Existential Abuse of Readers in Samuel Beckett’s Malone Dies

Malone Dies marks the point where Samuel Beckett foremost turns to “metaphysical destruction” of “untrue self,” and Derrida’s critique of the notion of “self-presence” of the subject. In this article, I examine Beckett’s literary absurdities to his readers’ concerns of “abuse” through them. For this investigation Malone Dies posits a stream of conflicting “linguistic nihilism” to the concerns of deconstructing “untrue self,” arguably, which will reflect how abuse of Beckettian readers is stimulated. In this context, abuse is specific forms of emotional tensions aroused by the readers encounter with the Beckettian intersubjectivity. In particular, the existential model of abuse will be analysed as a part of beyond “self-deconstruction” autonomy

Worthless yet Priceless : The Truths and Economics of Poetry

The essay tries to capture the epistemological status of poetry from the perspective of questions posed by the economy of literature. Selected theories of poetry – those of Jochen Hörisch, Viktor B. Shklovsky, Jean Baudrillard and Franco Berardi – can be regarded as a kind of “economics of poetry” due to their proposed treatment of the properties of the poetic medium from an economic perspective. In each of these theories, poetry is defined as uneconomical and useless, which, paradoxically, becomes its fundamental condition for existence as a place for breaking the linguistic circulation of signs, a point of resistance against conventionalized communication and automatization of perception, and thus a medium offering unique knowledge about reality

The Cultural Life of Money (Volume 6)

The book discusses how culture simultaneously shapes and is shaped by the economy. Over the past few years, as the world has staggered from one financial crisis to another, the neat separation of economics and culture has been consistently challenged. To understand the current state of affairs, it has become increasingly necessary to understand the conjuncture that rules the production of value in economic systems, how money shapes social relations and affects discursive practices. By discussing the vocabulary, by understanding the rhetoric and interpreting the narratives, be it of crisis, austerity, growth, welfare, neo-liberalism or socialism, new modes of imaging the economic system may be made possible. The book is structured in four chapters dealing with theory and conjuncture (“Philosophies of Money”), with the visual arts and investment (“The Arts and Finance”), with literary representation and narrativity (“Literature and Money Matters”) and with the cognitive impact of fiduciary representation (“Cognitive Moneyscapes”). This collection analyses the process whereby a material icon invested with the symbolical power to rule social exchange becomes an explanatory narrative determining the way societies produce meaning

Finding the formula: formulaic language use in Hong Kong primary school English textbooks

This thesis examines the use of multi-word lexical phrases, sometimes referred to as formulaic language, in textbooks used in Hong Kong primary schools. To identify whether such phrases are as equally represented in Hong Kong English textbooks as they are in a textbook used by native English speakers in the United Kingdom, formulaic language is identified, counted and compared between texts. Identification is based on a set of pre-determined criteria, and frequency of the formulaic sequences is established using corpus linguistic methodology. An identification criteria value is given to all identified formulaic sequences based on how many criteria are used to identify them as formulaic. The suitability and usefulness of the formulaic sequences are discussed in relation to teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Results suggest that Hong Kong English textbooks contain less formulaic sequences than the textbook used in the United Kingdom and the identification criteria values are lower. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of formulaic sequences found in the Hong Kong English textbooks reveal a disparity in the structure and use of some sequences compared to sequences found in corpora of naturally produced English, raising the question of what constitutes native-like English

Formulaic language

The notion of formulaicity has received increasing attention in disciplines and areas as diverse as linguistics, literary studies, art theory and art history. In recent years, linguistic studies of formulaicity have been flourishing and the very notion of formulaicity has been approached from various methodological and theoretical perspectives and with various purposes in mind. The linguistic approach to formulaicity is still in a state of rapid development and the objective of the current volume is to present the current explorations in the field. Papers collected in the volume make numerous suggestions for further development of the field and they are arranged into three complementary parts. The first part, with three chapters, presents new theoretical and methodological insights as well as their practical application in the development of custom-designed software tools for identification and exploration of formulaic language in texts. Two papers in the second part explore formulaic language in the context of language learning. Finally, the third part, with three chapters, showcases descriptive research on formulaic language conducted primarily from the perspectives of corpus linguistics and translation studies. The volume will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of formulaic language either from a theoretical or a practical perspective

Theories and methods

The notion of formulaicity has received increasing attention in disciplines and areas as diverse as linguistics, literary studies, art theory and art history. In recent years, linguistic studies of formulaicity have been flourishing and the very notion of formulaicity has been approached from various methodological and theoretical perspectives and with various purposes in mind. The linguistic approach to formulaicity is still in a state of rapid development and the objective of the current volume is to present the current explorations in the field. Papers collected in the volume make numerous suggestions for further development of the field and they are arranged into three complementary parts. The first part, with three chapters, presents new theoretical and methodological insights as well as their practical application in the development of custom-designed software tools for identification and exploration of formulaic language in texts. Two papers in the second part explore formulaic language in the context of language learning. Finally, the third part, with three chapters, showcases descriptive research on formulaic language conducted primarily from the perspectives of corpus linguistics and translation studies. The volume will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of formulaic language either from a theoretical or a practical perspective

Is multicultural effectiveness related to phrasal knowledge in English as a second language?

The present study investigates the role of personality in language learning, with a special focus on the association between multicultural effectiveness and phrasal knowledge in L1 Dutch L2 English learners in Belgium (n=97). Results from the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) (five personality dimensions) were associated with results from a rational cloze test, measuring productive phrasal knowledge. In addition, scores from grammar proficiency tests were also included, since language proficiency is known to be a strong predictor for phrasal knowledge. A regression analysis revealed significant associations between phrasal knowledge and the personality dimensions Flexibility and Openmindedness, when grammar proficiency was controlled for. This study adds to the growing body of evidence of associations between phrasal knowledge and personality, encouraging researchers to pursue this avenue with learners from different L1/L2 pairings, in different contexts of L2 acquisition

Translation practices at the European Central Bank with reference to metaphors

The European Union institutions represent a complex setting and a specific case of institutional translation. The European Central Bank (ECB) is a particular context as the documents translated belong to the field of economics and, thus, contain many specialised terms and neologisms that pose challenges to translators. This study aims to investigate the translation practices at the ECB, and to analyse their effects on the translated texts. In order to illustrate the way texts are translated at the ECB, the thesis will focus on metaphorical expressions and the conceptual metaphors by which they are sanctioned. Metaphor is often associated with literature and less with specialised texts. However, according to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory, our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature and metaphors are pervasive elements of thought and speech. The corpus compiled comprises economic documents translated at the ECB, mainly from English into Romanian. Using corpus analysis, the most salient metaphorical expressions were identified in the source and target texts and explained with reference to the main conceptual metaphors. Translation strategies are discussed on the basis of a comparison of the source and target texts. The text-based analysis is complemented by questionnaires distributed to translators, which give insights into the institution’s translation practices. As translation is an institutional process, translators have to follow certain guidelines and practices; these are discussed with reference to translators’ agency. A gap was identified in the field of institutional translation. The translation process in the EU institutions has been insufficiently explored, especially regarding the new languages of the European Union. By combining the analysis of the institutional practices, the texts produced in the institution and the translators’ work (by the questionnaires distributed to translators), this thesis intends to bring a contribution to institutional translation and metaphor translation, particularly regarding a new EU language, Romanian