This chapter uses reflection on the author's involvement in the movement known as 'language through literature' or 'pedagogical stylistics' as a way into describing how the field emerged, its relations with different theoretical positions in English Language Teaching (ELT), and its main achievements as regards syllabus reform and methodological innovation. Arguments now made in favour of incorporating the study of literary texts into second-language (L2) English programmes are assessed, as well as some arguments commonly made against. The chapter concludes by identifying present and future challenges, ranging from specifics of course design and pedagogy through to a need to respond to the political imperative of vocational relevance in nearly all fields of education. Each kind of issue, the chapter argues, must be a concern for teachers and others who believe that both a cultural and a professional dimension in English language education are essential, if linguistics is to be 'applied' in socially relevant ways.
This study starts from the assumption that intercultural training with literary texts should have a clearly defined position in foreign language teaching and learning, and that this could facilitate the deconstruction of orientalist perspectives in contemporary political and media discourse. However, the marginalisation of intercultural objectives, methodology and methods in curricula, teacher training and course books that themselves reveal orientalist features demonstrate a long-lasting practical negligence in an area that has been at the forefront of foreign language research in the last two decades. In the short and medium term, this enormous gap between theory and practice could partially be addressed by replacing inadequate sections in course books with literary work, using texts such as The Persian Dinner that have been successfully brought into a foreign language environment at Higher Education level in Cambridge. However, intercultural training in other subject areas than foreign languages will have to support this temporary solution until substantially revised curricula and teacher training programmes start guiding authors and publishers to develop more adequate teaching and learning material.
The article analyses the function of titles in a selection of colonial and postcolonial novels in English. By availing herself of the theoretical premises of Jerrold Levinson, John Fisher and S.J. Wilsmore, the author argues that the hermeneutical purpose of titling has in postcolonial literature both an aesthetic impact and a political connotation. In this light, the title becomes a vector of specific postcolonial issues inherent in the text, and denounced by it, by means of which the writer takes a specific position in relation to imperialist ideologies and dominant modes of representation. In such a context, the aesthetic value of the postcolonial text is in the political message it transmits, and the title indeed contributes to strengthen or to focalize the meaning and resonance of this message. Some significant titles of works produced in different geographical contexts and historical periods (Heart of Darkness, A Passage to India, Things Fall Apart, My Place, Where We Once Belonged, Foe, The Lonely Londoners, The Emigrants, Brick Lane, N-W) are examined as representative of a typically postcolonial coincidence of poetic value/political message and they are considered in the light of different levinsonian categories like "undermining titles", "reinforcing titles", "focusing titles", "allusive titles".
This article is voted to the analysis of linguistic mechanisms of euphemisms and alternative methods of transmission of lexical units which has a negative denotation based on contemporary Spanish literary texts by Lorenzo Silva Donde los escorpiones and Lejos del corazón. The author proves that in those texts dominate thematic groups of euphemisms which designate age and property discrimination, also there are euphemisms related to death phenomenon, in particular are discussed the euphemisms from military sphere, which designate preventive measures, armed defense and military police. Among the alternative methods on the semantic level are used the notion of positive politeness based on conditional clauses, adopted vocabulary from English, Latin, French, Italian languages and metaphorical expressions which are aimed at neutralization of enemies and military conflicts including metonymy substitution which contain the shade of formality in the texts.
At a time when the tendency is to embrace immediacy and the easy path, the reading of literary texts from different periods, genres and countries becomes an essential activity for gaining linguistic, cultural, historical and world knowledge. Literature, as a complex phenomenon, enables the dialogue between the contemporary reader and the generations that preceded him/her, contributing towards the discovery and interpretation of differences and continuities. The acquisition of a particular semiotic baggage that comes from the reading of literary texts, as well as the ability to question oneself and to intervene in the real world, enhance a reader-text dialogic interaction, which is capable of generating important educational effects. Thus, its relevance to the training of autonomous, competent and critical readers stands out. In light of the above, using as a theoretical framework the Portuguese government guidelines relating to literary education - the National Reading Panel, the Curriculum of Portuguese language for Primary and Middle School Education and the Common Core State Standards for Portuguese - we selected a total of eight textbooks of Portuguese – six for primary school education and two for the first two years of middle school –, by five different publishing houses, and we examined their literary texts, bearing in mind that the work developed in class is strongly influenced by their availability in textbooks. In this paper, we aim to: i) present and discuss the outcomes of our study, by shedding light on the main characteristics of literary texts included in textbooks of Portuguese and their impact on literacy practices; ii) investigate the importance and diversity of the texts included in the textbooks analysed, highlighting the ways in which they might contribute towards the training of autonomous and critical readers. The main results of our research are (1) a great difference in regards to the texts available in textbooks prior to the government guidelines outlined above, prevailing recent narrative texts by authors representing different quadrants of the Lusophone world, and (2) a lack of diversity in literary forms, cultural contexts and time frame, a diversity that we find necessary for the development of lifelong reading habits. ; Center for Studies in Education, Technologies and Health (CI&DETS). APEL - Associação Portuguesa de Editores e Livreiros.
While the importance of translation in the postmodern globalized world should be self-evident, the act of translation calls for a unique talent. Translation is best described as a phenomenological act in which a translator seeks to enter the mind of the original author and translates on the basis of equivalence, with as little change to the original as possible. It calls for a certain historical sense and knowledge of linguistic transformation happening over a period of time. My research shows that of all the considerations, a translation is, broadly speaking, a three-pronged strategy, being linguistic, cultural and political act at the same time. My paper takes up case studies of translations into English of some native languge/dialects texts and analyses them from the aforesaid angles, bringing out the benefits and underlining the pitfalls on the way.
This study explores the translation of cultural-specific terms in the literary text as the translation process connects cultural differences between the source and target languages. Using Eco's notion of "translation as negotiation"; Bassnett's "translators as a mediator of cultures", and Newmark's cultural categorizations of terms as the framework and this qualitative study analyzed two Indonesian versions of the novel The Secret Garden by Francess Hodgson Burnett (1911). The first translated version was published in 2010 under the title "Taman Rahasia", whereas the second translated version was published in 2020 under the same title as the original version. This study has shown the complexity in closing the cultural gap between the source text and target text. As the impact, both translators used different forms of negotiation to accommodate readers' expectations and to functionally create optimal target texts in the target culture, which differentiate into five categories (i.e., ecological, material culture; social culture, social, politic, and administrative organizations; and gestures and habits).
This paper analyzes the use of non-literary elements (pictures, erasure method, and jumbled word formatting) in three texts. It argues that the intention of using unconventional writing styles is a method of responding to modern politics and warfare. The paper explores how non-literary elements capture abstract contemporary concepts.
The representation of fat female bodies is a highly contested and fundamentally political activity through which a number of gendered discourses are inscribed on and perpetuated through the construction of fat female corporeality. Fat still tends to be regarded as an aberrational deviation from the "normal" female body with fat women being relegated to the margins of critiques of how women are represented in popular culture discourses. Yet the fear of fat works as effectively in disciplining women as actual fat does. Far from being a niche area of women's lived experience, fat phobia works to shape the reality of all women in ways that are profoundly gendered. This article will utilise the theoretical rubric of Fat Studies to explore selected literary texts that offer very positive representations of fat female bodies. If all representation is inherently political, the positive representation of fat women, unfortunately, still continues to constitute a radical political act. I will show how, even as these authors portray fat women in a positive light, they always situate their bodies within socio-cultural spaces in which systemic fat phobia prevails. This article will thus demonstrate both the possibility of positive representation and the ubiquitous nature of the forces that challenge such representations. The novels I will explore are Big Bones by Laura Dockrill (2018), 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad (2016) and Dietland by Sarai Walker (2015). Opsomming Die uitbeelding van vet vroulike lywe is 'n hoogs omstrede en fundamenteel politiese aktiwiteit waardeur verskeie gendered diskoerse ingeprent word op en in stand gehou word deur die konstruksie van vet vroulike lyflikheid. Vet word steeds beskou as 'n afwyking van die "normale" vroulike lyf en vet vroue word uitgeskuif tot die kantlyne van kritiek oor hoe vroue uitgebeeld word in gewilde kulturele diskoerse. Tog werk die vrees vir vet so effektief om vroue te dissiplineer soos werklike vet. Hierdie is nie 'n nishoekie van vroue se daaglikse ...
Identity is a very complex structure. There are many aspects of identity and those start to form and develop in early childhood This study explores specific age-related characteristics of children which influence the forming and shaping of different layers of identity and points out the important role that legislature and various social environment factors have in this process. Special attention is dedicated to the positive influence that preschool teachers and institutions have and to a range of possibilities that literary texts offer in this whole process. Concrete examples illustrate how complex semantic structure of a literary text can initiate conversation about different layers of identity. The advantages of this kind of work are numerous and are reflected in the fact that the development and the strengthening of the identity is approached from an integrative standpoint, given the fact that we are simultaneously working on children's speech development through reading activities and literary text analysis. The main implication of this study is 1) the need for conducting future research with the aim of identifying literary texts which, apart from their aesthetic quality, also possess semantic potential as a tool for learning about identity and 2) further work on strengthening the competences of preschool teachers so that they can integrate activities directed towards development of the child's identity in all the areas of their educational activities within preschool institutions and carrying them out with continuity.
"Managing the (Post)Colonial" investigates a range of literary texts - from American newspaper articles to Philippine state-sponsored poetry - which circulated just before and during the Philippine Commonwealth period (1934 -1946), when the islands were neither an official U.S. colony nor an independent nation. I argue therefore that the Commonwealth period was an ambiguous and contradictory political moment which I signify through the parenthetical use of "post" in "(post)colonial." I thus call into question whether or not an entire nation and its subjects could be simultaneously colonial and yet not, for it is at the moment of seeming official separation from the U.S. that political, economic, cultural and social policies actually ensured U.S. hegemony under the guise of independence. Ultimately, I analyze cultural and literary texts of the period to show how sexualized and gendered representations of the Filipino subject were not only utilized in an attempt to reconcile this contradiction of the Commonwealth, but also to imagine alternative nationalisms and forms of social emancipation. In the first chapter, I focus on the patriarchal formulation of benevolent assimilation and on American journalist Katherine Mayo's 1925 book Islands of Fear. I argue that Mayo discursively enabled her own access to the masculine realm of imperial power by positing a theory of Anglo- Saxon racial superiority meant to overwrite the patriarchal hierarchy between genders. This chapter demonstrates the mutually constitutive yet simultaneously contradictory nature of the imperial systems of racialization, sexualization and gendering. I trace the lines of this argument further in the second chapter as I investigate the 1940 Commonwealth Literary Awards. As the formal structure of an independent nation was established, state-sanctioned cultural projects such as the Awards not only obfuscated but also enabled the persisting economic and political ties between the islands and the U.S. Such projects did so by cultivating a canon of Philippine writing in English that posited normative masculinist nationalism as the telos of American democratic tutelage. In the third chapter I focus on what I term the hypersexualization of Philippine independence and the (im)possibilities of queer moments of desire in Carlos Bulosan's prose and Josè Garcia Villa's poetry - the impossibility of asserting a normative Filipino American subject and the possibility of imagining an America that is in the heart. Focusing on the queer moments in Bulosan and Villa's texts, I trace how the relationships between race, gender and sexuality are not only inundated with power but are also productively contradictory, allowing one access to spaces and acts of freedom
The present article deals with the means of expressing subjective modality of any literary text inthe process of studying a foreign language. The method of text analyzing and interpreting in order toevaluate and to mark the idea of the author is the main purpose of the scientific paper. The original versionof the antiwar pamphlet "The Conduct of the Allies and of the Late Ministry in Beginning and Carrying on the Present War" written by Jonathan Swift, an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist and political pamphleteer, is the major source that the research has been conducted on. ; Данная статья рассматривает средства выражения субъективной модальности художествен-ного произведения на иностранном языке. Центральное место в статье отводится методике ана-лиза художественного текста на предмет определения оценочного аспекта. Для предлагаемой ме-тодики оценки и интерпретации текста основополагающими являются два фактора: смысловойили синтаксический рисунок текста и отношение автора произведения к излагаемому материалу.Посредством вышеназванных факторов, автор художественного произведения прибегает к опре-деленным языковым средствам, передающим смысл текста и воздействующим определеннымобразом на читателя. Материалом данного исследования послужил оригинал антивоенного пам-флета англо-ирландского писателя-сатирика и публициста XVII–XVIII веков Джонатана Свифта«Поведение союзников и министерства в настоящей войне».
The book is the study of literary texts and films seen as the manifestations of the Congolese consciousness and a response to the colonial discourse of denial, deletion and co-optation. It is a historical and ideological account of how writers and filmmakers have conceptualized the DRC or Zaire as a space supposedly out of a chaotic mode in need of domestication. Extending back to the precolonial times, it studies the epistemic foundations that underlie literary writings at various historical periods: an area to discover, to evangelize to exploit and to civilize. At the same time, the book addresses the problematic issue of nation-building and national identity that has dominated Postcolonial discourses in the last two decades. It examines postulations of national consciousness formation as a sedimentation drawn from various elements of which the result is a new cultural and political space. In studying literary texts and films, it identifies elements of national identity (political discourse, education system, history, ethnic identification) consciously or unconsciously articulated in the claims of commonality. The book highlights three factors of great importance that paved the way to a national discourse. First, the African hinterland has always proved an impenetrable entity to the outside eye. As a consequence, the hinterland came to be associated with three main characteristics (no man's land, threat to human reason, chaos) descriptive of an unfathomable abyss that swallow's life. Secondly, the heart of darkness allegory has acquired a metonymic value on which pronouncements on the Congo, however outrageous, find their foundation. Thirdly, contrary to most literary accounts (Kadima-Nzuji, Ngandu Nkashama, Riva), the book delves into the study of colonial and exotic literatures as historical steps toward the rise of modern Congolese literature. It also looks at the role orality has played in modern Congolese literature and at on the way the consciousness of belonging to the nation has been expressed by mainstream writers (V. Y. Mudimbe, Ngandu Nkashama, Ngal). Finally, it examines the ideological and historical elements of identity construction by Congolese filmmakers (Ngangura, Balufu Kanyinka and Raoul Peck) in their works as instances of agency. The book ends with questions related to recent Congolese writers influenced by conditions of globalization, location and exile. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1229/thumbnail.jpg
Language and literature are two inseparable subjects, one of which cannot be fully functional with the absence of the second part. This article shows the dysfunction of semantics in Harold Pinter's Mountain Language. For many years, scholars and linguists work separately on different cases regarding literary texts or linguistics obstacles. From this paper, a new path will be saved for future references and works to bring both cases together and show their roles on one another. Moreover, literary works pay less attention to grammatical rules and plenty of dysfunctional languages can be examined and seen. In addition, several external factors can be the obstacle of using functional and accurate language use semantically and systematically. Moreover, political or social violence have become major points in many literary topics in the modern era. This study deals with theoretical aspects of society starting from family up to community and government. Additionally, the absence of semantics in the language of this drama is not neglected arbitrarily; whilst, there is a loop of violence. There are some basic theories related to the topic that this paper will examine. It includes the theory of Grice's maxims (Gricean maxims) and the role of semantics when it comes to politics and power. Finally, the paper alienates all the curtains and shows the role of power, gender differences, class status, and diversity on language use in many areas.
Balancing long-overlooked and well-known works, Same-Sex Desire in Early Modern England, 1550-1735: An Anthology of Literary Texts and Contexts and its Online Companion comprise a collection of English texts about homoerotic love, relationships, desires, and sexual acts. The anthology's core texts are selections from drama, fiction, romance, poetry, essays and translations. These core texts are carefully introduced and annotated, and supplemented with illuminating contextual material from other early modern disciplines such as law, medicine, and theology. Juxtaposing literary and non-literary representations of same-sex erotic desire, this anthology explores a rich tradition of works both celebrating and condemning same-sex erotic love. The Online Companion provides additional texts and critical resources, from classical translations to politically motivated satire to religious poetry to moral and theological treatises, as well as legal statutes. ; Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan) ; Critical Studies, Department of (Okanagan) ; Unreviewed ; Faculty
