Trailblazer or a One-off?

Author(s): Małgorzata NICIEJA / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The paper attempts to analyse the international success of the Danish televisual series Rita (TV2 Denmark - Netflix, 2012–2020). It places the production in a wider cultural and historical context and treats it as an exemplification of, what the author deems, a recent shift in representations of teachers in visual media narratives. The author’s argumentation is premised on three principal assumptions. First, Rita demonstrates that after the genre’s decline at the turn of the twentieth century, the school-centred audio-visual narratives are back in favour. The trend is connected to the growth of the post-network television and the so-called over-the-top services (OTT). Second, the substantial part of Rita’s wide appeal is related to the show’s innovative application of the conventions known from the earlier Scandinavian productions and themes from serials about “difficult women”. This particularly concerns the show’s adept exploration of the resilient and anti-heroic female lead character. Third, Rita is regarded as an early indication of the shift in the ways school life and teachers are represented in the media today. The author stipulates that the show may augur the emergence of many similar complex televisual images of teachers in the near future.

Zarys mechanizmów językowych w niemieckich kawałach

Author(s): Dorota Biadala / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

Obiektem bliższej obserwacji w niniejszym artykule jest językowa analiza niemieckich kawałów (dowcipów) jako krótkich form humorystycznych, w szczególności analiza zawartych w nich „nieporozumień” językowych, które są strategicznym wyróżnikiem gatunkowym tych tekstów. Ich głównym zadaniem jest zażartowanie z kogoś i rozśmieszenie innych. Przeprowadzona analiza lingwistyczna „nieporozumień” językowych porusza różne aspekty komunikacyjne osadzone w perspektywie społecznej: zarówno pragmatykę komunikacji międzykulturowej, kreatywność w komunikacji wewnątrzkulturowej, jak i humor w kulturze i komunikacji. Materiał badawczy wykorzystany do niniejszej analizy tworzy korpus utworzony z ponad 400 niemieckich kawałów pochodzących z różnych źródeł, w większości zaczerpniętych ze zbiorów internetowych. Celem niniejszego opracowania jest zaprezentowanie różnych perspektyw badawczych i analiza językowych mechanizmów służących tworzeniu „nieporozumień” językowych na podstawie wprowadzonych 13-tu kategorii opisujących bliżej gatunek tekstu ‘kawał’ z uwzględnieniem niemieckiej specyfiki kulturowej. // The main subject of this article is the linguistic analysis of German jokes as the short humorous formats, emphasis is placed on the analysis of various language-related “misunderstandings” found in these jokes, whose are strategic genre differentiator of these texts. Their main function is to make fun of someone and to make others laugh. The analysis of these language-related “misunderstandings” raises various communicative issues that are rooted in the social perspective, such as: pragmatics of intercultural communication, creativity in intracultural communication, or humour in culture and in communication. The research material used for this analysis is composed of over four hundred German jokes coming from various sources, with the largest number of texts from internet sources. The aim of this publication is to present various research perspectives and to analyse linguistic mechanisms used in the creation of language-related “misunderstandings” on the basis of thirteen categories that describe the genre ‘joke’ considering the German cultural specificity.

O nienaukowym umiłowaniu języka:

Author(s): Krzysztof Ozga / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2021

Celem artykułu jest analiza treści (postów, memów) publikowanych przez administratora społeczności wirtualnej „The Language Nerds” w serwisie społecznościowym Instagram, a także wybranych, powiązanych z nimi komentarzy zamieszczanych przez członków społeczności zarówno na Instagramie jak i Facebooku. Badanie jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie, jakiego typu treści stanowią zasadnicze spoiwo grupy. W tym celu dokonana została klasyfikacja postów w oparciu o wyróżnione w procesie ich kreowania dominanty funkcjonalne. Wyodrębniono sześć zasadniczych klas: 1. memy o dominującej funkcji humorystycznej, 2. zagadki logicznojęzykowe, 3. posty kreowane w oparciu o specyfikę obrazowania pojęć w danym języku (językowy obraz świata), 4. posty o dominującej funkcji metajęzykowej, 5. posty o dominującej funkcji prezentatywnej (charakteryzujące prototypowego członka grupy własnej), 6. posty o charakterze wypowiedzi argumentacyjnych. Następnie każda z klas została szczegółowo opisana i zilustrowana wybranymi przykładami spośród 220 przebadanych postów. Zawartość treściowa wszystkich wyróżnionych klas wskazuje, że zasadniczym czynnikiem integrującym społeczność jest język, przy czym istotna jest wykazana w badaniu różnorodność perspektyw jego wykorzystania jako narzędzia konstruowania tożsamości członków społeczności. W świetle przeprowadzonej analizy statystycznej największą rolę w generowaniu homogeniczności grupy odgrywa humor językowy. // The aim of the article is to analyse the content (posts, memes) published by the administrator of the virtual community „The Language Nerds” on the social networking service Instagram and also selected related comments posted by the members of the community on both Instagram and Facebook. The study addresses the issue of what kind of content serves to build up the integrity of the group. For this purpose a classification of posts was made with regard to the functions dominating in the process of their creation. Six major classes were identified: 1. memes with humour as the dominant feature, 2. logico-linguistic puzzles, 3. posts created on the basis of how notions are conceptualized in a particular language (Linguistic Worldview), 4. posts with a dominant metalinguistic function, 5. posts in which the function characterizing a prototypical member of the ingroup prevails, 6. posts fashioned as argumentative statements. Subsequently, each class was described in detail and illustrated with examples selected from the set of all of the 220 analysed posts. The content of all the classes distinguished in the research indicates that language is the central factor integrating the community, but – as shown in the study – no less significant is the diversity of focus on the particular aspects of language and its use that serves as a tool for constructing the social identity of the community members. The statistics obtained indicate that it is linguistic humour that plays the most important role in generating group homogeneity.

Senior Citizens as an Underresearched Age Group of Audiovisual Translation Users

Author(s): Sonia Szkriba / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

In recent years, approaches to audiovisual translation and media accessibility services have shifted from serving one group of viewers only towards a more universal design that takes into account a wider range of users. In line with that approach, some scholars point out, for example, that subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) or accessibility applications created with the blind and partially-sighted in mind could prove beneficial to senior citizens. This group of viewers is likely to experience age-related sensori-motor and cognitive decline, which may significantly influence their film-watching experience as well as their preference for an AVT method. As populations in many countries are aging, senior citizens might be considered an important part of potential cinema clientele. Unfortunately, since studies in AVT have concentrated on younger audiences, little is known about senior citizens’ specific preferences concerning audiovisual translation. The objective of this article is to briefly characterise senior citizens as recipients of audiovisual translation and discuss the possibilities for future studies on the subject.

Lubricating culture awareness and critical thinking through humour

Author(s): Aleksandar Takovski / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

There is an ample evidence supporting the benefits of instructional humour, including increased attention and interest, information retention and learning speed, more productive learning environment, a more positive image of the instructor, more efficient acquisition of linguistic and cultural competencies, an increased conversational involvement, enhanced cultural awareness and more stimulated critical thinking. However, most of the research findings rely on what is termed appropriate humour, such as puns, jokes, anecdotes, and alike, while potentially offensive humour that relates to sexual, ethnic, religious, and political identity is generally labelled inappropriate and advised to be avoided in the classroom. It is in this particular context that this study seeks to test the potential of such humour, sexual and ethnic in particular, to act as a tool of increasing cultural awareness and stimulate critical thinking among university students. To do so, the study relies on an experimental class design combining in-class and extracurricular activities created by using sexual and ethnic humour samples.

Before the political cartoonist, there was the Vidusaka:

Author(s): Snehal P. Sanathanan,Vinod Balakrishnan / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Political cartooning was one of many cultural products that colonial rule introduced to India. This British legacy has been used to produce narratives about the nature and history of Indian cartooning. However, these narratives have, invariably, overlooked the distinctly Indian cultural ethos as well as the Indian satirical tradition. This paper proposes an alternative model by positing that in the Indian satirical tradition, the Vidusaka – the comic figure in Sanskrit drama - has been an antecedent to the political cartoonist in terms of social and political roles, as well as in the nature and the purpose of the humour. The paper also locates the principles of caricaturing in precolonial Indian visual arts, and presents the early vernacular cartoons as the point of convergence between the local satirical tradition and the Western format of the political cartoon which laid the foundation for a modern yet specifically Indian sensibility.

Overcoming awkwardness:

Author(s): Jocelyn Chey / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

As Chinese people engaged with the Australian cultural scene in recent years, two posts about its humour attracted considerable attention from netizens in the People’s Republic of China. The post authors believed that their firsthand accounts of events demonstrated how Australians used humour to overcome awkward situations and regarded this as an essential national characteristic. In each case, other interpretations were possible if cultural factors had been taken into account, including the contemporary culture of China, Putonghua language usage and the Anglo-centrism that is common to cross-cultural studies. This exploratory generalist textual study concludes that the authors’ interpretations were largely determined by their cultural bias and by traditional regard for ‘face’ and politeness, and reflect the fact that, ultimately, the extent of cross-cultural communication is governed by international politics.

Dame Edna and ‘the help’:

Author(s): Adrian Hale / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

‘Dame Edna Everage’, a persona originally created by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries in 1955, is a character designed to simultaneously shock and amuse. Dame Edna voices (and satirizes) the discourse of ‘average’, older, politically conservative Anglo- Australians who feel compelled to ‘tell it like it is’ – no matter how offensive their opinions might be. In the Anglosphere, Edna’s humour is well understood and sustained international success has followed Edna for more than 60 years in Britain, Canada, the US and Australia. However, Edna occasionally misfires. In 2003, for instance, Edna’s satire outraged Latinos across the USA, in fulfilment of Poe’s Law (Aikin, 2009). Simply put, Latinos assumed that Edna’s comments satirising negative mainstream attitudes towards them were expressive of Edna’s authentic racism. This paper investigates the Edna joke in the overall context of failed humour and then specifically for the offensiveness it generated amongst the Latino minority in the United States. It then tests whether this reaction was the result of a discursive frame specific to the US context, by conducting an exploratory study amongst a small sample of highly educated Australian bilingual Latin American immigrants and their adult children, to see whether they thought Edna’s joke was funny. These Australian individuals of Latin American heritage responded via an online questionnaire, and an analysis of their responses is presented here. The study’s main finding is that while these individuals generally demonstrated a high comedic literacy across both English and Spanish, including a prior awareness of Edna’s and Australian humour, they overall rejected the intention and humour of Edna’s joke. This paper asserts that, when it comes to humour, some transnational migrant speech community loyalties transcend other notions of identity and language competence.

Multilingual humour in audiovisual translation.

Author(s): Noelia Marqués Cobeta / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

This commentary aims to take up the gauntlet thrown down by Dore (2019) with her article about multilingual humour in the Italian dubbed version of the series Modern Family. She suggested that the scenes included in the article could be analysed in other languages, so it was an interesting proposal to carry out the analysis of the Spanish dubbed version, since the L2 in the source text coincides with the target text language. Thus, this fact makes the translation process an arduous activity in these language combinations. Multilingualism is therefore considered the central element in this study. It is a reflection of the current social movement and the increase of multi-ethnic communities worldwide. This fact leads to citizens who use their knowledge to assert their own identity; as a consequence, audiovisual producers are also aware of this situation and exploit this phenomenon. Modern Family is an example of this reality and introduces characters, like Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, as a role model to show an increasingly common tendency, the use of multilingual and multi-ethnic characters that reflect this new social situation. Thanks to the selected examples, we will see whether the use of multilingualism as a source of humour is also transmitted to the Spanish dubbed version, as it did in the Italian dubbed version studied by the abovementioned scholar.

Book review

Author(s): Joanna Szerszunowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Book review

Author(s): Salvatore Attardo / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Editorial Foreword

Author(s): Silviu-Marian Miloiu / Language(s): English,Romanian Issue: 1/2021

The 13th volume of The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies reflects some of the research presented at the 12th International conference on Baltic and Nordic studies titled “Rethinking multiculturalism, multilingualism, and cultural diplomacy in Scandinavia and The Baltic Sea Region,” which will be held on May 27-28, 2021, under the auspices of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies. RethinkMulti-Kulti2021 was called to reflect on multiculturalism, multilingualism, and cultural diplomacy in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea Region 10 years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel predicted the end of German multicultural society. Many politicians with Conservative leanings praised the confirmation that the half-century-cherished multi-kulti “utterly failed,” and far-right gurus interpreted it as an omen. Furthermore, Merkel’s track record as a committed democratic-minded politician, EU leader, and proponent of migrant integration has garnered near-universal support for this argument. Furthermore, in academia, Merkel’s assertion has never been adequately questioned, but rather taken for granted. Meanwhile, policies governing multiculturalism and multilingualism in the EU and EEA have been stuck in a rut, particularly in what Fareed Zakaria properly refers to as illiberal democracies.

Od redakcji

Author(s): Maciej Skowera,Marta Niewieczerzał / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

Legendy warszawskie czytane na dystans. Mapowanie podań lokalnych w perspektywie geopoetyki i geografii literackiej

Author(s): Łukasz Bukowiecki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

Words and images, literature and space, texts and a map, a museum and a city – these are the most important pairs of concepts that summarise the assump-tions and results of the research and publishing project of the Museum of Warsaw,Words and images, literature and space, texts and a map, a museum and a city – these are the most important pairs of concepts that summarise the assumptions and results of the research and publishing project of the Museum of Warsaw,the output of which is the anthology Legendy warszawskie [Legends of Warsaw], selected by Anna Marta Zdanowska, edited by Julia Odnous, and with graphic design and illustrations by Wojciech Pawliński, that was published in 2016 (English edition – 2020). The author of the article looks at Mapa legend warszawskich [Map of Warsaw Legends] included in the book and analyses what it shows in the context of research on the relations of territories, their graphic representations, and the accompanying text.

The Mythisation of the Holocaust

Author(s): Katarzyna Jerzak / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The author of this review article critically discusses the book Dzieciństwo w la­biryncie getta. Recepcja mitu labiryntu w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej o Zagładzie [Childhood in the Labyrinth of the Ghetto: Reception of the Labyrinth Myth in Polish Children’s Literature about the Holocaust] by Krzysztof Rybak (2019). She examines the monograph in the context of, inter alia, the research already conducted in the field, literary works, architecture, memorials, the Holocaust victims’, survivors’, and witnesses’ testimonies, as well as in relation to the pos­sible symbolic links of the Shoah and the antiquity. The paper’s conclusion is that children’s literature can hardly prevent the mythisation of the Holocaust, but Rybak’s book proves beyond doubt the perseverance of myth. The banalisation, simplification, and trivialisation of the Shoah, as well as the issues of appropriateness and memory, are also important concepts that frame the author’s reflec­tions presented in this paper.

D’Amaurote à Dumocala : variations sur les rois en utopie

Author(s): François Rosset / Language(s): French Issue: 11/2021

After recalling the figure of Pantagruel, a grandson of the king of Utopia and king of the Dipsodes - which makes it possible to evoke some of the properties of utopia, and in particular that which consists of searching within utopia itself for filial links it maintains with previous texts - the discussion is narrowed down to the figure of the king in the tradition of utopia, with Sylvain Maréchal's Last Judgement of Kings serving as an example. Next, attention is directed more specifically to the figure of the king of Poland, a figure particularly suited to stimulate the political imagination of Europeans in the 18th century, and then to the person of Stanislas Leszczyński - the only sovereign to have written a utopia. He is the author of the short novel Entretien d’un Européan avec un insulaire du Royaume de Dumocala, which is both faithful to the narrative model it helps to perpetuate and devoid of any revolutionary intentions.

L’Abbaye de Thélème : une enclave soustraite au réel ou le paroxysme d’une société élitiste

Author(s): Matthieu Founeau / Language(s): French Issue: 11/2021

This article aims to analyze the Abbey of Thélème imagined by François Rabelais to get a clear idea about the initial utopian programme, by means of observing its shapes and limits. It will situate this work at an intersection between humanitarian values, contribution from More, spiritual crisis, and above all a pressing demand for renewal and novelty, resulting from societal and political criticism. It is from this opening statement that we will try to approach the structure, the project and the laws regulating and organizing this particular utopian society, before determining its limits. Attention will be paid to its construction, concrete and theoretical, in a parallel with the architecture of the convent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette designed by Le Corbusier. Thus, we will demonstrate how Rabelais’ linguistic games overstep the ideological project for the benefit of a new type of writing, complex and multifaceted. We will have to understand a lot of paradoxes which allow us to determine the importance of the literature beyond the initial utopian project.

Azor d’Aunillon : l’équivoque du langage dans un récit utopique de 1750

Author(s): Stanisław Świtlik / Language(s): French Issue: 11/2021

While included in Garnier’s collection, Azor, a little known work of Aunillon from 1750, does not follow the literary rules of most narrative utopias. However, the complex story presents critical thinking about the development of refined societies. The change which a mute community experiences on an island while learning to speak calls into question the future of this happy society, but no narrator’s commentary elaborates on this turning point in the utopia. In Azor, language becomes an ambiguous object which allows for the critical consideration of the steps necessary to access philosophical sophistication but also implicitly highlights problems associated with too hasty a progress. Through the narrative plot, the judgment on civilization reveals a subtle and skillful examination of hopes and challenges of the Enlightenment, articulated in a narrative utopia as in a laboratory of ideas. Aunillon's work is part of the debates of the mid-century by expressing a nuanced validation of civilization.

Научни форуми

Author(s): Emiliya Voleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 43/2021

Data about scientific events in the field of the humanities in Bulgaria in 2021

60 години българистика в Китай

Author(s): Chen Ying / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 43/2021