Echoes of the Infernal Machine: 1940s French and English Literature of Resistance and Collaboration as a Revolution in the Mythic Imagination

Author(s): Tadd Graham Fernée / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This article comparatively examines French and English literature based on two novels published in 1947, Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano and Jean-Louis Curtis’ The Forests of Night. Both novels employ the mythic device to construct narratives on the twilight of the British Empire and the German occupied French Vichy regime, respectively, depicting experiences of resistance and collaboration on the eve of and during the Second World War. Both invent a system of symbolic imagery modelled on the Surrealist template in Jean Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine, that turns the classical mythic device still prevalent in the early 20th century (i.e. in Joyce or Eliot) upside down. The revolution in Mythic Imagination follows the Structuralist Revolution initiated by Durkheim, Saussure and Bachelard, evacuating fixed ontological architecture to portray relational interdependency without essence. These novels pursue overlapping ethical investigations, on “non-interventionism” in Lowry and “fraternity” in Curtis. The novels raise questions about the relation between colonialism and fascism and the impact of non-Western mythic universes (i.e. Hinduism) upon the Mythic Imagination. They have implications for our understanding of gender relations, as well as the value of political activism and progress.

Milton’s Two-Handed Engine as a Conceptual Metaphor

Author(s): Robert Tindol / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

One of the longstanding mysteries of English poetry is the identification of the “two-handed engine” from John Milton’s 1638 poem “Lycidas,” with which Saint Peter threatens to “strike once, and strike no more” the clergy who have been remiss in their duties. A new way of looking at the image is to read the entire passage with George Lakoff and Mark Turner’s theory of conceptual metaphors in mind. The strength of this approach is to show that identification of the two-handed engine should be considered within the context of the entire poem. As many commentators have argued, Lycidas’s posthumous fate as the “genius of the shore” does not rest solely in the actions of Saint Peter, but instead involves a reconciliation that amalgamates elements of both Christianity and the classical world as well as nature. The conceptual metaphor thus provides a single combinatory image.

The Ageing Poet and Death Anxiety: Art as Existential Therapy in John Pepper Clark’s Of Sleep And Old Age

Author(s): Issa Omotosho Garuba / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Death anxiety refers to the human experience of death awareness and the accompanying inescapable disquiet it provokes. It is a phenomenon in human existence which has attracted substantial studies from existential and psychological perspectives. Noting that every individual experiences this anxiety at some point in life, largely as a result of the awareness of the inevitability of death, the manner and extent to which it is experienced vary from individuals. Meanwhile, existential reflections have described ‘death acceptance’ as the healthy route to lessening this angst. It therefore presupposes that acceptance of death (i.e. knowing that one is a being-towards-death and therefore embracing and acknowledging it) is existentially therapeutic. On this note, in studying J. P. Clark’s Of Sleep and Old Age, artistic creativity is being constructed in the study as an existential therapy against death anxiety for the poetic persona. It is premised, on the one hand, on the poet’s eloquent vision of the boredom of existence and the horror of death which characterize the atmosphere of the text. On the other, the poet’s age has been considered as a factor-agent which has bestowed on him the capacity to be conscious of an imminent death, thereby accepting it via keen reflections in his art. The study adopts two theoretical models in existential studies: (1) Monika Ardelt’s ‘Wisdom’, ‘Religiosity’ and ‘Purpose in Life’ and (2) John Sommers-Flanagan and Rita Sommers-Flanagan’s model of ‘Existential Therapy’ to assess the sway and/or centrality of death anxiety to understanding the text.

Metadiscourse, Writer Identity and Reader Construction among Novice Arabic-Speaking ESL Writers

Author(s): Christina A. DeCoursey / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This study used qualitative analyses to explore novice ESL writers’ concepts of writers, readers and texts. Metadiscourse studies tabulate frequencies of discourse markers in order to characterise the different ways novices and experts, native-speakers and non-native speakers, construct themselves as writers, engage with their readers, and guide readers through their text. But the picture created by these descriptive statistics lacks many content areas voiced by student writers, including their reliance on visual content, and their emotions. Student writers’ experiences in a world saturated by visual media and marketing views are also factors shaping how they construct their identities as writers, the identities of their projected readers, and how they understand what they are doing when writing text. This study used content and transitivity analyses to assess how Arabic native-speaker novices understand themselves as writers, how they project their readers’ identities, and how they try to engage them. Results show that visuals are indistinct from text, and verbs of seeing are used for reader understanding, in novice writers’ sense of their texts, and how they understand engaging the reader. These novices have a demographically granular assessment of audiences, but aim to please readers with expected content rather than challenge them with academic content, and they downplay important elements of teacher talk, syllabus and second-language (L2) composition instruction, particularly data, research, structure and language.

Difficulties in Identifying and Translating Linguistic Metaphors: A Survey and Experiment among Translation Students

Author(s): Charlene Meyers / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

A survey of twelve translation students in 2017 revealed that they tend to find translating figurative and metaphorical language difficult. In addition, an experiment also conducted in 2017 showed similar results. During the first phase of this experiment, two trained researchers coded metaphorical items in a text from the New Scientist following the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (MIPVU). Based on Cohen’s kappa, the researchers reached an initial coding agreement of 0.692 (strong agreement) and a final agreement score of 0.958 (almost perfect agreement) after discussion. The second phase of the experiment involved the coding of the metaphorical items previously identified by the researchers in the same text by 47 students who received a two-hour introduction to conceptual metaphor theory and a simplified method to code metaphorical items. However, the results of the students’ coding showed that they had failed to identify metaphors in 49.96% of cases. Nevertheless, a chi-squared test (p < 2.2-16) revealed that the students’ coding was not due to chance alone and therefore not arbitrary.

Езиково табу и детабуизация на медийната реч (Номинации за обозначаване на половата принадлежност и на семейните и сексуални отношения)

Author(s): Andreana Eftimova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2020

The article draws attention to the linguistic aspects of the problem of speaking in the field of gender and sexual relations. My observations show numerous examples of euphemistic names for marital status, sexual relations and intimate body parts. The presence of euphemisms in the tabloid media and their active use there refute the perception in linguistics (and in particular in stylistics) that euphemisms are a feature of a single type of socially restricted speech (i.e. that they are part of official / high registers). My observations clearly show that in the media environment in Bulgaria there is a clear tendency for the active use of euphemisms within the informal speech register. This tendency is defined as brand new, formed at the end of the 20th century and actively manifested at the beginning the 21st century in journalistic style. Dysphemistic nominations are mostly jargon words and contradictory evaluations include nominations belonging to the group of international terms – impotent, vagina, penis. The transformation of medical terminology into dysphemisms and taboo names is due to the fact that the denoted concepts are strongly prohibited. This is further transmitted to the very terms denoting them.

Mетодът „Глобални симулации” при преподаване на испански в сферата на ихтиологията

Author(s): Mihal Pavlov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2021

The purpose of this article is to present the contemporary application of global simulations in the teaching of specialized Spanish in the field of ichthyology. The methods of linguodidactic archeology and linguodidactological analysis are used. The perspectives and concrete results of the application of the “Global Simulations” method in teaching ichthyological terminology to Bulgarian students studying Spanish are studied. The different phases of the application of this method are presented and conclusions are made about its effectiveness in the conditions of the Bulgarian educational system.

Differences in Research Abstracts written in Arabic, French, and English

Author(s): Abdelmajid Bouziane,Fatima Ezzahra Metkal / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The proliferation of publications, mainly the digital ones, makes it necessary to write well-structured abstracts which help readers gauge the relevance of articles and thus attract a wider readership. This article investigates whether abstracts written in three languages, namely Arabic, French and English, follow the same patterns within or across languages. It compares 112 abstracts in the areas of (applied) linguistics. The English abstracts include 36 research article (RA) abstracts from an Arab journal mostly written by non-natives and 10 by native speakers from British universities. Those produced in French are 36 divided into two sets, 23 from North African journals and the remaining 13 from French journals. The Arabic abstracts consist of 30 abstracts, 15 from North African journals mainly from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and the other 15 from the Middle East with a focus on Qatari and Saudi texts. Results emanating from the frequency of moves show that the abstracts written in English by natives and non-natives and those produced in Arabic by Middle Eastern writers show conformity with the existing conventions of abstract writing in English. However, those from North Africa, be they Arabic or French, do not share any specific patterns which can be attributed to the language in which they are written. Further research is needed to check whether abstract writing is part of the academic writing curriculum in these two latter languages.

За слона в хладилника, за друдлите, за емоджитата и още нещо

Author(s): Elena Savova–Tsolova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2020

This paper offers a discussion on the specifics of various contemporary forms of riddles on examples including both linguistic and visual representations. The author traces the ways in which these riddles have spread and evolved from the 1980s until the present day. Attention is also given to the varying levels of formal similarity between modern riddles and traditional riddles and to the tendency of the new forms to get close to the genre of the modern joke.

Misvaluation: On the Bulgarian Verbs подценявам ‘Underestimate’ and надценявам ‘Overestimate’, their Semantic Structure and Translation into Russian

Author(s): Elena Yu. Ivanova,Alexandra Eremchenko / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2021

The article examines the semantic structure of the two Bulgarian verbs of misеvaluation, подценявам ‘underestimate’ and надценявам ‘overestimate’. Attention is drawn to the ambivalence of their position in the semantic typology of predicates, notably their features/traits stemming from the presence of an interpretive component. With reference to the Bulgarian National Corpus, the article outlines the most common options for filling the positions of the participants and the main contexts in which the verbs occur. Some issues in translation into Russian are shown, which exist despite the availability of full equivalents in the target language.

Тактики и стратегии при превод на термини в български език (на фона на руски и сръбски език)

Author(s): Radostina Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2021

The article is devoted to the various tactics and strategies for translating scientific terminology into Bulgarian against the background of Russian and Serbian. Different tactics for the concept of translation strategy are presented. An analysis of a number of similar difficulties for all three Slavic languages, which could be encountered in the translation of terminological units, has been made.

22nd Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature, and Folklore

Author(s): Helmut Wilhelm Schaller / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Названията за домашни животни в българските говори в Албания

Author(s): Luchia Antonova-Vasileva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2016

The paper studies the lexemes for domestic animals in Bulgarian dialects in Albania. Thedifferent dialectal lexemes as well as phonetic characteristics and features of word formationare described.

Нова политическа фразеология в българската публична реч

Author(s): Nadezhda Stalyanova,Elena Krejčová / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2024

This text explores the potential for updating the phraseological fund of the Bulgarian language in the Bulgarian public discourse and examines the influence of different types of updates on the specifics of the functioning of the given phraseological units in public speech. The most visible updates are those that clearly introduce new elements into the meaning of the original sustained phrase, but at the same time retain the obvious connection to the original language unit. Phraseological units, which are generally distinguished by semantic indivisibility, stability of their lexical composition, invariable structure, imagery, emotionality and expressiveness, are subject to dynamic changes occurring in Bulgarian language in recent years. We direct our interest to stable expressions, in the composition of which a new component appears as a manifestation of lexical dynamics, which replaces an already established one, or an additional element appears in the structure of a phraseology, i.e. our attention will be directed mainly to the so-called lexical updates of the phraseological fund. In the text, we trace the change (structural and semantic) in a number of phraseological units in the Bulgarian language, in which the entry of the lexical component kopeyka is observed. The excerpted material is from two corpora – CLASSLA-web.bg (Bulgarian web) and the corpus of parliamentary speech ParlaMint corpus: https://www.clarin.si/ske/#concordance. The examples extracted from the corpora are relevant for tracking the changes we are interested in in the phraseological fund of the modern Bulgarian language.

ЗА ПРОИЗХОДА НА ЕДНО АНТРОПОНИМИЧНО ЯВЛЕНИЕ В БЪЛГАРСКИТЕ ГОВОРИ В БЕСАРАБИЯ

Author(s): Ivan G. Iliev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 16/2019

This paper approaches the naming word order in Bulgarian dialects from different regions of the country and from Bessarabia. In these dialects, the family name is placed first, then the father’s name follows, and the given name stands at the end. The author supposes that this phenomenon has appeared in the Bulgarian dialects under Greek and Turkic influence.

АНТРОПОНИМИЧНИ ДАННИ ЗА НАСЕЛЕНИЕТО НА С. ДОГАН ХИСАР, ДЕДЕАГАЧКО ОТ 1906-1907 ГОДИНА

Author(s): Georgi Mitrinov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 16/2019

This paper concentrates on the analysis and publication of personal names in the large Bulgarian village Dogan Hisar (Greek: Aisymi) in district Dedeagach (Western Thrace) culled from documents for 1906-1907. The data are taken from lists of the Bulgarian Exarchate dating from the early twentieth century. Statistical data on the age, education and employment of local Bulgarians are presented. A complete list of the population of the village of Dogan Hissar is provided.

ПЕСЕН НА ПЕСНИТЕ В СРЕДНОВЕКОВНИ СЛАВЯНСКИ КИРИЛСКИ РЪКОПИСИ: ПРЕВОДНИ СЪОТВЕТСТВИЯ НА ГРЪЦКИЯ ТЕКСТ В СЕПТУАГИНТА

Author(s): Margaret Dimitrova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 16/2019

The author compares the lexical choices in three translations of Solomon’s Song made from Greek disseminated in medieval Slavonic Cyrillic manuscripts: an early translation of the late 9th or early 10th century and two later ones imbedded in catenae.

CLOSENESS. INTERPRETATIVE POSITIONINGS ON THE IMMINENT IMPOSITIONS IN REPORTING TOWARDS THE SACRED

Author(s): Alexandru-Ioan Cânda / Language(s): English Issue: 40/2025

Through constantly-surprising breakthrough into the numinous space, the religious man follows his path towards the full experience of the sacred, thus positioning himself in a state of anticipation of the encounter with the numinous – therefore in a closeness toward the numinous as the Other. This closeness toward an imminence will in turn impose an interpretive reporting on both the context and the Other – therefore a positioning through an enunciation with the intention of preparing an understanding of these states. However, preparing this enunciation related to the future encounter with the numinous does not only mean building a space, but also orientation towards a sense. By orientation towards sense, it becomes necessary to build a statement that follows a dynamic composition of signs and senses through which the positioning – of oneself and towards the Other – becomes an enunciation with meaning.

THE LATIN-ROMANCE DIRECTION AND THE MODERNIZATION OF THE ROMANIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Author(s): Alina-Georgiana Popescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 40/2025

The Latin-Romance direction and the modernization of the Romanian literary language in the 19th century are two essential aspects in the development of modern Romanian, reflecting both external influences and the need for modernization and standardization of the national language. The Latin-Romance direction was a cultural and linguistic movement that promoted a return to the Latin origins of the Romanian language, in the context of the development of national consciousness and Romanian cultural identity. This movement was supported by the intellectual and political elites of the time, who viewed Latinity as a foundation of Romanian national culture and as a link to Western Europe. The modernization of the language also involved the adoption of neological borrowings, with French being the most influential language in this process, mainly due to the cultural and political prestige of France during this period. Due to its cultural proximity and shared Latinity, Italian was another important source of borrowings, particularly in the fields of arts and literature.

THE MODERNISATION OF ROMANIAN GASTRONOMIC CULTURE IN THE 19TH CENTURY. CAȘCAVAL AND PARMEZAN: TWO GASTRONOMIC TERMS OF ITALIAN ORIGIN

Author(s): Dana Claudia Ciultă / Language(s): Italian Issue: 40/2025

In the evolution of Romanian civilization, the topic of gastronomy is not of particular interest among intellectuals, but, as Eugen Simion noted, writers – such as Costache Negruzzi and Mihail Kogălniceanu – were among the ones to ”display some sensitivity to what is called the gourmet discourse.” In this context, it is worth mentioning that Costache Negruzzi’s library included ”The Physiology of Taste”, written by Brillat – Savarin, whom Honoré de Balzac considered one of the great prose writers. Although gastronomy was not a fundamental dimension of his work, Kogălniceanu’s sensitivity to gastronomy is evident in many of his writings – elements of culinary art were incorporated both into his own lifestyle and the lives of his characters – and throughout his correspondence. In doing so, Kogălniceanu not only shaped the historical physiognomy of his era but also highlighted the refinement and good taste of certain social classes in mid-19th century Moldova.