A study of Mao’s representation in various forms in Chinese history, focusing on a historical timeframe from the 1949 until the early 1990s. With a reflection on the historical, social and cultural...Show moreA study of Mao’s representation in various forms in Chinese history, focusing on a historical timeframe from the 1949 until the early 1990s. With a reflection on the historical, social and cultural context behind, this study investigates Mao’s iconicity by analyzing the tropes and the meanings of Mao’s representations in history, including the Mao posters, the Mao badges and Political Pop arworks. One the one hand, I dissect the different ideologies behind the Chinese contexts and explore the ways they interact with the depiction of Mao in Chinese history. On the other hand, I believe that the form of representation often has a noteworthy effect on what is being represented. Therefore, I delve into the discussion of each artistic medium, in order to see their roles in the development of Mao’s iconicity. With this thesis, I explore the historical evolvement of Mao's icon from a propagandist subject to a popular symbol in Chinese culture.Show less
This thesis presents a cross-linguistic analysis of expressing emotions in sign languages. Four claims about iconicity in sign languages are tested, which were merely based on American Sign...Show moreThis thesis presents a cross-linguistic analysis of expressing emotions in sign languages. Four claims about iconicity in sign languages are tested, which were merely based on American Sign Language. These claims are tested cross-linguistically for four different sign languages, namely the unrelated sign languages of Guinea-Bissau (LGG), the Netherlands (NGT), Mexico (LSMY) and Hong Kong (HKSL). The data indicates that the torso is preferred as the articulation place for expressing emotion in NGT and HKSL, which also predominantly express the basic emotions at the torso. Most of the signs of LGG are expressed at the head (also the basic emotions) and surprisingly LSMY only expresses emotion at the head. For the second parameter, motion, the data supports the claim that a movement towards the interlocutor indicates the communication of the speaker’s emotional state towards the interlocutor. The third parameter handshape indicates different levels of positivity or negativity in expressing emotion. However, the dictionaries of the four sign languages differ in quality and quantity and more research and data is needed.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Afrikaanse talen en culturen (BA)
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This thesis report aims to analyze the different types of iconicity present in the Ghanaian language Akan. The ideophones existing in the different dialects of Akan are marked by pitch and placed...Show moreThis thesis report aims to analyze the different types of iconicity present in the Ghanaian language Akan. The ideophones existing in the different dialects of Akan are marked by pitch and placed in the center of focus by their special syntactic place at the boundary of the utterance they belong to. They can be categorized in the semantic domains of sound, movement, touch and vision. Their expressive morphology can add depictive concepts as gradation and iteration to their meaning. Imagic iconicity can be found in onomatopoeic ideophones. Of the possible Gestalt iconic mappings, three are prevalent: reduplication (evoking iteration or distribution), closed monosyllabicity (evoking a unitary event) and prolonged vowel length (evoking duration). Relative iconicity does not seem to be a prevalent feature of Akan ideophones.Show less
