English Narratives Research Articles

Discourse, Culture, and Extraordinary Experiences: Observations from a Comparative, Qualitative Analysis of Japanese and UK English Accounts of Paranormal Phenomena

This article examines communicative practices in Japanese and UK English accounts of extraordinary experiences. We compare the way in which specific narrative features are handled: description of the actual experience, and the completion of the narrative. We also examine some ways in which the accounts are rhetorically designed to address skeptical alternatives. The perspective is informed by an ethnomethodological focus on communicative competences in description. This comparison identifies differences between Japanese and UK English narratives. This focus on interactional features of the data is contrasted to macro cultural or psychological perspectives on the relationship between national culture and language.

An Accidental Historian: Erasmus and the English History of the Reformation

When post-Reformation English authors sought to describe pre-Reformation Catholicism, they turned to the writings of Desiderius Erasmus for historical evidence to back up their arguments justifying the break from Rome. For many later English schoolboys, Erasmus was one of the only Catholic authors they read and the depictions of Catholicism found in thePraise of Follyand, especially, in theColloquies, became their picture of Catholic clergy, as well as foundational imprints for their mental image of relics, pilgrimages, and other Catholic practices. References to Erasmus as a historical authority for his times appear in dozens, if not hundreds, of texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ignoring the literary and fictitious nature of Erasmus's satirical texts, they used Erasmus to justify their depictions of Catholic corruption, superstition, and irrationality. Over time, these descriptions became an almost uncritically accepted portrayal of the Catholic world prior to the rise of Protestantism. This constructed reality thus became the worldview of English speaking Protestants from the mid-sixteenth century up to nearly the present. Examining how later English authors used Erasmus helps us understand the subsequent nature of English historical consciousness and the development of English and Protestant narratives of Church history.

The relationship of phonological skills to language skills in Spanish–English-speaking bilingual children

These two studies investigate the relationship between phonological production skills and performance in other domains of language in Spanish–English-speaking bilingual children. We examine the relationship between scores on a single-word phonology test and language measures selected from formal testing and narrative samples in Spanish and English. The first study explores the language and phonology scores of 186 children (mean age = 5 years, 9 months) who represent a range of language ability levels. Phonology scores in both languages were most strongly correlated with performance on the Spanish morphosyntax subtest of the bilingual English–Spanish assessment and grammaticality of utterances in English narratives. The second study focuses on 12 children with low or high phonology skills selected from those who participated in the first study. Children with higher phonological production accuracy in both languages produced grammatical structures of low-phonetic salience with greater accuracy than children with lower phonological skills.

‘This is England’? Sense of Place in English Narrative Ballads

Rightly or wrongly, ballads and folk songs collected in England are often thought to embody a sense of Englishness, even though substantial numbers of the items contained in such collections could equally be found in, say, Scotland, or even America. Nevertheless, ballad texts do reference topology and environment, and they do reference specific localities. However, while it is not difficult to think of some songs that unequivocally identify a fairly specific location (‘Rufford Park Poachers’ and ‘The Folkestone Murder’ are discussed here), many of the classical ballads in particular establish locality in much more elliptical fashion. Looking at a selection of ballads and their variants, both as collected songs and in broadside print, I aim to sketch out the way(s) in which ballads maintain a fragile, allusive sense of place. Albeit that it is inevitably overshadowed by the emphasis on action and emotion that characterise ballad style, what is here described as an ‘elliptical’ sense of place is nonetheless an important facet of the ‘feel’ of these ballads.

Participant continuity and narrative structure: Defining discourse marker functions in Old English

The system of participant reference allows narrators not only to keep track of who is who, but it also serves to reveal the structure of the text and the ranking of the participants in the text. As narratives are typically built around storylines, participant reference systems interact and participate in signalling text structure and storylines in narrative texts. The aim of this article is to study the interaction of þa ‘then’ and participant continuity in structuring Old English narratives. In Old English narratives the adverb þa serves several discourse functions, which are related to the core function of foregrounding, or signalling the main line of narrative. However, it has been argued that þa is a signal of discontinuity, whose main function is to mark discourse-unit boundaries. On the basis of co-occurrence patterns of þa and signals of participant continuity in a sample of Alfrician sermons, I wish to argue that, at the intersection of participant continuity and foregrounding, þa has the function of reintroducing major participants into the story, simultaneously signalling text structure and continuity and cohesion in the text, and that the discontinuity associated with þa arises from its interaction with other structuring signals.

The expression and conceptualization of motion through space and manner of motion in Arabic and English: A comparative analysis

This paper is a comparative analysis of English and Arabic expressions of motion events using narratives of Chafe’s (1980) Pear Story elicited from native speakers of both languages. The native‐speaker English narratives were elicited by Feiz (2007). A discourse analytic approach is used to examine how speakers of Arabic and English indicate motion through path, manner, and ground. The data consist of 45 elicited oral narratives. The narratives are all based on Chafe’s (1990) Pear Film, which is a 6‐minute film with many characters, but no dialogue. Fifteen of these are in Arabic, fifteen in English by Arabic speakers, and fifteen in English by native English speakers. The findings of this study indicate that Arabic is a verb‐framed language (Talmy, 2007). It has a variety of path verbs such as yadheh “fall,” yamer “pass,” and yenzel “descend.” Furthermore, the stative verb is used frequently in Arabic by all the Arabic speakers to describe a static location (Feiz, 2007). The total number of uses of the stative verb in Arabic is 71 tokens. In addition, the verb yati “come” is used in Arabic to introduce newcomers, as it is in English (Feiz, 2007). However, the use of the manner verbs in Arabic, such as etkhardhaf “tumbles,” is rare. English is considered a typical satellite‐framed language. It has a large number of manner verbs (Slobin, 2003). Some deictic verbs are used with path satellites (e.g., comes along). Manner verbs are also used with path satellites (e.g., climb down and walk back). Multiple path satellites also appear in English (e.g., came down off and climbed back up in).

"Hideous Progeny": Representing the Unconscious in English Narrative before Freud

Beginning with Beowulf, the monsters in English fiction represent the uncontrollable forces of the unconscious operating in similar narrative landscapes and plots. An archetypal narrative dynamic occurs in Beowulf, Clarissa, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a pattern of opposition between a house of order and a house of the outsider (the dwelling of the monster), with journeys, spying and existential conflict between the two. These shared elements of form reflect a common concern with the incursions of the unconscious into the structures of civilized social life. The monster is humanized in the novel, after his initial appearance as Grendel, but he retains his original character, setting, movements and aggressions. This study shows how this outsider figure is represented on a typical landscape and how he figures in various fictional worlds. The perspective thus opened provides new insights into narrative form and into consciousness of the unconscious in fiction.

Samir Kurtov: A Zurna Player from Bulgaria. 2008. Directed by Yoshitaka Terada. Produced by the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. Versions in Bulgarian and English (English narration and subtitles). 39 minutes. Colour, DVD. Not distributed commercially, but can be rented for free from the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan.

Samir Kurtov: A Zurna Player from Bulgaria. 2008. Directed by Yoshitaka Terada. Produced by the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. Versions in Bulgarian and English (English narration and subtitles). 39 minutes. Colour, DVD. Not distributed commercially, but can be rented for free from the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan.

Ethical Limits and Confession in Conrad’s Under Western Eyes and “Poland Revisited”

Research Article| March 01 2013 Ethical Limits and Confession in Conrad’s Under Western Eyes and “Poland Revisited” Nicole Rizzuto Nicole Rizzuto Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Twentieth-Century Literature (2013) 59 (1): 79–103. https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2013-2002 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Nicole Rizzuto; Ethical Limits and Confession in Conrad’s Under Western Eyes and “Poland Revisited”. Twentieth-Century Literature 1 March 2013; 59 (1): 79–103. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-2013-2002 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsTwentieth-Century Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © Hofstra University2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The production of referring expressions in oral narratives of Chinese–English bilingual speakers and monolingual peers

This study evaluates the extent to which the production of referring expressions such as noun phrases and pronouns to fulfill various discourse functions in narratives of Chinese–English bilingual children matches that of their monolingual peers in each of the two languages. Spoken narratives in English and Chinese were elicited from 30 9-year-old participants from each of the three groups: Chinese–English bilinguals and their monolingual peers in each of the two languages using the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Narrative analysis focused on the referring expressions that are used to introduce, re-introduce, and maintain reference to story characters in the narratives. Results show that (1) monolingual Chinese and English speakers differed significantly in the preferred referring expressions for the discourse functions; (2) the Chinese–English bilinguals differed from their monolingual peers in the distribution of referring expressions for referent introduction in English and re-introduction in Chinese; and (3) bilinguals resembled their monolingual peers in their differentiated use of referring expressions for referent maintenance in each of the two languages. These results suggest that the patterns of production of referring expressions in discourse by bilingual speakers may be unique, and fall in between those by their monolingual peers in each of the languages.

Keeping Proper Distance: The Question of Aesthetics in Translating English Narratives into Korean

Keeping Proper Distance: The Question of Aesthetics in Translating English Narratives into Korean

The effects of captions in teenagers’ multimedia L2 learning

AbstractThis study aims to explore the impact of different captions on second language (L2) learning in a computer-assisted multimedia context. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, and a total of thirty-two eighth graders selected from a junior high school joined the study. They were systematically assigned into four groups based on their proficiency in English; these groups were shown animations with English narration and one of the following types of caption: no captions (M1), Chinese captions (M2), English captions (M3), and Chinese plus English captions (M4). A multimedia English learning program was conducted; the learning content involved two scientific articles presented on a computer. To track the learning process, data on oral repetition were collected after each sentence or scene was played. A post-test evaluation and a semi-structured interview were conducted immediately after viewing. The results show that the effect of different captions in multimedia L2 learning with respect to vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension depend on students’ L2 proficiency. With English and Chinese + English captions, learners with low proficiency performed better in learning English relative to those who did not have such captions. Students relied on graphics and animation as an important tool for understanding English sentences.

Towards an English narrative of democracy?

This article explores the opportunity for, and some of the political, ideological and institutional impediments to, the articulation of an English narrative of democracy. Such a narrative would locate an understanding of recent developments in the politics, governance and political economy of England within the much broader and challenging framework of the political history of England, and in particular the English tradition of radical thinking and political movements. On the one hand, this article identifies potential for the development of an English narrative in the recent scholarship of historians, and the growing evidence of popular support for a political and institutional expression of English identity. On the other hand, this article identifies the two greatest obstacles to the development of an English narrative as the tradition of British modernisation, which has been the dominant political narrative during the twentieth-century British politics, and the absence of political imagination about democracy, citizenship and England among the British political elite. The conclusion drawn is that an English narrative of democracy could help provide a fair and just settlement for England, but major ideological and institutional impediments remain to its development.

“Delicate Fantasy” and “Vulgar Reality”: Undermining Romance and Complicating Identity in Bram Stoker’s The Snake’s Pass

In The Snake’s Pass (1890), Bram Stoker drew on two distinct literary aesthetics. One is unique to this novel, which is Stoker’s only work set in Ireland: the Irish narrative genre of stories about placenames, the dinnseanchas tradition. The second is a technique Stoker uses in almost all of his longer fiction, including Dracula (1897): the construction of an unreliable narrator, in this case Arthur Severn, the “I” through which all events are filtered. Previous readings that interrogate the character of this English narrator have assumed that all of Arthur’s perceptions of and commentaries on the environment, the people, and their motivations—indeed, all the “content” of the novel—are unproblematically delivered to us as readers. However, like each of the narrators in Dracula, Stoker gives his readers plenty of cues that Arthur is not an objective observer. Most of these cues occur within the narrative fissures provided by Stoker’s deployment of the dinnseanchas tradition, both within the content of the novel—that is, the narrative as Arthur relates it—and the larger structure of the tale as a whole (that is, as Stoker builds his novel). Though previous critics have simply collapsed the two English characters of Arthur and his friend Dick Sutherland, Stoker carefully distinguishes between the two. He also makes distinctions concerning the formation of a different community of inclusion in which membership is not determined by race or ethnicity, but rather by class and work ethic. These narrative subtleties problematize a general critical assessment that in The Snake’s Pass, “Stoker’s treatment of the Irish national character never strays far from the received categories of his

Review of El Misterio de Los Cristales Gigantes (The Mystery of the Giant Crystals)

Review of <i>El Misterio de Los Cristales Gigantes</i> (<i>The Mystery of the Giant Crystals</i>)

The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative ed. by Kimberly K. Bell and Julie Nelson Couch (review)

The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative ed. by Kimberly K. Bell and Julie Nelson Couch (review)

Fictional Elements in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century Sonnet Sequences and Early Modern Fictions

Sonnet sequences printed in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contain fictional mechanisms such as truth-telling frames, arguments, and meta-fictional discourse, and display elements of early modern printing practices also employed in the printing of fictional narratives. A comparison with similar elements present in early English narratives and novels suggests that early modern writer, reader, and editor saw elements of narrativity in sonnet sequences, which invites a reconsideration of the sonnet sequence as a part of the history of fictional writing.

The Trojan Mirror: middle English Narratives of Troy as books of princely advice

The Trojan Mirror: middle English Narratives of Troy as books of princely advice

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

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

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

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