Book Review: A Column of Cloud and a Column of Fire: Dimitris Lyacos’ Poena Damni |
Author : Robert Zaller |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :One of the most original and significant texts to have come out of Europe in the past generation is Dimitris Lyacos’ poetic
trilogy, Poena Damni. I call it “poetic” because there is no word that quite describes a work that moves alternately between
poetry, prose, and drama, and that turns each like a prism in a quest for meaning that yields no final stability but only a
“further horizon of pain” (The First Death, Section X). |
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Reflection of Sexual Morality in Literature and Art |
Author : Jialin Zhao School of History, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China Rainer Feldbacher |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Tocqueville, in his book “Democracy in America”, talked about the concept of sexual morality, introduced it into his new
political science, and reflected on the situation of social morality before and after the French Revolution with the help of his
investigation of American social morality. From the end of the 19th century to late 20th century, the development of sexual
morality in the US and France has undergone different changes. |
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Effects of Training in Figures of Speech on EFL Learners’ Literary Reading Comprehension Ability |
Author : Sam Roodi Masoud Farahmand |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :One of the major areas of interest in SLA research is the study of the ways in which expert and non-expert readers respond to L2 texts and the fundamental changes that can be brought about in their L2 reading processes through formal instruction. In line with this research tradition, the present quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of formal training in figures of speech on university EFL learners’ appreciation of an unseen literary text, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” in the case of this study. Understanding literature requires knowledge of figures of speech.
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The Significance of Learning English in Saudi Arabia |
Author : The Significance of Learning English in Saudi Arabia |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :English as an international language is the main means of communication worldwide. Many people strive to learn English language greatly, and this has contributed to the customization of international special curricula in English language. In Saudi Arabia, learning English is becoming highly important; as it has been introduced into the Saudi Secondary School classroom and curriculum from grade seven. This paper aims to outline the significance of developing English language learning for Saudi Arabia’s students and government. |
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Integration of Work and Leisure in the Performance of Spoken Word Poetry in Kenya |
Author : Beatrice Jane Ekesa |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Spoken word poetry, an emerging genre in Kenyan literature, is popular among the urban population. The performance of this creative work draws audience from different socio-economic backgrounds who view it as a source of entertainment. Majority of these poets begin off by staging performances in order to exercise their talents and entertain their audience without financial gain. However, once they get the desired popularity, their interests change and they begin to view the performance of spoken word poetry as an alternative source of income. It is against this background that this paper seeks to explore the relationship between work and leisure in the performance of spoken word poetry in Kenya. Scholars in the field of leisure studies are constantly seeking the relationship between work and leisure. This research seeks to examine the representation of labour and leisure in the creative industry of spoken word poetry in Kenya. The study explores the characteristics of work and leisure to determine the leisure/work relationship in the performance of spoken word poetry in Kenyan literature. |
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Translator’s Subjectivity in Eco-Translatology |
Author : Wang Jun |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :This paper aims to examine translator’s subjectivity from the perspective of eco translatology. Translator’s subjectivity emphasizes the subjective initiative of translators in the process of translation. However, the identity of translators is invisible in the viewpoints of traditional translation theories, which means that translation is studied with either writer or text as the center. Eco translatology, a new translation theory brought forth by Hu Gengshen, assumes that translators should be placed at the central position during translation practice since translation is actually the cyclical alternation of adaptation and selection in the ecological environment of translation which involves elements such as author, source text, translator, target text, reader, and publisher. According to eco translatology, translators, as the center of translation, are allowed to make selective adaptation and adaptive selection so as to keep the balance and harmony of the ecological environment. Selective adaptation means that translators are supposed to select the text of which they are capable for translation. Adaptive selection means that translators are allowed to make adaptations to the target text based on other factors in the ecological environment of translation. Translator’s subjectivity, namely translator centeredness, is shown in the continuous process of adaptation and selection, and embodied in the three dimensional transformations of language, culture and communication. |
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An Analysis of Workplace English Speaking Courses for University Engineering Students in the Kwara State of Nigeria |
Author : Abdul-Lateef Solihu Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University Malaysia Lilisuriani Abdul Latif |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :The globalization of world markets which has led to the hegemony of English language over other languages requires graduates from different fields of specialization to equip themselves with English communication skills to communicate effectively in local and international workplace contexts. This study was conducted to investigate the English speaking skills needed by engineering students in the Kwara states of Nigeria. A survey was carried out to compare how the respondents’ (undergraduate engineering students and industry workers in the Kwara State of Nigeria) self-rated their speaking interaction and production skills and to observe their perception of the importance of speaking interaction and production sub skills for workplace communication. The study concluded with suggestions for creating a better perception of the importance of English speaking skills among engineering students and creating a better workplace English curriculum so that students’ workplace speaking skills can be improved. |
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A Structured Approach for Display of the Most Practical Theories in ELT |
Author : Maryam Mohammadi Sarab |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :A flowchart is just a diagrammatic approach to capturing and managing information. The present study investigates a
structured approach to display some theoretical frameworks based on ‘Computational Cognitive Model’ by Dubey et al.
(2008) and visual attention model proposed by Koch and Ullman (1985) and implemented by Itti, Koch and Neibur (1998).
To this end, 10 practical theories are selected by the researcher to explain the sequence of steps followed by their framework.
Since flowcharts may be used for diagnosing a malfunction or logic of solving a problem. This study can indicate the
different parts of the theories to troubleshoot the problems as well as quick reference to previous steps. The researcher tries to get an agreement on confirmation of combinatory theoretical diagram from the 7 faculty members in Ruskin university of
London. At the end of the statements, the exhibitive design of the practical theories selected in this study breaks complicated
processes down into a series of smaller, more manageable steps. |
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The Challenges of Online Learning: An Interview with Natalie Reed |
Author : Natalie Reed |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Although online learning has shown significant growth since last decade, it has never been considered as seriously as during this uncertain period of isolation when the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has moved rapidly across the world in 2020 and affected the education system worldwide. Thus, it is important to examine advantages and disadvantages of online learning, especially in the current lockdown situation. Some previous studies demonstrated that online learning can offer flexibility for learning in terms of financial positions, learners’ availability, easy accessibility, mobility and other factors (Bowers & Kumar, 2015; Merhi, 2011). As a result, online learning technologies have become more popular in the educational system. Thousands of college students use online platforms and technologies to submit their homework, assignments, and quizzes. In fact, the rapid growth of online learning has enabled learners to access education at any time and from any place (Merhi, 2015). |
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John Updike’s Terrorist: Islamist Misogyny or a Backlash on American Feminist Propaganda? |
Author : Waleed Al-Galissy School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded, India Bhagwan S. Jadhav |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :The United States of America launched its war on terror in October, 2001. The war was declared both as a fight against
terrorism and a mission to liberate the powerless, oppressed Muslim women. The Orientalist representation of Muslim
women as a victim of their misogynistic culture is observed to have been re-invented by this twin rhetoric of war on terror of
the American Government. Following the assumption that American literary artists would devote their artistic talent in
support of their government, critics and scholars have excessively approached post 9/11 literature through Edward Said’s
theory of Orientalism. While it is true that some American artists represent the conflict to be between two civilizations
(modern vs backward), but the theory affect has made it difficult to imagine a western literary depiction without an
Orientalist lens. Consequently, western texts become vulnerable to misunderstanding or biased reading. John Updike’s
Terrorist (2006), for example, has been read as an Orientalist text in which women are used to depict Muslim frustration
toward women liberation. Focusing on the representation of women, this article explores Updike’s text as a backlash on
American feminist politicized discourse, a new strategy of narrative to encounter the dominant narrative and challenge the
tradition of Orientalism. |
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Literary Translation and Transmediality: Clive Scott’s Reader-Oriented Translation Theory and Practice |
Author : Marko Pajevic |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :The British translation practitioner and theorist Clive Scott has presented an approach to literary translation that integrates the transmedial into textual translation. His translations of poetry contain doodling, handwriting, crossing out, writing over, typographical experimentation, and photo-collages; he even offers photo-poetic translations consisting exclusively of photos. By including such extra-verbal matter, they play with the medium of literature and integrate a rich variety of visual forms. Scott wishes to stress the role of perception in translating; he offers a reader-focused theory of translation. He is much less concerned with translation as a service for people who do not understand the original language than with the act of translating as a school for reading and hence for developing our capacities of perception and self-awareness. The materiality of language plays a major role in such an idea of translation. His approach has little to do with intentional meaning, focusing instead on the accessibility of sense. Translating is a process, and it is the relationship of this process to what Scott rightly sees as the multi-sensory process of meaning-making during reading that is at issue in his theory and practice. By analysing Scott’s theory and examples of his translationwork, this paper considers what this approach to translating says about transmediality in a phenomenological sense: it sheds light on how we read and perceive and on what the transmedial elements in these processes do. Scott’s transmedial translation theory and practice bring to the fore the multiplicity of media involved in the perception of a text in the reader’s mind and thus sharpens the awareness of what language is and does. |
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Beyond a Common Code: Cameroon Pidgin English - the Language of the Elite and the Masses |
Author : Rachel Ayuk Ojong Diba |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :The principal purpose of this paper is to underline the usefulness and efficacy of Cameroonian Pidgin English (CPE) in dealing with the intense multilingualism of Cameroonians in a rural enclave in Cameroon and in the Diaspora. CPE is a highly stigmatized but extensively used language of wider communication in Cameroon. Cameroon is second only to Papua New Guinea in terms of its multiplicity of languages for a relatively small population and the shunned CPE is the language that trudges through this multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism and multilingualism to not only provide a feeling of togetherness to Anglophone Cameroonians but to also allow them communicate efficiently and cordially. CPE was incipiently a language for the uneducated, this contribution shows that today CPE is not only the language of the common people; it is also the language of the Cameroonian elite. Using qualitative data – recordings of natural conversations from individuals in Lower Fungom and written conversation from online fora comprising Cameroonians of all walks of life, this contribution demonstrates that CPE is an emblematic language which Cameroonians use when communication would otherwise be impossible and still use it even when there is an option (though one-legged) of other languages. The paper demonstrates how multilingualism functions even in rural circles. It is also demonstrates the benefits of Pidgins and Creoles in linguistically diverse settings, which are relatively uncommon. |
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Memory Mechanisms in Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Darraj’s The Inheritance of Exile |
Author : Sara Fadla; Yousef Awad |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :This article discusses the mechanisms of memory and the schemes of transcending past recollections in Chinese American novelist Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989) and Arab American novelist Susan Darraj’s Inheritance of Exile (2007). Both texts highlight the dialectical representations of remembrance in diasporic narratives. Consequently, the article underscores the intersectionality of memory, healing, and ethnic identity in both novels. Tan’s and Darraj’s novels foreground memory narratives in which self-recovery and wholeness of identity are closely examined. The paper is a comparative study that examines the dialectics and divergent forces of memory representations in Tan’s and Darraj’s novels through scrutinizing the power of remembering in strengthening and/or justifying the characters’ enchantment of the present or their glorifying of the past. |
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Book Review: Moser, K. and Sukla, A.Ch. (Eds). (2020). Imagination and Art: Explorations in Contemporary Theory. Brill |
Author : Dan Manolescu |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Aristotle thought that phantasia (imagination), perception, and mind were equally important. In one of his works, Aristotle described imagination as “that virtue of which an image occurs in us.” (De Anima iii 3 – 428aa1-2) The notion of what Cicero called “the mind’s eye” has recently been researched quite extensively as a “transdisciplinary project” in a solid and elegant collection of essays entitled Imagination and Art: Explorations in Contemporary Theory (2020) edited by Keith Moser and Ananta Ch. Sukla, who worked with an eclectic group of international researchers to compile a comprehensive study of the various facets of imagination. Organized in nine parts and presenting 38 essays, this collection is the most comprehensive contribution to the contemporary concept of imagination to date. |
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Parallels and Distinctions in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy and “Orpheus and Eurydice” |
Author : Andrew Bula |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy alongside the Greek mythological story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” has usually been an engagement in drawing parallels between both texts, or of uncovering symbols and allusions found within the novel that echoes the Greek myth. None, however, has explored at the same time the range of similarities and dissimilarities between both narratives; nor is there available a sustained attention devoted to the criticism of both. This study fills that critical vacuum. The question thus opened up is that there are convergences as well as divergences in the narratives; and although Season of Anomy is not without borrowings from the Greek mythology which constitutes the convergences and to some extent informs some of the divergences, the novel’s trajectory and imaginative framework transcend the classical story. Julia Kristeva’s notion of the figure of “double destinations” under her theory of intertextuality is brought into play in this study to make sense of the parities and disparities between both accounts. |
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Parallels and Distinctions in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy and “Orpheus and Eurydice” |
Author : Andrew Bula |
Abstract | Full Text |
Abstract :Criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy alongside the Greek mythological story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” has usually been an engagement in drawing parallels between both texts, or of uncovering symbols and allusions found within the novel that echoes the Greek myth. None, however, has explored at the same time the range of similarities and dissimilarities between both narratives; nor is there available a sustained attention devoted to the criticism of both. This study fills that critical vacuum. The question thus opened up is that there are convergences as well as divergences in the narratives; and although Season of Anomy is not without borrowings from the Greek mythology which constitutes the convergences and to some extent informs some of the divergences, the novel’s trajectory and imaginative framework transcend the classical story. Julia Kristeva’s notion of the figure of “double destinations” under her theory of intertextuality is brought into play in this study to make sense of the parities and disparities between both accounts. |
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