Novel Insights (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Do Love Metaphors Sink or Swim?: Exploring the Relationship Between Love, Sacrifice, and the Spiritual in the Mermaid Tale View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jacqueline Shea
While cultural variation is particularly relevant in the study of conceptual emotion metaphors, Kövecses (2004) notes that there are thought to be some near-universal metaphors that function at an “extremely general level” (p. 264). These near-universal metaphors, in turn, serve as a skeleton that can be styled in a limitless number of ways based on individual and cultural-specific values. This phenomenon is parallel to a pattern observed in the fairy tale literary genre in which stories contain a deep, skeletal structure that is built upon and modified based on the teller’s individual and cultural experiences. The following paper, therefore, aims to uncover the conceptual emotion metaphors that span across fairy tale variants and dissect how they are constructed differently based on the author’s individual and cultural influences. Specifically, this paper analyzes conceptual love metaphors within and across three mermaid tales: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine (1811), Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (1837), and Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989). The two primary conceptual love metaphors identified are “LOVE IS SACRIFICE” and “LOVE IS (A VEHICLE TOWARD) TRANSCENDENCE”, both of which take on distinct iterations and prevalence in each mermaid tale.
Optima Mater: The Spanish Cultural Allegiance to an Imaginary National Motherhood View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Frederic Conrod
While Spain is referred to as the "Madre Patria" by most of his ex-colonies in Central and South America, it is also often perceived as a National Mother by its own citizens. This cultural particularity will be discussed in this paper as "Optima Mater," an allegiance to an Imaginary Motherhood that often justifies complexes of superiority and narcissistic tendencies within and without the Spanish culture. In order to illustrate this identified phenomenon of rising nationalism, I focus on recent Spanish shows from Netflix as well as passages from literature produced between 2000 and 2021.
Hybrid Community Literacy Traditions: The Indian Experience in South Africa View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leila Kajee
Children today engage simultaneously with hybrid traditions of several communities, for example children learn to speak, read, and write different languages and scripts such as Urdu and English simultaneously (Rogoff and Correa-Chavez in Gregory et al, 2004: i). In home and community settings children may demonstrate complex language and literacy patterns and behaviors as they weave their way through multifaceted literacy activities, however, they may not show schooled literacy in the dominant language of the school per se, (usually English). These multiple literacies are often not recognized by schools that assume that parents who are literate in the dominant language are children’s primary support in language and literacy, and that the levels of congruence between the home and school in such instances are narrow. The focus of this paper is to present a more nuanced perspective on Indian immigrant home literacy practices and their cultural models of literacy. I also examine the possibilities for literacy development. Drawing on interview and observation data from immigrant families of Indian background, this paper concludes that home literacy intersects with schooled literacy, that the families draw on cultural models of reading, and that religious literacy is important to both families.
Featured Poetry, Memory, and the Archive in M. NourbeSe Philip's Zong! View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Beatriz Marques Gonçalves
M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, published in 2008, is a book-length poem about the massacre of 150 enslaved Africans aboard the slave ship Zong. Based on the words of the report of the 1783 Gregson v. Gilbert case, the only surviving historical record of what happened aboard the ship, and which details its legal consequences, Zong! attempts to uncover the story and the voices of the victims of the massacre lost in the legal document. The poem thus presents a strong connection to the historical archive, to memory and to the silences of the history of slavery. Through an analysis of selected poems and texts, this paper aims to explore how Philip’s Zong! questions the authority of the historical archive to rescue the voices silenced by history, creating space for these to talk about the past in a present marred by the traumatic legacy of slavery. This analysis is supported by a theoretical framework provided by concepts such as cultural memory (Araújo, 2020), postmemory (Hirsch, 2012) and silence (Orlandi, 2007) to provide a tentative reinterpretation of Zong! as a poem that aims to remember and honour the victims of the massacre and to heal the trauma of the Middle Passage. By anchoring herself in the historical document, Philip composes a provocative poem that confronts history and its extant archives to listen to the voices of those who were silenced and can only speak through poetic imagination.
Pedagogical Considerations and Evidence-based Practice for Improved Oral Proficiency in Intermediate-level French View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marie-Anne Visoi
The ability to speak a foreign language fluently is essential for university students who plan to use their oral communication skills in a bilingual career. The growing presence of technology-supported modules and online materials make it necessary to take a closer look at how the effective integration of these innovative tools can improve oral competency in French face-to-face courses and flipped classrooms. This study brings particular focus to pedagogical considerations and evidence-based practice shown to improve students’ oral proficiency. The following classroom-tested strategies are presented and discussed: the use of Module tools allowing for combining sequences of course content with multiple-choice questions that help keep students engaged with course content and provide an opportunity to process important concepts in small chunks before their face-to-face course sessions. In addition, the implementation of a Vocabulary Quiz and Assignment tool designed for practicing presentational, interpersonal, and individual oral tasks as well as an online Discussion forum will serve to create and strengthen a student community and allow for a discussion of interests, future career plans and course-related experience beyond the classroom. Conclusions highlight the potential benefits of using online tools when planning future courses with a focus on oral communication.
“Disinterested” and Critical: A Comparative Study of the Social Implications of Miu Fenglin and Matthew Arnold’s Literary Thinking View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shenhao Bai
According to previous scholarship, China’s Xueheng literary group in the early 20th century is an antagonist to the then prevalent New Culture Movement as the former is claimed to insist on a conservation of traditional thoughts. Matthew Arnold’s thinking is a major source of one representative figure of the Xueheng group, Miu Fenglin. A comparative analysis of the literary thinking of Matthew Arnold and Miu Fenglin suggests that both thinkers have actually shed light on how literature should be relevant to its time and transcend it with a pursuit of truth. With references to the thinkers’ respective social backgrounds, the paper contends that their literary thoughts offer critical perspectives into the societies. By bringing in the cases of Miu Fenglin and Matthew Arnold, the study also intends to further the discussion of the role of literature in the society.
