In this study, we explore how direct speech is portrayed in English and Spanish Speech Framing Expressions (SFEs). The study has two aims. Firstly, we survey the use of verbs in SFEs and offer a comprehensive inventory of those verbs in English and Spanish as representatives of Germanic and Romance languages respectively in order to determine what verb meanings are used to cue direct speech, what lexical resources express these meanings, and how rich and varied these vocabularies are in the two languages. Secondly, the comparisons across the languages provide the basis for a theoretical contribution to the debate about general typological differences in the semantics and lexicalization patterns of verbs in Germanic and Romance languages to the area of verbs for speech and to meaning modelling in general. Five main semantic categories of verbs were identified: speech, activity, perception, cognition and emotion. We show that Spanish features a much more varied repertoire than English and makes more use of verbs related to the domains of thinking and reasoning, while the physical domain is the preferred one in the English data set. It emerges that even though the same types of lexical resources are available in both languages, the ways of describing direct speech vary greatly.

Benedetto Croce’s description of fascism as ‘a moral illness of our time’ provides a useful starting point for thinking about the phenomenon of cine-revisionismo storiografico and the representation of Fascism and fascists in Italian cinema. In many films from the post-war period and beyond, the metaphor of moral illness is literalised in portrayals of fascist characters who are shown as mentally or physically sick or disabled (often confusing the two), in contrast to the otherwise healthy and wholesome body of Italians. Addressing the conflation of physical and moral impairment in three 1960 films that grapple with the memory of Italy’s Fascist past – Roberto Rossellini’s Era notte a Roma (Escape by Night), Carlo Lizzani’s Il gobbo (The Hunchback of Rome), and Florestano Vancini’s La lunga notte del ’43 (It Happened in ’43) – this article argues that in these films, bodies that do not conform to an able-bodied male norm function as lieux de mémoire that permit both the expression and containment of painful memories of the Fascist period.

Through a discussion of Susanna Nichiarelli’s La scoperta dell’alba (The Discovery of Dawn, 2012), the article contends that historical films that do not centre their narratives around the homosocial and heterosexual male-quest, even if employing a conventional cinematic style, allow us to rethink national histories, trauma and contested memories, as they shift the focus to female subjectivities that are often marginalised in Italian historical films. Specifically, the discussion of Nichiarelli’s La scoperta dell’alba focuses on the complex role of victims in interpreting the legacy of the anni di piombo and on the processes through which the interplay between mourning and melancholia fosters the emotional agency that is necessary for dealing constructively with the experience of loss.

This essay analyses the evolution of the Holocaust film genre in Italy through the paradigm of sacrifice, understood both as a process of martyrisation and Christianisation of the Holocaust, and from the point of view of the instrumental use of the figure of the national hero. Using the examples of the opening sequence of the deicide and the metaphorical crucifixion of Matteo Blumenthal at the end of L’ebreo errante (The Wandering Jew, Goffredo Alessandrini, 1948); the sacrifice of Giulia in L’oro di Roma (The Gold of Rome, Carlo Lizzani, 1961), who follows her Jewish nature faced with the round-up of 16 October 1943 – the same fate suffered by Edith, the Parisian Jew in Kapò (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1959); and the self-inflicted death of Guido, the narrative device used to justify the survival of the son in La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni, 1997), this contribution will focus on the definition of the Christianised topos of sacrifice, connected to the conception and general use of the term ‘Holocaust’. The overall thesis, running through the analysis of these four films, is that the paradigm has contributed significantly to the creation of a context of conflicting memories, influencing therefore the formation of the religious, cultural, political or national identities that have been involved historically in the public and private memory of the Holocaust.

The Arctic Circle Assembly has established itself as a forum for stakeholders from all around the globe to discuss Arctic affairs. This includes discussion about the future of the Arctic, impacts of climate change on local inhabitants and indigenous peoples, the natural environment and wildlife, geopolitical issues, international treaties, research projects, business-related risks and opportunities, etc. At this international conference, the interests of stakeholders vary greatly. Some want to reap the economic and strategic benefits of melting glacial and sea ice, while others want to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. It is therefore important to analyse the conference discourse in order to understand the main emphases of stakeholders, and if some express their views more loudly than others. Through greater weight of voice in the Assembly and beyond, some stakeholders have more impact on the development of a region that is of economic, geopolitical and environmental importance, not only for the northern hemisphere but globally.

In the context of unanswered questions about the nature and development of the Late Neolithic in Orkney, we present a summary of research up to 2015 on the major site at the Ness of Brodgar, Mainland Orkney, concentrating on the impressive buildings. Finding sufficient samples for radiocarbon dating was a considerable challenge. There are indications, from both features and finds, of activity pre-dating the main set of buildings exposed so far by excavation. Forty-six dates on thirty-nine samples are presented and are interpreted in a formal chronological framework. Two models are presented, reflecting different possible readings of the sequence. Both indicate that piered architecture was in use by the thirtieth century cal bc and that the massive Structure 10, not the first building in the sequence, was also in existence by the thirtieth century cal bc. Activity associated with piered architecture came to an end (in Model 2) around 2800 cal bc. Midden and rubble infill followed. After an appreciable interval, the hearth at the centre of Structure 10 was last used around 2500 cal bc, perhaps the only activity in an otherwise abandoned site. The remains of some 400 or more cattle were deposited over the ruins of Structure 10: in Model 2, in the mid-twenty-fifth century cal bc, but in Model 1 in the late twenty-fourth or twenty-third century cal bc. The chronologies invite comparison with the near-neighbour of Barnhouse, in use from the later thirty-second to the earlier twenty-ninth century cal bc, and the Stones of Stenness, probably erected by the thirtieth century cal bc. The Ness, including Structure 10, appears to have outlasted Barnhouse, but probably did not endure as long in its primary form as previously envisaged. The decay and decommissioning of the Ness may have coincided with the further development of the sacred landscape around it; but precise chronologies for other sites in the surrounding landscape are urgently required. The spectacular feasting remains of several hundred cattle deposited above Structure 10 may belong to a radically changing world, coinciding (in Model 2) with the appearance of Beakers nationally, but it was arguably the, by now, mythic status of that building which drew people back to it.

This article highlights the paucity of musicological scholarship on street music in the nineteenth century but examines narratives of noise, music and morality that are situated in studies of street music in related literature. The article argues that a new history of street music in the nineteenth century is overdue and charts ways in which such studies may be undertaken given the substantial primary source material to work with and the proliferation and usefulness of theoretical studies in related disciplines.