The development of genre-awareness is a key issue in legal translator training, as, according to research, semantic text comprehension depends largely on the recognition of genres/text types. Legal translators must be familiar with the rhetorical and textual conventions of legal genres both in the source- and the target language – the two code systems – to realise the communicative aim of the translation, and to be able to produce texts that are acceptable by the professional community. Consequently, in legal (...) translator training the development of intercultural competence has double implications: it refers not only to the ability to transfer between legal systems, but also between legal genres. The biggest challenge of translator training is to improve skills and competences effectively through a selection of texts that realistically meet the changing needs of the translation market, but, at the same time, can be successfully adjusted to the level of proficiency attained by students at different levels of the training. Drawing on both practical experience and empirical research, the paper attempts to present a methodological scheme for the selection and grading of legal genres and text types in legal translator training, taking into account some of the functional typologies, and several other relevant aspects. With a practical approach, the selected genres are introduced in the context of exercises aimed at improving genre-transfer competence and some other skills vital for legal translators. Although the presented scheme/case study has been designed for an actual 3-semester legal translator training where students have legal degrees, it is supplemented with further methodological guidelines so that it can be adapted to other legal translator trainings of any level. (shrink)

Cet article discute le thème de l’autochtonie – essentiellement athénienne – en l’intégrant dans la logique du discours patriotique qui est la sienne. La prise en compte des exigences de ce type de discours tout à fait particulier, de même que la prise en compte du renouvellement du regard sur les identités sexuées qu’ont permis les études « genre », permettent aujourd’hui de proposer une interprétation différente de celle de Nicole Loraux. Celle-ci comprenait, dans sa lecture du Ménexène de (...) Platon, le mythe de l’autochtonie comme un « transfert » des compétences reproductives féminines sur un espace tenu par les hommes seuls, façon pour eux de déposséder les femmes de leur « puissance » et de penser la reproduction sans elles. Après avoir montré que les Grecs pensaient généralement la procréation comme une opération mixte et souvent équitablement partagée, surtout dans la tradition littéraire qui précède Aristote, je développe l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’usage du motif de la terre mère est une façon de construire un attachement contraignant au territoire civique. Il ne procéderait donc pas d’une lutte des sexes et d’une peur des hommes envers la puissance des femmes, mais serait l’instrument politique qui, à l’intérieur d’une société patrilinéaire où règne la « domination masculine », permet de susciter une relation particulièrement étroite avec le territoire habité.The earth mother: a reading through gender and patriotic rhetoric. This article tackles the issue of autochtony – mainly Athenian autochtony – fitting it more than has been traditionally the case into the logic of patriotic discourse from which it emerges. Taking into account the demands of this type of very particular discourse, together with the new perspectives on sexed identities made possible by gender studies, allows us today to offer an interpretation that is different from Nicole Loraux’s examining Plato, Menexenus. She understood the myth of autochtony as a “transference” of female reproductive competences to the civic land, an exclusive possession of men and a way for them to dispossess women of their power and to consider reproduction without women. After demonstrating that for the Greeks, mainly in the pre-Aristotelician tradition, males and females were usually equally concerned with the operation of procreation, I will suggest that the use of the mother earth theme is a way of constructing a constraining bond between citizens and their civic territory. This bond does not arise from the sex struggle or even from male fear of female power but, in the context of a patrilineal society dominated by males, it is the political instrument for the alienation of citizens from the land they inhabit. (shrink)

The article deals with the most important factors which shape challenges for educational policy and directions of its reformation in transnational educational space. In context of global society formation educational policies of developed countries demonstrates experiences of development and implementation of transversal (transferable, transcultural) competencies as key competencies of the 21st century in order to generate collective nous, peace, social justice and sustainable economic development. As one of the main goals of key competencies development considered promotion lifelong learning; It emphasizes (...) the need for situational, contextualize, projective teaching and constructivist approaches. Particular attention is paid to analysis of key competencies in the trans-European educational space, of transferable competencies as US educational strategy and transversal competencies as the strategies proposed by UNESCO. (shrink)

The human pathogen Vibrio cholerae exhibits two distinct lifestyles: one in the aquatic environment where it often associates with chitinous surfaces and the other as the causative agent of the disease cholera. While much of the research on V. cholerae has focused on the host‐pathogen interaction, knowledge about the environmental lifestyle of the pathogen remains limited. We recently showed that the polymer chitin, which is extremely abundant in aquatic environments, induces natural competence as a mode of horizontal gene (...) class='Hi'>transfer and that this competence regulon also includes the type VI secretion system (T6SS), a molecular killing device. Here, I discuss the putative consequences that chitin‐induced T6SS activation could have on intestinal colonization and how the transmission route might influence disease outcome. Moreover, I propose that common infant animal models for cholera might not sufficiently take into account T6SS‐mediated interbacterial warfare between V. cholerae and the intestinal microbiota. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants often confront the most difficult clinical encounters, typically in the setting of chronically critically ill patients and surrogate decision makers. These encounters require not only analytical skills but interpersonal skills as well. In this article, I focus on an interpersonal skill absent from the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities Task Force’s Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation. I introduce the psychoanalytic concept of transference and argue that knowledge and use of transference phenomena are sometimes indispensable (...) for ethics consultation with surrogate decision makers. For solicitation of moral views, disclosure of relevant beliefs and values, and identification of the central ethical question—essential to assessment and analysis—cannot at times begin without recognition and working through of transference. (shrink)

Le cognitivisme localise les phénomènes mentaux dans le cerveau-esprit dans lequel fonctionne une compétence qui mobilise ou transfère d’une situation à l’autre les savoirs qui y sont emmagasinés. Dans cette perspective, une personne compétente se comprend par le cumul de savoirs et de compétences décontextualisés. Par contraste, la perspective de l’énaction localise les phénomènes mentaux dans l’entièreté de la personne en action et en situation, c’est-à-dire dans l’agir réel de la personne en contexte réel. La compétence se comprend alors comme (...) un agir réel qui est à la fois corporel, intentionnel, mental, spatio-temporel, situationnel et dont les fonctions essentielles sont : se disposer, se situer, se positionner et réaliser. Nous argumentons que l’agir réel, qui fonctionne et se développe en situation, traduit mieux ce qu’est une personne compétente que les savoirs et compétences qu’elle accumulerait hors situation. (shrink)

Ever since Clifford Geertz urged the “blurring of genres” in the social sciences, many scholars have considered the crossing of disciplinary boundaries a healthy alternative to rigidly maintaining them. But what precisely does the metaphor of “blurring” imply? By unpacking the varieties of visual experiences that are normally grouped under this rubric, this essay seeks to provide some precision to our understanding of the implications of fuzziness. It extrapolates from the blurring caused by differential focal distances, velocities of objects in (...) the visual field, and competing perspectival vantage points to comparable effects in the intersection of different scholarly disciplines. Arguing against the holistic implications of Geertz's metaphor, as well as the even more totalizing concept of “consilience” introduced by E. O. Wilson, it suggests that blurring implies new types of complexity between or among those disciplines. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe upcoming reforms according to the specifications of the Master Plan 2020 provide for a competency-oriented restructuring of medical studies. This article aims to develop perspectives on how teaching ethics in medical studies can be more strongly oriented at building competencies. In this way, it pursues the goal of making the concept of competency more tangible for medical ethics and usable for the design of medical ethics education.ArgumentsWe understand competencies as dispositions for actions that enable problem solving. (...) By transferring the concept of moral intelligence to the moral actions of physicians in patient care, we specify five ethical–moral competencies that must be present for morally appropriate, ethically reflected actions by future physicians: (1) the ability to form a professional moral compass, (2) the willingness to align oneself with professional ethical norms and values, (3) the ability to perceive moral dimensions of medical action, (4) the ability to make moral judgments based on ethical considerations about the right action, and (5) the willingness to realize ethically justified action. We illustrate their importance for teaching medical ethics using the example of teaching clinical ethics in medical studies.ConclusionOur conceptualization of moral–ethical competencies can be used to design concrete courses in a competency-oriented way. Our approach could be applied analogously to other areas of teaching ethics in health care. (shrink)

This chapter explores the rather striking manner in which at key moments in the history of philosophy, in the discipline’s attempts at self-definition, the genre or literary form of poetry plays a key role. Philosophy, at these moments, has been defined, inter alia, as the enemy of poetry, the guiding light for the philosopher who can only try and inevitably fail to emulate its brilliance, or as the anomalous guest at the philosophical table with whom the host discipline has (...) relations which result in either generative or degenerative effects. Insofar as it lays claim to or liaises with philosophy – as we have come to know it today – poetry has thus played a part in the self-definition of genre theory. The aim of this chapter is to capture a very specific set of transfers, transpositions, metonymies and other modes of reversible relations of substitution and surrogacy between philosophy and poetry, and along the way between genre-theory-as-philosophy and poetry. (shrink)

Competent speakers of natural languages can borrow reference from one another. You can arrange for your utterances of ‘Kirksville’ to refer to the same thing as my utterances of ‘Kirksville’. We can then talk about the same thing when we discuss Kirksville. In cases like this, you borrow “ aboutness ” from me by borrowing reference. Now suppose I wish to initiate a line of reasoning applicable to any prime number. I might signal my intention by saying, “Let p be (...) any prime.” In this context, I will be using the term ‘p’ to reason about the primes. Although ‘p’ helps me secure the aboutness of my discourse, it may seem wrong to say that ‘p’ refers to anything. Be that as it may, this paper explores what mathematical discourse would be like if mathematicians were able to borrow freely from one another not just the reference of terms that clearly refer, but, more generally, the sort of aboutness present in a line of reasoning leading up to a universal generalization. The paper also gives reasons for believing that aboutness of this sort really is freely transferable. A key implication will be that the concept “set of natural numbers” suffers from no mathematically significant indeterminacy that can be coherently discussed. (shrink)

WINDSOR C, DOUGLAS C and HARVEY T. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 213–222 Nursing and competencies — a natural fit: the politics of skill/competency formation in nursingThe last two decades have seen a significant restructuring of work across Australia and other industrialised economies, a critical part of which has been the appearance of competency based education and assessment. The competency movement is about creating a more flexible and mobile labour force to increase productivity and it does so by redefining work as (...) a set of transferable or ‘soft’ generic skills that is transportable and is the possession of the individual. This article sought to develop an analysis of competency based clinical assessment of nursing students across a bachelor of nursing degree course. This involved an examination of a total of 406 clinical assessment tools that covered the years 1992–2009 and the three years of a bachelor degree. Data analysis generated three analytical findings: the existence of a hierarchy of competencies that prioritises soft skills over intellectual and technical skills; the appearance of skills as personal qualities or individual attributes; and the absence of context in assessment. The article argues that the convergence in nursing of soft skills and the professionalisation project reform has seen the former give legitimacy to the enduring invisibility and devaluation of nursing work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Leonhart Fuchs on the Importance of PicturesSachiko KusukawaIf not for the attractive plant with overhanging flute-like flowers that was named after him, Leonhart Fuchs (1501–66) is best known today as one of the pioneers of accurate representations of plants in histories of scientific illustrations.1 The pictures in Fuchs’s Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants (1542) have been appreciated usually for their “naturalistic” features (i.e., pictures drawn from observing (...) a plant specimen), as well as for their tendency to discard individual blemishes and portray a universal or ideal “type” of a plant where several varieties of species could be incorporated into one bush, or where various stages of the same plant may be depicted in one figure.2 On the other hand no historian of botany who has examined the text these pictures accompanied has found that such qualities as observation from nature or a sense of “ideal type” contributed to Fuchs’s theoretical understanding of [End Page 403] plants: he lacked any sense of the family genera or Linnean classification, for he had simply adopted an alphabetical ordering.3Fuchs himself considered his pictures remarkable—as he was at pains to point out—and he believed his pictures were absolutely crucial for his commentary on plants. My immediate aim in this paper, therefore, is to offer an interpretation of Fuchs’s Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants which does not split the work into artistically positive and botanically negative elements. As I shall argue, the uniqueness and so the controversial nature of Fuchs’s enterprise lies in the kind of argument and procedure he believed to be valid for an academic study of plants. More generally, I hope to use this reassessment of Fuchs’s work to show how pictures could be as controversial as texts and how the uses of texts and pictures together form past acts which require historical explanation. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.The Artists. Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium, 1542, verso of last folio page. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.In 1542 Fuchs published his Remarkable Commentaries on the History of Plants Belaboured with Great Expense and Vigilance with More than Five Hundred Live Images of Plants Attached. It begins with a picture of Fuchs, the author, at the age of forty-one and ends with that of the artists (fig. 1). Although the division of labor depicted here seems to have been a standard one for printing illustrated books in this period,4 it is unusual that we know their names. Albrecht Meyer did the drawings from life, Heinrich Füllmaurer transferred the drawings to woodblocks, and Veit Rudolf Speckle cut those woodblocks.5 Fuchs was proud of one of the artists in particular: “the woodcutter [sculptor] Veit Rudolf Speckle, by far the best in Strasbourg, excellently imitated the admirable industry of painters: he has so skilfully expressed the outlines of each picture by carving [sculpendo] that he seems to compete with the painter for glory and victory.”6 A comparison between the painter and the sculptor had been a favorite topic in the Renaissance genre of paragone—Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Castiglione, and Michaelangelo composed treatises on it—where the [End Page 404] relative merits of various mimetic arts were discussed.7 Fuchs’s comment on Speckle is more nuanced, however, than a polite competition between the arts over their mimetic skills: Fuchs announces that Speckle is worthy of praise in producing a picture—normally the domain of the painter (pictor)—with the specialized skill of carving of the cutter (sculptor). This is surely an appreciation of the particular skill involved in producing replicable pictures for printed books, just as Erasmus had, a generation earlier, acknowledged in Albrecht Dürer’s prowess at engraving the potential for reproducibility in a print culture.8 Indeed, of the artists involved in printing, it was the woodcutter who could expect to be paid most in this period—nearly fifteen times more than the artist who originally drew the pictures.9 Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Atriplex. Theodore Dorsten, Botanicon, 1540, fol. 35r. Reproduced... (shrink)

This article will consider the unique contribution that the dramatic arts can make to philosophical practices of communication and reflection. While argumentation typically advocates a particular position over and against less plausible options, dramatic performance can convey the rich possibilities and tensions among conflicting points of view without ultimately taking a definitive stance. This genre, as a performed narrative involving multiple perspectives, can illuminate the complexity and legitimacy of a plurality of—often competing—theoretical commitments, whereas direct argumentation, by its very (...) nature, must weaken the opposition by putting it in a less compelling light. Theater, by its very methods, can .. (shrink)

What unifies the accounts of history and progress presented by Adorno's Critical Theory and Metz's political theology? I show: that both resist the ‘magic spell’ of an Enlightenment totality on whose strength the violent excesses of modernity have been built; that both accomplish this resistance by memory of victims or the ‘losers of history’; and that both hold out hope for the possibility of progress in time. However, the two accounts differ in important ways. These differences stem from: the transference (...) of historical subjectivity from homo emancipator to the God of Jesus’ passion; the role of the ‘eschatological proviso’ in guaranteeing theological futuricity; and the fullness of Metz's eschatological justice as compared to Adorno's conception of progress as the mere ‘avoidance of catastrophe’. This project brings the work of one of the most influential social critics of the twentieth century into dialogue with that of a politically engaged theologian of the same historical-cultural context. In doing so, I hope to suggest the theological richness of Metz's approach but also the significant contributions of dialectical criticism to the practice of theology in the modern era. (shrink)

This chapter explores the rather striking manner in which at key moments in the history of philosophy, in the discipline’s attempts at self-definition, the genre or literary form of poetry plays a key role. Philosophy, at these moments, has been defined, inter alia, as the enemy of poetry, the guiding light for the philosopher who can only try and inevitably fail to emulate its brilliance, or as the anomalous guest at the philosophical table with whom the host discipline has (...) relations which result in either generative or degenerative effects. Insofar as it lays claim to or liaises with philosophy – as we have come to know it today – poetry has thus played a part in the self-definition of genre theory. The aim of this chapter is to capture a very specific set of transfers, transpositions, metonymies and other modes of reversible relations of substitution and surrogacy between philosophy and poetry, and along the way between genre-theory-as-philosophy and poetry. (shrink)

i want to begin by thanking my good friend Richard Hart for the invitation to be part of this wonderful panel in which we are honoring while also being challenged by the work of Charles Johnson to think differently about our discipline. I also want to thank the organizers of SAAP for hosting this important series of lectures, in which we are invited to engage the work of thinkers who challenge us to think differently because they either come to our (...) problems from different disciplines and fields, or teach us to see their problems as ours. From the outset, I must admit my trepidation at engaging Johnson’s work, which spans nearly half a century and a variety of genres. Johnson began as a cartoonist, then became a... (shrink)

The issue of employability has already become a well-delineated topic of study among interpreting educators. However, the current literature still lacks descriptive research on interpreting students' employability development and ignores the developmental effects of interpreter competences in this process. Moreover, the advantage of using career adaptability for measurement is also under-researched. This exploratory case study aims at taking an initial step forward, surveying interpreting students' career adaptability development and the developmental effects of different interpreter competences on major adaptability resources, and (...) ultimately diagnosing curriculum problems and making modifications accordingly. Thirty grade 2019 interpreting students from three Chinese universities contributed to data collection, through six questionnaires in a two-wave survey. The results highlight that, throughout the Chinese MTI program, interpreting students could become more concerned and well prepared for their future, more curious to explore themselves and their surroundings, and more capable of solving problems. The results also indicate that students' knowledge and language competence serve as the major facilitators in this process, and that other interpreter competences, such as psychological competence, transfer competence, professionalism, and cross-cultural competence, are also instrumental. In order to further boost their adaptability constructs, the results suggest that students' language and knowledge competence, professionalism, and cross-cultural and mental agility still need to be improved. Five suggestions for curriculum revision have been raised accordingly. As an initial effort, the current study will hopefully inspire further studies on interpreting students' career adaptability and add more knowledge to the curriculum design from this viewpoint. (shrink)

Gene transcription in eukaryotes is associated with conformational changes of a large area of chromatin adjacent to a gene. This rearrangement may involve the whole loop (topological domain) to which a given gene belongs.Regulatory events associated with activation or inactivation of transcription are found to act through relatively short nucleotide sequences, often located several thousand base pairs apart from gene. These sequences, termed enhancers may act independently on their distance from or orientation with respect to the gene.Both long‐range conformational rearrangements (...) of chromatin and any long distance effects of enhancers may be associated with elastic torsional strain in DNA, arising in transcriptionally active chromatin loops. Enhancer effects, in particular, may be associated with conformational transitions in DNA competing for the energy deposited in the elastic spring of the DNA. (shrink)

In the history of literary experimentation, the writer has evolved into a social medium for literary readings of numerous literary works that were previously only known to those with a keen interest in literature and literary genres. As a result, many well-known literary works have been succinctly summarised in front of everyone in a way that is both helpful and provides details while still remaining concise. In this essay, the researcher wants to show how Twitter has developed into a literary (...) form, competing with other well-known literary works like novels, plays, short stories, and poetry, particularly haiku. Beginning with an introduction to Twitter literature and its definition, the study then focuses on the format in which literary tweets are provided, including the word count and length of the presentation of the literary work. Then, the literary subgenres that appeared on Twitter were criticised. The paper provides instances of literary accounts on Twitter and distinguishes the literary genres on Twitter. The study also discusses Twitter’s literary value in educating readers about a variety of literary works, particularly those who are uninterested in or uninterested in literature. Moreover, the distinction between reading literary works in their authentic forms vs their Twitter-based forms. The researcher contrasts the literary subgenres that are best suited for Twitter distribution. As a complement to the other well-known literary genres and in keeping with the varied, quick, and advanced modern day, the researcher concludes by presenting Twitter as one of the crucial literary genres of the new millennium that must be given significance and relevance. However, this study makes the case that Twitter might be. It is seen as an expression of an experimental platform for postmodern electronic literature that can ensure a revival of the steadily dwindling fantasy reading habit that is appealing to the generation of technology enthusiasts. (shrink)

Étudier les actes de requête dans les discours prononcés aux Nations Unies s’avère d’une utilité certaine dans le travail de caractérisation de ce sous-genre diplomatique. La formulation indirecte des actes de langage et les procédés linguistiques qui éloignent les sources potentielles de confrontation révèle des discours contraints par l’exercice de la « politesse », au service de l’impératif institutionnel de valorisation du consensus. Ces discours qui s’éloignent du fonctionnement du langage ordinaire transfèrent la prise en charge de l’énonciation aux (...) États-membres qui sont ici de véritables locuteurs et qui partant parlent en leur propre nom. L’on observe alors l’impact d’un contexte socio-discursif sur le fonctionnement de langue. Les requêtes formulées dans ces discours reflètent les problématiques qui préoccupent les États membres, puisque dans bien des cas, une requête peut être l’aveu d’un manque. Les verbes illocutoires donnent un bon aperçu des « façons de parler » et témoignent d’ores-et-déjà d’une routinisation des pratiques langagières. (shrink)

This study examines the process of knowledge transfer between a pair of social enterprises, organizations that are embedded in competing social and economic logics. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of the interaction between social enterprises operating in emerging economy settings, it uncovers factors which influence the transfer of a social innovation from a dense, population-rich setting to one where beneficiaries are geographically dispersed and the costs of service delivery are correspondingly elevated. Evidence from the case study suggests (...) that institutional bricolage—the crafting of improvised solutions in resource-constrained settings—can serve as potent driving force in driving innovation transfer, and that this process of re-combining available resources may be facilitated by the extent to which the values between partner social enterprises are aligned. With such alignment, social enterprise partners may be able to increase trust, develop a smoother knowledge-transfer process, and find practical solutions which facilitate the transfer of life-enhancing social innovations to neglected rural settings. (shrink)

Cross-cultural competence is often studied as part of the foreigner's one-way adaptation to the host culture while ignoring the dynamic nature of adaptation at the discourse level of interactions. To address this issue, this article proposes a conceptual model to study cross-cultural discursive competence exhibited in individual interactions in business settings. The model is based on relational empathy and genre theories and, in particular, it develops the notional concepts of `cultural space' and `text reconstruction' that stress a (...) two-way cultural adaptation underpinned by building relational empathy and intercultural alliances. In addition, the study proposes that the triangulation of cultural, institutional and sociocognitive spaces is the key to understanding and interpreting text reconstruction as a dynamic process of two-way cultural adaptation. The three-space model is exemplified through an analysis of cross-cultural interactions that occurred at a business negotiation meeting. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Unmasking the Maxim: An Ancient Genre And Why It Matters Now W. ROBERT CONNOR We live surrounded by maxims, often without even noticing them. They are easily dismissed as platitudes, banalities or harmless clichés, but even in an age of big data and number crunching we put them to work almost every day. A Silicon Valley whiz kid says, Move Fast and Break Things. Investors try to (...) Buy Low and Sell High. Investigative reporters Follow the Money. Others Follow their Bliss. The lavish host thinks, The More the Merrier, while the Modernist architect is sure that Less is More. Captains of Industry whisper to themselves, Me First; captains of sinking ships shout, Women and Children First. Be Prepared was the Boy Scouts’ marching song, while the Proud Boys Stand Down and Stand By, awaiting their marching orders. Maxims are perhaps the smallest members in a large family of speech acts, which among the Greeks included proverbs, oracles, riddles, blessings, curses and lamentations. Not all of these continue in use, but maxims have found companions—mottos, mantras, advertising tag lines and jingles, slogans, political rallying cries, hashtags, three- or four-letter acronyms and 280 character tweets from the goddess Twitter. Familiarity, however, can breed contempt, or at least inattentiveness to the full range of their influence. Sometimes what sounds at first like empty verbiage turns into action. Bruce Lee adapted an old Taoist saying when he said, Be Water, and thereby provided what was for a while a surprisingly effective strategy for protesters in Hong Kong. arion 28.3 winter 2021 6 unmasking the maxim Maxims empower, for good or ill. In the hands of bigots or ideologues, they can turn deadly. Sic Semper Tyrannis shouted John Wilkes Booth after shooting Abraham Lincoln. A manufacturer of assault rifles urged potential customers to Earn Your Man Card. How better to earn it than to obey 8chan, a web site favored by white nationalists, with its own maxim, Embrace Infamy. A devotee of the site did just that, perpetrating a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Maxims, then, should not be lightly dismissed. Since the ancient Greeks so relished maxims, they should surely be interrogated to help us better understand the power of these often underestimated speech acts. Before turning to the Greeks, however, the English word maxim needs a closer look. english “maxim” english borrowed maxim from a Latin phrase and boiled it down for everyday use. In Latin writings about logic, the expression maxima propositio, biggest proposition, denoted a statement that did not need to be proved, but could provide the basis for proof of other, lesser propositions. This phraseology goes back at least to Boethius in the sixth century of our era. It’s the equivalent of the generalizations that serve as the major premises in syllogistic logic. If this makes maxims sound like the axioms of geometry, that is historically right. The starting points of plane geometry are propositions that deserve to be accepted; even without proof that they are worthy of belief. That’s the meaning of the term axiōma. No one needs to prove that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Think about it; after a while it seems self-evident. It is worthy of assent. We might equally well call such an axiom a maxim; indeed, the earliest (1426) attested use of maxim in English is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “an axiom; a self-evident proposition assumed as a premise in mathematical, or dialectical reasoning.” W. Robert Connor 7 This usage is now obsolete, but Thomas Jefferson understood the idea behind it, since he believed that there were such truths, waiting to be put to work in building a society where all people were equal and possess certain inalienable rights. He did not feel he had to prove these propositions; they were in his view self-evident. In using these ideas in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he was, in effect, transferring to politics what Euclid had done in geometry. It was a swift, strategic stroke on his part, for, since self-evident truths require no argument or explanation, they focus discussion not on... (shrink)

"The notion of Geschlecht - denoting gender, genre, kinship, and more - exemplifies the most pertinent questions of the transnational and transdisciplinary structures of contemporary humanities. What happens in the transference from one language, tradition, or form to another? Combining detailed case studies of "category problems" in literature, philosophy, theatre, media, cinema, and performing arts, with excerpts from canonical texts-by field-defining thinkers such as Derrida, Malabou, Nancy, and Irigaray-the volume presents "the Geschlecht complex" as a fulcrum for any interpretive (...) endeavor, as an invaluable mode of thought for the present and inevitable complexities of theorizing in the 21st century"--. (shrink)

CYBATHLON is an international championship where people with severe physical disabilities compete with the aid of state-of-the-art assistive technology. In one of the disciplines, the BCI Race, tetraplegic pilots compete in a computer game race by controlling an avatar with a brain-computer interface. This competition offers a perfect opportunity for BCI researchers to study long-term training effects in potential end-users, and to evaluate BCI performance in a realistic environment. In this work, we describe the BCI system designed by the team (...) Mirage91 for participation in the CYBATHLON BCI Series 2019, as well as in the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition. Furthermore, we present the BCI’s interface with the game and the main methodological strategies, along with a detailed evaluation of its performance over the course of the training period, which lasted 14 months. The developed system was a 4-class BCI relying on task-specific modulations of brain rhythms. We implemented inter-session transfer learning to reduce calibration time, and to reinforce the stability of the brain patterns. Additionally, in order to compensate for potential intra-session shifts in the features’ distribution, normalization parameters were continuously adapted in an unsupervised fashion. Across the aforementioned 14 months, we recorded 26 game-based training sessions. Between the first eight sessions, and the final eight sessions leading up to the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition, the runtimes significantly improved from 255 ± 23 s to 225 ± 22 s, respectively. Moreover, we observed a significant increase in the classifier’s accuracy from 46 to 53%, driven by more distinguishable brain patterns. Compared to conventional single session, non-adaptive BCIs, the inter-session transfer learning and unsupervised intra-session adaptation techniques significantly improved the performance. This long-term study demonstrates that regular training helped the pilot to significantly increase the distance between task-specific patterns, which resulted in an improvement of performance, both with respect to class separability in the calibration data, and with respect to the game. Furthermore, it shows that our methodological approaches were beneficial in transferring the performance across sessions, and most importantly to the CYBATHLON competitions. (shrink)

This article reports the results of research into the transfer of skills during teacher training practica in Haiti. Ten students participated in semi-structured interviews, reporting on how they were able to transfer skills developed from facing challenges during their practica. In addition to describing the contribution of their practica to their professional training, the article discusses ideas for amending teacher practica supervision and to maximize the potential for reflective practice.

This article examines care plan meetings between professionals and clients held in a mental health supported housing unit. The article asks what is discussed about the recording of the plan and how it is discussed in the meetings. The study focuses on intertextual institutional interaction. The methodical tools used are genre and the genre chain. As a result of the analysis, we gain information on how the plan form, as a product of joint discussion through the meeting interaction, (...) becomes the basis of the care plan. In addition, the article highlights at which stages and for what purposes the care plan is discussed, and how earlier texts and discussions about the client’s situation serve as resources for making the plan. Plan forms have a significant role in directing the meeting conversation, the transferring of the information and producing and maintaining the care plan discourse. (shrink)

The standards for translating texts in specialized fields have become particularly rigorous with the increasing complexity of material and growing demand for its translation. While translations simply aimed at communication and produced by machine translation are proliferating, the need for reliable and high-quality translations is also increasing. The demand for expert-dependable legal translation is higher than ever, requiring competence-based training in the field of legal translation. This paper describes a guided-task framework for developing subject area competence at the (...) earliest stage of an English–Arabic legal translation course. It presents the three most problematic phases of concept processing in legal translation in terms of: legal systems; branches of law; and genre-based phraseology. The approach presented below is part of a more general study that aims to describe the first course in a series of three graduate courses on legal translation, each of them motivated by a guided-task framework that has the aim of developing three specific competences in legal translation: legal concept processing => subject area competence; documentary research => instrumental competence; and legal rhetorics => communicative and textual competence. In this paper we intend to focus on the first course of legal concept processing as a key prerequisite for legal knowledge development. We illustrate the relevance of addressing specific variables when analysing legal concepts in the text that is to be translated, before proceeding to the information search and communication, according to established formulae and conventions. (shrink)

Cet article s’inscrit dans la continuité des études sur l’utilisation des corpus oraux comme ressource didactique en français langue étrangère. Il présente les défis sous-jacents à la construction d’un exercice sous format numérique à partir de l’expression polysémique genre à l’oral. L’exercice a été développé dans le cadre du projet de recherche appliquée DiCoi (Digitalisation – Corpus – Interaction), dont le but est de soutenir le développement de la compétence d’interaction orale de jeunes en formation professionnelle de métiers manuels. (...) L’effet des interventions est mesuré à l’aide de feedback, mais aussi de la collecte d’interactions orales libres enregistrées sous format audio. La réception de l’exercice est généralement positive, mais l’analyse du phénomène dans le corpus d’interaction entre allophones révèle la difficulté d’établir un lien clair entre input et output. Néanmoins, une didactisation soigneuse du matériel authentique semble rendre les phénomènes cibles saillants. (shrink)

This article reviews the medieval law background of the parens patriae jurisdiction of the state as it has been exercised over incompetent persons who formerly were competent adults, concluding that the fiduciary standard implied in the statute De Prerogative Regis (1324), which is the basis for modern guardianship status, requires that the court and guardian adopt an attitude of respectful friendship toward the incompetent person, just as though they were to be accountable to the person himself, were he to recover (...) his faculties and become competent once more. This ficuciary responsibility, originating in the device of the "use" or trust employed for the management of the estates of lunatics, contrasts with the self-interested feudal guardianship used for the custody of "natural fools" or "idiots", who were under paternalistic arrangements. The article argues that because the determination of legal incompetence and the consequent transfer of custody of the person and property of an incompetent person to the state would result in a drastic forfeiture of liberty and property interests were it not for the fiduciary obligation owed by the state to the incompetent, the state is under an obligation to exercise its fiduciary duties in good faith and may not impose states policies or advance state interests of its own in the supervision of the affairs of incompetent persons, apart from interests arising legitimately out of the state's institutional interest in providing competent administration for the benefit of the incompetents themselves. Keywords: concept of the person, Cruzan, feudalism, guardianship, incompetent person, parens patriae CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This study investigates the developmental pattern and relationships between oral narrative textual skills, spelling, and written narrative textual skills in monolingual and bilingual language-minority children, L1-Chinese and L2-Italian. The aims were to investigate in monolingual and BLM children: the developmental patterns of oral and writing skills across primary school years; the pattern of relationships between oral narrative textual competence, spelling skills, and written narrative textual competence with age and socio-economic status taken under control. In total, 141 primary school (...) children from grades 2 to 5 in Central Italy aged between 7 and 11 years obtained scores for oral and written narrative textual competence, spelling accuracy in dictation, and written texts. One-way ANOVA and ANOVA with robust method analyses and Bonferroni’s correction showed that BLM children had poorer spelling skills in dictation and written narrative textual competence than their monolingual peers. After preliminary correlation analysis, the results of hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between oral and written narrative textual competence is completely mediated by spelling accuracy in BLM children. These results suggest that adequate performance in written narrative textual competence depends on adequate spelling accuracy in writing stories. The Sobel test verified the power of this mediation. In monolinguals, the strongest predictor of written narrative textual competence is oral narrative textual competence. This relation is stronger in older children whose spelling skills are automatized. The identified pattern of relationships shows a complex network of oral and written processes. The scarce spelling skills characterizing BLM children may explain why spelling skills determine a low written narrative textual level. Scarce spelling skills absorb cognitive resources, hindering high-level cognitive processes that regulate narrative production. In monolinguals, the medium of writing does not impact narrative textual competence. Children’s oral narrative textual competence easily transfers into their written narrative productions. These findings have implications for the assessment and instruction of literacy skills in young BLM children and their monolingual peers. (shrink)

Recent evidence suggests that probabilistic grammars may be modulated by communication mode and genre. Accordingly, the question arises how complex language users’ lectal competence is, where complexity is proportional to the extent to which choice-making processes depend on the situation of language use. Do probabilistic constraints vary when we talk to a friend compared to when we give a speech? Are differences between spoken and written language larger than those within each mode? In the present study, we aim (...) to approach these questions systematically. Guided by theorizing in cognitive (socio)linguistics and using logistic regression based on corpus materials, we analyzed the dative alternation with give (The government gives farmers money vs. The government gives money to farmers) in four broad registers of English: spoken informal, spoken formal, written informal, and written formal. Corpus analysis was supplemented with a scalar rating experiment. Results suggest that language users’ probabilistic grammars vary as a function of register. (shrink)

This paper describes and discusses overlapping interests and concerns of art and bioethics and suggests that bioethics would benefit from opening to contributions from the arts. There is a description of recent events in bioethics that have included art, and trends in art that relate to bioethics. The paper outlines art exhibits and performances within two major international bioethics congress programs alongside a discussion of the work of leading hybrid and bio artists who experiment with material (including their own bodies) (...) at the ambiguous intersections between art, bio art and bioethics. Their work seeks to engage audiences in challenging ethical precepts and assumptions about life and existence. We consider the response of art and social theorists and compare these with the responses of bioethicists to comparable cases in bioethics. We note divergent views within the arts and within bioethics in relation to some pivotal questions including questions about what limits, if any, can apply in particular cases and on what basis. This approach allows for a transfer of information and perspectives, challenges assumptions in both art and bioethics and opens up a space for future exchange and dialogue along the shifting borders between these genres. (shrink)

France and New Caledonia are currently involved in an ongoing debate surrounding the independence of the latter from the former that will lead to referenda in 2018–2022. The main stakeholders in the negotiation process are France, the Caldoche population of the island agglomeration and its Kanak inhabitants. Most critical discourse studies analyse texts as expressions of power entrenched in monologues. In this paper, however, the debate between the social actors is seen as a plurilogue. The study argues that the dominant (...) interactants propagate a rhetoric of unity and homogeneity, aiming to further marginalise the Kanak people and other minority groups in New Caledonian society by rendering them invisible. It further argues that the French political power aims to persuade the other groups to accept the reality of a common destiny as a given truth. The paper combines Systemic Functional Linguistics and Pragma-dialectics, and incorporates postcolonial and poststructuralist perspectives into a critical study of discourse samples, taken from a larger corpus of French data, across various genres and registers. The analysis reveals that the French rhetoric of unity is built upon Republican principles inherent to neo-colonialist ideology. It also shows that the French rhetoric is being reproduced by local settler interactants, based on values that pertain to Caldoche nationalist ideology. Both French and Caldoche ideologies are in discord with Kanak socialist ideology. By exposing the existing power inequalities the study does not only contribute to defending the Kanak minority discourse, but also emphasises the rights for recognition and self-determination of the Kanak indigenous people of New Caledonia. (shrink)

Ethics consultation has become an integral part of the fabric of U.S. health care delivery. This article summarizes the second edition of the Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation report of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. The core knowledge and skills competencies identified in the first edition of Core Competencies have been adopted by various ethics consultation services and education programs, providing evidence of their endorsement as health care ethics consultation (HCEC) standards. This revised report was prompted (...) by thinking in the field that has evolved since the original report. Patients, family members, and health care providers who encounter ethical questions or concerns that ethics consultants could help address deserve access to efficient, effective, and accountable HCEC services. All individuals providing such services should be held to the standards of competence and quality described in the revised report. (shrink)