Dulce Maria Loynaz' Jardin: Subversive tropological discourse

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how the tropes or figurative discourse in Loynaz’s novel, Jardín, becomes a means by which she involves the reader within a text that subverts socio-cultural conventions. Through textual analysis, it explains how the poet communicates her views of the world as a conflictive space where existence is the will to live, life being a human construction like a garden, and a woman’s decision –often frustrated by men– to seek self-realization.^ By tracing some critical studies focused on polarities allegedly present in Jardín, such as: poetry/prose, lyric poetry/novel, word/silence, life/death, character novel/space novel, civilization/barbarism, posmodernismo/vanguardismo, and femininity/feminism, this essay explores Loynaz’s esthetic and ideological codes to demonstrate how opposition can be seen in her novel as part of her arrangement of an artistic philosophy.^ This research refers to three main sources: the semiotician Umberto Eco’s notion of the text’s indeterminacy as an opera aperta, reception theory, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism. By applying these theories to the analysis of this novel, I seek to show Loynaz’s literary modus (tropological language) and ideological dictum , which correlate oppositions and transform them as a point of departure to reconsider civilized life. The poet is presented as an esthetic force that compels the reader to question some false values, by creating an implicit but intelligent dialogue between him/her and a lyrical text. To describe such literary procedure, I coin in this study the term dialirismo (dialyricism). ^ My essay is centered on the tropes through which Loynaz creates her dialyrical text. By focusing on metaphor, symbol, synecdoche, and metonymy, I examine Jardín as a convergence of the following conceptual aspects: intertextuality, primitivism, and feminist discourse. I argue that Loynaz’s novel is a creative response to the literary tradition, as well as a proposal to understand writing –and reading– as an open, interactive process in search not only of artistic values but also of critical knowledge.^ This exploration shows how the novelist faces a so-called civilized world through the eyes of her fictional character, Bárbara, who confronts patriarchal discourse. It celebrates Loynaz’s poetic representation of this inquisitive woman, in her fenced garden, as a human being who can see, above and beyond an iron curtain, the possibility to overcome an aggressive male-centered civilization.^

Hispanic orientalism: The literary development of a cultural paradigm, from medieval Spain to modern Latin America

This dissertation offers a novel approach to Hispanic Orientalism, developing a dynamic paradigm from its origins in medieval and Renaissance Iberia during the process of the Christian Reconquest, to its transatlantic migration and establishment in the early years of the Colony, from where it changed in late colonial and post-Independence Latin America, and onto modernity. ^ The study argues that Hispanic Orientalism does not necessarily imply a negative depiction of the Other, a quality associated with the traditional critique of Saidian Orientalism. Neither, does it entirely comply with the positivist approach suggested in the theoretical research of Said’s opponents, like Julia Kushigian. This dissertation also argues that sociopolitical changes and the shift in the discourse of powers, from imperial to non-imperial, had a significant impact of the development of Hispanic Orientalism, shaping the relationship with the Other. The methodology involves close reading of representative texts depicting the interactions of the dominant and dominated societies from each of the four historic periods that coincided with significant sociopolitical transformations in Hispanic society. Through an intercultural approach to literary studies, social history, and religious studies, this project develops an original paradigm of Hispanic Orientalism, derived from the image of the reinvented Semitic Other portrayed in the literary works depicting the relationship between the hegemonic and the subaltern cultures during the Reconquest period in Spain. Then, it traces the turn of the original paradigm towards reinterpretation during its transatlantic migration to Latin America through the analysis of the chronicles and travelogs of the first colonizers and explorers. During the transitional late colonial and early Independence periods Latin America sees a significant change in the discourse of powers, and Hispanic Orientalism reflects this oscillation between the past and the present therough the works of the Latin American authors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Finally, once the non-imperial discourse of power established itself in the former Colony, a new modern stage in the development of Hispanic Orientalist paradigm takes place. It is marked by the desire to differentiate itself from the O(o)thers, as manifested in the works of the representatives of Modernism and the Boom.^

Hispanic Orientalism: The Literary Development of a Cultural Paradigm, from Medieval Spain to Modern Latin America

This dissertation offers a novel approach to Hispanic Orientalism, developing a dynamic paradigm from its origins in medieval and Renaissance Iberia during the process of the Christian Reconquest, to its transatlantic migration and establishment in the early years of the Colony, from where it changed in late colonial and post-Independence Latin America, and onto modernity. The study argues that Hispanic Orientalism does not necessarily imply a negative depiction of the Other, a quality associated with the traditional critique of Saidian Orientalism. Neither, does it entirely comply with the positivist approach suggested in the theoretical research of Said’s opponents, like Julia Kushigian. This dissertation also argues that sociopolitical changes and the shift in the discourse of powers, from imperial to non-imperial, had a significant impact of the development of Hispanic Orientalism, shaping the relationship with the Other. The methodology involves close reading of representative texts depicting the interactions of the dominant and dominated societies from each of the four historic periods that coincided with significant sociopolitical transformations in Hispanic society. Through an intercultural approach to literary studies, social history, and religious studies, this project develops an original paradigm of Hispanic Orientalism, derived from the image of the reinvented Semitic Other portrayed in the literary works depicting the relationship between the hegemonic and the subaltern cultures during the Reconquest period in Spain. Then, it traces the turn of the original paradigm towards reinterpretation during its transatlantic migration to Latin America through the analysis of the chronicles and travelogs of the first colonizers and explorers. During the transitional late colonial and early Independence periods Latin America sees a significant change in the discourse of powers, and Hispanic Orientalism reflects this oscillation between the past and the present therough the works of the Latin American authors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Finally, once the non-imperial discourse of power established itself in the former Colony, a new modern stage in the development of Hispanic Orientalist paradigm takes place. It is marked by the desire to differentiate itself from the O(o)thers, as manifested in the works of the representatives of Modernism and the Boom.

Tourist Destination Image in the New Technological Environments: Dialogism under the Public Relations Gaze

The dependence and influence of new media on social and organizational life have led to a new orientation of the communicational practices of organizations and to a research paradigm shift to a cocriational model within public relations theory. This model is based on dialogic rhetoric and dialogue that requires a joint production of content and meanings by organizations and publics, which have a central role in shaping image. The new social and communicational paradigms have also an impact on tourism research, implying the need to understand the role of new technologies, particularly websites, in image formation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of website in the formation of a tourist destination image (Portugal) through the understanding of the degree of adoption of dialogical principles on websites by official and unofficial tourist organizations and the identifying of denotative and connotative elements that are represented on published and shared photographs in these websites. The research corpus consisted of websites of entities and photographs published and shared on these websites. The methodology used is quantitative and qualitative, based on content analysis of data of websites and photographs. Results indicate that official tourist entities adopted the dialogic principles in a higher degree than unofficials. There is also a higher adoption of the principles related to technical dimension than dialogical dimension. Results confirm a relation between the adoption of dialogical link and an increased openness by entities to the possibility of photo sharing. The analysis of denotative and connotative elements of photography reflects a similarity in representations of entities and tourists. This study contributes to both theoretical perspectives, because it provides a conceptual scheme of destination image formation online and to a practical perspective, because it also suggests guidelines of dialogical practices to incorporate in websites of tourism entities.

THE ELDERLY IN TWO ADVERTISING: A DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS

 The advertisements are a discursive genre that are meant to promote a brand, product or service attracting investors and / or customers. Its constitution strategies are varied: ranging from humor to the controversy. This feature allows each advertisement reaches the public in a different way, generating empathy, moving reviews, discussions etc. Because of this social relevance, this study aims to analyze two advertisements of Havaianas sandals, aired on television and the internet, in the months of August and September 2009. These pieces had as main character an elderly: (i) in the first interaction situation with his granddaughter; and (ii) the second to the viewer. In the latter, referred to the answer given by the public on the contents of the first piece. The interest in these parts is related to the controversy generated about the old character and his speech. From the interactionist perspective, based on the conceptual framework of Bakhtin and his Circle, proposes to examine the discursive process initiated by the enunciation of these parts in order to describe elements rooted in shared social knowledge about the elderly. Thus, we mobilized the concepts of dialogism, interaction and axiological concepts of discourse. The analysis of the specimens shows that the representation of the elderly as a partner responsible for a more liberal discourse on emotional and sexual life is not yet part of the social horizon of the Brazilian public. His appearance generates dialogue with the public (albeit to receive criticism) that concerns this brand interactions.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL “A GENTLE CREATURE”

This paper has the objective to analyze the novel “A Gentle Creature”, of the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, using the theoretical concepts covered in the text “1874 – Three Novellas, or ‘What Happened?’” (1996), which makes up the volume 3 of the work A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. These concepts can be triggered to realize the approach of the question about the segmentarity lines, which make it possible to make the observation of the changes of state that have occurred with the characters in a literary work, of the ways how undertake movements of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization in development of such segmentarity lines, which are termed as hard or molar, molecular or malleable, and trail, having the view that it is through them that these characters go through this transformation process. Starting from this analysis, will pick up, too, to connect the theory of these two French philosophers with polyphonic theory presented by Russian philosopher and theorist of language Mikhail Bakhtin in the book Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics (1997), which investigate the concept of polyphony, from Dostoevsky's work, being, among other texts analyzed the Russian novelist, novel to be studied in this work. And the perspective that arises in the analysis proposed in this article, what is sought is to conduct a parallel investigation of how both theories have the possibility of development work in the observation of the characteristics of a literary work, and these characteristics likely to these concepts are related to the lines of segmentarity deleuzo-guattarianas and Bakhtin's polyphony.

WRITING AND SPEECH: WHAT TEACHES US THE NON LITERARY TEXTS

Until the early twentieth century only written texts documenting the language. From the analysis of non-literary documents of the seventeenth century, we shall show how the writing reflects the facts of speech. Two sets of phenomena will be especially focused on: the graphic representation of unstressed vowels and that of sibilant fricatives (palatal and non-palatal). It is intended to alert to problems concerning the interference of speech in writing, drawing a parallel between the writing of the speaker common, off-hand that was contaminated by his standard speech and writing.  

Discourse genres, dialogism and hybridism

Based on a(n) (in)transdisciplinary view, we aim at discussing the relationship between utterance and hybridism upon Bakhtin’s Circle perspective (BAKHTIN, 2003[1979]; 1998[1975]; 2008[1963]; BAKHTIN/VOLOCHÍNOV, 2006[1929]; MEDVIÉDEV, 2012[1928]), by objectiving to construct a comprehension concerning the hybrid genres, in special, to this present study, the hybrid genres from the journalism sphere. To do so, we follow an epistemological, theoretical and methodological way in accordance with Bakhtin’s Circle studies and we selected utterances from the talk show discourse genre. We believe that the study is relevant, because it doesn’t only confirm the importance to join dialogues between Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis, in terms of ratifying the permeability among the disciplinary boundaries in order to understand the social life (MOITA LOPES, 2006) but also it contributes to sediment plural views about discourse genres in bakhtinian analysis of discourse/utterance.

Raman microscopy of formamide-intercalated kaolinites treated by controlled-rate thermal analysis technology

Raman spectroscopy of formamide-intercalated kaolinites treated using controlled-rate thermal analysis technology (CRTA), allowing the separation of adsorbed formamide from intercalated formamide in formamide-intercalated kaolinites, is reported. The Raman spectra of the CRTA-treated formamide-intercalated kaolinites are significantly different from those of the intercalated kaolinites, which display a combination of both intercalated and adsorbed formamide. An intense band is observed at 3629 cm-1, attributed to the inner surface hydroxyls hydrogen bonded to the formamide. Broad bands are observed at 3600 and 3639 cm-1, assigned to the inner surface hydroxyls, which are hydrogen bonded to the adsorbed water molecules. The hydroxyl-stretching band of the inner hydroxyl is observed at 3621 cm-1 in the Raman spectra of the CRTA-treated formamide-intercalated kaolinites. The results of thermal analysis show that the amount of intercalated formamide between the kaolinite layers is independent of the presence of water. Significant differences are observed in the CO stretching region between the adsorbed and intercalated formamide.

Detailed analysis of a conservative difference approximation for the time fractional diffusion equation

Diffusion equations that use time fractional derivatives are attractive because they describe a wealth of problems involving non-Markovian Random walks. The time fractional diffusion equation (TFDE) is obtained from the standard diffusion equation by replacing the first-order time derivative with a fractional derivative of order α ∈ (0, 1). Developing numerical methods for solving fractional partial differential equations is a new research field and the theoretical analysis of the numerical methods associated with them is not fully developed. In this paper an explicit conservative difference approximation (ECDA) for TFDE is proposed. We give a detailed analysis for this ECDA and generate discrete models of random walk suitable for simulating random variables whose spatial probability density evolves in time according to this fractional diffusion equation. The stability and convergence of the ECDA for TFDE in a bounded domain are discussed. Finally, some numerical examples are presented to show the application of the present technique.

Determination of preventive maintenance lead time using hybrid analysis

The time for conducting Preventive Maintenance (PM) on an asset is often determined using a predefined alarm limit based on trends of a hazard function. In this paper, the authors propose using both hazard and reliability functions to improve the accuracy of the prediction particularly when the failure characteristic of the asset whole life is modelled using different failure distributions for the different stages of the life of the asset. The proposed method is validated using simulations and case studies.