Though bound historically through hundreds of years, the African-Native American relation has not received much attention by scholars of literature; hence, the emphasis of this thesis is to investigate the literary portrayal of the interethnic relation between African Americans and Native Americans through the blues trope. The blues trope provides an intriguing literary platform for the psychological and physical struggles in finding an identity within such a diverse multiethnic society like the United States. For African American writer Alice Walker and Native American author Sherman Alexie the blues trope is a successful literary device in expressing long lost and rediscovered emotions, identities and hopes among an ever growing multiethnic nation.

Historians of the founding years of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) acknowledge General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s role as the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), yet they ignore the effect Eisenhower’s rhetoric had in the creation of a sense of unity among Western European nations. Rhetorical analysis of Eisenhower’s time as SACEUR offers scholars a unique look into the founding years of NATO and the beginning of European unification. Using Kenneth Burke’s theory of the four master tropes, I analyze how Eisenhower’s role in the development of NATO was important to the eventual development of a unified Europe.

This study aims at investigating the problem of universals, which is one of the most venerable issues in the history of philosophy. The problem of universals emerges from the ontological status of properties and relations / i.e., the existence and nature of properties and relations. It can be defined as the problem of how two or more different objects can have the same property or how a property can be a part of different things. The problem of universals consists of not a single problem but rather a network of problems. The aim of this study is to reconsider the problem of universals which involves the three interrelated problems: ontological problem of predication, the linguistic problem of predication and the problem of abstract reference. Any adequate account for the problem of universals must deal with these problems. Nominalism, Trope theory, and Realism are three major theories that have proposed solutions to the problem of universals. In this study, these accounts have been discussed and it has been tried to reveal whether any of these accounts can deal with these problems. As a conclusion, this study proposes that among the theories that try to deal with the problem of ontological predication and the problem of abstract reference, only Object-Trope theory and Armstrong&rsquo / s Realism have been successful. However, Object-Trope theory is found to be a bit more superior to Armstrong&rsquo / s Realism when Ockham&rsquo / s razor is appealed to.

This thesis examines the multifaceted and interdisciplinary means through which the “rebel” trope is used as a groundwork for complex characterization in Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s Heathers the Musical (2018). Using Jamie Muscato’s performance as Jason Dean (“JD”) as an exemplar, I employ a three-stage analytic process through which nuanced, embodied subjectivity is realized, and the performer is highlighted as a vector for intersectional interpretation. The first stage examines the narrative impacts of the text and music written for JD and explores how they serve to individualize him. The second considers the musical mechanics and rock informed stylization of the character using an analytic model for embodied subjectivity, which I extend to account for theatrical elements of performance. The third considers the analytic findings of the first two chapters through an intersectional lens, highlighting the musical and theatrical interpretation of the text posited by the performer as being the main vehicle through which the “rebel” trope is expanded upon.

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La relativa sistematización de la actuación de la metonimia, siendo un procedimiento creativo para la renovación semántica del léxico, es el punto de partida de esta Tesis, que propone un modelo de seguimiento de la repercusión de la metonimia sobre el léxico del español actual. La Tesis se estructura en cuatro partes, a las que se suman las conclusiones. En primer lugar, se introducen los objetivos y metodología del trabajo, así como la perspectiva adoptada con relación al cambio lingüístico: nos planteamos un estudio sincrónico, según los patrones sistemáticos de actuación del procedimiento. En la segunda parte, desarrollamos una lingüística de la metonimia, superando las restricciones que imponía su caracterización en los tratados retóricos como figura de significación aplicada ad hoc sobre el léxico. Para esta lingüística es medular la condición de contigüidad semántico-referencial en el marco de actuación del procedimiento, que está constituido por un entorno sintagmático infra-discursivo en el que se tiene una categorización lingüística del continuum del mundo. La actuación sistemática de la metonimia tiene que ver con la previsibilidad de las relaciones de contigüidad que perturba en este sintagma virtual. La proyección en el nivel sintáctico discursivo de estos desórdenes relacionales ocasiona incompatibilidades semánticas como resultado de una sustitución paradigmática que otorga a la metonimia su dimensión de tropo. Otros tropos y figuras retóricos, como la sinécdoque, la metalepsis y la hipálage, son caracterizados asimismo en esta parte como procedimientos metonímicos, en tanto que implican una transferencia denotativa, si bien se señalan las condiciones específicas que los diferencian de la metonimia, ya sean relativas al tipo relacional perturbado, o a las características de los polos denotativos relacionados. Especial atención hemos otorgado a la elipsis, por su convergencia con la metonimia cuando genera léxico autónomo y, por tanto, adquiere una dimensión trópica. En la tercera parte, y como resultado de la descripción del procedimiento, delimitamos los parámetros de observación de la metonimia en un diccionario, según su manifestación en los distintos niveles lingüísticos, y los aplicamos también a la relación entre acepciones, estudiando la que se ha llamado metonimia polisémica. A continuación, presentamos los índices lexicográficos para su identificación en el Diccionario del español actual (1999) de Manuel Seco, Olimpia Andrés y Gabino Ramos, que constituye nuestro corpus de estudio. Estos índices nos han proporcionado un patrón de seguimiento de la metonimia en el estado de lengua que recoge este diccionario, lo que ha hecho posible la creación de una base de datos informatizada que constituye la cuarta parte de la Tesis: LexAMET, donde se tiene una recopilación de más de 2.000 palabras del español con una o varias acepciones metonímicas, extraídas de una muestra de 21.000 palabras de nuestro corpus. En esta base de datos clasificamos los cambios semánticos atendiendo al procedimiento metonímico que ha actuado: metonimia, sinécdoque, elipsis metonímica, símbolo metonímico, metalepsis, hipálage, metalogía. Con LexAMET se tiene un recurso lingüístico para la identificación de la intervención de la metonimia en un estado de lengua del español. / This thesis deals with the sistematization process of metonymy as a creative process for the semantic renewal of lexicon. The project proposes a monitoring model to assess the impact of metonymy in contemporary Spanish lexicon.The thesis is structured in four parts plus the final conclusions. In the fist part, our aims and methodology are detailed, together with our view on the linguistic change. We develop a synchronic study, according to the systematic patterns by which the metonymy process acts.In the second part, we develop a metonymy linguistic, going beyond the classic limitations that appeared in theoretical works which considerer metonymy as a meaning figure applied ad hoc to the lexicon.The key for this linguistic is the semantic-referential continuity condition in the acting framework of the process. This process is built by an under-discursive syntagmatic setting where a linguistic categorization of the world's continuum is established. The systematic acting of metonymy is closely linked with the foreseeable continuity relationships that this virtual syntagm disturbs. The projection of these relationship disturbances in the syntactic discursive level produces semantic incompatibilities as the result of a paradigmatic substitution that makes metonymy acquire its trope dimension. Other tropes and rhetorical figures, such as synecdoche, metalepsis and hypallage, are considered as metonymic processes as they imply a denotative transference. We highlight, however, the specific conditions that differentiate them from metonymy, whether the conditions regard the relational type under disturbance or the characteristics of the denotative poles under relation. Ellipsis has been paid special attention, as it overlaps with metonymy when generating autonomous lexicon, thus acquiring a trope dimension. In the third part, and as a result of the process description, we establish the descriptive parameters of metonymy in a dictionary, according to its manifestation in various linguistic levels, and we apply them to the relationship between meanings, studying what has been called polysemic metonymy. Following this study, we show the lexicographic rates for the identification of metonymy in the Diccionario del español actual (1999), by Manuel Seco, Olimpia Andrés y Gabino Ramos. This dictionary makes up our corpus in the study.These rates have provided us with a monitoring pattern of metonymy in the Spanish language recorded in this dictionary, what has allowed us to create an electronic database to which we have devoted the fourth part of our study: LexAMET. This database compiles more than 2000 Spanish words with one or more metonymic sense, taken from our 21000 words corpus.In this database we classify the semantic changes according to the metonymic process in action: metonymy, synecdoche, metonymic ellipsis, metonymic symbol, metalepsis, hypallage, metalogy. LexAMET can be thus defined as a linguistic resource for the identification of metonymy in the Spanish language.

Despite the success illness novels have acquired in the last decade, the misrepresentation of chronic illness in the Young Adult genre is still going unnoticed. In an ableist society that still needs to be educated about invisible disabilities, most of the contemporary YA writers insist on finding miraculous solutions and questionable happy endings to their stories. The aim of this thesis is therefore to study the different ways in which YA writers fetishize and understate invisible disability and to find a way to subvert it. By focusing on the miracle cure trope and romanticization in the case of Nicola Yoon’s Everything Everything, it attempts to highlight the characteristics of low-quality disability fiction and demonstrate why and how the use of disability biases can affect negatively both disabled and nondisabled young readers. In addition, through the scrutiny of the author’s first YA novel, Nothing Wrong with Snails, it then illustrates how the in-depth analysis of past disability literature improved the author’s personal craft and enabled them to portray chronic illness and invisible disability avoiding stereotypes, biases, and tropes. In conclusion, it argues that writers ought to rely on disability studies in order to reach higher standards in the representation of invisible disability in YA fiction.

This dissertation explores the use of topics for dramatic purposes in Mozart's Così fan tutte. The five analytical chapters are organized around a central question: how do pastoral and fanfare topics shape the plot of Così fan tutte? Chapter 2 highlights the role topics and tropes play in emplacing and nuancing emergent meaning in the Così fan tutte motto. Chapter 3 examines transformative topical tropes in "Ah guarda, sorella." Chapter 4 shows how the horn fifths and fanfare topics in "Per pietà, ben mio" frame Fiordiligi's choice: the Albanian or Guglielmo. Chapter 5 illustrates the relationship between fanfare topics and galant recitative schemas to articulate formal boundaries between accompanied recitatives and arias. The expectations of closure emplaced by the examples from Così fan tutte nuance a reading of "Hai già vinta la causa!" from Le nozze di Figaro. Chapter 6 discusses the role of recitative intrusions and their articulation of the Count's unrest in "Vedrò mentre io sospiro." Detailed analyses and close readings of the topics and tropes in this dissertation drawn from throughout Così fan tutte showcase Mozart's rich deployment of topics in varied musical and dramatic roles.

No description available.