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The image of the heart regularly appears in our daily lives: it decorates multiple everyday objects, such as clothing, logos, shop windows, and it appears on graffiti. Additionally, it is ubiquitous in the digital world, as the "like" button is often in the shape of a heart. The aim of this paper is to identify the reasons why the image of the heart is so widespread, and the functions performed by its representation. In order to do so, we carried out a linguistic and semiotic landscape study, by analysing a large corpus of images of hearts, collected in the urban landscape and on the Internet. The results show that the hearts found in the two corpora perform all language functions identified by Jakobson (1984); the main contexts of use of the heart are the expression of love, appreciation, and gratitude. Finally, we comment on the "transfer" of functions of the heart from street to screen and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corpas Pastor (2008: 89) notes that corpus linguistics is considered a valid methodological approach to language studies, relevant to both translation and interpreting insofar that it can be used to analyse and describe a wide range of discourse types, reflect on translation units and re-examine the concept of equivalence. Taking as its starting point the fact that it is possible to work with corpora in such varied undertakings as researching language variations, performing professional translation/interpreting tasks and developing language teaching methods, this paper describes the stages involved in comparing and contrasting the original script for the film Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and its dubbed and subtitled renderings in Spanish. We highlight the importance of properly preparing subject material to be able to make the most of its potential. In this particular case, we used the Final Draft, AntConc and WinAlign programmes to analyse the texts in depth, easily identify segments of interest and create translation units: a systematic method which enables research into Audiovisual Translation to be carried out in a rigorous manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data from our corpus and survey, this paper aims to analyse a series of Chinese grammatical errors frequently made by Spanish students, in the light of theories of contrastive analysis and error analysis. We focus our analysis on the errors of six categories (polysemic correspondence, omission, order, collocation, classifier and deixis), and try to identify their possible causes. Lastly, we also offer some strategies in the hope of facilitating the Chinese learning in Spanish-speaking countries, as well as shedding some lights on the Chinese teaching and investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, it has been revealed that semantic categories are flexible and that they evolve constantly. The aim of this paper is to explore how the polisemy of the verb llevar is structured. For this purpose, our study is based on the parameters of the diachronic prototype semantics proposed by Geeraerts (1997), who place the keys to explain the configuration of lexical polisemy in the diachrony. Therefore, we have carried out a historical study of the verb llevar thanks to the analysis of a corpus taken from the CORDE. The results are analysed, on one hand, from a quantitative perspective, in order to show the age and the frequency of each meaning of the verb llevar. On the other hand, from a qualitative perspective, each semantic change that llevar has experienced throughout its history are described on the basis of the examples of our corpus. In order to describe the semantic changes, we will also use other tools from cognitive semantics, such us the image schema theory and the conceptual metaphor theory. All this leads to demonstrate that the current polisemy of llevar is the result of a historical process of semasiological expansion from one central or prototypical meaning [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Rhetoric and discursive practices of local and institutional journalism. Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona, Spain) in the democratic transition (1979-1987)". The article analyzes municipal press published by he city council of Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona). The period studied is the transition to democracy between 1979 and 1987. The paper provides Recol ReCol (1949-2010), a documentary source of local news repertoire. The article analyzes the rhetorical devices of publishing: the arguments about the journalistic project, its characteristics and purposes. These observations are useful to know the quality of discursive practices, their veracity and institutional loyalty by the editor. By linguistic and legal criteria, the study concludes that the consistorial journalism of that time has been irregular and controversial. On a positive note, research can assess the importance of local news corpus. It also recommends a demanding precise regulation on good discursive practices of public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]