This paper consists of two sections: first, I return to the question of precisely which contextual factors are at work in metaphorical interpretation, and of the relation between asserted, presupposed and implied information; the upshot of this will be a renewed emphasis on metaphor as a discourse phenomenon. Second, I sketch a preliminary argument as to what a social practice account of metaphor might look like. Recent explorations of the contextual factors involved in the interpretation ofmetaphor make crucial use of (...) David Kaplan’s Logic of Demonstratives, with its sophisticated treatment of context-dependence, and of the work on assertion developed by Stalnaker and others. All these approaches take contextual factors or parameters like that of speaker, time and place of utterance, etc., as given or primitive. Recent anthropological research, however, suggests that our practices constitute not only the contents of our utterances but also their contexts. Another recent development in linguistic anthropology is an increased attention to so-called language ideologies or metalinguistic beliefs, i.e., folk theories about the character and functioning of language. These insights suggest that metaphor is so thoroughly dependent on variable contextual and metalinguistic factors that it may well dissolve as a natural kind. At the very least, they suggest a shift away from the view of metaphor as a decontextualized sentence- or utterance-level phenomenon occurring in literate practices, which is still tacitly assumed in much literature on the topic. (shrink)

This article argues for a view on languaging as inherently affective. Informed by recent ecological tendencies within cognitive science and distributed language studies a distinction between first order languaging (language as whole-body sense making) and second order language (language as system like constraints) is put forward. Contrary to common assumptions within linguistics and communication studies separating language-as-a-system from language use (resulting in separations between language vs. body-language and verbal vs. non-verbal communication etc.) the first/second order distinction sees language as emanating (...) from behavior making it possible to view emotion and affect as integral parts languaging behavior. Likewise, emotion and affect are studied, not as inner mental states, but as processes of organism-environment interactions. Based on video recordings of interaction between (1) children with special needs, and (2) couple in therapy and the therapist patterns of reciprocal influences between interactants are examined. Through analyzes of affective stance and patterns of inter-affectivity it is exemplified how language and emotion should not be seen as separate phenomena combined in language use, but rather as completely intertwined phenomena in languaging behavior constrained by second order patterns. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn postcolonial countries the bilingual/bicultural elite played an undeniable role in the propagation of a modernist ideology about the nation and national identity. In Tunisia and in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, this ideology has been seriously challenged by opposing discourses. Focusing on newspaper articles published by Tunisian Francophones, this article investigates the discursive strategies employed by this group to defend this ideology and its emergent national identity. Analysis is based on an inventory of the referential/predicational strategies developed (...) within the Discourse Historical Approach to represent Self-Other identities [Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R.. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge]. Findings indicated a staunch defense of a de-ethninicized, de-racialized, multilingual and secular Tunisia. Attributes of Arabism/islamism are consistently problematized; they are primitivized, religionized, de-intellectualized and negatively ideologized. By contrast, elements of Frenchness are championed on the basis of the modernist ideology they are thought to uphold. Frenchness is predicated on a continuum of Enlightenment, historicity, aesthetics,, religious reformism and economic progress. This triumphalist rhetoric is, however, undermined by a discourse of language endangerment whereby the Francophiles deplore the possible loss of French in Tunisia. It is argued that while Frenchness will survive as part of Tunisian national identity and discourse tradition due to its strong anchoring in many domains, it seems that this Frenchified modernist identity politics has been transformed into a version which disavows its politicized, contingent and debatable nature. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The nature and the role of sensation sit at the heart of classic enlightenment debates about the nature of knowledge. While these debates, in their modern form, came into being several hundred years ago, many key words from them remain with us today. As a result, a number of culturally particular assumptions also remain as part of the semantic composition of these words. In the following, we examine such assumptions, particularly in (...) relation to sensoriality. We contrast the classic empiricist and rationalist views on sensation, including their broader epistemological stakes, and bring forth a third account through Peircean semiotics. We suggest that the classic debate between rationalists and empiricists can be re-examined by asking how repetition exists in the world. By thinking about the ontology of repetition, and by highlighting some of the basic semiotic principles of this, we suggest that sensoriality needs to be recognized as a dynamical system rather than a system that exists for the documenting of "what there is". In this account, neither sensoriality nor the nature of existence, including the physical world, are anchored toward absolutes on any level. This point, however, does not lead us toward rationalist claims about the non-importance of senses or the body, but toward recognition that while patterns and stability play a significant role in living systems, there is always room for plasticity and open-endedness. It is in this space between stability and change, where meaning is brought into being. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)