University of Birmingham's Dr Caroline Tagg, who achieved fleeting notoriety a few years ago for her so-called "PhD in texting", talked about her study of the communication medium at the British University in Dubai today. As a sometimes student of linguistics, I enjoyed a few parts of the talk, such as the breakdown of the types of metonymies (e.g. substitution of effect for cause) and their relative popularity, and the effects of register on the use of metonymy. The study was comprised of just SMS texts, though; it would be interesting to see how metonymy is used in more current messaging media. I would also like to have seen a comparison between how metonymy is used in messaging compared to how it is used in phone or face-to-face conversation.
Our China interest group on Meetup.com, Dubai China Night, held its monthly dinner at Homey once again. It was my first time attending, and it was nice to make new acquaintances with the members who also attended.
I had been there once before, and was pleased to note that a lot of people shared my fondness for the red rice shrimp rolls.
I also gave the soft tofu and century egg starter a go, mainly considering that it had century egg in it. It was steeped in chili oil, which really went well with the cold soft tofu, and imparted an amazing and novel flavor to the diced century egg.
It was nice to see how many other people in Dubai are interested in Chinese culture and/or had been to China and/or could speak Chinese. I look forward to attending another one when I get the chance.
