Comedy and humour:

Author(s): Mehrdad Bidgoli / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

In this essay, I aim to study comedy and humour from an ethical perspective. My main proposal is that comedy and humour can be understood alternatively in the light of ethics, and in one sense, they actually begin, more effectively, with an ethical sensibility. Effective comedy and humour initiate through an ethical sensibility called “hospitality”; ideally, they are preceded by this ethical openness. I will argue that it is this pre-original ethical hospitality and openness that can give rise to more effective moments of comedy, humour, carnival, festivity and also laughter, opening the Self to the Other in order to be able to enter into a disinterested humorous (dialogic) experience. Hospitality is of prime importance here because it turns out to be part and parcel of comedy as it also underlies the ethics of alterity. I therefore suggest that the thoughts of both Emmanuel Levinas and Mikhail Bakhtin can give rise to a fruitful study of ethics, comedy and humour. I will “reduce” socio-political complexities of our daily life-world to comic moments through Bakhtin, and then expose the reader to a Levinasian simplicity and ethical openness that actually takes place before effective comedy and humour can begin. In this essay, I mainly have literary/critical aims, and to fulfil that aim, I will briefly discuss two Shakespearean works and contextualize my thesis. The matter of studying comedy, humour and ethics in a broader cultural, social and/or philosophical context is open for other thinkers.

Humour and ex-Yugoslav nations:

Author(s): Željko Pavić,Nataša Krivokapić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

This study explores the issue of humour stereotyping between ex-Yugoslav nations, its veridicality and possible explanations. Three research questions were put forward related to humour stereotyping and the differences in humour production, use and appreciation between the countries, with Hofstede’s model of culture as a possible explanatory framework. The survey data were collected on a sample of university students from four ex-Yugoslav countries (N = 611). The results revealed strong negative humour stereotyping toward Croats and Slovenians and positive stereotyping toward Bosnians. However, only about 0–4 per cent of the variance in humour production, use and appreciation, depending on the sub-scales of the Multidimensional Sense of Humour Scale, could be attributed to group (country) membership, thus indicating low correspondence between the stereotypes and reality. The study results concerning the stereotypes were interpreted by evoking the discourse of Balkanism, as well as humour-style differences in popular culture between the countries.

Book review

Author(s): Vaso Psilaki,Matoula Papadimitriou / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Book review

Author(s): Şenay Yavuz Görkem / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

Book review

Author(s): Christian F. Hempelmann / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Satire, humour, and parody in 21st century Nigerian women’s poetry

Author(s): Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

21st century Nigerian women poets have continued to utilise the aesthetics of literary devices as linguistic and literary strategies to project feminist privations and values in their creative oeuvres. There has been marginal interest towards 21st century Nigerian women’s poetry and their deployment of artistic devices such as satire, humour, and parody. Unequivocally, such linguistic and literary devices in imaginative works are deployed as centripetal force to criticise, amidst laughter, the ills of female devaluation in the society. The major thrust of the study, therefore, is to examine how satire, humour and parody are deployed in selected Nigerian women’s poetry to reproach and etch the collective ethos of women’s experience in contemporary Nigerian society. The study utilises qualitative analytical approach in the close reading and textual analysis of the selected texts focusing mainly on the aesthetics of humour, satire, and parody in challenging male chauvinism in contemporary Nigerian women’s poetry. Three long poems: “Nuptial Counsel”, “Sadiku’s Song”, and “The Sweet, Sweet Mistress’ Tale” by Mabel Evweirhoma and Maria Ajima respectively were purposively selected. The choice of the selected poems hinges on the artistic vigour, especially the evoking of laughter, mockery and condemnation of hegemonic structures through the use of satire, humour, and parody. The paper employs Molara Ogundipe’s Stiwanism, an aspect of Feminist theory in the analysis of the selected poems. The poets have shown the interventions of humour, satire, and parody as linguistic devices in condemning and highlighting peculiarities of women peonage in Nigeria.

Book review

Author(s): Alyona Ivanova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

Typowy Janusz and Bad Luck Brian:

Author(s): Joanna Szerszunowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The Poles’ observations regarding the reality of the last decades motivated the creation of certain meme characters deeply set in the Polish culture and reflecting the new social phenomena which have come into existence recently. The examples of such persons include the characters named Janusz, Grażyna, Seba and Karyna. Previously, the names had no connotative potential and they were not used as components of idiomatic expressions. In the modern Polish, the names function as labels evoking many features (personality, given intellectual potential, appearance, stereotypical behaviour etc.). For instance, Janusz is a man in his fifties, with a beer belly and reddish face, unattractive, with very limited knowledge in a field in which he himself considers to be an expert, complaining and stressing that life was much better in communist times, wearing unfashionable clothes, putting on sandals and white socks. It is worth adding that because of the connotations, the name is used in the expression typowy Janusz/janusz and in the construction Janusze/janusze + a discipline/area of activity, e.g. janusze biznesu. Both in informal communication and in the journalese discourse, their belonging to labels is of importance – the names evoke complex pictures. As culture-bound items, such units are interesting from a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. They will be analyzed and compared with the character of the English-language Bad Luck Brian memes.

Gertrude Bonnin on Sexual Morality

Author(s): Tadeusz Lewandowski / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

This paper examines attitudes to sexual morality held by the Yankton Dakota author and activist Gertrude Bonnin (1876–1938), better known by her penname Zitkála-Šá (Red Bird in Lakota). Bonnin’s concerns encompass several themes: the victimization of Indian women, disintegration of Native courtship rituals, sexual threats posed by peyote use, and the predatory nature of Euro-American men. This critique as a whole — in which a ‘white invasion,’ in her words, leads to a corruption of Native sexuality — sometimes produces inconsistencies, particularly regarding Bonnin’s statements on the alleged sexual perils of peyote. Her investigations into the Oklahoma guardianship scandals of the 1920s, however, strongly buttress recent research by Sarah Deer (2015), whose study, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, highlights the tragic aspects of Native-white sexual relations under United States settler-colonialism.

Collocational Knowledge Uptake by University Students under Online Learning

Author(s): Svetlana Danilina / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The article discusses an experiment that looked into the acquisition of collocational knowledge in three university groups studying online, each subjected to different learning conditions: incidental acquisition, intentional acquisition, and intentional acquisition with an extra productive output (essay), the latter having been assessed for the amount and accuracy of target lexis usage in their texts. The aim of the study was to see how well upper-intermediate university students could identify collocations in an input text, and how the text-based output affected the collocational uptake outcomes. The study showed that the productive output group outperformed the other intentional learning group, while incidental acquisition group failed to complete a productive knowledge posttest. Although the study revealed only slightly higher gains in the output group, their results appeared more consistent than those demonstrated by the other intentional uptake group, whose retention rate decreased by the time of delayed posttest.

La didactique du FLE à la croisée des sciences cognitives et discursives

Author(s): Elena G. Tareva,Elena Porshneva,Indira Abdulmianova / Language(s): French Issue: 3/2021

The interdisciplinary aspect of Language teaching allows it to always remain in the active phase of its development. This communication aims to analyze the variants of coexistence of the acquired knowledge of several sciences in the organization of the teaching of modern languages. The authors study the epistemological origins of the current processes guiding the functioning of the teaching of French as a foreign language, analyze key concepts, which emergence is due to the combination of ideas from different fields, and share experiences of teaching French based on the interaction of avant-garde approaches. The recourse to the theory of language activity, cognitive and discursive sciences, emerged in this new anthropocentric paradigm where the learner is placed at the center of the educational process, reshapes the methodological pillars of the didactics of FFL, namely its object, its objectives. , its content and methods. At the same time, these areas offer tools for building a language teaching system best suited to current axiological values.

Совершенствование иностранного (русского) языка в школе посредством пословиц и поговорок

Author(s): Marzanna Karolczuk / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3/2021

The results of research on proverbs and sayings in such areas as linguistics, psychology, didactics and teaching methodology show that paremia has cognitive, educational and pedagogical functions in almost all areas of science and life. Understanding proverbs and sayings contributes to a better understanding of other cultures in the context of their interaction. Introduction proverbs and sayings to educational process develops students’ intercultural skills and a positive attitude to other people, as well as constitutes creative atmosphere in the classroom. The use of paremia in the learning process also enables the development of language knowledge and abilities, as well as speaking skills. The purpose of the article is to discuss the use of paremia in language education and propose kinds and types of exercises that can be used in the process of teaching a foreign language.

Editorial Humour research:

Author(s): Diana Elena Popa,Władysław Chłopicki,Dorota Brzozowska / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2013

Students’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Online Distance Language Teaching in Higher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author(s): Elena Somova,Denitza Charkova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

The present study examined the relation between students’ preferred mode of learning (online, face-to-face, and hybrid) and their opinions about the effectiveness of an online distance learning English language course under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The students favoring online distance learning constituted a significantly smaller proportion of the group versus those in favor of face-to-face instruction (p = 0.004). A significant relation was established between the students’ preferred mode of education and their opinions about the course effectiveness (p < 0.001). The students whose preferred form of education was compatible with online distance learning rated the course effectiveness at 93%, those favoring face-to-face education at 58%, and the supporters of hybrid education at 81%. Students’ comments and suggestions for the teaching practice in the post epidemic time are discussed.

Introduction of Online Language Corpora into Future Translators’ and Interpreters’ Teaching

Author(s): Elena Zelenina / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

This paper outlines some benefits from online language corpora use in translators’ and interpreters’ teaching, especially its advantages for developing target language competences, translation competences and scientific research competences of future translators and interpreters. The author shares the results of her five year theoretical and empirical studies in training students to apply online language corpora in doing their language research projects, as well as offers rationalizing contributions to existing pedagogical language corpora applications in university teaching practice. The main resultant outcome of the author’s scientific pedagogical studies has become the Research-Oriented Methodology of Gradual Online Language Corpora Introduction.

Универсальные смыслы в русских романах ХХІ века

Author(s): Alexey Manchev,Dmitriy Pol / Language(s): Russian Issue: 4/2021

Universals as a continuation of the traditions of Russian novels of the 19th – 20th centuries. Universal meanings are clearly expressed in Russian novels of the 21st century and are conditioned by modern problems of society. Universal meanings are viewed through the prism of universal images and motives. The image of the wanderer as a universal image in the novels “Laurus”, “Aviator”, “Nenastye”, “Winter Road”, “Gods of the Steppe”.

THE SITUATION OF THE FRANCOPHONIE AND THE FRANCOPHONE CULTURE IN KOSOVO

Author(s): LUMA Krenare / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2020

The educational and sociolinguistic context in post-war Kosovo and the cooperation in building a current educational system have gone through very specific histories. The current situation of French and Francophonie is the result of great changes throughout history. All this sociolinguistic situation is closely related to the sociopolitical context.Any linguistic situation is necessarily linked to the socio-political context, but in Kosovo more than elsewhere. It must be remembered that, for ten years, the Serbian judiciary had a long arm and that one in two Albanian-speaking adults had already been arrested in one way or another by the police. The massacres resulting from the violence had become part of everyday life. In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Serbian revenge experienced unprecedented developments while ethnic cleansing in Albania accelerated rapidly during 1998-1999. At present, the official languages of Kosovo are Albanian and Serbian. At the municipal level, minority languages such as Turkish, Bosnian and Romani are languages officially used under specific conditions.French is only the language of communication between French-speaking communities and French-speaking Kosovars working in contact with embassies and cultural services in French-speaking countries. In this context French therefore has the status of a foreign language in its own right. It is also taught as a second foreign language in schools in the same way as German.

ИНТЕРКУЛТУРАЛНА КОМУНИКАЦИЈА НА РАДНОМ МЕСТУ...: РОДНО ОЗНАЧЕНЕ ЛЕКСЕМЕ ЗА НАЗИВЕ ЗАНИМАЊА, ЗВАЊА И ТИТУЛА У СРПСКОМ И ЕНГЛЕСКОМ ЈЕЗИКУ

Author(s): Katarina Subanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 73/2020

This theoretical paper deals with gender-lexicalized names for occupations, functions and titles in the Serbian and English languages. The main task is to provide a summary of Serbian and English literature in terms of a given topic so as to compare general attitudes and conclusions in the two languages. The language material consulted for the writing of this paper included scientific studies, academic debates and newspaper articles, since this topic represents a social phenomenon which can be pointed at by the interaction between scientist (academic studies, debates) and the public (newspaper articles). As for the methodological procedure, it involved several steps. Firstly, we created tabular annotated bibliographies which contained the following data: the title of the paper/article, the subject matter of the paper/ article, the aim(s), methodology, the information on the participants in the study, or the information on the corpus, the main results, limitations and conclusions. Next, we selected the relevant parts for the problems we dealt with and included them in the appropriate parts of our paper. Eventually, based on the analyzed studies and newspaper articles, we made a conclusion regarding the given topic. The main results indicate that active efforts are made in both languages in order to eliminate sexist language and gender inequality. However, since English and Serbian are different in terms of the typological classification, the problem is approached differently in the two languages. To conclude, these results refer to the said corpus, thus further research is needed to consider the observed tendencies a rule.

АКАДЕМСКИ ВОКАБУЛАР: ДА ЛИ СУ СТУДЕНТИ (У)ОПШТЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИ? О ПОТРЕБИ ЗА УКЉУЧИВАЊЕМ АКАДЕМСКОГ ВОКАБУЛАРА У КУРИКУЛУМЕ ЗА СРПСКИ ЈЕЗИК У СРЕДЊОЈ ШКОЛИ И НА УНИВЕРЗИТЕТУ

Author(s): Jovana Z. Milovanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 73/2020

This article discusses reception and production of academic vocabulary among native speakers of Serbian language. Academic vocabulary is one of the key elements of academic language competence, and a modest lexicon and underdevel- oped academic language competence can cause problems in both comprehension and production. In this research, we used a vocabulary test consisting of 12 items taken from general culture entrance exams used at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. The participants are BA students of French language at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, years 1-4. The participants were instructed to provide a synonym or a definition for each item, as well as a sentence containing the given word. The aim of this research is to highlight issues in comprehension of academic vocabulary and establish the influence of factors such as word etymology or university level on the success of the participants. We analysed the results and classified them in three categories: correct, incorrect and unanswered. The majority of participants successfully identified just half of the given words (in order of success: poliglota 95,76%, bestseler 92,37%, pacifista 66,10%, suveren 58,47%, prototip 57,63%, elokventan 56,78%). The success level for the other half of the items from the test was below 50% (in order of success: erudita 49,15%, hipokrizija 39,83%, nepotizam 22,03%, skrupulozan 18,64%, šprahfeler 10,17%, eksproprijacija 8,47%). The influ- ence of etymology was analysed through a comparison of the results for six items of French/Latin origin with the results for the other six items which did not originate from Romance languages. This analysis shows that the participants had similar re- sults in both groups of items, with three words from each group having above 50% of correct answers (suveren, elokventan, pacifista; poliglota, bestseler, prototip). Lastly, we examined success levels from year 1, year 2, year 3 and year 4 students and de- termined that the median of correct answers for each year does vary, but that there is no strong linear progression (median year 1=5, year 2=6, year 3=7, year 4=6). The results indicate a lack of knowledge of academic vocabulary and difficulties in identifying and manipulating this type of lexis. We believe it is necessary to integrate academic language skills, including academic vocabulary, in high school curriculum and introduce Serbian language as a subject at university level.

Падежни остатъци при българските фразеологизми

Author(s): Nemanja Jovanović / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2021

This article analyzes the case remnants in Bulgarian phrasemes. As a source we used Nov frazeologichen rechnik na balgarskiya ezik (1993) by Keti Ankova-Nicheva. Where possible, a comparison has been made with phrasemes in Russian, Serbian, Old Bulgarian and Church Slavonic, which are taken from phraseological dictionaries of the respective languages. The origin of some case forms has been studied. The methods of definitional, component and comparative analysis with Slavic synthetic languages are used. The analysis of the material shows that under the influence of the Church Slavonic language, most of the phraseologies that have retained case forms belong to the sphere of religion.