Literary Texts Research Articles

A COGNITIVE STYLISTIC STUDY OF EPITHET SYSTEM IN COLSON WHITEHEAD’S FANTASY

Attempts by cognitive stylists to explain readers' comprehension of literary texts face a significant challenge in bridging the author's and reader's worlds. Attempting to clarify the conceptual space that links the different discourse realms to the author-reader levels of interpretation is something that Werth (1999) does. This method offers a fresh perspective on how we think about writing and reading. When it comes to interpreting literature using language models, cognitive stylistics goes farther than conventional stylistic accounting. It examines reading experiences, both comparable and different, by applying concepts from cognitive science regarding the mind, language, and the world. The purpose of this research is to examine Colson Whitehead's chosen novel through the lens of cognitive stylistic devices, with a focus on the impact of mental spaces on meaning interpretation. The poet's worldview can be better conceptualized through the use of these mental spaces in the construction of grammars. Not only are they utilized to model dynamic mapping in language and mind, but they also interact and aid in the integration of concepts throughout production. The study utilizes a descriptive qualitative method with the model of Text World Theory by Werth (1999). The study concludes that Text World Theory is used in a novel to describe the characters' lives in various locations, such as subways, kill fields, refuges, colleges, and streets. The protagonist's solitude, paralysis, and senseless state are depicted through the use of pronouns like 'he', 'they/routes', and 'it/gray'. The characters' world is described as tedious, paralyzed, and a gloomy environment. The epithets, which are adjectives and nouns, describe the protagonist's life in a dark, gloomy environment filled with corpses, bad smells, and crazy activities. These epithets help to convey the complexities of the characters' lives and the complexities of their world.

Examining the Cultural Connotations in Human and Machine Translations: A Corpus Study of Naguib Mahfouz's Zuqāq al-Midaqq

The translation of culture-specific terms constitutes a major challenge for professional translators as it necessitates a thorough understanding of both the linguistic and cultural elements. With rapid technological advancement over the past few years, machine translation has enhanced translation quality. This study investigates the transability of cultural connotations in the Arabic-English translation of Naguib Mahfouz’s Zuqāq al-Midaqq. A descriptive qualitative research design was adopted to achieve the intended goals of the study. The data comprised human and machine translations from Google Translate and ChatGPT. Through qualitative content analysis, the translations were compared for accuracy in transferring the cultural connotations prevalent in the Arabic source text. The findings revealed that the human translation showed greater naturalness and accuracy in rendering cultural connotations. Machine translation has struggled with rhetorical devices, idioms, and cultural nuances. The results also indicated that the AI-enhanced machine represented by ChatGPT captured the cultural elements more effectively than Google Translate. The study concluded that human expertise remains essential for the high-quality translation of literary works to maintain cultural significance. The findings can inform translator training and guide improvements to AI-enhanced translation for literary texts.

The Textual vs the Contextual: A Heideggerian Reading of Walid Saif’s Poem ‘Love Again’

This article reads Love Again (1992), the last poem written by contemporary Palestinian poet Walid Saif based on Heidegger’s concept of the Dasein as detailed in Being and Time and his concept of art as detailed in “The Origin of the Work of Art” as well as in other of his works. In Love Again “togetherness,” which is the essence of the Dasein, dissolves completely into the kind of being of “the Others”. Heidegger’s definition of “the truth of being” has the tendency of combining two contesting groups of theories: the first is a modernist group that advocates an intrinsic/textual approach to read literary texts in light of new criticism and other formalist schools. The second is a group that advocates a contextual/extrinsic/political approach to read literary texts like new historicism, postcolonialism and others. A Heideggerian reading of Saif’s poem debunks the modernist claim that a detachable aesthetic experience can safeguard the poem’s “historical permanence” and transcend its political context. Unlike formalists of his time, Heidegger was not concerned with the tension that emerged between the above two groups since he took both the extrinsic and intrinsic elements of a literary work as indispensable elements towards exploring the literary work. Furthermore, the above tension does not seem to be part of Heidegger’s consciousness.

Translatability of Arabic Cultural References to English: A Case Study of The Queue Novel

Cultural references are phrases and words embedded within a source text that refer to entities, persons, or even ideas that are not present in the target language and culture or are significantly different in terms of sociocultural equivalents. Translating cultural references into a language where translated texts are interpreted through the prism of cultural norms presents a substantial challenge. The objective of this study is to investigate the translatability of cultural references in Arabic literary texts; it describes the presence of textual and matricial operational norms portrayed in the translator’s translation procedures and shifts. The analysis focuses on one Arabic novel, Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue, and follows Toury’s (2012) theory on translation norms. After a comprehensive examination of "The Queue," data were methodically underscored, classified, and analysed. The findings emphasize the translator's key role in addressing cultural disparities between Arabic and English societies through selected translation methods, ensuring adherence to the target language's norms despite significant linguistic and cultural gaps. According to this study, the acceptability of the target text is enhanced not only because of cultural requirements but also because of language norms, which prevail over translation choices that can be applied by the translator.

Challenges in Teaching Literature in an EFL Context (A Case Study of Indonesian Students)

The significance of literature in language learning has grown considerably. This is particularly true in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), where it is recognized as a valuable tool for enhancing English skills. Nonetheless, the focus on teaching English literature for its intrinsic value rather than solely as a means for language acquisition is limited, especially in Indonesia. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the teaching of English literature to EFL students in Indonesian high schools. Specifically, the study aims to investigate the criteria employed by English literature teachers in selecting literary works, identify challenges faced by teachers when instructing EFL students in English literature, and examine the strategies they employ to overcome these challenges. The research entails a case study involving a teacher instructing two distinct English lessons at a senior high school in Indonesia. The findings reveal the following: Firstly, the primary considerations for selecting literary texts include factors such as length, language complexity, canonical status, and the author's cultural background. Secondly, challenges encountered encompass reading habits, English proficiency, and the availability of resources. Consequently, this research underscores the potential for further exploration within the realm of teaching English literature to EFL students in Indonesia, with the pursuit of effective instructional models being a noteworthy avenue for future investigation.

Teaching and Learning English Literature Through Multimedia

Reading and understanding English literature can be quite challenging for students if English is not their native language. Thus, somehow students do not feel motivated in reading literature because of the high language proficiency the texts require and the length of the teaching materials. The conventional “Chalk and Talk” teaching method is not enough to convey the complexity of English literature effectively. The use of multimedia might be a precious medium in the teaching of literature and to increase students’ motivation to read literary texts. Research indicates that multimedia helps students to understand literature, to focus on the target language but also on its culture, new terminologies, new phraseology and their proper usage. The use of multimedia has many advantages as it is a great facilitator in transmitting knowledge. However, there are many questions about the use of digital tools, some think that they interfere with the teaching process and the student’s concentration, whereas others think that digital media can be effectively integrated into the teaching and learning process. In this paper, we will focus on how the multimedia content helps to vary and enhance the learning process and to lead to a better understanding and memorising. Multimedia elements help learners to be more engaged and active at learning. It makes studying literature more exciting because some students are visual learners and use visual senses in the process of learning. I used tests, observation and questionaries to analyse my research questions.    Received: 10 February 2024 / Accepted: 11 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024

DePNR: A DeBERTa‐based deep learning model with complete position embedding for place name recognition from geographical literature

AbstractPlace names play an important role in linking physical places to human perception and are highly frequently used in the daily lives of people to refer to places in natural language. However, many place names may not be recorded in typical gazetteers due to their new establishment, colloquial nature, and different concerns. These unrecorded toponyms are often discussed in geographical literature; thus, it is necessary to automatically identify them from geographical literature and update existing gazetteers using computational approaches. Currently, the most advanced approaches are deep learning‐based models. However, existing models used only partial position information rather than complete position information of words in a sentence, which limits their performance in recognizing toponyms. To this end, we develop DePNR, a DeBERTa‐based deep learning model with complete position embedding for place name recognition from geographical literature. We train DePNR on two datasets and test it on a real dataset from geographical literature to evaluate its performance. The results show that DePNR achieves an F‐score of 0.8282, outperforming previous approaches, and can recognize new toponyms from literature text, potentially enriching existing gazetteers.

Isocolon in EDM Sibiya’s novels: A stylo-syntactic evaluation

There seems to be no study so far that has interpreted isocolon from a descriptive linguistic point of view. Studies conducted on isocolon have considered this aspect as merely a poetic tool and have focused solely on its artistic function. It is for this reason that this aspect has been examined mainly in the genre of poetry. The main aim of this paper was therefore to provide a different perspective on isocolon by considering its syntactic patterns with reference to the genre of novels. Such an approach was an attempt to uncover not only the artistic function, but also the form (linguistic description) of this aspect. The discourse is presented through the lens of linguistic stylistics, which advocates a linguistic approach to style in literature. This approach seeks to objectify a literary text in a scientific manner through descriptive linguistics. Discourse analysis theory was also employed, since an investigation was made into Sibiya’s literary works and the influence of context. As novels served as primary sources, the study adopted textual analysis as a qualitative research technique.

Pengembangan modul pembelajaran Bahasa Indonesia berbasis Enviromental Wisdom Lampung pada jenjang sekolah menengah pertama

The natural damage that occurs in Lampung province is rooted in the community's lack of awareness and maintenance of the environment. This is an urgency for schools to provide education by instilling students' awareness of this matter. This research was carried out to develop Lampung environmental wisdom-based teaching materials in Indonesian language learning at junior high school level through the use of Lampung literature which was analyzed using the literary ecocriticism model. This research is a type of Research & Development (R&D) level 4, namely researching, testing and creating new products. The teaching materials that have been prepared then present Lampung literary texts to describe the environmental realities that occur in society. Keywords: Environmental Wisdom Lampung, Indonesian Language Learning Module; Research & Development (R&D)

Возможные миры художественного текста: когнитивно-семантический аспект репрезентации времени (на материале романа В.В. Орлова «Альтист Данилов»)

This article studies the temporal organization of a literary text from the standpoint of a cognitive semantic approach. Literary time is considered in close connection with the meanings that form the semantic space of a text. The correlation of events within which literary time is manifested shows the direction of literary time, which, in its turn, participates in the formation of thinkable worlds. The study aimed to determine and describe the features of the construction of thinkable worlds within the literary time semantically marked in a literary text. The practical significance of the research lies in identifying and describing the principles of structuring possible worlds by means of their temporal coordinates, representing a synthesis of a hero’s physical and psychological time, with the inclusion of markers of historical time in the semantic space of a literary text. The author studied V.V. Orlov’s novel Danilov, the Violist using the inductive-deductive and comparative methods, cognitive and semantic analysis, as well as philological interpretation. A conclusion is drawn that literary time in this novel is of great importance for the organization of thinkable worlds. Its most frequent markers are segodnya (‘today’) and teper’ (‘now’), lexicalizing the cognitive and semantic features of a world which reminds the reader of objective reality, albeit distant in historical time, as well as of a fantasy world, whose properties are unreal. Orlov creates a synthesis of the hero’s physical and psychological time, which can also include historical time (in that case, the reader’s background knowledge is involved, making it possible to correctly decode precedent phenomena). The semantics of literary time in the novel is hierarchical and systemic: textual representatives manifest both universal ideas about time and author’s individual variability in the perception of chronological intervals, which affects the emotional sphere of the reader.

The functions of peripheral combinations of N. M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter"

The linguistic description of a literary text involves consideration of its semantic structure, by which, following L. A. Novikov, we understand the system of images of the work and the linguistic means of their embodiment in the author's text. Peripheral combinations play a significant role in the arsenal of artistic techniques of N.M. Karamzin, implemented in sentimental novels, and demonstrate primarily the functions of indicating feelings and states, embellishing speech, author's characterization and poetization of prose text. The subject of the study of the analyzed text of N. M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the boyar's daughter" is periphrasis as a special means of creating a semantic structure. The relevance of the work is due to the clarification of the status of the periphrase as an important structural element of the sentimental story. The aim of the work was to clarify the concept of periphrasis in the modern and preceding N. M. Karamzin literary tradition and highlight its functions in the texts of the stories. The methodological basis of the study was the work of Russian linguists of the V. V. Vinogradov school, based on a system-functional approach to the analysis of the language of fiction. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that the periphrasis is the basis of N. M. Karamzin's imagery and implements the functions of speech decoration; characterization, in which the periphrasis contains the author's attitude to the hero; stylistically marked periphrastic combinations serve to separate parts of the story, for example, the author's digression and the main text of the story. The novelty of the research lies in clarifying the functions of the periphrasis as the central means of the semantic structure of the sentimental story. Periphrases are becoming one of the new tools for constructing the semantic structure of a prose work of the emerging aesthetics of sentimentalism. The use of periphrases is included in the concept of reforming the Russian language by introducing elements peculiar to the sentimental style of French salon literature into the text, while generally ordering syntax at the level of a simple and complex sentence.

A STATISTICAL STYLISTIC STUDY IN SAFI HIRANI'S TURKISH POEMS

This study entitled (A statistical stylistic study in Safi Hirani's Turkish Poems) has been accomplished. Initially, it focused on concepts, terms, and their definitions of style and stylistics in the literary text. Which means that style is the (linguistic, intellectual, and literary) characteristics that became common in a certain period and followed by poets. Then, the subject was explained with the poet's Turkish poems and statistical stylistics was applied on it. The aim of the study: to show and reveal statistical stylistics in the poet's Turkish poems in order to determine the number and type of sentences in these texts. Because by examining the poetry of any poet in the field of statistical stylistics, you will find out the style of his works in terms of language materials (quantity). This is of particular importance in literary texts and scientific research. The method of the study: statistical stylistics based on the concepts and materials of stylistics.

ON BOYAN AS A MINSTREL AND HIS ROLE IN MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN CULTURE

The name “Boyan” first appears in the written works of Old East Slavic literature. Boyan is referenced in the prologue of one of these sources, The Tale of Igor’s Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve), which is presented in Russian-speaking countries as a groundbreaking example of literary criticism that was not recognized in the 12th century. The anonymous author does not comply with Boyan’s epic narrative tradition, stating that he will sing the song in his own way. Therefore, the narrator, who desires to surpass the obsolescent rite of oral narrative and appears keen to join the contemporary trends of the time or direct them himself, chooses to criticize his predecessor. In Old Russian culture, Boyan is considered to be a wandering minstrel, a bard, and a prophet. He is also referred to as the grandson of Veles, a member of the pantheon of pagan gods and protector of musicians. The fingers of Boyan, which are associated with an ancient stringed instrument called “gusli”, are believed to be sacred and magical. A type of accordion called the “bayan” also takes its name from Boyan. This study, which focuses on Boyan, an important figure in Old East Slavic literature and folklore, aims to reveal his role in medieval culture and explore whether he was a real or fictional character. For this purpose, the study includes an evaluation of the etymology of the word Boyan and an analysis of how Boyan is depicted in literary texts. In light of the data obtained, the probability of Slavic, Scandinavian, Bulgarian, or Turkic roots of the word is evaluated. The study then delves into a wide range of evidence to provide insight into whether Boyan was a minstrel or a court singer. In conclusion, this study reveals Boyan’s significance as a folk minstrel who served as a protector of national memory and a transmitter of cultural heritage.

Ludic stylistics: Narrating a thought experiment (A study of "The Science of Discworld" series)

This article addresses the phenomenon of ludic stylistics, viewed through the lens of interdiscursivity. The paper defines interdiscursivity as a narrative strategy that involves the blending of discourses of different types within a single literary text, thereby foregrounding its genre-bound nature. In the "The Science of Discworld" series, co-authored by Terry Pratchett along with the popular science writers Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, interdiscursivity is evident through the fusion of fictional and non-fictional discourses. The interplay of these discourses in the "The Science of Discworld" series facilitates the creation of its ludic stylistics. The paper regards ludic stylistics as an artistic phenomenon that emerges in literary text at both the micro- and macro-levels due to unconventional combinations of linguistic units of any rank. These elements, whether independently or in tandem with other literary devices, have a tendency to engender singular or multiple ludic effects. Ludic microstylistics in the "The Science of Discworld" series is primarily manifested through the innovative combinations of various figures of speech, such as metaphors, personifications, antonomasia, analogies, neologisms, puns, irony, and more. Ludic macrostylistics is represented by narrative games, predominantly of metafictional and intertextual varieties. Overall, ludic stylistics constitutes the ontology of the "The Science of Discworld" series, while shedding light on the innovative transformations of genre-bound literary forms.

PECULIARITIES OF THE REPRESENTATION OF MORAL AND ETHICAL NORMS IN THE WORKS OF A. SEIDIMBEK

It is known that the spiritual nature of the Kazakh people, which characterizes its spiritual culture, is passed on from generation to generation through the cumulative function of language. This article presents the moral and ethical principles of spiritual culture - the spirit of the people, achievements in the world of the mind, cumulative activities that are passed on from generation to generation. The main direction of our research is to consider the features of the representation of moral and ethical forms in spiritual culture. This message clearly examines the nature of artistic concept in spiritual culture and its relationship with rituals, which need to be studied from a conceptual point of view. As basic research material, we focus on the works of the ethnographer A. Seidimbek, as well as on the peculiarities of the representation of the concepts of “superstition” and “forbidden”, which form a cultural unity in the concepts of the Kazakh people. According to this goal, the study of the mentioned concepts in the scholar’s literary texts in the continuity of language and culture indicates their linguistic representation of the social life and spiritual culture of the nation. The fact that moral and ethical units are reflected in artistic and poetic texts as representatives of an artistic concept is formulated using methods of comparison, modeling and codification in an anthropocentric direction. The results of research work in this direction help to determine the purpose and significance of the system of traditions, rituals and customs in the culture of the people, how they are reflected in the thoughts, feelings and actions of a native speaker; the purpose and significance of traditions and lifestyles, moral and ethical norms (state) of property. It is assumed that, like general folk knowledge, superstition can beseen as a fusion of rational and irrational principles, as well as the result of a syncretic unity. Information about the nature of the connection between understanding the ethnic language and moral and ethical norms, the linguistic picture-image (picture) in rituals as a whole is divided into several layers, and also that the moral and ethical layers in these layers differ in chronological (diachronological) characteristics, which reflected in the words of rituals. Like popular knowledge, superstition is defined as the intersection of rational and irrational principles, as well as the result of syncretic unity. Mental ideas about a person in the cognitive space of ethnocultural names of the Kazakh language, Professor A. Seіdimbek determined that the works represent national and cultural characteristics. The representation of moral and ethical values as a spiritual treasure, a continuation of a person’s past life and present existence in the future is presented with evidence based on the works of A. Seіdimbek.

GENDER FEATURES OF THE KAZAKH DIALOGUE (based on prose works)

The article will discuss the features of dialogical communication between men and women, characteristic of the category of gender.In the article, the topics discussed by men and women were determined based on the dialogue discourse collected from the fiction.There were analyzed features related to emotional discourse of men and women through the dialogue and the reasons of differences were defined. Also, the features related to the invective vocabulary used by men and women were determined. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of the emotional discourse of men and women, the scope of use of invective vocabulary in their language, the topics discussed, the type of Kazakh dialogue as a result of discussion of male and female characters with reference to linguistic facts taken from fiction.The scientific and practical significance of the article is the issues discussed in the article and the results obtained can be used as additional scientific material in the field of lexicology, textual criticism and discourse in Kazakh linguistics.The gender factor in the language of a literary text is also valuable in determining the stylistic, psychological, thematic characteristics of a woman and a male author, as well as the characteristics of the author’s speech and the characters’ word usage. The language of the literary text takes into account gender differentiation, showing facts familiar to us. From this point of view, defining the features of the Kazakh dialogue on the basis of dialogic relations between a man and a woman, which occupy a special place in our national discourse, proves the value of the article.

Literary approaches to wine in the texts of the Odyssey and the role of digital culture in cultural preservation

This paper deals with the position and role played by wine in the case of an important text of ancient Greek literature, the Odyssey. Reading the Homeric epic reveals its importance, as it is revealed by the multitude of references to wine in the work. Through the detailed description of the various verses and episodes, the multiple roles of wine in the epic are demonstrated. With the methodology of text analysis, it is proven that wine is a daily habit of the life of the lords, either at meals or at special moments, considering it an important asset. It also played an important role in the religious life of that time, both because mortals offered it to the gods, and because the latter treated it as they saw fit. Also, the familiarity with wine becomes evident from its use as a means, either to achieve one's goal, or to advance the plot.

Revisiting Predictions about the Future of Human Life in 20th Century American Sci-Fis

Predictions and illustrations of life in the future are often integrated in works of science fiction, which could not be immediately proven yet possibly fascinating when looked back on several decades later or at the times predicted in the works. Science fiction authors foretell such events by borrowing theories, concepts, or simply terms used by scientists. Those theories, concepts, and terms can be written in scientific journals or in more popular media. American science fiction works, for instance, illustrate the future by their adaptation in the forms of more popular media such as movies, video games, and the works categorized as the subgenres of cyber literature. All of them are discussed in this paper from the lens of New Historicism, which believes in equality between literary and non-literary texts in viewing phenomena that exist in society, one of which is the relationship between science fiction works, their writers, their readers, and society. Technology is seen as a product of society, so it becomes broadly part of culture. Meanwhile, emerging technology is sometimes coincidental and random, so it can also be seen that technology determines people’s movements and lifestyles. This study contributes to ongoing discussions on the ethical and societal implications of speculative narratives by highlighting the interconnectedness between literature, science, technology, and society.

Reading and (re)writing democracy: Asian American girls claim civic space through literary inquiry

Purpose This paper aims to trace how Asian American girls engaged with civic learning in a virtual out-of-school literacy community featuring a curriculum of diverse literary texts. Design/methodology/approach The researcher used practitioner inquiry to construct a virtual literacy education community dedicated to the civic learning of Asian American girls. Findings The paper explores how participants mobilized critical practices of textual consumption and production rooted in their intersectional identities and embodied experiences to make meaning of the civic constraints and affordances of marginalized identities and to read and (re)design author choices for civic purposes. These findings – examples of youths’ critical civic meaning-making – indicate how they claimed space for Asian American civic girlhoods in literacy education. Originality/value This paper foregrounds how Asian American girls mobilize critical processes of text consumption and production to assert civic identities in literacy education – a significantly under-examined topic in literacy studies. This work has implications for how literacy practitioners and scholars can prioritize Asian American civic girlhoods through pedagogy and research.

Advancing semantic and pragmatic theoretical frameworks through an analysis of Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do"

Semantics and pragmatics, as theoretical frameworks, continue to prove their appropriateness in the examination of literary texts and conversations, as well as in songs and music. This denotes that the two theoretical frameworks cannot solely be constricted within the parameters of general linguistics; instead, they are applicable to other disciplines or subject areas. In view of this fact, this article aims to uncover the covert meanings in Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" lyrical song. To do this, semantic and pragmatic theoretical frameworks are applied, while the song itself is acknowledged as a primary source of data. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the development of semantics and pragmatics, as theoretical perspectives, and the ways in which meaning can be explicated using these theoretical perspectives in the chosen song and other areas of interest. Ultimately, the overall objective is to demonstrate how words, phrases and sentences may be understood differently by language users. The results and discussions validate that Taylor Swift uses different linguistic techniques, as well as metaphorical expressions to communicate her message to her audience. Nevertheless, such abilities of this singer and songwriter may not always be clear to everyone, hence the necessity to apply semantic and pragmatic theoretical lenses. The closing remarks underline the importance of continuing to develop the two theoretical perspectives beyond the limitations of general linguistics. In addition to this, the closing remarks underscore the synergetic relationship that exists between language and music.