“Viejas pisadas”: Activating Postvernacular Ladino in the Works of Myriam Moscona

In both her hybrid-language novel Tela de Sevoya (2012) and in her Ladino poetry collec­tion Ansina (2015), Mexican author Myriam Moscona (1955) embraces Ladino as a post­vernacular language without any illusions of recuperating it for daily speech. Although her grandparents spoke Ladino, she herself is not a native speaker. While she recognizes that Ladino is a dying tongue, Moscona makes explicit the power of literary works to infiltrate and function within the liminal spaces that exist between languages, identities, or layers of history. Moscona’s dynamic and future-oriented creative work-composed in a language whose vernacularity exists only in the past-utilizes the tool of postvernacularity and en­ters into the discourse of feminist mobilization. Her works show how the active use of postvernacularity can open opportunities for her Spanish-speaking audiences to collective­ly engage in Ladino’s afterlife through acts of creative play.

LIFE HACKS FOR NON-ENGLISH-SPEAKING LIBRARIANS: FEATURES OF COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE IN TRANSLATION

Objective. This paper aims to provide practical recommendations to the non-English-speaking staff working at academic libraries to practice the English language in order to fully utilize the potential of global indexing services such as Scopus and Web of Science. Methods. Comparative analysis and bibliometric analysis were employed to estimate the share of the English-language journals in the aforementioned databases to emphasize the relevance of proper knowledge of English by academic librarians given its current status as the language of global scientific communication. Results. The analysis results revealed that as of August 2021, 56 % of the Scopus-indexed journals were published in the English language only while most of the rest practiced a hybrid language approach allowing their authors to submit papers in two/three languages. In contrast, only 7 journals (0.016 % in the cited database) published their materials in the Ukrainian language only. This indirectly testifies to the importance for scientists in Ukraine to report their findings in English to reach a wider target audience. This assumption may underlie the fact that all the 15 Ukrainian journals newly accepted in the Scopus database (as of Aug 2021) are all hybrid, that is, the papers are published both in English and Ukrainian. Conclusions. It is a relevant task both for researchers in Ukraine and academic librarians at Ukrainian universities to practice their knowledge of the English language given its current status as the language of global science. A practical way to do it is to engage local professional translators (preferably with certified teaching experience) who have confirmed their knowledge of academic English to conduct sessions for librarians to train their practical skills in speaking (at international conferences) and writing (when submitting papers to relevant journals). This work provides a reference framework for such attempts.

Linguistic territoriality under stress

This article revisits a well-known dichotomy (the ‘territorial’ and ‘personal’ principles) and develops a four-element classification of state approaches (from the most generous to the most menacing, from the perspective of speakers of minority languages). The article examines the implications for language policy of geographically dispersed or spatially concentrated patterns of distribution of speakers of particular languages. We begin by exploring the general literature on language policy, focusing in particular on the territorial and personal principles, the use of ‘threshold rules’ at municipal and other subnational levels, and the hybrid language regimes that are often a consequence of sociolinguistic complexity. We consider the extent to which responses to linguistic diversity across Europe may be understood by reference to these principles and categories. We explain why we have selected particular case studies (the Baltic republics, Transylvania, Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland) for further exploration. We conclude that, notwithstanding the value of the typologies we consider, real-life cases are almost invariably more complex, with states implementing policies that defy categorisation, that may change over time, and that may treat different language minorities by reference to different principles.

Translating in the contact zone

The purpose of this article is to analyze the hybrid language used in the U.S. by a generation who think brown and write brown. I am referring to the so-called one-and-a-halfers, a generation that includes writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Sandra Cisneros, Pat Mora, Ilan Stavans, Ana Lydia Vega, Ana Castillo, Helena Viramontes, Esmeralda Santiago, or Tato Laviera, to name but a few. I aim to analyze how many migrants and refugees use language in a way that destroys consensus. It is in these spaces where the migration movements of the multiple souths talk back in a weird language which the Establishment fears. In these circumstances, translation becomes a tool to raise questions that disturb the universal promises of monolingualism.

Heritage Language Use, Maintenance and Transmission by Second-Generation Immigrants in Cyprus

There are both culturalist and structuralist approaches to the integration of the second-generation immigrants into mainstream society. These approaches focus on cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic assimilation. Successful societal membership is associated with psychosocial adaptation, hybrid identity, selective acculturation or biculturalism, which is an individual’s adjustment to new psychological and social conditions. Individual identity is related to the sense of belonging, integration and engagement in the current space. Self-identity is fluid and flexible; it comprises individual and collective identity, habitus or unconscious identity, agency and reflexivity, which is re-evaluated and adjusted throughout the life trajectory of a migrant and connected to citizenship and solidarity. This study investigated heritage language use, maintenance and transmission, as well as language and cultural identity and social inclusion of second-generation immigrants in Cyprus with various L1 backgrounds. The analysis of the data (e.g. questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, observations) showed that second-generation immigrants have a hybrid language and cultural identity, as well as multifarious perceptions regarding citizenship, inclusion and belonging. These immigrants try to assimilate to the target society, but at the same time they have a strong link with the community of residence, their L1 country and their heritage or home language. The participants also use mixed/multiple languages at home and elsewhere.

Rights Metaphors Across Hybrid Legal Languages, Such as Euro English and Legal Chinese

This paper focuses on two legal languages such as the legal English developed by the European Union institutions (Euro English) and the legal Chinese of Mainland China, to study whether the mental representations and the embodied simulation created by the conceptual metaphors for the same Western concept, right, differ in any significant ways. By analysing the data contained in two large corpora, this study has found that, despite the common origin of the concept right in the two legal languages, they conceptualise it in a significantly different fashion. Finally, the findings of this study are read through the theoretical framework proposed for this special issue—hybridity and the Third Space. While it is somewhat straightforward to conceive of Euro English as a hybrid language, owing to the multilingual and supranational setting where it is used, this study has found that the Chinese legal language, too, is a hybrid language exhibiting linguistic features that intersect different belief systems.

Design & cinema: A timeline of graphic design in film

Graphic design elements have always been part of cinema’s hybrid language, as a material of expression manifested through the visual channel, together with the filmed image. The graphic language is present throughout an entire filmic narrative, from the choice of verbal, pictorial and schematic elements in titles and animations, to the creation (and curation) of printed or handmade graphic props, signage and logos filmed by the camera. Together, they form a movie’s graphic identity, which aids in conveying meaning to the narrative as well as bringing a dynamic and authentic storytelling. This paper intends to present a timeline of graphic design in film by pointing out the technological milestones that shaped cinema’s development, directly influencing the emergence and disappearance of graphic configurations – which became more complex with time and affected the roles designers acquired in the film industry. By focusing mainly on examples from Hollywood’s contemporary cinema, the paper aims to show how the graphic language in films developed as an impact of technology reflected in society, which also leads to the identification of the three main functions acquired by the graphic language in narrative films nowadays.