Text Memory Research Articles

Children’s Comprehension of Narrative and Expository Texts: The Contributions of Word Decoding and Knowledge Integration Skills Vary Within and Between Text Types

This study examined the concurrent (mean age: 5.96 years) and longitudinal (mean age: 5.96 years) contributions that multiple component skills of reading made to 155 beginning readers’ comprehension scores for narrative and expository texts. The component skills included: word decoding, text memory, knowledge integration, and working memory. For narrative texts, word decoding was one of the best predictors of comprehension scores both concurrently and longitudinally; although longitudinally, the predictive strength of word decoding was equivalent to knowledge integration. In contrast, for expository texts, knowledge integration was a much better predictor of comprehension scores than any other component skill, including word decoding. When the contributions of the component skills were considered between text types, word decoding was a better predictor of comprehension scores for narrative texts than expository texts, whereas knowledge integration was a better predictor of comprehension scores for expository texts than narrative texts. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that the contributions that component skills make to the comprehension scores of beginning readers vary as a function of text type, and that the common assumption that word decoding is the most important skill for beginning readers may be limited to just the comprehension scores of narrative texts.

Attentional Competition and Semantic Integration in Low- and High-Span Readers.

The goal of the current study is to investigate the effects of the distractive textual information on the activation of predictive inference online, and how the readers with high or low working memory capacity (WMC) differ in their online activation and text memory. To test the two hypothesis of attentional competition (AC) and semantic integration (SI), we conducted three experiments to investigate whether a local prediction (e.g., “The vase broke”) and a global prediction (e.g., “The wife left her husband”), both of which could be derived from the description of a critical event (e.g., “The angry husband throws the delicate porcelain vase against the brick wall”), are generated in the mind of the reader, and how this generation process is influenced by contextual and cognitive factors of the reader (e.g., working memory capacity). The results of Experiment 1 and 2 suggest that the elaboration of the global aspects in the narrative reduces the local prediction, but makes the global prediction more salient to occur. The evidence from Experiment 3 confirms the hypothesis that even automatic processes are constrained by distant contextual factors, in combination with differences in working memory, and examines how referentially local and global predictions are intertwined in text comprehension. Overall, these data support the immediate integration hypothesis across sentence boundaries at different representation levels (cf. Schmalhofer and Perfetti, 2007), as well as interaction assumptions of different processing levels within referentially local and referentially global processing contexts (cf. Yang et al., 2005).

Memory, Identity and Narrative: Conrad’s <i>Heart of Darkness</i> and Siegfried Sassoon’s “Glory of Women” as Paradigms and Depositories of British Cultural Memory and Collective Identity

This study investigates the representations of memory in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Siegfried Sassoon’s “Glory of Women” with the aim of demonstrating that the two works teem with versions of collective remembering in the form of genres, linguistic parameters, ideological and cultural discourses, images and metaphors of history (what critics call “historiographic metafiction” understood to mean writing history in arts); mythical and travel narratives that can attract the attention of creative writers, critics, and researchers interested in reproducing or exploring the interconnection of cultural memory, collective identity and narrative (narratological) aspects of literary texts. Focusing on the representations of memory in these two texts, and using the narratological aspect of perspectivity or focalization, this paper answers the questions: Whose memory and which versions of the past are transmitted from generations to generation through these “fictions of Memory”? What (narrative) approaches are available for research focusing on memory cultures within literary studies? What functions do the texts fulfil as repositories/depositories of British cultural memory and identity? It emerges from the study that the two texts are paradigms and depositories of British cultural memory and collective identity.

Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China

Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China

The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian'an and the Three Kingdoms

The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian'an and the Three Kingdoms

Audience Competency in Romans and Paul’s Flexible Use of Scripture

A phenomenon noticeable in many of Paul’s quotations of Scripture is the way that they do not follow the texts he cites verbatim. This prompts the question as to whether his audience would be competent enough to detect these differences. This study considers aspects such as text variations, memory, notetaking, and rhetorical argument as potential factors related to Paul’s flexible use of Scripture in Romans. The study then probes whether Paul’s audience, particularly believing gentiles in Rome, would have known Jewish Scripture well enough to evaluate Paul’s use of Scripture. Through congregational longevity, plurality of audience, synagogue influence, and other factors, it is concluded that there is indeed competency among Paul’s auditors, but there is no evidence suggesting that he is concerned about their reacting negatively to the elasticity of his quotations.

Non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness 忘 (wang) in ancient Chinese philosophical texts

In this study, I examine conceptualizations of memory in classical Chinese philosophical texts with the purpose of encouraging the inclusion of ideas of non-Western cultures in memory studies. The texts selected for this study are Kongzi’s Analects, Mengzi, the Xici commentary on the Book of Changes, the Zhuangzi, and the Xunzi. Methodologically, I differentiate between the mnemic process and its goal. My point of departure is the complementary relation that marks the non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness sequence. This study proposes the paradigm of an axis and margins to represent the yin- yang reasoning implied by the complementary relation in conjunction with the narrativity of the mnemic process. Two major consequences of this model are the understanding of non-forgetfulness and forgetfulness in terms of attentive and suspended awareness, and the supportive role of forgetfulness or suspended awareness in enhancing the function of memory.

Production Improves Visual and Auditory Text Memory in Younger and Older Adults

Introduction: The production effect refers to memory benefits for materials that were produced (e.g., read aloud) relative to not produced (e.g., read silently) at study. Previous works have found a production benefit for younger and older adults studying written words and for young adults studying written text. The present study aimed to extend these findings by examining the effect of production on text memory in younger and older adults, in the visual, and in the auditory modalities. Methods: A group of young adults (n = 30) and a group of older adults (n = 30) learned informational texts, presented either visually or aurally. In each text, half of the sentences were learned by production (reading aloud or writing) and half by no production (reading silently or listening), followed by fill-in-the-blank tests. Results: An overall memory performance was found to be similar for both groups, with an advantage for the auditory modality. For both groups, more test items were filled in correctly when the relevant information appeared in the produced than in nonproduced sentences, showing the learners’ ability to use distinctiveness information. The production effects were larger for older than younger adults, in both modalities. Discussion: Since older adults are increasingly engage in learning, it is important to develop high-quality structured learning programs for this population. The current results demonstrate the preserved ability of older adults to successfully memorize texts and may guide planning of such programs. Specifically, since learning via the auditory modality yields superior performance for learners across age-groups, it may be recommended for text learning. Because older adults showed larger benefits from active production of the study material, it may be used to better remember educationally relevant material.

A controlled clinical efficacy trial of multimodal cognitive rehabilitation on episodic memory functioning in older adults with traumatic brain injury.

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a 12-week, 24-session multimodal group cognitive intervention, the Cognitive Enrichment Program (CEP), on episodic memory in older adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared to an active control group that received usual care in the form of individual holistic rehabilitation. In total, 37 patients with a TBI who were 57 to 90 years old were assigned to experimental (n=23) and control (n=14) groups in a semi-randomized, controlled, before-after intervention trial with follow-up at 6 months, with blinded outcome measurement. The CEP's Memory module consisted of memory strategies to promote encoding. Efficacy was evaluated by using Face-name association, Word list recall, and Text memory measures, and generalization was assessed with the Self-Evaluation Memory Questionnaire (SEMQ), the Psychological General Well-Being Index, and a satisfaction questionnaire. ANCOVA mixed model repeated-measures analysis revealed a strong group-by-time interaction, with the experimental group showing statistically significant improvement on the Face-name association test, with a large effect size. We also found a statistically significant group-by-time interaction on 3 dimensions of the SEMQ generalization measure: the experimental group showed increased memorization of the content of Conversations, reduced Slips of attention, and increased memory of Political and social events, with medium to large effect sizes. The group also showed clinically significant improvements in psychological well-being. Scores on the satisfaction questionnaire indicated a perceived positive impact on daily life habits requiring memory abilities. The CEP is a promising cognitive rehabilitation program for older individuals with TBI, showing high satisfaction in participants, that could improve their episodic memory functioning as well as enhance their psychological well-being. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04590911.

The Effect of Background Noise on a “Studying for an Exam” Task in an Open-Plan Study Environment: A Laboratory Study

Students can be disturbed by background noise while working in an open-plan study environment. To improve the acoustic quality of open-plan study environments a study was done on the influence of different sound scenarios on students working on a typical student task, “studying for an exam”. Three sound scenarios and a quiet reference sound scenario were developed, based on the sound environment of a real open-plan study environment, with a varying number of talkers in the background and different reverberation times of the study environment. Seventy students worked on a set of tasks simulating a “studying for an exam” task while being exposed to the sound scenarios. This task comprises a reading comprehension task with text memory by delayed answering questions about the text, with additional tasks being performed in the gap between studying the text and retrieving. These additional tasks are a mental arithmetic task and a logical reasoning task. Performance, self-estimated performance and disturbance of students were measured. No significant effect of the sound scenarios was found on performance of students working on the reading comprehension task with text memory and the mental arithmetic task. However, a significant effect of sound was found on performance of students working on the logical reasoning task. Furthermore, a significant effect of the sound scenarios was found on self-estimated performance and perceived disturbance for all tasks from which the reading comprehension task with text memory was the most disturbed task. It is argued that the absence of a detrimental sound effect on the performance of students working on a reading comprehension task with text memory is a result of focusing due to task engagement and task difficulty, both aspects working as a “shield against distraction”.

Memory for Text: The Relationship between Form and Meaning

A linguistic sign, according to Saussure (1966), is a combination of a signifier (form) and a signified (meaning). Form without meaning is just half of the sign. Although in some situations surface forms are excellently retained in memory over time, in most circumstances, explicit long term memory for the surface details or memory for forms of long-past linguistic events is poor or non-existent. Taylor (2012) and Port (2007), however, have proposed that there may be implicitly accumulated memory traces for all aspects of the language— nothing is thrown away. In the present study, 'form refers to physical properties or surface features such as the orthographic, phonological and acoustic representations of a text, while 'meaning' refers to semantic properties, including contextual and pragmatic information. There are some curiosities about their relationship, which this paper will tease apart. The curiosities relate to how language is processed, represented and retained in different circumstances.

Effects of Emotions, Topic Beliefs, and Task Instructions on the Processing and Memory for a Dual-Position Text

ABSTRACT We examined whether positive emotions interacted with task instructions and topic beliefs to influence processing and memory of a dual-position text. Participants provided emotion and belief ratings, were instructed to focus on one position in a dual-position text while reading silently (Experiment 1) or thinking-aloud (Experiment 2), and then orally remembered the text. Independently of beliefs, higher positive emotion was associated with assimilative processes (backward inferences and elaborations). However, participants with higher positive emotion used more inferential processes for belief-consistent text, but spent more time reading and rehearsing belief-inconsistent text. Participants with lower positive emotion used more inferential processes for belief-inconsistent text, but spent more time reading and rehearsing belief-consistent text. Finally, participants in all groups provided supportive evaluations for belief-consistent text and refutational evaluations for belief-inconsistent text. The results are discussed in the context of theories of emotion and discourse comprehension.

Do different kinds of introductions influence comprehension and memory for scientific explanations?

ABSTRACT Compelling and interesting introductions are considered an important way of fostering reader engagement with expository-text content. But only a handful of projects have examined this prescriptive advice. In three experiments, we examined the effects of two different genres of introductions—narrative and expository—on comprehension and memory for texts providing scientific explanations. In Experiment 1, participants read texts without introductions and subsequently completed either an immediate recall or a delayed recall seven days later for a subset of the texts. In Experiment 2, participants read the same texts including either all narrative or all expository introductions and after reading were asked to complete an immediate recall. In Experiment 3, participants read the same texts, this time half including narrative introductions and half including expository introductions, and completed a delayed recall seven days later for all the texts. Across all experiments, participants recalled more of the scientific explanations when they were preceded by introductions than when they were not, and narrative introductions were better recalled than expository introductions. Participants who read both types of introductions were also slower to read scientific explanations that followed narrative introductions compared to expository. Taken together, these results indicate that introductions influence memory and reading times for scientific explanations but not always in ways that align with popular instructional prescriptions and advice.

Формирование исторической памяти как стратегия современной массовой литературы

The article is devoted to the urgent problem of the formation of historical memory in different texts of Russian mass literature (B. Akunin, A. Chiz, D. Miropolsky and others).An analysis of the “Artifact-Detective” series gives reason to make sure that the consequence of changes in the authors’ historical consciousness has become the formation of a new strategy for representing history, focused on modeling of historical process. Modern retro detective stories and historical novels represent a variety of artistic versions of historical events. They are aimed at the formation of a new historical consciousness that’s why they are distinguished by clear discursiveness and a sort of provocativeness. National histories in these works are integrated into the “global”, and the main source of ideas about the past are myths, legends and fictional assumptions. Nostalgia for the past, interest in redrawing history is a peculiar way of avoiding the present: the lack of understanding of the present in modern literature is obvious. The processes of creating new historical myths in the mass historical consciousness make works of mass literature especially significant for identifying certain sociocultural trends.

Memorize, Associate and Match: Embedding Enhancement via Fine-Grained Alignment for Image-Text Retrieval.

Image-text retrieval aims to capture the semantic correlation between images and texts. Existing image-text retrieval methods can be roughly categorized into embedding learning paradigm and pair-wise learning paradigm. The former paradigm fails to capture the fine-grained correspondence between images and texts. The latter paradigm achieves fine-grained alignment between regions and words, but the high cost of pair-wise computation leads to slow retrieval speed. In this paper, we propose a novel method named MEMBER by using Memory-based EMBedding Enhancement for image-text Retrieval (MEMBER), which introduces global memory banks to enable fine-grained alignment and fusion in embedding learning paradigm. Specifically, we enrich image (resp., text) features with relevant text (resp., image) features stored in the text (resp., image) memory bank. In this way, our model not only accomplishes mutual embedding enhancement across two modalities, but also maintains the retrieval efficiency. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our MEMBER remarkably outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on two large-scale benchmark datasets.

Tillo Medreselerinde Fıkıh Eğitimi-Memdûhiyye Medresesi Örneği

Medreseler, tarihi seyir içerisinde eğitim ve öğretim faaliyetlerinin yüksek seviyede yürütüldüğü önemli kurumlar olmuştur. 3 Mart 1924 tarihinde Tevhid-i Tedrisat (Öğretim Birliği) Kanunun kabul edilmesiyle birlikte medreseler, kapatılmalarına rağmen özellikle Güneydoğu Anadolu’da geleneksel medrese sistemi gayr-ı resmî bir şekilde varlığını devam ettirmiş; 07/04/2012 tarihli ve 28257 sayılı resmî gazetede yayımlanan Kur’an Eğitim ve Öğretimine Yönelik Kurslar Yönetmeliği ile Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı’na bağlanarak “Kur’an kursu” adı altında tedris faaliyetlerini sürdürmüştür.
 Türkiye’nin diğer coğrafyalarında olduğu gibi Güneydoğu Anadolu’nun hemen hemen her vilayetinde medreselere rastlamak mümkündür. Ancak medrese eğitiminin sistematik bir şekilde yürütüldüğü yer denince Siirt’in Tillo ilçesindeki medreseler akla gelmektedir. Tillo, bünyesinde barındırdığı medreseleriyle İslâmî değerlerin ön planda olduğu Siirt’in önemli ilçelerinden birisidir. Tillo’da bu manada faaliyet gösteren üç medrese mevcuttur. Bunlar; Memdûhiyye, Mücâhidiyye ve İsmail Fakirullah medreseleridir. 
 İlçede varlığını idame ettiren bu medreselerin, eğitim ve öğretim sahasında son derece önemli bir boşluğu doldurdukları inkâr edilemez. Özellikle Arapça dil bilimlerinin tedrisindeki başarıları sayesinde son derece takdiri hak eden Tillo medreseleri, sadece Arap gramerine ilişkin eğitim-öğretim faaliyetinde bulunmamış bununla birlikte tefsir, hadis, fıkıh ve akâid gibi dînî ilimlerin canlı kalmasına vesile olarak İslâm ilim kültür mirasına katkıda bulunmuştur. Ebû Hanîfe (ö. 150/767) tarafından kişinin leh ve aleyhine olan sorumlulukları bilmesi olarak tanımlanan fıkıh, İslâm’ın inanç ve ahlak boyutunu da dikkate alarak ibadet ve hukuk düzleminde dinî pratiklerle ilgili şer’î ahkâmı içermesi nedeniyle medeniyetimizin merkezinde yer almıştır. Geleneğimizdeki tesiri nedeniyle bu ilim dalı, söz konusu eğitim ve öğretim müesseselerinde önemli bir yeri haizdir. 
 Bu makalede Tillo’da yer alan Memdûhiyye Medresesinin -her ne kadar kanunnâmelerle yürütülen birer Nizamiye veya Sahn-ı Semân Medreseleri gibi güçlü bir sistematiğe sahip olmasa da- kısa tarihçesi, kurumsal ve fiziki yapısı, gündelik programı, eğitim-öğretimde izlediği müfredat yanında özellikle eğitim-öğretim müfredatındaki fıkıh derslerinin yeri incelenmiştir. Araştırmamız Tillo’da halen tedris faaliyeti yürüten Memdûhiyye Medresesi ile sınırlı tutulmuştur. Söz konusu medresenin fıkıh programıyla ilgili olarak müderrisleriyle mülakatlar gerçekleştirilmiş olup burada okutulan fıkıh kitapları içerik ve muhteva bakımından tanıtılmıştır.

Nitelikli Hâfızlık Eğitiminde Ezberin Mana İle Bütünleştirilmesinin Önemi

Kur’ân-ı Kerim’i ezberlemek tarih boyunca Müslümanlar için büyük değer olarak telakki edilmiş ve bu bağlamda hâfızlık payesi alabilmeye hep gıpta ile bakılmıştır. Ancak bu konuda başta anadili Arapça olmayan ülkeler olmak üzere İslâm ülkelerinde yaşayan Müslümanların Kur’an’ın lafzı ile manasının birlikte anlaşılmasına yönelik Hz. Peygamber dönemindeki hassasiyetin genellikle ihmal edilmiş olduğu görülmektedir. Hâfızlık eğitimi, Kur’ân’ın nazil oluşundan günümüze ulaşmış en kadim eğitim konularından biridir. Bu eğitim, çoğunlukla eğitimle ilgili kurumların sistematik çabalarıyla sürdürülmüş olsa da bazen de bireysel gayretlerle devam ettirilmiştir. İslâm dünyasında ilk günden itibaren cazibesini hiç kaybetmemiş olan hâfızlık eğitimi, tarihin kimi zaman dilimlerinde duraklama dönemine girse de İslâmi ilimler arasındaki önemini hep muhafaza etmiştir. Şüphesiz sahabenin anlamlarını iyice kavramaya yönelik ayetleri onarlı gruplara ayırarak ezberlemesindeki temel amacın, Kur’ân'ın ezberlenmesinin sadece metni ile sınırlı olmadığını, aynı zamanda anlaşılmasının ve ayetlerinin uygulanmasının da ezberlenmesi kadar önemli olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Ancak zamanla İslâm dünyasındaki ve Türkiye’deki hafızlık eğitimine bakıldığında bu uygulamadan uzaklaşıldığı rahatlıkla ifade edilebilir. Kur’ân, güzel okunması ve anlaşılmasının yanı sıra, ortaya koyduğu temel esasların birebir hayatın her alanında yer alması ve uygulanması için indirilmiştir. Son yıllarda yapılan bir araştırmada ülkemizde hâfızlığını tamamlayanlardan %85’inin dini görevlerin dışındaki başka alanlarda çalıştıkları tespit edilmiştir. Bu tespit üzerinde dikkatlice durulduğunda hâfızlık için harcanan emeğin verimli sonuçlara dönüştürülemediği anlaşılmaktadır. Kur’ân’ın ezberi, Kur’an kurslarında ayetlerin anlamlarıyla neredeyse hiç ilgilenilmeden tecvid kurallarına uygun metin ezberi şeklinde sürdürülmektedir. Hâfızlık eğitimi alan talebelerden çok azı daha önce Arapça eğitimi almış olsa da çoğunluğu dil eğitiminden yoksun olduğu için ezberlediğini anlamadan ve mesajın içeriğini kavramadan ibadet kasdıyla hâfızlığını tamamlamış olmaktadır. Oysa Kur’ân’ın ezberlenmesindeki ideal, literal metnin ezberinin yanında içeriğinin de hayatın merkezine konması olmalıdır. Bu itibarla konuşma dili Arapça olmayan ülkemizde Kur’ân’ın sadece metnini ezberleme/ezberletme sürecinin yanında, onun anlam dünyasına da vakıf olmayı hedefleyen bir usul geliştirilmesi gerekir. Ortalama 2-3 yıl süren hâfızlık eğitimi sürecinde Kur’ân'ın sadece metninin ezberinin değil, aynı zamanda anlam ve muhtevasının da bir bütünlük içerisinde hâfızlık projesinde mutlaka yerini alması gerekir. Anlaşılmadan ve hayata yansıması olmadan yapılan ezberin hayatı anlamlandırmada çok fazla faydasının olmayacağı aşikardır. Yeri gelmişken şunu da ifade etmek gerekir ki, Kur’ân metninin ezberlenmesinin Arapça dil eğitimi ile beraber yapılması, hem ezberin kalıcı olmasına hem de ezberlenen metnin içeriğinin farkına varılmasına katkı sağlayacaktır. Hafızlık eğitimi kalitesinin artırılması kapsamında yapılabilecek en değerli çalışma, hafız olanlar arasında %15 olan hafızlığa uygun mesleklerde çalışma oranını %60 - %70'lere çıkarabilmektir. Bunun için öncelikli olarak hâfızlık eğitiminin kalitesinin yükseltilmesi, nitelikli eğitim için hem öğretici hem de öğrenci profilinin geliştirilmesi gerekir. Hafızlık eğitimindeki niteliğin geliştirilmesine yönelik Kur’ân hıfzına başlamadan önce hazırlık aşamasında ara ve yaz tatili çok kısa tutularak 2 yıllık bir program uygulanmalıdır. Bu programın 1,5 yılı Arapça eğitimi, 6 ayı da temel dini bilgiler, düzgün Kur’ân okuma, talim, tecvid, mehâric-i hurûf eğitimi ve İmam-hatip liselerinin müfredatında yer alan bazı dersler ile değerlendirilmelidir. Kişiden kişiye değişmekle birlikte ortalama 2 yıllık bir sürede de Kur’ân ezberi yapılmalıdır. Bu süreçte İmam-Hatip liselerinin müfredatı da bu sürece dâhil edilerek program hazırlanmalıdır. Bu şekilde hazırlık eğitimi dâhil toplam 4 yılda hâfızlık eğitim programını başarı ile bitiren öğrenciler, ÖSYM’nin sınavlarında İlahiyat veya İslâmi İlimler Fakültesini tercih ettikleri takdirde ek puan verilerek bu fakültelere geçişleri sağlanmalıdır.

Poetic Bodies: Weavings of Bodies, Languages and Environments in War Poetry by S.E.K. Mqhayi

The creation of “poetic bodies” refers to the embodiment of poetic experience through an eclectic theoretical and methodological conceptualisation. This poetic embodiment allows for the re-membering and experiencing of poetic texts in general, and specifically, indigenous South African poetry in the classroom. At its core is the haunting of memory in poetic texts: the inter-generational experiencing of poetry is embodied in the students’ responses to literature. Conjuring these poetic bodies comprises three acts of meaning-making that are woven together to create a unique experience and understanding of poetry: the Bodily, which refers to the figurative devices and images in poetry; the Inner Bodily, which relates to intergenerational memory construction; and the Outer Bodily, which encompasses social, cultural and historical contexts. In South Africa, the process of poetic embodiment is characterised by a strong sense of loss due to the country’s colonial and apartheid past. The weaving of the different levels of re-membering and experiencing in indigenous South African poetry is illustrated in the war poetry of S.E.K. Mqhayi (1875–1945). His poems are used as a case study to illustrate how poetic bodies may be re-membered or reconstructed as a literary-theoretical approach to facilitate understanding and experiencing poetry with marked traces of loss.

Quo Vadis Polish-Canadian Writing? Reflections on Home, Language, Writing, and Memory in Recent Texts By Canadian Writers of Polish Origins

Abstract The aim of this paper is to look at the recent publications by writers of Polish extraction living in Canada and writing in English in order to examine these texts in the context of their treatment of the concept of home, attitude to mother tongue and the usage of English, as well as the authors’ involvement in shaping the Canadian literary scene. The analysis will concentrate on selected texts published after 2014 to delineate the latest tendencies in Polish-Canadian writing. The discussion will include life writing genres such as memoirs, short stories, and novels. Since these writers have undertaken themes of (up)rootedness, identity, and memory and they have touched upon the creative redefinition of the figure of home, these aspects will also be examined from a theoretical perspective in the introductory part of the article. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek through his concept of “in-between peripherality” (2010: 87) proposes to view Central and Eastern European literature as both peripheral and in-between its “own national cultural self-referentiality and the cultural influence and primacy of the major Western cultures” (2010: 87). Moreover, as diasporic studies are inspired by the search for transcultural, dynamic exchanges and hybridity (Agnew 2005), the analysis will also include discussions on hybridity understood as a transgression of borders, both literary and genealogical as well as thematic. That is why, the classic notion of hybridity known widely in postcolonial studies, is here understood, according to Moslund (2010), as having horizontal and vertical orientations, where the former designates transgression of borders and space and the latter is connected to the movement across time. This approach is particularly interesting in the context of Polish-Canadian migrant and diasporic literature as, according to Pieterse (2001), hybridity understood as movement and translocation can offer new perspectives on migrant literatures in multi-and transcultural worlds.

Memorias semióticas y fondos documentales: el caso “Fondo Julio Cortázar”. Una lectura con Lotman

Exploraremos hipótesis epistemológicas abiertas a partir de pensar los fondos documentales de escritor con nociones de Iuri Lotman. ¿Cómo reflexionamos sobre la textualidad en el sistema de un fondo centrado en la obra de un escritor? El sistema cultural, la memoria textual y la crítica sobre obras literarias poseen interesantes facetas que se conocen desde una lectura semiótica