English Narratives Research Articles

Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children's Literature

As its title indicates, Uncharted Depths seeks to draw new attention to the complexity and critical importance of nineteenth-century writing for children, and, indeed, to defend children's literature more generally as a serious object of study. It sets about this task through the examination of descent narratives, those fictions of the underground excursion that, explicitly or not, echo the katabatic travels traced in The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Dante's Inferno. The rich corpus of texts discussed includes Antoine de La Sale's Le Paradis de la reine Sibylle, François de Fénelon's Aventures de Télémaque, William Hayley's The Triumphs of Temper, George Sand's ‘La Fée poussière’, Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la Terre, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin. Beautifully produced by Legenda, the volume includes a welcome quantity of illustrations from these works. Key to the volume's methodology is a consideration of intertextuality as it relates to the perceived hierarchy between adult and children's literature. The book leads forcefully, through its various readings, to a conclusion suggesting that, although there are differences between traditional katabatic narratives and those addressed to younger readers, rarely ‘are these distinctions in line with Genette's pronouncements about children's literature which together depict it as a conservative, inferior form characterized by sanitization and heavy-handed moralization’ (p. 123). To reach this conclusion Vaclavik moves through four compelling chapters on ‘Katabatic Intertextual Relations’, ‘The Underground Landscape and its Inhabitants’, ‘Gender Roles and Relations’, and ‘Didacticism and Diversion’. A particular strength of these chapters lies in the attention given to the precursor texts. The volume's moves through Homer, Virgil, and Dante are very rewarding. The detail of Vaclavik's insights enhances a sense of the complexity of the intertextual links she identifies. Her study of the children's novels is less immediately satisfying, however, perhaps as a result of the survey method used. Rather than look in detail at entire texts, and without always registering their playfulness and enchantment, Vaclavik assesses recurring elements of the narratives. This leads to some innovative conclusions about the role of katabatic narratives in exploring mortality, about their range of conservatism and innovation with relation to gender relations, and about their embrace of didacticism or sheer entertainment. With relation to didacticism, the consideration of these katabatic narratives in their nineteenth-century context, in a world where going underground is newly associated with scientific pursuits such as geology and archaeology, is particularly striking. Yet what these dispassionate analyses lose is any acknowledgement that Vaclavik's reader may herself have read and loved, as a child, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, for example, or The Princess and the Goblin. Work championing children's literature, as Vaclavik's does so powerfully, can also perhaps aim towards an understanding of the peculiar appeal of works known affectively through time, works that have acquired value and resonance precisely from their debts, and indeed their depths, remaining undisclosed.

Some Thoughts on Biography and the Historiography of the Twentieth-Century Arab World1

The number of English-language biographies of Arab subjects is tiny compared to the number of English-language biographies of North American and European subjects. I argue that this discrepancy is due to three main factors: the preponderance of historians of Europe and North America in history departments in the English-speaking world; the limited crossover market for serious biographies of Arab subjects; and difficulties arising from access to, and the style of, the Arabic sources. A fragment from the life-story of Fawzi al-Qawuqji, an early-20th-century Arab nationalist and soldier, is introduced as a way of pointing to the challenges of using Arabic memoirs to craft a biographical narrative in English.

That Was the GDR - A History of the Other Germany (Das war die DDR - Eine Geschichte des anderen Deutschlands) (review)

That Was the GDR - A History of the Other Germany (Das war die DDR - Eine Geschichte des anderen Deutschlands) (1993) Directed by: Anne Worst, Arnold Seul, Christian Klemke, Donat Schober, Gitta Nickel, Gunther Scholz, Lothar Kompatzki, Martina Koerbler, Uwe Belz, Wolfgang Schwarze Distributed by First Run Features www.firstrunfeatures.com 360 min In the past several years, strong, cleverly made feature films on the former German Democratic Republic have collected international audiences and awards. Life under communist rule in the old Eastern Bloc states continues to hold strong interest for American audiences, particularly when recounted with such skill as in award-winning art house hits as Good Bye, Lenin.' and The Lives of Others (the latter winning the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Feature). Das war die DDR - Eine Geschichte des anderen Deutschlands (That Was the GDR - A History of the Other Germany) is an epic documentary, originally made for television in Germany. Made soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1993 series is now available with overdubbed English narration (done previously in 1998 for, one assumes, British broadcast). The film focuses on capturing a moment in time, an oral history of living in the German Democratic Republic, through interviews with East Germans from a broad range of social strata. Composed in seven sections by different directors, this documentary captures the unique perspective of a citizenship that watched its nation vanish into history. The seven sections, Was a Citizen of the GDR, From 'Zone' to State, From Economic Plan to Economic Collapse, For the People's Welfare, Mind and Might, Shield and Sword, and We Are the People, all follow a similar format and are remarkably consistent in quality. Indeed, watching the sections in succession, one cannot help but be amazed by the breadth of the project and the range of interviewees available to the filmmakers. The memories are all fresh, since the events they recall happened, quite literally, just yesterday for the participants. Emotions have not always caught up with those events, however, and despite their general clarity, the speakers sometimes seem a little disoriented. One can hardly blame their bemusement. After all, it's not every day that one's country is politically, economically, and socially dissolved. In all sections of the documentary, the prevailing disposition projected by the speakers is disillusionment. Particularly powerful are accounts of the experiences within the intellectual and artistic community. Says Inge Hunziger, a sculptor, thought being a Communist was different... an aggressive, offensive, brave march... struggle on several levels including intellectual debate... not being jittery every time someone coughs wrong. Many of the intelligentsia interviewed had emigrated back to the East after the war in the hope of helping to build a socialist society. Over time they saw their ideals come into conflict with the increasingly autocratic dictates of the state. Notes one musician, still think about it. I reflect on all of our effort and the emotions. ..our self-sacrificing quest to adapt. …

DVD Reviews

L'Argent (1928) France Director Marcel L'Herbier Adapted by Marcel L'Herbier, inspired by the novel by mile Zola Production Cinmondial Cinematography Jean Letort Art Directors Lazare Meerson and A. Barsacq With Pierre Alcover (Nicolas Saccard), Mary Glory (Line Hamelin), Brigitte Helm (Baronne Sandorf), Yvette Guilbert (La Mchain), Henry Victor (Jacques Hamelin), Alfred Abel (Alphonse Gunderman), Pierre Juvenet (Baron Defrance), Antonin Artaud (Mazaud), Jules Berry (Huret), Al Mihalesco (Massias) Runtime 165 minutes DVD UK, 2008 Distributed by Eureka! in The Masters of Cinema Series (Region 2) Aspect Ratio 1.37:1 Sound Mix Stereo 2.0 and Surround 5.1 Extras Feature restored by Centre national de la cinmatographie. Transfer from fine-grain print struck from original negative. New optional English subtitles. New piano accompaniment by Jean-Franois Zygel. Presentation by Jean-Franois Zygel/Prsentation par Jean-Franois Zygel (2008), an introduction to the film. About L'Argent, a 40-minute documentary by Jean Drville, with narration added in 1971. Marcel L'Herbier: Poet of the Silent Art/Marcel L'Herbier: Pote de l'art silencieux (2007), a 54-minute documentary directed by Laurent Vray. The Arrival of Brigitte Helm in Paris for the Shooting of L'Argent/ L'Arrive Paris de Brigitte Helm pour le tournage de L'Argent (1928), directed by Jean Drville. Screen Tests of the Actors of L'Argent/ Essais d'acteur de L'Argent (1928), directed by Marcel L'Herbier. Accompanying Silent Cinema/Accompagner le cinma muet (2008), about the music score, directed by Fabien Ricour. Sound Demonstration: Stock Exchange Scene (2008). 80-page booklet with interviews, stills and essay by film historian Richard Abel. Man with a Movie Camera (1929) USSR Director Dziga Vertov Cinematography Mikhail Kaufman Assistant Editor Elizaveta Svilova Produced by VUFKU With Mikhail Kaufman (Cameraman), Elizaveta Svilova (Editor) Runtime 68 minutes Black & White Sound Silent DVD United Kingdom, 2008 Distributed by The British Film Institute (region 2) Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Recommended Retail Price 15.99 Special Features Fully remastered and restored print. Specially commissioned score composed by Michael Nyman and performed by the Michael Nyman Orchestra. Fully uncompressed PCM stereo audio. On-screen biographies of Michael Nyman, Dziga Vertov, Mikhail and Boris Kaufman. Film posters designed by the Steinberg Brothers from the Susan Pack Collection. Picture of Michael Nyman. Essay by Peter Kemp. White Mane (1953) France Director Albert Lamorisse Screenplay Albert Lamorisse Original Story Denys Colomb de Daunant Producer Albert Lamorisse Director of Photography Edmond Schan With Alain Emery (Folco), Laurent Roche, Clan-Clan, Pascal Lamorisse, Franois Perie, Charles Guillaume, Alain and Denys Colomb de Daunant, Pierre Bestieux, Pierre Moureaux-Nery and J.P. Grenier (Narrator) Runtime 40 minutes DVD USA, 2008 Produced and Distributed by Janus Films (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Sound Mix Monaural Extras New English narration spoken by Peter Strauss. New theatrical trailer. New and improved English subtitle translation. The Red Balloon (1956) France Director Albert Lamorisse Screenplay Albert Lamorisse Producer Albert Lamorisse Director of Photography Edmond Schan Art Director Michael Pezin With Pascal Lamorisse, Georges Sellier, Vladmir Popof, Paul Prerey, Rene Marion, Sabine Lamorisse, Michel Pezin, Renaud, David Schan Runtime 34 minutes DVD USA, 2008 Produced and Distributed by Janus Films (region 1) Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Sound Mix Monaural Extras New theatrical trailer. New and improved English subtitle translation. Silent Light (2007) Mexico Director Carlos Reygadas Screenplay Carlos Reygadas Producer Jaime Romandia Director of Photography Alexis Zab Art Director Nohemi Gonzalez Sound Sergio Diaz, Martin Hernandez Editor Natalia Lpez With Cornelio Wall (Johan), Miriam Toews (Esther), Maria Pankratz (Marianne), Peter Wall (Father), Jacobo Klassen (Zacarias), Elizabeth Fehr (Mother) Runtime 136 minutes DVD UK, 2008 Produced and Distributed by Tartan Video (region 0) Aspect Ratio Anamorphic 1.35:1 Sound Mix DTS Sound Extras Making of documentary. Interview with main cast members including Cornelio Wall, Miriam Toews and Elizabeth Fehr. Deleted scenes. Princess (2006) Denmark Director Anders Morgenthaler Screenplay Anders Morgenthaler, Mette Heeno Producer Sarita Christensen Animation Directors Mads Juul, Kristjan Mller Director of Photography Kasper Tuxen Andersen With Thure Lindhardt (August), Stine Fischer Christensen (Christina), Tommy Kenter (Preben), Sren Lenander (Sonny), Christian Tafdrup (Charlie), Margrethe Koytu (Karen), Mira Hallund (Mia) Runtime 90 minutes DVD UK, 2008 Produced and Distributed by Tartan Video (Region 2) Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Sound Mix DTS Digital Surround 5.1 Extras Original theatrical trailer. Film notes.

KATE CRASSONS. The Claims of Poverty: Literature, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval England.

Everyone interested in how literature represents bodily need and economic relations should read this probing study of the epistemology of poverty in English narratives, plays and reformist prose from the 1370s through the fifteenth century. It provides, at once, a discriminating synthesis of scholarship on the topic (albeit with overlong quotations at times), probing studies of cultural keywords like ‘need’ and ‘poor men’, and subtle close readings of pivotal episodes that run the gamut of that highly flexible medieval category: poverty. The Claims of Poverty aims at nothing less than helping to remedy the invisibility of poverty in our time ‘by making readers conscious of the ways in which ideology can function to obscure the varied and intricate claims of poverty’, advancing ‘a particular social imaginary often at odds with material reality’ (p. 20). Big-hearted and rigorous, this debut book works hard to achieve that aim, not least of all in the epilogue, where Crassons places medieval debates alongside Barbara Ehrenreich’s popular but much-criticized Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Contemporary America (2001). (It seems something of a stretch even to consider whether Ehrenreich’s 3 months of low-wage labour may be an act of voluntary poverty, but other parallels stir thought about rival claims about poverty, contemporary and medieval.) Throughout, Crassons argues persuasively that, as medieval texts explore competing ideologies of poverty (I wished for a firm definition of ‘ideology’), they demand that readers interpret ‘the signs of poverty and assess their ethical implications’ (p. 13). For literature, as a form of representation, is central to the study of poverty: both demand interpretation of signs, verbal and material.

Development and use of English evaluative expressions in narratives of Chinese–English bilinguals

This study compares the development and use of evaluative expressions in the English narratives elicited from 80 Chinese–English bilinguals and 80 American monolingual peers at four ages – five, eight, ten, and young adults – using the wordless picture book Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969). Results revealed both similarities and differences between monolingual and bilingual groups. On the one hand, regardless of bilingual status, there is a clear age-related growth in the development and use of evaluative expressions. On the other hand, bilingual children in our study differed from monolingual children in the quantity and quality of evaluative clauses used. The results are discussed with respect to linguistic and cultural differences between English and Chinese.

“We Don't Change It, We Make It Applicable”: Ramlila in Trinidad

Why did audiences for Ramlila, which recounts how Lord Ram rescued his wife from the ten-headed demon king, wane in Trinidad in the 1970s and '80s? English narration along with the traditional Hindi verses, topical improvisation, new methods of script development, and breaking old gender and caste restrictions have revived the genre and led to the founding of 10 new troupes between 1995 and 2005.

The passing game: queering Jewish American culture

Tony Kushner's award-winning epic play Angels in America was remarkable not only for its sensitive engagement of Jewish-American and gay culture but also for bringing these themes to a mainstream audience. While the play represented a watershed in American theater and culture, it belies a hundred years of previous attention to queer Jewish identity in twentieth-century American literature, drama, and film. In The Passing Game, Warren Hoffman sheds light on this long history, taking up both Yiddish and English narratives that explore the tensions among Jewish identity, queer sexuality, performance, and American citizenship. With fresh insight Hoffman examines the 1907 Yiddish play God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, the cross-dressing films of Yiddish actress Molly Picon, and several short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. He also analyzes the English-language novels The Rise of David Levinsky (Abraham Cahan), Wasteland (Jo Sinclair), and Portnoy's Complaint (Phillip Roth). Hoffman highlights the ways in which the characters in these canonical texts attempt to 'pass' as white, straight, and American in the early and mid - twentieth century. This pioneering work is a welcome contribution to the study of Jewish American literature and culture.

The origins of grammaticalization in the verbalization of experience

The origins of language change, particularly grammatical change, appear to be unobservable. But the first step in language change, innovation, can be observed in the production of synchronic variation in sound change. The same can be done for morphosyntactic change such as grammaticalization by comparing alternative verbalizations of the same experience in a controlled situation. Examples of innovation in lexical semantic change and grammaticalization are examined using the twenty parallel English narratives of the Pear Stories. Morphosyntactic variation is pervasive in the Pear Stories narratives and the alternative verbalizations show that morphosyntactic change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation. These results disconfirm the traditional theory of morphosyntactic change, in which innovation is rare and special mechanisms are required to produce it. Instead, grammaticalization, and language change in general, originates in the variation inherent in the verbalization of experience.

The language of anger in Chinese and English narratives

This article analyses the language of anger used by the bilinguals in Hong Kong, and examines how the functions of L1 and L2 and users’ language proficiency may affect emotional expression. Thirty-three university students in Hong Kong participated in the research. Each was asked to write two stories about ‘an experience in which you were made angry’ and ‘an experience in which you made someone angry’, one in Chinese and the other in English. A total of 66 narrative texts were collected. The subjects also provided written comments on their feelings and language preferences in writing life stories. The narrative length, lexical and syntactic richness, and the use of metaphorical expressions in the Chinese and English texts were compared and triangulated with the subjects’ perceptions of bilinguality and emotionality. Both the linguistic data and the written comments suggest that to a very large extent language competence affects how emotionally expressive bilinguals can be. The ability to communicate and share one’s emotions is an integral part of one’s personal life but the language of emotions seems to be an under-developed area in second language education programmes. Measures are suggested to address this problem and help bilinguals to develop their competence in emotional expression.

Development of English referring expressions in the narratives of Chinese–English bilinguals

This paper investigates the development of referring expressions in the narratives of children learning English as a second language (L2). Spoken narratives in English were elicited from sixty Chinese-speaking participants at four ages – five, eight, ten, and young adults – using the wordless picture bookFrog, where are you?(Mayer, 1969). Narrative analysis focused on the referring expressions that the L2 speakers used to introduce and maintain reference to story characters in the narratives and on the referential appropriateness of those expressions. We then compared the results of this study with other, similar studies on children learning English as a first language (L1) and found both universal and L2-specific patterns in the development of referring expressions in discourse. On the one hand, regardless of whether English is acquired as an L1 or L2, appropriate use of referring expressions in discourse is developed gradually and is influenced by both discourse function (introduction vs. maintenance) and character type (main vs. secondary). On the other hand, L2 children in our study differed from L1 children in previous studies in the development of referential appropriateness in character introduction, the use of pronominals for referent maintenance, and the timeline of the mastery of appropriate forms for referent introductions versus referent maintenance.

Lust, Greed, Torture, and Identity: Narrations of Conversion and the Creation of the Early Modern Renegade

The motives behind an individual's conversion to another religion are complex and frequently contested. The moment of conversion for the convert symbolizes the beginning of a new life and new opportunities; yet for the community he or she leaves, it is often interpreted as an act of religious and political betrayal, therefore prompting different, and often opposing, narratives of conversion. A number of tropes predominant in early modern English narratives dealing with conversion to Islam are of interest in this regard: the immoral deviant “renegade” motivated by excessive lust or greed who is worse than the “natural Turks,” and the practice of violent, involuntary, forced conversion. These tropes, through their rhetorical construction of the renegade, attempt to fashion both individual and communal selves that act to relieve the psychological threat to the collective identity of the English community presented by the renegade's translocation of political, cultural and religious loyalties. It is therefore problematic to uncritically read these narratives as accurate depictions of the reality of conversion in North Africa as some previous studies have done: other contextual evidence and the use of alternative narrative frames portray converts and conversion from a significantly different perspective. In this article, primarily through the study of captivity narratives, I explore how and why these tropes of conversion were employed, the functions they fulfilled, and the contexts in which they were produced and consumed.

Pilgrimage or ‘anti-pilgrimage’? Uses of mementoes and relics in English and Scottish narratives of travel to Jerusalem, 1596–1632

In late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Jerusalem, Protestant travellers came into close contact with Catholic pilgrimage practices. They were guided by Franciscans and mingled with Catholic pilgrims as they visited the holy places. Certain critics have asserted that early modern Protestants repudiated place- and object-oriented practices of the penitential pilgrimage and consistently condemned them. This article qualifies that view, discussing evidence from seven English-language accounts of journeys to Jerusalem between 1596 and 1612, largely by Protestant authors. Most of the writers deny any susceptibility to Catholic doctrine or practice, often through criticism of the Franciscans, but several travellers report that they acquired relics or the pilgrimage certificates issued by the Franciscan Father Guardian. This article examines the heterogeneous and often complex treatments of pilgrim mementoes and responses to the holy sites by these authors. Taking account of relevant contemporary practices such as the travel wager, the article draws out the meanings which mementoes from the holy places were made to carry in secular systems of charity, proof, friendship, financial exchange and patronage.

Tugging at the Roots: The Errant Textography of Middle English Romance

This article offers an alternative story of the transmission of Middle English verse romance to the one traditionally told by textual scholarship, one rooted in stemmatics' focus on genealogical descent and its principal interest in origins. Like the medieval romance hero himself, the English romance narrative wandered from locus to locus, in this case from manuscript to manuscript, with each encounter inscribing on it a different identity with characteristics influenced by local cultural values. Stemmatics' analogy of the family tree thus enforces an artificially unified reading of Middle English romance and promotes a fundamentally modern reception of the genre. The stories that individual manuscript versions tell, when linked together in an organic network rather than grafted into a hierarchical family tree, is episodic with no clear cause-and-effect, action-and-reaction relationship indicated among these various versions. Its story lies in its scattered dissemination, fruitfully conveyed by the image of the rhizome.

:Remembering the Early Modern Voyage: English Narratives in the Age of European Expansion.(Early Modern Cultural Studies.)

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Dramatic Function of the Chorus in Henry the Fifth

Shakespeare opens every act of his Henry the Fifth with chorus. This is quite unusual in his whole corpus, except Pericles. The chorus in Henry the Fifth does not merely function as a commentator on the dramatic action, but also narrates the main historical events of the play. However, in its narration and reading of main dramatic events, it is very selective in order to foreground Henry's heroic achievements as a warlord. The chorus emphasizes its limit of re-presentation of Henry's heroism on the stage. By admitting the physical insufficiency of the stage to contain the epic grandeur of a history play, the chorus appeals to the audience's sympathetic imagination to make up its limits. The heroic sublime is a Shakespearean strategy to make his audience participate in the critical appreciation of English historical events. Shakespeare's stage is a cauldron into which he puts 'the materials of English chronicles and historical narratives and reshuffles them to his dramatic plot. This Shakespearean re-forming of English history is analogous to the audience's creative and critical re-experience of their past. The chorus in the play incessantly tries to set up Henry as the national hero similar to William the Conqueror. In this sense the chorus stands in for the royalist view of English history. However, the discrepancy between the chorus's narration and dramatic action on the stage shows its partiality and even its distortion of historical significance. The traditional interpretation of the chorus's function was to equate it with Shakespeare the historian in his conservative support of the Tudor myth. This reading is proved wrong in the paper. The chorus ironically cancels and self-consumes its heroic image of Henry by appealing directly to the audience's imagination. The chorus always frustrates the expectations of the tantalized audience: the latter rather experiences painful bodily presence and national disunity disrupting a single and unified nation proclaimed by the chorus. The selective partiality of the chorus in the narration is implicitly juxtaposed with the historiography as a narrative emplotment. The audience experiences history as a story on the stage. Shakespeare's re-presentation of history is both re-forming and re-reading of it at once. He is sceptical and subversive of the Tudor myth, since he puts the whole English history of his dramatization in a hermeneutical circle which makes it refract and reflect itself.

"England in the East": Metonymies of Absence in Charles Dilke's Greater Britain

IN Of Mimicry and Man, Homi Bhabha discusses the importance of the relationsh p between representation and authority in dis our e. In particular, he points to a trope that he names the metonymy of presence (89) to illustrate how rhetoric is used to reassert the regulatory power of colonial man while mimicry seeks to upset it (90). Bhabha uses India to explain his term: from the publication of Macaulay's Minute on Indian Educa tion onward, the administrators expected Indians to replicate British language, manners, attitudes, and practices; however, the more perfect the emulation, the more sharply the British drew the distinction between English and being Anglicized (89), withholding power from native Indians by substituting (racial) authenticity for bureaucratic competence. This created a Zeno's paradox2 whereby no Indians could assume the power accorded the master because, no matter how perfect the natives' performance of Englishness, they could only become anglicized, never English.Thus, this dis cursive system prevented the authority of the British from being usurped by their imitators: Indians could not take the place of their English masters but could only become anglicized mimic men (Bhabha 49) and thus increas ingly alien from Indian and English narratives of authenticity and authority.

Currying the Victorian Novel: Mira Nair’s ‘Indianised’ Version of Vanity Fair

Inspired by Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (1993), the director of Vanity Fair, Indian-born Mira Nair, has set out to ‘Indianise’ Thackeray’s prototypically English narrative - and thus to make us see the Victorian world from a critical Indian and anti-colonial perspective. Thackeray’s novel is a merciless satire on a capitalist age characterised by conspicuous consumption, by an obsession with money and status, by cruelty and gender discrimination. The detached narrator shows us in great detail the surface of this superficial society - its luxurious commodities, including many items of Indian origin. Nair multiplies these elements, introduces new scenes set in India and systematically develops a contrast between a colourful and spontaneous India against a grey and petrified England. But by introducing the stylistic strategies of Bollywood, she undermines her own critical ambition: Thackeray’s disillusioned and cold picture of Victorian society becomes sentimentalised; the heroine is transformed from a young woman without scruples into a likeable woman; even a happy ending Indian (or Bollywood) style is conceded

The Use of Private Writing in Written English Narratives

The Use of Private Writing in Written English Narratives

Communication verbs in Chinese and English

This paper, using translation materials as data for analysis and based on Fillmore’s (1982) Frame Semantics Theory, presents a contrastive study of communication verbs in Chinese and English with respect to their representation of semantic components related to a communication event. In Talmy’s (1991) classification, Chinese and English fall into the same typological category as satellite-framed languages, where large numbers of verbs characteristically incorporate Manner with Motion, and the Path of motion is typically mapped onto a post-verb satellite. Previous contrastive studies of Chinese and English, however, have concluded that Chinese deviates from a typical satellite-framed language as represented by English with respect to both the conflation of Manner with Motion and the representation of the Path of motion. The present study, which examines, specifically, how communication verbs express speaking events in written narrative in Chinese and English, has found more intra-typological differences between the two languages in their representation of meanings in surface structures as well as in the narrative style in which words of a particular category are chosen for representing events. The major original findings from this study are that Chinese is by far more constrained than English in its encoding of semantic components in communication verbs, and that a translator may face a great challenge when doing Chinese-to-English translation with respect to the choice of appropriate communication verbs.