PHD SESSIONS
Literature Sessions (PLL)
Session 1 (PLL 1): WED, 17:00-19:00, TB 240
Session 2 (PLL 2): FRI, 17:00-19:00, TB 240
Convenors:
Liliane LOUVEL (University of Poitiers, FR)
Martin PROCHÁZKA (University of Prague, CZ)
PLL 1
Irmtraud Huber (Bern)
A Literature of Reconstruction? Or, Are We Really Po-Pomo?
"[T]he postmodern moment has passed” Linda Hutcheon exclaimed in 2002 and increasingly her voice is joined by those of others. But if postmodernism really has come to an end, where are we moving now? In this paper I will briefly outline various scholarly attempts at making sense of literature beyond postmodernism, emphasising common themes in order to suggest some of the general directions in which a new generation of authors might be perceived to be moving after and beyond postmodernism. I will further illustrate these propositions by drawing on my PhD research which focuses on the use of metadiegetic fantastic narratives in contemporary Anglophone literature, tracing a shift away from postmodern epistemological and ontological considerations towards questions concerning the pragmatic functions of literary fiction. By overtly declaring the fictionality of their fantastic stories by means of frame narratives, texts like Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated (2002), Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves (2000), David Mitchell's number9dream (2001) and Yann Martel's Life of Pi (2001) reassess the communicative value of genre boundaries in an attempt to move beyond postmodern relativity and breakdown of communicability.
Rocco De Leo (Salerno)
Space and Identity in Canadian Autobiography
This paper analyses the effects and consequences of space on the first-person narrator in Canadian contemporary literature in English. The analysis considers two lines of study. The first one focuses on autobiography, exploring concepts helpful for understanding the processes of autobiographical subjectivity, such as experience, identity, memory and, above all, fiction. The most important body of criticism is discussed, with a glance at the theories of the last decade which suggest the critical change that has come about modes of self-narrating. The second argumentative line concentrates on the topic of space, and how its typical features de-construct individual identity, leading to alienation and estrangement from the self. The theoretical basis refers to many seminal in this field, like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Julia Kristeva. These two argumentative lines will join in the last part of the work. Here, close readings of some texts by contemporary Canadian writers (Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, and others) will point out identity's deviations and personal deformations caused by Canadian space; that means, how geographic and social space modify the construction and the representation of personal identity, and how this process emerges in the autobiographical narrative.
Pallavi Narayan (Delhi)
Pamuk's Istanbul: Everyday Architecture
My dissertation focuses on how Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk treats the city Istanbul in his works, how it serves as a source of inspiration as well as a marker of loss as regards literary production. I attempt to comprehend the gap between the aspiration towards Westernization' and the steps taken to address/attain this objective. Pamuk brings this no-man's land' to light in many of his works; with their conscious verbal depiction of places; his novels site collective memory into the built environment, which transforms the city into a symbolic universe. Istanbul then, is a guise (as a city in its illusory concreteness) of enclosed, described, projected, dreamt of, or speculated about spaces. Broadly, I look at how changes to the urban architecture effected by the state compelled neighbourhoods and individuals to refashion themselves. My argument is formulated around how the objects of everyday life coalesce to form complex institutional architecture, affecting the palimpsest that is Istanbul such that the architecture does not only constitute the visual as the source to power, but is sensual, incorporating the notions of time and weathering. In my presentation, I deal with the neighbourhood, transportation, and the home and the objects within it.
Caterina Novák (Vienna)
Investigating/Inventing the Other Victorians: Michael Sadleir's Fanny by Gaslight (1940)
Focusing on one of the better known Victorian-centred novels of the first half of the twentieth century, Michael Sadleir's Fanny by Gaslight (1940), my presentation illustrates the central concern of my dissertation project, which investigates the changing image of the Victorians in popular middlebrow fiction between the end of World War I until the end of the nineteen fifties, and the way in which these changes reflect contemporary socio-cultural and political preoccupations. Implementing approaches from cultural studies, Iserian aesthetics, Macherey's theory of literary production, and cognitive poetics, I will show how the text interacts with and attempts to modify the reader's antecedent knowledge and beliefs about the Victorians, especially as regards issues of gender, sexuality and sexual morality, through its portrayal of the more unconventional aspects of Victorian life. In addition, I will focus on the tensions and contradictions in Sadleir's depiction of Victorianism and the Victorians, relating these to the moment of the book's production. Finally, I will attempt to locate Fanny by Gaslight in the context of the transforming image of the Victorians during the early twentieth century, which underwent various stages from violent anti-Victorianism to nostalgic stereotypisation.
Sara Prieto García-Cañedo (Alicante)
Forgotten Voices of the Great War: Eyewitness Accounts by Anglo-American Civilians from the Front
The First World War -"the literary war par excellence” (Hynes, 1990) - has probably been the military conflict that has generated the greatest amount of literature, considering the vast quantity of letters, diaries, poems and stories that this war inspired. Cultural historians such as Paul Fussell and Samuel Hynes have been among the first critics to offer academic examinations of the astonishing variety of writing that this conflict brought about. However, their analyses have concentrated almost exclusively on the literary treatment of the war produced by combatants (or ex-combatants). The texts published by officially accredited reporters, such as Philip Gibbs or Basil Clarke, and also independent or free-lance writers who managed to get to the front, like Edith Wharton, Alexander Powell, May Sinclair, Granville Fortescue or Mary Roberts Rinehart, have been hitherto totally unexplored. My presentation reflects on the difficulties (restricted access to the battlefields, censorship, propaganda, etc.) that these authors encountered when attempting to depict the Great War and how these difficulties influenced and shaped their literary treatment of the conflict.
PLL 2
Elena Sasu (Poitiers)
On Editing Medieval Manuscripts
The PhD dissertation I'm currently working on deals with the edition of an early 15 century manuscript containing a collection of 57 Sunday sermons. During the seminar I will address the following aspects of the methodology used: identification of sources, elucidation of the text on different levels such as grammar, lexis and syntax. This will be followed by a quick demonstration of the various tools of the editor: the online MED, LALME, and informatic tools. I will also address the ideological concerns in the contents of the manuscript, since its composition coincides with a time of a strong heretical movement - Lollardy. The final aspect considered will show how these particular sermons fit in the very voluminous corpus of English sermons: although they are outspoken for the period, they do belong to an established genre; the editor's task is therefore to ascertain to what extent they conform to the norm.
Hülya Tafli Duzgun (Bangor)
Another East? The Representation of the East in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Romances: A Comparative Study
My chosen corpus of Anglo-Norman romances, which are Chanson de Florence, Boeve de Haumtone and Roman de Horn and of the Middle English Le Bone Florence of Rome, Bevis of Hampton and Romance of Horn, ranges across four centuries because my aim is to explore the idea that another East' existed during the Middle Ages. In order to show the reality of the East, first, I will suggest that Otherness', which is marked by the race and the religious difference of the Saracens in the East, may not be showing the actual East. Second, I will argue that, although there was tension and even belligerence, there was also religious tolerance and respect in the East. Third, this study will also show and analyze the geographical haziness that it is perceived when the East is defined and described. Fourth, by interrogating the texts, I will seek to find out how medieval romance audience understood the East, as this was the place which has influenced a number of Western texts through pilgrimage, trade and wars.
Öz Öktem (Thessaloniki)
The Representation of the Muslim Woman in Early Modern English Drama
Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, which sees an organic relation between the West's hegemonic domination of the East and the Western discourse on the East, does not squarely fit the period of the Renaissance. Far from the positional superiority it assumed in the later ages, during the Renaissance, England was only a nascent nation seeking support from the Islamic superpower of the Ottomans to rival the other nations within the radically fractured Christendom. The study of the representation of Muslim women in Renaissance drama must be seen in this context. In addition, attention must be paid to the interconnection of gender notions across the two cultures, Muslim and Christian. Humanism, the Reformation, and new industrial forms of production enabled Englishwomen for the first time to articulate ideas of equality and defend their rights for greater liberties. The substantial effort observed in the writings of many male writers to legitimize women's subordination presents evidence of the patriarchal anxiety caused by women's transgression of their culturally prescribed roles. With examples from the plays that I analyze in my dissertation, in this presentation, I want to show how the fictional Muslim female figures of the English stage embody the Christian patriarchal anxieties with respect to both the overwhelming power of Islam and the oppositional voices of Englishwomen.
Natascha Haas (Heidelberg)
Representations of National Identity in Contemporary Scottish Crime Fiction
The dissertation project presented provides a comparative analysis of Scottish pre- and post-devolutionary crime fiction with regard to changing representations of national identity. Since the devolution referendum (1997) and reopening of the Scottish Parliament (1999), national consciousness has grown stronger and been filled with optimism, after a period of resignation during Thatcherism. Considering that since the 1970s hard-boiled crime writing has been used to transport social critique and has thus become a postmodern form of social novel, I propose that since devolution, works contributing to the genre are changing towards a new (if tentative) optimism, cosmopolitanism and a Scottish identity rooted in a globalized world.
I will present examples from Ian Rankin's Rebus Series that underline a development within the genre from engagement with Scottish tradition to an opening up towards 21st century global issues, such as gender debates, the threat of terrorism, immigration. In later novels, Rankin describes national identity and society's prospects in increasingly optimistic, pluralist and cosmopolitan ways while still conserving traditional imagery and features of Scottish literature. This goes along with a blurring of genre boundaries that makes Scottish issues accessible for a wider, also non-Scottish, audience.
Ivana Trajanoska (Montpellier)
Music in Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson
My PhD thesis outlines the role of music in the 13-volume novel Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson. I argue that music is closely related to the search of national, religious and gender identity of the main protagonist. Furthermore, I analyze the aesthetic aspect of the novel through music, and I connect it to the basic concept in the novel, and that is unity of present, past, and future, with the concept of music, and the ways it affects its narrative structure. I try to show how music functions as a metaphor in Pilgrimage, but I also point to its melos. The main focus of my presentation for the doctoral seminar at the 11th ESSE Conference is going to be on the characteristics that make one novel musical; what does the term musical novel mean; does it function as a metaphor, and to what extent musicalization of fiction is a metaphorical effort, and how does it apply to Dorothy Richardson's novel.
Linguistics Sessions (PLING)
Session 1 (PLING 1): THURSDAY, 14:30-16:30, TB 310
Session 2 (PLING 2): SAT, 13:30-14:30, NB 11
Convenors:
Anna MAURANEN (University of Helsinki, FI)
Lachlan MACKENZIE (VU University of Amsterdam, NL and ILTEC, PT)
PLING 1
Verena BERNARDI (University of Saarland, DE)
Swearing as an Alignment Technique
Swearing is an integral part of daily life for many people. The phenomenon of swearing has been examined in various research areas and recent investigations have tended to focus on psychological aspects (e.g. Jay and Janschewitz 2008), offensiveness and frequency ratings (e.g. Beers-Fägersten 2007; Rassin and Muris 2004) and the history of swearing (e.g. Ljung 2011). The study will analyze how swear words can help interlocutors display involvement and friendship in conversations, e.g. in the extract below, where one man completes an utterance in progress for another to express his support by using a swear word:
352 |
Max |
but then they ended up selling it, |
|
353 |
|
for exactly what we offered them. (2.0) |
|
354 |
|
like- |
|
355 |
Douglas |
[like dicks]. |
|
356 |
Max |
[like almost] a year later, (1.5) |
This passage illustrates how swear words can serve to align with one's interlocutor.
This study will attempt to categorize three highly context- and interlocutor-dependent functions (affirmative swearing, reinforcing swearing, affectionate swearing) of swear words with different forms of realization (e.g. expletive interjections).
My conversational data demonstrates that the primary functions of swear words can be employed by men and women to an equal extent in order to structurally and/or emotionally align oneself with one's interlocutor(s). As in other cases, interpretation depends on factors such as context, speaker/listener relationship, intonation, etc.
Eva Lucía Jiménez NAVARRO (University of Córdoba, ES)
Collocations in the Language of Science: the Second Language Learner's Perspective
The learning of collocations has proved to be an area that has not received the attention it deserves. These units have traditionally been neglected in the teaching of second languages in favour of the teaching of more idiomatic units, such as phrasal verbs and idioms, suffice it to check the available reference works and teaching material dealing with these (Seidl, 1990; McCarthy and O'Dell, 2007, 2010; Gairns and Redman, 2011). We believe their teaching to be peripheral due to the fact that their meaning is easily graspable if one understands the meaning of their components (i.e. base and collocate). Despite this, there is research that highlights the difficulty learners have when dealing with these "slippery” units (Nation, 2001; Nesselhauf, 2005; Cerqueira, 2009; Blanco, 2010) since this research proves that they have difficulties in storing collocations in their memory and that, in some cases, they lack collocational awareness (Ying, 2004; Károly, 2005). Having identified the fact that even advanced learners do not master these linguistic units, we believe more attention needs to be paid to them. This paper aims at analyzing a corpus of 50 research articles (RAs) written by lecturers at the University of Cordoba in order to find out if they, as non-native users of English, have mastered the use of collocations in their writing of this genre. In addition to this, we have designed a software tool for self-study/revision of these linguistic units to help researchers to become more familiar with the most commonly used collocations in RAs. The collocations included in the self-study tool have been chosen in terms of their frequency of occurrence in this type of academic writing genre.
Monika KAVALIR (University of Ljubljana, SI)
Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Adjectival Structures
In my research project I am interested in the analysis of absolute and relative uses of adjectival structures in all three degrees. Based on the Systemic-Functional paradigm, I put forward three hypotheses:
I propose that adjectival structures can be used either absolutely or relatively in all three degrees, i.e. that there is a systemic choice in both English and Slovenian between the absolute and relative use of adjectives, e.g. Older people generally hate new technology vs. Jo is older than Jim. While all of these possibilities exist in both English and Slovenian, the difference between the two is that in English it is the absolute use of the superlative degree that is particularly productive, whereas in Slovenian it is the absolute use of the comparative degree that is very frequent. What this means is that when mediating between the two languages, Slovenian users of English will primarily be expected to overuse absolute comparatives in English, but in addition will be likely to transfer the absolute use of superlative adjectives to Slovenian.
Most of my work so far has been focused on determining the structures in question and their implications for the two languages. I plan to put these findings to the test by using the BNC and FidaPLUS corpora as well as by analysing student translations of relevant structures and published Slovenian translations of widely-read English-language novels.
Danica JEROTIJEVIĆ (University of Kragujevac, RS)
Serbian EFL Learners' Pronunciation Difficulties and Strategies for Overcoming Them
Several factors are thought to predominantly affect target language pronunciation: mother tongue interference, students' age, amount of exposure, phonetic ability and certain affective factors such as motivation and personality. However, the influence of the aforementioned factors may be reduced by employing appropriate learning strategies.
The present paper aims at determining the type of difficulties Serbian EFL learners have when pronouncing English vowels, i.e. monophthongs in our case, as well as at discovering the strategies they employ seeking to overcome the difficulties in question.
With the results of relevant earlier studies in mind, we based our research on the following hypotheses:
In order to obtain the necessary data for analysis, the research consisted of three parts. For the first part, the participants were asked to read a previously prepared text including all English monophthongs as well as a list of words containing relevant target sounds. The second part of the research was a specially designed questionnaire allowing the participants to express their opinion regarding which English monophthong represents the greatest difficulty for them in terms of pronunciation. Finally, the third part was another questionnaire regarding strategies learners employ to enhance acquisition and overcome production difficulties. The participants belonged to different age and proficiency levels, from elementary to upper-intermediate. A total of 60 EFL students participated in the study and the results confirmed the initial hypotheses, thus providing us with important implications both for language teaching and possible further research in interlanguage phonology.
PLING 2
Petra BUCHER (University of Halle-Wittenberg, DE)
English as a Lingua Franca: The Linguistic Implications of Internationalisation on German Universities
The on-going globalisation and not least the Bologna Reform are contributing to the use of English as a lingua franca in science - this is changing working and learning at a university considerably. The present paper reports major empirical results of a doctoral dissertation project by describing demands an "internationalised education” makes on a non-Anglo-American university, considering everyone involved in a university language contact scenario: scholars, but also students and the administrative staff. The Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, an average German university in terms of its student numbers and of being a full university, offering a broad spectrum of subjects to study, was chosen to showcase how far the process of linguistic internationalisation at German institutions of higher education has already progressed. Thus, this contribution
Zane AMURO (Ventspils University College, LV)
Coping With Culture in Conference Interpreting
Despite its historical antiquity and geographical spread, interpreting studies still remain very much a minority interest in Translation Studies. And yet interpreting as an activity that goes on in different social settings may be one of the most widespread forms of translation activity in the world today, as it has been for tens of thousands of years. The crucial importance of interpreting in countless situations where questions of power and control are prominent show its importance as it takes place in real time and is meant for immediate use; usually it is impossible to make any corrections or verify it.
Speeches by politicians constitute a field of special importance in interpreting, where the specifics and huge influence of interpreting is reflected especially clearly as incorrect translation can negatively affect international relations between countries.
The majority of interpreters find international business and political negotiations most sensitive and challenging, since everyone sees the world through various lenses, creating along the way meanings for the pictures that they see. We need to exercise caution and not assume that each utterance has only one meaning. Everything seen and heard is as much a product of the world as it is of any individual's or group's system of categories.
Linguistic skills alone will not equip interpreters for such intercultural encounters. Developing cultural awareness and adaptability is crucial for those who work in a global environment. The hypothesis of my research states that the interpreter needs not only proficiency in two languages, he also must be at home' with two cultures; in other words, he must be bilingual and bicultural.
However, the results so far obtained show that omissions, generalizations and substitutions are frequent ways of dealing with culture-specific references. Thus it may be concluded that culture is what partially gets lost in conference interpreting.
The corpus under consideration is a compilation of speeches delivered by American and Latvian politicians.
Valeria FRANCESCHI (University of Verona, IT)
Non-Native Speakers and Textual Poaching: Fan Fiction in English as a Lingua Franca
Fan fiction may be described as "fan-authored texts stemming from popular culture and media” (Black 2005). Fan culture-based activities have seen a sharp increase since the popularization of Internet access, and with English still the most represented language in this domain, non-native speakers themselves have adopted this language for their stories.
The aim of this study is to attempt to shed some light on the way non-native speakers (NNS) approach creative writing in a language that is not their mother tongue in a public international setting, and more specifically to:
The research entails the creation of a corpus, consisting exclusively of NNS-authored fan fiction, to be analyzed by means of a corpus analysis tool such as Wordsmith as well as by manual scanning.
A native corpus will be used as a point of reference in order to verify significant divergence in native and non-native features. A second phase in the research will aim at exploring the attitudes readers and fellow writers have in relations to fan fiction displaying linguistic deviations, by means of a survey or an online discussion forum moderated by the researcher. Results will hopefully yield answers to multiple questions:
The study at the moment of writing this abstract is still at a preliminary stage, and the criteria for data collection are currently being established.
ELT/ESP Sessions (PELT)
Session 1 (PELT 1): THUR, 17:00-19:00, TB 310
Convenors:
Marina BONDI (University of Modena & Reggio Emilia, IT)
Josef SCHMIED
(Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany)
PELT 1
Caroline PEYNAUD (Université Bordeaux 2, FR)
Culture, milieu and discourse of the American quality press: a study of the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The research project is conducted in the field of ESP, that is to say the study of specialised domains taking into account language, culture and the professional milieu. It focuses on the domain of American journalism, especially of similar newspapers in terms of quality and content, the New York Times and the Washington Post. The main hypothesis is that some linguistic features of their discourse express the specific needs of the journalistic professional milieu. The purpose of this study is thus to understand the relationship between culture and discourse in the American press.
After studying the history of the domain, discovery of the milieu has mostly been achieved by following a sociological methodology. A questionnaire was sent to journalists of the two newspapers, asking them about topics such as their ethics, their image of the profession or their educational background. Another questionnaire was sent to professors in journalism schools, to understand the way journalism students are trained and the values that are transmitted in these schools. Finally, interviews of journalists and journalism professors will be conducted in April during a field trip to the United States, which will provide an opportunity to study the cultural specificities of the profession at greater length. As a final step, a corpus of front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post of four non-consecutive quarters will be analysed and related to the cultural study.
So far, results have shown that the milieu is defined by very specific standards of ethics and writing, but has also been shaped by the history of the profession and the criticisms it underwent, especially regarding their lack of objectivity. These features gave rise to needs of expression that undoubtedly shape the discourse produced by these newspapers today.
Nina LAZAREVIC (University of Novi Sad, RS)
Intercultural competence of university students - is it within an easy reach?
The PhD thesis, Intercultural competence as an aspect of the communicative competence on the tertiary level English language learners is a research done with university students in Nis, Serbia. The competence in terms of attitudes and knowledge to be shown in intercultural encounters might be crucial for these students' future success. However, there still are no courses on intercultural competence and it seems that it is taken for granted that students will learn it through their foreign language courses.
Therefore, the thesis sets forth several hypotheses:
- (1) university students in Nis do not have a high level of intercultural competence and sensitivity;
- (2) the English language students might have a higher intercultural competence due to exposure to both culture and language during their studies;
- (3) the syllabi of English university courses do not include particular activities on intercultural competence or sensitivity;
- (4) through its qualitative phase, the research sets out to explore the factors that might affect one's intercultural competence.
In order to explore those hypotheses, a mixed-method approach was used. Firstly, the students of ten departments of the University of Nis did a General Perspective Inventory (GPI) questionnaire. Then, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one student from each of the departments (and three from the Department of English). While the GPI questionnaire provided results to general attitudes and stands of 336 university students, the twelve interviews showed the students' competence in relation to some particular intercultural incidents/situations designed specifically for the Serbian and Anglophone (predominantly the US and UK) cultures in contact .
Therefore, the presentation will primarily discuss methodology applied, as the mixed-methods approach poses a number of challenges to a researcher: from the choice of the sample to the links to be created between qualitative and quantitative phases and incorporation of results obtained through them. Also, the preliminary results will be presented and discussed, together with the analysis of the coding of the interviews (currently in process) which should provide some more specific data.
Diler ABA (University of Antwerp, BE)
Linguistic and Cultural Communication Needs of International Exchange Students
In this research, the linguistic and cultural aspects of international communication in short term educational exchanges will be investigated, since international student migration in recent years has increased significantly. It is important to investigate the prospective communication problems of exchange students because "student migration follows the same pattern as economic migration” (Van Mol, 2009), which points at a connection between student mobility and afterwards job migration. Turkey is the subject country for this research, firstly because Turkey is one of the primary countries which sends many students abroad for study. In the academic year 2008-2009, 6.967 students benefitted from the various student mobility programmes in Turkey (CoHE 2010, p28) and 97 Turkish universities participated in the Erasmus exchange programme (yok.gov.tr). Secondly this investigation aims at developing materials (linguistic materials) for mobile Turkish students in order to prepare them for the study abroad before their departure.
The focus of this study is on student communicative needs during mobility, i..e. while being abroad. To this end, a comprehensive needs analysis will be carried out. This study will use a mixed methodology. First, in order to emphasize the importance and the need of the present study, a critical investigation on the connection between student mobility and afterwards jobs migration will be made. In the second level, the exchange students will be interviewed about their incentives and expectations about studying abroad as part of their regular curriculum. The primary data for this research, however, will be drawn from questionnaires on communicative experiences, challenges and deficits, which will be administered to the participants prior to, during and after their study abroad. These data will be contrasted and studied longitudinally and will result into a syllabus or learning material for "academic survival abroad”.
Pedro Luis LUCHINI (Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, AR)
Analyzing the impact of the inclusion of a communicative component into a traditional approach for the development of pronunciation skills: A comparative study
This study aims at evaluating the benefits of adding a communicative, awareness-building component to a traditional teacher-centered form-focused pronunciation course intended for learners enrolled in an English Teacher Training Program at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Fifty trainees participated in this study, divided into two homogenous groups. These two groups were taught separately and at different times. One group was exposed to a traditional teacher-centered, form-focused pronunciation type of instruction. The other added a communicative component (CC) to the traditionally teacher-directed mode of instruction.
The analysis was done on an individual task recorded on tape and used as pre- and post-test. A group of specialists in ELT (English language teaching) from Argentina and from Canada listened to these recordings and judged them using different measurements. Their judgments were made on the basis of five prosodic parameters: stress timing, location of tonic syllable, pause frequency and duration, speech rate and naturalness (the latter parameter includes a set of three sub-items: accentedness, comprehensibility and fluency). On account of time constraints, only the results emerging from the last parameter -naturalness- will be presented here. The methodology based on a traditional-centered approach that integrated a CC yielded better results in the pre-test condition for the sub-indices of accentedness and fluency. The group exposed to the traditional approach that did not integrate a CC improved and outperformed -in the post-test condition -their counterparts in the parameters of accentedness and fluency. Apparently, there were no significant differences either in pre- or in post-test conditions for the parameter of comprehensibility. Inter-marker reliability was significantly high, with a range of 8-9. Based on these findings, some pedagogical implications will be discussed.
Esther de la Peña Puebla (University of Sevilla, ES)
Literature and Education: Proposal of an English Literature Program for E.S.O
and Bachillerato as an Integrated and Interdisciplinary Tool for TESL.
This paper seeks to analyze the role that literature has performed throughout the last years and how literature is an essential tool for the comprehensive study of a second language, as an integral part of the educational process. The Model suggested enhances the figure of the teacher and promotes the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the students within a multicultural environment.
The study of literature has hardly ever been considered as an integrated tool for a better comprehensive acknowledgement of the English language. The lack of awareness of the methodological strategies to approach the vast resources literary texts can offer is a major issue. The resistance of students to read books as part of the learning process in their second language acquisition is also favoured by the fact that the traditional reading techniques employed in class disregard their active participation in the construction of a critical perspective. If one considers the new demands and expectations in the education of students nowadays, programs are designed to stimulate and develop interest in individual learning competence, reliability in problem solving, and respect for multiculturalism. However, the reality of current practice is that the processes through which students try to pursue those objectives are not always successful.
This study seeks to provide an all-inclusive methodological support to engage teachers and students in a communicative process that will foster second language acquisition and will enhance the student´s competence in the four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The integration of literature within the syllabus of the course will not only facilitate the study of a new language, but it will also contribute to bringing about new perspectives on education. Critical debates and reasoning through reading and discussing are also shown to help students develop a more definite personality. The wide range of opportunities a good teaching of literary texts can offer in the syllabus of any course is not to be underestimated by any discipline, much less in language learning (Carter, 1996:92).
Cultural Studies Sessions (PCS)
Session 1 (PCS 1): SAT, 13:30-15:30, TB 415
Convenors:
John CORBETT (University of Glasgow, UK)
Michael PARSONS (Université de Pau, FR)
PCS 1
Kornelia BOCZKOWSKA (Adam Mickiewicz University, PL)
American Pragmatism and Russian Mysticism? On Popular Visual Representations of Extraterrestrial 'Non-Places' That Inspire (D) the Space Age
The paper aims to investigate the popular culture of space travel and extraterrestrial "non-places" (Augé 1995) where I inquire into the American mindset viewed as a cultural construct and compare it with its Russian counterpart. My semiotic and cultural studies analysis is based on varied cosmic impressions contained in selected space representations published in the 20th century mass media, including space art, photography, zero-g space art, astronomical scientific illustrations or popular culture artifacts such as stamps, postcards or magazine covers. Particularly, the genre of a space art,so far hardly explored in more interdisciplinary and scholarly terms,serves as a valuable popular culture text representing an array of encoded meanings. The undertaken research of selected scientists, artists or space travelers, embracing Georgi Kurnin, Aleksei Leonov, Andrei Sokolov, Chesley Bonestell, David Hardy or William Hartman, is aimed to reveal certain cross-cultural differences between the two space age rivals, particularly those considering their cognitive view of the world. The core of my analysis lies in cultural studies, conceptual art, cognition and philosophy of culture whose mutual premise is that culture shapes one's mindset and that the spiritual, i.e. common patterns of human thought and behaviour, is reflected in the material (see, e.g. Donald 1997). Founded on such an assumption, my study seeks to determine whether a commonly proposed distinction between the American pragmatism and the Russian mysticism exists in the realm of both nations' popular culture of space representations, functioning here as cultural-cognitive constructs. Also, the paper attempts to establish which national heritage domains certain dissimilarities might have derived from, examining, e.g. the movementof the Russian Cosmism, the Russian Orthodox Church philosophy, the American tradition of frontier experience as well as religious and pragmatic thought, the rise of the U.S. observational cosmology or the global village phenomenon (see, e.g. Gavin-Blakeley 1976)
Deimantas VALANCIUNAS (Vilnius University, LT)
The Construction of Identity in Indian and British Films: A Postcolonial Approach
The aim of my PhD thesis is to analyse the mutual Anglo-Indian representations and identity construction in popular films of both British and Indian film industries. Methodological approaches include film analysis, historical and comparative film research, combined with identity studies and cultural / postcolonial theories (Benedict Anderson, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Ashis Nandy).Research is conducted by analysing the colonial and postcolonial environment in which identity is constructed and disseminated and its reflections in popular films. The thesis also pays attention to the numerous intersecting discourses interacting with postcolonial theory:gender, race and sexuality among others. The PhD thesis is divided into two main research parts: theoretical and practical. Practical part, which consists of the analysis of selected films of both British and Indian popular film industries, is composed according to three different theoretical and conceptual frameworks, based on the identity analysis approaches in postcolonial theory: 1) colonial representations and critique of colonial discourse (British heritage films and analysis of A Passage to India); 2) anticolonial and nationalist responses (manipulation of the Hindu mythology as the anticolonial struggle legitimating tool in Lagaan as well as the concept of martyrdom and employment of national heroes in Rang De Basanti); 3) the diasporic identity reconfigurations through hybridisation, migration and globalization (analysis being carried out for the films of bothindustries: East is East representing the British and Namastey London- the Indian). A separate chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the recent hybridised screen performances such as Slumdog Millionaire.
The results from the conducted film analysis reveal how popular cinema reacts to the historical and socio-cultural changes, ideological displacements and deals with colonial past in both of the industries. The constant re-invention and invocation of the colonial memory in popular Indian films (even the recent ones) signals about a strong urge to sustain and reconstruct national identity and belonging while the British films contemplate the loss of imperial identity and the multicultural and multi-ethnic reality of today.
Elena Igartuburu GARCÍA (University of Oviedo, ES)
Women in Motion: Performativity, Gender and the City in Caribbean Literature
This doctoral project proposes an analysis of the reciprocal productive relationship between individuals and the city. Grounded on a performative consideration of identity and notions of representation and appropriation that draw from queer and postcolonial studies, it seeks to explore the ways in which cities shape and are shaped by certain subjectivities, and how non-normative individuals within society struggle against the city's multiple grids - both physical and discursive - to find a place of their own within this space. In its regard for gender and ethnicity as central to the construction of identity, it seeks to pay special attention to how normativity is opposed individually through everyday practices in an attempt to destabilize the binary notions of femininity/masculinity, Otherness, and particularly how this occurs in the context of the (transnational) Caribbean. It also undertakes a thorough questioning and deconstruction of the well-established definitions of the basic concepts in this research field, such as gender, ethnicity and race, city, urban space, etc.
To this end, my research starts from theories such as Judith Butler's, Stuart Hall's, Elizabeth Grosz's and Michel de Certeau's, as it attempts to provide an innovative perspective of the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the shaping of identity. From this background, this project analyses the ways in which discursive rules work in the production of individuals as Others as well as in processes of assimilation, within a context in which settlement and mobility - within the city or transnational - become central features as they acquire different meanings in the forging of subjectivity.
This theoretical research presents as its practical counterpart the analysis of a corpus of contemporary transnational Caribbean literature that encompasses, specifically, women writers of Indian or Chinese ancestry. The interest in such a specific field springs first from a consideration of the Caribbean as a typically unstable and contradictory space not only in its mixture of people, language and cultures, but also in its spatial definition; second, from the observation of a neglect of Indo-Caribbean and Chinese-Caribbean literatures in comparison to extended interest in Afro-Caribbean literature. In this light, both literatures appear themselves, not only as individual visions of the Caribbean and of the world from a postcolonial and postmodern perspective, but also as struggles for representation within a literary and academic context that has largely disregarded their voices.
Ladan Amir SAFAEI (Atılım University, TR)
Identity Crisis in White Teeth
White Teeth, a novel written by Zadie Smith in 2000, illustrates a microcosm of multicultural British society in postcolonial period. It basically voices out the dilemma in multicultural families as to decide whether it is the indigenous culture of home that shapes the "true" identity of the second generation immigrants, or it is this very indigenous culture blended with parental pressure in multicultural families that creates conflict in identity formation of the children. In particular, the aim of this study is to focus on the idea that immigrant parents' insistence to protect their cultural heritage might result in adaptation problems as well as identity crisis both in them and their children. In this study it is argued that the identities that the twins Millat and Magid develop are exactly opposite to the ones that are expected by their parents, especially their father Samad. Thus,the study emphasizes that since cultural identity is a matter of"being" as well as "becoming" as Stuart Hall suggests, a so-called "true" identity formed in a multicultural atmosphere is best formed in a hybrid manner that embraces the features of both home and host cultures.
Prof. Isıl Bas
Bogazici University
Faculty of Arts and Letters
Department of Western Languages and
Literatures, Bebek İstanbul
cfp@esse2012.org
Tel: +90 212 347 63 00
Fax: +90 212 347 63 63
