Volume 11, Issue 2 -

The aim of this paper is to show that Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations should be regarded as one of the fundamental sources of structuralism. Husserl’s version of structuralism is, however, quite original in many respects. Indeed, what Husserl advocates in his works can be defined, following and expanding a line of research inaugurated by scholars like Elmar Holenstein and Giovanni Piana (see Holenstein, E. 1975. Roman Jakobsons phänomenologischer Strukturalismus . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, Holenstein, E. 1976. Linguistik, Semiotik, Hermeneutik: Plädoyers für eine strukturale Phänomenologie . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, Holenstein, E. In publication. Phenomenological Phenomenology of Language: Scattered Papers . Geneva: sdvig, Piana, G. 2013a. L'idea di uno strutturalismo fenomenologico. In G. Piana (ed.), Strutturalismo fenomenologico e psicologia della forma , 5–17. http://www.lulu.com/shop/giovanni-piana/strutturalismo-fenomenologico-e-psicologia-della-forma/paperback/product-21332317.html (accessed 20 February 2018), Piana, G. 2013b. Momento figurale e qualità ghestaltica. In G. Piana (ed.), Strutturalismo fenomenologico e psicologia della forma , 101–119. http://www.lulu.com/shop/giovanni-piana/strutturalismo-fenomenologico-e-psicologia-della-forma/paperback/product-21332317.html accessed 20 February 2018), in terms of phenomenological structuralism or of structural phenomenology .

This article examines Bouchard’s (e.g. Bouchard, D. 2010. From neurons to signs. In A. D. M. Smith, M. Schouwstra, B. de Boer & K. Smith (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International conference on the evolution of language, 42–49. Singapore: World Scientific; Bouchard, D. 2013. The nature and origin of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Bouchard, D. 2015. Brain readiness and the nature of language. Frontiers in Psychology 6.) discussion of the nature of language as ‘Saussurian Biolinguistics.’ A fundamental assumption of Bouchard, that of the existence of the Saussurian sign as a psychologically real entity in language, is disputed and an alternative understanding of the semiotic function of language is stressed. The consequences of Bouchard’s adoption of double interface signs for the relation of language to thought are also discussed and it is argued that such an approach leads inexorably to a form of linguistic relativity, and that positing a language independent ‘mentalese’ resolves this problem. The proposed model of language evolution, in which Bouchard is sceptical of protolanguage, is challenged, as are his claims regarding the properties of the language faculty. Bouchard presents a theory of the cognitive underpinning of language, ‘Offline Brain Systems,’ which is inadequate in accounting for the unique properties of human cognition. Instead, a more insightful and explanatorily comprehensive theory is presented here: dual-processing and the Representational Hypothesis .

Leonard Talmy’s influential binary motion event typology has encountered four main challenges: (a) additional language types; (b) extensive “type-internal” variation; (c) the role of other relevant form classes than verbs and “satellites;” and (d) alternative definitions of key semantic concepts like Motion, Path and Manner. After reviewing these issues, we show that the theory of Holistic Spatial Semantics provides analytical tools for their resolution. In support, we present an analysis of motion event descriptions by speakers of two languages that are troublesome for the original typology: Thai (Tai-Kadai) and Telugu (Dravidian), based on the Frog-story elicitation procedure. Despite some apparently similar typological features, the motion event descriptions in the two languages were found to be significantly different. The Telugu participants used very few verbs in contrast to extensive case marking to express Path and nominals to express Region and Landmark, while the Thai speakers relied largely on serial verbs for expressing Path and on prepositions for expressing Region. Combined with previous research in the field, our findings imply (at least) four different clusters of languages in motion event typology with Telugu and Thai as representative of two such clusters, languages like French and Spanish representing a third cluster, and Swedish and English a fourth. This also implies that many other languages like Italian, Bulgarian, and Basque will appear as “mixed languages,” positioned between two or three of these clusters.

This article aims to examine the narrative impacts and social influences of screen violence in audiovisual media. It suggests an integrative approach to synthesising the recent research findings in different disciplines such as cognitive science, media studies, neuroscience, and social semiotic theories. Based on the theoretical synthesis of narrative effects and persuasive functions, this paper establishes a method for analysing the contextualisation of violent events. In particular, the analytical method focuses on the two main narrative mechanisms for contextualising violent events, justifications of characters’ motivations for using violence and depictions of consequences . This article will apply the method to elucidate how different kinds of contextualisation yield different types of narrative impacts, persuasive potentials, and the ways in which social, political, and ideological issues can be learnt. Furthermore, a typology of characters’ motivations is also provided, which are often used for justifying the characters’ violent actions in audiovisual narratives. This paper also unravels how genre expectations are closely related to narrative functions of screen violence, particularly how genre shapes the viewers’ prediction and interpretation of violent events. Finally, the methods for motivation analysis of violent narrative events are extended to examine a particular genre of interactive audiovisual texts — empathy games.