An encounter of knowledges, cultures, literary experiences and scientific approaches, from East and West, took the shape of this multifarious and bilingual collection of papers, entitled Wenxin Duihua 文心對話: A Dialogue on The Literary Mind / The Core of Writing. This work is meant to represent a first stage in an ongoing process of confrontation, in the domain of the Chinese literary and aesthetic tradition indelibly marked by the milestone of Wenxin Diaolong 文心雕龍. The six Chinese and European authors of this work shared their research and perspectives, enriched the literary and aesthetic landscape with deep reflections and original connections, and enhanced a polyphonic dialogue stemming from Liu Xie's heritage and reaching universal themes, like the essence of writing and the strong relationship between signs and images. Their contributions, crystallized in Wenxin Duihua 文心對話: A Dialogue on The Literary Mind / The Core of Writing, reveal the enormous potential of a multicultural approach, as well as the immeasurable profoundness of the wen 文.

Metaphor is a fascinating and, at the same time, complex phenomenon. It can be approached from a multitude of perspectives, and the linguistic realizations of metaphors vary not only across languages, but also across text genres, cultures, and time. This book reflects such complexity and variability by gathering a collection of studies that adopt different theoretical views and explore the actual uses of metaphors in different text types (literary, folkloric, journalistic, and scientific) and languages (Hungarian, Chinese, French, English, Italian, Latin, and Ancient Greek). By providing the reader with a view of metaphor and current metaphor research which is both diversified and coherent, this volume will provide insights for cognitive linguists, scholars involved in metaphor studies, and more generally readers interested in linguistic variation.

This book explores the discourse of authenticity on the popular social media platform YouTube. It investigates how popular users negotiate their identity and discursively portray themselves as authentic in their videos. In so doing, it adds to the development of new perspectives on social media communication and offers an outlook on issues concerning the complexities of contemporary identity practices. Starting from the premise that authenticity is a discursive construction, the study adopts a linguistics-based approach and relies on a hybrid methodological toolkit that draws on the analytical tools provided by Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS), a newly-introduced framework comprised of different but interconnected levels of description. The volume presents three case studies which investigate the discursive and rhetorical strategies used by well-known users in order to come across as authentic. Videos produced by popular content creators belonging to different communities of practice (scientists, stay-at-home mothers, and makeup artists) are explored. The analysis reveals that they share a common set of identity characteristics, a common core of authentic traits famous YouTubers conventionally display to discursively depict themselves as genuine and credible.

"Birth of an Independent Ireland" is a study of the rise of a distinctly Irish nationalist youth in the early twentieth century, which is analysed by focusing on how and to what extent the parallel advent of dedicated periodicals stimulated it. As Ireland moves through the centenary of commemoration of the War of Independence and the establishment of the Free State, it seems only right to direct our attention to the primary role played by the young in the revolutionary years between 1913 and 1923, when Irish boys and girls actively participated in the life of their country as agents of nation-building. In part, they had been taught how to do so. Although they were never mere recipients who passively absorbed pre-formed systems of values, the young had been mentored by nationalist groups and individuals to become active citizens and the builders of a free, independent Ireland. Multiple actors of nationalist sympathies impacted on their lives through social and cultural activities and cultural production ranging from historical works to popular periodical literature. Regarding the latter, a prominent part was played by Our Boys, Fianna, Young Ireland, and St. Enda’s – periodicals for juveniles that carried out a political and cultural programme by catering for both the delight and instruction of Ireland’s youth. They published creative literary work alongside political and critical commentary on pressing matters, as the imperative of these newly-formed papers was to bring their readers into the public space of politics, so that they would contribute to the nation-building process. Therefore, this volume explores how the periodicals constructed very specific images of Irish girlhood and boyhood that were designed to foster a sense of loyalty to Ireland and the nationalist cause, and how they popularised particular receptions of momentous events in Irish history, such as the First World War and the 1916 Easter Rising, so as to buttress their political agenda.

This collection of essays brings together a decade of writings on translation by leading international translation studies expert, Susan Bassnett. The essays cover a range of topics and will be useful to anyone with an interest in how different cultures communicate.

Shi-xu critiques universalism in discourse studies in terms of the cultural consequences of its current white, western standpoint and advocates a culturally pluralist approach, a theory and research methodology from an innovative position between Eastern and Western cultures. Practical research strategies are illustrated by examples drawn from culturally wide ranging discourses. This is a book to interest any scholar or student of discourse looking outside their own intellectual tradition.

The earliest book-length treatise in Chinese literary criticism, the Wenxin diaolong is of central importance in the Chinese tradition. The work was compiled in the sixth century, one of the most fertile and original periods in Chinese critical thinking. Its author, Liu Xie, was a Buddhist monk as well as a Confucian scholar, and so represented the main persuasions of China. The Wenxin diaolong first came to be noted in the seventeenth century, when it was studied by scholars and edited by Mei Qingsheng. When the study of literary criticism became an independent discipline early in the twentieth century, it developed into a cynosure that was widely discussed and provided with learned annotations. This volume presents a fresh translation of the Wenxin diaolong that is at once authoritative and elegant. It may well be regarded as a standard reference by students of sinology and comparative literature.

Of Mountains and Seas is a fictional play that weaves together legendary characters from the classic Chinese text, Shanhaijing. The well-known mythical characters are presented as ordinary individuals who, despite their divine powers, struggle with the misadventures and emotional consequences of life. The gods appear innocent and childish, comically mixing up traditional social roles and behavior. Gao Xingjian infuses his play with his trademark unconventionality and esthetic flair, indulging in a considerable amount of inventive and open staging that allows directors to add their own creative stamp. The spectacular, eccentric characters make this play a colorful dramatic experience.

Revising her Ph.D. dissertation in comparative literature for the University of North Carolina, where she now teaches, Zeng deconstructs Chinese natural philosophy into time, self, and language, with time as the primary rupture that triggers the other two. She considers a variety of art forms, including Taoism and Zen Buddhism, classical Chinese painting, the novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, the contemporary film Farewell, My Concubine, linguistic characteristics of classical Chinese poetry, and modern American poetry. Then she analyzes in detail the work of several classical Chinese poets. The text is double spaced. Annotation :2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This book is the first case study on Wenda Gu that systematically investigates the cultural and artistic context of his life and works, examining selected images of his artwork spanning from the late 1970s to the early 21st century. It is the first monograph to provide a comprehensive and profound study of a Chinese contemporary artist. In the 1980s, the School of Hermeneutics attempted to launch a discursive revolution. Vanguard artists believed that the visual art revolution was an integral part of the critique of culture because it tended to subvert and rebuild the cultural tradition at a discursive level. This book, using a case study on Wenda Gu as representative of Chinese avant-garde, investigates the centrality of culture in art, providing readers with insights on the origin, rationale and methodology of Chinese contemporary art.