Browsing by Subject "Switzerland"
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Item Grammatical variation in standard German, 1900-1999 : a contrastive corpus-linguistic study of Germany and Switzerland(2017-08) Fingerhuth, Christian Matthias; Pierce, Marc; Hinrichs, Lars; Hess, Peter; Elspaß, Stephan; Boas, Hans C.This study examines the development of grammatical variation in German and Swiss Standard German during the 20th century in the framework of German as a pluricentric language, i.e. as a language with multiple regional or national standard varieties. Starting from features seen as specific for Swiss Standard German at the beginning of the 21st century, it traces the development of these features back to the beginning of the 20th century using written corpora of Standard German. The dissertation builds on a review of the history of the concept of and research on German as a pluricentric language, as well as a discussion of the concept of standard language. It then focuses on diglossia in German-speaking Switzerland, i.e. the contextspecific use of dialect and standard language, with a focus on the 20th century, and discusses the relevance of language in the construction of Swiss identity. Subsequently, the composition of the corpora used is discussed. In this context, the relevance of the use of different text types is discussed. The following analysis draws the following conclusions: (1) The data show no uniform development across the features investigated. (2) The Swiss corpus appears toshow more variation than the German corpus. (3) It is an exception that forms that are only used rarely in Switzerland in the beginning of the 20th century become dominant over the course of the 20th century. (4) Text type appears not to influence the use of variants in the Swiss corpus. The findings add to previous research and complicate the understanding of the development of variation in Standard German. In numerous instances, Swiss Standard German appears already distinct from German Standard German at the beginning of the 20th century. Comparison with recent studies further raises theoretical questions on the conception of standard language that may have consequences for future corpus designItem Impact of meteoric fluid flow on the thermal evolution of Alpine exhumation : insights from the Gotthard Base Tunnel, Switzerland(2016-05) Arnost, Daniel Ryan; Stockli, Daniel F.; Ketcham, Richard; Hesse, MarcThe Gotthard Base Tunnel provides a unique window into the subsurface of the Swiss Alps and into the complex thermal evolution of the Gotthard massif. The 58 km tunnel trends roughly N-S and provides an orogen perpendicular cross section through the backbone of the Swiss Alps - the Aar and Gotthard massifs and parts of the Lepontine Dome. In the tunnel, the measured rock temperatures increase from 11°C at the north entrance to a maximum of 42°C in the tunnel where overburden exceeds 2300 meters. The observed temperature profile shows negative anomalies underneath major valleys (e.g., Upper Rhine) and directly mimics the topography, with high temperatures under peaks. Not correlated with topography, a marked 15°C negative temperature anomaly exists 35 km south of the Erstfeld portal centered around the Piora Zone syncline and related aquifer. The Piora Zone is a syncline comprised of a deformed and kartsified, porous Triassic dolomite that is infolded into the gneissic basement of the Gotthard massif. This water infiltration zone forms a conduit that funnels meteoric water deep into the massif. The water flow cooled the syncline and adjacent bedrock, creating an advective thermal regime and a pronounced local negative temperature anomaly. The interplay of uplift and erosion conductive heat loss, and radiogenic heat production, along with the coupled effect of topography and meteoric fluids can influence near surface geothermal gradients and therefore, apatite (U-Th)/He cooling histories. Numerical modeling demonstrates that the Piora thermal anomaly is in dynamic equilibrium and thus older than 50 kyr. (U-Th)/He low temperature thermochronometry was employed to examine both the regional cooling history of the Gotthard massif and the age of the fluid-induced thermal anomaly. High-density sampling across the Piora syncline from tunnel and surface transects allows for a comprehensive reconstruction of the Alpine exhumation and cooling history since 12 Ma. Apatite (U-Th)/He ages from along the Gotthard base tunnel show reproducible background cooling ages of ~ 2.5 Ma that increase to ~ 5.5 Ma in the Piora Zone, recording dramatic isotherm depression due to meteoric fluid infiltration. Zircon (U-Th)/He ages from the tunnel and surface (~8.0-10.0 Ma) show rapid cooling related to exhumation of the Alpine External Massifs. In addition, 1-D and 2-D thermal modeling was used to determine the topology of the AHe partial retention zone and its deflection due meteoric fluid flow consistent with the (U-Th)/He data. Inverse thermal modeling quantifies both the Alpine exhumation and the thermal history of the Piora Zone. The results show that the Piora anomaly is at least 5.5 Ma old, but cannot be older than ~8 Ma. These results point to late Miocene onset of fluid infiltration in the Piora Zone that is likely driven by the exhumation and uplift of the External Massifs and response to increase in relief and regional hydrologic head, but predates the onset of Alpine glaciation. This case study demonstrates the power of low-temperature thermochronometry in examining the interface between endogenic and exogenic thermo-tectonic processes and forcing factors.Item “It is ‘force majeure’” : the abrupt boycott movements of the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympic Games(2017-05-05) Schelfhout, Sam Thomas; Hunt, Thomas M.Why do countries boycott the Olympic Games? The nature of boycott movements in the Olympic Games has been covered extensively in academic literature, and scholars rely on a limited set of cases to determine how and why these boycotts occur. The 1956 Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, experienced a flurry of boycotts from delegations from seven different countries in the weeks leading up to the opening ceremonies, resulting in a scramble by the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) to ask each delegation to reconsider. In his first Summer Olympic Games as the president of the I.O.C., Avery Brundage was immediately thrust into the troubling relationship between politics and sport with the outbreak of two major conflicts, the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution. In addition, the problem of the “Two Chinas” had affected the delegations from Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, continuing the issue of Chinese representation leading up to the Games in Melbourne. This paper uses a combination of archival research and discourse analysis to analyze the motivations and reasoning of each of the delegations that expressed desire to boycott the 1956 Summer Olympic Games. Primary source material was taken from the Avery Brundage Collection, which includes correspondence, minutes, reports, photographs, clippings, scrapbooks, artifacts, certificates, awards, honors, publications concerning Brundage’s service during his tenure as the president of the I.O.C. Newspaper articles and Associated Press reports are also included, which provide first-hand accounts of the events that transpired before, during and after the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympic Games. This paper ultimately argues that while political motivations provided a plausible excuse for abstaining from attending the Games, underlying reasons ranging from transportation to financial issues were the main deterrent for countries choosing to withdraw their teams from participating. Given that the 1956 Summer Olympic Games were the first to be held outside of Europe, delegations struggled sending a full team to Melbourne to compete due to financial constraints. Using the specter of international conflict to shroud their true intentions of attending, the countries of Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq each abstained from attending the Games.Item Letter from Alfred R. Bellinger to Emmett L. Bennett Jr., February 01, 1953(1953-02-01) Bellinger, Alfred R.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Anne Phillips on 1957-10-15(1957-10-15) Phillips, AnneItem Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Mary Grace Adkins on 1957-09-08(1957-09-08) Adkins, Mary GraceItem Letter to Keith Young from H.B. Stenzel on 1969-12-03(1969-12-03) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to Rolf F. Rutsch from H.B. Stenzel on 1961-12-26(1961-12-26) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Letter to W.E. White from H.B. Stenzel on 1944-08-15(1944-08-15) Stenzel, Henryk B.Item Why is Switzerland so Successful?(2021-01-26) Narahari, Ankita