In questo studio si analizza il linguaggio utilizzato nei blog che si occupano di storia dell'arte, genere diffuso online, tramite un corpus di 54 blogs pubblicati nel 2013. Nell'ambito della linguistica dei corpora, l'analisi permette di ridefinire le tradizionali categorie utilizzate per descrivere i blog, fornisce una descrizione tipologica dei post e dei commenti tramite l'utilizzo di un apposito software, oltre a descrivere il livello di specializzazione del linguaggio. Vengono infine riportati esempi di creatività linguistica in questo genere digitale. / This study analyses the language of “art blogs”, i.e. blogs dealing with art, through a specialised corpus of fifty-four blogs published during 2013. Both posts and comments are included in the present investigation into the linguistic character of art blogs. The methodological choices reflect the need for a multifaceted analysis which covers different aspects, from text typology to linguistic creativity and popularisation. A review of the relevant literature on blogs brings to light the need for a specific characterisation of art blogs, since they tend to have a blended style, which cannot be ascribed to the traditional categories of personal and thematic blogging. The distinctive features of posts and comments are then investigated through a multidimensional analysis which reveals that posts and comments are two different text types. Successively, the corpus is compared to a specialised corpus of art announcements, within the field of popularised and specialised discourse. Finally, several examples of linguistic creativity are explored and presented, thus showing that traditional descriptive paradigms are unsuited to analyse the outcomes of art bloggers.

Abstract OLD WORLD, NEW MEDIA: CROSS-CULTURAL EXPLORATIONS WITH CAMERA AND ANALYTIC TEXT IN CUSCO, PERU By Scott DuPre Mills, PhD. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2014 Major Director: Dr. Nicholas A Sharp, Assistant Professor, Department of English This dissertation draws on my field research in Cusco, Peru, documenting Old World methods of making Andean musical instruments. The cross-cultural interactions I engaged in are concretized and documented in the ethnographic film I shot at the time and in my experimentation with original music recorded with these handmade instruments. I have revisited the family that produces these instruments each summer from 2003-2013 and built a relationship that has provided me with an in-depth perspective on the centuries-old tradition of making musical instruments. These instruments afford an exceptionally high quality sound and are created specifically for local professional musicians. My search for an authentic Andean charango occasioned complex association with local artisans, enabling me to perform various roles as a participant in this cross-cultural interaction, from musician and documentary filmmaker to teacher in the summer study program in Peru. Both the fact that VCU students and faculty expressed interest in buying these instruments, and our group expenditures in Peru, enhanced the instrument-making family economically, providing them with the means to expand their production of instruments. Each year after my return back to the United States, I studied closely the documentary footage I had recorded and found that the camera can function as a writing device. In order to explore further and understand conceptually my intuitions, I researched newer theories about camera consciousness and developed my own concepts that are articulated in this dissertation. In the process, I have drawn interdisciplinary connections between Ethnography, Media theory and Anthropological concepts as they relate to human activities in the area of media, art, text. A central theoretical argument in my dissertation underscores the fact that the new media have altered the definition of literacy. In exploring the elements of (traditional and digital) photography, moving image, audio and written text as they define the new intermediatic context, it became apparent that New Media requires an ability to “read” beyond the medium of the written word. This is relevant also for my study of traditional instrument-making in Peru. Because many of the “Old world” methods of creating instruments and music existed outside of a literary (verbal) account or explanation, these methods often became lost or forgotten as new modes of mass production took over. The type of multimedia approach that I am illustrating in this dissertation, mixing traditional with New Media methodologies, has the potential to reconnect us to “Old World” forms via the visual and audio elements that are not directly present in verbal texts. A significant portion of my dissertation explores the introduction and development of the New Media and the devices that connect human beings to the digital domain. My examination foregrounds both the positive and negative implications of the New Media. The inclusion of an anthropological perspective in this discussion provides a broader view of human behavior in relation to the development of communication technology and multimedia.

Lilian Westcott Hale (1880-1963) and her daughter Nancy Hale (1908-1988) built successful careers during a period of transition in America, as Victorian mores were replaced by new modern freedoms. Greater independence for women had evolved during the preceding century, before the influential cultural factors which occurred during the early twentieth century like urbanization and world war. This interdisciplinary analysis of Lilian Hale‘s artwork and Nancy Hale‘s writings demonstrates the imprint of the surrounding world on their work. Lilian Hale‘s art is influenced by her Victorian childhood, and Nancy Hale‘s fiction reveals many conflicts of the modern era. The study of these two women is enhanced by the wealth of primary documentation connecting their ideas and their lives to their artistic works. Both of the women ranked among the most respected in their fields during their lifetimes. Their works resonate with elements of their eras, demonstrating what it was to be a woman during the first half of the twentieth century. Lilian Westcott Hale and Nancy Hale both engage the gender constructs of their periods through their work. Lilian Westcott Hale‘s art is divided here into three distinct genres: her still lifes and landscapes express the confining environment the Victorian woman occupied; her idealized women reflect the period‘s taste for female perfection and beauty; her portraits and figure studies point to Hale‘s own distinction between males and females through their clothing and their poses. Unlike Lilian Westcott Hale, Nancy Hale demonstrates woman‘s new freedoms in an open manner, a result of the break with Victorianism. Hale‘s use of a literary medium allows her direct examination of the turmoil caused by the modern breakdown of Victorian structures. Lilian Westcott Hale refrains from harsh judgment of her daughter‘s world, while Nancy Hale‘s modern challenge of the previous era‘s standards leads her into troubling relationships and difficulties balancing her career with her personal life. Their work reveals the cultural ideologies of their respective eras and particularly the changes taking place for women.