Language and Literature current issue

`The bodie and the letters both': `blending' the rules of early modern religion

Canning, P. — 2008-08-21

The role of conceptual integration or blending has featured significantly in analyses of contemporary texts. To date, no-one to my knowledge has applied this theory in an early modern context. In the sixteenth century, a historical juncture rich in innovative forms of textual expression, the Reformation generated cognitive and ideological discordances between conceptions of the spiritual and the material, or more specifically, between word and image. These tensions were made manifest in physical acts of iconoclasm by Reformers in response to the `idolatry' of early modern Catholicism. Many poetic texts of the period attempted to validate and perpetuate the Reformed position, denouncing carnal representations of divinity, focusing instead on the spiritual incarnation of Christ as the `Word'. Taking one such text, Herbert's poem `JESU', as the focus of my analysis, I trace the path of a blend through to its emergent structure. I will argue that while the blend coheres conceptually in that it appears to make `plausible' the Reformed worldview, the reality is that it generates an ideological implausibility. As such, this article aims to demonstrate the greater efficacy and scope of blending than would otherwise be available through strictly metaphorical analyses. I will focus specifically on the correspondence between conceptual and formal integration of expression and meaning. My analysis leads to insights that more impressionistic, literary analyses of the period have not addressed, and that stylistic analyses have only briefly outlined, in that I will consider the material effects of this cognitive linguistic phenomenon in the significantly literary theological context of early modern England.

Legal discourse and linguistic incongruities in Bardell vs. Pickwick: an analysis of address and reference strategies in The Pickwick Papers trial scene

Cecconi, E. — 2008-08-21

In this article I intend to show how Pickwick's trial in Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers is characterized by a strategic use of address and reference forms that produce effects of discoursal incongruities during the opening and the evidence phase of the proceeding. The analysis reveals Dickens's ability to exploit socio-pragmatic features of the speaker—addressee and speaker—referent—addressee relationships in order to foreground the lawyers' manipulative discourse behaviour towards their addressees and referents. In so doing, the writer undermines the assumption according to which the courtroom is a polite setting characterized by the exchange of mutual respect and deference between participants.

The manipulation of address strategies is mainly accomplished by violating the sociolinguistic rules expected in the legal setting or by producing a disjunction between the conventional meaning of honorifics and the speaker's pragmatic intention. The result is that many of the honorifics in the text assume a sarcastic function that contrasts with the politic behaviour prescribed by the courtroom. The manipulation of reference strategies, on the other hand, is accomplished by means of a skilful selection of words for the description of persons and events in a way congenial to the story as claimed and supported by the speaker, no matter how far from the truth this may be. Text evidence shows how the lawyer's referent-term selection denigrates the defendant and creates a mismatch between the reader's expectation of formal politeness in the courtroom and the interrogator's strategic use of a controlled but finally effective rudeness.

Code switching in Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love

Albakry, M., Hancock, P. H. — 2008-08-21

This article examines the phenomenon of code switching in The Map of Love (1999) by the Egyptian—British writer Ahdaf Soueif. Though she chooses English as a medium for her creative expression, Soueif deploys Arabic in her narrative to represent different aspects of the linguistic and cultural norms of Egyptian society. The article's methodology is informed by Kachru's framework on contact literature and his categorization of the occurrence of literary code switching or bilingual creativity into different strategies that encompass cultural and linguistic processes. The results indicate the predominance in The Map of Love of the discourse strategies of employing lexical borrowing, culture-bound references and translational transfer. Finally, the article analyzes the functional motivation of code switching in the postcolonial context of the novel and how the use of certain creative strategies might enhance or diminish the narrative's effectiveness and readability.

Portrayals of Spanish in 19th-century American prose: Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don

Moyna, M. I. — 2008-08-21

This article analyzes the portrayals of Spanish in The Squatter and the Don (1885), a novel written in English by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, a Baja Californian who immigrated to Alta California at the time of its annexation to the USA in 1848 and became the first Hispanic American woman writer. Her novel had an ideological purpose, namely, to denounce the land dispossession of the Californios — i.e. Hispanic settlers in California during the Spanish-Mexican period — and to propose an alliance between the Anglo and Hispanic elites. It also had a financial purpose, since writing was for Ruiz de Burton one of many ways in which she attempted to achieve financial prosperity. The representation of language was thus dictated not just by linguistic or aesthetic considerations, but also by the author's interpretation of the conditions prevalent in late 19th-century California, where Spanish had become subordinate to English. Ruiz de Burton's positive attitude towards bilingualism is revealed in her portrayal of protagonists as proficient in both languages. Yet, her awareness of the biases and limitations of her intended Anglo readership is also evident in the fact that Spanish use in the novel is sporadic and restricted. Comparison of her literary and non-literary code mixing highlights some consistent differences between both text types providing additional evidence of Ruiz de Burton's purposeful manipulation of linguistic codes in her artistic production.

The distribution of humour in literary texts is not random: a statistical analysis

Corduas, M., Attardo, S., Eggleston, A. — 2008-08-21

The article presents statistical evidence for the claim that the distribution of humor in Oscar Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Douglas Adams's The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not random and differs significantly between both texts. Using the methodology of the General Theory of Verbal Humor, all the instances of humour in both texts were identified and recorded. The distance between each instance was then calculated and subjected to analysis. The statistical model used to prove the hypotheses is explained in some detail and some hypotheses to explain the findings are presented. The significance of the finding that the distribution of humour in long texts is not random is found to lie in having introduced a new fact in need of explanation through literary theories.

Book Review: Bertrand Russell, Language and Linguistic Theory by Keith Green, 2007. London: Continuum, pp. ix + 174. ISBN 0 8264 9736 5 (hbk)

Chapman, S. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: The Language of Work by Almut Koester, 2004. London: Routledge, pp. xii+124. ISBN 0 415 30729 5 (hbk); 0 415 30730 9 (pbk)

McIntyre, D. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel by Lisa Zunshine, 2004. Athens: Ohio State University Press, pp. ix + 198. ISBN 0814210287 (hbk); 081425151X (pbk)

Whiteley, S. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: From Fantasy to Faith: Morality, Religion and Twentieth-Century Literature by D. Z. Phillips, 2006. Canterbury: Student Christian Movement (SCM) Press, pp. 240. ISBN 0 334 04028 0 (pbk)

Kohn, L. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: Twentieth-Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk: Speaking Between the Lines by Susan Mandala, 2007. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. xiv + 138. ISBN: 0754651055 (hbk)

Mullender, J. — 2008-08-21