Longer Texts Research Articles

De la lettre à l’esprit: pour lire ‘Illuminations’ by Antoine Fongaro

852 Reviews Henri Coulet, who gives an excellent account of the background of the period, saying, for example, that the novel is the 'genre lemieux protege contre la turbulence de l'histoire' (p. vi), that it remains unchanged by the revolution in society inwhich it is being created. This is an interesting view, that can certainly be challenged, but it sets the tone of the collection which, indeed, reproduces some texts that might have been written at any time in the period before or after the Revolution. Huguette Krief's longer introduction is awell-researched and suggestive piece, explaining why the particular choice has been made and giving women's writing of the period a special status. Any choice is going to lead to exclusions and some of the inclusions are surprising. On the other hand, we are given a rapid taste of the novels in question which might well whet the appetite for readers who are unfamiliar with the various writers in question. The view given by Krief is that there is a 'roman feminin' of the period and she claims that 'la litterature feminine fait place a des formes nouvelles qui s'elaborent conformement aux attentes du public' (pp. 37-38). Is this actually true? Wasn't Henri Coulet suggesting quite the opposite in his own preface? There isno doubt that some of themajor novelists of the period were indeed women: Genlis, Stael, Cottin. But men did continue towrite and there are some fascinating figures of the period who deserve at least a mention: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Ducray-Duminil, Gorjy, Lesuire, Mercier de Compiegne, Restif; the introduction is perhaps a little too quiet on the overall production of the period. The bibliography is, naturally perhaps, focused on studies of women's writing but a number of general studies are overlooked. In short, this is an interesting collection which gives a partial view of a rich and fascinating period from a particular perspective. The Revolutionary period is attract ing ever more studies and this one will certainly add to our knowledge of a particular phenomenon. Whether the provision of short extracts does anything more than excite our interest in the longer texts is amatter of debate. Producing short extracts of long novels can, on occasion, be a disservice to the writer. UNIVERSITY OF EXETER MALCOLM COOK De la lettre a l'esprit: pour lire 'Illuminations'. By ANTOINE FONGARO. (Colloques, congreset conferences. Epoquemoderneet contemporaine, I4) Paris: Champion. 2004. 446 pp. E65. ISBN 2-7453-II20-4. This volume offers an organic reading of Rimbaud's Illuminations by dint of a series of close studies of individual texts from the collection. These readings are characterized by a consistent method of close and scrupulous interpretations of the poems and from them emerges a certain picture of both poet and poetry. We are looking here at articles spanning a period of some forty years, studies inwhich Fongaro repeatedly takes issue with trends in Rimbaud criticism and the notion of 'illisibilite. Antoine Fongaro sees Rimbaud, not as some deliriously inspired creator of ambiguous texts, but rather as a poet who works on language in a calculated way, and he argues that it is possible to distil a 'vision d'ensemble du recueil Illuminations'. Thus the opening analysis of 'Apres le deluge' permits him to suggest that the text is both logical and readable and that other critics have tended towards obfuscation in their approach to a poem that is essentially socio-political. One senses that Fongaro's overall mission in these studies is to demolish what he sees as the myth of Rimbaud as a prophetic poet whose works are deprived of all logic and so must endlessly baffle the reader. 'II etait infiniment moins reveur, visionnaire, etc. qu'on ne le pretend; il pensait, il reflechissait, it calculait' (p. 132). This statement sums up Fongaro's approach very neatly and the analyses of 'Parade', MLR, IOI.3, 2oo6 853 'Matinee d'ivresse', and 'Antique' underscore it.At every turn, there is an emphasis on demystifying the texts and on the very real opportunity to find their meaning. Fongaro refers to 'eclaircissements de detail' (p. 15 i), and we find this regularly in...

Bringing Together Fictional and Informational Texts to Improve Comprehension

Units of study that contain fictional and informational texts can improve students' comprehension by strengthening background knowledge, vocabulary, and motivation. Such units improve students' background knowledge when informational texts activate or build prior knowledge for fictional texts on the same topic, vocabulary when they provide opportunities to encounter the same word or group of conceptually related words in a variety of different texts, and motivation when they offer multiple entry points suited to individual preferences for fictional or informational texts. The two texts on the same topic offer multiple perspectives on a single subject—affective and objective points of view—that can broaden students' understanding when they are compared and contrasted by teachers aware of the possibilities and risks of intertextuality. Informational and fictional picture books read with longer informational books and novels enrich older students' engagement. They create scaffolds for readers at a variety of different levels and help build the contextual knowledge necessary for working with longer texts. Examples of upper grade units that contain fictional and informational picture books are included.

Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology

Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology; Hans-Olov Adami, David Hunter, and Dimitrios Trichopoulos, eds. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. ISBN: 0-19-510969-4. Price: $76.50 From Trisha Hartge: The Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology fits nicely on the epidemiology instructor’s bookshelf for classroom use. Its editors have provided a book principally to teach. By comparison, Schottenfeld and Fraumeni’s Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention,1 now going into its third edition, remains the definitive large text. The newer (and slimmer) textbook is a more didactic companion, well suited to a course for public health students who have had an introduction to basic epidemiology. The new text is a hybrid, somewhere between the typical multiauthor medical textbooks and the 1-author epidemiology textbooks. This synthesis has been accomplished by including one of the editors as a coauthor of each chapter and by following a rather strict common outline to achieve a consistent style. The similarity of style and approach across the chapters promotes flexible use, for example, instructors can easily vary the assigned chapters from year to year or create a short course on a focused topic. The introductory portion follows the terminology and emphasis of Rothman and Greenland’s Modern Epidemiology2; however, the main text would fit well in any curriculum. On the whole, each organ-specific chapter effectively covers the major issues, including the ubiquitous problems of conflicting data and unresolved issues. For instance, the chapter on breast cancer conveys the sense that although epidemiology has produced a large body of information about risk factors, we have not yet captured the fundamental etiology. The very brief overview of dozens of risk factors gives breast cancer epidemiology at a glance, suitable for a novice reader. For the reader interested in greater depth, the cartoon of estrogen pathways and gene polymorphisms controlling the hypothesized biologic pathways is simple enough to follow and yet complex enough to convey the difficulties in understanding the pathways that mediate hormones. The structured outline of site-specific chapters generally works to the reader’s advantage, although it can create a false sense that our understanding of the causes of various cancers is more uniform than it really is. Although we know, for instance, that human papilloma virus causes the overwhelming majority of cancers of the uterine cervix, the chapter on cervical cancer begins with a summary of the literature on tobacco, diet, and hormones. Those factors can affect risk (perhaps through susceptibility to the papilloma virus), but the more natural order of presentation would have been to explain human papilloma virus first and then the evidence on potential cofactors. The book aims to reach not just students in public health or medical school, but a larger audience in medicine, public health, and biology. For readers interested in an intermediate level of detail, this book fills the bill nicely. I recommended it to a Yale undergraduate working as a summer intern in epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute, whose comments follow. From John Mission: What is cancer? What is epidemiology? As an undergraduate student interested in medicine and public health, I needed some background before delving into the specifics of cancer epidemiology. The Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology is especially effective in answering these questions. A chapter on “The Origin of Cancer” offers an excellent introduction to the concepts of cancer etiology and development. Students with even a single semester of introductory college biology would be comfortable reading this chapter. An equally essential chapter, “Concepts in Cancer Epidemiology and Etiology,” lucidly explains the techniques and principles of epidemiology. The authors describe the various types of study designs and their strengths and shortcomings in language accessible to students without a background in epidemiology. The last sections of the chapter discuss how to interpret the results of epidemiologic studies, offering clear principles and logically sound sets of criteria with which to evaluate studies at all levels, from individual case studies to metaanalyses. I compared Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology with the second edition of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention for some specific cancers I have been studying. The leukemia section of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention includes a more detailed description of the disease and cites 20 more pages of references than does Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology, whereas the latter maintains a more concise, student-friendly presentation. I particularly enjoyed its clinical summary in the beginning of each section on site-specific cancers; this piqued my interest more than the chapter introductions in the longer text. One advantage of Schottenfeld and Fraumeni’s textbook is the inclusion of possibilities for future research for specific cancers. The addition of such forward-looking sections would serve the Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology well. In every other respect this textbook will serve students at any level as a useful primer for cancer epidemiology.

Aetiological values in Achebe's stories for children

A fundamental aspect of Achebe’s work is shown in the narrations for children this writer developed during the sixties and seventies. These writings were Achebe’s response to the disastrous consequences of the Biafran War for his ethnic group which provoked a long silence on the part of the writer, unable to develop his commitment with his community through longer texts. During these years most of the production of Achebe was circumscribed to literary essays and stories for children, as an attempt to build a valuable literature for children throughout autochthonous reconstructions. With the exception of Chike and the River (published in 1966), the other tales are characterized by its moral fable-like tone and by being situated in a remote past, before the known time, in which the relationships between the physical and the spiritual worlds were very intense. Taking into account all these elements, I would like to pinpoint the aetiological value of Achebe’s tales, that is, the attempt to show the rural traditions that were used by the Ibo community to explain the cause and the origin of some natural phenomena, or even, of some features of human behaviour. I dare say that these tales constitute a clear example of a specifically African literature for children that, using autochthonous elements, does not deny the contact and influence of Western literature.

„Ich bedanke mich für meine Gesundheit"

The paper is dealing with new forms of writings. The inscription books, found in a hospital in Budapest, contain shorter or longer texts of patients who say thanks to doctors and nurses for helping in regaining their health. The inscription books and their texts are regarded by the author as special form of communication, ritualized way of thanksgiving. The motivation of the rite can be found in a search for safety and stability, in a feeling of compensation.

Assessing improvement in longer texts: Can we trust subjective judgments?

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Rhetorical figures in headings and their effect on text processing: the moderating role of information relevance and text length

Professionals involved in the creation of text-based communication face a number of challenges. These include overburdened and often uninterested users juxtaposed with the writer's desire to communicate relevant topical information. Uninvolved users are likely to ignore the message. This may be exacerbated by increases in text length designed to increase the amount and/or detail of information to be communicated. An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of rhetorical figures in text headings as to how users read and process the text (hereafter readership, as used in marketing). To the extent that higher levels of text readership increase user knowledge and skills, enhance topic-related attitudes, and facilitate beneficial topic-related behaviors, higher readership should yield desirable communication outcomes. Headings with rhetorical figures were hypothesized to enhance readership, particularly under conditions generally associated with relatively low readership, namely, lower perceived information relevance and longer text. Results generally support rhetorical figures' abilities to enhance readership, especially with longer texts.

De l'«Spill de la vida religiosa» al «Desitjós». Notes a una novel·la al·legòrica del segle XVI

The contribution of the author of this article to the study of this religious novel inspired by Ramon Llull is to demonstrate that the text we now know derives from a longer text, the author of which must have belonged to the Observants belonging to the Fransciscan order. The author also offers his reflections on diverse themes that have not been analysed so far in the abbreviated version of the «Spill de la vida religiosa».

Atlas of Genetics and Cytogenetics in Oncology and Haematology, updated.

The 'Atlas of Genetics and Cytogenetics in Oncology and Haematology' (http://www.infobiogen.fr/services/chromcancer) is an Internet database aimed at genes involved in cancer, cytogenetics and clinical entities in cancer, and cancer-prone diseases. It presents information in concise and updated reviews (cards) or longer texts (deep insights), a (new) case report section, a huge portal towards genetics and/or cancer databases, and teaching items in genetics for students in medicine and the sciences. This database is made for and by clinicians and researchers in the above-mentioned fields, who are encouraged to contribute. It deals with cancer research, genomics and cytogenomics. It is at the crossroads of research, post-university teaching and telemedicine. The Atlas is available at no cost.

Genre analysis: the introduction section of two longer texts

Do introductions have a predictable structure? If they do, what is the rationale behind this organization? How is it patterned? In what ways is this pattern signaled on the surface linguistic features? With these questions in mind, I set out to examine the introduction section of two classic works in Translation Studies (Toury, 1980 and House, 1977) to investigate their structure, the rationale behind their organization, as well as their communicative purpose and linguistic nature. For this investigation, a theoretical framework was needed within which to discuss the notion of genre and to describe the so called generic quality of introductions.

‘But-þat þou louye me, Sertes y dye fore loue of þe’

In this paper, I look at how medieval and early modern poets present and exploit the potential inherent in opening moves in (love) relationships for the purpose of plot motivation and protagonist characterisation. The depiction of the opening moves depends on three interrelated pairs of variables: 1) legalistic tradition (marriage as the reason for initiating a relationship) vs emotional tradition (focus is on the beloved person’s affection), 2) plot motivation vs protagonist characterisation, and 3) brevity vs length. Longer texts that focus on the lovers’ feelings and that pay some attention to protagonist characterisation are more likely to feature relatively complex linguistic strategies presented in a basically realistic interactional manner. In shorter texts of the emotional tradition, the complexity is reduced, and poets working in the legalistic tradition often pay hardly any attention at all to the finer points of opening moves in love interaction.

Distant Horizon: Documents from the Nineteenth-Century American West ed. by Gary Noy

b o o k R e v ie w s 2 2 3 Distant Horizon: Documents from the Nineteenth-Century American West. Edited by Gary Noy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. 467 pages, $22.00. Reviewed by Karen English San José State University Distant Horizon is an anthology of nineteenth-century documents, remi­ niscences, and accounts concerning the American West. While the texts are works dating predominantly from the last half of the nineteenth century, there are a few twentieth-century commentaries as well. Noy groups the texts the­ matically into eleven chapters ranging from “Westerners of Color” to “The Railroad in the American West.” Clearly conceived as a reader for a classroom, the anthology has a minimum of editorial material. Short thematic introduc­ tions begin each chapter, and sporadic general comments preface or follow some texts. For example, in his introduction to Walt Whitman’s “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” Noy explains in italics, “In selected stanzas of this poem Whitman embodies the driving impetus of westward expansionist thought" (12). The volume ends with a particularly useful chapter-by-chapter bibliography of sources and a brief index. The great strength of this anthology lies in the variety of the texts chosen for inclusion. Teachers ofhigh school and introductory college courses will ben­ efit from the gathering ofso many writers from such diverse backgrounds. Many of the documents that are included provide valuable texts for cultural studies as well. For example, a partial text of the Homestead Act of 1862 illuminates the chapter on “Farmers and Townsfolk”; and excerpts of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo strengthen the chapter on “Soldiers in the American West.” Combined with newspaper accounts and autobiographical reminiscences, these documents help round out the historical record for classroom study. The great strength of this anthology is related to its weakness as a collec­ tion. Because Noy emphasizes a range of texts, he is forced into the editorial position of relying on excerpts from longer texts. In cases where he includes an entire chapter or a complete portion of a journal or diary, the text retains its literary integrity. Often, however, Noy omits portions of chapters, documents, and accounts so that we do not have even the complete sections of a particu­ lar text. Why include only a few stanzas of Whitman’s poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” or selected portions of a chapter from Cather’s M;y Antonia? Selections from longer works, like Sarah Winnemucca’s autobiography, become merely a series of excerpts. This editorial practice compromises the effect of longer works by turning them into a series of digestible writing bites— akin to television’s sound bites. And without notes, the reader has no sense of what has been omitted or why. In his general introduction, Noy uses the phrase “unique American west­ ern mosaic” to describe his project; he also uses the model of the “sampler.” 2 2 4 WAL 3 5 .1 S u m m e r 2 0 0 0 Both ofthese ideas are carried out conscientiously inhis anthology. Overall, this is a useful resource to have for anyone who teaches American history or cultural studies and wishes to sample a variety of literary works in the classroom. The Lizard Speaks: Essays on the Writings of Frederick Manfred. Edited by Nancy Owen Nelson. Sioux Falls, S.Dak.: Center for Western Studies, 1998. 228 pages, $15.95. Reviewed by Gordon Johnston Three Rivers Community College According to the editor, the theme around which this collection is built is Manfred’s “innate connection to the primordial ‘lizard brain’ which is the center of the creative process” (vii). To Manfred, the “Old Lizard” (“intuition” is a useful but inadequate synonym) was the source of his voice as a writer; this theme also played out in his fiction in the actions of his characters. A master storyteller, Manfred wrote novels to explore our relationship to the land, our animal nature as a source of knowledge and power, our relationship to our ancestors and our cultural heritage, and the male/female duality of our inner selves. As Manfred’s voice developed, he explored all these themes as aspects of that primordial lizard brain. As is often the case...

Children's use of memory strategies: Relevance to voice output communication aid use

Memory strategies are implicated in the use of voice output communication aids. They are necessary to facilitate the memorization and subsequent recall of information, including preprogrammed vocabulary (i.e., single words and longer texts) and codes that retrieve vocabulary programmed under several keys (e.g., in Minspeak™-based applications). The augmentative and alternative communication field could benefit from existing research that has examined the development of memory strategy use in young children. Memory strategies differ in terms of their functional properties, such as automaticity, reliance on symbolic mediators, and overall complexity. Developmental constraints are reflected in predictable performance errors. Adults can help children become insightful about when, how, and why to apply a memory strategy. This insight, called metamemory, can motivate a child to complete boring tasks (e.g., memorizing codes).

Productivity prediction by extrapolation: Using workload memory as a predictor of target performance

In order to assess if productivity based on extrapolated data is a good predictor of longer texts, an experimental study was conducted. Two full-sized text input devices for touch typing and two miniaturized for tapping were used, all featuing QWERTY layout, in a repeated measurement design. Twenty subjects were exposed to both a task within the limit of working memory (nine words) and four running memory tasks (approx. 275 words). For miniaturized tapping keyboards, extrapolated data significantly underestimated both entry speed (uncorrected wpm, up to 17%) and character error rate (up to 61%) whereas it significantly overestimated ratio of correct words (up to 62%) of running memory tasks. Further, error-corrected entry speed was significantly overestimated up to a factor of 2.7. Results based on extrapolated productivity metrics must therefore be interpreted with caution. Running memory tasks with text length of more than 32 words is needed to assess productivity of text input devices if tapping is used.

An experiment on node size in a hypermedia system

The node size that should be used in a hypermedia system is an important design issue. Three interpretations of node size are identified: storage (physical size), window size (presentation size), and length (logical size). An experiment in which presentation size and text length are varied in a HyperCard application is described. The experiment involves student subjects performing a fact retrieval task from a reference handbook. No interaction is found between these two independent variables. Performance is significantly better for the longer texts, but no significant difference is found for the two different window sizes.

JONAH AND GENRE IN "RESIGNATION B"

Resignation B is the title generally applied to the second half of a longer text Resignation - found in the tenth-century Exeter Book. The poem is anonymous and undated, and, indeed, was not recognized as a separate piece until fairly recently. Using codicological, lexicographical, and stylistic evidence, Alan Bliss and Allen J. Frantzen argued convincingly in 1976 that lines 70-119 of Resignation in fact constituted a separate poem, one that requires interpretation independent of the lines that precede it in the manuscript.' This essay proceeds from that assumption. Due in part to its acephalic preservation, Resignation B presents special problems of interpretation. The poem is a monologue in which the speaker laments certain difficulties and outlines his ambiguous relationship with God; this speaker is not explicitly identified in the poem. As early as Ig Ig, Levin L. Schcking expressed the belief that the latter half of Resignation could be fully understood only as the lament of a specific character from a recognized narrative.2 Although Schiicking's opinion has occasionally been cited in the years since he offered it,3 no scholar has ventured a guess as to exactly which narrative might provide the necessary background to the poem. It is my intention in this paper to offer such a narrative - the biblical story of Jonah and to support its connection with Resignation B. The first clue leading from the speaker of Resignation B to the prophet Jonah is the repeated emphasis on God's anger. In the Vulgate Ionas i.4, God's wrath manifests itself as the great tempest afflicting Jonah and the sailors; Jonah subsequently admits that the storm is directed against him: `scio enim ego quoniam propter me tempestas haec grandis venit super vos' (Ionas i.12). In Resignation B, the speaker also admits that God is (or has been) angry with him: [however, I will have courage in all this, and laugh, and trust in myself, ready myself for departure and hasten on that journey that I must travel, prepare my spirit.] The first word of the fragment, the contrastive 'hwepre', implies that the idea immediately preceding this one would have been in opposition to it. We have no way of knowing what the missing lines contained, but the grammar and logic of what remains suggest that the complete thought might have run along the lines of 'I do not want to undertake this journey, but as I am compelled, I will prepare my courage and spirit for it.' Reconstruction aside, the speaker of Resignation B is preparing himself for a journey he does not relish, but has been ordered by God to undertake; in this he resembles Jonah before his trip to Nineveh. The journey, made reluctantly or not, is a common image in Old English poetry and would not by itself support a connection with a specific background narrative. However, Resignation B also comprises several less common images and motifs, most of which find parallels in the career of Jonah. In order to fit these details into a coherent narrative, we may imagine the speaker to be Jonah after he has been released from the whale but before he has arrived at Nineveh. The Old English narrative is not linear, so some of 'Jonah's' statements will refer to events preceding or following that 'present' time. For example, the speaker claims: Lack of skill in public speaking or arbitration is not a complaint found elsewhere in the poetry,6 but it does constitute a plausible excuse for the reluctance of a man sent to preach repentance in a notorious city. We may even perceive a bit of irony here, as later in his career Jonah complains that God's decision to spare the Ninevites will make him look like a false or inept prophet.7 Certain difficult and seemingly contradictory statements made by the speaker of Resignation B focus on his relationships with other people. In the third-person passage, he explains that his prototypical exile ('anhoga' (gob), 'wrxcca' (gza)) is assisted by other people but that this kindness only increases his suffering; the speaker also notes that he endures men's reproaches or complaints: The seeming paradox of this passage has occasioned competing explications. …

What Makes a Good Writer? Differences in Good and Poor Writers' Self-Regulation of Writing.

What makes someone a good writer? To begin to answer this question, we compared the discourse knowledge and self-regulation of good and poor writers, as well as the quality and length of their final texts. Forty-eight junior-college students were given 50 minutes to write a text comparing Montreal (where they went to school) to another city of their choice. Results showed that poor writers were no more linear than good writers, and no less actively self-regulated their writing. However, good writers waited longer before beginning to write, and wrote texts that were more specifically comparative than did poor writers. Good writers also introduced fewer errors into their texts, more accurately evaluated the structure of their text, and produced longer texts of better quality.

Kamerspelers: professionele tegenspelers van de rederijkers

AbstractThe author presents forty fragments of texts dating from the period between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth which are connected with kamerspelers or kamerspel, i.e. professional, itinerant actors who played in private rooms (kamers) for a fee. They performed alone or in small groups, wearing masks which enabled them to play a variety of double roles. In all these aspects they differed emphatically from the rederijkers, amateur actors in the chambers of rhetoric, who in the course of the sixteenth century gradually distanced themselves from the kamerspelers. During that same period the term kamerspel expanded to embrace other forms of entertainment: juggling, animal training, acrobatics and puppetry, the last of which remained closest to the original activity. On stage short, comical pieces were generally played, as well as adaptations of secular and biblical tales. As the Reformation gained ground, farces showing monks or priests in a derogatory light tended to be regarded as criticism and were likely to get the actors in trouble with the authorities. The article ends by examining a few longer texts: an extract from the inventory of a Delft kamerspeler's effects (I608), a report of a performance given by kamerspelers in Ypres, with dancing, marionettes and a farce (I594), and records of a trial against a husband-and-wife team of puppeteers accused of witchcraft in Eppegem (I60I).

Can You Go Home Again? A Budapest Diary 1993

Can You Go Home Again? A Budapest Diary 1993 Susan Rubin Suleiman Introductory Note: The excerpts that follow are from a diary I have been keeping since early February [1993], when I began a six- month residency at the Collegium Budapest, a new Institute for Advanced Study modeled on those in Berlin and Princeton. When I was invited last year to come to Budapest during this inaugural year of the Collegium, I accepted immediately. Besides the usual luxuries of such a Fellowship period, the invitation offered me what I thought of as a near- providential opportunity to continue the autobiographical project I had started some years back, and which was assuming increasing urgency. I left Hungary with my parents in the summer of 1949, and rarely thought of it again until thirty-five years later, when I decided to return as a tourist with my two sons, then aged 14 and 7. That return triggered a desire to reconnect with my childhood and native city, a desire that took the form of writing. I published two short pieces I occasionally allude to in the diary (“My War in Four Episodes,” Agni, 33, 1991; “Reading in Tongues,” Boston Review, May–August 1992). Then, as a preparation for my current trip, I wrote a longer memoir, still unpublished, about the 1984 return and the memories it brought back. The decision to write the diary did not crystallize until after I arrived here—I simply found myself writing on my computer, sometimes for hours, at other times for a few minutes, from the first day on. After a while, I realized that I was writing “for a public” as well as for myself, and the project of a published diary began to take shape. Since these excerpts have had to be radically excised from a much longer text that is still in process, I decided to limit my selections to a few themes, chief among them the current resurgence of nationalism and anti-Semitism in Hungary (as in Eastern Europe in general), and, not unrelated to the first, my personal history. Out of a desire to protect the privacy of people I mention, I have used only first names or initials, which are not necessarily factual. In the case of public figures, I cite their full real name. I have tried to keep the writing very close to that of the first draft, but have not resisted making occasional stylistic changes. The order and tenor of the entries have not been modified. Some of the major cuts are indicated by suspension points in brackets. A few Hungarian words: utca means street, ut means avenue, ter means square (like “place” in French), korut is a round avenue, korter or korond a round “square,” villamos means tramway. Hungarian names are cited last name first, given name second. Hungarian vowels have a variety of diacritical marks, but they cannot be reproduced in this electronic publication. I would be interested in readers’ responses to this work. Please send them to Postmodern Culture, which will forward them to me. Wednesday, February 3 My apartment is the whole top floor of a three-story building, very big and nice. [...] I didn’t want to sleep in the middle of the afternoon, so after taking a hot bath and changing clothes, I went to the Collegium. I walked part of the way, down toward the Gellert Hotel on Bartok Bela ut, a wide, busy avenue lined with shops. I stopped at one to buy a toothbrush and some paper handkerchiefs. It felt strange to be speaking Hungarian to the young woman in the store. I thought I was speaking badly, like a foreigner. After walking a while longer I took a taxi, which cost 240 Forints—just under three dollars. The Collegium occupies a historical monument, an 18th- century building, newly renovated, in what is surely one of the most beautiful spots in Budapest—on Castle Hill above the Danube, across the square from the Matyas Church. The Church and square look positively dreamlike when they are lit up in the evening. My first sight of them was that way, for it was dark by the time I got there...

Text recall in adulthood: the roles of text imagery and orienting tasks.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate dual-code theory and the levels-of-processing approach in discourse processing. Three concrete and three abstract tests were constructed to be equivalent in the degree to which they were perceived as concrete vs. abstract. All experiments presented concrete and abstract texts under three orienting tasks. Results of the first experiment showed main effects for both text concreteness and orienting tasks and an interaction that can be described by the lack of a difference between the recall rates for the concrete and the abstract texts under the intentional-learning condition. In the second experiment, longer texts were used and a second trial was introduced. The interaction was not replicated. There were main effects for concreteness, orienting tasks, and trials. The third experiment replicated Experiment 2 with subjects in their late 40s and over 70. Main effects were obtained as before. Age interacted with both orienting task and concreteness, indicating that older adults gain less than middle-aged adults from intentional-learning instructions and benefit less from highly concrete texts. The discussion focuses on the relation of Materials and Subjects as factors to dual-code theory and levels of processing approach.