenal experience and aesthetic experience. This discussion will lead to a characterisation of poetic thought or poetic representation. The thesis aims, then, to make a contribution to literary studies by characterising a new theoretical notion of literariness in terms of mental representations and mental processes. It also aims to make a contribution to pragmatic theory, specifically to the pragmatics of poetic style and rhetoric within a relevance theory framework.

Thesis (M. S.)--Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Kuzmich, Alex; Committee Member: Chapman, Michael; Committee Member: Citrin, David; Committee Member: Kennedy, T. A. Brian; Committee Member: Raman, Chandra

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 2005. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 85 pages. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Kennedy, Brian, Committee Member ; Chapman, Michael, Committee Member ; Kuzmich, Alex, Committee Chair ; Raman, Chandra, Committee Member ; Voss, Paul, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-71). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-155). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Quando tratada como a linguagem dos negócios, a Contabilidade é tida como um sistema de códigos que permite a comunicação entre a administração da empresa e os usuários reais ou potenciais das informações geradas pela primeira. Essa proposta torna-se ainda mais relevante quando tanto a doutrina como os órgãos regulamentadores apontam que comunicar é posto como o próprio objetivo da Contabilidade. A Contabilidade também é reconhecida como uma manifestação linguística por apresentar aspectos em comum com outras linguagens. Dentro desse contexto, diversos estudos propõem a utilização de teorias semióticas e da comunicação para a realização de pesquisas contábeis, não apenas com relação às informações numéricas das demonstrações financeiras, mas também a terminologia, os textos, gráficos e imagens utilizados nessas demonstrações e em outras narrativas que compõem o disclosure de uma entidade. Estudos empíricos sobre essa abordagem são encontrados desde a década de 1970 no exterior, e há pelo menos uma década de forma mais frequente no Brasil. Sendo assim, este trabalho teve como objetivo realizar um review de trabalhos publicados em periódicos, congressos brasileiros e teses e dissertações defendidas em programas de pós-graduação avaliados pela Capes para responder ao seguinte problema de pesquisa: Qual o estado da arte da pesquisa em Contabilidade no Brasil fundamentada em teorias Semióticas e da Comunicação? Foram coletados 22 trabalhos, num total de 18 inéditos, que foram segregados em seis categorias, conforme o problema de pesquisa proposto: teórico, compreensão de termos técnicos, evolução de significados, compreensibilidade de relatórios, fidelidade de representação e influência no preço das ações. Os trabalhos teóricos sugerem a utilização de teorias semióticas e da comunicação para investigar se a Contabilidade atinge seus objetivos. Geralmente, tais trabalhos tratam da compreensibilidade associada ao nível de sofisticação do usuário e da fidelidade de representação associada à relevância da informação. Os trabalhos empíricos encontraram evidências de que os usuários não compreendem alguns termos utilizados nos relatórios contábeis, ou têm concepções diferentes acerca deles, que as narrativas contábeis podem ser consideradas de difícil leitura e que o repertório e a formação dos usuários das demonstrações contábeis afetam a compreensibilidade, que há presença de gerenciamento de impressões na forma como os relatórios narrativos são elaborados e que o pessimismo das narrativas contábeis influencia o valor de mercado das empresas. Também foi constatada a importância da evolução histórica da utilização de um termo ou expressão para se entender o conceito ou significado que a sociedade atribui a ele. No que concerne às metodologias utilizadas, observou-se uma grande variedade de recursos inferenciais estatísticos empregados para abordar os problemas de pesquisa. As técnicas mais utilizadas foram o questionário e a análise de conteúdo (temática e sintática) muitas vezes em conjunto com técnicas de inferência estatística. Os trabalhos teóricos são os que mais fizeram referências às teorias semiótica e da comunicação, entretanto os trabalhos empíricos não tratam necessariamente dessas teorias, apesar de frequentemente abordarem a contabilidade como uma forma de linguagem, ou como importante para o processo de comunicação da administração com os usuários. Por fim, foram sugeridos alguns direcionadores para as pesquisas nacionais. As possibilidades de pesquisas têm o potencial de serem ampliadas, seja pela variedade de narrativas contábeis passíveis de investigação, seja pelo objeto de estudo, que não necessariamente deve recair sobre as narrativas, seja pela perspectiva sobre a qual o objeto de estudo é pesquisado. Há também a possibilidade de explorar melhor o arcabouço teórico das ciências semióticas e da comunicação, que parece ser subutilizado em alguns estudos. / Approached as business language, Accounting is considered a code system which allows communication between company administration and the actual or potential users of the information generated by the first. This proposition becomes more relevant when both the doctrine and regulation organs point out that communicating is itself the purpose of Accounting. Accounting is also recognized as a linguistic manifestation as it presents common aspects with other languages. Inserted in this context, several studies propose the use of semiotic and communication theories to accomplish accounting research, considering not only numeric information of financial statements but also terminology, texts, graphs and images employed in these demonstrations and in other narratives that compound the disclosure of a corporation. There have been empirical studies on this approach since the 1970s, and research on this field has been done frequently in Brazil at least for a decade. Thus, this work aims to accomplish a review of articles published in journals, Brazilian congresses, theses and dissertations presented in graduation programs evaluated by Capes to answer the following question: what is the state-of-art of Accounting research in Brazil based upon semiotic and communication theories? Twenty-two works have been collected, among these eighteen unpublished works, which have been divided into six categories, according to the research problem in focus, being them: theoretical, technical terminology comprehension, meaning evolution, reports understandability, faithful representation and influence on stock prices. Theoretical works suggest the use of semiotic and communication concepts to investigate if Accounting reaches its aims. Such works generally study comprehensibility associated with the level of sophistication of users and faithful representation linked to information relevance. Empirical works found evidence that users do not comprehend some terms employed on accounting reports, or still hold different conceptions about them. In addition accounting narratives can be considered difficult to read and knowledge and schooling of users affect the comprehensibility. Also, there are evidences of manipulation on the way narrative reports are elaborated and pessimism in accounting narratives influence the market value of companies. It has also been identified the significance of historical evolution of a term or expression to understand the concept or meaning that society applies to it. Concerning the methodology employed, there has been observed a great variety of inferential statistic resources employed to approach the research questioning. Questionnaire and contents analysis (both thematic and syntactic) were the techniques more frequently used, often associated to methods of statistic inference. Theoretical works have more often referred to semiotic and communication theories. However, empirical works do not approach such theories themselves although they do approach Accounting as a language or as somewhat relevant to communication process between administration and users. At last, some guidance to national research has been provided. Possibilities for research have potential to be enlarged, both for the variety of accounting narratives that can be investigated or for the study focus, which may not concentrate on narratives or still for the perspective of the research. There is also the possibility of studying the theoretical framework on semiotic and communication sciences more deeply, which seem to be underutilized in some studies.

At the same time as we are seeing ever increasing numbers of people actively using social networking sites, and growing evidence of increased participation in campaigning and digital activism, we are seeing a decline in democratic participation in the UK at both a national and local level. This thesis examines these two contrasting effects within the context of Local Government in the UK and explores what the impact might be at the neighbourhood level. The work discusses the influence of place based online activity on democratic decision-making Local Government and the ways in which traditional processes of decision-making, democratic participation and community engagement practice may need to change to reflect the upward pressure that is being exerted by citizen use of new technologies and adjust the way in which Local Government facilitates citizen participation in decision-making. The work develops the concept of Digital civic space as an alternative to eParticipation platforms and discusses how such spaces are being used to connect online activity with democratic processes at present and how present experience may be used to inform future developments. Employing an Action Research method, the research analyses three projects in order to examine the nature of the pre-existing participation online and the impact of creating online civic spaces to connect the participants both to each other and to local decision-makers. Design criteria are proposed which describe the necessary qualities of public-ness, openness, co-production, definition of place and identity and the thesis reaches conclusions as to how these criteria might better connect local resident with the democratic decision-making processes for their communities.