Journal of English Studies

Saroyan’s “The Black Tartars”

Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article offers an examination of William Saroyan’s stance on nationalism through the analysis of “The Black Tartars” (1936), a story built on the technique of embedding which shows, through the layering of stories, two distinct models: one based upon primordialist notions of race; the other resting on the principle of ethnolinguistic homogeneity and resulting in the birth of the modern nation-state. By examining the dialogicity implicit in the frame narrative, I propose to examine Karachi’s tale as an example of “parodic skaz” which stands at odd with the author’s ideology and operates as a concave mirror reflection of the tragic fate hovering over stateless minorities.

Prayaag Akbar’s "Leila" and Margaret Atwood’s "The Handmaid’s Tale"

Juan Francisco Elices Agudo — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The turbulent historical period we are currently going through seems to have stimulated the production and publication of an overflowing number of dystopian narratives, which gravitate around a wide array of different topics. The publication of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, now turned into one of the most successful TV shows of the decade, has become a link between Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell’s pioneering works and the latest publications in the field, among which Prayaag Akbar’s Leila stands as a most significant contribution. This paper, which is informed by the illuminating approaches of Atwood scholars and Indian dystopian theorists, will seek to trace a number of intersections between Atwood’s masterpiece and Akbar’s opera prima, focusing on the authors’ takes on some of the tropes that build up the dystopian atmosphere of these novels. Thus, this article will primarily delve into the constraining effects of regimentation, especially for the female protagonists of these works, and the manipulation of the past, as they are the source of profoundly illuminating common grounds.

Identity Crisis at the Party

Margarita Estévez-Saá — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

. The present contribution offers a comparative analysis of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” and Virginia Woolf’s “The New Dress”, reflecting on the possible reasons that could explain the inexistence of previous critical comparisons of two texts written by two authors whose work has been amply studied and who have been frequently related by criticism. Considering the recurrent motif and context of the party in modernist literature, the study focuses on the identity crises experienced by the protagonists of both short stories. Taking into account Anthony Elliott’s reflections on the agents involved in the construction of the self, as well as recalling Joyce’s concept of “epiphany” and Woolf’s notion of “moment of being”, we analyse the concomitances detected in two stories that deal with the identity crises suffered by their respective protagonists, that deploy an analogous structure and share the use of similar symbolism.

From Syntax to Phraseology

Rodrigo García Rosa — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article presents the main grammatical characteristics of English constructions generally referred to as complex transitive constructions (Quirk et al., 1985), causative resultatives (Goldberg and Jackendoff, 2004) and caused-motion constructions (Goldberg, 1995, 2006, 2018). It is claimed, in light of some empirical corpus-based studies (Hampe, 2010; Rosa, 2020; Xia, 2017) that low-level phraseological constructions such ‘talk some sense into somebody’ play a crucial role in motivating the entrenchment and use of highly schematic caused motions such as ‘Frank sneezed the foam off the cappuccino’. In order to support this view with empirical data, we present the analysis of 1284 caused-motion utterances extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), out of which we were able to identify 12 fixed expressions and 9 statistically attested phraseologisms. At last, we discuss the implications that such relationship between grammar and phraseology may present in the understanding of schematic structures such as the caused motion.

The Semantic and Syntactic Range of Old English Nominalisations with Aspectual Verbs

Ana Elvira Ojanguren López — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article analyses the complementation of Old English verbs of aspect by means of nominalisations. Three types of derived nominals are distinguised: deverbal nominals that entail a verbal predication but do not take complements of their own; direct nominalisations (with Actor or Undergoer genitive); and oblique nominalisations. The main conclusion of the article is that, to the sources of the English gerund identified by Lass (1992), others should be added, including suffixes (such as -ung, -ness and -t) and affixless derivation from strong and weak verbs. It is also a conclusion of this study that Old English already provides evidence of the acquisition of verbal properties by deverbal nominalisations, such as nominalisations with direct objects and voice distinctions.

Siri Hustvedt’s "The Summer Without Men" and "The Blazing World"

Isabel María Osuna Montilla — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This paper aims to analyse Siri Hustvedt’s The Summer Without Men (2011) and The Blazing World (2014) from the perspective of the female Künstlerroman or Künstlerinroman to show the convergences and divergences between Hustvedt’s contemporary artist heroines and twentieth-century ones. Through the methodological framework, I discuss Linda Huf’s study of the female artist novel and Evy Varsamopoulou’s subsequent revision of it, focusing on the protagonist’s interpersonal and social relationships. It could be concluded that Hustvedt’s portrayal of the artist heroine is still a result of living in a patriarchal system, but it opens the way for complex representations of female characters, establishing strong emotional bonds between women.

McCarthyism and American Cold War Ideology in Irish-American Autobiographical Writing

Andrea Perez Alvarez — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article explores the various ways in which the protagonist of Frank McCourt’s autobiographical account ’Tis, A Memoir confronts the McCarthyite proceedings and their unsettling consequences at times of utmost conservatism in America. It addresses his negotiation of an ultimately alienated ethnic identity, arguing that the protagonist’s fractured self not only reflects the slippery ground upon which McCarthyite practices are founded, but is also brought about by it. Beyond this analysis, however, the article is set to problematize the very status of McCourt’s autobiographical writing by assessing the memoir’s narrative codes in association with its content and purported readership. Specifically, the proposal evaluates the fictional strategies on which it is constructed, as well as the inconsistencies inherent in the narrative depiction of the character’s partial assimilation into an eventual Irish-American national identity. The proposal ultimately assays McCourt’s memoir as a product and reworking of the ideological tenets characteristic of McCarthyism and the early Cold War period.

Where Are the Horses?

Vanesa Roldán Romero — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Mario Ortiz Robles argues that non-human animals are reduced to tropes in literature, lacking a material referent (2016: 21) and thus facilitating their systematic exploitation (Adams 2010: 69). One type of literature in which the other-than-human has traditionally been present but marginalised is Arthurian romance. During the Arthurian revival (1980s-1990s), we find Anne McCaffrey’s Black Horses for the King (1998), a text that attempts to rewrite this myth and pay homage to the equines of the genre. My aim, therefore, is to discern whether McCaffrey’s focus on horses suffices to resist their exploitation as symbols within the anthropocentric and often dualistic Arthurian tradition. Additionally, I scrutinise whether the human/non-human dualism also reinforces, and is reinforced by, the Christian/Pagan difference.

Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions on the Acquisition of Competences Through Project-Based Learning (Pbl) in Bilingual Education

Rosa Sánchez García — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Project Based Learning (PBL) has recently acquired a paramount role in education with a new respectability and a burgeoning number of proponents. Its envisaging as an instructional approach that embraces the basic concepts of research, reflection, production, complexity and rigor when dealing with relevant issues for students and society has led to PBL being heralded as a transformational educative strategy and a catalyst of competences. However, there is scanty research on students and teachers’ perceptions of Project-Based instruction and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) run in parallel. This article aims to report the findings of a research study conducted in three primary and secondary schools in Seville (Spain) to investigate the level of competence development achieved by students when working through a project in a bilingual learning context. The study has been conducted in a hybrid way with quantitative and qualitative method following an exploratory survey-type methodology for which two ad hoc questionnaires have been designed, addressed and adapted to the two sample units selected for our study: teachers and students. The results of this study suggest that project work activates a range of skills that can be transferred to real-life situations, enabling students to become socially and academically competent, being likewise a promising activity to socialize and promote language learning.

Abstract Machines in J. G. Ballard’s "High-rise"

Begüm Tuğlu Atamer — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article sets out to explore how J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise (1975) can be read through Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of rhizome, abstract machines and schizophrenia. The social structure of the Seventies in England, High-Rise as a building and High Rise as a novel are connected to one another to portray a rhizome that manifests a dystopian answer to the inquiry of human nature. High-Rise can be studied as an abstract machine since it is a machine of fiction through which the readers question the meaning of humanity. High-Rise, the building, is also an abstract machine in itself since it operates as a means to reveal the constant process of becoming under late capitalism. Therefore, this article aims to reveal the Deleuze-Guattarian dynamics in High-Rise in relation to High-Rise, the building, by focusing on the social elements that expose the schizophrenic aspects of late capitalism.