Fictional Texts Research Articles

Expanded narratives of gentrification: Mobility, infrastructure and urban change in 1970s London literature

This article revisits Ruth Glass’s essay ‘Aspects of change’ (1964), in which the urban sociologist reputedly coins the term gentrification. Whereas other readers are content merely to quote Glass’s description of gentrification, I consider how she situates the phenomenon within a broader complex of urban change. Doing so, I suggest, provides a useful optic for considering later literary engagements with gentrification in London. I examine two fictional texts – Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Innocent and the Guilty (1971) and Maureen Duffy’s Capital (1975) – and argue that they follow Glass by providing ‘expanded narratives’ of gentrification. This narrative mode is distinctive for the way that it frames highly visible and seemingly localized phenomena, such as gentrification, within broader cultural, geographical and historical contexts, in order to ask larger questions about the nature of urbanity. A concern with mobility and infrastructure defines these expanded narratives, which illuminate how these aspects of the city shape perceptions of urban change. I conclude by outlining how expanded narratives might also provide the basis for a useful reading strategy which contrasts with the extractive procedures that characterize readings of Glass and certain scholarly approaches to urban literature.

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

МОДЕЛЬ ОБУЧЕНИЯ ИНОСТРАННЫХ СТУДЕНТОВ ВОСПРИЯТИЮ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫХ СМЫСЛОВ С ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕМ УЧЕБНОГО ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ГИПЕРТЕКСТА

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that in recent years human relation with information flows have changed. The thinking and perception of meanings, especially by the younger generation, also begin to change noticeably. In this regard, the communication of an individual with a literary text presented in digital format deserves more attention. The purpose of the study is to create a model of learning to read this type of text, taking into account the features of a literary hypertext, which will optimize the process of learning to read a literary text in a foreign language. As an example of methodical processing of an autonomous educational hypertext, an excerpt from the story "Scar" by E. Grishkovets was used. In the process of developing a model for teaching foreigners to read literary hypertext, the following methods were used: analytical (linguocultural and linguocognitive analysis), interpretation method and modeling. In the study were compared such concepts as “literary text”, “hypertext”, “electronic hypertext” and “educational fiction text”. Literary hypertext is a traditional text, but it is organized in a different way than a linear text, so when it is perceived, specific perception mechanisms operate. The definition of educational literary hypertext in the aspect of teaching Russian as a foreign language is given; the linguodidactic potential of hypertext in relation to the teaching of Russian as a foreign language is revealed, the algorithm for working with Russian-language literary hypertext in a foreign audience is substantiated. It is assumed that educational hypertext as a new way of artistic communication can exist in two forms: network hypertext and autonomous hypertext. It is concluded that a methodically processed literary text, presented as a hypertext, makes it possible to optimize the process of teaching foreign students to read literary works in Russian. The prospects for the study are seen in the creation of an electronic manual for teaching foreign students to read the works of Russian writers based on the proposed model.

Axiology of power in the Russian language and culture

The relevance of linguocultural modeling of power is due to the high importance of this phenomenon in institutional and personal communication and the multidimensionality of its evaluative characteristics. The aim of the study is to identify and describe linguistically relevant norms of behavior encoded in the concept of “power”. The data from dictionaries and reference books, examples from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, poetic and prose texts in Russian were used as material for the analysis. Methods of semantic, contextual, interpretative and associative analysis were applied. It has been established that power in the conceptual plane represents coercion and includes: (1) the condition (force, authority, tradition or law); (2) struggle for getting and keeping power; (3) manifestation of power (persons or organizations vested with power, the sphere of power application and the degree of coercion); (4) power assessment (fair/unfair, cruel/merciful, effective/ineffective). In figurative terms, the situational characteristics of power manifestation, verbalized in texts and reactions of the informants, were highlighted. The conceptualization of power is discursively specific. The authors revealed that the most vivid situational characteristics of power implementation in relation to its representatives are noted in journalistic texts. In fiction texts (mainly in poetry), power is shown as an irresistible force. In evaluative terms, it is possible to identify norms of behavior associated with the understanding of power - its acceptance as the most important condition of social order and condemnation of excessive striving for power and its abuse. These norms expressed in proverbs, jokes and aphorisms largely coincide, differing in that proverbs recommend to stay away from power, jokes sharply criticize corruption in power, aphorisms give a holistic picture of the proper behavior of the power holders and their subordinates. Prospects for the study consist in defining linguistically relevant personal typological evaluations of power.

Plotting and characterisation in Sophie Hannah’sThe Other Half Lives: a cognitive stylistic approach

Abstract(Sophie Hannah’s. 2009.The Other Half Lives. London: Hodder).The Other Half Livesboth complies with, and departs from, the crime fiction formula or text schema. It features a mystery the specifics of which are unravelled non-chronologically, while its numerous crimes and non-ideal criminals and victims disrupt readers’ world schemas and help enable its surprising effects. Not unlike such fiction, the story’s early happenings feature late in the telling, while many happenings are given from different character perspectives. Both of these help unsettle narrative perspective, and generate suspense, mystery, and readers’ later repairing and replacing of frames. Focalisation and the working and reworking of killing characters’ early depiction are techniques also enabling foreshadowing and misdirection, for readers’ sympathies and prejudices to be manipulated accordingly, and for surprise revelations to prove effective, even when a surprise ending is – given the nature of this genre – only to be expected.

Analysis of Sentence Errors in Fiction Text Essays Theme 8 Class V MI Al-Iman Bulus School Year 2021/2022

This study aims to describe several errors in sentences, namely (1) errors in the use of periods, (2) errors in the use of sentence structures, (3) errors in the use of prepositions, and (4) errors in the use of parent sentences and subsentences in class V MI fiction text essays. This study uses qualitative research methods with qualitative descriptive research types. The subjects of the study were students of class V MI Al-Iman Bulus. Data collection techniques use observation and documentation. Data collection in this study used an interactive model from Miles and Huberman, namely, data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the total number of sentence writing errors was 200. 96 errors in the use of periods with an error percentage of 48%, 42 errors in the use of sentence structures with an error percentage of 21%, 30 errors in the use of prepositions with an error percentage of 15% and 32 errors in the use of parent sentences and children with an error percentage of 16%.

Фразеологические единицы с компонентом «птица» в мордовских и финском языках (семантический анализ)

The purpose of the study is to identify common and distinctive features of Mordovian and Finnish phraseological units with the zoonym component “bird”. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a comprehensive study of phraseological units in order to identify common and specific features inherent in these linguistic cultures. The object of the study was the phraseological units of the Mordovian and Finnish languages, in which the zoonym component “bird” was identified. Based on the methods of descriptive, comparative, component analysis, the semantic characteristics of phraseological units are studied, dominant images are identified, universal phenomena and distinctive features in the meanings conveyed by phraseological units in the compared languages are determined. The main material of the study is presented by phraseological units with a zoocomponent, identified by continuous sampling from explanatory monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, as well as phraseological developments, texts of fiction and journalistic literature. The properties that the Mordovians and Finns attribute to poultry are in most cases similar, which is why both languages have a lot of phraseological units that coincide in meaning. In both Mordovian and Finnish cultures, the bird is considered a creature that is not very smart. The observed phenomenon is to a greater extent associated with domestic poultry, and to a lesser extent with wild birds.

Fiction Text as a Means of Forming Learners’ Sociocultural Competence

Fiction texts are an effective means of systematic teaching language and culture. A fiction text, as the most effective means of developing intercultural competence, motivates, involves the reader in a kind of cognitive process, causes aesthetic pleasure, develops aesthetic taste, critical and creative thinking. Reading a fiction text enables learners to master the behavior patterns characteristic of a given ethno-cultural society, sociocultural markers, sociocultural norms, traditions, and rituals. Fiction texts as an important means of forming sociocultural competence performs functions of motivating, involving the reader in a unique cognitive process, giving aesthetic pleasure, developing aesthetic taste, critical and creative thinking. The reading of the literary-fiction text provides an opportunity to learn the models of behavior, cultural markers, cultural norms of communicative behavior, public and individual conventions, traditions and rituals characteristic of the given ethno-cultural community.

The Relationship Between Fiction And Film: Research And Critical Perspective

Fiction and films are largely about a narrative that tells a story, both reflect social reality. Since the inception of cinema, fiction has attracted directors. The creative exchange between literature and cinema began in the last decade of the 19th century. The key difference between the two is the perception of the visual image and the concept of the mental image. Film is considered a branch of literature. In fiction we have the word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, and all the fiction. In the film we have the frame, scene shot, and sequence. The word in fiction and the image in the film are similar because they are visual phenomena, both seen through the eye. Recently, the link between fiction and film has been an intense and prolong reveal, but discussion continues among researchers, critics and reviewers on the credibility of film adaptation from text of fiction. Critics have defined the value and limitation of adaptation. An important point of discussion between researchers and critics is the ability of the written word to convey multiple layers of meaning and consciousness of events portrayed in film. However the main thrust of fiction is linguistic and the thrust of film is imagistic visual.

NARRATIVE AND HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

Lot of research has been done in literary studies around the problem of narrative and the narrator. The category of narrative is very complex, varied, and the ways it is conveyed in the fiction text are different. The concept of narratology is closely related to the activity of telling a story in a fiction text. Scholars in the study of narratology pay attention to its functions, ways of transmission, and specific features. If we consider history and the narrator in very close interaction, it is obvious that there is a specific function of the narrator in the transmission of historical discourse in the fiction text. In this article, within the framework of historical discourse, the activity of the narrator in the work of M. Magauin «Kipchak Beauty» is comparatively analyzed. The influence of the historical and artistic text on the historical consciousness through the narrator is studied. The research work in relation to the narrative was guided by the works of such scientists as M. Bakhtin, M. Lotman, V. Schmid, J. Jeannette, E. A. Popov. No one denies that bringing historical circumstances to the reader in a work of fiction deepens the essence of historical discourse. Consequently, each of these categories becomes an object of research in its own way, and although the theoretical features are scientifically differentiated and complicated, the article studies their integral reflection in the literary text. The article attempts to identify the features of the connection between narrative and historical discourse. In the course of the study, methods of comparison, comparison-analysis, interpretation, semantics were used. As a result of the research, the relationship between the category of narrative and historical discourse is revealed, the interpretation of historical facts by the narrator in a literary text is considered.

Comparative Spatial Intimacies and the Affective Geography of Home: Imaginaries and Sense-Regimes in the Soviet-Era Baltics

This essay investigates Soviet-era homesites in the Baltic states as combinations of home imaginaries and people’s affective, sensorial relationship to the materiality of their home space. The aspect of relationality is foregrounded: the primary level of meaning-making as regards one’s quotidian home life, the article suggests, takes place at the level of comparative spatial intimacies—that is, in relation to one’s own bodily movement in space and the objects, locations, impressions, but also the ideas, norms, and values encountered and embedded in these movements. Home experience unfolds on the scene of comparative studies, where different homes form dialogues and chains of movement in space. Both intimacies and imaginaries emerge as multiscalar, being deeply personal and closely family related, but also generational and class related, and including also transnational and/or officially endorsed ideas and values. The scene of comparative intimacies is exemplified on the basis of three homesites: Soviet prefab apartment buildings, pre-Soviet farm homes, and Soviet-era summer homes. The common homing model in the Soviet-era Baltics included at least two, if not three homely sites: while most people lived in urban environments, summer vacations were typically spent in a pre-Soviet farm home or in a recently built summer home. Of these different homescapes, each supported their inhabitants’ identities in their own specific ways, each offered a different regime of spatial sensibilities, a different combination of sensations, relationscapes, and imaginaries. The essay accommodates methods of geopoetics and includes analysis of fictional texts, life writing, and the embodied presence of the author.

История канцеляризмов «руку приложить» и «рукоприкладство»

The article examines the history of the functioning of the stable expression “ruku prilozhit” (“have a finger in the pie”) in the Russian official language and beyond. Speech and socio-cultural sources of this combination are determined, its one-word derivatives are analyzed — “rukoprikladstvo”, “rukoprilozheniye”, “rukoprikladyvaniye” (“handwriting”). It is pointed out that the active spread of kantselyarizm “to make a hand” coincides with the active development in the 15–16th centuries of Russian “everyday law”, a close connection between the official speech of the pre-Petrine time and the spoken language. There is a gradual departure of this kantselyarizm from the official sphere, the development of figurative meanings in the texts of fiction, the source of which can be the lexico-semantic variants of the polysemantic words that make up this expression (“attach”; “hand”). The cases of playful use of the combination “ruku prilozhit” are considered, motivated by generating phrases that are not native for this expression, as a result of which new meanings are formed (‘shake hands’, ‘kiss hands’). The evolution of the functioning of the business combination “ruku prilozhit’” is closely connected with the development of the official sphere as a whole, with the development of the document as a special text reflecting the “ideology” of public administration. On the example of the history of one bureaucracy, the influence of the written language of power on the logic and principles of the development of the Russian official language is demonstrated, which intensifies with each subsequent century.

Dismantling Hospitality - Literary Representations of EU Asylum Policy in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge

When we refer to nation-states receiving refugees as “host” countries, we necessarily evoke notions of hospitality, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers with liberality and goodwill.” Yet the exploration of the impact of contemporary EU asylum policy in Dina Nayeri’s 2017 novel Refuge portrays a system far removed from such adjectives. Based heavily on Nayeri’s own autobiography, and hitherto underrepresented in academic research, the award-winning work portrays the journey of an Iranian refugee in Europe to make sense of her migrant identity, informed by her encounters with fellow members of the Iranian diaspora in the Netherlands. Through the friendships Nayeri’s protagonist forms, a vivid fictional representation is conjured of the damaging human impacts of policy areas such as the EU’s Dublin Regulation, referenced and rephrased in the context of the novel. Drawing from Mireille Rosello, this paper proposes a comparative reading of the legal and fictional texts, as analysed through the prism of host/guest relationships. It seeks to demonstrate the capacity of fiction to give voice to the victims of policy failures, as well to provide an affect-based accompaniment to legislation which by nature excludes the emotive language necessary to comprehensively capturing human experience. Ultimately, it explores how Nayeri’s novel calls into question the very relevance of the language of hospitality used in reference to contemporary European asylum policy.

Правдоподобие как аспект читательского восприятия текста

The article presents the results of theoretical exploration of verisimilitude as a phenomenon of (non)fictional narration. Structural and stylistic analysis of textual components in books by Diane Setterfield, Flann O’Brien, Elif Batuman shows the possibility of grading literary texts as more or less fictional. The theoretical background is based on G. Genette and Tz. Todorov’s ideas on reading modes. The theoretical results of research are presented in the form of a chart that can be further used for gradual scaling of texts as fiction or nonfiction. The authors of the analyzed texts use a variety of stylistic devices that create the effect of verisimilitude in pseudo-documentary fiction or nonfictional texts. The texts are examined by means of componential analysis from the point of view of their compositional structure, paratextual additions and plot lines. The research results indicate that verisimilitude in fiction depends on the reading mode: as informative and verifiable or as supposed speech acts working in the aesthetic function of the language.

“The Only Almost Germ-Free Continent Left”

AbstractThis article examines the role of pandemics and viruses in cultural perceptions of Antarctica over the past century. In the popular imagination, Antarctica has often been framed as a place of purity, refuge, and isolation. In a series of fiction and screen texts from the nineteenth century to the present, viruses feature prominently. The texts fall into two categories: narratives in which Antarctica is the sole source of safety in a pandemic-ravaged world and those in which a virus (or another form of contagion) is discovered within the continent itself and needs to be contained. Viruses in these texts are not only literal but also metaphorical, taking the form of any kind of threatening infection, and as such are linked to texts in which Antarctic purity is discursively connected to racial and gendered exclusivity. Based on this comparison, the article argues that ideas of containment and contagion can have political connotations in an Antarctic context, to the extent that they are applied to particular groups of people in order to position them as “alien” to the Antarctic environment. The authors show that the recent media construction of Antarctica during COVID-19 needs to be understood against this disturbing aspect of the Antarctic imaginary, and also that narratives of Antarctic purity are imaginatively linked to both geopolitical exclusions and the melting of Antarctic ice.

The Rise of the Cyberzines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1991–2020.Vol.5 of The History of the Science-Fiction Magazine by Mike Ashley

Reviewed by: The Rise of the Cyberzines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1991–2020.Vol.5 of The History of the Science-Fiction Magazine by Mike Ashley Paul Kincaid Going Digital. Mike Ashley. The Rise of the Cyberzines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1991–2020. Vol. 5 of The History of the Science-Fiction Magazine. Liverpool UP, liverpool science fiction texts and studies, 2022. xvi+444 pp. £95 hc. There was a time when I would regularly receive a selection of Best-of-the-Year anthologies to review. This selection would usually include the annual massive volume from Gardner Dozois. And so I read them, carefully, cover to cover, not just the stories but also the introductions. It did not take long to recognize a familiar pattern in these introductions. They would skim lightly across the high or low points of the year: such-and-such was the big publishing event; soand-so died; this thing was controversial; that thing was a popular success; these were the big award winners, and so on. Then at some point Dozois would come on to the business of publishing and it was remarkable how familiar the story was from one year to the next. It would seem sometimes as though the same text could be cut and pasted from one volume to the next, with only a few numbers changed. The magazines had a successful year, but circulations were falling. Circulations were always falling. I am sure that if I were to comb diligently through all thirty-odd volumes of The Year’s Best Science Fiction I might find occasional instances of a magazine whose circulation increased, but if they exist at all they are rare. Science-fiction magazines seem to have been a slowly dying breed for most of the last half century. It is not just that these magazines seem to be kept alive by some financial alchemy even as income keeps declining at an apparently catastrophic rate, but also that now there is a new threat to their existence. Over the last dozen years or so, a number of online magazines have appeared, such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons,and Uncanny, that, after the usual false starts and hesitations, have proved to be remarkably stable and successful. These online magazines, “cyberzines” as Mike Ashley calls them, have drawn attention away from the print magazines and are now every bit as likely to pick up top-rated contributors and award nominations. And with far lower overheads, they start from a much better position than their print rivals. Even so, readership figures for the best of the cyberzines still barely match the ever-decreasing circulation figures for the print magazines, although I am not sure what metric allows you to compare the two sets of figures fairly. Thus, although there seem to be ever more venues appearing for short fiction and, more often than not, disappearing, and although there seem to be more short stories than ever being published, the market for sf short stories is not particularly healthy. It may be healthier than other genres, but that is not saying a lot. The audience for science fiction gets their fix primarily, I suspect, from television, then from film, then, some distance behind, from novels. The short story is, I would guess, so far behind these three as to be almost out of sight. We have a Romantic myth in science fiction that magazines are integral to the whole story of the genre. It is a myth that harks back to fabled publications such as Amazing, Astounding, F&SF, Galaxy, and New Worlds, back to a time when [End Page 116] there were fewer options for feeding an addiction to science fiction. But that myth has not been true for decades, probably not since the 1960s. I have a feeling that if every sf magazine were to disappear overnight, the vast majority of the consumers of science fiction would not even blink. The history of science fiction can no longer be equated with the history of the magazines; indeed, the story of the magazines forms no more than a curious sidebar to the history of the...

Femininity, Science, and Religion on Tour in Almira Phelps’s Caroline Westerley (1833)

Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps’s first adolescent girls’ novel Caroline Westerley: or, the Young Traveller from Ohio (1833) is a travelogue of the Great Lakes and the Hudson River valley. Given Phelps’s educational and scientific work, it has been viewed as another effort to disseminate scientific knowledge. This article argues first that Phelps situated her novel within the context of a highly popular girls’ tour, which held considerable personal and ideological meaning. Second, it maintains that Phelps used the novel to reflect upon models of femininity, arguing in favor of one in which the life of the mind, including a lifelong interest in science and religion, occupied a central place, and against one focused on consumerism and the body. The article closes with a reflection on the ways in which Phelps’s ideas regarding opposing models of femininity fit with Joan Brumberg’s argument regarding the rise of consumerism and its effect on girls’ bodies at the turn of the century. The article is based on a reading of Phelps’s fictional text alongside her nonfictional text Lectures to Young Ladies (1833).

Semantic features of discursive markers in English and Azerbaijani languages

The paper deals with the contrastive study of the semantic features of the discourse markers in the English and Azerbaijani fictional texts. It discusses various views of the researchers (D. Blakemore, T. Van Dijk, M. Hansen, Y. Maschler, D. Schiffrin, E. Chiglincheva, M. Kamenski) who extensively studied the semantic status of the discourse markers in English. The instances of the use of the discourse markers have strong correlation with communicative situation and the type of discourse. Defining the type of discourse clarifies other issues related to communicative situation. Discourse markers are key connecting devices between the parts of discourse motivated by the intention of the sender (author). Even the most complicated ideas can be shaped in discourse either explicitly or implicitly using discourse markers. Discourse markers are also quite common in Azerbaijani like in all other languages and they play very important role in the distribution of information in discourse. The results of our analysis suggests that the discourse markers in the languages under analysis have mostly common semantic features. The difference is that in contrast to English some discourse markers with the semantics of modality in Azerbaijani are formulated through the transformation of sentence and also the case suffixes can function as discourse markers in this language.

Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)productive Futures: Women’s Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan by Kazue Harada

Reviewed by: Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)productive Futures: Women’s Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan by Kazue Harada Kumiko Saito Defying the Demands of (Re)production. Kazue Harada. Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)productive Futures: Women’s Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan. Brill, brill’s japanese studies library, 2022. 214 pp. $108 hc. Kazue Harada’s study explores the much-dismissed world of speculative fiction written by Japanese women, particularly focusing on themes of reproduction. In the field of science fiction from Japan, which Kazue refers to as Japanese “speculative fiction” for a reason (as I will return to below). Scholarly approaches have largely excluded women writers and neglected questions of gender and feminist issues. The book adds a truly refreshing perspective to scholarship not only by challenging existing male-centered views that have framed the genre but also by critiquing the Japanese government’s long-lasting conservatism regarding women’s reproductive roles. Harada’s book fills an academic void created by the general absence of studies about Japanese sf, and she proposes a wide array of theoretical directions toward the inclusiveness of queer and feminist issues. [End Page 124] The key idea framing Harada’s study is the double meaning of the term (re)production, which aligns human reproduction with the nation’s mission for productivity. Her analysis begins with a statement made by Mio Sugita, a politician and member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party that is known for conservative policy making. In a 2018 article published in Shinchō45, Sugita claimed that tax money should not be spent on LGBT rights initiatives because same-sex couples do not reproduce and have “no productivity.” Harada plays on the word’s duality as the nation’s productivity and women’s bodily reproduction, critically questioning the deep-rooted belief in the importance of reproduction for the nation’s growth. Harada cites Lee Edelman’s critique in No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004) of reproductive futurism, the common belief that having children will ensure the future because reproduction (re)produces labor and increases economic activity. In addition to reproductive futurism, Harada argues, heteronormativity and eugenic selectivism are embedded in the political discourse that promotes reproductivity. She also cites José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of queer futurity to conceptualize the framework for her overall argument that queerness advocates for society’s relationship to futurity and the not-yet-conscious (17). Speculative fiction texts by contemporary Japanese women authors challenge these dominant discourses of reproduction by eroding the borders between humans and nonhumans and presenting alternative visions in the form of hypothetical futures. Employing the term “science fiction” may often entail lengthy debates and genre controversies, so Harada chooses to use the term “speculative fiction” and rightly maintains the focus on a selection of textual examples from five women authors from Japan. These three fiction writers (Murata Sayaka, Ôhara Mariko, Ueda Sayuri) and two manga artists (Hagio Moto and Shirai Yumiko) “imagine alternative possible futures in order to question historical inequalities of sex and gender differences and social categories based on present social realities in the (re)productive, heteronormative family system of Japan” (26). Based on close reading and textual interpretation, the author provides insightful perspectives on why women writers need speculative features to write about futures against the present state of society hegemonically manipulated by government policies and medical guidelines that incorporate eugenics, allegiance to the biological family, and child-bearing as the consequence of a heterosexual act. The textual selections serve as both the book’s strength and its vulnerability. In both textual production and criticism, sf has often been reserved for allegedly masculine stories of technology and reason, told from a macrocosmic viewpoint. Harada’s study makes a significant contribution to scholarship by challenging the gendered assumptions surrounding the genre. As much as this is a strength of the book, however, it leaves unanswered many questions for readers who wish to learn more about sf or about Japan. The text selections are all literally contemporary, most appearing since 2010. The clear exceptions are Moto Hagio’s classic manga, such as Jūichinin iru! [There Are Eleven, 1975] and Mājinaru [Marginal, 1980], which were [End Page...

Китаизмы Владимира Сорокина в романе «Голубое сало»

The article discusses the Chinese loanwords that appear in the novel Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin. The novel contains an allegory of the Russian language of the future. Most of the neologisms created by Sorokin in Blue Lard come from foreign words, including an abundance of Chinese loanwords. The author of the article analyzes the Chinese loanwords from the point of view of phonetics and semantics, points out the mistakes in pronunciation in the novel, when Sorokin uses Chinese words or expressions. The analysis also focuses on the aesthetics of the word “Mei guo”, which by pronunciation in Chinese refers to the United States, and the word “Hei long jiang”– as one of the provinces in China, or the Amur River, flowing through the territory of three countries. Sorokin purposely changes their interpretation at the end of the novel to “beautiful country” and “Black Dragon River” in order to create the normal atmosphere of a dystopian society devoid of geopolitical boundaries. Sorokin introduces the word “dan huang”, which in the novel refers to the pro-China Russians and resembles the Chinese slangs “banana-man” and “egg-man” from the position of transcultural distribution. Moreover, in the course of the research, the author provides a comparison of Chinese loanwords with other foreign-language words used in the novel. By using Chinese loanwords as swear words, Sorokin literally commits linguistic violence. The final conclusion is that Chinese loanwords can be seen as a product of the overlap of cultures, which appear in the Russian-language fiction text. In addition, the Chinese loanwords with other Chinese elements give the novel a mystical oriental flavor and an absurd tone.