Search results for: literary ideology

Authors: John Doe

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This paper presents the research project “Escape Through Culture”, which is co-funded by the European Union and national resources through the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” 2014-2020 and the Single RTDI State Aid Action "RESEARCH - CREATE - INNOVATE". The project implementation is assumed by three partners, (1) the Computer Technology Institute and Press "Diophantus" (CTI), experienced with the design and implementation of serious games, natural language processing and ICT in education, (2) the Laboratory of Environmental Communication and Audiovisual Documentation (LECAD), part of the University of Thessaly, Department of Architecture, which is experienced with the study of creative transformation and reframing of the urban and environmental multimodal experiences through the use of AR and VR technologies, and (3) “Apoplou”, an IT Company with experience in the implementation of interactive digital applications. The research project proposes the design of innovative infrastructure of digital educational escape games for mobile devices and computers, with the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for the promotion of Greek cultural heritage in Greece and abroad. In particular, the project advocates the combination of Greek cultural heritage and literature, digital technologies advancements and the implementation of innovative gamifying practices. The cultural experience of the players will take place in 3 layers: (1) In space: the digital games produced are going to utilize the dual character of the space as a cultural landscape (the real space - landscape but also the space - landscape as presented with the technologies of augmented reality and virtual reality). (2) In literary texts: the selected texts of Greek writers will support the sense of place and the multi-sensory involvement of the user, through the context of space-time, language and cultural characteristics. (3) In the philosophy of the "escape game" tool: whether played in a computer environment, indoors or outdoors, the spatial experience is one of the key components of escape games. The innovation of the project lies both in the junction of Augmented/Virtual Reality with the promotion of cultural points of interest, as well as in the interactive, gamified practices of literary texts. The digital escape game infrastructure will be highly interactive, integrating the projection of Greek landscape cultural elements and digital literary text analysis, supporting the creation of escape games, establishing and highlighting new playful ways of experiencing iconic cultural places, such as Elefsina, Skiathos etc. The literary texts’ content will relate to specific elements of the Greek cultural heritage depicted by prominent Greek writers and poets. The majority of the texts will originate from Greek educational content available in digital libraries and repositories developed and maintained by CTI. The escape games produced will be available for use during educational field trips, thematic tourism holidays, etc. In this paper, the methodology adopted for infrastructure development will be presented. The research is based on theories of place, gamification, gaming development, making use of corpus linguistics concepts and digital humanities practices for the compilation and the analysis of literary texts.

Keywords: escape games, cultural landscapes, gamification, digital humanities, literature

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Authors: Xiaowen Yang

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Violence has been gaining an increasing presence among contemporary Chinese writers, yet scholarship on the representation of violence in contemporary Chinese literature is disappointingly sparse. The violence which took place in the Cultural Revolution attracted the most attention in previous literary work and academic studies. Known as a writer of the quotidian, chi Zijian is one of China’s most prominent and prolific writers. It is noticeable that in her depiction of ordinary people, an overwhelming presence of violence features which embodies one of the on-going characteristics of contemporary Chinese literature. The violence present in her texts are not about graphic and minute depiction of violent acts, But rather about the character’s complex interrelation with violence. Is it an obsession with extreme figures and events to create powerful tensions within the texts? Or is it a necessary tool to achieve criticism about social realities? This paper argues that based on her grassroots writing philosophy which is characterized by her long-standing concern about ordinary and even marginal people, it is necessary for her texts to involve characters related to violence. This endows her texts with great potential for reading their social and political implications. This paper also contends that though a shocking effect could make the criticism of social realities more powerful, an over-reliance on the excessive exterior representation of violence inhibits the writer’s literary innovation.

Keywords: Chi Zijian, contemporary Chinese literature, Violence, grassroots writing philosophy

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Authors: Nidhi Chouhan

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Burgeoning demand of ‘Secularism’ has shaken the pillars of cultural studies in the contemporary literature. The perplexity of the culturally estranged term ‘secular’ gives rise to temporal ideologies across the world. Hence, it is high time to scan this concept in the context of Indian lifestyle which is a blend of assimilated cultures woven in multiple religious fabrics. The infliction of such secular taste is depicted in literary productions like ‘Satanic Verses’ and ‘An Area of Darkness’. The paper conceptually makes a cross-cultural analysis of anti-religious Indian literary texts, assessing its revitalization in current times. Further, this paper studies the increasing popularity of secular sensibility in the contemporary times. The mushrooming elements of secularism such as abstraction, spirituality, liberation, individualism give rise to a seemingly newer idea i.e. ‘Plurality’ making the literature highly hybrid. This approach has been used to study Indian modernity reflected in its literature. Seminal works of stalwarts are used to understand the consequence of this cultural synthesis. Conclusively, this theoretical research inspects the efficiency of secular culture, intertwined with internal coherence and throws light on the plurality of texts in Indian literature.

Keywords: culture, indian, literature, plurality, secular, secularism

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Authors: May Ziade

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Postgraduate studies in English language and literature at the University of Sydney provided opportunity for research into one of the most significant singer/songwriters of our time, Bob Dylan, and his masterpiece from the mid-1960s, ‘Desolation Row’. With a title alluding to Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels as well as John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, ‘Desolation Row’ is Bob Dylan’s magnum opus. Recorded on August 4 1965, it takes pride of place as the last track on the revolutionary 1965 album of rock poetics, Highway 61 Revisited. From its inception, its epic proportions (ten long verses) and rich and baffling imagery got our attention - it amused, fascinated and beguiled. The song’s surreal and dreamlike landscape and its cast of characters, drawn from history, fiction, mythology, theology, and popular culture, lured us in and begged interpretation. What were they doing there? Where is Desolation Row? Do they want to escape from or go to ‘Desolation Row’? What was Dylan writing about and what were his influences? Through literary analysis and historical research, this paper will examine the song’s lyrics, the mid-60s context and Dylan’s vast influences to make sense, offer explanations and make connections. In particular, research findings place the Beat poets and oeuvre as a significant literary influence but it is a rich, multilayered text that straddles traditions and emerges as a paradox – a paradox that has endured and endeared itself to many. As it turns 50 this year, what better way to acknowledge this momentous occasion than at an international English language conference.

Keywords: analysis, Bob Dylan, beat context, desolation row

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Authors: Mahitab A. A. Mahmoud

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Despite the international community’s galvanized efforts to achieve gender equality, the Arab world still lags behind for their sustained suppression of diversity and freedoms. In Egypt, homosexuals are defamed and hunted not only by authorities but also by politicized religious institutions and media platforms. The resultant state-sponsored homophobia is reflected in media. This paper offers a critical discourse analysis of the representation of LGBTQs in Egypt’s local news articles and movies in an attempt to investigate the underlying ideology. The results reveal a clichéd portrayal of homosexuals as a social parasite that requires cleansing by the government. LGBTQs are depicted as an outcome of debauchery, unhappy marriage, sexual deviancy, deficiency of masculinity/femininity, absence of the mother and/or father figure(s), abject poverty, excessive wealth, psychiatric disorder, debased instincts, childhood sexual molestation, immorality, deviation from religion, chaos, treason, conspiracy against the regime, to name only a few. This image, which is imposed and sustained by the state, exposes homosexuals to a violation of their human rights by both the police and the society, endangers their lives, breeds intolerance, social inequality and violence, prevents healthy coexistence; and deprives them of living a normal life.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, gender studies, homophobia, homosexuality, ideology, media studies

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Authors: Hanjin Yan

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The English Romantic George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was widely celebrated by men of letters in early republican China as a Satanic freedom fighter challenging classical poetics and traditional values. However, Wu Mi (1894-1978), the most persistent critic of contemporary iconoclasm, perceived Byron as a paragon of self-righteous poet-exiles who maintained moral integrity and achieved poetic excellence during times of frustration, just like canonized classical Chinese poets. Wu Mi not only composed lengthy imitations of the third canto of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1816) but also patronized a rendering of the canto. Taking André Lefevere’s rewriting theory as a framework, this paper explores the interplay of ideology and poetics by examining Wu Mi’s imitations against Byron’s original and its Chinese translation patronized by Wu Mi. Textual analysis shows that Wu Mi’s approach to Byron’s poetry was informed not only by his endeavor to invigorate classical Chinese poetics, but also by his program to preserve China’s cultural traditions and integrate Western new humanism, a theory proposed by his Harvard mentor Irving Babbitt (1865-1933). This study reveals how Byron was appropriated to serve conflicting poetic and ideological purposes in early republican China and suggests that imitation as a type of rewriting merits further attention.

Keywords: George Gordon Byron, ideology, imitation, poetics, translation

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Authors: Natalia Kasatkina

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In an ever-increasing globalization, one’s grasp of diversity and tolerance has never been more indispensable, and it is a vital duty for all those in the field of foreign language teaching to help children cultivate such values. The present study explores the role of DIVERSITY and TOLERANCE in the language classroom and elementary, middle, and high school students’ perceptions of these two concepts. It draws on several theoretical domains of language acquisition, cultural awareness, and school psychology. Relying on these frameworks, the major findings are synthesized, and a paradigm of teaching tolerance through language-teaching is formulated. Upon analysing how tolerant our children are with ‘others’ in and outside the classroom, we have concluded that intolerance and aggression towards the ‘other’ increase with age, and that a feeling of supremacy over migrants and a sense of fear towards them begin to manifest more apparently when the students are in high school. In addition, we have also found that children in elementary school do not exhibit such prejudiced thoughts and behavior, which leads us to the believe that tolerance as well as intolerance are learned. Therefore, it is within our reach to teach our children to be open-minded and accepting. We have used the novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a springboard for lessons which are not only targeted at shedding light on the role of language in the modern world, but also aim to stimulate an awareness of cultural diversity. We equally strive to conduct further cross-cultural research in order to solidify the theory behind this study, and thus devise a language-based curriculum which would encourage tolerance through the examination of various literary texts.

Keywords: literary text, tolerance, EFL classroom, word-association test

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Authors: Mete Kazaz, Birol Gülnar

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Television news has gained a new dimension in terms of ideological approaches as a result of such factors as globalization, cross monopolization, presence of international companies etc. and certain strategies have been developed at the production, presentation and distribution stages of news. In this study, television news about a process called “settlement process” was investigated. In this framework, news about the settlement process on TV channels of TRT 1, ATV, FOX TV, NTV, HABERTÜRK, TRT HABER and STV was investigated using the content analysis method in terms of the strategies the ideology construction, attitude towards the party in power, attitude towards parties in opposition and attitude towards BDP (Peace and Democracy Part) and Imrali (the island where Abdullah Ocalan, head of PKK, is kept). First, the aforementioned TV channels were selected randomly from 3 groups in order to be able to reveal the representational capacity of commercial, news and public channels. The study covers 557 news items broadcast in the main news bulletins between the dates of 15 March 2013 and 15 March 2013. While there was a positive attitude towards the government in a sizable portion of the news about the settlement process (63.6%), the attitude of 25.3% of the news was impartial towards the government and 11.3% had a negative attitude. On the other hand, there was a negative attitude towards the Opposition in a considerable portion of the news about the settlement process (56.1%). The attitude of 35.9% of the news towards the Opposition was impartial whereas 8.0% had a positive attitude. While 34.9% of the news about the settlement process used the legitimization strategy from among the ideology construction strategies, 22.8% used the unification strategy, 15.7% the reification strategy, 15.6% fractional and 11% concealment/mystification strategy.

Keywords: attitude, ideological framing, television news, social sciences

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Authors: James Waide

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In music, subject typically denotes the initial idea to which the entire composition refers—a concept congruous with Aristotle's notion of subject as primary substance, in the sense of an irreducible this particular. Gioseffo Zarlino, who established subject (soggetto) as a musical term, insisted the composer as “rediscovering” the subject within their music in order to “[bring] it to perfection” and, furthermore, that if the composer had not rediscovered the subject already, then one would simply take the first part of the composition to be the subject. Meanwhile, Žižek reads the Hegelian subject (as negativity set against positive object) through Lacanian Psychoanalysis (in which the subject is a kind of fictive entity of the clinic: a mere appearance which sits atop the objects of analysis) in the concept of Absolute Recoil. For Žižek, subject exists retroactively in Absolute Recoil from object, meaning subject is a void which only has meaning because of the object it is seen through. Following the work of theorists such as Adorno and Althusser, one can understand the ideological construction of such a subject. It may be argued that in Zarlino, musical subject can be similarly read as retroactively constructed, either by the composer or the listener. Furthermore, in recent work, Samuel Wilson identifies different kinds of subjects in music which can be psychoanalytically examined, including the fictive subject: a purely musical entity raised to the level of psychoanalytic subject. On which basis if, as Adorno insisted, 'authentic' music constitutes 'cognition without concepts', where and what is this subject without concept?.

Keywords: absolute recoil, critical theory, ideology, music analysis, psychoanalysis, retroactivity, subject

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Authors: Naseer Ahmad

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This research investigates the intricate dynamics of language policy, ideology, and the choice of educational language as a medium of instruction in rural Pakistan. Focused on addressing the complexities of language practices in underexplored educational contexts, the study employed a case study approach, analyzing interviews with education authorities, teachers, and students, alongside classroom observations in English-medium and Urdu-medium rural schools. The research underscores the significance of understanding linguistic diversity within rural communities. The analysis of interviews and classroom observations revealed that language policies in rural schools are influenced by multiple factors, including historical legacies, societal language ideologies, and government directives. The dominance of Urdu and English as the preferred languages of instruction reflected a broader language hierarchy, where regional languages are often marginalized. This language ideology perpetuates a sense of linguistic inferiority among students who primarily speak regional languages. The impact of language choices on students' learning experiences and outcomes is a central focus of the research. It became evident that while policies advocate for specific language practices, the implementation often diverges due to multifarious socio-cultural, economic, and institutional factors. This disparity significantly impacts the effectiveness of educational processes, influencing pedagogical approaches, student engagement, academic outcomes, social mobility, and language choices. Based on the findings, the study concluded that due to policy and practice gap, rural people have complex perceptions and language choices. They perceived Urdu as a national, lingua franca, cultural, easy, or low-status language. They perceived English as an international, lingua franca, modern, difficult, or high-status language. They perceived other languages as mother tongue, local, religious, or irrelevant languages. This research provided insights that are crucial for theory, policy, and practice, addressing educational inequities and inclusive language policies. It set the stage for further research and advocacy efforts in the realm of language policies in diverse educational settings.

Keywords: language-in-education policy, language ideology, educational language choice, pakistan

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Authors: Gintaras Mitrulevičius

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This text, which is based on the conference report, seeks to briefly examine the relationship between the concepts of social democracy and democratic socialism, drawing attention to the essential aspects of its development and, in particular, discussing the contradictions in the relationship between these concepts in the modern period. In the preparation of this text, such research methods as historical, historical-comparative methods were used, as well as methods of analyzing, synthesizing, and generalizing texts. The history of the use of terms in social democracy and democratic socialism shows that these terms were used alternately and almost synonymously. At the end of the 20th century, traditional social democracy was transformed into the so-called "new social democracy." Many of the new social democrats do not consider themselves democratic socialists and avoid the historically characteristic identification of social democracy with democratic socialism. It has become quite popular to believe that social democracy is a separate ideology from democratic socialism. Or that it has become a variant of the ideology of liberalism. This is a testimony to the crisis of ideological self-awareness of social democracy. Since the beginning of the 21st century, social democracy has also experienced a growing crisis of electoral support. This, among other things, led to her slight shift to the left. In this context, some social democrats are once again talking about democratic socialism. The rise of the ideas of democratic socialism in the United States was catalyzed by Bernie Sanders. But the proponents of democratic socialism in the United States have different concepts of democratic socialism. In modern Europe, democratic socialism is also spoken of by leftists of non-social democratic origin, whose understanding is different from that of democratic socialism inherent in classical social democracy. Some political scientists also single out the concepts in question. Analysis of the problem shows that there are currently several concepts of democratic socialism on the spectrum of the political left, both social-democratic and non-social-democratic.

Keywords: democratic socializm, socializm, social democracy, new social democracy, political ideologies

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Authors: Rahul Bishnoi

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Theatre, as Ann Ubersfld calls it, is a paradox. At once, it is both a literary work and a physical representation. Theatre as a text is eternal, reproducible, and identical while as a performance, theatre is momentary and never identical to the previous performances. In this dual existence of theatre, who is the author? Is the author the playwright who writes the dramatic text, or the director who orchestrates the performance, or the actor who embodies the text? From the poststructuralist lens of Barthes, the author is dead. Barthes’ argument of discrete temporality, i.e. the author is the before, and the text is the after, does not hold true for theatre. A published literary work is written, edited, printed, distributed and then gets consumed by the reader. On the other hand, theatrical production is immediate; an actor performs and the audience witnesses it instantaneously. Time, so to speak, does not separate the author, the text, and the reader anymore. The question of authorship gets further complicated in Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed” movement where the audience is a direct participant like the actors in the performance. In this research, through an experimental performance, the duality of theatre is explored with the authorship discourse. And the conventional definition of authorship is subjected to additional complexity by erasing the distinction between an actor and the audience. The design/methodology of the experimental performance is as follows: The audience will be asked to produce a text under an anonymous virtual alias. The text, as it is being produced, will be read and performed by the actor. The audience who are also collectively “authoring” the text, will watch this performance and write further until everyone has contributed with one input each. The cycle of writing, reading, performing, witnessing, and writing will continue until the end. The intention is to create a dynamic system of writing/reading with the embodiment of the text through the actor. The actor is giving up the power to the audience to write the spoken word, stage instruction and direction while still keeping the agency of interpreting that input and performing in the chosen manner. This rapid conversation between the actor and the audience also creates a conversion of authorship. The main conclusion of this study is a perspective on the nature of dynamic authorship of theatre containing a critical enquiry of the collaboratively produced text, an individually performed act, and a collectively witnessed event. Using practice as a methodology, this paper contests the poststructuralist notion of the author as merely a ‘scriptor’ and breaks it further by involving the audience in the authorship as well.

Keywords: practice based research, performance studies, post-humanism, Avant-garde art, theatre

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Authors: Marilia Correa Parecis De Oliveira

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This research looks at the novel Miguel e os demônios (2009), by the contemporary Brazilian author Lourenço Mutarelli. In it, the presence of film language resources is remarkable, creating thus a kind of scripted writing. We intend to analyze the presence of film language in work under study, in which there is a mixture of the characteristics of the novel and screenplay genres, trying to explore which aesthetic and meaning effects of the ownership of a visual language for the creation of a literary text create in the novel. The objective of this research is to identify and analyze the formal and thematic aspects that characterize the hybridity of literature and film in the novel by Lourenço Mutarelli. The method employed comprises reading and production cataloging of theoretical and critical texts, literary and film theory, historical review about the author, and also the realization of an analytical and interpretative reading of novel. In Miguel e os demônios there is a range of formal and thematic elements of popular narrative genres such as the detective story and action film, with a predominance of verb forms in the present and NPs - features that tend to make present the narrated scenes, as in the cinema. The novel, in this sense, is located in an intermediate position between the literary text and the pre-film text, as though filled with proper elements of the language of film, you can not fit it categorically in the genre script, since it does not reduce the script because aspires to be read as a novel. Therefore, the difficulty of fitting the work in a single gender also refused to be extra-textual factors - such as your publication as novel - but, rather, by the binary classifications serve solely to imprison the work on a label, which impoverish not only reading the text, as also the possibility of recognizing literature as a constant dialogue space and interaction with other media. We can say, therefore, that frame the work Miguel e os demônios in one of the two genres (novel or screenplay) proves not enough, since the text is revealed a hybrid narrative, consisting in a kind of scripted writing. In this sense, it is like a text that is born in a society saturated by audiovisual in their daily lives in order to be consumed by readers who, in ascending scale, exchange books by visual narratives. However, the novel uses film's resources without giving up its constitution as literature; on the contrary, it enriches the visual and linguistically, dialoguing with the complex contemporary horizon marked by the cultural industry.

Keywords: Brazilian literature, cinema, Lourenço Mutarelli, screenplay

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Authors: Samhani Ismail, Tahamina Begum, Faruque Reza, Zamzuri Idris, Hafizan Juahir, Jafri Malin Abdullah

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Holy Quran, a rhymed prosed scripture has a complete literary structure that exemplifies the peak of literary beauty. Memorizing of its verses could enhance one’s memory capacity and cognition while those who are listening to its recitation it is also believed that the Holy Quran alter brainwave producing neuronal excitation engaging with cognitive processes. 28 normal healthy subjects (male =14 & female = 14) were recruited and EEG recording was done using 128-electrode sensor net (Electrical Geosics, Inc.) with the impedance of ≤ 50kΩ. They listened to Sura Fatiha recited by Sheikh Qari Abdul Basit bin Abdus Samad. Arabic news and no sound were chosen as positive and negative control, respectively. The waveform was analysed by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to get the power in frequency bands. Bilateral frontal (F7, F8) and temporal region (T7, T8) showed decreased power significantly in alpha wave band in respondent stimulated by Sura Fatihah recitation reflects acoustic attention processing. However, decreased in alpha power in selective attention to memorized, and in familial but not memorized language, reveals the memorial processing in long-term memory. As a conclusion, Quranic recitation relates both cognitive element of memory and language in its listeners and memorizers.

Keywords: auditory stimulation, cognition, EEG, linguistic, memory, Quranic recitation

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Authors: Min-Hua Wu

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The untranslatability of an established poet’s tour de force is thoroughly explored by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). In his On Translating Homer (1861), Arnold lists the four most striking poetic qualities of Homer, namely his rapidity, plainness and directness of style and diction, plainness and directness of ideas, and nobleness. He concludes that such celebrated English translators as Cowper, Pope, Chapman, and Mr. Newman are all doomed, due to their respective failure in rendering the totality of the four Homeric poetic qualities. Why poetic translation always amounts to being proven such a mission impossible for the translator? According to Arnold, it is because there constantly exists a mist interposed between the translator’s own literary self-obsession and the objective artistic qualities that reside in the work of the original author. Foregrounding such a seemingly empowering yet actually detrimental poetic mist, he explains why the aforementioned translators fail in their attempts to bring the Homeric charm to the British reader. Drawing on Arnold’s analytical study on Homeric translation, the research attempts to bring Yu Kwang-chung the poet vis-à-vis Yu Kwang-chung the translator, with an aim not so much to find any similar mist as revealed by Arnold between his Chinese poetry and English translation as to probe into a latent and veiled literary and lingual mist interposed between Chinese and English, if not between Chinese and English literatures. The major work studied and analyzed for this study is Yu’s own Chinese poetry and his own English translation collected in The Night Watchman: Yu Kwang-chung 1958-2004. The research argues that the following critical elements that characterizes Yu’s poetics are to a certain extent 'transformed,' if not 'lost,' in his English translation: a. the Chinese pictographic and ideographic unit terms which so unfailingly characterize the poet’s incredible creativity, allowing him to habitually and conveniently coin concrete textual images or word-scapes almost at his own will; b. the subtle wordplay and punning which appear at a reasonable frequency; c. the parallel contrastive repetitive syntactic structure within a single poetic line; d. the ambiguous and highly associative diction in the adjective and noun categories; e. the literary allusion that harks back to the old times of Chinese literature; f. the alliteration that adds rhythm and smoothness to the lines; g. the rhyming patterns that bring about impressive sonority and lingering echo to the ears of the reader; h. the grandeur-imposing and sublimity-arousing word-scaping which hinges on the employment of verbs; i. the meandering cultural heritage that embraces such elements as Chinese medicine and kung fu; and j. other features of the like. Once we appeal to the Arnoldian tribunal and resort to the strict standards of such a Victorian cultural and literary critic who insists 'to see the object as in itself it really is,' we may serve as a potential judge for the tug of war between Yu Kwang-chung the poet and Yu Kwang-chung the translator, a tug of war that will not merely broaden our understating of Chinese poetics but deepen our apprehension of Chinese-English translatology.

Keywords: Yu Kwang-chung, The Night Watchman, poetry translation, Chinese-English translation, translation studies, Matthew Arnold

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Authors: Xinchen Zhu

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In the history of Chinese-language film, female stars’ acting is connected with issues of national ideology, consumerism, and sexual politics. In the 1980s, Taiwan entered a period of ‘soft authoritarianism’ in which the economy prospered politics became more democratic, and mass culture became more diverse. Film censorship was more flexible and sexual scenes were increasingly shown on screen. Female stars’ bodies were eroticized and commercialized through sexual and nude scenes and, by challenging conservative film censorship and social taboos, became the focus of mass media. This article will explore how discourses in mass media constructed the erotic images of female stars and, conversely, impacted film censorship, filmmakers and film actresses in 1980s’ Taiwan. This article will regard the eroticized female film stars’ acting as a ‘field’ of internal interaction and continuous reproduction, where the ideology of male dominance and voices of female film stars conflict with each other. Based on textual analysis of female stars’ sexual acting and the debate in mass media, the argument is that the eroticized female bodies were gazed upon on and off the screen. In the discourses of mass media, the artistry of actresses’ erotic acting was not only ignored, devalued and delegitimized, these stars were also labelled as ‘undressed star’ or ‘nude star’ and construed as victims of the film industry. However, the female stars were able to speak through mass media platforms, emphasizing their efforts in erotic acting and highlighting modern female subjectivity.

Keywords: sexual scenes, Taiwan female stars, erotic acting, discourses in mass media, female subjectivity

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Authors: Raya Sulaiman

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Critical discourse analysis investigates how discourse is used to abuse power relationships. Political debates constitute discourses which mirror aspects of ideologies. The Arab world has been one of the most unsettled zones in the world and has dominated global politics due to the Arab revolutions which started in 2010. This study aimed at uncovering the ideological intentions in the formulation and circulation of hegemonic political ideology in the TV political debates of the 2011 to 2012 Yemen revolution, how ideology was used as a tool of hegemony. The study specifically examined the ideologies associated with the use of protesters as a social actor. Data of the study consisted of four debates (17350 words) from four live debate programs: The Opposite Direction, In Depth, Behind the News and the Revolution Talk that were staged at Al Jazeera TV channel between 2011 and 2012. Data was readily transcribed by Al Jazeera online. Al Jazeera was selected for the study because it is the most popular TV network in the Arab world and has a strong presence, especially during the Arab revolutions. Al Jazeera has also been accused of inciting protests across the Arab region. Two debate sites were identified in the data: government and anti-government. The government side represented the president Ali Abdullah Saleh and his regime while the anti-government side represented the gathering squares who demanded the president to ‘step down’. The study analysed verbal discourse aspects of the debates using critical discourse analysis: aspects from the Social Actor Network model of van Leeuwen. This framework provides a step-by-step analysis model, and analyses discourse from specific grammatical processes into broader semantic issues. It also provides representative findings since it considers discourse as representative and reconstructed in social practice. Study findings indicated that Al Jazeera and the anti-government had similarities in terms of the ideological intentions related to the protesters. Al Jazeera victimized and incited the protesters which were similar to the anti-government. Al Jazeera used assimilation, nominalization, and active role allocation as the linguistic aspects in order to reach its ideological intentions related to the protesters. Government speakers did not share the same ideological intentions with Al Jazeera. Study findings indicated that Al Jazeera had excluded the government from its debates causing a violation to its slogan, the opinion, and the other opinion. This study implies the powerful role of discourse in shaping ideological media intentions and influencing the media audience.

Keywords: Al Jazeera network, critical discourse analysis, ideology, Yemeni revolution

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Authors: Geena Kim

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The Romantic movements in Spain and Germany served as turning points in European literary history, advancing cognitive-emotional ideals of the essential unity between literature, life, and the natural world in reaction against the rising tide of mechanization, urban growth, and industrial progress. This paper offers a comparative study of the literary-theoretic underpinnings of the Romantic movements in Spain and Germany, particularly with regard to the reception history of Schlegel’s Romantic philosophy of history. By far one of the better-known figures of the period, Schlegel has traditionally been considered one of the principal theorists of German Romanticism, one of the first to embrace and acknowledge the more radical changes that the movement brought forth. His well-studied contributions to the German Romanticism were certainly significant domestically, but their impact on comparatively less industrialized Spain have been largely neglected, a puzzling oversight in light of Schlegel’s extensive efforts in advocating for the dissemination of Spanish literature under the guise of a kind of pan-European Romanticism. Indeed, Schlegel’s somewhat problematically exoticizing view of Spain as the quintessential embodiment of the spirit of Romanticism was itself enormously influential on the genesis and growth of the Spanish Romantic theory. This was especially significant considering earlier, pre-Romantic tropes of the ‘black legend,’ by which means Spain was demonized with even cruder essentializing, nationalistic language. By comparing Schlegel’s theorizing around Spain with contributions to Romantic theory by Hispanophone writers, this paper sheds light on questions of linguistic identity and national influence from two alas infrequently compared contexts of European Romanticism.

Keywords: schlegel, Spanish romantic theory, German romanticism, romantic philosophy

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Authors: Xinchen Zhu

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The rapid fame of the renowned female film star Tang Wei has made her a typical subject (or object) entangled with sensitive issues involving the official ideology, sexuality, and patriarchal values of contemporary China. In 2008, Tang Wei’s official ban has triggered the wave of debates concerning state power and censorship, actor’s rights, sexual ethics, and feminism in the public sphere. Her ban implies that Chinese film censorship acts as a key factor in reconstructing Chinese film stardom. Following the ban, as sensational media texts are re-interpreting the official discourses, the texts also functioned as a crucial vehicle in reconstructing Tang's female image. Therefore, the case study of Tang's film stardom allows us to further explore how female stardom has been entangled with the issues involving official ideology, female sexual ethics, and patriarchal values in contemporary China. This paper argues that Chinese female film stars shoulder the responsibility of film acting which would conform to the official male-dominated values. However, with the development of the Internet, the state no longer remains an absolute control over the new venues. The netizens’ discussion about her ban reshaped Tang’s image as a victim and scapegoat under the unfair oppression of the official authority. Additionally, this paper argues that similar to State’s discourse, netizens’ discourse did not reject patriarchal values, and in turn emphasized Tang Wei’s female chastity.

Keywords: film censorship, Chinese female film stardom, party-state’s power, national discourses, Tang Wei

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Authors: Ejikeme Johnson Kanu

Abstract:

This research explores the environmental justice of host communities in south-eastern Nigeria whose source of livelihood has been destroyed due to oil exploitation. Environmental justice scholarship in the area often adopts Western liberal ideology from a more macro level synthesis (Niger Delta). This study therefore explored the sufficiency or otherwise of the adoption of Western liberal ideology in the framing of environmental justice (EJ) in the area which neglects the impact of colonialism and cultural domination. Mixed archival research supplemented by secondary analysis guided this study. Drawing from data analysis, the paper first argues that micro-level studies are required to either validate or invalidate the studies done at the macro-level (Niger Delta) which has often been used to generalise around environmental injustice done within the host communities even though the communities (South-eastern) differ significantly from (South-south) in terms of language, culture, socio-political and economic formation which indicate that the drivers of EJ may differ among them. Secondly, the paper argues that EJ framing from the Western worldview adopted in the study area is insufficient to understand environmental injustice suffered in the study area and there is the need for environmental justice framing that will consider the impact of colonialism and nonrecognition of the cultural identities of the host communities which breed environmental justice. The study, therefore, concludes by drawing from decolonial theory to consider how the framing of EJ would move beyond the western liberal EJ to Indigenous environmental justice.

Keywords: environmental justice, culture, decolonial, nonrecognition, indigenous environmental justice

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Authors: Jocelyn Cohen

Abstract:

This paper identifies a powerful synchronicity of two traditions of life-story writing in the autobiographies of ritual abuse (RA) survivors, the Christian conversion narrative and the memoir of healing from childhood sexual trauma. Using methodologies from literary studies, history, and psychology, a close reading of three RA memoirs sheds light on a taboo and deeply suspect form of violence. Treatment of RA survivors and the unique role of psychotherapists, in particular, deserve far greater attention from multi-disciplinary scholars. Each story reflects salient characteristics of the Christian conversion narrative, a genre which originated in the US in the early 19th century with the serendipitous confluence of the simultaneous emergence of print culture and the basic structures of evangelicalism during the Second Great Awakening. The impulse of writing is thus to give testimony against the sin they witnessed and endured as young children during ritual violence perpetrated within the church. Importantly, RA is seen as an inherent if obscure aspect of Christian discourse itself, not in opposition to it, and not as an aberration. In RA's memoir, healing comes in part from the Christian narrative praxis of personal redemption, framed as prevailing in a war between good and evil. In other words, storytelling itself affects the healing, much as it does by means of each writer’s 'talking cure,' in the relationship with a psychotherapist who guides her through a repair of the life-story through the excavation of traumatic memories and their integration into the writer’s psyche. Integrating literary techniques into the psychotherapeutic relationship, therapists leverage the deep linguistic structures that clients possess as a resource to aid in their healing.

Keywords: memoir, psychotherapy, religion, trauma

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Authors: Farah Vierra

Abstract:

Following the 2016 US presidential election and the advancement of the Brexit referendum, the concept of “post-truth”, defined by Oxford Dictionary as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, came into prominent use in public, political and educational circles. What this essentially entails is that in this age, individuals are increasingly confronted with subjective perpetuations of truth in their discourse spheres that are informed by beliefs and opinions as opposed to any form of coherence to the reality of those who these truth claims concern. In principle, a subjective delineation of truth is progressive and liberating – especially considering its potential in providing marginalised groups in the diverse communities of our globalised world with the voice to articulate truths that are representative of themselves and their experiences. However, any form of human flourishing that seems to be promised here collapses as the tenets of subjective truths initially in place to liberate has been distorted through post-truth to allow individuals to purport selective and individualistic truth claims that further oppress and silence certain groups within society without due accountability. The evidence of which is prevalent through the conception of terms such as "alternative facts" and "fake news" that we observe individuals declare when their problematic truth claims are questioned. Considering the pervasiveness of post-truth and the ethical issues that accompany it, educators and scholars alike have increasingly noted the need to adapt educational practices and pedagogies to account for the diminishing objectivity of truth in the twenty-first century, especially because students, as digital natives, find themselves in the firing line of post-truth; engulfed in digital societies that proliferate post-truth through the surge of truth claims allowed in various media sites. In an attempt to equip students with the vital skills to navigate the post-truth age and oppose its proliferation of social injustices, English educators find themselves having to devise instructional strategies that not only teach students the ways they can critically and ethically scrutinise truth claims but also teach them to mediate the subjectivity of truth in a manner that does not undermine the voices of diverse communities. In hopes of providing educators with the roadmap to do so, this paper will first examine the challenges that confront students as a result of post-truth. Following which, the paper will elucidate the role English education can play in helping students overcome the complex ramifications of post-truth. Scholars have consistently touted the affordances of literary texts in providing students with imagined spaces to explore societal issues through a critical discernment of language and an ethical engagement with its narrative developments. Therefore, this paper will explain and demonstrate how literary texts, when used alongside a critical-ethical post-truth pedagogy that equips students with interpretive strategies informed by literary traditions such as literary and ethical criticism, can be effective in helping students develop the pertinent skills to comprehensively examine truth claims and overcome the challenges of the post-truth age.

Keywords: post-truth, pedagogy, ethics, English, education

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Authors: Sunayana Basu Mallik, Shishira Prakash

Abstract:

The inclusion of Rights of Author (Moral and Personal Rights) resonate the century long battle of rights of authors, composers, performers across developed and developing countries (whether following civil law or common law systems). But, the juxtaposition of author’s special, moral, personal rights within the legislative framework of Copyright statutes (Indian Copyright Act, 1957, applicable statutes) underscores the foundational role of the right which goes to the root of the constitutional structure of India and philosophies of political and literary leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Gurudeb Rabindranath Tagore. In the pre-independence era when the concept of moral rights was unknown to both England and India’s statutory laws, the strategic deployment method of Gandhi, his ideologies and thoughts scripted the concept of moral rights for authors/composers. The preservation of Rabindric Style (Characteristic Tagore’s vocal renditions) by Vishwabharati University (successor in interest for Tagore’s literary and musical compositions) prior to the Copyright Amendment of 1999 recognizing Author’s Special Rights in line with 6bis of Berne Convention invigorates the fact that the right existed intrinsically prior to the legislative amendment. The paper would in addition to the academic probe carry out an empirical enquiry of the institution’s (Navjivan Trust and Vishwa Bharati University’s) reasoning on the same. The judicial discourse and transforming constitutional ideals between 1950s till date in India alludes Moral Rights to be an essential legal right which have been reasoned by Indian Courts based on the underlying philosophies in culture, customs, religion wherein composers and literary figures have played key roles in enlightening and encouraging the members of society through their literary, musical and artistic work during pre-independence renaissance of India. The discourses have been influenced by the philosophies reflected in the preamble of the Indian constitution, ‘socialist, secular, democratic republic’ and laws of other civil law countries. Lastly, the paper would analyze the adjudication process and witness involvement in ascertaining violations of moral rights and further summarize the indigenous and country specific economic thoughts that often chisel decisions on moral rights of authors, composers, performers which sometimes intersect with author’s right of privacy and against defamation. The exclusivity contracts or other arrangements between authors, composers and publishing companies not only have an erosive effect on each thread of moral rights but irreparably dents factors that promote creativity. The paper would also be review these arrangements in view of the principles of unjust enrichment, unfair trade practices, anti-competitive behavior and breach of Section 27 (Restrain of Trade) of Indian Contract Act, 1857. The paper will thus lay down the three pillars on which author’s rights in India should namely rest, (a) political and judicial discourse evolving principles supporting moral rights of authors; (b) amendment and insertion of Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957; (c) overall constitutional framework supporting author’s rights.

Keywords: copyright, moral rights, performer’s rights, personal rights

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Authors: Farah Vierra

Abstract:

Following the 2016 US presidential election and the advancement of the Brexit referendum, the concept of “post-truth,” defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” came into prominent use in public, political and educational circles. What this essentially entails is that in this age, individuals are increasingly confronted with subjective perpetuations of truth in their discourse spheres that are informed by beliefs and opinions as opposed to any form of coherence to the reality of those to who this truth claims concern. In principle, a subjective delineation of truth is progressive and liberating – especially considering its potential to provide marginalised groups in the diverse communities of our globalised world with the voice to articulate truths that are representative of themselves and their experiences. However, any form of human flourishing that seems to be promised here collapses as the tenets of subjective truths initially in place to liberate have been distorted through post-truth to allow individuals to purport selective and individualistic truth claims that further oppress and silence certain groups within society without due accountability. The evidence of this is prevalent through the conception of terms such as "alternative facts" and "fake news" that we observe individuals declare when their problematic truth claims are being questioned. Considering the pervasiveness of post-truth and the ethical issues that accompany it, educators and scholars alike have increasingly noted the need to adapt educational practices and pedagogies to account for the diminishing objectivity of truth in the twenty-first century, especially because students, as digital natives, find themselves in the firing line of post-truth; engulfed in digital societies that proliferate post-truth through the surge of truth claims allowed in various media sites. In an attempt to equip students with the vital skills to navigate the post-truth age and oppose its proliferation of social injustices, English educators find themselves having to contend with a complex question: how can the teaching of English equip students with the ability to critically and ethically scrutinise truth claims whilst also mediating the subjectivity of truth in a manner that does not undermine the voices of diverse communities. In order to address this question, this paper will first examine the challenges that confront students as a result of post-truth. Following this, the paper will elucidate the role English education can play in helping students overcome the complex demands of the post-truth age. Scholars have consistently touted the affordances of literary texts in providing students with imagined spaces to explore societal issues through a critical discernment of language and an ethical engagement with its narrative developments. Therefore, this paper will explain and demonstrate how literary texts, when used alongside a critical-ethical post-truth pedagogy that equips students with interpretive strategies informed by literary traditions such as literary and ethical criticism, can be effective in helping students develop the pertinent skills to comprehensively examine truth claims and overcome the challenges of the post-truth age.

Keywords: post-truth, pedagogy, ethics, english, education

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Authors: Karen de Andrade

Abstract:

Literature is generally understood as an aesthetic creation, an artistic object that relates to the history and sociocultural paradigms of a given era. Moreover, through it, we can dwell on the deepest reflections on the human condition. It can also be used to propagate projects of domination, as Edward Said points out in his book Culture and Imperialism, connecting narrative, history and land conquest. Having said that, the aim of this paper is to analyse how Wole Soyinka elaborated his main theoretical work, Myth, Literature and African World, a collection of essays published in 1976, by comparing the philosophical, ideological and aesthetic practices of African, diasporic and European writers from the point of view of the Yoruba tradition, to which he belongs. Moreover, Soyinka believes that (literary) art has an important function in the formation of a people, in the construction of its political identity and in cultural regeneration, especially after the independence. The author's critical endeavour is that of attempting to construct a past. For him, the "African World" is not a mere allegory of the continent, and to understand it in this way would be to perpetuate a colonialist vision that would deny the subjectivities that cross black cultures, history and bodies. For him, comparative literature can be used not to "equate" local African texts with the European canon; but rather to recognise that they have aesthetic value and socio-cultural importance. Looking at the local, the particular and specific to each culture is, according to Soyinka, appropriate for dealing with African cultures, as opposed to abstractions of dialectical materialism or capitalist nationalism. In view of this, in his essays, the author creates a possibility for artistic and social reflection beyond the logic of Western politics.

Keywords: comparative literature, African Literature, Literary Theory, Yoruba Mythology, Wole Soyinka, Afrodiaspora

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Authors: Maria Ulfa, Nur Awaliyah Putri

Abstract:

Madurese is known as Malayo-Sumbawan Austronesian language which is used by Madurese people in Madura Island, Indonesia. However, there was a massive migration of Madurese people due to Dutch colonization. The Madurese people were brought by force for cultivation system to the eastern salient north coast or called as Tapal Kuda that spread in region covers the regencies of Probolinggo, Lumajang, Jember, Situbondo, Bondowoso, and Banyuwangi, the eastern part of the Pasuruan Regency, as well as the city of Probolinggo. The city of Probolinggo has unique characteristic regarding the ethnic and language variation. Several ethnics can be found in this city, such as Madurese, Javanese, Tengger, Arabic, Mandhalungan, Osing, and Chinese. Hence, the hybrid culture happens in Probolinggo, they called the culture as Pendhalungan which is the combination of culture among Madurese and Javanese. Among those ethnics, Madurese is the strongest ethnic that still maintains their identity, such as their ethnic language. The massive growth of Madurese in Probolinggo city, East Java is interesting to be analyzed. The object of this study is to discover language ideology and literacy of Madurese to maintain their ethnic language in Probolinggo city, East Java. The researchers used the theory of language maintenance practice based on three types of practices social language, social literacy, and peripheral ritualized practices. The approach of this study was qualitative research with ethnography method. In order to collect the data, researchers used observation and interview techniques. The amount of informants were 20 families which consist of mother, father and children in 5 sub-districts in Probolinggo city and they were interviewed regarding language ideology and literacy of Madurese. In supporting the data, researchers employed the Madurese speakers outside family scope like in school, office, and market. The result of the study revealed that Madurese has been preserved heritably to young generations by ethnics of Madura in Probolinggo city. Primarily the language is being taught in the earlier age of their children as L1 and used as ethnic identity. The parents teach them with simple sentences that grammatically correct. This language literacy is applied to maintain ethnic language as their ethnicity marker since they inhabit in Javanese ethnic area. In fact, it is not the only ideology of Madurese ethnic but also the influence of economic situation like in trading communication. The usage of Madurese in the trading scope is very beneficial since people can bargain the goods cheaper and easier because most of the traders are from Madurese ethnic. In this situation, linguistic phenomena such as code mixing and code switching between Madurese and Javanese are emerged as the trading communication. From the result, it can be concluded that solidarity exists among Madurese people in many scopes.

Keywords: language literacy, language maintenance, Madurese, Probolinggo City

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Authors: Gal Belsitzman, Rose Stamp, Atay Citron, Wendy Sandler

Abstract:

Sign languages are considered endangered. The vitality of sign languages is compromised by its unique sociolinguistic situation, in which hearing parents that give birth to deaf children usually decide to cochlear implant their child. Therefore, these children don’t acquire their natural language – Sign Language. Despite this, many sign languages, such as Israeli Sign Language (ISL) are thriving. The continued survival of similar languages under threat has been associated with the remarkable resilience of the language community. In particular, deaf literary traditions are central in reminding the community of the importance of the language. One example of a deaf literary tradition which has received increased popularity in recent years is deaf theatre. The Ebisu Sign Language Theatre Laboratory, developed as part of the multidisciplinary Grammar of the Body Research Project, is the first deaf theatre company in Israel. Ebisu Theatre combines physical theatre and sign language research, to allow for a natural laboratory to analyze the creative use of the body. In this presentation, we focus on the recent theatre production called ‘Their language’ which tells of the struggle faced by the deaf community to use their own natural language in the education system. A thorough analysis unravels how linguistic properties are integrated with the use of poetic devices and physical theatre techniques in this performance, enabling wider access by both deaf and hearing audiences, without interpretation. Interviews with the audience illustrate the significance of this art form which serves a dual purpose, both as empowering for the deaf community and educational for the hearing and deaf audiences, by raising awareness of community-related issues.

Keywords: deaf theatre, empowerment, language revitalization, sign language

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Authors: Jane Larkin

Abstract:

Combining elements of philosophy, science, and creative writing, this investigation explores how a philosophically structured science-fiction novel can challenge the theory of linearity and singularity of time through the ‘many worlds’ theory. This concept is addressed through the creation of a research exegesis and accompanying creative artefact, designed to be read in conjunction with each other in an explorative, interwoven manner. Research undertaken into scientific concepts, such as the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics and diverse philosophers and their ideologies on time, is embodied in an original science-fiction narrative titled, It Goes On. The five frames that make up the creative artefact are enhanced not only by five leading philosophers and their philosophies on time but by an appreciation of the research, which comes first in the paper. Research into traditional approaches to storytelling is creatively and innovatively inverted in several ways, thus challenging the singularity and linearity of time. Further nonconventional approaches to literary techniques include an abstract narrator, embodied by time, a concept, and a figure in the text, whose voice and vantage point in relation to death furthers the unreliability of the notion of time. These further challenge individuals’ understanding of complex scientific and philosophical views in a variety of ways. The science-fiction genre is essential when considering the speculative nature of It Goes On, which deals with parallel realities and is a fantastical exploration of human ingenuity in plausible futures. Therefore, this paper documents the research-led methodology used to create It Goes On, the application of the ‘many worlds’ theory within a framed narrative, and the many innovative techniques used to contribute new knowledge in a variety of fields.

Keywords: time, many-worlds theory, Heideggerian philosophy, framed narrative

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Authors: Muhammad Sheeraz

Abstract:

Literary responses to various forms of local and international oppressions can be found in all major Pakistani languages and their academic study is crucial to understand the local creative and critical mind. However, most of them have not yet received as much of scholarly attention as has the Anglophone Pakistani literature of this kind. One of the reasons for this indifference is that resistance literature is usually mistaken as incidental work produced in haste and thus not a serious subject or high art worthy of being considered critically. Literary criticism in the English language did not include this Urdu resistance literature because most of it has not yet been translated into English, and scholars proficient in Urdu and producing critical works in English have contented themselves to the critique of a few prominent writers of Urdu, for instance, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Saadat Hassan Manto. While there is no denying the fact that they hold a significant position in Pakistani literature, the tradition of resistance is in no way limited to them. Bringing to the limelight other resistant voices from Urdu fiction, this qualitative research employs Barbara Harlow’s framework of postcolonial resistance literature to explore the strategy of silencing as used in twenty three short stories written between the military regime of Zia ul Haq (1977-1988) in Pakistan. The study shows that the writers of these Urdu short stories have not only recorded various tools of silencing employed by the oppressors but also represented various kinds of silences that were observed in the society. Moreover, they have also depicted how this silencing was dealt with by the writers and intellectual of the time. Thus, in the light of the analysis, it can be safely said that Urdu resistance literature notices, recounts, and theorizes silencing and silences within the local sociopolitical condition.

Keywords: resistance literature, Urdu short fiction, Zia ul Haq, postcolonialism

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Authors: O. F. Elkommos

Abstract:

“Humour studies” is an interdisciplinary research area that is relatively recent. It interests researchers from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, medicine, nursing, in the work place, gender studies, among others, and certainly teaching, language learning, linguistics, and literature. Linguistic theories of humour research are numerous; some of which are of interest to the present study. In spite of the fact that humour courses are now taught in universities around the world in the Egyptian context it is not included. The purpose of the present study is two-fold: to review the state of arts and to show how linguistic theories of humour can be possibly used as an art and craft of teaching and of learning in EFL literature classes. In the present study linguistic theories of humour were applied to selected literary texts to interpret humour as an intrinsic artistic communicative competence challenge. Humour in the area of linguistics was seen as a fifth component of communicative competence of the second language leaner. In literature it was studied as satire, irony, wit, or comedy. Linguistic theories of humour now describe its linguistic structure, mechanism, function, and linguistic deviance. Semantic Script Theory of Verbal Humor (SSTH), General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), Audience Based Theory of Humor (ABTH), and their extensions and subcategories as well as the pragmatic perspective were employed in the analyses. This research analysed the linguistic semantic structure of humour, its mechanism, and how the audience reader (teacher or learner) becomes an interactive interpreter of the humour. This promotes humour competence together with the linguistic, social, cultural, and discourse communicative competence. Studying humour as part of the literary texts and the perception of its function in the work also brings its positive association in class for educational purposes. Humour is by default a provoking/laughter-generated device. Incongruity recognition, perception and resolving it, is a cognitive mastery. This cognitive process involves a humour experience that lightens up the classroom and the mind. It establishes connections necessary for the learning process. In this context the study examined selected narratives to exemplify the application of the theories. It is, therefore, recommended that the theories would be taught and applied to literary texts for a better understanding of the language. Students will then develop their language competence. Teachers in EFL/ESL classes will teach the theories, assist students apply them and interpret text and in the process will also use humour. This is thus easing students' acquisition of the second language, making the classroom an enjoyable, cheerful, self-assuring, and self-illuminating experience for both themselves and their students. It is further recommended that courses of humour research studies should become an integral part of higher education curricula in Egypt.

Keywords: ABTH, deviance, disjuncture, episodic, GTVH, humour competence, humour comprehension, humour in the classroom, humour in the literary texts, humour research linguistic theories, incongruity-resolution, isotopy-disjunction, jab line, longer text joke, narrative story line (macro-micro), punch line, six knowledge resource, SSTH, stacks, strands, teaching linguistics, teaching literature, TEFL, TESL

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