Fictional Texts Research Articles

Analisis Unsur Intrinsik dan Nilai Sosial dalam Novel Kerumunan Terakhir Karya Okky Madasari

<em>This study aims to: describe the intrinsic elements contained in Okky Madasari’s novel The Last Crowd, and describe the sosial values contained in Okky Madasari’s Last Crowd novel. The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive method with the object being analyzed, namely a novel by Okky Madasari entitled The Last Crowd. The intrinsic elements discussed in this study are themes, plots, characterizations, and setting. In addition to the intrinsic elements, social values are also contained in this story, namely social justice, solidarity, empathy, and compassion. This research is expected to be useful for reader, other researchers ang Indonesian language teachers. Especially in the discussion of fiction and non-fiction texts.</em>

Paratexts in factual comics: how to know if and when we are faced with “reality”?

It tries to enumerate some of the paratextual strategies of comics that seek to establish some kind of referential relationship with reality (in factual or fictional terms). For this, is based on the notions of metacommunication and framing (Bateson, Watzlawick, Goffman), metasign (Volli), paratext (Genette), the status of fictional text (Searle), and sign as (also) an instrument lie (Eco, Bougnoux, from Peirce). Four works are analysed: A arte de Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Sonny Liew, 2015); As mais loucas aventuras de Mickey (Lewis Trondheim e Nicolas Keramidas, 2016); Oleg (Frederik Peeters, 2020); e Guardiões do Louvre (Jiro Taniguchi, 2014). In the end, some peculiarities of the corpus are perceived, such as the editorial position of the catalog sheet.

Settling the Desert, Unsettling the Mirage: Urban Ecologies of Arab and Gulf Futurisms in Ahmed Naji’s Using Life

ABSTRACT Contemporary Arabic speculative fiction, particularly following the Arab Spring uprisings, is often interpreted as part of an emerging trend of Arab dystopias responding to political upheaval. These texts’ ecological concerns, which produce diverse conceptions of futurity, are understudied. This article examines how urban futures are envisioned in an Egyptian speculative fiction text, Ahmed Naji’s Istikhdām al-ḥayāh (2014; Using Life, 2017). Putting Using Life in dialogue with discussions on Gulf futurism and Arabfuturisms, the article first examines the text’s depiction of hegemonic techno-futurist visions, aimed at manifesting a global utopian future through urban design and development projects. The author argues that this futurist discourse, which has affinities with Gulf futurism, operates through the dual enframing of nature and history, and then demonstrates how the text resists this techno-futurist vision through an assemblage aesthetics that echoes Sulaiman Majali’s Arabfuturism(s) manifesto. The novel’s assemblage aesthetics, which is central to its conception of counter-futures, redefines the human relationship to urban ecologies and to literature through an emphasis on embodiment.

Natural Language Processing and Fiction Text: Basis for Corpus Research

The study deals with NLP procedures on the material of the fiction texts in German and in English, which are considered as strong cultural texts. The aim of the study is to develop a model of such a technical device to process, analyze and interpret a fiction text, which would reveal the full potential of popular NLP tools within the corpus approach. The general methods used in the study are analysis and synthesis. Special methods are additionally used to solve certain specific issues: descriptive method, modelling and qualitative and quantitative analysis. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the authors apply the crucial principles of the classical theories of text interpretation according to the latest methods and tools of the applied linguistics. As a practical result, special software has been developed, which is able to process SQL based linguistic corpora, automatically built with spaCy NLP library and Python programming language. This software can be used for a fiction text interpretation, as well as for compiling learning materials in Home Reading. It is assumed that the development of special software for strong cultural texts stimulates the search for scientific solutions and at the same time allows one to understand the essential differences that exist between natural and artificial intelligence.

“Supertext” as a Form of a “Strong” Fiction Text Existence

The emergence and existence of a systemic-structural texts’ unity, defined as a center of translation attraction and formed by a “strong” text of fiction and its secondary versions of various semiotic nature, are considered in the article. The study is addressed to the hypothesis of formation of a “supertext” within the boundaries of the above mentioned center, which has polylingual, polycode, multimodal and polyauthory parameters. Being a multidimensional information object, a “supertext” unites the variations of the original information in translation, which increases the limits of its translatability and degree of its translatedness. The formation and functioning of a center and the corresponding “supertext” are defined as a prolonged, continuous and limitless semiosis, described primarily through the interpretation and adaptation. As a complex semiotic object, a “supertext” is formed as interpretations continuum of a “strong” original information potential, which makes it possible to reveal its aesthetic resources and contribute to its preservation in spatio-temporal coordinates of culture. The hypothesis of “supertext” is considered on the material of a “strong” text of W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, which is world culture heritage, and its numerous secondary versions generated for more than 400 years. In accordance with the Jakobsonian types of translation, main attention is paid to the interlingual and intersemiotic versions of the original. A brief history of play’s Russian translations covering the period of the 18th-21st centuries is given. As one of the most filmed literary texts, “Hamlet” has numerous screen adaptations, revealing their close connection with the world cinema history. There are cases of the Shakespeare’s text retranslation (In the broad sense of the process of original information reinterpretation by means of one foreign language or one semiotic system), as well as shifts in the ontological categories of primacy and secondarity related to verbal, nonverbal and not only verbal secondary texts belonging to the center of translation attraction. The analysis of “Hamlet” as a “supertext” presupposes its consideration in the trajectories of description and prescription and can contribute to the emergence of the history and theory of “supertext” as an object of translation semiotics.

The Interconnection of Substance, Structure and Function in High Systemicity Texts

The purpose of the study is to establish the texts substance properties, to identify the features of its relationship with text structure and function and also to prove that the exclusion of substance as the most important, but not obvious for the current state of science, aspect of the system leading to semiotic distortion which cannot be improved. The study was carried out on the material of texts of different etiologies - religious and artistic, united by a functionally determined ultra-high degree of their levels consistency. The relevance of the work is determined by its significance in the development of a systematic method, the formation of the methodological foundations of systemic philology and the semiotics of culture. The systemic linguistics ideas developed in the works of W. von Humboldt, A.A. Potebnya, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, I.I. Sreznevsky, G.P. Melnikov, and the systemology developed by philosophers (K.F. Samokhvalov, G.P. Shchedrovitsky) and representatives of the natural and exact sciences (P.K. Anokhin, V.A. Engelgardt, L.V. Krushinsky, R.O. Bartini) did not have a direct impact on the systematic research of texts. Awareness of the significance of substance in the understanding of highly systemic texts begins to take shape in the exegesis and philosophy of art. Philology, focusing its interest mainly on fiction texts, contributes to the development of a systematic method with the emergence and development of ideas about the text dominant (yu.N. Tynyanov, R.O. yakobson), the diversity of its units (y. Mukarzhovsky), the discovery of the author’s image supercategory (V.V. Vinogradov), the identification of the method of estrangement (V.B. Shklovsky) and the universalization of it as a principle of assimilation of reality (V.B. Shklovsky, L.A. Novikov, M.L. Novikova). The comparison of different nature texts substance properties - against the background of the properties of the substance of language - allows us significantly refines the text substance understanding as the extreemly important system aspect.

The Madonna-Whore Complex in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers

Published in 1913, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is one of the classics of English Literature. It narrates the struggles and economic problems of the Morel family, particularly focusing on the complex relationships among the members. Several critical analyses and theses have extensively examined the influence of Freudian psychoanalytical theories, particularly the Oedipus Complex, on the novel. However, not much critical attention has been directed towards the Madonna-whore complex, a conceptual framework articulated by Sigmund Freud and further elaborated upon by feminist scholars. The dichotomous portrayal of women characters in fictional texts by the dominant discourses has been a longstanding concern since ancient times. As the sufferer from mother-complex, the protagonist, Paul cannot feel free himself to find a healthy mutual relationship with the opposite sex due to childhood frustrations in his family. Throughout the novel, Paul vacillates between Miriam and Clara; however, neither can satisfy his “affectionate” and “emotional” needs fully, so he cannot get intimacy with a girl who is either entirely a virginal Madonna or a sinful whore. In the novel, Miriam is portrayed as the embodiment of Mary-like figure, representing purity and affection; on the other hand, Clara assumes the role of a whore figure that satisfies the sensual feelings of the protagonist. This study aims to examine how the Madonna-whore dichotomy has been prevalent during the protagonist’s intimate relationship with the two female characters in Sons and Lovers (1913).

100 years of James Joyce’s women: wife, daughter and friend

ABSTRACT One hundred years after the publication of Ulysses (1922), the novel that would immortalize James Joyce, his ouvre continues to attract readers, intellectuals and artists as much as his private life still fascinates Joyceans, writers and a general public. The present contribution analyses three recent additions to the so-called ‘Joyce industry’, studying a series of fictional texts that feature the allegedly inexhaustible topic of the Irish writer’s complex relationship with women. Annabel Abbs’s The Joyce Girl (2016), Nuala O’Connor’s Nora (2021) and Kerri Maher’s The Paris Bookseller (2022) are the focus of the present contribution, three biofictions of, respectively, Joyce’s daughter, his wife Nora and of Sylvia Beach, the woman who published Ulysses in book form. It is our intention to assess the extent to which these narratives offer a retrieval of three women’s stories, to study them in the context of recent vindications of biofiction as a subgenre that must be distinguished from both biography and historical fiction and, above all, to account for the undeniable interest and even popularity of women related to Joyce among Joycean scholars but also among average readers.

Analisis nilai profil pelajar pancasila dalam teks cerita fiksi pada buku siswa bahasa indonesia kelas 4 SD kurikulum merdeka

This research aims to analyze and describe the value of the Pancasila Student Profile found in fictional story texts in the Indonesian Language Student Book for Class 4 Elementary School Merdeka Curriculum. This research uses a non-experimental research design, namely research carried out without any intervention or treatment (trial) on the research subjects. The approach used is descriptive quantitative with content analysis research methods, while the data analysis technique used is a hermeneutical approach. The conclusion of this research is that the six dimensions of the Pancasila Student Profile Values have appeared in 12 fiction story text titles in the Indonesian Language Student Book for Class 4 SD Merdeka Curriculum. The mutual cooperation dimension has the highest percentage and frequency of occurrence, while the global diversity dimension has the lowest percentage and frequency of occurrence. Thus, these fictional stories are suitable to be used as a medium to instill Pancasila Student Profile Values, especially for elementary school students.

What Makes adolescents want to read? Examining adolescents’ contemporary print and new media (fiction) leisure reading through mobile ethnography

Drawing on data from a mobile ethnography study of 12 adolescents from one secondary school, this article proposes to examine the everyday digital reading resources and practices of Singapore adolescent youths to better understand the print and new media (fiction) leisure reading habits of adolescents. Mobile ethnography, with its capacity to capture adolescents’ actual reading through images, texts, and video recordings, provides a new way to document and understand the changing reading habits of adolescents. Participants documented their print and digital reading on a smartphone app over four days, followed by a photo-elicitation interview. Findings showed that these adolescents read for pleasure and were self-directed readers who invested time in reading various new media fiction texts such as ebooks, Japanese manga and fanfiction. Practices of new media reading include cross-media consumption, engagement in fandom behaviours, and interest-driven searching for diverse reading materials. Adolescents are motivated to read when the reading experience promises immersive entertainment. A good story, ease of access to interesting content and potential for multiple media engagements encourage adolescents’ volitional reading. Implications for curriculum and future research on adolescent volitional reading are discussed.

The Voice of the Non-Human: Scientific Knowledge, It-Narratives and Fiction in the Long Eighteenth Century

This article examines the connection between early scientific ideas and It-Narratives in Britain over the long eighteenth century. A set of It-Narratives - fictional texts narrated by, or centred on, non-human entities like things or animals - will be read against the attempt to detect the voice of natural things by a number of early-modern experimental and natural philosophers. It will be argued that, although causal links are hard to prove, there is a degree of epistemic vicinity between these early scientific ideas and It-Narratives. In particular, it will be shown how in both disciplines fiction helped contemplate the possibility that non-human knowledge is more reliable than human-derived one.

Роль и место татарской женщины в творчестве Наки Исанбета

The article presents an attempt to conduct a systematical study of the typology of female images in the works of Naki Isanbet, the Tatar scholar-encyclopedist, folklorist, critic, and classic of Tatar literature (1899–1992). Published and unpublished sources were used as the research material. Fiction, journalistic, and scientific texts of N. Isanbet have been analysed using the method of semantic analysis, historical and cultural, comparative methods. The author proves that the ideal of a woman of the Enlightenment epoch, i.e. the “mother of the nation”, dominates in the legacy of the scholar who was the classic of the Tatar literature as well. The images of a devoted spouse, a wise mother, a “mother of the nation” can be encountered in his works. The writer defends the ideas of equality of women and men, women’s active participation in public life, etc. in his works of fiction written in various genres throughout the twentieth century. The poetics of female images depends on the requirements of the genre. When developing the images, the writer relies on the traditions of the Tatar folklore and oriental poetry. In his creative legacy, the encyclopedic scholar immortalised dozens of names of the female contemporaries who made a significant contribution to the history of the Tatar people – teachers, actresses, writers, translators, public figures, etc.

Valda Rūmnieka un Andreja Miglas romāni latviešu biogrāfiskās literatūras kontekstā

The article evaluates the biographical novels of the creative tandem of Valdis Rūmnieks (b. 1951) and Andrejs Migla (1940–2021) about the poet Aleksandrs Čaks (“Čaks”, 2010) and the sculptor Kārlis Zāle (“Trīs zvaigznes” ‘Three Stars’, 2013). Both novels are viewed in the context of the history of Latvian biographical novels and contemporary trends in biographical literature. The article aims to reveal the peculiarities of the biographical novels created in cooperation by the two authors and clarify the connections between traditional and new approaches. An attempt was made to classify biographical texts of different natures (documental, scientific and popular scientific biographies, and fictional biographical texts in diverse variations). The biographical novels of Rūmnieks and Migla are evaluated as works based on objective facts, where the creative imagination of authors also plays an important role, and episodes of hypothetical possibilities also have their place. The scenes of private and public life are interwoven in the narrative of both novels, marking the coordinates of the events of various historical periods and broadly expanding the contexts of cultural-historical processes. In the novel “Čaks”, the authors have experimented with the composition of the text, creating a particular form of acrostic novel. In the structure of their narrative, the authors have integrated the characteristic style elements of the poet Čaks, the characteristic texture and the artistic methods of his expression. The novels of Rūmnieks and Migla can be recognised as culturally significant and artistically interesting examples of Latvian biographical novels of the 21st century. The research used a combined methodology, cultural historical and biographical methods, and elements of literary mapping, marking the coordinates of the artistic expanse of the novels’ characters.

English complex premodifiers and their German and Swedish correspondences

Abstract This study concerns English hyphenated premodifiers (science-based targets; lower-back pain) contrasted with their German and Swedish correspondences. The data stem from the Linnaeus University English-German-Swedish corpus (LEGS), which contains non-fiction texts, but comparisons are also made to fiction texts from the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus (ESPC). The study shows that these condensed and complex premodifiers are more frequent in English originals than in English translations, and more typical of the non-fiction genre than that of fiction. Information density and terminological precision thus seem to be more important factors for the use of hyphenated premodifiers than creativity and expressiveness. In original English, two-thirds of the right-hand elements are either nouns or ed-participles. In translated English, numerals as left-hand elements (three-page document) are less frequent than in original English. Regarding German and Swedish correspondences, around half are premodifiers. Postmodifiers in the form of prepositional phrases and relative clauses are more frequent in Swedish than in German, which instead “overuses” premodifying extended attributes. Compound adjectives/participles and compound nouns are the most frequent correspondences in both German and Swedish. In almost half the instances, German and Swedish translators choose the same correspondents, indicating a high degree of similarity in the structural preferences in the two target languages.

A Corpus Study of English Language Exam Texts: Vocabulary Difficulty and the Impact on Students' Wider Reading (or Should Students be Reading More Texts by Dead White Men?)

AbstractStudents in England sit an important gateway examination in English at age 16. Major changes were made to this exam in 2017 resulting in more emphasis on the comprehension of unseen literary texts. This paper uses corpus linguistic methods to identify the kind of vocabulary encountered in these exam texts and compares it to the kind of vocabulary encountered in other sources of written language (classic literary fiction, biographies, poetry, etc.). Results showed vocabulary in the exam texts was typically low in frequency and that older literary fiction texts contained similar types of vocabulary. This suggests that students and teachers should rely more on older literary fiction to best prepare for the exam. However, this raises ethical questions about whether an exam should dictate students' reading experience, especially when older literary fiction is likely to be less diverse and dominated by dead White men.

Humanizing History: Using Historical Fiction Texts to Develop Disciplinary and Racial Literacies

AbstractHistorical fiction is a powerful genre for inviting children into meaningful conversations centered on the lived experiences of others. Historical inquiry immerses readers in interdisciplinary research experiences and complements language arts Common Core State Standards that call for a balance of fiction and non‐fiction text. Antiracist lenses enhance inquiry conversations and help students articulate nuanced understandings of the fictionalized historical events while developing disciplinary and racial literacy knowledge necessary for humanizing history. This article highlights how we, as teacher educators, use historical fiction to engage teacher candidates in inquiry‐based social studies lessons to develop their disciplinary and racial literacy skills and practices. Then, we offer an example of how to integrate the C3 inquiry approach using Finding Langston (Cline‐Ransome, 2018), a historical fiction text set during the Great Migration, to engage elementary‐aged readers in explorations of history, sparking children’s agency and engagement in their own learning.

A hermeneutics of literary identities

In hermeneutics, to understand and then to interpret a narrative text implies identifying its markers of ambiguity—its riddles and enigmas—which are interconnected like a cobweb. In this article, the researcher develops a literary hermeneutic model for interpreting any literary narrative text, based on the conceptual arsenal of literary hermeneutics and narratology. The model is called ‘divinatory’, since it is inspired by Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea for ‘divinatory hermeneutics’ and Roland Barthes’ ‘hermeneutic code’, and it is applied on a very enigmatic short story by Julio Cortázar. The theoretical premise of the article also argues for the benefits of studying the complex systems of literary identities in literary texts and of re-establishing hermeneutics of literature as a ‘hermeneutics of literary identities’.
 Due to its unique ambiguity, Cortázar’s famous short story “Las babas del diablo” has numerous interpretations and too many title translations: after Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie, it is known as “Blow-Up” in English, but also “The Devil’s Drool”, “The Devil’s Cobweb”, “The Cobweb/Kiss of St. Michael’s Summer”, and “The Thread of the Virgin” in other languages. Therefore, its unriddling divinatory interpretation provides an excellent initial interpretative model for any fictional narrative text. By analyzing the hermeneutically encoded aspects of its main narrative factors—the story and its discourse, narrator/s and focalization, narrative time and space, as well as intertextual connections—this interpretation finds that the short story’s search for the identities of its subjects and events is, in fact, a search for the hermeneutic identity of meaning.
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 Publication history note: This is the first publication of this essay in its English translation. This translated version has also been significantly updated and modified. Its first introductory theoretical parts are shortened to half their original length. All parts of the model-defining thesis and the structural composition in the main body of the text remain the same, but the application parts are extended, updated, and modified to match and elaborate on the English translation of the analyzed short story, which greatly differs from the previously analyzed Macedonian one. The reference list is updated accordingly. The previous version of the essay has been published only in Macedonian: firstly, in Kjulavkova, K. (2005) Hermenevtika na kniževnite identiteti [A Hermeneutics of Literary Identities]. In Dijalog na interpretacii [Dialogue of Interpretations], K. Kjulavkova, J. Bessier, and Ph. Daros (eds.), Skopje, Ǵurǵa, pp. 61–115; later, for instance, in Kjulavkova, K. (2006) Hermenevtika na identiteti [Hermeneutics of Identi-ties]. Kumanovo, Makedonska rizinica, pp. 61–104.

Scaffolding comprehension with reading while listening and the role of reading speed and text complexity

AbstractAudiobooks allow language learners to read and listen to the same text simultaneously; yet the effects of this bimodal input (written and spoken) on learners’ comprehension have been inconsistent, suggesting that the conditions under which audiobooks can help comprehension are not well understood. As such, I explored silent reading speed and text complexity as two potential variables that moderate reading‐while‐listening (RWL) comprehension. In a within‐participant design, 46 English learners in an American university read, listened to, and simultaneously read and listened to two complexity versions of a fictional text. Mixed‐effects regression modeling revealed that participants comprehended better in the RWL conditions than in the listening‐only conditions, echoing findings from the captions literature. This effect was moderated by neither silent reading speed nor text complexity. There were also no main effects between RWL and reading‐only conditions, indicating limitations in the use of audiobooks in language classrooms to promote written text comprehension.

Ирония в романе Ф.М. Достоевского «Братья Карамазовы»: функционально-семантический аспект

The article deals with the phenomenon of irony in a literary work. Irony is viewed in the study as one of the text-forming categories of hidden character, which performs the role of a meaningful component in the fictional text. It forms the semantic plan of the literary work and realizes the author's implicit evaluation. The place and role of irony in F.M. Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov are defined: irony is expressed within the author's implicit evaluation of the characters' relationship among themselves and their attitude to certain facts of reality, as well as in the writer's direct assessment of the personal qualities of the characters. At the same time, through irony the writer reveals not only the violation of ethical norms by the characters of the novel, but also their negative moral values. It is established that in order to actualize ironic evaluation the author of the work combines in one context a number of mechanisms of ironic meaning formation: double antithesis; antithesis combined with an illogical conclusion; contextual reinterpretation of the lexeme meaning in conjunction with antithesis. The complexity of the mechanisms of irony realisation in the novel imparts a sophisticated multifaceted character to the writer's assessment.

Explicature in Translating Arabic Modern Fiction into English: Protraction and Interjection

This study aims at investigating ‘explicature’ as a quadruple norm in translating Arabic modern fiction into English on the basis of the translator’s visibility. It is to show how explicature focuses on the author’s background knowledge and appreciates the reader’s language peculiarities by means of language catalysts in parentheses (i.e. interpolations). Four levels of explicature were found out: literal, formal, usable and liberal. Protracting and interjecting the potential reader’s flow of attention, the translator’s interpolations were obligatorily filling-out or specifying, optionally text-building or aesthetic, pragmatically local or global and technically inherent or revelatory. They could be modified by either full insertion, direct replacement, reverse replacement or full deletion. As the two medial types (formal and usable) are the most notable, this quadruple model of explicature is intended to be a distinct norm in translating texts of fiction across such two completely different linguistic systems and cultural backgrounds as Arabic and English.