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Book
The Semiotics of X : chiasmus, cognition and extreme body memory
Authors: ---
ISBN: 1474273866 1474273858 1474273831 9781474273855 9781474273824 1474273823 9781474273831 9781474273862 9781474273831 Year: 2017 Publisher: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc,

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Abstract

"The X figure is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, but attempts to explain our fixation with X are rare. This book argues that the origins and meanings of X go far beyond alphabets and archetypes to remembered feelings of body movements - movements best typified in the performance of "spread-eagle" as a posture or gesture. These body memories are then projected onto other patterns and dynamics to help us make sense of the world. The argument is accomplished using a blend of insights from linguistic anthropology, cognitive linguistics, rhetoric culture and process semiotics to bring together revealing clues from languages, cultures and thinkers around the world. Chief among the uses and experiences of X are its tendencies to involve us in surprising reversals and blends. In ancient times the X-pattern was discussed as "chiasmus", a figure which, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, informs the most basic elements of our bodily experience, calling into question polarized dichotomies such as subject versus object. Pushed to extremes, presumed opposites like these tend to reverse suddenly. Likewise, blended experiences of our bodily extremities - arms and legs, toes and fingers, hands and feet - provide a plausible source of grounding for unique human abilities like analogy and double-scope conceptual integration. The book illustrates these dynamics by drawing attention to uses of X in history, prehistory and daily life, from sports and advertising to world mythology and languages around the world. The Semiotics of X is the first step towards developing a larger argument on the important but neglected role that chiasmus plays in cognition. It aims to inspire continued exploration on the figure, with the full expectation that chiasmus will become for the 21st century what metaphor became for the 20th century: a revolution in thinking about the way we think."--Bloomsbury Publishing.


Book
Dialectology as Dialectic
Author:
ISBN: 1283166011 9786613166012 311024585X 3110245841 3111871304 9783110245844 9783110245851 Year: 2011 Publisher: Berlin Boston

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Abstract

Dialectology proper has traditionally focused on the geographic distribution of language variation as an end in itself and has remained relatively segregated from other branches of linguistic and extra-linguistic inquiry. Cross-fertilizing winds have been blowing through the field for more than a decade, but much work remains for adequate synthesis. This book seeks to further the interdisciplinary integration of the field by highlighting, and harnessing, the many dialectic tensions inherent in language variation research and dialect definition. Undertaking a broadscale experiment in applied dialectics, the book demonstrates multiple grounds for insisting on a more robust, integrational approach to dialectology while simultaneously demonstrating grounds for defining the Phula languages of China and Vietnam. The Phula languages belong to the Burmic sub-branch of the Tibeto-Burman family and are primarily spoken in southeastern Yunnan Province, China. With origins as early as the ninth century, these language varieties have been left undefined, and largely unresearched, for hundreds of years. Based on extensive original fieldwork, the book identifies 24 synchronic Phula languages descended from three distinct macro-clades diachronically. This is accomplished by blending typological-descriptive, historical-comparative and socio-cognitive perspectives. Diagnostics include both qualitative and quantitative measurements, and insights from history, geography, ethnology, language contact, sociolinguistics and more are called on for data interpretation. This dialogic approach incorporates complexity by asserting that dialectology itself best flourishes as an interdependent dialectic - a dynamic synthesis of competing perspectives.

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