Adjectives are lexematic words, functioning at the three levels of linguistic competence. They form a category; they belong to particular languages; and they are elements of free use by speakers. As virtual they belong to the system of the language; as instruments of expression they belong to the norm of the language; and as instruments of communication they belong to discourse. At the same time adjectives are predicates, the expression of a state of affairs provided with the instruments of relation and combination in a sentence or in a phrase. This study analyses the potentialities of expression and interpretation of adjectives.

The book examines the ways in which adjectives contribute to the realization of the various language functions in several of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s (1914–2003) spirituality works and transcribed talks, as well as in their Romanian translated versions. In particular, it aims at offering an application of the communication theory (cf. Jakobson 1960/1987, Kinneavy 1980) to Metropolitan Anthony’s contemporary religious discourse and an investigation of the underlying lexical-semantic and pragmatic relations carried out by the adjectival class in order for discourse aim to be achieved. It also seeks to reveal the role of adjectives in the process of translation from English into Romanian, more specifically in preserving the source text functions in the target language. To this end, the study engages in an analysis of the hierarchical communicative functions in the corpus, as well as of the role played by adjectives both in the realization and transfer of the respective language functions. The present book, which may be of equal interest to researchers in linguistics and to theologians, demonstrates not only the pivotal role of adjectives in fulfilling communicative purposes specific to religious communication, but also their cohesive discourse role in Metropolitan Anthony’s legacy. At the same time, it highlights the outstanding status of the adjectival class in establishing the functional-cognitive correspondence between the source text and the target text in translation.

This linguistic study is an attempt at investigating the use of adjectives in Victorian fiction. The focus of the investigation is on semantic peculiarities of this particular word class so as to provide insights into the use of different lexical fields in three problem-oriented novels dealing with unexpected or unconventional aspects of nineteenth-century Britain, these being The Time Machine by Herbert George Wells, The Lifted Veil by George Eliot and My Lady's Money by Wilkie Collins. The study aims to show that adjectival descriptions as reflected in the use of semantic domains may be indicative of contemporary concerns, thereby providing revealing insights into the values of Victorian society. As carriers of socio-cultural values and means of authorial comment, adjectives may assume the function of keywords and acquire ideological connotations against the background of the Victorian era. In an interdisciplinary approach combining linguistics, cultural studies and literary studies, the analysis highlights that the identification of such key lexemes in terms of a semantic analysis may pave the way for a deeper understanding of a literary work in its socio-cultural context.

In this book the recent phenomenon of political correctness or PC is studied in the American context in which it arose with a brief section devoted to its British press coverage. The author examines the question from the point of view of an outsider and one who moreover lives in continental Europe, and consequently her perspective aims to be as far-reaching as possible, in contrast to most of the studies of PC so far. The scope of the book discusses the background of PC and manifestations of the different aspects that make up the so-called PC debate, only one of which is the canon debate. Annette Gomis has an Honours degree in Modern Languages from Trinity College Dublin, and a degree in Modern Languages from the University or Valencia. She also has an MSc. in Theaching English from the University of Aston and a Ph.D.in English from the University of Granada. She is currently a member of the Dpeartment of French, English and German at the University of Almería.

The present book contains a collection of essays by the members of the research group "Estudios de Narrativa en Lengua Inglesa. Historia, crítica, utopía y ciencia ficción." Its members teach English literature at the Universities of Almería and Granada and share a common interest in literary utopias. There is an introductory chapter by the Director of the Group, Miguel Martínez, on definitions and backgrounds of utopian criticism, followed by Margarita Carretero's analysis of J.R.R.Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from the perspective of the utopian genre; then two essays by Annette Gomis on George Orwell's 1984; Mervyn Smale explores Dickens' social satire in his earliest works of fiction while Celia Wallhead is the author of the two concluding chapters on Hard Times and Nice Work, and on Babel Tower. Annette Gomis, B.A. (Trinity College), M.Sc. (Aston) & Ph.D. (Granada), teaches English at the University of Almería and has previously lectured at the Universities of Valencia and Granada. Miguel Martínez, M.A. (Granada), ACEFL (Salford) and Ph.D.(Bologna) is, since 1996, Professor of English at UALM. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at Yale and Visiting Professor at the University of Delaware.

The present volume is the result of a project which concentrated on a selected subset of linguistic knowledge with the aim of giving a systematic account of the various aspects of structure and process in this subset and the interpretation of these. The subset that for a number of reasons appeared appropriate to this undertaking centres around the dimensional adjectives of German. That the en terprise ultimately produced a less integrated and complete result than expected is due to several reasons. Some of these are of an intrinsic nature, ever present, and not particularly surprising. Some, however, are related to the character of the project itself and are worth commenting upon, as they reflect specific expe riences and difficulties which we encountered during several years of working on the project. We started from the assumption that the dimensional adjectives constitute a sufficiently rich, but nevertheless limited domain of grammatical and concep tual structure which is fairly well understood and explored in relevant aspects. Consequently we expected that summarizing, integrating, and extending the nu merous results that were available should quickly lead to a more complete picture of the interaction of the components involved. However, even had the premise of this assumption been correct, the conclusion turned out to be wrong fairly early in the project. On closer inspection, the investigations of the phenomena were much less complete, the facts agreed upon less systematic, and the proposed anal yses far less convincing than supposed initially.

Con frecuencia el relato corto ha sido un género que la crítica literaria no ha tenido suficientemente en cuenta. En el área de la Literatura Inglesa esta relativa falta de interés ha sido evidente a pesar de que en la segunda mitad del siglo XX excelentes escritores se dedicaron a esta forma narrativa tan singular. La presente colección de artículos quiere servir de introducción a los relatos cortos de algunos de los principales autores británicos contemporáneos que han destacado en este campo. En algunos casos se trata de autores consagrados cuyas novelas han eclipsado unos relatos que merecen ser considerados por separado. En otros casos tenemos a maestros de distintos subgéneros a los que no se les ha prestado la necesaria atención crítica, y por último están los autores jóvenes que bien complementan su trayectoria literaria con historias cortas de gran calidad o bien deciden dedicarse de lleno a esta forma narrativa. En los trabajos de este volumen se invita al lector a iniciarse en la lectura de los relatos de los autores seleccionados así como a profundizar en el estudio de los rasgos más destacados de su producción. La diversidad de enfoques que aquí se ofrece da testimonio de la enorme riqueza del relato corto contemporáneo en las letras inglesas.