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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Quotational Transparency

Burback, Kyle 20 September 2019 (has links)
No description available.
2

Binarité sexuée et états d'intersexuation : de l'opportunité du maintien de la mention du sexe à l'état civil / Sexual binarity and states of intersexuation : The desirability of maintaining the mention of sex in the civil register

Fontana-Content, Justine 10 November 2017 (has links)
La binarité sexuée est une vérité qui semblait, jusqu’à aujourd’hui incontestée et incontestable. Si bien que, mises à part les désignations genrées présentes dans le Code civil, ce dernier n’a pas jugé utile de préciser que les sexes qui devaient être inscrits sur les actes de l’état civil, devaient être exclusivement féminin ou masculin. Cependant, en pratique, l’appartenance exclusive à l’un des deux sexes consacrés n’est pas une règle universelle.C’est ainsi que les états d’intersexuation sont venus ternir le tableau, en affirmant que le sexe n’était pas une entité unique mais un bloc de différentes composantes, objectives et subjective, qui ne sont pas nécessairement concordantes entre elles. D’une part, l’intersexuation physique, se caractérisant par une variation du développement génital (V.D.G.) s’analyse comme une non concordance des composantes objectives du sexe, c'est-à-dire, toutes celles qui dépendent d’un déterminisme biologique. D’autre part, l’intersexuation psychique, autrement appelée transsexualisme, ou dysphorie de genre, ne sous-entend qu’une discordance entre les composantes objectives et la composante subjective, le sexe psychosocial. En d’autres termes, la personne est biologiquement d’un sexe déterminé, mais elle se sent appartenir à l’autre sexe.Ces deux états ont vocation à remettre en cause la place du sexe dans les actes de l’état civil à deux niveaux. D’un côté, les personnes dites « intersexes » vont nous faire nous interroger sur la véritable valeur de l’état civil si ce dernier ne prend pas en compte la variation dans ses énonciations. Seulement, cette interrogation semble être contrée par certaines pratiques médicales, qui, sous la contrainte à la fois des parents et de la société binaire, assignent des jeunes intersexes dans les jours qui suivent la naissance, alors même qu’aucune nécessité médicale ne vient justifier cet acte. De l’autre côté, les personnes transsexuelles remettent en cause les fondements de l’état des personnes et notamment le principe de l’immutabilité.De plus, les certitudes sur le sexe en Droit sont bouleversées par le développement des droits fondamentaux issus d’une interprétation toujours plus large de l’article 8 de la C.E.D.H. Ainsi, découle du droit au respect de la vie privée, le droit à l’épanouissement personnel, qui lui-même a rendu possible l’émergence des droits relatifs à l’identité, dont l’identité de genre. Ils se divisent en deux entités avec d’une part, le droit à la construction de l’identité de genre et d’autre, le droit à sa reconnaissance.Toutes ces considérations ont fait muter la mission de l’état civil, qui ne remplit plus uniquement une mission identifiante et de police civile au bénéfice de l’État et de l’intérêt général, mais qui devient le lieu privilégié des revendications identitaires, au bénéfice des individus. Dès lors, le genre devient admis en Droit, d’autant plus que la C.E.D.H. se positionne en faveur du développement de cette seconde mission.Au regard de ces éléments, nous pouvons affirmer qu’une réforme de la mention du sexe à l’état civil est opportune, ne serait-ce que pour éviter les probables condamnations de la Cour européenne. Cette réforme devrait assurer le respect dû à la vie privée des personnes en état d’intersexuation tant en limitant les situations stigmatisantes dont elles pourraient être victimes. Elle pourrait par ailleurs, prendre deux formes selon qu’elle se placerait en faveur d’un abandon ou de la mise en place d’une nouvelle mention. Dans la première hypothèse, une neutralisation du sexe serait envisagée et pourrait prendre deux formes. La première s’analyse en une neutralisation totale, c'est-à-dire, qu’aucune mention du sexe n’apparaitrait sur les actes de l’état civil. La seconde serait partielle dans la mesure où le sexe serait une mention cachée, ou rationnalisée, avec l’aide de nouvelles techniques d’identification, comme la biométrie. / The sexed binarity is a truth which seemed, until now uncontested and undeniable. So that, put except for designations genrées present in the Civil code, this last considered to be useful to specify only the sexes which were to be registered on the acts of the civil status, were to be exclusively female or male. However, in practice, the exclusive membership of the one of the two devoted sexes is not a universal rule.Thus the states of intersexuation came to tarnish the table, by affirming that the sex was not a single entity but a block of various components, objective and subjective, which are not necessarily concordant between them. On the one hand, the physical intersexuation, being characterized by a variation of the genital development (V. G. D.) is analyzed like nonan agreement of the objective components of the sex, i.e., all those which depend on a biological determinism. In addition, the psychic intersexuation, otherwise called transsexualism, or dysphorie of kind, implies only one discordance between the objective components and the subjective component, the psychosocial sex. In other words, the person is biologically of a determined sex, but it feels to belong to the other sex.These two states have authority to call into question the place of the sex in the acts of the civil status on two levels. On a side, the people known as “intersexes” will make us wonder about the true value of the civil status if this last does not take into account the variation in its statings. This interrogation seems to be countered by certain practices medical, which, under the constraint at the same time of the parents and the binary company, assigns young people intersexes in the days which follow the birth, while at the same time any medical need does not come to justify this act. Other side, the people transsexuals call into question the bases of the state of the people and in particular the principle of immutability.Moreover, the certainty on the sex in Right are upset by the development of the basic rights resulting from an interpretation increasingly broader of article 8 of the C.E.D.H. Thus, rises from the right to the respect of the private life, the right to the personal blooming, which itself made possible the emergence of the rights relating to the identity, of which gender identity. They are divided into two entities with on the one hand, the right to construction of the gender identity and other, the right to its recognition.All these considerations made transfer the mission of the civil status, which does not fulfill only any more one identifying mission and of civil police for the benefit of the State and the general interest, but which becomes the privileged place of the identity claims, for the benefit of individuals. Consequently, the kind becomes allowed in Right, more especially as the C.E.D.H. positions in favour of the development of this second mission.Taking into consideration these element, we can affirm that a reform of the mention of the sex to the civil status is convenient, would be this only to avoid the probable judgments of the European Court. This reform should ensure the respect due to the private life of the people in a state of intersexuation so much by limiting the stigmatizing situations of which they could be victims. It could in addition, to take two forms according to whether it would be placed in favour of an abandonment or installation of a new mention. On the first assumption, a neutralization of the sex would be considered and could take two forms. The first is analyzed in a total neutralization, i.e., that no mention of the sex appears on the acts of the civil status. The second partial insofar as the sex would be a hidden mention, or would be rationalized, with the assistance of novel methods of identification, like biometrics.
3

Changing the Narrative Perspective: A New Language Processing Task and Machine Learning Approaches

Chen, Mike 23 May 2022 (has links)
No description available.
4

Contribution à l’étude et l’évaluation de la qualité et du confort au porter de produits confectionnés : Cas de la chemise homme / Contribution to the study and to the evaluation of the quality and the wearing comfort of garment products : Case of man shirt

Abbas, Wedian 16 September 2014 (has links)
Il y aujourd'hui a un intérêt croissant pour la relation entre les matériaux textiles et les êtres humains, et le confort est devenu beaucoup plus important pour les consommateurs au cours des dernières années.Pour cette raison notre travail est basé sur l’optimisation de la caractérisation du confort (confort au porter) pour des étoffes utilisées principalement pour fabriquer des chemises d’homme.A cet effet, plusieurs méthodes ont été utilisées :- Analyse instrumentale : nous avons utilisé des méthodes instrumentales habituelles afin de mesurer les propriétés : - mécaniques en (cisaillement, flexion, compression, frottement et état de surface) ainsi - thermique (sensation chaud-froid)Physique (perméabilité à l'air, absorption capillaire...etc.).- Analyse sensorielle: nous avons utilisé à cet effet, le panel sensoriel développé au sein du LPMT depuis 2001. Elle a permis de réaliser l'évaluation quantitative descriptive des produits sélectionnés et fournis par notre partenaire industriel. - Analyse hédonique: Evaluation du confort ressenti de la chemise confectionnée grâce à une enquête « consommateurs ».- Etude marketing Evaluation de l’influence de la notion de « marque » ou une mention « traitement innovant » sur l’évaluation du confort des étoffes utilisée en comparaison avec l’évaluation du confort par le toucher et le touche-vue. - Etude patronage : Optimisation du processus de « développement produit » en prenant en compte la satisfaction attendue du consommateur en particulier en termes de confort. Elle consiste en l’étude des relations entre les paramètres physique du patron et les caractéristiques mécaniques des tissus utilisés obtenues dans la première partie de cette recherche.Cette combinaison d’analyse nous a permet de proposer une nouvelle procédure de conception de produit confectionné prenant en compte le confort et les attentes du consommateur et en particulier dans le cas du développement de « chemise d’homme ». / Nowadays there is a growing interest in the relation between the textile materials and human being, and the comfort has become much more important to consumers. For this reason our work is based on optimization of the characterization of the comfort (wearing comfort) in relation with the fabrics used to produce men’s shirts. To achieve this study, several methods of analysis have been used:- Instrumental analysis: To measure mechanical properties, classical characterization tools have been used to measure:Mechanical properties (shear, bending, compression, friction and surface) Thermal comfort (warm-cool sensation)Physical properties (air permeability, capillary absorption ... etc. . .). - Sensory analysis: Thanks to the trained panel that has been developed and used since 2001 at LPMT, the quantitative descriptive evaluation of the selected product using has been carried out.- Hedonic Analysis: Evaluation of comfort by consumer surveys.- Marketing study: To investigate the influence of the brand or some innovative mention like “anti-sweat ring” on the comfort evaluation of fabrics, in comparison with the evaluation realized by touching or by touching-seeing.- Blocks analysis: it aims to optimize the processes of product development, taking in consideration the requested consumer’s satisfactions especially in term of comfort. It consists of studying the relation between the block parameters and the mechanical properties of the fabric used to produce the product.This combination of analysis allows us to have a new conception procedure for the development of clothing product taking in account the comfort and the consumer’s expectation particularly in the men shirt development.
5

The epistemology of necessity

Pollock, William J. January 2001 (has links)
The thesis examines the direct reference theory of proper names and natural kind terms as expounded by Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and others and finds that it has not succeeded in replacing some kind of description theory of the reference of such terms - although it does concede that the traditional Fregean theory is not quite correct. It is argued that the direct reference theory is mistaken on several counts. First of all it is question-begging. Secondly, it is guilty of a 'use/mention' confusion. And thirdly, and most importantly, it fails to deal with the notion of understanding. The notion of understanding is crucial to the present thesis - specifically, what is understood by a proper name or natural kind term. It is concluded that sense (expressed in the form of descriptions) is at least necessary for reference, which makes a significant difference to Kripke's claim that there are necessary a posteriori truths as well as contingent a priori truths. It is also argued that sense could be sufficient for reference, if it is accepted that it is speakers who effect reference. In this sense, sense determines reference. The thesis therefore not only argues against the account of reference given by the direct reference theorists, it also gives an account of how proper names and natural kind terms actually do function in natural language. As far as the epistemology of necessity is concerned the thesis concludes that Kripke (along with many others) has not succeeded in establishing the existence of the necessary a posteriori nor the contingent a priori from the theory of direct reference. Whether such truths can be established by some other means, or in principle, is not the concern of the thesis; although the point is made that, if a certain view of sense is accepted, then questions of necessity and a priority seem inappropriate.
6

L'information du salarié : contribution à l'étude de l'obligation d'informer / To inform employee : a research on the obligation to inform

Dabosville, Benjamin 30 November 2011 (has links)
L’étude est centrée sur l’obligation pour l’employeur d’informer le salarié. La première partie met en évidence les diverses raisons d’être de ces informations obligatoires. Certaines sont liées à l’activité interne de la pensée. Elles visent soit à instaurer une discussion préalable à une prise de décision de l’employeur soit à donner au salarié la possibilité de faire preuve de discernement dans ses choix. D’autres informations sont, en revanche, liées à l’activité externe sur le monde. Certaines lui donnent au travailleur la possibilité de contrôler l’action de l’employeur tandis que d’autres lui confèrent une autonomie d’action. Cette diversité de fonctions se conjugue avec une relative unité dans les règles applicable à ces différentes obligations d’informer. L’employeur devant effectuer un acte de langage pour exécuter son obligation d’informer, il est ainsi toujours soumis aux mêmes exigences de précision, d’exactitude et de sincérité quelque soit la finalité de l’information. De même, il est parfois contraint de respecter certaines règles de forme. La diversité des sanctions de l’inexécution découle également de la nature particulière de l’information. Le salarié peut demander réparation pour le préjudice subi du fait d’un défaut d’information. Mais il peut aussi invoquer l’inopposabilité des éléments non communiquées. Enfin, il peut demander à ce que ses attentes légitimes soient protégées soit via l’interdiction de se contredire au détriment d’autrui, soit via l’effet obligatoire de l’information. / The study focuses on obligations of the employer to inform each one of its employee. The first part outlines the various roots of the obligations to inform. Some pieces of information are related to the internal activity of thought. The aim is to create a discussion prior to the employer’s decision either to give the employee the opportunity to exercise discretion. Additional information is, however, related to the activity on the external world. Some give the worker the ability to exercise a control on the employer’s action, whereas some others give an autonomy to the action. However the diversity in the functions of the oblitgaiton to inform, the rules are on the whole the same. In order to perform its obligation must express itself. This expression is always subjected to the same precision, accuracy and fairness regardless its purpose. Similarly, the employer may be forced to follow certain rules of form. The sanctions are different. Indeed, the employee may claim compensation for damages due to lack of information. But he can also invoke the unenforceability of undisclosure. Finally, he may request that his legitimate expectations are protected either through estoppel or via the binding effect of the information.
7

Comprendre la mention, la citation, l'autonymie. Une étude sémantique et pragmatique du discours métalinguistique

De Brabanter, Philippe 19 November 2002 (has links) (PDF)
This thesis sets out to do mainly two things. On the one hand, I wish to provide an overview of scholarship on natural metalanguage. On the other, I want to tackle some of the most interesting problems that emerge from the recent literature on the subject. As far as my first goal is concerned, I discuss the origin of the term and the notion of 'metalanguage' in logic (Ch 1); I review and criticise the various theories of mention or quotation (Ch 2, 4, 5) because these are the main theoretical upshot, in the area of the study of natural languages, of the logicians' discussions of metalanguage. As for the second goal, I discuss the problems linked to the reference of quotational sequences (Ch 4); I devise a typology of metalinguistic utterances (Ch 6), based on a conception of semantics and pragmatics that is set out in Ch 3; I examine where a natural metalanguage "fits" with respect to the rest of the language and review a number of concerns regarding, notably, the infiniteness of the lexicon (Ch 7); I explore some of the issues raised by complex cases of alleged simultaneous use and mention (Ch 8).
8

Discourse processing abilities in ageing : influence of working memory capacity on reference resolution.

Ghaleh, Maryam January 2015 (has links)
Maintaining health and quality of life into old age is a critical issue facing society today. Language, and in particular language comprehension, is vulnerable to the processes of ageing (Au, Albert, & Obler, 1989; Kynette & Kemper, 1986; Nicholas, Obler, Albert, & Goodglass, 1985; Shewan & Henderson, 1988). An improved understanding of language processing and ageing will assist in distinguishing language difficulties in normal ageing from those in pathological ageing and aphasia (Maxim & Bryan, 1994) and, potentially, optimises communication throughout life. The current thesis focuses on a specific component of language comprehension - anaphora resolution . Anaphora resolution occurs frequently in everyday discourse and has been reported to decline with ageing (Cohen, 1979; Light & Capps, 1986; Ulatowska, Hayashi, Cannito, & Fleming, 1986). This thesis explored anaphora resolution relative to two key variables: ageing and working memory. Ageing was chosen as a variable as anaphora resolution has been shown to be affected by age (Cohen, 1979; Light & Capps, 1986; Ulatowska et al., 1986). Working memory was chosen as working memory is thought to underlie key aspects of discourse comprehension such as building a mental structure of discourse and updating the information (Brébion, 2003; Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Radvansky, Copeland, & Hippel, 2010; Radvansky, Lynchard, & von Hippel, 2009). Anaphora resolution was investigated using two key paradigms. The first focussed on anaphora resolution in a reading comprehension task. Performance was assessed using accuracy of response. The second employed Gernsbacher's (1989) probe-response paradigm. The probe- response paradigm allowed examination of specific working memory processes underlying discourse comprehension, namely; a) storing and maintaining information in working memory (i.e., laying the foundation of the discourse structure); and b) updating information stored in working memory through suppressing the irrelevant discourse information. Storage and maintenance of the information was assessed by examining whether participants utilised “advantage of first mention” (Gernsbacher, 1990). Suppression was evaluated by investigating whether the accessibility of nonreferent names decreased in participants' working memory after they read anaphoric pronouns in sentences. This approach aimed to answer the following questions: 1) Do age and working memory capacity affect anaphora resolution in a comprehension task?; 2) Do age and working memory affect advantage of first mention in a probe recognition task?; and 3) Does age affect suppression of irrelevant information in an anaphora resolution task? In Chapter 3, Gernsbacher's (1989) original study was replicated. In Chapter 4 the same questions were examined, with the addition of a higher working memory load. For both studies, 30 younger and 30 older participants completed two comprehension experiments followed by an assessment of working memory capacity (reading span task). The comprehension experiments each contained a reading comprehension task and a probe recognition task. The reading comprehension task introduced two discourse characters (either a male or female name), one of which was referred to later in the text, using an anaphoric pronoun. Comprehension questions always asked about the referents of the anaphoric pronouns. Participants' accuracy in answering each comprehension question was indicative of their ability to resolve anaphora. Response times in the recognition task provided measures of the accessibility of: a) first and second mentioned names, and b) referent and nonreferent names. Chapters 3 and 4 found that, regardless of the tasks' working memory storage demands, older adults were less accurate than younger adults in the comprehension of anaphoric pronouns. Comprehension accuracy was related to working memory capacity, such that individuals with higher working memory capacity exhibited higher accuracy of response in the comprehension task. In addition, working memory capacity affected the accessibility of first and second mentioned names in the discourse suggesting that working memory capacity might influence the process of laying the foundation for the mental representation of comprehension. An ageing effect was observed on the suppression process during anaphora resolution under high working memory load only. When working memory load was low, neither younger nor older participants suppressed the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentences. This suggested that anaphora resolution might be postponed in less demanding tasks. However, under higher working memory load, younger adults, but not older adults, suppressed the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentence. It was therefore suggested that age-related changes in anaphora resolution abilities might be mediated by a decline in inhibitory functions that are responsible for suppressing the already-activated information that are no longer relevant to the task goals. The final study of the thesis (Chapter 5) aimed to determine why younger adults delayed the process of anaphora resolution in Experiment 1 (See Chapter 3), but completed the process by the time they finished reading the sentences in Experiment 2 (See Chapter 4). Specific questions addressed were: 1) Was comprehension accuracy affected by working memory storage load and the syntactic structure of the sentences?; 2) Do younger adults suppress the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they reach the end of the sentence, in simpler sentences with increased storage load and late disambiguation?; and, 3) Do younger adults suppress the accessibility of nonreferents by the time they reach the end of the sentence, in more syntactically complex sentences with low storage load and prior disambiguation?. Forty younger participants completed four separate comprehension experimental tasks followed by a reading span test. A similar experimental approach was employed to that described in Chapters 3 and 4; however working memory storage load, syntactic complexity, and time-course for providing contextual information were manipulated. Results of Chapter 5 found that participants' accuracy declined in more syntactically complex sentences. A decline in accuracy appeared indicative of the tasks' higher processing demands and demonstrated that prior disambiguation was not facilitating the resolution of anaphora. Results from the recognition task showed that in sentences of increased syntactic complexity, participants suppressed the accessibility of nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentence. It was suggested that higher processing demands of syntactically complex sentences, rather than a facilitating effect of earlier disambiguation in these sentences, contributed to the earlier suppression of nonreferents. In summary, this thesis demonstrated that older adults were less accurate than younger adults in comprehending anaphoric pronouns. Moreover, working memory capacity positively influenced comprehension accuracy and affected the advantage of first mention of discourse entities. It was suggested that individual differences in working memory capacity might affect the ability to lay foundations for discourse comprehension. Furthermore, older adults showed no suppression of nonreferents during processing of anaphora, regardless of working memory storage load. It appears possible that older adults' difficulty in anaphora resolution might be due to an inability to suppress irrelevant discourse information. Findings from the present study suggest that ageing may negatively affect the comprehension of linguistic structures for which more than one meaning could be inferred. While further exploration of this finding is required, it is possible that communication strategies could be devised to minimise the use of structures with more than one meaning - with the aim of improving and maintaining communication in older adults. Ultimately, determining the underlying causes of language impairments in both healthy ageing and neurological disease will help to improve speech-language therapy methods for these populations.
9

Making Sense of Mention, Quotation, and Autonymy: A Semantic and Pragmatic Survey of Metalinguistic Discourse

De Brabanter, Philippe 19 November 2002 (has links)
The goal I have pursued in writing this dissertation has been to provide the most complete account that I could manage of the various aspects of language that can be labelled metalinguistic, both in the language-system and in discourse. On a rough characterisation, metalanguage is language about language. Since I understand language both as a ‘potential’ (the language-system) and as its actualisation (language as discourse), there are theoretically four situations that can be subsumed under the term ‘metalanguage’: 1. there are lexical items (units in the system) that denote aspects of the system (preposition, noun, conjugation, plural, etc.); 2. there are items that denote elements of discourse (words and phrases like the aforementioned, the latter, etc.). At the same time, there are 3. utterances about the system (e.g. ‘Boston’ is a noun), and 4. utterances about discourse (i.e. about other utterances or parts of utterances, e.g. The old cow said teddible instead of terrible). In both 3 and 4, we have words that reflexively mention linguistic sequences. Following Rey-Debove, I have chosen to call these ‘autonyms’.Note also that discourse about language can be combined with discourse about extralinguistic reality. An utterance about a situation in the world can secondarily say something, for example, about language use; such is the case in The U.S. advocates ‘military action’, as newspapermen call it now, where a comment about a euphemism is appended to a statement about ‘the world’.All in all, this amounts to a fairly large body of data that is varied in kind. My goal has been to bring some order to this variegated set, to highlight in what respects its elements are similar and dissimilar. Thus, I have sought to sort out a number of issues that had not, as far as I could judge, been treated satisfactorily on previous occasions, and to make my descriptions compatible with the theory that was gradually taking shape. In particular, I have underlined the strong connections between the system-level aspects of metalanguage and its discourse manifestations, and I have been led to suggest that the latter ‘leak into’ the system. Besides, I have tried to give a more thorough account of certain properties of metalinguistic discourse, notably the recursiveness of mention or quotation, and its referential diversity. When I felt that I had come to an adequate account of metalinguistic discourse, I have attempted to supply a typology of its various manifestations that would integrate most of the criteria brought up in previous attempts. In the final part of the dissertation, I have brought together what I regard as a series of genuine challenges to the best existing theories of metalinguistic discourse, and have attempted to frame what possible solutions could be.THINGS IN SENTENCES, INFINITE LEXICON? P-ÊÊ UNE CODA APRÈS RECA + CHAPTER 8***The very notion of metalanguage originated in formal logic in the first half of the 20th c. Soon, some of the concepts developed by logicians were taken over by philosophers of language (and subsequently by a few linguists). That was notably the case with the distinction between the use and the mention of a linguistic sequence; use designating the ordinary, transparent, employment of an expression to denote something outside language and mention its being chosen as a topic for discussion. When the subject came under the scrutiny of philosophers of language, the essentially prescriptive approach of the logician (the logician decreed which features his languages and metalanguages should possess), was turned into an attempt at describing actual linguistic mechanisms. It is in this tradition that I situate myself.Philosophers of language have turned out to be particularly interested in quotation (the mention of linguistic expressions), but I have thought it useful to introduce a term that covered not just quotation, but also mention-without-quote-marks, as well as hybrid cases like example 5. This term is reflexive metalinguistic demonstration, but for convenience’ sake I shall make do with metalinguistic demonstration.In Chapter 2, I have examined in detail the main theories of metalinguistic demonstration put forward in the course of the 20th c. namely the Name, Description, Demonstrative and Identity theories. In the process, I have been able to gradually identify the various properties of metalinguistic demonstrations that should be regarded as essential. And I have also formed a clearer idea of the body of data that a theory should be able to account for. In the end, I have been able to outline what I believe is a sound theory of metalinguistic demonstrations. This theory is chiefly informed by the proposals of François Recanati (2000, 2001), supplemented with insights of Paul Saka (1998), both of whom are indebted to the Demonstrative and Identity accounts.My reasons for using Recanati (2001) as the backbone of my own theory are the following. Recanati has successfully drawn the line between two types of meaning conveyed by metalinguistic demonstrations, namely ‘pictorial’ and ‘conventional linguistic’ meaning, something that had not been done with that clarity before. Besides, he has had the wisdom to give up the standard assumption that all metalinguistic demonstrations are referential, an assumption that inevitably led to theoretical dead ends. Moreover, drawing on the first two insights, Recanati has also separated out the syntactic and pragmatic aspects that were often confused in previous approaches.There is no doubt that the theory put forward by Recanati in 2001 is the most empirically adequate that can be found in the literature. Besides, it also accounts for an impressive range of key properties. Still, there are two interesting properties that received very little attention from Recanati, that is, referential diversity and recursiveness. Though Paul Saka has argued in favour of both in a 1998 paper, I believe his defence to have been somewhat clumsy. And therefore I have tried to offer more convincing evidence in favour of these properties.Let’s start with ReferenceAs Recanati has shown, not all metalinguistic demonstrations are referential expressions. But there is one aspect of reference that he says very little about: the sort or sorts of referents that a referential autonym can have. The theory implicitly suggests that autonyms can only refer to types. (Many writers have claimed more robustly and more explicitlythat there was only one sort of referents for autonyms, always either types or classes of tokens).I hold this view to be incorrect. As I’ve indicated in Chapter 4 of the thesis, I believe that several sorts of referents must be distinguished. Let us have a few examples:Run is a verbRun has three lettersShe said, “I ain’t EVER gonna tell ya”The first refers to a lexeme, since the predicate applies to runs, ran, running, as well.The second, only to a form (since not true of running or runs).Both could still be said to be abstract objects, and one might wish to call these ‘types’.The third, however, well and truly seems to refer to a token, the particular utterance produced by the woman behind she, witness the mimicry involved in the direct speech report.In my discussion of the next property, I offer a further argument in favour of referential diversity.2. Metalinguistic demonstrations can be iterated (repeated), a property usually described as recursiveness, and which has given rise to some controversies. Some demonstrativists, notably Cappelen & Lepore, because they hold the interior of a quotation to be semantically inert, have rejected the idea of recursiveness. I think, however, that their rejection comes from their failure to discern several types of recursiveness. In my dissertation, I have distinguished three; I shall only sketch two here.“ ‘Boston’ ” is an autonym.Typographical recursiveness: hardly very interesting, since it is a mechanical operation that can be repeated at will.The next pair of examples throws a more interesting light on the matter:‘Boston’ is a six-letter word.In each utterance of the previous example, “ ‘Boston’ ” is used to refer to an orthographic formBoston enclosed in two pairs of quote marks refers to particular tokens of Boston in a single pair of quote marks, as are produced when uttering a token of the first sentence, ‘Boston’ is a six-letter word. In each utterance of that sentence, the subject, ‘Boston’, itself refers, this time to the name Boston. This means that we have a situation in which an autonym refers to another autonym which also refers: reference here is iterated.This is actually no problem for the assumption of the inertness of the interior of the quotation, because reference is directed outwards: the interior of the quotation itself (the token displayed) remains inert. Note that referential recursiveness is only possible when one has a meta-quotation that refers to a token that is itself a referential autonym. This confirms the need for the theory to accommodate reference to particular tokens.I have made further use of the theory of metalinguistic demonstrations in Chapter 6 of the thesis, which is devoted to sketching a typology of metalinguistic demonstrations. In this connection, I have tried to bring together different types of discriminating factors that had been used in previous classifications (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, typographical, lexical). These did not seem to be compatible from the outset, but then I realised that they might perhaps all be integrated into a single typology if I adopted an interpreter’s perspective. I reflected that that perspective provided a criterion for determining which characteristics of metalinguistic demonstrations would count as relevant variables for a typology: only those that made a ‘difference for the interpreter’ (i.e. affected his/her interpretative processes) would be retained.I also took advanatge of the general theory for the interpretation of utterances that has been set out in some recent publications, notably by Bach and Recanati (and which I outline in Chapter 3 of the thesis), and eventually reached what I regard as a decent result. Moreover, I also made a couple of interesting discoveries. The first one is that quite a bit of the interpretation of an utterance takes place at a ‘pre-interpretative’ level, that is, befor a sentence has been clearly identified (disambiguated). In particular, there are significant pictorial aspects of metalinguistic demonstrations that enter into the disambiguation process rather than into interpretation proper. The second one is that there is an impressive number of aspects of meaning that are linked to the speaker’s intentions, and should theoretically require access to the wide context of an utterance to be processed, that can be accessed at very low (semantic) levels of interpretation.In the final part of this presentation, I wish to examine a couple of instances of hybridity that face the theory with a more serious challenge than example 5 on the first slide. That example was easily explained in terms of simultaneous use and mention (the standard account in the literature): the same sequence, military action, was used ordinarily and, secondarily, demonstrated as being a particular form of euphemism. Other hybrids, on the other hand, do not lend themselves to such an analysis in a straightforward way. The first example I wish to bring up raises an interesting problem in connection with the notion of grammaticality:Robbe-Grillet describes himself in his introduction as “volontiers professeur de moi-même”.This can be rewritten as a pair of sentences, one for use the other for mention. We get:Use :Robbe-Grillet describes himself in his introduction as volontiers professeur de moi-même.Mention :Robbe-Grillet uses the expression “volontiers professeur de moi-même”.Although the mention line raises no special issues, there are great doubts as to the grammaticality of the ordinary-use line: a language-shift occurs in the middle of the sentence, and is not signalled by any marker, unlike in the initial hybrid. Though Recanati’s framework allows for language-shifts, and could therefore be relied on to argue that the correct interpretation can be ascribed to the French words in the example, it does not state rules determining at which spot in an utterance such a shift is acceptable grammatically. In other words, it says nothing about the possibility of a grammar that would straddle English and French. Fortunately, the idea of such grammars is supported by the limited research that has been carried out about code-switching. So, there may be theoretical backing for the assumption that the use line may after all be grammatical (with respect to a hybrid grammar).Note that these remarks are valid, I believe, not just for the use line of the twofold paraphrase, but for the initial hybrid too. Indeed, it is not clear — though some would be ready to say so — that the presence of quote marks is enough to alter the grammaticality of an utterance.Note also that an example like the previous one is a reminder of an essential fact about the work of language scholars: they start out to describe and/or explain some empirical data they find significant. But as things get more complicated, they must continually make decisions as to what must be acknowledged as relevant data for their research. Every step of the way, there may be a temptation to dismiss data — in the present case, on grounds of ungrammaticality — because these data threaten the validity of the theory being devised. Here, thanks to an analogy with grammatical accounts of code-switching, a case can be made for the grammaticality of utterances like the one under consideration. It is these kinds of extensions that broaden the linguist’s horizons and make research worthwhile.The second example I wish to examine raises interesting issues concerning iconicity. Though I have said nothing about it so far, iconicity is perhaps the single most important notion in any discussion of metalinguistic demonstration. In a nutshell, the basic assumption about ‘how such a demonstration makes sense’ is that the tokens displayed in a mentioning utterance are iconically related to the target of the demonstration. Iconicity can initially be understood as a matter of formal resemblance (cf the first batch of examples on Slide 1). The following example shows that the notion must be made more flexble than that:Descartes said that man “is a thinking substance”.Use: Descartes said that man is a thinking substance.Mention: Descartes said “is a thinking substance”.It can be seen that the mention line of the paraphrase is truth-conditionally incorrect: Descartes did not produce a token of is a thinking substance, since he was writing in Latin, not English. What Descartes said was est res cogitans. This might be taken to imply that the relation between the English tokens displayed and the Latin target is not a matter of iconicity. I would, with several other writers, suggest another direction: There is iconicity in this example, but the concept must be understood to be flexible and adaptable to contextual constraints. I believe such a conception to be necessary if one wants to be able to account for metalinguistic demonstrations within a single explanatory framework. There are too many instances of quotations that are not supported by formal identity to maintain a rigid notion of iconicity. I have added a last example on the slideConclusionAlthough I originally aspired to a comprehensive survey of things metalinguistic, I cannot but concede that there are still multiple aspects of the reflexive use of language that need looking into. I believe, however, that I have been able to shed some light on some areas of the debate. For instance, I believe that my discussion of the recursiveness and referential diversity of autonyms goes one step further than previous discussions. In particular, I hope to have been able to show convincingly that, contrary to a widespread opinion, an autonym can refer to various object, notably individual tokens. When these results are added to an excellent theory like Recanati’s, one ends up with a powerful explanatory apparatus. Moreover, this apparatus has the added advantage that it can easily be integrated into the general theory for the interpretation of utterances which I have alluded to before.I have taken advantage of this compatibility to outline my interpreter’s typology of metalinguistic demonstrations. Whether that effort was entirely successful or not, I think it has incidentally provided an excellent testing ground for the general theory. If only in that respect, the attempt was worth a try, since it shed light on the importance of pre-interpretative processes and on the conventional encoding of aspects of meaning that are otherwise heavily dependent on speaker’s intentions.Finally, I believe that the work doen in Chapter 8 has brought to the fore a number of question that deserve to be investigated at greater length in future. There are still dark areas in the study of world/language hybrids, but there also more general questions, e.g. regarding grammaticality and iconicity that need looking into. / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
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Joel F. Harrington, Die Ehre des Scharfrichters. Meister Frantz oder ein Henkersleben im 16.Jahrhundert: Buchbesprechungen Frühe Neuzeit

Schwerhoff, Gerd 14 July 2020 (has links)
Vierzig Jahre, von 1578 bis 1618, versah Frantz Schmidt das Amt des Scharfrichters in der Reichsstadt Nürnberg und vollstreckte in dieser Zeit 394 Todesurteile. Was ihn zum wohl berühmtesten deutschen Scharfrichter der Frühen Neuzeit machte, war sein Journal, in dem er akribisch seine Taten verzeichnete. Mehrfach ist dieses „Tagebuch“ bereits ediert und nachgedruckt worden – eine interessante, aber doch eher spröde Quelle. Joel Harrington beweist nun, wie viele Informationen und Interpretationen man dieser Quelle trotzdem abringen kann. Das hat seinen Grund nicht zuletzt in der erweiterten Materialgrundlage.

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