‘Caution: Objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear!' liest man nicht nur als Aufkleber auf zahlreichen Rückspiegeln, auch Jean Baudrillard bedient sich dieser Warnung in seiner umstrittenen 'Studie' America. Überträgt man diesen Appell zur Vorsicht auf die Literatur und ganz konkret auf den kontemporären Roman, so könnte dies bedeuten, daß sich lebensweltliche Prozesse - und im vorliegenden Fall: Modernisierungsprozesse - wesentlich schneller literarisch niederschlagen, als gemeinhin angenommen wird. Sollte das schon so häufig totgesagte Medium Buch, sollte der in Zeiten des Internet und der Echtzeitübertragung so unendlich langsam erscheinende seitenstarke Roman, sollte die Literatur sich nun plötzlich selbst als 'schnelles' Medium entpuppen, das ebenso sensibel wie unverzüglich auf außerliterarische Ereignisse reagiert?

In the “Introduction” (1–20) Johnston identifies three “simultaneous developments” which the book should bring together: for one, the “gentry […] emerging into a distinct and quite numerous stratum within the aristocracy”; secondly, the “[r]omance adapt[ing] to this change, opening up a new ideological space for this new class of readers”; and, finally, “book production” – in particular: copying by booklets and the increasing use of paper – “conveniently facilitating provincial copying and circulation of provincially oriented texts”. These three developments, says Johnston, “coalesced to yield a new type of romance” which he dubs gentry romance (14). His aim is to show that the gentry had an active part in the late history of English romance as some of its members – literally – appropriated (specimens of) this genre “most closely related with the aristocracy” (15).

Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present develops an innovative overview of the interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the topic that have emerged in recent years. Alongside exemplary model analyses of key periods and representative primary texts, this exciting new anthology of critical essays has been specifically designed to fill a major gap in the field of literary and cultural studies. This book traces the complex dynamic and ongoing negotiation of notions of transgression and taboo as an essential, though often neglected, facet to understanding the development, production, and conception of literature from the early modern Elizabethan period through postmodern debates. The combination of a broad theoretical and historical framework covering almost fifty representative authors and uvres makes this essential reading for students and specialists alike in the fields of literary studies and cultural studies.

Based on a joint qualitative and quantitative approach, this dissertation analyzes Faulkner´s use of the house motif and related imagery in all of his novels and short story collections. Chapter One recapitulates what has been published on this issue before, a definition of the term "literary motif" follows in Chapter Two. Chapter Three provides a brief outline of different architectural styles used in the American South. Chapter Four introduces the reader to Lévi-Strauss´ notion of a house-based society. Chapter Five offers information about the use of the house motif in American literature in general. Chapter Six, the main part of my dissertation, is divided into three sections. The first section analyzes the significance of private houses [plantation houses, mansions, town houses, and cabins], the second section discusses the nature of public houses [courthouse, jail, banks, barbershops, churches, brothels] and public open spaces, while the third section, by contrast, highlights the symbolic meaning of elementary co-occurrences [attics, windows, doors, porches, fences] in Faulkner´s body of work. In the conclusion in Chapter Seven, my dissertation presents inter alia the following results: 1. The house motif and elementary co-occurrences symbolize a segregated society. 2. Yoknapatawpha County is a house-based society as defined by Lévi-Strauss in which houses are key symbols to organize and structure Yoknapatawpha´s society. 3. Faulkner derived his use of the house-motif from the Gothic tradition. 4. House related imagery like windows, doors, and fences, for instance, are not only used as spatial metaphors of liminality; these elementary co-occurrences also have a prominent position the complex symbol system of the house motif. The appendix contains statistics to fifteen novels and four short story collections highlighting the most frequently occurring nouns in these literary works.

Der nordirische Autor Glenn Patterson (geboren 1961) hat sich als Städteschrifsteller und zeitgenössischer Chronist seiner Heimatstadt Belfast einen Namen gemacht. In seinen Texten arbeitet er immer wieder die kaum greifbare Komplexität und unendliche Vielfalt Belfasts heraus. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, wie Patterson in den Romanen „Fat Lad“, „The International“, „Number 5“ und „That Which Was“ die Stadt dreidimensional konstruiert: auf einer räumlichen einer sozialen und einer geschichtlichen Ebene. Diese dreiteilige Ordnung strukturiert auch die Arbeit selbst und bezieht sich auf ein Raumverständnis, das innerhalb des „spatial turn“ theoretisiert wurde. Vornehmlich zitiert werden Edward W. Soja und Doreen Massey. Die beiden Geographen sehen Räumlichkeit, Geschichtlichkeit und Sozialität als eng miteinander verzahnt und gleichberechtigt und plädieren für eine Dekonstruktion binärer Gegensätze. Dieses interdependente Raumverständnis eignet sich sehr gut für eine Analyse von Pattersons Romanen. In ihnen stellt er Belfast in seiner facettenreichen Komplexität dar und betont die Wandelbarkeit der Stadt als ihr wichtigstes Charakteristikum. Dies erreicht er, indem er räumliche, geschichtliche und soziale Ebenen miteinander kombiniert und immer wieder binäre Gegensätze unterwandert. Damit nimmt der Schriftsteller eine besondere Rolle in der nordirischen Literatur ein, in der die sogenannten „Troubles“ immer noch sehr viel Aufmerksamkeit erhalten, und in der Belfast, als einer der Hauptschauplätze der „Troubles“, allzu oft als stagnierend, eindimensional und von zwei exklusiven Gemeinschaften dominiert beschrieben wird. Um Patterson in die literarische Tradition Nordirlands einzuordnen, gibt die Arbeit auch einen Überblick über die Geschichte des nordirischen Städteromans. Ferner analysiert sie drei Romane, die exemplarisch stehen für einige maßgebliche Entwicklungen in der Literatur des Landes und vergleicht ihre Darstellungen Belfasts mit denen in Pattersons Romanen. / The Northern Irish novelist Glenn Patterson (born 1961) has become known as an urban writer and contemporary chronicler of his hometown Belfast. In his texts he illustrates the intangible complexity and indefinite multiplicity of Belfast. The thesis shows how Patterson in his novels “Fat Lad”, “The International”, “Number 5” and “That Which Was” constructs the city threefold: spatially, socially and historically. This three-dimensional order also structures the thesis itself and refers to an understanding of space as theorized during the so called “spatial turn”. The thesis explicitly utilises concepts of Edward W. Soja and Doreen Massey. The two social geographers see the spatial, the temporal and the social as closely interdependent and argue for the deconstruction of binary oppositions. In the thesis this interdependent understanding of space forms the basis of an analysis of Patterson’s novels, showing how the writer represents Belfast in all its heterogeneous complexity and emphasises the city’s potential for change as its most important characteristic. He achieves this by combining spatial, temporal and social dimensions and by challenging existing binarisms. In doing so Patterson plays an important role in Northern Irish literature, which has been dominated by the “Troubles” and in which Belfast is often portrayed as stagnating, one-dimensional and inhabited by two exclusive communities. Placing Patterson within a literary tradition in Northern Ireland, the thesis gives an overview of the history of the Northern Irish urban novel. Furthermore, it analyses three novels that represent important developments in the literature of the country, and it compares the representations of Belfast in these novels with those in Patterson’s texts.

NJ, Univ., Dep. of Economics, Diss.--Princeton, 2004. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 4 Beitr.

Revision of thesis (Ph.D.)-Lund University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bilingualer Sachfachunterricht genießt in Deutschland relativ großes Ansehen als Unterrichtskonzept zur Entwicklung allgemeiner Kompetenzen in der Fremdsprache. Der Einfluss, den diese Unterrichtsform auf den Aufbau fachsprachlicher Kompetenzen hat, ist jedoch bislang kaum analysiert worden. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Fähigkeit, sprachlich angemessene und zusammenhängende Texte über Fachinhalte zu verfassen. Ziel der Studie war es, die fachbezogene schriftliche Diskurskompetenz bilingual unterrichteter Lerner zu erheben und zu bewerten. Als Grundlage dienten schriftliche Antworttexte von 84 bilingualen Lernern am Ende der Klasse 10, die in einem Geographiekompetenztest an vier niedersächsischen Gymnasien elizitiert und anhand von eigens dafür entwickelten holistischen und analytischen Verfahren bewertet wurden. Das zentrale Konstrukt fachbezogene schriftliche Diskurskompetenz wurde auf der Grundlage der Systemisch-Funktionalen Linguistik (Halliday 1978; Halliday & Martin 1993) definiert. Bei der Bewertung wurde mit Hilfe von unterschiedlichen Skalen zwischen fachsprachlicher Angemessenheit und Korrektheit einerseits, und inhaltlicher Vollständigkeit und Richtigkeit andererseits unterschieden. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass die schriftlichen Texte der bilingualen Lerner zwar eine angemessene Struktur und textuelle Verknüpfungen haben, dabei allerdings deutliche Mängel bezüglich der Verwendung des Fachregisters, der Vollständigkeit sowie der Korrektheit der fachlichen Inhalte aufweisen. Dies zeigt wie notwendig es ist, in schulischen Zusammenhängen die Konventionen der fachlichen Diskursgemeinschaft explizit zu machen und auf dieser Grundlage die Versprachlichung von Fachinhalten in ihrer Spezifik stärker in den Vordergrund zu rücken. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as a Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K. and Martin, J.R. (1993). Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer Press.

New media and mobile technologies have opened up numerous 'unregulated spaces' (Sebba, 2009b) and public spheres for self expression, interpersonal interactions as well as the transnational transcultural flow and fusion of ideologies (Pennycook, 2007). The discursive and interactive possibilities of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies make computer-mediated communication (CMC) platforms techno-linguistic environments for virtual deliberation and discussions. Online multilingualism and contact phenomena easily flourish in such contexts. Many Nigerians at home and abroad are embracing the CMC technologies to interact with one another, to negotiate profitable ideas for the betterment of Nigeria and to redress endemic socio-political issues. This study examines the linguistic construction of textual messages by Nigerians and the sociocultural manifestations of 'Nigerianness' (Chiluwa, 2008) and Nigerianisms in digital discourse. The dissertation is divided into four parts, each comprising two chapters. Part I introduces the subject matter and research focus, with an examination of language and identity in the typographical representations of Nigerianness by theoretically using relevant aspects of discursive work (e.g. Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; De Fina, Schiffrin & Bamberg, 2006; Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985; Llamas & Watt, 2010); Part II is concerned with the theme of Internet code switching and language crossing; Part III addresses the dialectical connection of language, new media technologies and politics; while Part IV presents the questionnaire survey results and research findings. The study innovatively examines language contact features in Nigerian CMC in terms of Bourdieu's (1977) economics of linguistic exchanges and the Faircloughian (1992) application of intertextuality in the Bakhtinian spirit. By linguistic marketing is meant discourse as a vehicle for 'promotional acts' and for 'selling' particular cultures and ideologies to multicultural and multilingual readers/audiences. One interpretation of this is in terms of asserting language rights and linguistic equality. Therefore, the use of Nigerian languages with Nigerian Pidgin online is promotional and for existential negotiation. This results in language mixture which is an instantiation of freedom of speech, freedom of switch and the freedom to switch. The underlying pragmatic motivation for top-down language mixture and alternation in Nigerian virtual discourse is attention-getting with the aim of inducing an interdiscursive writer-reader cognitive as well as communicative interactions. Other pragmatic functions of code switching discussed in the study include allusive textuality, amusing phaticity, anticipated interactivity, affective expressivity, and audience affiliation or alienation. Thus, intertextuality is an explanatory technique for investigating previously unexplored phenomena in digital code switching. Rampton's (1995) conceptualisation of language crossing is used to explicate the graphemic representations of variation in Nigerian English phonology. Additionally, for the sake of explanatory exigency, relevant aspects of speech acts theory (SAT) (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) are fused with critical discourse analysis (CDA) for the construction of our data-derived, election-oriented, politico-pragmatic tweet acts, in terms of what we call Good Governance Maxims (GGM). Finally, there are two types of data employed in the study: (i) corpus (INEC i.e. Informal Nigerian Electronic Communication with PLANET - Purposeful Language Alternation in Nigerian Electronic Texts) and (ii) questionnaire survey. The random sampling of 1,154 Nigerian undergraduates offline illustrates how computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) can be supplemented by a sociolinguistic survey in what Androutsopoulos (2006:424) calls “the observation of Internet use in offline social spaces” through a blend of on- and offline ethnography.

Background The present study investigated the psychometric properties of the newly developed English version of the Giessen Subjective Complaint List-8 (GBB-8), a questionnaire assessing psychosomatic symptoms with regard to exhaustion, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular. Methods A U.S. sample of 638 participants (47.6% female) was recruited by MTurk to participate in this cross-sectional online survey. Validation instruments included the Patient Health Questionnaire-4, Perceived Stress Scale, short version of the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress. Results Reliability was high with ω’s between .80 and .86 for all subscales. Confirmatory factor analyses yielded comparable good model fit for a four-dimensional model as well as a higher order model. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses confirmed measurement invariance of the GBB-8 across sex and age. Regarding convergent validity, correlations with other instruments were highly significant and of large magnitude as expected. Conclusion The English version of the GBB-8 has shown excellent psychometric properties. Therefore, it can be recommended for the assessment of psychosomatic complaints in contexts where short screening instruments are necessary.