Cultural Texts Research Articles

Commentary: Visual Cultures, Publication Technologies, and Legitimation in the Life Sciences.

This paper comments on five articles in the special issue "Circulating Images in the Life Sciences." It sees the papers as unified by two themes. The first is their attention to the processes of legitimation. The second is the embedding of the images in textual cultures, which changed over time from the mid-nineteenth century to the very recent past, most notably with the recent advent of digital culture.

Cyber-ludic pedagogies: towards a post-critical methodology of video games as cultural sites

In this paper, we explore contradictions in the uneven movements of engaging video games in learning, and the affective deployment of play as a strategic mechanism to guarantee institutional and civic compliance. To that purpose, we are tracing the links between positivist, evaluative paradigms in Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) scholarship, arguing that a linear assessment of knowledge transmission does not adequately engage the complexity of virtual worlds and the learning processes they mobilize. As a response, we propose a cyber-ludic pedagogical framework that embeds gamers’ knowledge-production practices and performances in the wider social context they occupy, acknowledging their hybridity as digital and physical experiences. We apply this framework to a case-study reading of a vlog entry performed as a humorous guide to social distancing at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our reading recognizes the operationalization of knowledge communication modes as tropes while emphasizing discrete projects of brand awareness, identity formation, and claims to digital space. Our analysis of the vlog performance of what we term ‘technodeviance’ serves to de-exoticize the deviant in educational research; problematize the assumption of one-way knowledge transmission and representation; and center the pedagogical value of game and play data that is found in popular culture texts and in user-generated content.

Translation Methods of Mangupa Text from Mandailing Language into Indonesian

Mangupa text can be regarded as a cultural text because the text is a text or written material that reflects a way of life that is owned by a group of people. This research is qualitative research and the method is document (text) analysis, data analysis uses translation theory by Newmark. This theory divides translation into eight methods: Word for Word Translation, Literal Translation, Free Translation, Adaptation Translation, Idiomatic Translation, Faithful Translation, Semantic Translation, and Communicative Translation. The findings of the research showed 23 text in a Mangupa Text from Mandailing Language Into Indonesian that is exactly divisible for by the use of Newmark’s theory that the translation method which is the most frequently used by the translator is semantic translation and word for word translation.

Calquing within Language and Subject-Calque as Forms of Transhumanist Irresponsibility

In the proposed article I will address the issue of calquing in the Russian language from a philosophical/psychoanalytical point of view and from that of algorithmization/ cybernetization of the human culture. I will touch upon the problem of interrelationship between body and language, which underlie subjectivity and transform in space and over time. I will try to highlight structural characteristics indicative of subject’s transition to another, post-anthropological quality “by means of” calquing of one’s mother tongue. Corporate culture and the consumption of popular translated literature in a simplified language and dubbed mainstream films keep diminishing expectations from an individual in relation to his mother tongue and, hence, to one’s personality as such, while making the latter giving up on “baroque extravagances” and shifting one’s symbolic reference points from within the philology of one’s mother tongue and canonical cultural texts to a utopian “arithmetic mean” of sense-production which eliminates the idiosyncratic space of language as that which opposes translation and comprises the core of culture. On the one hand, language turns into a rudiment, a dead load, while on the other hand — into an instrument of an alienated labor of information exchange, while representing a fundamental cultural phenomenon the problematics and meaning of which I will debate here. In an attempt of exposing the symptoms of subject-calque having lost organic touch with the mother tongue and the living speech, I will turn to Jacques Lacan’s comments on the phenomenon of delusion, as well as to Boris Groys’ thoughts regarding the linguistic pathologies emerging as a result of contemporary subject’s dealing with the search engine Google.

CULTURAL REFERENCES TRANSLATION NORMS IN THE QUEUE FROM ARABIC TO ENGLISH

Translating literary works is a challenging task, especially when attempting to integrate numerous linguistically, artistically, and culturally varied languages. The main objective of this research is to describe the initial norms that regulate the translation of Arabic cultural references translated in Basma Abdelaziz's Arabic novel, The Queue. This novel by Basma Abdelaziz was chosen for examination because it contains a lot of cultural references that reflect cultural values. To detect translation shifts and techniques used by the Queue’s translator, the major principles and components of Toury's theory of norms, Newmark’s classification of cultural items, and translation techniques proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) will be used. The techniques for translating Arabic cultural references reflect the translators' individual attitudes toward ST norms as well as their adherence to linguistic and cultural standards prevalent in the TL setting. Overall, there is some heterogeneity in the degree of leaning toward SL or TL norms. According to Toury's norms model, the general trend of translational norms appears to lean more towards the acceptability pole than the adequacy pole, implying that a TL-oriented strategy is preferred. The study reveals that when translating cultural references into English, the Queue's translator used four primary strategies: modulation, transposition, adaption, and deletion. These translation strategies utilized by the Queue’s translator may provide the target reader with altered meaning of the cultural references will have an impact on the portrayal of the Queue and provide the target readers with a significantly altered version of the text These translation strategies utilized by the Queue’s translator may provide the target reader with altered meaning of the cultural references text.

The Impact of Semantic Mapping on Reading Comprehension Among Moroccan EFL Students

Research indicates a relationship between vocabulary complexity and reading comprehension skills of EFL learners. Expanding vocabulary can improve comprehension, but increasing the number of words may not be enough. Direct vocabulary instruction is less effective than semantic mapping techniques, which involve creating interconnected maps of vocabulary terms to activate readers’ existing background knowledge. This study investigates the efficacy of semantic mapping as a pre-reading strategy for improving reading comprehension of cultural texts among beginner EFL learners in Morocco. A quasi-experimental research design was used, with experimental and control groups assigned according to the Macmillan’s Language Hub placement test. The experimental group was taught through semantic mapping and the control group received direct vocabulary teaching. The experiment lasted for eight sessions, with a pre-test and post-test administered along with individual interviews. Data were analyzed using SPSS and subjected to a repeated measures ANOVA. Results indicate that semantic mapping yielded significant improvements at the inferential level of reading comprehension, but no significant effects were observed at the literal level. Research implications and future directions are discussed.

Studying the Russian culture Voronezh text at Voronezh State University

The article deals with the history of studying the Voronezh text of the Russian culture. The concept was formed by analogy with the well-known Moscow and St. Petersburg texts. A review of the main ideas formulated during a series of conferences, held at Voronezh State University, is given.

Wspinaczki, pisarki i żony himalaistów. Kobiety gór w różnych odsłonach literackich, społecznych i kulturowych

The author of the article seeks to answer the question of to what extent women can function in the mountain space and be regarded as “mountain women”. The question is, in fact, a complex one; the relation between women and the mountains has varied, depending on the historical period, place and cultural associations. The author demonstrates various ways of the functioning of women in the mountains as well as the roles which they have played. This is illustrated by cultural texts — narratives with women, primarily Polish women, as their authors or protagonists. The author highlights the first female conquerors of the Tatra Mountains and their emancipatory function; the post-war female Himalayan mountaineers and the impact they had on the social perception of the activity of women; as well as contemporary female climbers, who can be divided into sportswomen, wives of Himalayan mountaineers and authors of literary works. The description and analysis of the typology, enriched with literary and journalistic examples, demonstrate the multiplicity of women’s relations with high mountains.

Interlingual Subtitling of Ethno/Cultural Representation in Selected Episodes of Yahya and Kunooz Animated TV Series (2022)

The present study examines Audiovisual Translation (AVT) strategies in selected episodes of Yahya and Kunooz animated TV Series (2022). AVT is quite a unique sub-discipline of Translation Studies (TS) due to its polysemiotic nature in which it functions on verbal, acoustic and visual levels. Within this rationale, the study conducts an interrogation of the verbal auditory or acoustic channel, the non-verbal auditory channel, the verbal visual channel, e.g. written signs on the screen and the non-verbal visual channel. As such, the aim of the study is to scrutinize the constraints and challenges that the AVT translators face during the subtitling process within the paradigm of translation strategies. The present study is carried out within the boundaries of the target-oriented approach developed by Gideon Toury and the foreignization/domestication approaches developed by Lawrence Venuti to interrogate culture-bound characteristics. Foreignization as a translation strategy seems principally appropriate for a historical and cultural text to recreate the source text in target language in such a way that the reader or the audience would feel the cultural effect of the source text. The contribution of the research is hopefully twofold. One, it is the first-ever study of Yahay and Kunooz Series in the academia; the other, this study incites further studies in the future to develop a comprehensive and sound-based theoretical frame for AVT.

Residents and the place branding process: socio-spatial construction of a locked-down city’s brand identity

PurposeBuilding on Kavaratzis and Hatch’s (2013) identity-based place branding model, this paper aims to explore the spatial and social dimensions of the place brand identity formation process and how residents used social media to participate in the process of shaping a city brand during a crisis.Design/methodology/approachAdopting an interpretive and social constructionist approach, this study analyses a sample of 187 short videos created and posted by Wuhan residents on the social media app Douyin during a COVID-19 lockdown. The authors read the videos as cultural texts and analysed underlying social processes in the construction of place brand identity by residents.FindingsThis study develops an adapted conceptual model of place identity formation unfolding in four sub-processes: expressing, impressing, mirroring and reflecting, and each sub-process subsumes two dimensions: the social and the spatial. In addition, this study empirically describes how residents participated in place branding processes in two ways, namely, their construction of city brand identity via communicative practice and their exertion of changes to a city brand during a crisis. The model reveals how place brands emerge and can be transformed.Originality/valueThis paper amplifies Kavaratzis and Hatch's (2013) identity-based place branding model by testing it in an empirical study and highlighting the social and spatial dimensions. This paper contributes to research about participatory place branding by exploring how residents participated in the place branding process. This study analysed short videos on social media, a new communication format, rather than textual narratives dominating past studies.

Mediating menopause: Feminism, neoliberalism, and biomedicalisation

Menopause is currently a ‘hot’ topic in the UK. This article examines the Channel 4 television documentary Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause as a key cultural text in the current UK ‘menopause moment’, demonstrating how the programme both reflects and contributes to the broader trend of menopause's growing visibility and the emerging menopause market. We begin by situating Davina within broader social, cultural and economic processes which provided a conducive context for the show's largely positive reception, and which constitute some of the key forces fuelling menopause's heightened public profile more broadly. We then move to investigate the discourses that Davina draws upon, mobilises and highlights. Our analysis shows how the programme invokes feminist terms, while discussing crucial structural conditions that underpin the continued stigma and shame around menopause. At the same time, we demonstrate that there is a striking disconnect between the structural inequalities that the documentary highlights and its consistent emphasis on individualised and privatised solutions. This disconnect, we argue, provides important insight into the dominant forces currently animating the current menopause moment in the UK. We conclude by underscoring how even the more recent critical renditions of menopause have thus far remained largely curtailed by biomedical and neoliberal logics.

Netflix’s effects on the Korean Wave: power relations between local cultural industries and global OTT platforms

ABSTRACT This article discusses how Netflix has influenced the local cultural industries in terms of the shift of cultural genres and the industry structure. By employing the convergence of critical political economy and sociocultural approach, it articulates whether Netflix has inroaded Korea due to the Korean Wave. It discusses whether local cultural industries firms change their norms in production to comply with Netflix's orientation and argues the ways in which the shift in the standard of cultural production has changed the cultural text in genres to determine whether global platforms arguably destroy local specificities and identities. Finally, it interrogates shifting power relationships between a global OTT platform and local players, including cultural creators and platform users, and its implications in the Korean cultural industries.

Wogs as work: humour as ethnic entrepreneurship and convivial labour

ABSTRACT In post-war Australia, the word ‘wog’ was used to describe the southern Europeans who dominated the mass migration schemes, particularly Italians and Greeks. The evolution of ‘wog’ from slur to celebration peaked in the 1990s, led by second-generation migrant comedians. This paper sets out the history of this evolution and the societal context in which ‘wog’ humour was invented in a uniquely ‘Australian’ way. Many of the cultural texts that make up the wog phenomenon have centred on themes of work and labour – from the original Wogs Out of Work to Pizza and Housos. This paper extends its consideration of labour in these works beyond themes in the content to argue that the act of ethnic humour is a form of convivial labour and ethnic entrepreneurship.

Kaagi: tracing Visayan identities in cultural texts

Kaagi: tracing Visayan identities in cultural texts

Идеология как фактор перевода: традиции в инновациях

The paper focuses on rendering the ideological component in translation, which engenders significant difficulty for a modern translator. Taking political and gender aspects into consideration, the authors aim to emphasize the importance of correct ideological translation, which is understood as creation of authentic texts in one language based on the original texts in the other language. The material of the study is comprised of authentic German-language media publications posted on the Internet in 2022–2023 and devoted to the topics of "special military operation" and "gender". As a result, it was revealed that in most texts about the special military operation, the translation of the ideological component is carried out not through decoding, but by means of reformulating the information, which leads to its distortion. In feminist discourse, the blurring of gender identity as an element of ideology contributes to the emergence of non-equivalent lexical units, the use of which does not always correspond to the rules adopted in institutional communication in a particular linguistic culture. To implement effective communication, the authors recommend to focus on the ethical principles of interaction. It is concluded that the multiplication of incorrect ideological translation becomes a new challenge for the professional community. In order to respond to it, the translator is to have profound knowledge in the field of culture, history, linguistics and regional studies, which determines the degree of accuracy in information interpretation that occurs while working with any foreign cultural text.

МИФОЛОГИЗАЦИЯ СОВРЕМЕННОГО PR-ДИСКУРСА КАК РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ МАГИЧЕСКОГО АРТЕФАКТА

The article examines the cognitive structure of PR discourse, which is characterized by the functioning of the processes of symbolization and mythologization in its coordinates, which is most representative in the production of image and brand. The author presents these phenomena as cultural texts, for which the presence of a symbolic language is obligatory, as well as socio- and linguocultural symbolism in general. The article proves that symbolization and mythologization is manifested at all levels of PR discourse, represents its synergetic nature, which is due to its symbolic, textual and communicative-dialogic nature.

REPRESENTATION OF THE LINGUISTIC CULTURES THROUGH FOLKLORE TEXTS

This research is devoted to the study of the linguistic expression of the national cultural notion in the folklore text on the example of the Kazakh and English linguistic cultures. According to the principles of modern linguistics, based on the anthropocentric paradigm, the definition of the individuality of each linguistic cultures (in this case, the Kazakh and British linguistic cultures and their languages) correspond the national and cultural values with a particularк importance. The reserach's main aim is to describe the features of the concept "tapkyrlyk-ingenuity" in folklore texts of Kazakh and British linguistic culture. The subject of the study is two fairy tales of linguistic cultures, "Jack and Beanstalk" from British folklore and "Cunning Aldar Kose" from Kazakh folklore. This study was qualitative and used ethnographic strategies. In addition, data obtained through questionnaire and text analysis. The relevance of this work is seen in the need to preserve and develop the folklore heritage of the people, which is the cultural identity of a particular ethnic group and has accumulated centuries-old spiritual and practical experiences of linguistic cultures. The results of the analysis allow the reader to draw some particular conclusions that are of interest for research that having certain distinctions in usage of the concept “tapkyrlyk-ingenuity”. Keywords: values, folklore, fairy tales, linguistic picture of the world, concept, culture, linguistic culture, worldview.

Geopoetics of Belozerye in Book ‘Journey to Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery’ by S. P. Shevyrev

The article analyzes S. P. Shevyrev’s book ‘Journey to Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery’ and focuses on the geopoetics of the Belozerye region. The novelty of the study lies in its use of geopoetic paradigm as a tool for analysis and its examination of a relatively understudied work. The relevance of the study is due to the growing interest in literary geography. The article presents an exploration of the spatial and sacred imagery of Belozerye as a local text of Russian North. It argues that Shevyrev’s geopoetic image of Belozerye is characterized by two distinctive features: ‘frontier’ and ‘sacredness’. The former highlights the region as a cultural and territorial ‘frontier’ of Russia, while the latter portrays it as a spiritual center, the ‘heart’ of Russian spiritual and religious culture. The authors of the study emphasize that this antinomic pair constitutes a characteristic feature of Belozerye as a local text of Russian culture. The article also examines the poetics of geographical (landscape) and sacred (monastery, church) objects in Shevyrev’s book, emphasizing how the discovery of the value-laden content of geocultural imagery contributes to the formation of artistic generalization.

Performances and Rituals for Environmental Campaigns: Structures, Discourses, and Postcolonial Ecocriticism

This paper discusses some performing arts and rituals that carry the environmental theme in Jember. Artists and village governments respond creatively to environmental problems by creating several multi-form events, combining performances and certain rituals. We will use postcolonial ecocriticism as a theoretical framework to discuss some of their produced show events. Postcolonial ecocriticism emphasizes analysis to reveal how cultural texts present current ecological problems as a legacy of colonialism in aesthetic works that can function as advocacy and activism. The results of this study show that the performances and rituals develop critical awareness regarding environmental threats and problems in Jember and Indonesia. They bring the topic of the environment to invite the community to jointly maintain the sustainability of the human environment and criticize government policies to legitimize the destruction of nature in the name of development.

Ugly Book Feelings: Materiality and Negative Affect in Late Medieval Women’s Writing

Abstract Drawing on the work of Sianne Ngai in Ugly Feelings (2005), in this essay we focus on two examples from early fifteenth-century medieval literature that represent medieval books as ‘ugly’ either because they arouse negative feelings of aversion or disgust or because they are considered in some way aesthetically lacking or inadequate. Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames and Margery Kempe’s Book of Margery Kempe present women’s involvement with troubling or difficult books. The ‘ugly book feelings’ which both narrators encounter challenge not only their authority as writers, but their very sense of self. Such feelings, however, are transitory when placed in narrative context: in the two examples we discuss, a single material text serves as the catalyst for a moment of emotional transformation which may be spiritual and/or intellectual. Attending to literary representations of ugly book feelings, we argue, complements existing scholarship on late medieval women’s relationship to material textual culture by placing such feelings at the centre of a broad emotional spectrum.