Semantics

Words are really just a sequence of noises to which humanity has assigned meaning. Some of these constructed meanings hold different levels of significance to different people. People will try to latch on to whatever meaning they can find because it is reassuring to have something, even as seemingly insignificant as a single word, with which they can find a personal connection. One word that has personal significance to me is “pretentiousness”. “Pretentiousness” is a noun, originating from the…

Aritomo proposing to tattoo Yun Ling/ In comparison to Duffys "art" There are antagonistic undertones of using "needles as Aritomo 's primary apparatus to transact Yun Ling 's horimono, convenes the wider conflicts of antithesizing ideologies and motif 's presiding throughout the novel. Yun Ling 's angst and apprehension of the discomfort the needles will possibly inflict, is reassured by Aritomo 's analogy of likening the needle to that of a Paintbrush ("I will paint you"), he has therefore…

Cool is a simple word that we use in our everyday lives as human beings. Despite it being such a simple word, it has wide-spread of meanings throughout the world. Some meanings are considered formal while some are consider slang. Some present a positive connotation while others present a negative connotation. Some uses of the word cool are used more often than others. The dictionary actually has a total of twenty-six definitions, all of them are correct, but the order of these definitions should…

Mark Doty’s way of starting a poem is to talk about death and it has clearly caught the audience’s eye. “Tiara” is a poem about an alcoholic gay man who dies of AIDS in hospice. Doty doesn’t use any rhythm or rhyme, but with his use of allusions and symbolism, “Tiara” is an easy to understand poem with a high significance that gets the audience in and the tears flowing. “Tiara” is the type of poem to show the complexity of the AIDS epidemic in a simple and graceful way that affects the reader…

Analyzation of the Biblical Text in Luke 14:25-35 The writing in Luke 14:25-35 is an adaptation of the costs of being a disciple of Christ. The setting for this pericope is crucial because it gives people insight on what Jesus was doing at that time. Furthermore, the pericope opens with “large crowds were traveling with him.”(Luke 14:25, NRSV) meaning that the crowd found something in Jesus because they were traveling with him toward Jerusalem. Moreover, these ‘large crowds’ had left their homes…

The photo featured above is that of an Italian grandmother with her granddaughter. The grandmother and granddaughter, though unable to effectively communicate, have found a way to come together and enjoy their time. The grandmother is originally from Italy and therefore is unable to speak much English, if any at all. On the other hand, the granddaughter was born and raised in the United States and therefore, other than the basics, speaks very little Italian. This image was chosen as one that…

Preposition is a word or a group of words which brings out the correct relationship between a noun/pronoun or between a verb and a noun/pronoun or an adjective and a noun/pronoun. Prepositions are important structural words. They have been called, ‘hooking words’, since they are used to hook nouns, pronouns and word-groups on to preceding words and word-groups including sentences. The purpose of the hooking is to mark the relation of the noun, pronoun or word-group with another word or…

2.1. InterlanguagePragmatics and Pragmatic Competence 2.1.1. Definition of pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics In his work, Yule (1997) explains that pragmatics is “the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms”. He details that studying pragmatics allows learners to “talk about people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kind of actions that they are performing when they speak”. In other words, it’s about how people…

Liminality is a central theme to most of Arthur Yap’s work, extending his material to a broad range of interpretations and possibilities that elude a definitive and denotative meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, that which is liminal has three interpretations: “minimality”; something “characterized by being on a boundary or threshold” or a “transitional… state between culturally defined stages of a person’s life”. This liminality is evident in Yap’s distinct artistry, where he…

Abstract: Zhang Guruo lists few systematic theories on translation; however, he has unique insight into translation. From four aspects his views will be illustrated in this paper: on faithfulness; on idiomaticness; on notes; on readers. On faithfulness, Zhang’s view is that “the content is like the matter and substance while the form like the words and expression. ” He has been in pursuit of idiomaticness for all his life. From the perspective of translation, he advances translating idiomatic…