Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Rhetoric of Contrasts“

How did Late Antiquity’s societies articulate their identities? This dissertation is a study of the construction of textual identities, as revealed by an analysis of Origen’s Paulinism which aimed to construct Christian identity in the third century CE. I have chosen extracts from Origen’s exegesis of Paul, found primarily in one text, his Commentary on Romans, as resources for my examination of identity issues. This text is an extremely helpful example of a deliberate fashioning of Christian identity through Origen’s joint use of Hellenistic paideia and the Bible. Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus provides a helpful lens in decoding Origen’s and Hellenistic texts. Using habitus, the focus is on the rhetoric of identity formation through the fabric of the cultural, social, political, ideological, and literary contexts of Origen’s world. The study is more descriptive than polemical. The Greek paideia provides an immediate background to Late Antiquity’s concept of identity formation. The extant literature of the period comprised the fundamental vehicles of self–definition. This concept of fashioning identity through the construction of texts presents numerous difficulties for the contemporary reader. I will show that Origen used Greco–Roman moral philosophy and rhetoric in interpreting Paul. In seeking Origen’s notion of Christian identity, Origen’s reading of Romans is shaped by strategies of self–scrutiny and self–formation. Although Origen modifies the Greco–Roman moral philosophies—such as the notion of self–control, transformational narratives, and rhetoric deployment in his exegesis—much of the shared cultural and literary background remains. Using the Hellenistic nuances of self–control and rhetoric, Origen shows his audience a distinct picture of what a transformed, mature believer should look like, the humanitas. The transformation that a believer underwent resulted in a new or intensified form of piety with consequent changes in social affiliations, relations and loyalties. He also uses different descriptions —“new man,” “inner man” and “perfect”—to identify the mature transformed believers. This believer is the humanitas, the much sought after identity, with the milieu of the third century C.E. He attempted to create a body of knowledge and to utilize it for the preparation of a strong Christian identity in the midst of the pressures and temptations of the hegemonic Roman Empire and the pervasive Greco–Roman culture. Along with the paideia, the Roman Empire nurtured and challenged Origen’s Paulinism. The Roman Empire did not require individuals, or even communities, to adopt for themselves a distinctly Roman identity to the exclusion of all others. Yet, everyone was required to worship the genus of the Emperor. The Roman identity transformed the Greek–barbarian dichotomy into an imperial ideology which claimed Roman supremacy over all other cultures and people. This usurpation of other societies by the Romans is an inverted mirror image of Origen’s usurpation of Rome’s Romanitas or humanitas through his Paulinism. Thus, he is to be seen constructing identity through shared forms of symbolic and linguistic construction which were readily available within his socio–political reality.<br>Thesis (Ph.D. (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The discourse on stability of petroleum contracts revolves around how to resolve the tension between the sovereign right to regulate the petroleum industry and the necessity to protect the legitimate interests of foreign investors. The irreversible nature of investment in the petroleum sector, the long pay back period in petroleum contracts, and the political and commercial risks inherent in petroleum projects necessitates stability over the life of the contract as an essential condition for achieving economic interests for the main players in the petroleum industry. The stability of a petroleum contract involves a complex interaction of the legal, economic and political environment in the host country in which it operates and is profoundly shaped by the interplay between internal and external factors governing the petroleum industry. The aim of the thesis is to examine and analyse the recent trends on stability of the petroleum contract in developing countries and economies in transition. Perception of petroleum as a finite, non-renewable resource and the attendant public interest dimension embedded in the contractual arrangements for its exploitation makes the petroleum industry a highly regulated and historically popular area of state intervention. Petroleum contracts are also vulnerable to various kinds of change of circumstances, which can disturb the economic equilibrium of contracts. Stability mechanisms in legal, contractual and economic forms are needed to counter these political, fiscal and commercial risks in petroleum contracts.The study observes that over the last two decades, the fierce competition among the developing countries and economies in transition for attracting foreign investment in natural resources exploration and the end of their radical nationalistic feelings and hostile attitude towards foreign investment have persuaded them to provide favourable conditions in petroleum contracts for the petroleum companies. The study finds that the petroleum contracts in these countries during this period have been marked by increased stability guarantees, greater flexibility in fiscal terms and increased efforts of the parties to make provisions for renegotiation and adaptation of the contract in changing circumstances to maintain stability in the contract and to attract foreign investment in petroleum projects. The growing concerns about negative environmental impact and consequently regulatory and liability risks by the host states have appeared as a significant political risk factor to the petroleum companies. Similarly, host communities' hostile actions spurred by negative social impact of petroleum operations and human rights violations at various stages of petroleum development can pose a threat to stability and to the economic viability of petroleum projects. The study emphasises that integration of environmental and social concerns in petroleum development, assessment of environmental and social impacts, consultation with key stakeholders in the project design and implementation, equitable distribution of economic benefits from the project, respect for human rights of the host community in petroleum exploitation are all seen as key issues to be addressed in order to reduce negative impacts from project, and to enhance stability of the projects. A clearly defined role for the government and company in the area of social responsibility is needed to reduce much of the uncertainty about the allocation of responsibilities that they should undertake.

This thesis deals with the correlative markers d’une part… d’autre part, d’un côté… de l’autre and non seulement… mais in French and their Swedish counterparts dels… dels, å ena sidan… å andra sidan and inte bara… utan. These markers are composed of two separate parts generally occurring together, and announce a serial of at least two textual units to be considered together. The analyses of the use of these three French and three Swedish markers are based upon two corpora of non-academic humanities texts. The first, principal corpus, is composed only of original French and Swedish texts. The second, complementary corpus, is composed of source texts in the two languages and their translations in the other language. By the combination of these two corpora, this study is comparative as well as contrastive. Through application of the Geneva model of discourse analysis and the Rhetorical Structure Theory, a semantic and functional approach to correlative markers and their text-structural role is adopted. The study shows similarities as well as differences between the six markers, both within each language and between the languages. D’une part… d’autre part and dels… dels principally mark a conjunctive relation, whereas d’un côté… de l’autre and å ena sidan… å andra sidan more often are used in  a contrastive relation, even though they all can be used for both kinds of relations. Non seulement… mais and inte bara… utan mark a conjunctive relation, but can also indicate that the second argument is stronger than the first one. By the use of these two markers, the language users also present the first one as given and the second one as new information. In general, the French correlative markers appear to have a more argumentative function, whereas the text-structural function is demonstrated to be the most important in Swedish.

Intitulé «Analyse des situations sémiotiques dans les documents à but informatif au sein de l’entreprise: autour de certains documents de communication chez E.D.F.», cette thèse de doctorat est une étude qui se situe dans le cadre des Pratiques Sémiotiques. Une production communicative peut être considérée comme une pratique (ici, un fait langagier, un discours dont le but est de provoquer une action ou une réaction chez des destinataires). Cette dernière est en réalité pourvue d’une configuration hétérogène qui regroupe un ensemble d’éléments nécessaires à la production et à l’interprétation de sa signification. Notre étude consiste à analyser cette configuration (encore appelée situation sémiotique) et à faire ressortir les éléments les plus pertinents qui peuvent se révéler sur deux niveaux ou scènes: scènes prédicatives et scènes stratégiques. Nous nous sommes spécifiquement intéressé aux stratégies: le choix, l’adaptation, l’ajustement, la coordination, l’organisation programmée des éléments de la pratique. L’analyse a porté précisément sur quelques documents de communication du Groupe EDF. Il s’agit d’une communication institutionnelle externe. Définie (située) entre une sémiotique de l’image et de l’institution, cette thèse peut également être considérée comme une étude sémiotique d’une forme de communication. La thématique abordée concerne le démantèlement des centrales nucléaires, le traitement et la gestion des déchets radioactifs, les engagements écologiques, les nouveaux produits, les activités et services d’EDF. Toute cette thématique est relative à la production et à la commercialisation de l’électricité (énergie) ainsi qu’aux enjeux qu’elles suscitent. Le corpus d’étude, constitué uniquement de documents non confidentiels, accessibles au grand public, se scinde en deux parties: les documents de support papier et ceux de support électronique (ensemble d’interfaces graphiques du site web d’EDF). Ces derniers éléments contiennent deux séquences vidéo. Nous avons mené des réflexions et des analyses qui consistaient à voir quelles sont les structures signifiantes que mobilise l’acte de communication que constitue le corpus. Ce corpus en tant que pratique se caractérise par des ajustements et des organisations stratégiques qui appartiennent à plusieurs niveaux parmi lesquels nous avons les propriétés matérielles et sensibles, les instances énonciatives, les styles rhétorico-argumentatifs. Notre travail s’est articulé autour de trois parties principales: la première est une présentation de l’entreprise cible et du contexte général de communication du corpus. Nous avons dressé un portait général de l’entreprise EDF et évoqué la notion d’énergie, les différentes sources de l’électricité produite par E.D.F ainsi que les enjeux économiques, concurrentiels, sociaux et de sécurité dont l’entreprise doit tenir compte. La deuxième partie correspond à une description sémio-analytique du corpus. C’est également le lieu où nous avons évoqué les composantes de la communication externe de laquelle fait partie le corpus. Enfin, la troisième partie est axée sur trois chapitres qui analysent les concepts sémiotiques et rhétorico-argumentatifs mobilisés. Nous y avons préalablement défini les concepts théoriques liés à la communication et à la sémiotique. Notre analyse est centrée sur les niveaux d’organisation énonciative, textuelle et les aspects polysémiotiques. Pour finir, nous avons étudié la chaine rhétorique et les styles argumentatifs du corpus, car une pratique présente une forte dimension rhétorico-argumentative. Notre étude révèle les éléments pertinents dans la production et l’interprétation d’une pratique. Elle contribue à la compréhension et à l’amélioration de l’efficacité communicative<br>Entitled “Analysis of semiotic situations in informational documents within the company: focus on some EDF (Electricité de France) communication documents”, this doctorate research thesis is a study which particularly concerns the field of Practical Semiotics. A communicative production can be regarded as a Practice (in this case, a language act, a discourse whose aim is to provoke an action or a reaction in the addressees). It is actually provided with a heterogeneous configuration that includes a set of elements necessary for the production and interpretation of its meaning. The aim of our study is to analyze this configuration also called Semiotic Situation, and to highlight the most relevant aspects that can be observed in two levels or scenes: predicative and strategies scenes. We specifically focused on the following strategies: selection, adaptation, adjustment, coordination and programmed organization of Practice elements. The analysis focused particularly on some communication documents of EDF Group. This is an external institutional communication. Situated between semiotics of images and institutional semiotics, this thesis can also be considered as a semiotic study of a means of communication. The theme was on dismantling nuclear power plants, management and processing of radioactive waste, environmental commitments, new products, activities and services of EDF. This whole topic is related to the production and marketing of electricity (energy) and the issues they raise. The corpus under study made up of non confidential documents at the reach of the general public is divided into two parts: we have firstly some paper documents, and secondly, we have electronic documents (EDF website graphical interfaces which contain two video sequences). In line with our research, we carried out analysis and meditations with the aim of knowing what significant structures mobilize the act of communication that make up the corpus under study. This corpus as a Practice contains strategic organisation and adjustments found on several levels amongst which are material and sensitive properties, enunciative and the rhetorical-argumentative styles. Our research focused on three main parts. The first is a presentation of the target company and the specification of the communication context of the corpus. After presenting the company EDF and discussing the concept of energy, the different sources of electricity generated by EDF, we looked at the economic, competitive, social and safety issues that the company must consider. The second part gave an analytical semiotic description of the corpus. This was also the part where we discussed the components of external communication which belongs corpus.The third part is divided into three chapters that analyze the semiotic and rhetorical-argumentative concepts used. An analysis of Semiotic Situation requires a singular examination of syncretic, enunciative and rhetorical aspects. This thesis reveals crucial elements in the production and interpretation of meaning in of a communication act. It contributes to the understanding and improvement of communicative efficiency. It is a model of applied semiotics

Invandrade kvinnor i Handels. Föreställningar om arbetskraftsinvandrade kvinnor i Handelsnytt 1961-1976. (Immigrant women in Handels. Conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt 1961-1976). The primary purpose of this thesis is to analyze the written conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt, a Swedish Trade Union magazine. The analyses of the conceptions are based on theoretical categories of class, gender and ethnicity. The purpose is to examine how labour immigrated women, as members of the Union, Handelsanställdas förbund, were perceived and how the conceptions of them were expressed through these categories. The time period of the study is based on Yvonne Hirdman´s gender contract- The Equality contract, it was a time period when labour immigration peaked and later on attenuated. And also a time when women in Sweden begun to work outside of home in a wider extent than before. The study also means to explore power relations and subordination of the given categories and how these integrate and enhance each other.   The results demonstrate a significance absence of articles, features and overall coverage of immigrated women in Handelsnytt. The small amounts of articles about or for immigrated workers tend to leave the immigrated woman unseen.  The immigrant workers are rarely individually described; they are mostly defined as a sexless group or as a man. If the lack of recognition may be explained by limited membership of female immigrated workers could be one answer, but not entirely satisfying. Even though the trade industry was dependable on its workers language knowledge, which is a large part of the rhetoric inflicting the immigrant articles, it may not mean there were no female immigrant workers in this industry. However the results cannot with certainty claim it to be either way, not the lack of female members or as a proof of the domination of male rhetoric within the trade union-Handels.

In early 1971, a year before he abandoned the art world, the American art dealer and independent curator Seth Siegelaub (1941-2013) published The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement (ARRTSA) in New York. Its stated aim was to change the power relations on the art market more in favor of the artists. This study departs from the observation that despite being a seemingly ideal way to assert artist’s rights, ARRTSA has only been used by a few artists. While the reason for this reluctance has not been sufficiently researched, my study also shows that there is a lack of academic work that considers this area of research in art history. In order to shed light on this field I am using Fairclough’s theory and by applying his dialectical method of Critical Discourse Analysis, I examine the discourses in which ARRTSA is included as a particular discourse and event. The analysis of Siegelaub’s practice and position in combination with a close linguistic analysis of his introductory text highlights aspects and dimensions that have been previously occluded or under- acknowledged. The result of the analysis shows that the discourse stresses solidarity, insistence and consistency for artists and makes a moral appeal to collectors, but the text also reproduces the idiosyncratic energy and ambiguities that was surrounding his driven persona. I argue that despite all the purported benefits of ARRTSA, artists are instilled with a sense of uncertainty and risk, because it becomes apparent how informal and unregulated the art world is and how the art market-logic yields more power than the artist. Hence, the idea of pursuing artist’s rights through the use of written agreements remains largely unexplored.

Dans cette thèse sur la concession en russe moderne, nous avons cerné cette notion en élaborant un schéma prototypique servant à classer différents types de constructions concessives et à intégrer le maximum de structures marquées comme concessives. Ainsi le schéma proposé (p, Cq), basé sur la notion de contraste entre les implications des contenus de p et q, les évaluations de ces contenus ou les actes illocutoires p et q, prend pour principal repère C, conjonction ou préposition concessive. Nous avons étudié la relation concessive dans des constructions bi-Propositives et des propositions simples. Cet ensemble est classé en fonction du statut épistémique de q, puis subdivisé en non-Conditionnel, conditionnel ou contrefactuel. Le deuxième critère de classement est le statut unique ou multiple de q. Dans le premier cas nous avons des constructions non-Généralisantes, dans le second la construction appartient au type généralisant. Nous nous sommes démarquée des recherches traditionnelles en prenant en compte la concession illocutoire : xotja sert à remettre en cause l’énoncé précédent pour une auto-Correction du locuteur qui annonce ainsi le changement du cours de sa pensée. Notre travail nous amène à la conclusion que la concession est un phénomène protéiforme non réductible à une notion de causalité inversée. L’élargissement du champ d’étude permet de jeter un pont entre la notion linguistique et la notion rhétorique de la concession et de donner un tableau plus complet des différentes formes de relation concessive en russe moderne<br>In this thesis dedicated to concession in modern Russian we specified the concept by means of a prototypical schema which we applied to classify different types of concessive constructions. This schema aims at embracing the majority of sentences marked as concessive. The main mark of the proposed schema (p, C q), based on the idea of contrast between the implications of p and q contents, assessments of these contents or p and q speech acts, is the connective C, a concessive conjunction or preposition. We studied concessive relations in both complex sentences and simple sentences. They are classified according to the epistemic status of q and subdivided into non-Conditional, conditional and counterfactual. The second criterion of classification is the single or multiple status of q. According to it we have, on the one hand, non-Generalized concessive constructions and, on the other, generalized concessive constructions. Outstepping the traditional research, we made a point of studying illocutionary concession as part of the whole. Indeed, xotja in discourse is used by the speaker as a self-Correction technique in order to reject the previous utterance pointing thus the deviation of their thought. As a result of our research we come to the conclusion that concession has multiple forms and cannot be reduced to inoperant causality. Due to a wider research scope we managed to bridge the linguistic and rhetoric concessions and to give a broader view of different forms of concessive relations in modern Russian