I made a reluctant return to Hauteville House after a brief walk out of doors, knowing I was due to take up my post at Papa's bedside again. "Good morning, Papa," I said as I sat down on the straight-backed chair beside him. His lids flickered but my greeting evoked no more response than that. He lay stiff and still as a log, his eyes open but empty of expression; half-closed, they lay under his bony brow like faded blue marbles. I folded my hands in my lap and fixed my gaze on them. In a few minutes, Papa's breath slowed and deepened as he slept and I let my mind wander as it had for all the long days I had spent on watch at this bedside. For fifteen years I had been a slave to this mysterious affliction he endured, waiting, watching, while my youth drained away and my joie de vivre faded into ashes. I hated him, I hated this life, I hated this house. I was continually struck by the irony that only a slight mispronunciation of its name made it "Hateful House." But so far I had carefully masked my feelings under civility and good manners. Nothing ever seemed to change but change was about to occur. For better or worse, I couldn't predict.

Marcia Iverson is newly wed but newly widowed by a terrorist act. Grieving but still aglow with the memories of a deliriously happy honeymoon, she decides to continue the plan she and Michael shared to return to his boyhood home in a semi-rural Louisiana backwater. Having cut her ties to her apartment and brokerage job in New York City for marriage, she has nowhere else to go, nowhere to practice her profession, and no one but herself to depend on. When she finds that Michael's death has made her heir to Magnolia Manor, a rundown, nearly bankrupt motel, she applies her abilities to restoring the motel to a paying proposition, building a new family, and making new friends. Just as her plans for the Manor begin to succeed, murders on the premises complicate them. Adding the clues that she gathers to those that an attractive local lieutenant of police shares with her, she runs the risk of herself becoming a victim.

When Katharine Culhane, a successful writer of fiction and historical works, died leaving behind an unpublished memoir, her literary executor, Elizabeth Fritz, discovered the memoir and undertook to publish it. It tells a story of a young reporter in Prosperity, Indiana, in the post World War II years, and a special friendship between Katharine and a Russian emigre, Madam Anna Suvorov. Fifty years later Katharine finds a letter from Madam Anna that suggests her death may have been due to foul play. Returning to Prosperity, reconnecting with old acquaintances, and asking questions about Madam Anna's death, Katharine finds the truth and visits her own form of justice on the perpetrators.

Zima Crenshaw, a junior curator at the University Museum, is challenged to find a valuable work of art from the Renaissance era. The painting has acquired a name, Giovane (pronounced Joe-Von), and has escaped from its owner's possession under unusual circumstances. When Zima sees a photograph of it, she is captivated by the painted image. Hunting Giovane becomes an obsession. In her search she encounters intriguing personalities, mysterious relationships, violence and murder, and a risk of great personal harm. Besides a hefty finder's fee, hunting Giovane earns her unexpected rewards-reconciliation with family and a romance:

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl fur Englische Sprachwissenschaft), language: English, abstract: Every day new things happen. With modern technology, news can be distributed all over the world and faster than ever before. Additionally, the distribution of (and access to) news has become much cheaper. Consequently, the number of sources we can get information from has increased drastically throughout the last decades, as has the amount of information. In our modern information society, the mass media have come to play a decisive role. At the same time, it becomes more and more difficult to judge the reliability of the news. One of the oldest forms of mass media, which is still generally regarded as trustworthy, is the newspaper. When it comes to newspapers, people usually prefer one (or two) specific news-papers to others. Every newspaper has its own specific image which includes some characteristics that it is generally known for. If all newspapers provided all the news there is and reported it in an objective manner, this would not make much sense. Indeed, with the amount of potential "news" emerging every day and the restrictions of the medium, it is impossible to cover everything - the newspapers must choose what to include in their coverage and what not to. Similarly, it is an illusion to expect news to be reported completely objectively. One reason for this is that the medium language inherently conveys connotations and values, which makes a purely objective coverage simply impossible. But apart from this restriction, it is a well-known fact that newspapers all have their particular perspective from which they contemplate and present news. However, this is not solely the newspapers' choice. Since they are financially dependent on their readers who buy their issues, they have to do their best in order to meet their readerships' interests. Consideri

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl fur Englische Sprachwissenschaft), course: Pragmatics and Understanding, language: English, abstract: This paper will deal with the English lexical item 'now' and its German counterpart 'nun'. Its aim is to investigate what functions they can perform in spoken discourse classified as conversation, casting light on the ways they can be used to indicate discourse structures, and to work out similarities and differences between these equivalents from the two languages. This work will focus on 'now' and 'nun' as discourse markers, but will not ignore their original (propositional) meaning and - if applicable - non-propositional meanings besides their function as discourse markers. The analysis of the two items will be based on authentic material: for English, the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English will be used; the source for instances of German 'nun' will be the Freiburg Corpus (Grundstrukturen: Freiburger Korpus). This paper can only draw on parts of the corpora; consequently, the search has been restricted to two parts of the London-Lund Corpus (cf. chapter 3.1.2.) and those elements of the Freiburg Corpus labelled conversation (cf. chapter 3.2.2.). On the grounds that this material is so limited, the investigation into the different uses of 'now' and 'nun' can only be exemplary and by no means exhaustive. The paper will be structured as follows: the first part is concerned with defining the term discourse marker and classifying discourse marker functions into different types of functions, aiming at a language-independent description. The results will be used as a theoretical basis for the empirical part, which will first deal with English 'now' and then tackle 'nun'. Both of these sections will be organised in the same way: there will first be a language-specific discussion on different (discourse marker and other) f

Athena Bonham--young, beautiful, talented, and maimed-resolves bravely to face life as a cripple. Through her friendship with an attractive family, she manages to create contentment and a new career. But her fragile grip on happiness and a promise of romance is threatened when the ugly secret in her past surfaces. She doubts whether love can overcome the double stigmas of her own recent disability and disclosure of the murderous history of her mother, a secret she has managed to suppress for many years.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,0, University of Augsburg (Englische Literaturwissenschaft), course: James Joyce, language: English, abstract: This paper analyses the nighttown episode of Joyce's Ulysses through the framework of Freud's psychoanalytic understanding of dreams. Setting of from the assumption that Freud's ground-breaking claims must have found their way into the complex, allusion-laden writing of his contemporary Joyce, it works out elements in the hallucinatory "Circe" chapter that refer to Freud's theory on dreams, concentrating specifically on the portrayal of Bloom. After an overview of the central aspects of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, the structure of "Circe" will be introduced, justifying the analogy to dreams and tackling the general problem of applying psychoanalysis to literary criticism. The next chapter will take a closer look at Freud's idea of regression and enumerate elements that may be considered allusions to this in "Circe." Building on this, the final chapter will then be an attempt at a psychoanalytic reading of Bloom, also drawing upon some additional ideas from Freud's later theories.

Kate Barry, 80 years old, healthy and vigorous but subject to occasional blackout episodes, has become a resident of Whispering Pines, an assisted living facility. She faces the boring routine of her new life with some trepidation. When the police make little progress investigating the mysterious deaths of two other residents, Kate relishes conferring with her new friend Mac to exercise curiosity, discreet inquiry, and contacts with a reporter and a medical examiner and to assemble an unlikely hodgepodge of in-house gossip, surmise, and facts that points to the identity of a murderer. Kate exchanges boredom for the risk of deadly danger as their findings zero in. Police learn a lesson, namely, that old age and disability do not diminish powers of observation and logic.

Clare Verney watched from the airport's arrival lounge as the plane landed and taxied toward the terminal. Single, 42, a successful businesswoman, she was about to take on fulltime guardianship of a trio of children with a troubled past, children she had never before seen or spoken to. Her sister's children, now aged sixteen, fourteen, and four, had been born, reared, and orphaned at a mission station in Africa, shuffled off for a brief stay with a grandparent in England, and sent to live with Clare in an unremarkable Pennsylvania town. Now, seeing them standing in the open door of the plane, Clare sensed an imperceptible bond welding the trio into a compelling unity. Her mind wrestled with questions: What were they like? How would they adjust to a world they had never known? Would they accept her? What did she know about being a foster parent? How was she to cope? The next few months would test her and the children as the trio adapted to a new life. Together they would know agony when Clare's serious injury puts the fate of the youngest child in the balance.

Hope Frye is fifty-nine, homeless, jobless, and hopeless. She is about to trade a dubious future for a leap from the railing of the 18th Street bridge, when a strong hand grabs her coat collar. The hand belongs to Hank Jordan. Refusing to let Hope carry out her intentions, he offers her a job as his live-in housekeeper. On impulse Hope takes the job and from despair she starts a journey to an unknown destination. On the way she puts hopelessness behind her as her ego and self-esteem take on new life. Then violence and bloody murder erupt in the pleasant neighborhood she now calls home. A serial killer stalks her new friends and acquaintances and tries to frame Hank for his crimes. Uncertainty shakes her hard won self-confidence. Doubts and fears threaten her happiness until a dramatic conclusion ends uncertainty, and Hope learns the destination of her unexpected journey.

Laura Lee White-Hawk, 28 and without kin or close relationships, has taken leave from her job with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Now she pursues her dream of becoming a nature writer while living in a dilapidated house on a wooded peninsula of the Lake Erie shore. The property is the bequest of the woman who rescued Laura in her youth from loveless foster care and reared her to be self-sufficient and courageous in the face of challenges. Life in her new home tests her resources and resolve. An unexpected challenge enters Laura's life when David, an eleven-year-old boy fleeing a home life of abuse and neglect, beguiles her into a collaboration that is both offbeat and clandestine. Laura sympathizes with David's fierce opposition to becoming a ward of social services, and perhaps unwisely and definitely illegally harbors the boy. Soon David wins a place in Laura's heart as cook, companion, co-worker, student, and inspiration. She realizes he fills her life with special meaning. The secret comes out when David's past embroils him in a frightening and dangerous situation. Can Laura's new acquaintances and David's native courage and intelligence see them through the tough times?

Sandy Dustin copes with suddenly losing her artist's job but her beloved grandfather's unexpected death devastates her. When she learns that she's inherited an island estate and fortune, a stunned Sandy sets out to investigate the family that she never really knew. Sandy hires an architect to help restore the family mansion, and slowly the architect and island crew turn into a family for the lonely young heiress.

After Sandy hires the handsome Palmer Kern as her financial advisor, their relationship begins to warm to something more than friendship. Posed on the brink of love, Sandy enjoys a magical Christmas Eve with her new friends on the island.

But Christmas morning brings the discovery of a bizarre killing, and with it questions about hidden identities, past indiscretions, and present motives. Will the island be Sandy's paradise, or her nightmare?

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2009 im Fachbereich Romanistik - Spanische Sprache, Literatur, Landeskunde, Note: 1,0, Universitat Augsburg, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Ven a la isla tranquila - Ferien auf der Insel der Ruhe: So lautet die jeweilige Uber-schrift in einer spanischen Tourismusbroschure und ihrer deutschen Uber-setzung. Liest man beide Texte unabhangig voneinander, so wird einem kaum etwas auffallen; beide Formulierungen konnen in einem spanischen bzw. deut-schen Werbetext pro-blemlos vor-kom-men und als vollig unauffallige Wortwahl beurteilt werden. Werden sie jedoch direkt nebeneinandergestellt, zeigt sich, dass es sich hier keineswegs eine direkte wortliche Ubersetzung handelt; die beiden Konstruk-tionen sind grundlegend ver-schieden. Trotz unterschiedlicher Form konnen beide Uberschriften inner-halb ihrer Texte zur intendierten Wirkung beitragen und fuhren damit eine ver-gleichbare Funktion aus. Wie konnen also diese formalen Unterschiede gerechtfertigt werden und in einen grosseren Kontext gebracht werden? Wahrend in der Ubersetzungs-wissenschaft lange Zeit der Vergleich von Original und seiner Ubersetzung in Hinsicht auf die formale Art der Entsprechung auf den unteren Ebenen des Sprachsystems (d.h. Wort-, Phrasen- und Satz-ebene) im Vordergrund standen, liegt das Augenmerk in den neueren Ansatzen vermehrt auf der Textebene und dem funktionalen Aspekt (vgl. Chesterman 2004: 94), und oft wird als Ziel einer gelungenen Ubersetzung nicht mehr eine formale Entsprechung einzelner Worter oder Phrasen gefordert, sondern eine Aquiva-lenz auf funktionaler Ebene. Mit dieser Verschiebung einhergehend gewinnen text-linguistische Uberlegungen fur die Ubersetzungs-wissenschaft an Bedeutung; vor allem das Konzept der Textsorten wird insofern wichtig, als jeder Text als Reprasentant einer bestimmten Textsorte gesehen werden muss und als solcher in seinem Kontext rezipiert wird. Diese Textsorten sind geschichtlich gewachsen und dadurch naturlich zu einem gewissen Gra