Mediating shame and pride: countermedia coverage of Independence Day in Poland and the US

This article adopts a comparative qualitative approach to studying the rhetoric of injured pride in the coverage of Independence Day celebrations by the right-wing countermedia in Poland (wPolityce.pl) and the US (Breitbart News) from 2012 to 2018. In both countries, the number of countermedia articles on Independence Day proliferated in the aftermath of the election of the Law and Justice party (2015) and Donald Trump (2016). Based on the analysis of the narrative strategy for affective polarisation, we argue that the countermedia mobilise support from an electorate of ‘the disenfranchised’ by strategically invoking emotions of shame and pride. By positioning the radical right as a political force that shields ‘patriots’ from the leftist ‘pedagogy of shame’, the outlets instrumentalise the mobilising potential of shame by transforming it into righteous anger and pride. This strategy results in a mediated ‘emotional regime’ that offers guidelines for an acceptable emotional repertoire for the members of the nationally bound in-group.

J.A.A. Joyce’s type of chronotope in Mikhail Shishkin’s non-fiction “Russian Switzerland”

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the organisation of spatio-temporal structures in the novel “Ulysses” by James Augustine Aloysius Joyce and the literary-historical guide “Russian Switzerland” by Mikhail Shishkin. The general way of permeability of the boundaries of fiction – non-fiction genres and the reflection of this process in the world and Russian literature of the 20th–21st centuries is investigated. It is proved that for Mikhail Shishkin, as well as for J.A.A. Joyce, everyday life becomes an experimental field, where J.A.A. Joyce's deliberately destroyed time is rethought by the modern author into the category of simultaneity, which allows people and events separated by centuries to be viewed at one point in space. J.A.A. Joyce and Milhail Shishkin think of time as a way of organising events and facts as a spatial one, which allows us to present world history as a creative chaos of events, the expansion of which into the genre of non-fiction makes the narrative strategy more multidimensional, rather than as a system of causes and effects. The two authors are brought together not only by a common literary tradition, but also by an autobiographical understanding of emigration, thanks to which Mikhail Shishkin deliberately builds himself as a mediator between cultures, for whom J.A.A. Joyce’s speech techniques are a self-evident core of the artistic style of the new emigre prose.

La rappresentazione dell’intervento di Cesare in battaglia come strategia narrativa nel De bello Gallico: un’analisi stilistica

The article scrutinises Cae­sar’s De bello Gallico narrative through offering an exhaustive analysis of one of the most relevant narrative strategies the Cae­sarian storytelling relies on: the artful representation of Cae­sar’s intervention in battle. The paper firstly illustrates how the accounts of Cae­sar’s activities during the combat are always depicted, across the seven books, as the turning point of a difficult situation for the Romans. Moreover, the article clarifies that these scenes share not only the exceptional results achieved by the commander, but also significant similarities on the diegetic, stylistic and rhetorical level. On this basis, the article argues that such analogies are part of a narrative strategy operating whenever the text describes Cae­sar’s action in a combat. A stylistic and rhetorical investigation on four exemplary cases is undertaken (Gall. 2.15-28, 3.14-15, 6.8 and 7.87); these passages are representative of the De bello Gallico general trend in depicting the author’s efforts during a struggle. The enquiry reveals that the Latin text always presents a comparable sequence of events preceding and following the account of Cae­sar’s accomplishments in battle and that similar lexicon and rhetorical figures are employed to support Cae­sar’s self-presentation as infallible commander.

Fabula Nova Obscura Est: Possible Worlds in “Final Fantasy XIII-2”

Modern narratological researches are quite well developed and has long gone beyond the purely philological field. One of the applications of narratology is the study of computer games, the most relevant new medium. This paper is devoted to the issue of unusual narrative strategies used in games on the example of Final Fantasy XIII-2. The analysis is conducted via the possible-worlds method, which is currently in demand in modern humanities, but it is less known in Russia. The aim of the research is to determine the function of possible worlds existing in Final Fantasy XIII-2 for a better understanding of the game design. In the course of the work, the author examines the internal structure of the game world with the help of the theory of possible worlds, analyzes the narrative strategy, and makes a game scheme of possible worlds with accessibility links which let to see the deep internal structure of the narrative game world. In conclusion, it is clear that Final Fantasy XIII-2 contains a non-trivial narrative structure with multiple branches that is smoothed out by the gameplay and cinematic experience of the player, although such a composition of possible worlds represents a complex scheme of the game's macrocosm which demands a close attention to the narrative. The article is intended for various humanitarian specialists interested in the study of computer games.

W drodze do narratologii historycznej

The paper presents the concept of fundamentally new direction in the field of narratological studies – historical narratology. The author suggests turning to the research experience accumulated in Russian historical poetics by A. Veselovsky, P. Ricoeur’s and W. Schmid works. Narratology is seen as a theory of forming, storing and transmitting the event experience of the presence of the human self in the world. In particular, the work deals with diegetic picture of the world, with the historical dynamics of the most important types of narrative intrigue, and with the ethos of narrative. The most important characteristics of narrative are integrated into the concept of narrative strategy of a particular discourse. The emergence, spread and coexistence of narrative strategies in the diachronic dimension of the culture of storytelling as a form of human communication is at the core of research interest in historical narratology.

Forgotten Time and Valued Space: Montage Narrative in Republican Chinese Women’s Literature

In the West, montage was originally practiced in avant-garde movements. Although montage was widely discussed in the Western context since its origin, this concept is also connected to the literature and culture of modern China in a certain way. Among the Republican Chinese writers, many women writers attempted to employ montage narrative in their creative writing. These writers transformed the montage narrative into a gendered one and used it to also secretly realise their attack on male neotraditional ideology. As a narrative strategy, montage provides a narrative possibility for women writers to deconstruct the prevalent discourse on gender roles, and to construct their identity, meanwhile conveying their innovative and unique understanding regarding feminism and modernity in modern China.

Logos of narration in a philological novel

The article is devoted to studying connection of the narrative strategy with the features of a philological novel. The strategy realises “event” of communication between the subject and the addressee of the narration as well as it is a marker of the genre variety. As a result the strategy turns out to be associated with the categories of genre and discourse. On the basis of the works of different scientists, the problem of the correlation of the concepts is considered. The hypothesis is put forward that the logos of narration serves as a «mediator» between the strategy and genre features of a philological novel. On the basis of Charles Sanders Peirce’s doctrine about the typology of signs, the logos of narration in Vladimir Novikov’s novel «A Romance with Language» and David John Lodge’s novel «Nice Work» is explored. The analysis reveals the presence of iconic and metabolic logos in Vladimir Novikov’s novel while emblematic, in Lodge’s novel. The features of discursiveness in the novels testify to its connection with the genre features of a philological novel (playing with the reader, irony, provocativeness and the search for an ideal recipient). As an indicator of narrative modality (it is one of the elements of the strategy), the logos of narration becomes a «mediator» between the strategy and the characteristics of the genre in question.

A Linguistic Analysis of Verbal Humor Found in the Transcription of Animated TV Series Gravity Falls

Humour is one of the channels used in communication to express a concept or an idea. It can also be used to entertain people, such as in a TV show. This research focuses on the investigation of verbal perceptions of humour found in the transcription of the animated TV series Gravity Falls. Its purpose is to figure out what kinds of verbal humour can be found in the transcription of the animated television series Gravity Falls, as well as how the verbal humour in its transcription linguistically examined using the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH). This study examined an episode of “Gravity Falls season 2: Not What He Seems” using a descriptive qualitative technique. The investigation discovered 29 linguistic humours in the research object, which were classified into 9 of the 12 types. The six Knowledge Resources in the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) are used to analyze the verbal humours previously discovered linguistically: Script Opposition (SO), Logical Mechanism (LM), Situation (SI), Target (TA), Narrative Strategy (NS), and Language (LA). To analyze the verbal humour, the analysis is done in a hierarchical order of the KRs.

“Georeferencing” and Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s narrative strategy (on the material of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”)

The article approaches the narrative strategy employed by a famous American horror-writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft in his only novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” (1927) and introduces new terms – “georeferencing” and “georeference.” By the latter we mean a toponymical allusion, i. e. an implicit reference to the precedential text incorporated in a toponym (e. g. the author mentions Transylvania to make a georeference to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”). Lovecraft employs georeferencing and other forms of literary allusions to medieval legends, as well as to famous gothic novels written by his predecessors Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Gustav Meyrink, Bram Stoker, etc. to create a meaningful context for his own novel. His goal is to create a common hypertextual universe, which can and will be productively navigated by a prepared reader. This strategy makes it possible for the reader to uncover hidden logics behind the fragmentary discourse and even foresee the outcome of the central battle between the principal characters. Lovecraft’s sophisticated intention and expert plot-structuring allows us to view “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” as a daring Modernist writing of the period, as well as to reassess Lovecraft’s reputation and cultural impact on the US literature of his time.