This dissertation examines the relationship between wisdom and identity in Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature. At present, the study of medieval wisdom is largely tangential to the study of proverbs and maxims. This dissertation makes wisdom its primary object of study; it sees wisdom not just as a literary category, but also as a cultural discourse found in texts not usually included in the wisdom canon. I therefore examine both wisdom literature and wisdom in literature. The central characteristic of wisdom, I argue, is its liminality. The biblical question “Where is wisdom to be found?” is difficult to answer because of wisdom’s in-between-ness: it is ever between individuals, communities, and times (Job 28:12 Douay-Rheims). As a liminal discourse, wisdom both grounds and problematizes identity in Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature. After a preliminary chapter that defines key terms such as “wisdom” and “wisdom literature,” I examine heroic wisdom in three characters who are defined by their wise traits and skills and yet who are ultimately betrayed by wisdom to death or exile. The implications of this problematic relation to wisdom are then examined in the next chapter, which analyzes the composition of wisdom in proverb poems. Like the wise hero, the poets represented in these poems blend their own voices with the voice of community, demonstrating that identity is open and therefore in need of constant revision. Next I examine how the liminality of wisdom is embodied in the figure of the wise monster, who negatively marks the boundaries of society and its desires. This then leads to a study of the reception of wisdom in chapter six, which focuses on instruction poems. Like narratives of wise monsters, these texts present lore as the nostalgic remnant of a tradition that defines identity, in this case the identity of a community. However, nostalgia assumes loss, and these texts also reveal an underlying fear that wisdom, the basis of the community’s identity, will be forgotten. Whether communal or individual, identity in this literature is both formed and threatened by liminal wisdom. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2014-05-08 15:35:46.885

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In this thesis we deal with pragmatic aspects of language, specifically studying the classification of speech acts and conversational implicature. The theoretical part is concerned with the work of J. L. Austin, J. R. Searle and M. Grepl with an emphasis on differences in the classification of illocutionary acts. Then we deal with the maxim of politeness and pleasantries types according to P. Brown and S. C. Lewinson. In the practical part using analysis of advertising headlines and slogans we are trying to demonstrate the functionality of the classification of speech acts by individual authors. We try to also confirm the performative nature of these statements also implicitly expressed performative verbs. We are interested in the presence of the maxims of politeness in these texts and the consequent shift between different types of courtesy. The aim is to highlight the issue of classification of illocutionary acts and try to outline improvements to this shift. The assumption is that, although the classification struggling with inaccuracies, we thereunder able to distinguish different types of repetitive speeches. To complement these findings, we want to prove performative character of advertising texts, even assuming that there will be implicitly expressed performative verb and the presence of...

The present master's thesis tackles the position of vulgarisms within the system of language as used in texts published in Czech and French weekly opinion magazines. The thesis takes a theoretic and empiric approach, the first part dealing with the definition of the term of vulgarism in Czech and French stylistics and the delimitation of its role in the style of journalistic texts. The second part of the thesis describes the practical approach of Czech and French weeklies to vulgarisms in their texts based on a survey among editing staff of the major publishing houses both in France and in the Czech Republic. The outcomes of the survey were compared to the analysis results conveyed on a corpus built out of texts published in Le Point and Respekt weeklies. Based on the contrastive analysis of vulgarisms used in Czech and French language corpus, following the critical criteria as outlined in the first part of the thesis, several recommendations are made about French-Czech translations of vulgarisms in journalistic texts. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

While the linguistic concept of politeness has been thoroughly analyzed, the same does not apply to its interpreting. The present theoretical-empirical work describes the means for expressing politeness grouped by G. Leechʼs maxims of politeness. The empirical part analyzes recordings of simultaneous interpretation from media and European Parliament settings. This is a quantitative study and the outcome is the number of means for expressing politeness which the interpreters conveyed into Czech. On average and in all of the material 65,7 % of means for expressing politeness were conveyed into Czech in compliance with the maxims. The means analyzed are prosody, non-verbal communication, modality, personal reference, etc. An equivalent interpretation of means of politeness was deemed desirable. The thesis verifies the hypothesis whether the level of politeness significantly increased in comparison with the original speeches. Key words: politeness, pragmatics, illocutionary act, maxims of politeness, face, modality, prosody, non- verbal communication, Czech, English, interpreting, equivalence, US presidential debate, Obama, Romney, Common Agricultural Policy, European Parliament, Catherine Ashton, forms of address

Ce travail s’attache à la construction textuelle du brevet d'invention (type de texte spécialisé très normé) par l’étude des contraintes pragmatiques le structurant et notamment celles le définissant comme une contribution au sens gricéen (Grice), post-gricéen (Nemo, Portuguès) ou non-gricéen (Clark et Schaefer). Il étudie ses stratégies textuelles, par exemple en termes de rhétorique de la revendication, en se penchant sur son format particulier dans lequel sont isolés des éléments récurrents et autonomes, les ensembles contributionnels, et leurs liaisons.La première partie présente l’approche contributionnelle du texte de brevet d’invention. Il s’agit d’une part de décrire le texte comme un objet contributionnel, et d’autre part de se demander dans quelle mesure la confrontation avec un texte hyperformaté conduit à reconsidérer les maximes (gricéennes) régulant les contributions. Le corpus d’étude est constitué d’une base textuelle de brevets d’invention transformée en base de données contributionnelles. L’analyse de celle-ci permet une modélisation contributionnelle du texte de brevet fondée sur des marqueurs délimitant des ensembles contributionnels soumis à un schéma général invariant, prédictible et reproductible. La phase de modélisation est l’occasion de reformuler une partie des maximes gricéennes encadrant la production d’ensembles contributionnels. Dans le cadre d’une conception plurisémique de l’interprétation, la fin de l’étude dégage les propriétés de la strate contributionnelle, en montrant notamment qu’à partir de la contrainte de complétude du texte en train de se construire et au travers des différentes sous-contributions qui le constituent se met en place une mécanique textuelle reposant sur des enchaînements contributionnels spécifiques aux textes formatés. Ces considérations sur la matière contributionnelle des textes permettent d’aborder les fondements d’une théorie contributionnelle du texte. / The present work looks into the textual construction of the patent (very standardized specialized type of text) by the study of pragmatical constraints which structure it and in particular of the constraints which define it as a contribution in a Gricean (Grice), post-Gricean (Nemo, Portuguès) and non-Gricean (Clark and Schaefer) meaning. This work studies the textual strategies involved, particularly in terms of the rhetoric of claiming, by examining over its particular format in which are isolated recurring and autonomous elements, - the contributional sets, and their connections.The first part presents a contributional approach of patents as texts, describing patent text as a contributional object and discussing the way the confrontation with hyper-formatted and strongly constrained textual data may lead to reconsider and reformulate contributional maxims. The corpus of study consists of a textual data base of patents which is then formatted into contributional data. The analysis of this contributional data allows a contributional modeling of the patent text based on markers which defined contributional groups subject to general master scheme which is invariable, predictable and reproducible. This phase of modeling provides an opportunity to partly reformulate the Gricean maxims which frame the production of the contributional groups. Using a plurisemic approach of interpretation, the end of the study intends to release the properties of the contributional layer, by showing in particular that the constraint of exhaustivity which is at work in the construction of the text through various sub-contributions leads to the emergence of a mechanical text, with its laws and constraints, based on contributional chains specific to very formatted texts and more general texts alike. These considerations on the contributional material of the texts allow an approach to the foundations of a contributional theory of text.

Austin's Speech Act Theory is a valuable tool for the analysis of a literary text. In interaction, the intentionand purpose-success of linguistic communication can be gauged by establishing whether participants have met felicity conditions and have respected maxims. When the Co-operative Principle is ignored, special effects are achieved and receivers can only make sense of utterances through implicature and inferences based on background knowledge and mutual contextual beliefs. In the drama, Buzani kubawo, characters interact on four levels of time in space and place. They reveal themselves and convey theme through their speech and actions. Conflict is entrenched by lines of force drawn between opposing characters and between sub-worlds contrasted. Cohesion, determined by plot structure, and form, expressed on the endophoric and exophoric levels, give meaning to the drama. The micro-analysis of the wedding scene illustrates how communication can misfire should the playwright allow it! / African Languages / M.A. (African languages)

Austin's Speech Act Theory is a valuable tool for the analysis of a literary text. In interaction, the intentionand purpose-success of linguistic communication can be gauged by establishing whether participants have met felicity conditions and have respected maxims. When the Co-operative Principle is ignored, special effects are achieved and receivers can only make sense of utterances through implicature and inferences based on background knowledge and mutual contextual beliefs. In the drama, Buzani kubawo, characters interact on four levels of time in space and place. They reveal themselves and convey theme through their speech and actions. Conflict is entrenched by lines of force drawn between opposing characters and between sub-worlds contrasted. Cohesion, determined by plot structure, and form, expressed on the endophoric and exophoric levels, give meaning to the drama. The micro-analysis of the wedding scene illustrates how communication can misfire should the playwright allow it! / African Languages / M.A. (African languages)