Formal Style Research Articles

Selected family determinants of the narcissistic style of behavior

Background. Although the narcissistic personality disorder is well-known in psychological literature, the issue of psychosocial determinants of the narcissistic behavioral style is still prone to do the research. So is in case of the study of the specific character of parental attitudes and traumatic experiences in the subjects’ childhood and adolescence.Objectives. The aim of the study was an analysis of the situation in the families of respondents with dominant characteristics of narcissistic personality, with a particular emphasis on the retrospective assessment of parental attitudes.Methodology. The group of 78 students with narcissistic behavioral style were selected for the study. The control group consisted of individuals who did not display this type of behavior. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorder Research SCID II (M.B. First, M. Gibbon, R. L. Spitzer., J.B.W. Williams, L. S. Benjamin, 2014), referring to narcissistic behaviors, was used along with a questionnaire of the authors’ own design which contained demographic details as well as information on the situation in the subject’s family of origin and traumatic experiences, if any, and The Questionnaire for Retrospective Parental Attitudes (KPR-Rocdeveloped by Mieczyslaw Plopa (2008).Results. The research demonstrated that parental attitudes, particularly of mothers who were found to be excessively demanding and inconsistent in interactions with their children, were of special relevance for the formation of the narcissistic personality style, whereas when it comes to fathers, it was primarily a lack of consistent behavior that was significant. It was also observed that the families of origin of individuals with this personality type often used violence and physical punishment, and often struggled with parents’ addictions. Conclusions. The research confirmed the significant influence of family interactions on the formation of narcissistic personality traits.

LA RÉSOLUTION DES PROBLÈMES — CONDITION DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DE L’AUTONOMIE ET DE LA FLEXIBILITÉ DANS L’APPRENTISSAGE/PROBLEM SOLVING – A CONDITION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMY AND FLEXIBILITY IN LEARNING

Streamlining learning has always been an important concern of psychologists, education specialists, both theorists and practitioners. The acquisition of autonomy in learning is the clearest proof of the formation of an effective learning style, which ensures and determines a deep, sustainable learning. One of the ways that can be leveraged to achieve autonomy and flexibility is problem-solving. The present study aims to analyze the role of this learning modality in the development of autonomy, to identify ways, strategies, concrete techniques of realization, all this – from the perspective of some students-future teachers. The sample of subjects consisted of 74 second-year master's students from the Faculty of Letters, who are also attending the Initial Professionalization Program, level II, this being a level of deepening, of developing the skills previously formed, by going through the same program, level I. We considered this sample considering the specificity of their training (psycho-pedagogical, methodical, practical), but also their role as future trainers. The research methods used were the questionnaire-based survey and the focus-pit, the tools applied being a questionnaire and an interview guide. The results recorded, cumulative, following the application of the two research methods, allowed the formulation of conclusions regarding the importance of autonomy and flexibility in learning, respectively the role of problem-based learning in achieving this objective.

A team in poverty is a poor team: politics, power, money and football according to Hank Rhon

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of Jorge Hank Rhon’s business and political career. Jorge Hank Rhon, the son of influential politician and businessman Carlos Hank González, has always been closely associated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) elite. Despite not conforming to the neat and formal style of his family and the PRI, his unconventional, party-loving, misogynistic, and provocative personality has not prevented him from accumulating a significant fortune and entering the political arena. He has been imprisoned for short periods of time without being formally sentenced for any crime, as he has been accused of being involved in illicit and criminal activities. Hank Rhon has entered the Mexican professional football industry through his business subsidiary, Grupo Caliente, by acquiring the Xolos de Tijuana team. There are suspicions and allegations of illegal activities surrounding his involvement in football.

Популяризация научного знания в медиасреде: позитивные и негативные аспекты

Modern media are integrated into many spheres of society. Scientific discourse is also influenced by the objective process of mediatization. The aim of the article is to highlight important problems of mediatization of science by means of the Internet. The study is based on the analysis of scientific works by famous foreign and domestic authors on the topic of mediatization. The article outlines the main features of social media, which play an increasingly important role in popularizing scientific knowledge and in communication between scientists. The article notes the positive aspects of mediatization of science, and also identifies the following problems: inability to select a universal method of transmitting information; mythologization of scientific knowledge; infantilization of the audience; demonization of media discourses by the academic community; formation of a pseudoscientific functional style; the problem of discrepancy between the communicator and the recipient (dilettantism); creation of false meanings alien to science. The article may be of interest to researchers of mediatization of science and higher education, as well as managers in the field of science.

Digital Reputation of the Executive Power Bodies: Discursive Factors and Communicative Techniques of Management

The paper discusses the communicative techniques of reputation management of the executive power bodies in the Russian media space. Comparing the concepts of digital reputation and digital image, the authors argue that, unlike image which is purposefully implemented in the media environment, reputation reflects the internet users’ real opinion about the activities performed by state institutions. The essential features of digital reputation are accumulative character, unpredictability and inertia. The authors define the discursive factors affecting reputation: ambiguously wide audience of the internet, distribution of target groups on different web sites, the unpredictability of users’ assessments, some citizens’ aggressive speech behaviour, etc. More than 2.5 thousand posts by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation published in the VKontakte social network and Telegram messenger were selected as the material for the research. The impact of content on the internet audience was evaluated with the ERpost rate at the Popsters service. The authors argue that effective techniques of digital reputation management are the following: communication on a particular internet platform with regard to its target audience, attractive hashtags, the tone of involvement with the interlocutor, rejection of formal style clichйs, and some others. The discursive factors of new formal communication are established, and the techniques of managing governmental bodies’ positive digital reputation are described.

Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” in the Context of the Victorian “Dramatic Monologues” Tradition

The work of Henry James is widely known for its abundance of original narrative techniques that enriched pre-modernist prose. The formation of the literary style of the Anglo-American writer falls on the period of late Victorianism (the last third of the 19th century), which explains the closeness of his artistic prose to the genre system of that era, including overlap with a special experimental genre of Victorian literature – “the dramatic monologue”. This Victorian genre has recently been rethought by literary scholars in line with neo-Victorian prose. The purpose of this article is to clarify ideas about the range of James’s narrative techniques against the background of the diversity of Victorian traditions, which provides new possibilities for the interpretation of his texts. The structural and stylistic correspondences between the Victorian “dramatic monologue” and the novella “The Turn of the Screw” (1898/1908) merit particular attention. The novella has not yet been examined in detail from this perspective, although it has never been deprived of the critics’ attention. Research interest also stems from the rhythmic text organization of the tale, remarkable in both prosaic and poetic literary context.

A Critical Sociolinguistic Study of Conservatism in Selected British Novels

The main point of this study is to examine the ideology of conservatism in the selected British novels The Blessing by Nancy Mitford and White Teeth by Zadie Smith through the application of a critical sociolinguistic model. These two novels were chosen for having conservatism as the main theme. In this study, conservatism was analyzed according to four phases: the first phase (initiation) shows context and conservatism types. The second phase (description) highlights the text analysis, which involves analyzing vocabulary, grammar, cohesion, and text structure. The third phase represents social analysis, which involves some social factors like age, gender, status, and style. The last phase is evaluation, in which ideology is evaluated according to some selected functions. In both novels, it seems that cultural conservatism is the most commonly used type. Further, it is shown that conservatives tend to use simple words that are easily understood by others. Additionally, declaratives, second and third person pronouns, and modality of necessity and probability are the most followed grammatical categories by conservatives. In relation to social analysis, it is proven that old people are more conservative than young ones, women are more conservative than men, uneducated people are more conservative than educated ones, and informal style is more used than formal style. With regard to evaluating conservatism, it seems that explaining, evaluating, orienting, and prescribing functions are all used in both novels.

Level of Language Formality in ‘Perahu Kertas’ (2009) by Dee Lestari: A Translation Perspective

As time progresses, variations or diversities in language are growing, either in terms of words, phrases, clauses or sentences. Something that is not missed from the spotlight is the difference in language procedures based on placement or situation. Diversity in language use can also be visible in any society life, such as in professional, education, business, or even daily interaction or conversation. This research is sociolinguistic research. One of the discussions in this research is the level of language formality. This research aims at analyzing the translation of the level of language formality. This research analyzes the translation of various forms of language formality from the 2009 Indonesian novel Perahu Kertas by Dee Lestari and the English version of Paper Boat (2017), which is translated by Tiffany Tsao. This research used the Language Formality theory by Joos (1967) from his book The Five Clocks: A Linguistic Excursion Into the Five Styles of English Usage. This research uses a qualitative descriptive method, using qualitative data (textual), which is described descriptively. This research found that the novel used four types of levels of formality language, which are 57 data of casual style language, 43 data of consultative style language, 40 data of intimate style language, and seven data of formal style language. The frozen-style language has not been found

Методологічна специфіка метафор Фридриха Ніцше: «нова форма» для «нескінченного прояснення»

Nietzsche’s metaphorical statements often are used to show the vagueness, contradiction, and radicalism of his ideas. The author of the article proves that Nietzsche's metaphorical style is a part of philosophical tools, and it constitutes the philosopher's methodology of knowledge. The main attention is focused on: (1) a set of factors that shaped Nietzsche's linguistic criticism – ideological motivations of an anti-metaphysical nature, key trends in the comprehension of language, and a fascination with music – and their role in the formation of the philosopher's metaphorical style is shown; (2) instrumental features of Nietzsche's metaphor in the process of cognition. In the first part of the article, the author concludes that the problem of concepts as a key linguistic problem for Nietzsche is the falsity of their content and proves that this was the reason for the philosopher's “search for a new form” of writing and, ultimately, his use of metaphors. In the second part of the article, the author interprets Nietzsche's metaphor as a possibility of “infinite clarification”, which made it possible to substantiate the perspective nature of Nietzsche's cognition.

Conceptual Framework for Teaching Business Writing via Social Media

This article presents a conceptual framework for enhancing business writing skills through social media integration in business communication education. By embedding platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, the framework promotes essential competencies such as clarity, audience awareness, and professional tone. Five core principles—constructivist learning, digital literacy, ethical writing practices, real-time feedback, and collaborative writing—underpin this framework, emphasizing experiential learning that bridges informal and formal communication styles. This approach offers educators a structured method for developing students’ adaptability and writing proficiency, aligning pedagogical practices with the evolving needs of modern business communication.

Neural Basis of Perceptual Surface Qualities and Materials: Evidence from EEG Decoding

Abstract The human visual system can easily recognize object material categories and estimate surface properties such as glossiness and smoothness. Recent psychophysical and computational studies suggest that the material perception depends on global feature statistics. To elucidate dynamic neural representations underlying surface property and material perception in humans, we measured visual evoked potentials (VEPs) for 191 natural images consisting of 20 categories of materials and then classified material categories and surface properties from the VEPs. As a result, we found that material categories were correctly classified by the VEPs even at latencies of 150 msec or less. The apparent surface properties were also significantly classified within 175 msec (lightness, colorfulness, and smoothness) and after 200 msec (glossiness, hardness, and heaviness). The subsequent reverse-correlation analysis revealed that the VEPs at these latencies are highly correlated with low- and high-level global feature statistics of the surface images, indicating that neural activities about such global features are reflected in the VEPs. Moreover, by using deep generative models (multimodal variational autoencoder models) to reconstruct surface images from the VEPs via style information, we demonstrated that the reconstructed surface images are judged by observers to have very similar material categories and surface properties as the original natural surfaces. These results support the notion that neural representations of statistical features in the early cortical response play a crucial role in the perception and recognition of surface materials in humans.

АНАЛІЗ ОСОБЛИВОСТЕЙ ФОРМУВАННЯ ІНДИВІДУАЛЬНОГО СТИЛЮ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ СПОРТСМЕНІВ У СПОРТИВНИХ ІГРАХ

The main task of the research is a general analysis of the peculiarities of the formation of the individual style of sportsmenєs activity in sports games. The research data on the problem of individualization of training of athletes are summarized. The main shortcomings and limitations of experimental studies related to the formation of an individual style of activity are analyzed. It was determined that the existing experimental and methodical works mainly solve the problems of sports training and the problems of the individual style of activity in sports games in isolation. It is proved that among the general features of game activity that are inherent in all sports games (operational nature and non-stationary conditions of activity, high mental tension, dynamism, dependence of the result on the collective actions of partners) there are also distinctive ones, primarily due to the rules of a particular game (size of playing fields, method of achieving the result, number of players). These differences determine the peculiarity of technical and tactical actions of players in different sports games and provide for the need to apply different approaches to the problems of forming an individual style of playing activity.

UATST: Towards unpaired arbitrary text-guided style transfer with cross-space modulation

Existing style transfer methods usually utilize style images to represent the target style. Since style images need to be prepared in advance and are confined to existing artworks, these methods are limited in flexibility and creativity. Compared with images, language is a more natural, common, and flexible way for humans to transmit information. Therefore, a better choice is to utilize text descriptions instead of style images to represent the target style. To this end, we propose a novel Unpaired Arbitrary Text-guided Style Transfer (UATST) framework, which can render arbitrary photographs in the style of arbitrary text descriptions with one single model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first model that achieves Arbitrary-Text-Per-Model with unpaired training data. In detail, we first use a pre-trained VGG network to map the content image into the VGG feature space, and use a pre-trained CLIP text encoder to map the text description into the CLIP feature space. Then we introduce a cross-space modulation module to bridge these two feature spaces, so that the content and style information in two different spaces can be seamlessly and adaptively combined for stylization. In addition, to learn better style representations, we introduce a new CLIP-based style contrastive loss to our model. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments verify the effectiveness and superiority of our method.

HFH-Font: Few-shot Chinese Font Synthesis with Higher Quality, Faster Speed, and Higher Resolution

The challenge of automatically synthesizing high-quality vector fonts, particularly for writing systems (e.g., Chinese) consisting of huge amounts of complex glyphs, remains unsolved. Existing font synthesis techniques fall into two categories: 1) methods that directly generate vector glyphs, and 2) methods that initially synthesize glyph images and then vectorize them. However, the first category often fails to construct complete and correct shapes for complex glyphs, while the latter struggles to efficiently synthesize high-resolution (i.e., 1024 × 1024 or higher) glyph images while preserving local details. In this paper, we introduce HFH-Font, a few-shot font synthesis method capable of efficiently generating high-resolution glyph images that can be converted into high-quality vector glyphs. More specifically, our method employs a diffusion model-based generative framework with component-aware conditioning to learn different levels of style information adaptable to varying input reference sizes. We also design a distillation module based on Score Distillation Sampling for 1-step fast inference, and a style-guided super-resolution module to refine and upscale low-resolution synthesis results. Extensive experiments, including a user study with professional font designers, have been conducted to demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms existing font synthesis approaches. Experimental results show that our method produces high-fidelity, high-resolution raster images which can be vectorized into high-quality vector fonts. Using our method, for the first time, large-scale Chinese vector fonts of a quality comparable to those manually created by professional font designers can be automatically generated.

StyleTex: Style Image-Guided Texture Generation for 3D Models

Style-guided texture generation aims to generate a texture that is harmonious with both the style of the reference image and the geometry of the input mesh, given a reference style image and a 3D mesh with its text description. Although diffusion-based 3D texture generation methods, such as distillation sampling, have numerous promising applications in stylized games and films, it requires addressing two challenges: 1) decouple style and content completely from the reference image for 3D models, and 2) align the generated texture with the color tone, style of the reference image, and the given text prompt. To this end, we introduce StyleTex, an innovative diffusion-model-based framework for creating stylized textures for 3D models. Our key insight is to decouple style information from the reference image while disregarding content in diffusion-based distillation sampling. Specifically, given a reference image, we first decompose its style feature from the image CLIP embedding by subtracting the embedding's orthogonal projection in the direction of the content feature, which is represented by a text CLIP embedding. Our novel approach to disentangling the reference image's style and content information allows us to generate distinct style and content features. We then inject the style feature into the cross-attention mechanism to incorporate it into the generation process, while utilizing the content feature as a negative prompt to further dissociate content information. Finally, we incorporate these strategies into StyleTex to obtain stylized textures. We utilize Interval Score Matching to address over-smoothness and over-saturation, in combination with a geometry-aware ControlNet that ensures consistent geometry throughout the generative process. The resulting textures generated by StyleTex retain the style of the reference image, while also aligning with the text prompts and intrinsic details of the given 3D mesh. Quantitative and qualitative experiments show that our method outperforms existing baseline methods by a significant margin.

Development of a Cost-Efficient and Glaucoma-Specialized OD/OC Segmentation Model for Varying Clinical Scenarios.

Most existing optic disc (OD) and cup (OC) segmentation models are biased to the dominant size and easy class (normal class), resulting in suboptimal performances on glaucoma-confirmed samples. Thus, these models are not optimal choices for assisting in tracking glaucoma progression and prognosis. Moreover, fully supervised models employing annotated glaucoma samples can achieve superior performances, although restricted by the high cost of collecting and annotating the glaucoma samples. Therefore, in this paper, we are dedicated to developing a glaucoma-specialized model by exploiting low-cost annotated normal fundus images, simultaneously adapting various common scenarios in clinical practice. We employ a contrastive learning and domain adaptation-based model by exploiting shared knowledge from normal samples. To capture glaucoma-related features, we utilize a Gram matrix to encode style information and the domain adaptation strategy to encode domain information, followed by narrowing the style and domain gaps between normal and glaucoma samples by contrastive and adversarial learning, respectively. To validate the efficacy of our proposed model, we conducted experiments utilizing two public datasets to mimic various common scenarios. The results demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed model across multi-scenarios, showcasing its proficiency in both the segmentation- and glaucoma-related metrics. In summary, our study illustrates a concerted effort to target confirmed glaucoma samples, mitigating the inherent bias issue in most existing models. Moreover, we propose an annotation-efficient strategy that exploits low-cost, normal-labeled fundus samples, mitigating the economic- and labor-related burdens by employing a fully supervised strategy. Simultaneously, our approach demonstrates its adaptability across various scenarios, highlighting its potential utility in both assisting in the monitoring of glaucoma progression and assessing glaucoma prognosis.

Translating idiomatic expressions in children’s literature: A case study of rendering Diary of a Wimpy Kid into Arabic

Idiomatic expressions are challenging for translators of different genres, especially children’s literature, as they need proper strategies to ensure an age-appropriate and easily comprehensible meaning. This study examined the strategies that the translators employed in rendering idiomatic expressions in Kenny’s children’s series Diary of a Wimpy Kid into Arabic. To achieve the purpose of the study, idiomatic expressions were collected from four books of the series, namely, Rodrick Rules, Greg Heffley’s Journal, The Last Straw, and Cabin Fever, and compared to their Arabic translations. The data were categorized according to Baker’s (1992) four strategies for dealing with idiomatic expressions, with a fifth strategy, literal translation, added to the analysis. The study found that there was a clear preference for paraphrasing when translating idioms from English into Arabic. English idioms were primarily used in informal contexts, which adds to the challenge of translating them, as standard Arabic, the variety used in the translated version, is generally more suited to a formal style in written texts. This study can be useful for scholars and researchers in the field of children’s literature to deepen their understanding of the challenges and strategies associated with translating idioms. It can also help educators and curriculum developers promote multilingualism and cross-cultural appreciation among young readers.

Language Style Analysis in “Downton Abbey: New Era” Movie

Language style is a way of people talking and expressing messages, thoughts, or ideas to others. Everyone will use a different style of language when speaking. This happens for various reasons, including: the interlocutor factor, the purpose of the conversation, the context of the conversation, the time and place where the conversation was carried out, and so on. This study aims to analyze the types of language style and the factors of the use of language style spoken by the actors in the film "Downton Abbey: New Era”. In this study, the writers used the theory proposed by Joos (1967) in his book The Five Clocks about types of language style and Holmes (1992) about the factors that influence them. The theory about the style of language that are explored in the utterances spoken by the actors in the film are frozen style, formal style, consultative style, casual style, and intimate style. While the factors that appear are setting, participant, topic, and function. This study applied a qualitative method with literature study as the approach.

The Paintings of Henok Melkamzer

The formal properties, styles, and techniques of telsem fascinates viewers from Ethiopia and abroad. Drawn traditionally on parchment and in acrylic in contemporary times, the sophisticated and intricate lines of telsem consist of symbols that are spectacularly expressive. However, the conventional knowledge base for telsem art in Western art-historical provisions has been cabalistic. Modernism, as a field of study, persists in classifying the sophisticated forms, exuberant colors, lines, shapes, and conceptually complex arrangement of telsem paintings in categories that are outside of the modernist canon. While Western art critics acknowledge the exquisite imagery of telsem art, they place emphasis on the disciplinary divide and difference between the visual languages of European art forms, which are modern and historical, and non-Western art forms such as telsem, which are perceived as ahistorical objects. Even though they are practiced in contemporary times, they are still approached in anthropological designations. Certainly, the uses of the supernatural in non-Western visual art are grouped together under the rubric of magical realism, and humanistic scholars have given little significance to the substantial modernist interventions of such works. These complex works of art cannot be purely described in terms of contrasts such as reality versus fantasy or in contexts of a long-gone tradition that has waned. They are still produced in contemporary times, fantastically depicting specific cultural, political, and social experiences of the contemporary moment in both rational and mythical ways. It is precisely this underlying difference in art-historical studies that the Sharjah Art Foundation’s 2024 exhibition Henok Melkamzer: Telsem Symbols and Imagery attempts to extend.

Trends in the formation of Russian style in domestic advertising and possibilities for its development

The article discusses the issues of reviving the Russian style in advertising and solutions for advertising media. The author shows that advertising, which has accompanied people for thousands of years, is currently a signifi cant part of mass culture. Advertising, just like art, appeals to the emotional sphere of an individual, infl uencing him through vivid, sensual images. The aesthetic and hedonic functions inherent in advertising and the infl uence of advertising communications on the values and life attitudes of the audience allow us to classify it as a type of artistic activity. Modern advertising is one of the recognized forms of art. The article shows a long way that advertising has come, how many amazing and extraordinary discoveries there have been, and how many original fi ndings are actively used by modern advertising. The huge reach of the advertising audience makes it possible to use advertising as a message that shapes certain values and traditions of the cultural national code. The study of advertising in such a context acts as an active educational tool, as a means of forming national self-awareness.