Elisabeth El Refaie
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 642699 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Elisabeth El Refaie |
| NOMBRES | Elisabeth |
| APELLIDO | El Refaie |
| FIRMA | EL REFAIE E |
| AFILIACIONES | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5928-9297 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 21 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 224 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2001 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Empathy as dynamic social meaning-making
This article uses 25 Think Aloud interviews to investigate the ability of patient-generated multimodal materials about endometriosis health care in the National Health Service Wales, UK, to evoke empathy in others. Critically evaluating relevant findings from several disciplines, empathy is reconceptualized as a dynamic and context-dependent form of social meaning-making. The combination of thematic analysis with a dynamic-systems approach to dis…
Becoming Buttercups
This article critically evaluates the concept of ecological empathy (or “eco-empathy”), reconceptualizing it as creative, embodied thinking that embraces paradoxes between emotion and cognition, body and mind, and the human and non-human. Drawing on cognitive linguistics, social and evolutionary psychology, and phenomenology, we argue that metaphor plays a crucial role in fostering this form of eco-empathy, by bridging emotional and cognitive und…
Drawing Out Experiential Conflict Knowledge in Myanmar
This article argues that arts-based methods such as drawing are particularly useful as means to explore experiential insights into how violent conflict impacts individuals and communities in specific sociocultural contexts and shapes their views of development and peace. It illustrates this through the discussion of a drawing workshop with members of violence-affected communities in Kachin state, Myanmar. Reflecting on the workshop findings and d…
Pictorial and spatial metaphor in the drawings of a culturally diverse group of women with fertility problems
Metaphor has been shown to be pervasive in the way people talk and write about a whole range of diseases, including infertility. Indeed, some of the most conventional of these metaphorical expressions have become so entrenched in particular discourse communities that they are used unconsciously and automatically, even by people who do not, in fact, agree with their underlying ideological implications. As the authors argue in this article, eliciti…
Stylistics and comics
Comics is rapidly developing into a scholarly discipline in its own right, with a growing output of books, journals, and conferences. Two practitioners have been crucial influences. Eisner (1985) and McCloud (1993, 2000, 2006) have done much to aid the understanding of how comics create meaning. But unsurprisingly their work does not show the rigour and systematicity of academic scholarship, and this is what we aim to provide. This chapter presen…
Scoring a goal or an own-goal against disease
Many contemporary public health campaigns use some form of metaphor. Studies into what makes this strategy effective typically focus on the ability of metaphors to attract attention and trigger conversations. Consequently, the question of how they might enhance or impede people’s understanding of the information conveyed is often overlooked. This article brings together key concepts in Conceptual Metaphor Theory with the latest findings in health…
Reconsidering “Image Metaphor” in the Light of Perceptual Simulation Theory
“Image metaphor” is defined in Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a mapping of visual structure from one entity onto another based on the mental images they evoke. It is considered an exceptional, one-off phenomenon that can be distinguished clearly from prototypical conceptual metaphors. However, according to Perceptual Simulation Theory, all language, both literal and nonliteral, is understood partially by simulating in our minds what it would be li…
Appearances and dis/dys-appearances
This article draws on phenomenological and sociological notions of the ‘lived’ body in order to develop a dynamic perspective on embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory. My main argument is that even our most basic sensorimotor experiences are more complex, fluid, and more deeply imbued with socio-cultural meanings than many metaphor scholars assume. While our conscious awareness is ordinarily directed towards the world, making our physical acti…
Looking on the Dark and Bright Side
When people speak or write about their experience of depression, a small number of metaphors often dominate their accounts. This article uses two graphic memoirs to show how comics artists may creatively transform such entrenched metaphors by drawing on the sociocultural conventions and formal properties of the medium
Heterosemiosis
This article introduces the notion of heterosemiosis to describe the overt juxtaposition of different sign systems in graphic narrative texts. Using Guibert et al.'s (2009) The Photographer as an example, I argue that heterosemiosis is typically signalled through the use of ellipsis, excess, and/or some form of metadiscourse. Heterosemiosis can be used to draw attention to the problematic nature of all representation, thereby disrupting the narra…
Transnational citizenship, dissent and the political geographies of youth
This paper brings a relational perspective to studies of citizenship beyond national borders. Analysing the responses of 16 to 19‐year‐old young people in Bradford ( UK ) to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we demonstrate the complex entanglements of young people's lives with international politics and develop a relational conceptualisation of citizenship. Departing from the scalar logics and universalising assumptions upon which many definition…
Autobiographical Comics
A troubled childhood in Iran. Living with a disability. Grieving for a dead child. Over the last forty years the comic book has become an increasingly popular way of telling personal stories of considerable complexity and depth. In Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures, Elisabeth El Refaie offers a long overdue assessment of the key conventions, formal properties, and narrative patterns of this fascinating genre. The book considers ei…
The pragmatics of humor reception
This paper uses the example of 25 young people's responses to a Daily Mail cartoon on the subject of gay marriage in order to explore the pragmatics of humor reception. The results indicate that the enjoyment of a multimodal joke depends to a large extent on the background knowledge, values and attitudes of the individual. If, for instance, a cartoon is too threatening to someone's core sense of identity, it is likely to create anger and alienati…
Visual modality versus authenticity
This article exposes some of the weaknesses of the social semiotic concept of 'visual modality' in analysing the perceived truthfulness of images, by contrasting it with the more productive notion of 'authenticity'. Using three autobiographical comics as examples, I argue that Kress and van Leeuwen's notion of modality is unable to capture adequately the complex relations that can pertain between images and reality, as it places too much emphasis…
Young people's readings of a political cartoon and the concept of multimodal literacy
This article uses young people's responses to a newspaper cartoon as a way of exploring the concept of multimodal literacy. The discussion draws on data from a study which aimed to elicit the geopolitical views of 16–19-year-olds in a multi-ethnic British city by using cartoons as a way of encouraging them to talk about their thoughts and feelings towards recent political events. We argue that, contrary to popular perceptions, political cartoons …
Multiliteracies
Using a small-scale pilot study of readers' responses to three British newspaper cartoons as an example, this article explores the ways in which readers make sense of these multimodal texts. The findings of the study, which also included interviews with the three creators of the cartoons, suggest that interpreting cartoons is a complex process that requires people to draw on a whole range of different literacies. These include a broad knowledge o…
Our purebred ethnic compatriots
Competing Discourses about Austria's Nazi Past and Racist Bomb Attacks in the 1990s
Dramatist with a Talent for Dramatisation
This article describes Elfriede Jelinek's complex relationship with the media. Although she complains bitterly about the aggressive hate campaigns which she is regularly subjected to in her native Austria, her well‐timed provocations often give the impression of a deliberate manipulation of the media. This ambivalence is reflected in Jelinek's two plays Stecken, Stab und Stangl and In den Alpen , which deal with recent catastrophic events and the…
Understanding visual metaphor
Using Austrian newspaper cartoons as examples, this article explores the ‘grammar’ of visual metaphor. It is argued that visual metaphors cannot be described adequately in formal terms only. Rather, they must be considered as visual representations of metaphorical thoughts or concepts. A cognitive definition of metaphor must not, however, distract from potential variations in meaning and impact arising from the mode of communication through which…
Metaphors we discriminate by
With specific reference to the use of metaphor in Austrian newspaper reports on the arrival of Kurdish asylum seekers in Italy in January 1998, this study suggests ways in which cognitive metaphor theory can be given a stronger socio-political dimension. The dominant metaphors portray the asylum seekers as water, as criminals, or as an invading army. The repeated use of these themes in relatively fixed lexical and syntactic forms and across all t…
Metaphors we discriminate by
With specific reference to the use of metaphor in Austrian newspaper reports on the arrival of Kurdish asylum seekers in Italy in January 1998, this study suggests ways in which cognitive metaphor theory can be given a stronger socio-political dimension. The dominant metaphors portray the asylum seekers as water, as criminals, or as an invading army. The repeated use of these themes in relatively fixed lexical and syntactic forms and across all t…
Understanding visual metaphor
Using Austrian newspaper cartoons as examples, this article explores the ‘grammar’ of visual metaphor. It is argued that visual metaphors cannot be described adequately in formal terms only. Rather, they must be considered as visual representations of metaphorical thoughts or concepts. A cognitive definition of metaphor must not, however, distract from potential variations in meaning and impact arising from the mode of communication through which…
Multiliteracies
Using a small-scale pilot study of readers' responses to three British newspaper cartoons as an example, this article explores the ways in which readers make sense of these multimodal texts. The findings of the study, which also included interviews with the three creators of the cartoons, suggest that interpreting cartoons is a complex process that requires people to draw on a whole range of different literacies. These include a broad knowledge o…
Transnational citizenship, dissent and the political geographies of youth
This paper brings a relational perspective to studies of citizenship beyond national borders. Analysing the responses of 16 to 19‐year‐old young people in Bradford ( UK ) to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we demonstrate the complex entanglements of young people's lives with international politics and develop a relational conceptualisation of citizenship. Departing from the scalar logics and universalising assumptions upon which many definition…
Our purebred ethnic compatriots
Looking on the Dark and Bright Side
When people speak or write about their experience of depression, a small number of metaphors often dominate their accounts. This article uses two graphic memoirs to show how comics artists may creatively transform such entrenched metaphors by drawing on the sociocultural conventions and formal properties of the medium
The pragmatics of humor reception
This paper uses the example of 25 young people's responses to a Daily Mail cartoon on the subject of gay marriage in order to explore the pragmatics of humor reception. The results indicate that the enjoyment of a multimodal joke depends to a large extent on the background knowledge, values and attitudes of the individual. If, for instance, a cartoon is too threatening to someone's core sense of identity, it is likely to create anger and alienati…
Young people's readings of a political cartoon and the concept of multimodal literacy
This article uses young people's responses to a newspaper cartoon as a way of exploring the concept of multimodal literacy. The discussion draws on data from a study which aimed to elicit the geopolitical views of 16–19-year-olds in a multi-ethnic British city by using cartoons as a way of encouraging them to talk about their thoughts and feelings towards recent political events. We argue that, contrary to popular perceptions, political cartoons …
Pictorial and spatial metaphor in the drawings of a culturally diverse group of women with fertility problems
Metaphor has been shown to be pervasive in the way people talk and write about a whole range of diseases, including infertility. Indeed, some of the most conventional of these metaphorical expressions have become so entrenched in particular discourse communities that they are used unconsciously and automatically, even by people who do not, in fact, agree with their underlying ideological implications. As the authors argue in this article, eliciti…
Drawing Out Experiential Conflict Knowledge in Myanmar
This article argues that arts-based methods such as drawing are particularly useful as means to explore experiential insights into how violent conflict impacts individuals and communities in specific sociocultural contexts and shapes their views of development and peace. It illustrates this through the discussion of a drawing workshop with members of violence-affected communities in Kachin state, Myanmar. Reflecting on the workshop findings and d…
Competing Discourses about Austria's Nazi Past and Racist Bomb Attacks in the 1990s
Metaphors we discriminate by
With specific reference to the use of metaphor in Austrian newspaper reports on the arrival of Kurdish asylum seekers in Italy in January 1998, this study suggests ways in which cognitive metaphor theory can be given a stronger socio-political dimension. The dominant metaphors portray the asylum seekers as water, as criminals, or as an invading army. The repeated use of these themes in relatively fixed lexical and syntactic forms and across all t…
Understanding visual metaphor
Using Austrian newspaper cartoons as examples, this article explores the ‘grammar’ of visual metaphor. It is argued that visual metaphors cannot be described adequately in formal terms only. Rather, they must be considered as visual representations of metaphorical thoughts or concepts. A cognitive definition of metaphor must not, however, distract from potential variations in meaning and impact arising from the mode of communication through which…
Competing Discourses about Austria's Nazi Past and Racist Bomb Attacks in the 1990s
Dramatist with a Talent for Dramatisation
This article describes Elfriede Jelinek's complex relationship with the media. Although she complains bitterly about the aggressive hate campaigns which she is regularly subjected to in her native Austria, her well‐timed provocations often give the impression of a deliberate manipulation of the media. This ambivalence is reflected in Jelinek's two plays Stecken, Stab und Stangl and In den Alpen , which deal with recent catastrophic events and the…
Our purebred ethnic compatriots
Multiliteracies
Using a small-scale pilot study of readers' responses to three British newspaper cartoons as an example, this article explores the ways in which readers make sense of these multimodal texts. The findings of the study, which also included interviews with the three creators of the cartoons, suggest that interpreting cartoons is a complex process that requires people to draw on a whole range of different literacies. These include a broad knowledge o…
Visual modality versus authenticity
This article exposes some of the weaknesses of the social semiotic concept of 'visual modality' in analysing the perceived truthfulness of images, by contrasting it with the more productive notion of 'authenticity'. Using three autobiographical comics as examples, I argue that Kress and van Leeuwen's notion of modality is unable to capture adequately the complex relations that can pertain between images and reality, as it places too much emphasis…
Young people's readings of a political cartoon and the concept of multimodal literacy
This article uses young people's responses to a newspaper cartoon as a way of exploring the concept of multimodal literacy. The discussion draws on data from a study which aimed to elicit the geopolitical views of 16–19-year-olds in a multi-ethnic British city by using cartoons as a way of encouraging them to talk about their thoughts and feelings towards recent political events. We argue that, contrary to popular perceptions, political cartoons …
The pragmatics of humor reception
This paper uses the example of 25 young people's responses to a Daily Mail cartoon on the subject of gay marriage in order to explore the pragmatics of humor reception. The results indicate that the enjoyment of a multimodal joke depends to a large extent on the background knowledge, values and attitudes of the individual. If, for instance, a cartoon is too threatening to someone's core sense of identity, it is likely to create anger and alienati…
Autobiographical Comics
A troubled childhood in Iran. Living with a disability. Grieving for a dead child. Over the last forty years the comic book has become an increasingly popular way of telling personal stories of considerable complexity and depth. In Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures, Elisabeth El Refaie offers a long overdue assessment of the key conventions, formal properties, and narrative patterns of this fascinating genre. The book considers ei…
Transnational citizenship, dissent and the political geographies of youth
This paper brings a relational perspective to studies of citizenship beyond national borders. Analysing the responses of 16 to 19‐year‐old young people in Bradford ( UK ) to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we demonstrate the complex entanglements of young people's lives with international politics and develop a relational conceptualisation of citizenship. Departing from the scalar logics and universalising assumptions upon which many definition…
Appearances and dis/dys-appearances
This article draws on phenomenological and sociological notions of the ‘lived’ body in order to develop a dynamic perspective on embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory. My main argument is that even our most basic sensorimotor experiences are more complex, fluid, and more deeply imbued with socio-cultural meanings than many metaphor scholars assume. While our conscious awareness is ordinarily directed towards the world, making our physical acti…
Looking on the Dark and Bright Side
When people speak or write about their experience of depression, a small number of metaphors often dominate their accounts. This article uses two graphic memoirs to show how comics artists may creatively transform such entrenched metaphors by drawing on the sociocultural conventions and formal properties of the medium
Heterosemiosis
This article introduces the notion of heterosemiosis to describe the overt juxtaposition of different sign systems in graphic narrative texts. Using Guibert et al.'s (2009) The Photographer as an example, I argue that heterosemiosis is typically signalled through the use of ellipsis, excess, and/or some form of metadiscourse. Heterosemiosis can be used to draw attention to the problematic nature of all representation, thereby disrupting the narra…
Stylistics and comics
Comics is rapidly developing into a scholarly discipline in its own right, with a growing output of books, journals, and conferences. Two practitioners have been crucial influences. Eisner (1985) and McCloud (1993, 2000, 2006) have done much to aid the understanding of how comics create meaning. But unsurprisingly their work does not show the rigour and systematicity of academic scholarship, and this is what we aim to provide. This chapter presen…
Scoring a goal or an own-goal against disease
Many contemporary public health campaigns use some form of metaphor. Studies into what makes this strategy effective typically focus on the ability of metaphors to attract attention and trigger conversations. Consequently, the question of how they might enhance or impede people’s understanding of the information conveyed is often overlooked. This article brings together key concepts in Conceptual Metaphor Theory with the latest findings in health…
Reconsidering “Image Metaphor” in the Light of Perceptual Simulation Theory
“Image metaphor” is defined in Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a mapping of visual structure from one entity onto another based on the mental images they evoke. It is considered an exceptional, one-off phenomenon that can be distinguished clearly from prototypical conceptual metaphors. However, according to Perceptual Simulation Theory, all language, both literal and nonliteral, is understood partially by simulating in our minds what it would be li…
Pictorial and spatial metaphor in the drawings of a culturally diverse group of women with fertility problems
Metaphor has been shown to be pervasive in the way people talk and write about a whole range of diseases, including infertility. Indeed, some of the most conventional of these metaphorical expressions have become so entrenched in particular discourse communities that they are used unconsciously and automatically, even by people who do not, in fact, agree with their underlying ideological implications. As the authors argue in this article, eliciti…
Drawing Out Experiential Conflict Knowledge in Myanmar
This article argues that arts-based methods such as drawing are particularly useful as means to explore experiential insights into how violent conflict impacts individuals and communities in specific sociocultural contexts and shapes their views of development and peace. It illustrates this through the discussion of a drawing workshop with members of violence-affected communities in Kachin state, Myanmar. Reflecting on the workshop findings and d…
Becoming Buttercups
This article critically evaluates the concept of ecological empathy (or “eco-empathy”), reconceptualizing it as creative, embodied thinking that embraces paradoxes between emotion and cognition, body and mind, and the human and non-human. Drawing on cognitive linguistics, social and evolutionary psychology, and phenomenology, we argue that metaphor plays a crucial role in fostering this form of eco-empathy, by bridging emotional and cognitive und…
Empathy as dynamic social meaning-making
This article uses 25 Think Aloud interviews to investigate the ability of patient-generated multimodal materials about endometriosis health care in the National Health Service Wales, UK, to evoke empathy in others. Critically evaluating relevant findings from several disciplines, empathy is reconceptualized as a dynamic and context-dependent form of social meaning-making. The combination of thematic analysis with a dynamic-systems approach to dis…
Sociology (15 obras) · Psychology (12 obras) · Art (11 obras) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (11 obras) · Digital Storytelling and Education (10 obras) · Linguistics (10 obras) · Philosophy (9 obras) · Aesthetics (8 obras) · History (8 obras) · Political science (8 obras)