Degani / Delanoy Power in Language, Culture, Literature and Education

Perspectives of English Studies
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-8233-0481-4
Verlag: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 28, 398 Seiten

Reihe: AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik

In one of the contributions to this edited volume an interviewee argues that 'English is power'. For researchers in the field of English Studies this raises the questions of where the power of English resides and which types and practices of power are implied in the uses of English. Linguists, scholars of literature and culture, and language educators address aspects of these questions in a wide range of contributions. The book shows that the power of English can oscillate between empowerment and subjection, on the one hand enabling humans to develop manifold capabilities and on the other constraining their scope of action and reflection. In this edited volume, a case is made for self-critical English Studies to be dialogic, empowering and power-critical in approach.

Marta Degani was appointed Associate Professor in English Linguistics at the University of Verona, Italy, in 2014 and currently also holds a position as Senior Scientist of English Linguistics at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Her current research focuses on the analysis of political discourse in the frameworks of cognitive semantics and critical discourse analysis, and the study of varieties of English and language contact in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. Werner Delanoy is professor of English language education in the English Department at the University of Klagenfurt. His main areas of research are inter- and transcultural learning perspectives, cosmopolitanism and global citizenship education, English language education in a globalized modernity and contemporary British culture and literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Degani, Marta

Delanoy, Werner

Leseproben

4 The contributions in this volume
Our grouping of the contributions reflects common divisions in English Departments. In English Studies it is still common practice to view language, literature, culture, and language teaching as the main areas of investigation plus as the main categories for departmental differentiation. Building on this system, we have also grouped the contributions in this volume around the categories of (a) linguistics, (b) literature and culture, and (c) language education. However, we are aware that there is manifold overlap between and exchange across them. In other words, some of the articles would equally fit into at least one of the other sections. Moreover, the four domains are highly heterogeneous entities with different histories, aims and approaches. This is also the case in the present volume. Finally, some of the contributions go beyond the categories used, thus indicating the need for different categorization within and beyond the field of English Studies. In the following, the individual contributions will be introduced section by section:   (a) Perspectives from English linguistics In the first contribution to our volume an English linguistics perspective is introduced which highlights plurality and diversity of Englishes across the world. In “Power to the Englishes? Reflections on the notion of equality among world Englishes”, Alexander Onysko discusses how, on the one hand, research into different Englishes has created a diversified and rich knowledge base on Englishes in the world while, on the other, this research has so far failed to truly emancipate non-?standardized Englishes. The chapter provides an extensive and detailed discussion of the theoretical approaches to the study of world Englishes that have been proposed in the literature so far, with a specific focus on the range of heuristic models that have been (and still are) employed to categorize Englishes around the globe. The contribution closes off with a provocative reflection on the concept of ‘nativeness’, making a call for abandoning this controversial notion in order to take a significant step towards empowering all Englishes. In the following chapters, the focus lies on the moves and strategies underlying powerful discourses. In “Martin Luther King as a wielder of power”, Christopher Blake Shedd conducts a linguistic analysis of one of King’s books, namely, Where do we go from here: Chaos or community? Shedd analyzes how the civil-?rights-?movement leader made use of the lexical item power in this seminal publication. By integrating lexical semantics with etymological research, the author shows how King refers back to a quote by Alfred the Great and expands on it in the interest of a democratic and peaceful agenda. Moreover, King’s definition of power is discussed, which strongly overlaps with the definition offered in our introduction. In similar terms, King views power as the ability to affect others, and he also distinguishes different uses of power, ranging from democratic empowerment to violent repression. His contribution is followed by Marta Degani’s “About attributions of power and political control: Critical reflections on populism and its challenges from linguistic perspectives”. In this chapter, Degani critically reflects upon the manipulative power of right-?wing populist discourses, shedding light on the complexity of this phenomenon. With the help of Critical Discourse Analysis, populism is discussed as a discursive reality with its specific objectives, strategies and topics. In addition, a typology is introduced to highlight the most relevant features of right-?wing populist discourse. By doing so, a power-?critical perspective is suggested for engagement with a hegemonic discourse that can seriously undermine a democratic agenda. In the following chapter, which focuses on the strategic use of language in banking discourse, Vesna Lazovic investigates personification as a powerful strategy in British and Serbian online bank advertisements. The author’s theoretical basis is Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and she shows how both British and Serbian banks have made use of the ontological metaphor INANIMATE IS HUMAN (and the two sub-?metaphors A BANK IS A PERSON and A BANK SERVICE IS A PERSON) to present themselves as reliable and trustworthy, stimulate positive reactions, and influence the decision-?making processes of their clients. Again, this article documents how language is used to wield power, that is to attract people’s attention, to impact their feelings and to make them act in certain ways. Nikola Dobric and Günther Sigott’s chapter “Use of error profiles in applied linguistics – Empowering language instruction by cataloguing rating-?negative performance at the English Department, University of Klagenfurt, Austria” would equally fit into our section on English Language Education. As the subtitle reveals, the two authors aim for empowering language instructors and error raters by systematically cataloguing specific error types at distinct proficiency levels. Dobric and Sigott present their model with reference to a learner corpus of written student performances compiled at the English Department at the University of Klagenfurt. In their discussion, the two authors demonstrate how an erstwhile but no longer dominant area in applied linguistics (Error Analysis) can be revitalized to give practitioners the tools for understanding how errors work and which errors deserve particular attention at different competence levels. The final contribution in this section is an article co-?written by Eva-?Maria Graf, Frédérick Dionne and Melanie Fleischhacker. In “The transformational power of questioning practices in coaching – Insights from linguistic and interdisciplinary research”, the authors discuss how certain questioning practices can initiate self-?reflection processes, invite changes in perspective and generate new knowledge in the context of a particular helping profession. In their chapter, a combination of Conversation Analysis and psychological perspectives is suggested to discuss the empowering potential of certain question types. The data presented are taken from the authors’ project Questioning Sequences in Coaching (QuesCo). Different from the other chapters in this section, this contribution is situated in applied linguistics more generally and takes an interdisciplinary approach to analyze coaching discourse as an example of Conversational Analysis in a helping profession.   (b) Perspectives from anglophone literatures and cultures In the first three contributions of this section a traditional textual practice – that of close reading – is revitalized and reshaped by interlinking literary, cultural and neuroscientific perspectives. All contributions show how literary texts can foster their recipients’ empathetic capabilities in the interest of dialogic empowerment. In “The power of love: Reading The Silver Linings Playbook as a romantic neuronovel”, Alexa Weik von Mossner highlights how a love story can pre-?structure reader response through its generic appeal and narrative design to widen the recipients’ scope for empathy and acceptance of otherness. Drawing on cognitive cultural theory, the author demonstrates how a combination of culture-?related perspectives and neuro-?scientific insight can help redefine the dialogic power of literature. In the following contribution, Marijana Mikic’s theory building is also informed by a combination of cognitive psychological research, narrative and critical theory. The author offers a close reading of Sherri L. Smith’s Afrofuturist young adult novel Orleans. In her contribution “Ecosocial harm, grief, and communal empowerment in Sherri L. Smith’s Orleans”, she investigates how grief can empower readers to care for others subjected to oppression, marginalization and ecological harm. In her discussion of the novel, Mikic shows how Smith’s text “can […] be a catalyst for imagining and practicing more communal and liberating ways of engaging with the world”. Empathy, ethics and environmental concerns also play a key role in Carina Rasse’s “Feeling for others: Environmental justice, emotion, and moral imagination in Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms”. In her discussion of the novel, Rasse interlinks ecocritical, narratological and cognitive neuro-?scientific concepts to explore the relationship between literature, emotion, social criticism and environmental ethics. Building on the notion of “embodied simulation” (Gallese 2005), the author explains how readers can become cognitively, affectively and somatically engrossed in fictional worlds, and how they can develop empathy for the characters portrayed and their social concerns. The following two chapters offer a historical and a contemporary perspective on uses of power in literary texts. The first article is focused on a Jacobean play. In “‘I am a husband now in Master Frankford’s place’: Abuse of power in the main plot of Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness”, Iris van der Horst offers an in-?depth reading of the play with an eye to the various power imbalances and abusive power dynamics written into the text. The author situates her text analysis both in the play’s historical context and in that of modern concepts, thus drawing attention to the play’s past and present significance. While a comparison between the play and Jacobean conduct manuals can help document the unusually harsh treatment of...