Bøger af Alexander Zerfaß

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject German Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Erfurt, course: Contrastive Linguistics, language: English, abstract: This paper consists of two major parts, a theoretical framework and a contrastive analysis of idioms of death in the English and German language. The first part deals with the linguistic definition of the term ¿idiom¿, including possibilities for their classification. The second section of the first part is going to present the concept of euphemism followed by a brief explanation and categorization of metaphors and the attempt of giving possible reasons for the maintaining taboo of death in western culture. The purpose of the second part of this paper is to analyze and compare a number of English and German idioms of death contrastively, in order to identify lexical and semantic similarities, including the investigation of the origin of certain expressions. Subsequently, a short closing reflection will end up this paper.As death plays a significant role not only in western society but in communities all around the globe, idioms related to death became an important tool in human communication. But what is the actual purpose of using paraphrases in order to relate to death in an utterance? Why do idioms of death have a cultural importance and how is an idiom actually defined? Do certain idioms of death have the same semantic meaning in other languages?Human communication has created a great number of idioms and figures of speech which range throughout every section of the daily life and appear in every situation possible. As this phenomenon indeed shows its importance, linguists have created the field of phraseology to investigate such expressions. Based on language contact and historical events, many idioms have synonyms and equivalent counterparts in several languages. Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps to get to know more about the history, ethics and social values of a certain community.

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Erfurt, course: The City in American Literature (Reading Course), language: English, abstract: In this paper I intend to elaborate on the question of how the city is depicted in Theodore Dreiser¿s "Sister Carrie" including the characteristics Dreiser allocates to the city of Chicago and New York and the way of how the city influences Carrie¿s personality. All propositions provided will be based on my own perceptions and interpretations of different quotations from the text. A brief conclusion will sum up the results of this paper.

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Erfurt, course: Hip Hop Studies, language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to take a look at the technique of sampling regarding the purpose, a definition and the origin of this method. Furthermore, emphasis will be put on the controversy of sampling, followed by a short explanation of the fundamental principles of the copyright law. Finally, a conclusion will summarize the core results and add some closing remarks to this topic.It only took two turntables and a microphone to turn a ghetto dominated by violence, into a united neighborhood and community filled with enough positive energy to create a music genre and culture that took over the whole world rapidly. Ever since the Hip Hop culture emerged in the 1970s in the dirty corners and hopeless streets of the South Bronx in New York, the vinyl record has played a huge role in the development and growth of this movement towards main stream culture. A simple vinyl record has been able to give poor people a way to transform their anger and desperation into art. Even in the age of digital technology, the so called black gold is still relevant, building the foundation for artistic disciplines like scratching and sampling.Since the early days, the technique of sampling has been the core element in making Hip Hop, be it adopting Bruce Lee moves and gymnastic elements to create a new dancing style, taking synthesizer- or vocal sounds for scratching, or the adoption and reconstruction of melodies and drum loops from dusty vinyl records to come up with a whole new way of music production. But can we really see this method as a creative and unique way of self-expression or is it rather a lack of creativity and even artistic laziness?