Decorative Language Research Articles

Language Expression Differences in Chinese and Western Media Reports from the Perspective of Post-Colonialism Cases Analysis of Beijing Winter Olympics

As the worlds largest winter sports event, the Winter Olympics has a growing global influence. At the same time, this event has also attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. News coverage has influenced peoples minds and ideologies to some extent. In particular, the differences between Chinese and Western cultures in the reporting language of the Beijing Winter Olympics have aroused widespread attention and research. Based on different cultures, this article uses postcolonial theory to explore the background and context of the language of the Winter Olympics coverage. From a postcolonial perspective, this article finds the language reported by the British media has obvious characteristics of discourse dominance and monopoly. In their reporting, a significant proportion of concepts with negative orientation are often used, reflecting their cultural superiority and legacy of colonial past. In contrast, Chinese reporting is more adept at using decorative language and emotional color, using rhetoric to highlight the meaning and emotional connotation of events. This reflects the importance that Chinese culture attaches to harmony, politeness and emotional expression, as well as the embodiment of identity Chinese reporting. This paper systematically analyzes the above language differences and puts forward relevant opinions or suggestions to promote cross-cultural communication and integration.

ДЕКОРАТИВНІ ЕЛЕМЕНТИ ПОСТМОДЕРНІСТСЬКИХ БУДИНКІВ ЛЬВІВСЬКОЇ АРХІТЕКТУРНОЇ ШКОЛИ

This study summarizes the results of the analysis of three dozen architectural objects in Lviv based on which presents architectural school in Lviv and its transition towards postmodern stylistics. The article considers the analysis of the phenomenon of postmodern architecture, in particular one of the key issues of the discussion with modernism - the possibility and nature of decorating the facades of buildings. Firstly, the role of geometric-decorative ornamentation as an indicator of the emergence of the so-called "Carpathian style," considered a proto-postmodernism, into a full-fledged postmodern architectural language was identified. Subsequently, the gradual disappearance of this ornamentation served as an indicator of the return to modernist paradigms, albeit in a significantly distinct form from the late Soviet neoclassicism. Additionally, the presence of such decorative elements in the Lviv context suggests that the same fundamental factors contributing to the development of postmodernism in North America and Europe were at play in this region. Secondly, the artistic and compositional peculiarities of postmodern decorative motifs in the Lviv architectural school were investigated. It was found that the architects from Lviv occupied a complex and ambivalent position concerning their search for alternatives to modernism. While their fundamental design principles and concepts displayed clear contrasts, on the level of details, particularly in decorative elements, they actively drew from modernist culture, specifically abstract art. Finally, potential directions for further research on the phenomenon of postmodernism in Lviv were outlined, with a specific focus on evaluating the decorative language of buildings from that era. The study proposes the hypothesis that during the 1990s to the early 2010s, a distinct system of geometric-decorative ornamentation might have begun to take shape within the Lviv architectural school. However, this development did not progress further due to the shift in design approaches and the adoption of neo-modernist architectural language. Further exploration of this aspect may shed light on the unique architectural developments in Lviv during that period.

Гротесковый орнамент в итальянском искусстве рубежа XV–XVI веков: историография и история

Borrowed from the repertoire of ancient art, the grotesque was a favorite form of ornament of the Italian Renaissance. Rediscovered in the 1480s with the excavations of Nero’s Golden House, it rapidly gained popularity in painting and sculpture. The flexible decorative structure allowed to integrate exactly those symbolic objects or figures that had a programmatic meaning for an ensemble into the ornament and to assimilate the richest vocabulary of the decorative language of antiquity. Originally playing the role of a frame, a dividing element, or a decoration of illusory architecture, by the 1510s, it became an element that formed the composition. The article systematizes the historiography of the grotesque, from the fundamental research of N. Dacos (1961) to the essays of A. Chastel (1988), F. Morel (1997), and C. Guest (2015), specifies the research methods and its contexts. In parallel, the author traces the evolution of the functions of the grotesque ornament in Italian art during the 1480–1510s. During these three decades that coincided with the period of the most intense search in Renaissance art, the grotesque demonstrated the full breadth of its formal and semantic features, going from a purely ornamental element to a symbolically significant one and back again. The symbolic function of the grotesque in monumental painting and decorative sculpture has been analyzed on the example of two ensembles commissioned by Oliviero Caraffa: his chapel in the Roman church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, painted by Filippino Lippi (1488–1493), and the crypt of the cathedral in Naples, designed by Tommaso Malvito (1498–1506).

Jens Kröger. “Sasanian Stucco”

This overview of Sasanian stuccoes includes sites divided chronologically – without losing sight of the regional premises. The iconographic repertoire found in the sites hitherto found had been then catalogued in ornamental, plant, figural, animal, and monograms. Noteworthy is the paragraph on the transmission of the Sasanian iconographic and architectural decorations. Although just a few motifs influenced Byzantine decorative language, several were transmitted into the formative phase of Isl...

Mythoecologization of Artistic Subjects and Themes in the Tapestries of Raushan Bazarbayeva

Mytho-ecologization of tapestry subjects and themes in contemporary textile art is one of the most important trends in the future development of this art type. The masters of contemporary Kazakh tapestry imbue their works with the content that does not only depict one-dimensional beauty or ugliness of the environment but also transmit such meanings as the everlasting value, uniqueness, necessity, fragility and the vital need to reconsider human place in these circumstances. This paper provides an art historical analysis of the tapestries created by the famous Kazakh textile artist Raushan Bazarbayeva, whose work is characterized by the mythoecologization of compositional subjects, the poetic quality of her visual language and the veneration of beauty and promotion of a harmonious co-existence between humans and their environment. We demonstrate that the key to understand such works is to interpret them through the combined lens of rootedness in traditional past and sensitivity to current environmental challenges.
 Keywords: contemporary Kazakh tapestry, Kazakhstan artistic textile, tapestries by Raushan Bazarbayeva, mythoecologization of consciousness, sustainability, decorative language of tapestry

Te Reo Māori en el paisaje lingüístico de Nueva Zelanda

Māori or Te Reo Māori has become a vital part of the New Zealander’s lifestyle. One of the aspects where the Te Reo Māori can be most conspicuous in New Zealand is within its linguistic landscape: in the names of streets and in the country’s tourist signs. The aim of this work is the analysis of the linguistic landscape of Rotorua to determine the role Māori language plays in New Zealand culture and its linguistic and functional role in the territory of the country; and whether Kiwi culture currently uses Māori as a decorative language for English or is it truly a language with a growing identity beyond mere commercial aims. The result of this work was the analysis of the linguistic landscape of New Zealand through a corpus collected in the city of Rotorua where the Māori presence on the city signs is quite considerable. John Macalister’s work on the English-Māori relationship and the linguistic landscape of New Zealand was the main point of comparison for the study of this corpus

Hyper-Elitism in Writing Literary Criticisms: Theories and References

Current day literary criticisms written in world englishes often seem to be a little hard to comprehend for readers because of critics’ tendency to use too much decorative language with too many theoretical views, jargons, and references of different sorts just to stick to an assumed standard of scholarly writing. This paper, based on a generalized study though, considers that assumed standard hyper elitist, which is affecting the easy entrance of a considerable portion of literary audience into the literary realm where the popularity in the form of reader-friendliness and comprehensibility of literary criticisms are compromised, and thoughts of some creditable thinkers remain unnoticed only because those promising thoughts apparently fail to be expressed in that supposed standard of language. Keeping the purpose of literary criticisms in mind, this paper places forth a seemingly valid question whether this sophisticated way of expressing is really mandatory or not, as the word ‘standard’ itself is subjected to be modified when needed, and the postmodern approach to the literary regime really tends to unsettle the frame of any standardization and deny the distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’. Thus, speculated implications of the paper included that the accessibility of greater number of audience into the arena of literary criticisms might be more liberally considered by established but elitist critics, while the stress of synthesized elitism in writing criticisms might also be mitigated for neophytes among critics.

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour by A. Michaels

Michaels, Anne. The Adventures of Miss Petitfour, illustrated by Emma Block. Tundra Books, 2015. The winner of numerous awards, Anne Michaels has earned her place among Canada’s most talented wordsmiths. Long a respected Canadian poet, her brilliant debut novel—Fugitive Pieces (1996)—brought her international acclaim. The Adventures of Miss Petitfour is Michaels’ first book for children. Emma Block is a young freelance illustrator who has already established a reputation for delicately feminine and delightfully quirky illustrations. Her work can be seen in children’s books, Hallmark products, and in tableware. This book represents a nearly perfect partnership between the author and the illustrator.Among other things, this is a book about the stories we like to tell and read. The books in the village bookshop near Miss Petitfour’s house are divided into two sections: ho-hum and hum. The former are books in which nothing ever happens, but are “full of interesting facts that would never come in useful” and the latter are adventure books.This charming little book is certainly not ho-hum, but neither does it offer grand adventures. The adventures of the unconventional Miss Petitfour and her sixteen fun-loving cats—all of whom go everywhere with her, quite literally wherever the wind takes them—are adventures of "just the right size—fitting into a single, magical day." These little adventures demonstrate that sometimes “the best things happen” when “things work out differently than you expect.”Young bookworms and aspiring writers will be delighted to find that Michaels offers them a peak behind the curtain, one that reveals some of the key elements in the construction of a story, and explains how these elements function with clarity and wit. For example, in the midst of a major digression in a story about a trip to buy marmalade, we are told that a digression is “when the story wanders off the point and gets lost” and that it can be the best part of a story. Several digressions follow naturally and are clearly marked as such. In another story, we are told that a coincidence “is something that happens at just the right moment,” and that stories use them “to fix up tricky tangles”, following which, coincidentally, the story—about a confetti factory explosion—cleverly and humorously demonstrates the technique several times in rapid succession.The name of the main character—Miss Petitfour—is somewhat unexpected, but the delicate and ornate nature of the French pastry known as a petitfour makes it a suitable metaphor at the heart of a little book that celebrates little everyday adventures, decorative language, and fanciful illustrations in a way that is light and sweet and fun. This book is very highly recommended for children of all ages and is well suited for reading aloud.Highly recommended: four stars out of fourReviewer: Linda QuirkLinda taught courses in Canadian Literature, Women's Writing, and Children's Literature at Queen's University (Kingston) and at Seneca College (Toronto) before moving to Edmonton to become a teaching librarian at University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Special Collections. Her favourite children's book to teach is Hana's Suitcase, not only because Hana's story is so compelling, but because the format of this non-fiction book teaches students of all ages about historical investigation and reveals that it is possible to recover the stories of those who have long been forgotten by history.

Review: Decorative Plasterwork in Ireland and Europe: Ornament and the Early Modern Interior, by Christine Casey and Conor Lucey, eds.

Christine Casey and Conor Lucey, eds. Decorative Plasterwork in Ireland and Europe: Ornament and the Early Modern Interior London: Four Courts Press, 2012, 266 pp., 32 color and 120 b/w illus. $70 (cloth), ISBN 9781846823213 In a 1977 JSAH review, Robert Raley praised Geoffrey Beard’s Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain as “another contribution to the slowly building storehouse of literature concerning the important, but generally neglected, field of the builder’s art.”1 Yet the perceived necessity of a 2010 reprint of the volume, which would itself be lauded with the claim that “for those who are looking for a historic resource on the makers and styles of British plasterwork, look no further,” demonstrates the glacial speed at which this storehouse of literature is being filled.2 Despite a sizable proliferation of scholarship on eighteenth-century architecture and, especially, interiors, studies focusing on decorative plasterwork have continued to lag behind.3 Even while cheekily asking the question “Is stucco just the icing on the cake?” in the keynote with which Alastair Laing addressed the 2010 conference at Trinity College, Dublin, from which this edited collection has been formed, the contributors to this beautiful volume resolutely answer no. Coeditor Conor Lucey’s introduction frames the volume’s thirteen essays stemming from that conference and explains that “the purpose … was three fold: to investigate the currency of a shared decorative language across eighteenth-century Europe; to consider the Irish stuccoed interior, arguably the apogee of visual culture in this island during the Georgian era, within its broader continental contexts; and to reflect on the current state of scholarship within the field” (21). Lucey offers his hypothesis on what he terms “the problem” of the historiography of architectural decoration writ large (29). Here he focuses on its in-between status as both sculpture and craft. Lucey points out that the recent “revival of academic interest in craftsmanship as cultural practice” brings a greater currency to the study of decorative plasterwork than had more traditional theorizations of the study of the history of art …

‘La bonne fabrique et le superbe ornement’: Pierre Puget’s ship decoration

Pierre Puget’s eighteenth-century biographers agreed that he excelled in ship decoration. However, most of the time these biographical essays remain highly allusive concerning his ship decoration projects. This article focuses on the crucial years when Puget worked for Louis XIV as director of the Toulon arsenal sculpture workshop. New archival documents allow a more exact chronology of Puget’s projects to be established, and highlight the role played by the sculptor in this field. Iconographic and stylistic analysis of ten decorative schemes reveals his sources of influence, first by underlining the links between Puget’s drawings and those of the Genovese artists Domenico Piola and Filippo Parodi, and secondly, by showing how models by the king’s artists, Francois Girardon and Charles Le Brun, contributed to his decorative language. Puget’s iconographic programmes also demonstrate his originality. Departing from traditional models, none of his decorative schemes pursue the usual themes of royal myth-maki...

Nel lusso della tradizione. L’inedita decorazione del nartece di Santa Sabina all’Aventino a Roma (Il nartece di Santa Sabina, I)

This paper analyzes for the first time the pictorial decoration of the narthex of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill in Rome, discovered during recent restoration works (2010-2012). The decoration, covering the upper part of the church facade, consists of large painted panels imitating a lavish marble revetment. The lower part of the façade was instead decorated with real marble, as indicated in at least one textual source (Ugonio, 1588). The absence of holes, metal clamp, or traces of mortar in the masonry, however, suggests that the wall decoration was made of opus sectile and not of marble slabs. Both historically and stylistically the wall decoration can be dated to the first half of the fifth century, contemporary to the construction of the basilica. This paper also highlights the cultural roots of such decoration, finding then in the continuity with the decorative language of Roman art. Finally, this paper addresses the question of the lavishness of the decoration investigating its cultural, political and liturgical context.

Function and Decoration, Tradition and Invention: Carnegie Libraries and their Architectural Messages

This study explores the changing value attached to historical references in modern public library design through examples cast in an era of transition. Pittsburgh was the crucible of Carnegie Library design; the city in which Andrew Carnegie manufactured his fortune making steel and where his philanthropic transaction with working people was most obvious. The last two of the eight branch libraries he built in Pittsburgh, South Side (1909) and Homewood (1910), illustrate apparently divergent approaches to library identity. Their decorative language can be misrepresented and misinter- preted and it is important to recognize the functional role that architectural ornament played in the context of modernity. Historic architectural references were used to invent new narratives for public interaction. The places in which these appear to be most conventional therefore often reveal themselves conversely, to be the most radical.

Oscar Wilde's Salome : Décor, Des Corps , Desire

This essay reads Oscar Wilde's Salome and its engagement with the lyric blazon in relation to a range of period representations of Salome. It argues that the blazon--a genre based on the extensive use of decorative language to describe the loved object--provides Wilde with a formal vehicle for negotiating the ethical impasse of poetic ornament and its impossible efforts to embody fully the object of desire. Wilde's text employs the blazon to amplify decorative language's failures even as it cultivates their attendant pleasures, reclaiming as a site of aesthetic and erotic possibility the invisible sphere into which the loved body is cast by the blazon and related modes of poetic embodiment.

Japan and English as an alien language

ABSTRACTStarts with excerpt from John Dougill, English as a decorative language (ET12, 1987). Twenty years on English still decorates Japan. At the end of the 1980s, Japan's bubble economy burst and the country has been rectifying the ills of the past ever since. The drive to improve is a marked feature of the culture, and much has changed in the past twenty years. The number of ‘international Japanese’ has grown, as has the number of competent English speakers. Education has been freed up, English introduced into primary schools, and listening tests established in national exams. Yet the peculiarities of Japanese English (called Janglish or Engrish by some) continue to adorn the country's buildings, goods and items of clothing.

GENDER AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISPLAY: BAROQUE POETICS AND SARTORIAL LAW

Seventeenth-century poetics makes heavy use of clothing metaphors to explain rhetorical devices. Of course it is not clothing per se, that ist found to be useful in illumnating the principle of poetic or decorative language but the concept of border, of hierarchically organized gradations of oranamentation. The similarity, the 'simile' between the discourse on ornamentation in rhetoric and the discourse on ornamentation in dress which has come to be associated with a gendered display of power is the focus of this article. We are accustomed to seeing vestimentary codes as highly gendered. When examining the history of fashion in seventeenth century Europe, it becomes apparent that social hierarchy is the dominant means of classification, gender is a secondary means. Likewise, when dress is used metaphorically, the tertium comparationis is hierarchy. In both signifying systems - dress and poetic language - rank and class supersedes gender.

English as a decorative language

In ET6, Gillian Kay described how Japanese absorbs and re-shapes the words of English. There is, however, another trend in Japan, in which English is used as a social and commercial accessory.

Problems of Translating Decorative Language

Problems of Translating Decorative Language