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Literature and the teaching of stylistics: An investigation into the pragmatics of community formation in the educational context of Namibia.
No full textThe author’s paper is an attempt to investigate the success of the pedagogy of stylistics and pedagogical stylistics in
the Namibian context. As an applied linguistics course, stylistics is eminently suitable for study and analysis of
literature, because it clearly explicates literary effects through linguistic analysis. Many scholars have illustrated the
use of stylistics analysis for the purposes of studying literature and teaching it, which is, pedagogical stylistics.
However, this paper combines both the study of Stylistics as a discipline, which is the pedagogy of Stylistics, and the use of stylistics for teaching literature in general and poetry in particular. Namibia adopted English as its official language 22 years ago. Since then, both teachers and students have been struggling with the analysis of poetry. This study is an empirical one using qualitative methods in the author’s research to determine the impact of the study of Stylistics on the understanding and teaching of literature in Namibia. The author uses traditional British poetry from the 16th century up to the 20th century alongside postcolonial poetry to assess the importance of culture in
understanding poetry and examine the advantage of using stylistics to teach the poems that the author selects.
Keywords: pedagogy, pedagogical stylistics, foregrounding, parallelism, deviation, collocation, denotation, connotation, colligatio
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
The chutnification of English: An examination of the lexis of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children".
No full textMidnight’s Children has been variously described as a Postmodern novel, Post colonial novel, and a novel which uses techniques of magic realism, metafiction and historiography. Having won the Booker Prize, the novel has attracted the attention of many critics for its remarkable use of language and the blending of history and story, fact and fiction and, reality and sur-reality. While the novel has been acclaimed as one of the most ingenious and fascinating piece of writing in the modern age and Rushdie has been described as a “juggler of words” (Narasimhaiah:1995), not many critics have focused on the use of lexical items in the novel. It is my argument that an examination of the lexis of Midnight’s Children within the ambit of Stylistics, will yield a rich dividend, and an analysis and a study of this kind will add new insights not just to the novel but also to the field of lexicology. Lexicologists are mainly concerned with word-formation and multi word expressions in natural language processing. While the analysis and application of lexicology studies tend to revolve around teaching and transfer of culture, an analysis of the kind suggested above would not only extend the field of Stylistics, but also lexicology as well.
Salman Rushdie‟s use of the expression 'chutnification' epitomizes his use of language in the novel. “Chutney” is an Indian dish, which is a side dish and tangy, adding flavour to the main course of any meal. “Chutney” is a noun form and is understood as such in English. By adding “-fication”, Rushdie changes an Indian word into an English one to stand for transformation. Therefore “Chutnification” in the novel means transformation of English having an additional connotation of making the language used in the novel tangy and more flavoursome and exciting. An examination of the lexis of Midnight’s Children will, therefore, be a useful exercise in comprehending Rushdie‟s inimitable style, as well as understanding the ways by which a language grows. The study, in other words, will contribute to, in particular, a critique of Midnight’s Children, and also to the fields of lexicology and morphology
"How ya doin'?" Meta-pragmatic awareness in TV-serials: Friends (a case study).
No full textThat TV serials by nature consist of conversation is stating the obvious. Whether the serials are soapies (Dynasty, The Bold and the Beautiful, Dallas) or detective (CSI, Miami), drama in the courtroom
(Boston Legal, The Practice), adventure (Lost) or plain and simple “slice of life" (Sex in the city, Desperate Housewives, Friends), all of them depend on two vital ingredients for their success. These two
ingredients are the elements of suspense and conversational exchange. It is the plot with the element of suspense that moves the story forward, quite like the Victorian three decker novel which was serialized in
magazines in the 19th century and disseminated amongst an agog, eager, hungry-for-information public. In the 21st century plot ensures that the TV audience returns week after week, episode after episode. The
other element, conversation, keeps them glued to the TV set and the interplay of words amongst the characters not only furthers the action but also provides for various factors like humor, profound insight
into human nature and a vicarious experience of the unknown. Any TV show's success is reflected by the number of seasons that it has run. “Friends”, a popular TV serial of the 90s ran for 10 seasons before it
finally wrapped up after ten years. Part of the show’s success was because of the situational comedy in which the characters are trapped. But most of it was because of the lively verbal interaction amongst
them. This paper examines the cultural assumptions that are inherent in and integral to an understanding of social behavior using “Friends” as a case study with a view to explicating that although the pragmatic conditions of communicative tasks are theoretically taken to be universal, the realization of these tasks as social practice is variable
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Cause and effect: A stylistic analysis of the story in Ngugi's "A Grain of Wheat".
No full textAnalysis of story in narrative fiction poses a major challenge to stylisticians. There are several studies of style in fiction, which are mainly micro-linguistic in nature and focus on certain sections of the novel that is being analysed. But up until today, there are has not been a comprehensive analysis of the story of a full length novel because of the unwieldy form of the novel on the one hand, and, on the other, disagreement amongst scholars about identification of individual units that make up the story and how these units mesh together. Stylistic analysis of story in fiction, therefore, is a contested area of study. Narratologists attempt to describe the deep narrative structure or surface narrative structure of different kinds of narrative forms such as: folk tale, fairy tale, epic, myths, short stories etc. While it is exciting to discover the basic underlying patterns of diverse narratives and identifying the universal structure of narratives from various cultures and climes, the reduction of all narrative to its skeletal form divests the immense variety and incredible complexity of a narrative form, such as a novel. This article is an attempt to develop a methodology for the examination of a composite form of the story of a novel drawing upon insights gained from Stylistics and Narratology. Through this analysis, I hope to prove that it is possible to examine the story of a novel thereby emphasizing textual analysis and empiricism as a rationale for stylistic inquiry. For purposes of illustration, I examine A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’O , Kenya’s foremost novelist and one of Africa’s greatest intellectuals
Cognitive stylistics and petit recit: An examination of the narrative consciousness in the "God of Small Things".
No full textPoetics & Lingguistics Association Conference (2011 July 4-8: Windhoek, Namibia)As has been pointed out be many critics, “God” in The God of Small Things by
Arundhati Roy functions as a metaphor for Velutha and becomes symptomatic of
power relations that cut across the several binaries: man/woman, postcolonial,/
imperial, upper caste/lower caste, Hindu/ Christian, upper class/lower class
resulting in notions of “big things ” and “small things ” which, one realizes as one reads the novel , acquire multiple meanings. The subversion of the “big things ” by the “small things ” is articulated by the variegated narrations of Rahel, who, in her own person, projects this dichotomy. She is one of a twin, a girl as opposed to her male twin and the narration through her consciousness is dualistic because it encompasses both her voice as a child and also as an adult creating a rich and complex narrative that confounds as it explicates lending itself to various
interpretations. While there have been many interpretations of the novel both in
terms of its themes and its language, and most critics praise Roy for painting a
canvas that is both multihued and multilayered, and yet congealing into a
harmonious whole, they have largely ignored the narrative voice of Rahel and the
ambivalence that is projected through it.
My paper is an attempt to unravel the plurality of the competing discourses
through Cognitive Stylistics. I argue that the Derridean slippage that occurs in the
novel is because of the different schemas of Rahel ‘s narrative as a child and as an
adult. Cognitive stylistics therefore provides a useful tool in the analysis of the novel thereby affirming what is stated in the epigraph: “Never again will a single story be told as though it is only one.” ( The God of Small Things:1997)
Reflexive inquiry and reflective practice: Critical reflection and pedagogy in English language teaching.
No full textThere is an ongoing debate on learners’ poor performance in English at the NUST. The main challenge that the institution faces to train faculty is addressed by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) which has an Academic Support Unit in charge of organizing teacher training workshops, special lectures and several other activities. While some members of staff believe that it is impossible to mark a test without taking cognizance of the language in which it is written, others distinguish between form and content and choose to ignore the
language component of a test. This discrepancy of thought has led to skewed results with students scoring brilliantly in their content subjects like Mathematics, Business Management courses, etc, and failing in English. The current state of affairs begs the question: what do we focus upon in our teacher training programs: is it on language or on content
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