Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature
type: channel
description: e-ISSN: 2719-8111 ISSN: 2391-9426 DOI: 10.34739/fci
publisher: University of Siedlce
language: en
publication name: Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature
issn: 2391-9426
items: Emerging Syntax: Linguistic Innovation in Contemporary Internet-Mediated Communication
items: No Shaykh, No Slave: Anti-Structure and Egalitarian Mysticism in Tahirih’s Liminal Poetics
items: ‘Location Dislocation’ in Salman Rushdie’s Novel Quichotte
items: Cultural Citizenship and the Arab-Muslim Immigrant Experience in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
items: Migration and Gender Normsin Yosano Akiko's Prose Fiction “Keshimochi” (Poppyseed Rice Cake, 1910)
items: Shared Grounds, Shifting Agreements: On the Liminal Structure of Deep Disagreements
items: Portrayal of Chinese People and their Chineseness: Contrasting Hollywood Blockbusters with Asian Media Productions
items: Rethinking the Model of Translation of the Literary Text as Creative Interpretation and Examining the Translation of the Literary Title as a Problem of “Hidden Meanings”
items: The Archetype of the Terrible Mother in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance (1790)
items: Hidden Meanings behind Meat-specific Vocabulary in the History of English
items: “Healing is Coming”: COVID-19 Celebrity Rhetoric as Testimonials
items: Grotesquely Gothic Textual Overflow: Depictions of Generational Female Trauma in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s "Mexican Gothic"
items: The metaphor of “sinking to one’s knees” as a narrative element in the essays of Alexander Matuška
items: Overcoming challenges posed by intertextuality: Translation strategies employed in Polish and German translations of Agatha Christie’s novel titles
items: Elegizing an Aristocracy: The Anglo-Irish Protestant Gentry in the Poetry of Richard Murphy
items: Identifying “Hidden Meanings” in Vanda Rozenbergová’s Book Freedom for Pheasants
items: The 'Internal Tree:' Arboreal Symbols in Ali Smith's Autumn
items: RECLAIMING QUEER TIME: QUEER TEMPORALITIES IN ALI SMITH'S "HOW TO BE BOTH"
items: REALITY AND REPRESENTATION: THE NONFICTION WRITING IN JOHN UPDIKE'S "MOROCCO
items: INTERSECTIONAL GENDER-QUEER FEMINIST DESIRE (OR, WHAT THE HETERO GAZES MISS WHEN WATCHING "I LOVE DICK")
items: Sequel and aftermath: tragic structure and dramatic continuity in Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra"
items: THE SPECTACLE OF HISTORICAL TRAUMA OF BLACK BODIES IN AMERICA: SUBJECTIVITY, ABJECTION, AND COMMODIFICATION OF THE WHITE/BLACK GAZE
items: GENDER IDENTITY IN TRANSLATION: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSPOSING NON-BINARY CHARACTERS INTO ROMANIAN
items: REPRESENTATION OF THE PAST: DICKENSIAN ORPHANHOOD AS A METAPHOR OF BRITISH COLONIALISM IN RICHARD FLANAGAN’S "WANTING"
items: THE QUEST FOR MENTAL TRANQUILITY IN JOSEPH CONRAD’S "UNDER WESTERN EYES"
items: WHY I BELIEVE IN MONSTERS (AND YOU SHOULD TOO)
items: LIMINALITY AND HYBRIDITY: CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
items: PRELIMINARY DIRECTIONS IN COMPILING A RESOURCE FOR STUDENTS TRANSLATING BETWEEN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE FOCUSING ON WORDPLAY
items: BLENDING OF LITERARY GENRES IN CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LITERATURE: THE CASE STUDY OF AUŠRA MATULEVIČIŪTĖ (1978), LAURA SINTIJA ČERNIAUSKAITĖ (1976), RENATA ŠERELYTĖ (1970) AND RASA AŠKINYTĖ (1973)
items: COULD WE LIVE IN NELSON GOODMAN’S WORLDS? THOUGHTS ON GOODMAN’S PLURALISM AND ITS RECONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY

Emerging Syntax: Linguistic Innovation in Contemporary Internet-Mediated Communication
type: item
description: Digital platforms are reshaping how language is structured and literary expression circulates. This article theorizes “emerging syntax” as community-stabilized, usage-based constructions that crystallize in online interaction, and it demonstrates how platform affordances accelerate their diffusion. Drawing on discourse-pragmatics, construction grammar, and sociolinguistics, the paper catalogues productive templates (because + N, be-like frames, paratactic stacks, punctuation-as-prosody, asterisked actions, hashtags and emojis) showing how they package stance, identity, and rhythm. It situates multilingual hybridization and stylization within networked heteroglossia, and re-examines claims that texting harms literacy by foregrounding register agility. Methodologically, it combines qualitative discourse analysis with an exploratory corpus sample (1,000 posts per platform) to trace frequency patterns and cross-platform variation, complemented by multimodal analysis. Historically, it compares present trends with SMS, forums, and early chat to explain today’s speed, visibility, and composability. Pedagogically, it argues for cultivating bidialectal fluency across online and academic registers. The findings suggest that internet-mediated communication does not erode grammar but expands and diversifies its resources in contemporary usage.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: emerging syntax
  topic: keywords
subject: internet linguistics
  topic: keywords
subject: construction grammar
  topic: keywords
subject: digital discourse
  topic: keywords
subject: multimodality
  topic: keywords
subject: participatory culture
  topic: keywords
creator: Amalia Purda
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2026-04-29
publication date: 2026-04-29
doi: 10.34739/fci.2026.07.03

No Shaykh, No Slave: Anti-Structure and Egalitarian Mysticism in Tahirih’s Liminal Poetics
type: item
description: This paper argues against the inclusion of the translation of works of literature in the commonly theorized model of semantic transferal from the source text to the target text and for the role of the title in the complex structure of the literary work of art. Works of literature – including their titles – are by their nature polysemic. One of the terminological deficiencies of English literary scholarship is the lack of a term for the “hidden meanings” of a literary text. Unfortunately, the use of the word “sense” by Frank Kermode has not become accepted, nor has the key role of the title and also the ending of a work been sufficiently recognized in English literary scholarship. The function of the title in creating “hidden meanings” resists generalization, yet the issue of translating the title has not received deserved attention, although it is central to the work of analysis of the text that the translator must undertake.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Tahirah Qurrat al Ayn
  topic: keywords
subject: Persian poets
  topic: keywords
subject: feminist works
  topic: keywords
subject: literary analysis
  topic: keywords
creator: Neha Mohajer
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2026-04-29
publication date: 2026-04-29
doi: 10.34739/fci.2026.07.01

‘Location Dislocation’ in Salman Rushdie’s Novel Quichotte
type: item
description: This article explores how the concept of the Third Space might be applied to discuss the motif of the American road trip in Salman Rushdie’s novel Quichotte (2019). The term Third Space is used by multiple authors within the theory of post-colonialism with reference to the concept of liminal space; the works of post-colonial theorists Edward Soja and Homi Bhabha are taken as a theoretical basis of this work. In Salman Rushdie’s novel Quichotte, two protagonists of the story Quichotte and Sancho embark on a road trip across America in search of the Beloved. The internal struggles of the characters, their encounters of hostile communities along the way and searching for ways to adjust to the world are discusssed through a lens of spatio-temporal transformations they undergo while travelling.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Rushdie
  topic: keywords
subject: Quichotte
  topic: keywords
subject: post-colonialism
  topic: keywords
subject: Third Space
  topic: keywords
subject: space
  topic: keywords
subject: time
  topic: keywords
creator: Jurate Radaviciute
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-10-13
publication date: 2025-10-13
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.05

Cultural Citizenship and the Arab-Muslim Immigrant Experience in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
type: item
description: This paper examines the concept of cultural citizenship as it pertains to Arab-Muslim immigrants in post-9/11 America, as depicted in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Through the protagonist Changez’s journey from assimilation to disillusionment, the novel critiques the limitations of multiculturalism and citizenship in addressing the cultural alienation faced by immigrants. By analysing Changez’s experiences of discrimination, identity crisis, and eventual rejection of American values, this paper argues that cultural citizenship offers a framework for understanding the tensions between assimilation and cultural preservation in a post-9/11 world. The study adopted a qualitative interpretative research method since the data involved is textual. The analysis is framed by Aihwa Ong’s theory of cultural citizenship to explore how Hamid’s novel challenges dominant narratives of belonging and exclusion.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: cultural citizenship
  topic: keywords
subject: Arab-Muslims
  topic: keywords
subject: immigrant experience
  topic: keywords
subject: Moshin Hamid
  topic: keywords
creator: Olamiposi Oyeleye
creator: Oladiran Damilola Peju
creator: Patrick Charles Alex
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-10-03
publication date: 2025-10-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.04

Migration and Gender Normsin Yosano Akiko's Prose Fiction “Keshimochi” (Poppyseed Rice Cake, 1910)
type: item
description: This paper contends that the short story, “Keshimochi” (Poppyseed rice cakes), written by the renowned Meiji period Japanese woman poet Yosana Akiko (1878-1942), is a gender defiant semi-autobiographical tale that reveals the circumstances that drive the main character to migrate within the boundaries of societal constraints. Through the trope of an unidentified female narrator, the story features elements of confession, a theme celebrated in Akiko's poetry, capturing a pivotal moment when Akiko herself, living with her family in Sakai, is invited to join a literary club in Tokyo led by a poet who will later become her husband, Yosano Tekkan (1873-1935). The unique portrayal of various elements of migration, including literary, social, and geographical, highlights the duality of the unnamed female character's adherence to societal norms while seeking opportunities beyond her present situation. In this short story, Akiko masterfully intertwines literary, social, and cultural migration, exploring female aspirations and illuminating societal limitations.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Modern Japanese Literature
  topic: keywords
subject: Meiji period (1868-1912)
  topic: keywords
subject: Japanese Women writers
  topic: keywords
subject: Yosano Akiko
  topic: keywords
subject: I-novels
  topic: keywords
subject: Keshimochi
  topic: keywords
subject: Poppyseed Rice Cake
  topic: keywords
subject: prose fiction
  topic: keywords
creator: Shweta Arora
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-08-26
publication date: 2025-08-26
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.03

Shared Grounds, Shifting Agreements: On the Liminal Structure of Deep Disagreements
type: item
description: This paper explores the nature of deep disagreements through a reinterpretation of Wittgenstein’s concept of form of life. Rather than adopting skeptical or relativist positions, it questions the assumption that disagreement marks a failure of rational communication. The central claim is that deep disagreements are liminal in structure: they unfold at the threshold between shared and divergent backgrounds of understanding, and must be approached as such. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and related remarks, the paper argues that disagreement and understanding are made possible by the same background conditions. The possibility of partial understanding depends not on reaching a final consensus, but on our ability to recognize and respond to unfamiliar ways of speaking and acting. This account shifts the focus from resolution to acknowledgment, and from epistemic closure to the ongoing conditions of mutual intelligibility.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: deep disagreement
  topic: keywords
subject: form of life
  topic: keywords
subject: Wittgenstein
  topic: keywords
subject: acknowledgment
  topic: keywords
creator: David Pérez Chico
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-06-25
publication date: 2025-06-25
doi: 10.34739/

Portrayal of Chinese People and their Chineseness: Contrasting Hollywood Blockbusters with Asian Media Productions
type: item
description: The Orient is often depicted as a dependent entity whose presentation is framed within a Western perspective. This paper explores the various presentations and perceptions of China, the Chinese, and their sense of Chineseness as shown in Hollywood blockbusters and Asia media productions. Through dissecting the media presentations of Chinese cultural identity, this paper raises the question of the possibility of delinking the East from Western monetary fantasies about the country. To achieve these aims, different genres across the media are discussed to determine whether Chineseness has been commodified. Specifically, would amalgamation of dissimilar Chinese communities appear? Are objective evaluations made in assessing the genuineness of these different Chinese communities while presenting their dissimilarities? Although Hong Kong is a Chinese city, this metropolis has developed unique and hybrid characteristics owing to its historical background as a British colony and financial role as a business hub. This paper investigates whether the exceptional features of Hong Kong and its people as shown from various media products can be differentiated from other Chinese elements.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Orientalist perspective
  topic: keywords
subject: Hollyood films
  topic: keywords
subject: Asian media productions
  topic: keywords
subject: Chineseness
  topic: keywords
subject: Hong Kong
  topic: keywords
creator: Chi Sum Garfield Lau
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-12-22
publication date: 2025-12-22
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.07

Rethinking the Model of Translation of the Literary Text as Creative Interpretation and Examining the Translation of the Literary Title as a Problem of “Hidden Meanings”
type: item
description: This paper argues against the inclusion of the translation of works of literature in the commonly theorized model of semantic transferal from the source text to the target text and for the role of the title in the complex structure of the literary work of art. Works of literature – including their titles – are by their nature polysemic. One of the terminological deficiencies of English literary scholarship is the lack of a term for the “hidden meanings” of a literary text. Unfortunately, the use of the word “sense” by Frank Kermode has not become accepted, nor has the key role of the title and also the ending of a work been sufficiently recognized in English literary scholarship. The function of the title in creating “hidden meanings” resists generalization, yet the issue of translating the title has not received deserved attention, although it is central to the work of analysis of the text that the translator must undertake.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: meaning
  topic: keywords
subject: title
  topic: keywords
subject: ending
  topic: keywords
subject: translation
  topic: keywords
subject: sense
  topic: keywords
subject: interpretation
  topic: keywords
creator: Douglas Clayton
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-04-14
publication date: 2025-04-14
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.01

The Archetype of the Terrible Mother in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance (1790)
type: item
description: Rooted in Jung’s theories of the unconscious, and further developed by scholars like Erich Neumann or Northrop Frye, the archetype of the Terrible Mother appears to emerge with special intensity at times of trouble and social unrest to remind us of our deepest fears. This article explores this archetype within the pages of Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novel A Sicilian Romance (1790), examining the marchioness Maria di Vellorno as an embodiment of the evil stepmother figure, a common manifestation of the Terrible Mother archetype. By analysing the marchioness’s controlling demeanour and the destructive attributes associated with the darker aspect of the Feminine, the paper reveals how Radcliffe’s novel reflects the anxieties of late 18th-century England in the face of French revolutionary radicalism. The analysis highlights the Terrible Mother’s links to social unrest and the triumph of English social order through the heroine’s victory and the demise of the evil stepmother. The article contributes to understanding the psychological and cultural meaning of the Terrible Mother in literature and its portrayal of historical anxieties.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Ann Radcliffe
  topic: keywords
subject: A Sicilian Romance
  topic: keywords
subject: Terrible Mother
  topic: keywords
subject: evil stepmother
  topic: keywords
subject: gothic novel
  topic: keywords
subject: archetypal literature
  topic: keywords
creator: Charlie Jorge Fernández
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2025-12-22
publication date: 2025-12-22
doi: 10.34739/fci.2025.06.06

Hidden Meanings behind Meat-specific Vocabulary in the History of English
type: item
description: The present paper is an attempt to illustrate and discuss selected changes of meaning of meat-related vocabulary items brought about by the mechanism known as foodsemy, in which the source domain derives from the riches of the conceptual macrocategory FOODSTUFFS (e.g. pork, peach, bread), and the target is the macrocategory HUMAN BEING. The closeness and familiarity of food in our lives has given rise to various historical foodsemic metaphors during the evolution of English, most frequently in the colloquial register of the language, while the phenomenon may easily be observed in other natural languages. To this end, we intend to delve into figurative extensions of the original senses of words related to the category FOODSTUFFS. More specifically, we shall be dealing with a body of meat-related vocabulary, and the secondary senses they developed at certain points in the history of English.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: metaphor and metonymy
  topic: keywords
subject: microcategory MEAT PRODUCTS
  topic: keywords
subject: macrocategory HUMAN BEING
  topic: keywords
subject: foodstuffs
  topic: keywords
creator: Aleksandra Kowalczyk
creator: Grzegorz A. Kleparski
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Forum fo Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature and Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-12-27
publication date: 2024-12-27
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.09

“Healing is Coming”: COVID-19 Celebrity Rhetoric as Testimonials
type: item
description: This work considers: when a celebrity speaks about health on television or social media, how does the rhetoric coincide with U.S. values? According to Johanna Hartelius and Jennifer Asenas (2010), “in epideictic engagements, language is reinvigorated; it recurs and circulates, accumulating new meaning in each new instantiation” (p. 360). It is this type of recurring connection from a series of testimonials that informs this study, particularly concerning the COVID-19 vaccine and epideictic rhetoric. With crystallization and Aristotle’s notion of epideictic rhetoric as a framework, celebrity vaccination videos, news segments, and posts are analyzed, citing them as forms of testimonials. Ultimately, it can be argued an implicit rhetoric of values powerfully addresses the divided American beliefs and opinions about COVID-19, and in particular, the COVID-19 vaccinations. In reviewing a select number of case studies, this research analyzes celebrity rhetoric in connection with perceptions of COVID-19 vaccinations and how they may function as informal ad campaigns promoting themes of health and responsibility.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: COVID-19
  topic: keywords
subject: vaccines
  topic: keywords
subject: celebrity
  topic: keywords
subject: crystallization
  topic: keywords
subject: rhetoric
  topic: keywords
creator: Jonina Anderson-Lopez
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
date: 2026-04-29
publication date: 2026-04-29
doi: 10.34739/fci.2026.07.02

Grotesquely Gothic Textual Overflow: Depictions of Generational Female Trauma in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s "Mexican Gothic"
type: item
description: This article explores the connection between literary trauma theory and the generational female trauma in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's contemporary novel, Mexican Gothic. This novel, clearly situated in the Female Gothic tradition, expands on common Gothic tropes, and it is argued it presents the Female Gothic genre as one that inherently deals with the trauma of women forced into an oppressive silencing by patriarchal powers. Through the characters of Agnes and Ruth, this paper argues trauma is portrayed as sensory, textual overflow, drawing on the concept from trauma theorist Joshua Pederson. Through sensory, highly detailed and grotesque depictions of women's experiences of trauma, Mexican Gothic demonstrates the power of the Female Gothic genre to explicate trauma while emphasizing the grotesque oppression women face at the hands of manipulative patriarchal power, both in and out of fiction.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Female Gothic
  topic: keywords
subject: trauma
  topic: keywords
subject: patriarchy
  topic: keywords
subject: haunting
  topic: keywords
subject: gender oppression
  topic: keywords
creator: Whitney McClelland
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-11-12
publication date: 2024-11-12
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.03

The metaphor of “sinking to one’s knees” as a narrative element in the essays of Alexander Matuška
type: item
description: The presented paper examines the meaning of the metaphor of dropping or sinking to one’s knees in the works of Slovak essayist Alexander Matuška. Drawing on the cognitive theory of metaphor formed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, this paper attempts not only to describe the concrete realisation of the orientational metaphor of the up-down type in the context of ceremonial symbolism, but also to interpret this metaphor as a certain narrative element in the history narrative that Matuška presents in his essayistic work, and as an element present across different cultures.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Alexander Matuška
  topic: keywords
subject: essay
  topic: keywords
subject: Conceptual Metaphor Theory
  topic: keywords
subject: ceremonial symbolism
  topic: keywords
subject: narrative elements
  topic: keywords
creator: Adriána Pešková
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-12-03
publication date: 2024-12-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.05

Overcoming challenges posed by intertextuality: Translation strategies employed in Polish and German translations of Agatha Christie’s novel titles
type: item
description: The article investigates problems associated with the translation of selected Agatha Christie’s novel titles containing intertextual references to various literary works including but not limited to Shakespeare’s plays (By the Pricking of My Thumbs) and English nursery rhymes (A Pocket Full of Rye). Original English title versions with their respective Polish and German counterparts (with their English back translations) are compared and analysed (Hickory Dickory Dock – Entliczek pentliczek – Die Kleptomanin). Translation challenges involved in rendering titles encompassing intertextual elements are identified and deliberated on in more detail. Strategies employed by translators to render the titles are established (equivalence, literal translation, adaptation). The study shows that the strategy of adaptation is applied when it is not possible to replicate intertextuality in translation. Title versions rendered with the use of adaptation allude to other significant elements in the plot to maintain the titlenovel interface.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: title translation
  topic: keywords
subject: multiple titling
  topic: keywords
subject: intertextuality
  topic: keywords
subject: literary references
  topic: keywords
subject: translation strategies
  topic: keywords
subject: intralingual translation
  topic: keywords
creator: Karolina Ryker
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-12-03
publication date: 2024-12-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.08

Elegizing an Aristocracy: The Anglo-Irish Protestant Gentry in the Poetry of Richard Murphy
type: item
description: The Irish poet Richard Murphy was a minority within a minority: an Anglo-Irish Protestant of the landed gentry. His privilege, property, and Anglican background set him apart from the common people of an independent Ireland which was Catholic, Gaelic, and nationalist in character. As the last major poetic representative of his culture, Murphy holds a special place in the Irish literary tradition. However, he lived and wrote during a time of significant decline for his patrician caste. His poems documenting the decay of Ireland’s once powerful and prominent Protestant elite is the subject of this paper’s critical inquiry. With greater consideration for the cultural climate and historical circumstances of his time, a clearer and more accurate understanding of Murphy’s conception of the complex facets of Irish identity will be achieved in this analysis.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Anglo-Irish
  topic: keywords
subject: Aristocracy
  topic: keywords
subject: Ascendancy
  topic: keywords
subject: Irelanf
  topic: keywords
subject: Big House
  topic: keywords
subject: Protestant
  topic: keywords
subject: Colonizer
  topic: keywords
creator: James Russell Sackett
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-11-25
publication date: 2024-11-25
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.04.06

Identifying “Hidden Meanings” in Vanda Rozenbergová’s Book Freedom for Pheasants
type: item
description: The study focuses on identifying hidden meanings in Vanda Rozenbergová’s short story collection called Freedom for Pheasants (2011). Being based on the concept of hermeneutic circle, the study aims to identify places of indeterminacy in the book, focusing especially on metaphors. The primary focus is on the meaning of the metaphor of birds, while relying on the theoretical solutions of Paul Ricoeur, George Lakoff and other authors, who have been dealing with this issue. It also follows up on the solutions of cognitive linguistics, especially the theory of prototypes. The study accents the role of metaphors of birds in the short stories, for instance the role of metaphor of the pheasant and swallow, while analysing their function as regards portraying the literary characters.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: hermeneutics
  topic: keywords
subject: places of indeterminacy
  topic: keywords
subject: metaphors
  topic: keywords
subject: Vanda Rozenbergová
  topic: keywords
subject: pheasants
  topic: keywords
subject: women
  topic: keywords
creator: Eva Dudáková
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-12-03
publication date: 2024-12-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.07

The 'Internal Tree:' Arboreal Symbols in Ali Smith's Autumn
type: item
description: Following the publishing of Autumn (2016), Scottish author Ali Smith has received both international acclaim as well as negative reviews for it supposedly being a collage of seemingly unrelated subjects. This paper challenges such a view by providing insight into one of its hidden meanings – the arboreal symbols – paying attention to the concept of 'Internal Tree' as coined by J.R.R. Tolkien and which resembles the way in which other well-known authors including Smith have explored the topics of authorship and and literature. I will study the origins of these symbols as a trope and examine how the 'Internal Tree' allows authors' development and connection with past, present and future writers while remaining attached to their roots. Both aspects will be briefly traced from the work of Classical authors, the Bible and Anglophone literature, and analysed in Ali Smith's Autumn and a number of her previous works.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Ali Smith
  topic: keywords
subject: Autumn
  topic: keywords
subject: Arboreal Symbolism
  topic: keywords
subject: Brexit Fiction
  topic: keywords
subject: Contemporary British Authors
  topic: keywords
subject: Literary Tropes
  topic: keywords
creator: Aylín Esmeralda García Hernández
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
date: 2024-11-25
publication date: 2024-11-25
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.04

RECLAIMING QUEER TIME: QUEER TEMPORALITIES IN ALI SMITH'S "HOW TO BE BOTH"
type: item
description: This article examines the different manifestations of alternative temporalities in Ali Smith’s Goldsmiths Award novel How to be Both (2014). My argument is that the novel ‘queers’ understandings of time in two significant ways: by highlighting new possibilities of narrative structure that challenge linear conceptions of time and by questioning regulated notions of developmental temporalities in terms of progression from childhood to heteronormative adulthood. Hence, by drawing on the compelling framework of queer temporalities, the main goal of this article is to analyze the mechanisms deployed by Ali Smith to generate unprecedented configurations of queer time.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Queer Temporalities
  topic: keywords
subject: Queer Time
  topic: keywords
subject: Non-linearity
  topic: keywords
subject: Queer Narrative
  topic: keywords
subject: Queer Studies
  topic: keywords
subject: LGBTQIA+ Identity
  topic: keywords
creator: Corpus Navalón-Guzmán
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.06

REALITY AND REPRESENTATION: THE NONFICTION WRITING IN JOHN UPDIKE'S "MOROCCO
type: item
description: “Morocco” is one of John Updike’s short stories concerning family travel s. With the attempt to blur the gap between fiction and nonfiction, Updike experiments in “Morocco” with a new form of represented reality, which reveals a middle ground between the discourse and the depicted world. Through the portrayal of real historical events by juxtaposing the overt family travel narrative and the covert Cold War narrative, the short story mixes realistic travel writing into a fictional representation of Cold War writing. The Cold War writing, especially when represented through a backdrop of baseless fears, forms the covert narrative dynamics and integrates the narrative rupture in the whole overt family travel story where the unreliable narrative techniques in the tale, such as denarration, and disnarration, break upthe narrative progression and present various possibilities from the fissured narration. It turns out that the various overt narrative possibilities are restricted by the covert Cold War narrative, thus, the variety of overt narratives in “Morocco” is always constrained by the Cold War ideology. While the travel narrative is at variance with this particular reality, the underlying Cold War ideology, nevertheless, serves as the universal representation.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Historical appropriation
  topic: keywords
subject: Travel narrative
  topic: keywords
subject: Automobile image
  topic: keywords
subject: Cold War narrative
  topic: keywords
subject: Emotional dynamics
  topic: keywords
creator: Ling Jiang
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.05

INTERSECTIONAL GENDER-QUEER FEMINIST DESIRE (OR, WHAT THE HETERO GAZES MISS WHEN WATCHING "I LOVE DICK")
type: item
description: Sarah Gubbins and Joey Soloway’s recent series “I love Dick” – an adaptation of a cult feminist novel by Chris Kraus – demonstrates a rare, visceral grasp of the deep roots of gender oppression. The response to this oppression is intersectional, anti-racist, gender-queer empowerment and feminist desire. It’s inspiring and must be defended from (misunderstanding vis-à-vis) the perspective of the heteronormative gaze, still dominant together with the masculinist and racist gaze in the maturing 21st century. In its deviations from the novel, the screen adaptation activates intersectional connections that remain underdeveloped in the original. If the novel mines sexual oppression and gives voice to feminist desire in its raw and terrific power, I read the series as excavating sexual oppression at the intersection of sex, gender, race and class, and giving voice to (gender-)queer desire in all its fantastic force.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Intersectionality
  topic: keywords
subject: Gender-Queer Theory
  topic: keywords
subject: Feminism
  topic: keywords
subject: Desire
  topic: keywords
subject: Anti-Racism
  topic: keywords
subject: Series
  topic: keywords
creator: Maya Nitis
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.04

Sequel and aftermath: tragic structure and dramatic continuity in Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra"
type: item
description: In this paper I shall discuss some possible relations between two of Shakespeare’s tragic dramas, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra (1). These plays were probably written and perhaps staged at a distance of seven years from each other (Julius Caesar almost certainly written by, and staged in, 1599, and Antony and Cleopatra perhaps written by the end of 1606); but they deal with periods of ancient Roman history effectively continuous with one another. I shall consider, first, the notion of ‘sequel’, as it might be relevant to possible interconnections between Shakespearean dramatic units, and the related but distinct notion of ‘aftermath’. Here I shall refer to a text by the contemporary English novelist and essayist Rachel Cusk, Aftermath (2012). Secondly, I shall consider applications of these notions within the fields of Shakespearean comedies, English Histories, and tragedies. In my third and final section I shall argue, both that, in relation to Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra may be considered a sequel, and that the lines along which, in the later play, the roles of Anthony and of Cleopatra are presented and developed can fruitfully be understood in terms of ‘aftermath’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Shakespeare
  topic: keywords
subject: aftermath
  topic: keywords
subject: "Julius Caesar"
  topic: keywords
subject: "Anthony and Cleopatra"
  topic: keywords
subject: tradegy
  topic: keywords
creator: Rowland Cotterill
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-09-24
publication date: 2024-09-24
doi: 10.34739/fci.2024.05.01

THE SPECTACLE OF HISTORICAL TRAUMA OF BLACK BODIES IN AMERICA: SUBJECTIVITY, ABJECTION, AND COMMODIFICATION OF THE WHITE/BLACK GAZE
type: item
description: In 1994, Elizabeth Alexander's”'Can you be Black and Look at This?’: Reading the Rodney King Video(s)” was published in The New Yorker magazine. Alexander focuses on the ways in which Black bodies have been the focal point of public pain, torture, and humiliation for centuries. These public lynchings, whippings, and other forms of physical abuse leading to maiming and death have been elements central to the entertainment for the racial status quo. Alexander's essay also focuses on the ways in which there has always been a “Black gaze” bearing witness to the decimation of other Black bodies--- the legacy of which leads to a continued cycle of both psychological and historic trauma that is (re)visited over and over again. Of course, with the prevalence of technology now a norm, such incidents of recorded violence are part of life in America. As the United States' greatest cancer, racism, continues to be a root cause of this violence, neither the killing of Blacks nor survivors' consciousness will be healed; and worse, the spectacle of racial violence will continue to perpetuate victims on various levels: 1) as victims directly tied to such violence and 2) as witnesses to said violence. My proposed essay focuses on the tragedy of Black bodies as spectacles of public pain---whether they are viewed as victims, as specimens of morbid curiosity, or as receptacles of displaced hate and disgust; and even as supposed rightly displays of justices incurred, simply because the body in question is Black (“They got what they deserved. They should have just pulled over.”). I will focus on various, very public historical and modern-day lynchings, from Emmett Till to George Floyd, and explore the cause and effects against Blacks in America. Ultimately, the essay poses the following questions: who is the monster, who are the victims? And at what cost will this continuum perpetuate the legacy of trauma of the American Black population?
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: black gaze
  topic: keywords
subject: white gaze
  topic: keywords
subject: racism
  topic: keywords
subject: abjection
  topic: keywords
subject: objectification
  topic: keywords
subject: psychic trauma
  topic: keywords
creator: Rosemary Briseno
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.07

GENDER IDENTITY IN TRANSLATION: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSPOSING NON-BINARY CHARACTERS INTO ROMANIAN
type: item
description: The created world of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series depicts a future society where gender identity has undergone a process of uniformisation, resulting in the erasure of gendered language. The novels take the form of a confessional (a recounting of the events of the past) which are published in the future society without the express consent of the other characters taking part in the depicted course of events. The narrator, in a motivated show of re bellion against their society’s current ideology (discussed both at the beginning of the series and as they progress with the narration), reinscribes gendered pronouns onto the unknowing characters; however, this is done on an arbitrary basis, which the narrator does not always discuss. The present paper aims to emphasize the growing number of LGBT+ novels published and the impossibility of transposing them into Romanian due to the lack of a gender-neutral pronoun that does not default to the masculine. The paper analyses Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer in order to specify the various nuances that would be lost in the cultural adaptation and translation of the novel into Romanian, a translation which has yet to occur, given the complexity and constraints of the novel and the depicted ideology behind it.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: LGBTQ+
  topic: keywords
subject: queer
  topic: keywords
subject: translation
  topic: keywords
subject: LGBTQ+ translation
  topic: keywords
subject: gender-neutral in translation
  topic: keywords
subject: cultural translation
  topic: keywords
creator: Alexandra Maria Ivan
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.03

REPRESENTATION OF THE PAST: DICKENSIAN ORPHANHOOD AS A METAPHOR OF BRITISH COLONIALISM IN RICHARD FLANAGAN’S "WANTING"
type: item
description: During the process of colonial expansion and conquering new territories together with their people, the British Empire never took full responsibility for the citizens of its new overseas possessions. By forcing the colonised nations to accept European standards, British colonialism aimed at expunging their indigenous traditions in a process of acculturation. If colonial power dynamics can be metaphorically seen as parent-child relations, the dissemination of racist ideas eulogising the superior value of the white man over the colonised Other exposes British colonial parenthood as a fiasco. In this paper I will discuss Richard Flanagan’s novel Wanting (2008), presenting it as an illustration of the Empire’s lack of responsibility towards its overseas progeny. I will use the Dickensian motif of orphanhood which, when transferred into a colonial reality, can be construed as a metaphor of the colonial condition of the subaltern exploited by British hegemony. I will present the orphaned Aboriginal girl Mathinna who is separated from her community and coercively subjected to the social process of acculturation. In Homi Bhabha’s terms, by adapting the coloniser’s culture, Mathinna emerges as a hybrid, who, by mimicking the hegemonic culture, becomes a threat to the certitude of the colonial authority. In the end she is without any protective affiliation and abandoned by her adoptive parents, and thus falls into the pattern of the orphan as depicted in Dickens’s fiction.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Orphanhood
  topic: keywords
subject: Post-colonial
  topic: keywords
subject: Richard Flangan
  topic: keywords
subject: Wanting
  topic: keywords
subject: Mathinna
  topic: keywords
subject: Charles Dickens
  topic: keywords
subject: the Franklins
  topic: keywords
creator: Rafał Łyczkowski
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.02

THE QUEST FOR MENTAL TRANQUILITY IN JOSEPH CONRAD’S "UNDER WESTERN EYES"
type: item
description: In Joseph Conrad’s novel Under Western Eyes (1911), Razumov is a kinless university student in St. Petersburg who involuntarily becomes the government’s agent as regard to espionage because of an unwelcome visit from the revolutionist student Haldin. This paper makes use of C.T. Watts’ article “Under Western Eyes: The Haunted Haunts” published in 2008 as a framework to investigate Razumov’s psychological journey: beginning with his decision to betray Haldin through to the consequential action of making a confession to the latter’s sister, Nathalie. Watts’ article explores both the haunting and exorcist aspects of the novel upon its author, characters and, possibly. the reader. The article primarily focuses on how Conrad’s novel intentionally mimics Crime and Punishment (1866). Several aspects of the narrative reveal to us that Conrad failed in avenging the haunting effect Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s work had upon him. In this paper, the rationale behind Razumov’s confession will be investigated in understanding how both physical and mental exhaustion stimulate moral struggles and alter one’s assumed ideology. Emphasis will be made on the transformation of Razumov in terms of the effect of acquiring domestic connections and arriving in different geographical locations as the plot complicates.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Joseph Conrad
  topic: keywords
subject: Under Western Eyes
  topic: keywords
subject: psychological journey
  topic: keywords
subject: confession
  topic: keywords
subject: nationalism
  topic: keywords
creator: Chi Sum Garfield Lau
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-03-18
publication date: 2024-03-18
doi: 10.34739/fci.2023.04.01

WHY I BELIEVE IN MONSTERS (AND YOU SHOULD TOO)
type: item
description: According to Kaplan’s bidimensional theory of demonstratives, the descriptive content of any indexical term (and the sentences they appear in) is only employed to determine its reference in any possible world rigidly but cannot be expressed by the sentence’s truth conditions. Kaplan then argues that an indexical sentence’s informativeness depends on what he calls its character, a property of the context that relates a particular context to a concrete content, but it cannot be a part of the proposition the sentence entertains (its content), primarily given the logical inconsistencies the opposite would show in the theory of conditionals and counterfactuals. I agree with Kaplan that indexicals should not be considered disguised descriptions. Nevertheless, I believe that their content is informative and, therefore, part of the proposition these sentences express, even though that implies accepting the existence of content shifting operators within the same context --what Kaplan dubbed monsters. This paper, therefore, presents an alternative account to indexical terms and sentences employing the Interactive Theory introduced in Colomina-Alminana (2022). This approach considers that the meaning of any sentence, the proposition it expresses, depends upon three interrelated factors: the speaker’s intentions when uttering, the audience’s potential uptakes of such statement, and the conventions established by the speech community both speaker and audience belong, or the linguistic interaction takes place. The critical element is the so-called speaker's point of view, an objective perspectival networking background that allows lexical and syntactic mechanisms to trigger and update potential conceptual presuppositional content shared by both speaker and audience and whose existence is prior to any context and circumstances.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: contextualism
  topic: keywords
subject: demonstrative
  topic: keywords
subject: indexical
  topic: keywords
subject: presupposition
  topic: keywords
subject: proposition
  topic: keywords
subject: common ground
  topic: keywords
creator: Juan Colomina-Alminana
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-01-03
publication date: 2023-01-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2022.03.01

LIMINALITY AND HYBRIDITY: CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
type: item
description: In this paper, I analyze the concept of liminality and the negative collateral consequences it might bring to the liminal and hybrid character. The definition of liminality is goingto be analyzed as the most characteristic trait of Pauline Puyat’s personality, a mixed- blood character in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks. As a half-breed female, Pauline belongs to both and to none of the two traits that make up her identity. This duality causes in her many contradictory sentiments of isolation, loneliness and jealousy that will gradually disturb her mind and, eventually, she will act in an incoherent manner. By having two identities, Pauline is expected to enjoy her multicultural frame. Contrarily, Pauline Puyat’s liminality and hybridity affects her own self and, at some points, others’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
creator: Sergio Illán Nevado
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-01-10
publication date: 2023-01-10
doi: 10.34739/fci.2022.03.05

PRELIMINARY DIRECTIONS IN COMPILING A RESOURCE FOR STUDENTS TRANSLATING BETWEEN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE FOCUSING ON WORDPLAY
type: item
description: This article considers the issues that arise in translating between different languages and cultures with a focus on wordplay. Finding appropriate equivalences can be a complicated process that goes beyond linguistic limitations to cultural interpretations of meaning. Wordplay can serve as an aspect that exist as additional elements of information and a means to create a specific atmosphere within the narrative. This can often be reliant on cultural cues, especially in the case of children’s fantasy series wherein culturally specific references to folktales may be subtly interwoven into the tale using wordplay. This can then lead to complications when being translated. As such, this is a venture into how the wordplay in Harry Potter has been translated into Japanese with the intent to use this data to create a resource for students studying translation between the two languages by acknowledging the conflicting needs of clarity and amusement.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: British English
  topic: keywords
subject: Japanese
  topic: keywords
subject: Harry Potter
  topic: keywords
subject: wordplay
  topic: keywords
subject: translation
  topic: keywords
creator: Rosemary Reader
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-01-03
publication date: 2023-01-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2022.03.02

BLENDING OF LITERARY GENRES IN CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LITERATURE: THE CASE STUDY OF AUŠRA MATULEVIČIŪTĖ (1978), LAURA SINTIJA ČERNIAUSKAITĖ (1976), RENATA ŠERELYTĖ (1970) AND RASA AŠKINYTĖ (1973)
type: item
description: The main aim of the article is to survey the situation in the field of Lithuanian literature of the first two decades of the 21st century discussing the phenomenon of the diffusion of genres. The main questions to be answered: how a genre could be related to the forms of writing and in what way can particular blends of literary genres justify expectations of a reader and give additional impulses to the emotional response of the addressee of the text. Those questions will be answered analysing prose texts by contemporary Lithuanian writers Aušra Matulevičiūtė (1978), Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė (1976), Renata Šerelytė (1970) and Rasa Aškinytė (1973). It is possible to conclude that particular blends of literary genres may realize the intentions of a writer and give additional impulses to the emotional response of an addressee of fictional text, but those blends should be constructed paying attention to the particular forms of writing.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: genre
  topic: keywords
subject: forms of writing
  topic: keywords
subject: novel
  topic: keywords
subject: short
  topic: keywords
subject: story
  topic: keywords
subject: Lithuanian literature
  topic: keywords
creator: Indrė Žakevičienė
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-01-03
publication date: 2023-01-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2022.03.04

COULD WE LIVE IN NELSON GOODMAN’S WORLDS? THOUGHTS ON GOODMAN’S PLURALISM AND ITS RECONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY
type: item
description: The idea of ​​living in a world seems to be obvious. Only a skeptical person would deny that we live in one, or that we are able to say it. And it is precisely because of skepticism that the existence and knowledge about the external world has been a recurring topic in the history of philosophy. Nelson Goodman has confronted this problem and has offered a constructivist and pluralist solution. This article explains these key points of Goodman's epistemology, as well as his ontological pluralism. Subsequently, I explain how, according to the author, these philosophical positions would imply a reconception of classical concepts of philosophy. Finally, I criticize the Goodmanian thesis that we can live in different worlds simultaneously and reconsider the problem from the perspectivist approach of the authors Manuel Liz, Margarita Vázquez and Antti Hautamäki.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Nelson Goodman
  topic: keywords
subject: world
  topic: keywords
subject: pluralism
  topic: keywords
subject: knowledge
  topic: keywords
subject: construction
  topic: keywords
subject: perspective
  topic: keywords
subject: point of view
  topic: keywords
creator: Enrico Brugnami
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Forum for Contemporary Issues in Language and Literature https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-01-03
publication date: 2023-01-03
doi: 10.34739/fci.2022.03.07