This research investigates the nature of phatic communion in instant messaging interactions. It adopts and expands Jakobson’s much-quoted definition according to which ‘phatic’ is the language in an interaction whose primary purpose is to maintain contact between the speakers. Adapting conversation analysis for the study of textual interactions, the research observes the linguistic means used by interlocutors to signal attention, interest, and agreement – these being identified as important constituents of contact. The corpus comprises 60 chats, collected from 20 participants (...) who chat in a mixture of English and Indian languages such as Marathi and Hindi. Openings, middles, and closings of these interactions are analyzed to study the ways in which participants establish, maintain, and terminate contact. The use of various linguistic means in these interactions such as back-channels, evaluations, expressives, and questions draws attention to a significant amount of interactional work done by interlocutors towards maintaining contact. (shrink)

This article argues that an adequately historicized and politicized understanding of the women's movement in Nepal (or elsewhere) requires a detailed examination of the construction of the gendered subject herself in the complex geo-political space of the emergent (Nepali) nation state. In turn, this unravelling of the gendered subject in Nepal serves to reinforce the premise that the representation of ‘the Nepali Woman’ as a single over-arching category is a contemporary construction, which has been achieved at the expense of consistently (...) effacing the historically prior multiple and contested ethnic/caste identities taken by thrust upon women in what is now the new Nepal. The ‘natural’ goal of the women's movement since post-1990 Nepal to achieve a (single) feminist agenda has become part of the problem, as it can only be achieved at the expense of respecting the radical diversity and difference that is covered over by the ‘theoretical fiction’ of the unified nation of Nepal. The main important players, whether it be the women from mainstream political parties, or the women of the NGO world or the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), have all contributed to excluding and silencing radical diversity in the name of expediency and elite power brokering. Moreover, it is argued that the contours of this composite discourse continue to be shaped by the international aid industry in Nepal, where ‘development’ is not merely the epistemic link between Nepal and the ‘West’, it is also the locus classicus of generic apolitical consciousness-less Nepali woman whose cause is taken up by scholar and activist alike. (shrink)

Study on philosophical and educational theories of Yogavāsiṣṭha, Hindu philosophical treatise.

Festschrift in honor of Pushpendra Kumar, b. 1936, Sanskritist; comprises research papers on Vedic literature and philosophy and language.

What Nepalese village or plot of land does not have a sacred tree or grove? The altar devoted to the earth gods is often the only collective shrine in a locality. Usually it is a natural site on the outskirts of the village, combining rocks and trees, and sometimes wooden shapes instead of rocks. It can also be associated with a cavity or hole in the earth. Thus among the Tamang of West Nepal: “The site of worship, which is (...) known by the Nepalese term bhumithan, is located on a sharp incline overhanging the village; it is set up in a small sheltered area in the rock and divided into two areas by a raised flat stone.” Furthermore, we might add B. Pignède's description of the sanctuary as one finds it among the Gurung on the southern side of the Annapurna: “Three walls of rock hold up a little roof of flagstones, the facade being open to the outside. The wall at the back is cut by a large tree that covers the whole area with its shade, with the tree and rock forming a single mass … Three raised rocks, the top of which is crudely rounded, are placed on a kind of tier. In the left corner is a little stone statue of a four-footed animal … Finally, on the outside, in front of the sanctuary's open facade, a wooden post is set up … The ensemble of the sanctuary includes a mixture of Indo-Nepalese and local elements.”. (shrink)

This volum includes 37 papers of mathematics or applied mathematics written by the author alone or in collaboration with the following co-authors: Cătălin Barbu, Mihály Bencze, Octavian Cira, Marian Niţu, Ion Pătraşcu, Mircea E. Şelariu, Rajan Alex, Xingsen Li, Tudor Păroiu, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Yingjie Tian, Mohd Anasri, Lucian Căpitanu, Valeri Kroumov, Kimihiro Okuyama, Gabriela Tonţ, A. A. Adewara, Manoj K. Chaudhary, Mukesh Kumar, Sachin Malik, Alka Mittal, Neetish Sharma, Rakesh K. Shukla, Ashish K. Singh, Jayant Singh, (...) Rajesh Singh, V.V. Singh, Hansraj Yadav, Amit Bhaghel, Dipti Chauhan, V. Christianto, Priti Singh, and Dmitri Rabounski. (shrink)