The four essays that make up this volume are based upon and expand the lectures Ricoeur delivered at Texas Christian University, 27-30 November 1973, as their Centennial Lectures. They may be read as separate essays, but they may also be read as step by step approximations of a solution to a single problem, that of understanding language at the level of such productions as poems, narratives and essays, whether literary or philosophical. In other words, the central problem at stake in these four essays is that of works; in particular, that of language as a work.

Novice and early career researchers often have difficulty with understanding how theory, data analysis and interpretation of findings “hang together” in a well-designed and theorized qualitative research investigation and with learning how to draw on such understanding to conduct rigorous data analysis and interpretation of their analytic results. Data Analysis, Interpretation, and Theory in Literacy Studies Research demonstrates how to design, conduct and analyze a well put together qualitative research project. Using their own successful studies, chapter authors spell out a problem area, research question, and theoretical framing, carefully explaining their choices and decisions. They then show in detail how they analyzed their data, and why they took this approach. Finally, they demonstrate how they interpreted the results of their analysis, to make them meaningful in research terms. Approaches include interactional sociolinguistics, microethnographic discourse analysis, multimodal analysis, iterative coding, conversation analysis, and multimediated discourse analysis, among others. This book will appeal to beginning researchers and to literacy researchers responsible for teaching qualitative literacy studies research design at undergraduate and graduate levels. Perfect for courses such as: Literacy Research Seminar | Introduction to Qualitative Research | Advanced Research Methods | Studying New Literacies and Media | Research Perspectives in Literacy | Discourse Analysis | Advanced Qualitative Data Analysis | Sociolinguistic Analysis | Classroom Language Research

This volume explores court interpreting from legal, linguistic, and pragmatic vantages. Because of the growing use of interpreters, there is an increasing demand for guidelines on how to utilize them appropriately in court proceedings, and this book provides guidance for the judiciary, attorneys, and other court personnel while standardizing practice among court interpreters themselves. The new edition of the book, which has become the standard reference book worldwide, features separate guidance chapters for judges and lawyers, detailed information on title VI regulations and standards for courts and prosecutorial agencies, a comprehensive review of U.S. language policy, and the latest findings of research on interpreting.

For the past fifty years anxiety over naturalism has driven debates in social theory. One side sees social science as another kind of natural science, while the other rejects the possibility of objective and explanatory knowledge. Interpretation and Social Knowledge suggests a different route, offering a way forward for an antinaturalist sociology that overcomes the opposition between interpretation and explanation and uses theory to build concrete, historically specific causal explanations of social phenomena.

The Emergent Multiverse presents a striking new account of the 'many worlds' approach to quantum theory. The point of science, it is generally accepted, is to tell us how the world works and what it is like. But quantum theory seems to fail to do this: taken literally as a theory of the world, it seems to make crazy claims: particles are in two places at once; cats are alive and dead at the same time. So physicists and philosophers have often been led either to give up on the idea that quantum theory describes reality, or to modify or augment the theory. The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics takes the apparent craziness seriously, and asks, 'what would it be like if particles really were in two places at once, if cats really were alive and dead at the same time'? The answer, it turns out, is that if the world were like that—if it were as quantum theory claims—it would be a world that, at the macroscopic level, was constantly branching into copies—hence the more sensationalist name for the Everett interpretation, the 'many worlds theory'. But really, the interpretation is not sensationalist at all: it simply takes quantum theory seriously, literally, as a description of the world. Once dismissed as absurd, it is now accepted by many physicists as the best way to make coherent sense of quantum theory. David Wallace offers a clear and up-to-date survey of work on the Everett interpretation in physics and in philosophy of science, and at the same time provides a self-contained and thoroughly modern account of it—an account which is accessible to readers who have previously studied quantum theory at undergraduate level, and which will shape the future direction of research by leading experts in the field.

This book introduces the reader to the literary work and to an understanding of its cultural background and its specific features. In doing so, it refers to two main traditions of Western culture: one of aesthetics and the theory of art and the other of literary theory. In our postmodern world, language and artistic creation (and above all literature as the art of language) occupy a special role in understanding the human world and become existential issues. A critical attitude requires knowledge of the relevant past in order to understand what we are today. The author presents key topics, ideas, and representatives of aesthetics, theory, and the interpretation of works of art in an historical perspective, in order to explain the Western tradition with constant attention to the present condition. Aesthetics, Theory and Interpretation of the Literary Work offers an outline of essential concepts and authors of aesthetics and theories of the literary work, presenting basic topics and ideas in their historical context and development, considering their relevance to the contemporary debate, and highlighting the specificity of the experience of the art work in our present world. The best way to approach a work of art is to enjoy it. In order to enjoy a literary work, we have to consider its correct context and its specific artistic qualities. The book is conceived as a general and enjoyable introduction to the experience of the work of art in Western culture. See inside the book.

Combining cognitive and evolutionary research with traditional humanist methods, Nancy Easterlin demonstrates how a biocultural perspective in theory and criticism opens up new possibilities for literary interpretation. Easterlin maintains that the practice of literary interpretation is still of central intellectual and social value. Taking an open yet judicious approach, she argues, however, that literary interpretation stands to gain dramatically from a fair-minded and creative application of cognitive and evolutionary research. This work does just that, expounding a biocultural method that charts a middle course between overly reductive approaches to literature and traditionalists who see the sciences as a threat to the humanities. Easterlin develops her biocultural method by comparing it to four major subfields within literary studies: new historicism, ecocriticism, cognitive approaches, and evolutionary approaches. After a thorough review of each subfield, she reconsiders them in light of relevant research in cognitive and evolutionary psychology and provides a textual analysis of literary works from the romantic era to the present, including William Wordsworth’s “Simon Lee” and the Lucy poems, Mary Robinson’s “Old Barnard,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode,” D. H. Lawrence’s The Fox, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, and Raymond Carver’s “I Could See the Smallest Things.” A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation offers a fresh and reasoned approach to literary studies that at once preserves the central importance that interpretation plays in the humanities and embraces the exciting developments of the cognitive sciences.

Provides an in-depth study of the theory, history, practice, and interpretation of customary international law.

Theorists interested in learning more about any given interpretive approach are often required to navigate a dizzying array of sources, with no clear sense of where to begin. The prose of many primary sources is often steeped in dense and technical argot that novices find intimidating or even impenetrable. Interpretation in Political Theory provide students of political theory a single introductory reference guide to major approaches to interpretation available in the field today. Comprehensive and clearly written, the book includes: A historical and theoretical overview that situates the practice of interpretation within the development of political theory in the twentieth century. Chapters on Straussian esotericism, historical approaches within the Cambridge School of interpretation, materialist approaches associated with Marxism, the critical approaches associated with varieties of feminism, Greimassian semiotics, Foucaultian genealogy, the negative dialectics of Theodor Adorno, deconstruction as exemplified by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. An exposition of the theoretical and disciplinary background of each approach, the tools and techniques of interpretation it uses, its assumptions about what counts as a relevant text in political theory, and what it considers to be the purpose or objective of reading in political theory. A reading of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan to illustrate how each approach can be applied in practice. A list of suggestions for further reading that will guide those interested in pursuing more advanced study. An invaluable textbook for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and even seasoned scholars of political theory interested in learning more about different interpretive approaches.