Substance Of Language Research Articles

Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabes, Lubin and Luca: No Man's Language by Greg Kerr

Reviewed by: Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabes, Lubin and Luca: No Man's Language by Greg Kerr Emma Wagstaff Exile, Non-Belonging and Statelessness in Grangaud, Jabes, Lubin and Luca: No Man's Language. By Greg Kerr. (Comparative Literature and Culture) London: UCL Press. 2021. x+193 pp. £40 (pbk £20; ebk Open Access). ISBN 978–1–78735–675–7 (pbk 978–1–78735–673–3; ebk 978–1–78735–676–4). In this clear and engaging open-access book, Greg Kerr brings together four major poets writing in French from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Each poet displays an uneasy relationship to French and to language more broadly. In different ways, their work investigates what happens when the writing subject does not belong, and Kerr shows how a sense of exile operates on a formal level in the texts as well as thematically. In the chapter on Armen Lubin, the pseudonym adopted by Armenian writer Chahnour Kerestedijan on his emigration to France following the Armenian genocide, Kerr explores the link between exile and illness. Texts by Lubin reveal that the invalid is deprived of agency and dehumanized. That uncertainty extends to the poet's own status, not only as a writer, but also as a resident of France unable to apply for naturalization because his illness prevented him from signing up for military service. Kerr's discussion of Edmond Jabès, who was exiled to France following the Suez crisis, takes in abstraction, silence, the proscription of images linked to diasporic Judaism, and space on the page. Not only does Jabès bear witness to absence and to silence, but, Kerr argues, he inscribes silence and hesitation visually in the fragmented spatial layout of some texts, frustrating any attempt by the reader to locate an origin within them. Ghérasim Luca, born Salman Locker, was a Romanian writer of Jewish origins who lived in permanent exile in France from [End Page 501] 1952. His texts reject monolingualism while retaining an outsider's relationship to language. Luca's experience of the Shoah, along with the influence of Romanian Surrealism and psychoanalysis, contributes to a 'stammering' (p. 116) in his texts. Subsequently, his anti-rationalist writing enacts a 'weakening' (p. 137) of language and moves towards a state that is not so much multilingual as post-monolingual. Although younger than the other poets discussed and not a migrant, Michelle Grangaud also displays the relationship of an outsider to language. Kerr argues that she subverts apparently stable categories, including proper nouns, through techniques such as the anagram, which 'cuts through the substance of language' (p. 158). Her work is not anti-poetic, but the poetry lies in the relations between words rather than in any creative originality of the person writing. The main strength of Kerr's book lies in its sensitivity to the texts. Biographical readings are employed as appropriate for a work on exile and statelessness, but the texts take centre stage throughout, both in detailed textual analysis and in the tracing of developments in a poet's oeuvre. Kerr conducts illuminating close readings of whole poems, and provides English translations that not only make his book accessible to a wider readership but also act as readings in themselves. He pays attention to sense—and to the resistance to meaning—at the level of phonemes and pictorial elements as well as words, lines, and complete texts, and his readings are entirely convincing while remaining focused on the overall theme of non-belonging. Kerr deftly brings together poetic and philosophical reflections on exile, the rejection of monolingualism, the uncertainty suffered by individuals deprived of citizenship, and what it is like to experience language as an outsider. He draws on the work of other critics who examine statelessness in poetry, such as Michael G. Kelly, and situates his book in relation to current debates in poetry involving major thinkers, including Michel Deguy, Jacques Rancière, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Kerr shows how the poets he discusses critique 'paradigms of possession or appropriation' (p. 187) by enacting radical non-belonging. His book therefore not only offers valuable insight into four significant poets, but also makes an important contribution...

Indonesian Cultural Form in the Basic Level Teaching Indonesian to Speakers of Other Languages (TISOL) Textbook "Sahabatku Indonesia"

Teaching Indonesian to Speakers of Other Languages (TISOL) programs in domestic and international have become a medium for diplomacy for Indonesian language and culture on the world. Language and culture play an important role as a medium for diplomacy. Language represents the identity of the culture and related cultures in the substance of language. This study aims to describe the diversity of Indonesian culture in the basic level TISOL “Sahabatku Indonesia” textbook. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. Sources of data in this study are documents, namely basic level TISOL “Sahabatku Indonesia” textbooks. Data collection techniques using content analysis. Technique validity of data in this study using triangulation theory. Data analysis techniques using interactive data analysis techniques. The results show that in the basic level TISOL “Sahabatku Indonesia” textbook (TISOL 1, 2) there are 16 forms of Indonesian culture, 4 data are in the form of mentifak, 5 data are in the form of socio-cultural forms, and 7 data are in the form of cultural artifacts. Studying culture is tantamount to explore how cultural meaning is symbolic in language as a sign system.

Смысловая субстанция языка и семантосфера

Смысловая субстанция языка и семантосфера

Digital Criticism Comes of Age

There is a loose historical continuity in themes and concerns running from the origins of “close” reading in the early 20th century through machine translation and computational linguistics in the third quarter and “distant” reading in the present. Distant reading is the only current form of literary criticism that is presenting us with something new in the way that telescopes once presented astronomers with something new. Moreover it is the only form of criticism that is directly commensurate with the material substance of language. In the long-term it will advance in part by recouping and reconstructing earlier work in symbolic computation of natural language.

Una interpretación alternativa de la crítica platónica a la poesía: las soluciones de Platón a la crisis poética del siglo V

This essay revises Plato’s views on poetry in the light of the middle 5th- century’s deep crisis that the traditional poetic model was going through. Poets of that period either remain loyal to the traditional model based upon the transcendence and substance of language at the expense of excluding human experience and its uncomfortable complexity in their poems; or else they assume a technical view of language which leads to a more analytical and pragmatic poetry solely linked to the private realm. In this context we have to place Plato’s views on poetry, which may then be understood as a series of personal attempts to fi nd a solution to the crisis thus, he vindicates the traditional ‘enthusiastic’ model, and deprecates the technical poetry, and goes as far as to the worrying synthesis of the Laws in the fi gure of the legislator-poet.

The Development of Foreign Language Substance Group Curriculum Based on Marzano's Taxonomy.

This study was firstly aimed to develop the Foreign Language Substance Group Curriculum for enhancing students’ four English skills required to promote learning in the different areas of subject. It used Marzano’s Taxonomy as a framework for curriculum design. To articulate this framework, the study used content-based instruction (CBI) to pave a way for the meet of academic contents and colorful English experiences. Population of the study were the sixth grade primary students of Lakmuang Mahasarakham School located in the Northeastern of Thailand. Development procedures went through four stages. The first stage required fundamental data relating to the population’s needs and interests. In the second stage, the curriculum was drafted. Different curriculum materials were developed as well. Prior to use, the curriculum and its materials were brought to the experts for suggestions to ensure their quality. In the third stage, the curriculum was implemented to the 40 primary students in the sixth grade purposively selected from the population mentioned. In this stage, the one group time –series design was adopted. In the last stage, the curriculum was required to determine its efficiency including being revised. The findings were four dimensions. Post-test score of both achievement test and unit test were significantly higher than the pre-test score. The metacognition and self-system were reported positively. The efficiency index of the curriculum developed was higher than the established requirement. The students’ opinion toward the curriculum was positive. Additionally, the students’ English skills were supported. Key words: Curriculum development, taxonomy, content-based instruction, educational objectives

Language form and language substance

This paper argues that creolistics has tended to overemphasize the formal and general properties of Creole languages to the neglect of their substantive and singular lexical properties. Rather than assuming that Creoles can express anything their speakers need or want to say as soon as they come into being, this paper shows, with data from a range of Creoles, that lexical adaptation to new natural environments is a prolonged gradual process. The perspective taken is ecolinguistic, i.e. it regards language as a management tool enabling its users to sustain functional links between themselves and their environment. Ecolinguistics judges the adequacy of the lexicon in terms of its ability to do this.

On the Textuality of Being

This paper addresses some of the common criticisms directed against social constructionism. Criticisms which hold constructionism to be a disguised form of behaviourism, a doctrine of subjectivist relativism and an approach of political naivete and impotence are specifically discussed. The analytic of Textuality is introduced as a way of invigorating the constructionist position and rendering such criticism ill-judged and invalid. Textuality, in affirming both the material substance of language and the textual substance of material, is presented as both a defining feature of Being, and as a way of addressing Being. Textuality thereby represents a challenge to modes of inquiry which are predicated upon a subject/object duality. Finally, these issues are contextualized within what we call a contemporary `climate of problematization'.