Contesting Homogeneity: Stereotypes and Heteronormativity in Aruni Kashyap’s His Father’s Disease

This article analyses Aruni Kashyap’s short story collection His Father’s Disease. Kashyap challenges hegemonic structures through an emerging writing area tentatively classified as ‘Anglophone fiction from Northeast India’. By engaging with Foucault’s reading of Power/Knowledge this article examines the disciplining of literary regionalism (Anglophone literature from Northeast India), territory and sexuality encapsulated in Kashyap’s exposition of heteronormative societies across cultures. Through the stories Kashyap weaves a dialogic space within the narrative world that challenges various forms of stereotypes relating to regional representation in literary works as well as regional identity and sexuality prevailing in the contemporary world’s existing social and literaryscape. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to observe how Kashyap’s text becomes a site of contention where on one hand the stereotype is accommodated within the power structure, hence controlled and regulated by various agencies, and on the other hand the same knowledge is appropriated by the author as a counter-narrative/reverse-discourse.

Appraisal as co-selection and media performativity: 5G technology imaged in German news discourse

This article views appraisal as co-selection patterns of target, source and evaluative parameters and investigates the ways in which news discourse retells news stories and reproduces truthful reality. We combined the corpus-assisted method and quantitative/qualitative analysis of the data, i.e., 904 sentences which were extracted from the corpus of German 5G news reports by selecting the top 5 items from each of the noun keywords lists of the three subcorpora of economics, politics and technology news reports. It was found that the German media restage the necessity and desirability to promote the development of German communication facilities/technology through international cooperation, particularly Germany-Sino cooperation. In addition, a hesitant image was evoked as to the high-profile 5G development in Germany with an awareness of the potential security risks and economic losses. On the intersubjective dimension, our findings suggest that journalists make full exploitation of different dialogistic positioning strategies for closing down or opening up the dialogic space to a greater or lesser degree. More specifically, they tend to acknowledge and endorse the positive/negative attitudes attributed to the non-authorial voices towards particular targets in the fields of economics, politics or technology. A future comparison with the genre of news comments or editorials would deepen our understanding of the performativity of media.

“Every word is directed towards an answer”: Dialogism and the Translation of Allusions in Three Literary Works of Mahmoud Darwish

This study aims to demonstrate the fact that allusive references are not used by sheer coincidence as linguistic or literary devices; allusive references are culture-bound units that occupy highly significant situational and contextual positions. Moreover, translating allusions is a very convoluted and troublesome task owing to dialogism which involves the writer, the reader, and the context. Due to the cultural barriers and differences between the SL & TL, some allusions appear as innocent units in the texts. Translators, therefore, can face serious challenges identifying them though they are bugged with meanings. By the same token, if translators manage to recognize some of the allusions in the text, they can miss other aspects like their connotative meaning and contextual impact since their semiotic referents may be deactivated in their language. This study contributes to building a model for the translation of intertextual references within the concept of dialogic space, where each translated text interweaves with the ST and recontextualizes with potential translations of the ST. To resolve the translation problems, the Bakhtinian notion does not require establishing fidelity with the source text or the target text as it has been the case with the traditional and recent target-oriented translation. Translation is rather deemed as the act of rewriting the ST in a tripartite intertextual space including the author, the reader, and the context. The produced translation, therefore, won’t be standing in an inferior position to the ST, but rather on equal footing with it. The study espouses a dichotomy to translate the allusions: Leppihalme’s strategies (1997) for the translation of horizontal allusions, and Hervey and Higgins’ compensation strategies (1992) for the translation of vertical allusions.

Taking an authorial stance in English and Arabic research article discussions

Taking an authorial stance is essential in academic writing but remains a challenge for novice researchers, especially EFL/ESL writers. This study explores how authors of English and Arabic research article discussions employ evaluative language resources while commenting on their results. To this end, the study investigated the employment of Engagement resources within Appraisal Theory (Martin & White 2005). The findings exhibited a great divergence between the two language groups as Arabic discussions relied more on Contracting strategies, which indicate the tendency to close down the space for dialogic alternatives, while their English counterparts preferred Expanding resources, which open up the dialogic space for alternative voices. The study, therefore, bears some pedagogical implications for L2 learners.

Dialogic spaces in divergent and convergent collaborative learning tasks

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how dialogic spaces were co-constituted (opened, broadened and deepened) between students engaged in divergent and convergent collaborative learning tasks, orchestrated by teachers in Finnish primary and secondary schools. The concept of dialogic space refers to a dynamic, shared resource of ideas in dialogue and has come to represent an ideal form of educational interaction, in the contexts of collaborative learning, joint creative work and shared knowledge-building. Design/methodology/approach A socio-cultural discourse analysis of video-observed classroom dialogue, entailing the development of a new analytic typology, was undertaken to explore the co-constitution of dialogic space. The data are derived from two qualitative studies, one examining dialogue to co-create fictive video stories in primary-school classrooms (divergent task), the other investigating collaborative knowledge building in secondary-school health education (convergent task). Findings Dialogic spaces were opened through group settings and by the students’ selection of topics. In the divergent task, the broadening of dialogic space derived from the heterogeneous group settings, whereas in the convergent task, from the multiple and various information sources involved. As regards the deepening of dialogic space, explicit reflective talk remained scarce; instead the norms deriving from the school-context tasks and requirements guided the group dialogue. Originality/value This study lays the groundwork for subsequent research regarding the orchestration of dialogic space in divergent and convergent tasks by offering a typology to operationalise dialogic space for further, more systematic, comparisons and aiding the understandings of the processes implicated in intercreating and interthinking. This in turn is of significance for the development of dialogic pedagogies.

Online collaboration and identity work in a brony fandom: Constructing a dialogic space in a fan translation project

Online collaboration has become a regular practice for many Internet users, reflecting the emergence of new participatory cultures in the virtual world. However, little is yet known about the processes and conditions for online collaboration in informally formed writing spaces and how these create opportunities for participants’ identity work. This ethnographic case study explores how four young adults, fans of the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (bronies), negotiated a dialogic space for their online collaboration on a fan translation project and how this created opportunities for their identity work. After a year of participant observation, we collected interviews, ethnographic diaries and participants’ chats, which were analysed with qualitative content and discourse analysis methods. The findings showed how the Etherpad online writing platform used by the participants facilitated the construction of dialogic space through the visualization of a shared artefact and adjustable features. It was in this dialogic space where the participants negotiated their expert identities which furthered their discussions about writing, translating and technological innovations. The study advances present-day knowledge about online collaboration in affinity groups, engendering the construction of a dialogic space for collaborative writing and participants’ identity work.

STRETCHING LEARNING THROUGH MAPPING ACTIVITIES - THE TRANSFORMATIVE INFLUENCE OF DIALOGUE

A fidgety character and an extremely low self-confidence were glaring circumstances of two learners in a first-year classroom. Mapping activities were designed for interactivity, considering the low aptitude for the English language as the instructional medium. While the fidget transformed into a focused learner upon role-play as a dialogue star in the coordinated classroom talks, the most reserved, diffident learner turned into an expressive participant. The cognitive engagement of the classroom population was evident from the significantly expanded knowledge map constructed by the students. The exploratory nature of classroom oracy drove the outcome within the dialogic space designed to engender the transformation. Space for active participation was mainly enabled by simplifying the verbal expression by extensive use of keywords in mapping. While the approach ruled out the need for correct English usage for expression of ideas, the seed map drawn by the instructor prompted learners to leave their seats to write an idea on the whiteboard. The freewill had links to the oracy that allowed for rewording and change of stance which was the primary ingredient of dialogue embedded in the mapping activities. Grafting of students’ ideas into the existing scientific concept was an essential outcome of dialogue externalised on the constructed map, driven by the dialogic space encouraging listening and thinking along the path of higher logic. The dialogic space in mapping activities and the resultant vibrant classroom of cognitively engaged participants provide evidence for designable classroom activities to uplift the immediate learning impacts.

Out of the Writing Centre and into the Classroom: Academic Literacies in Action

Writing and learning centre professionals have expertise in supporting the development of academic literacies but are typically positioned outside of departmental contexts, limiting their interaction with instructors in the disciplines. Small scale initiatives towards meaningful collaboration with faculty can create the dialogic space to move the work of academic literacies development into the classroom. This paper describes three collaborative projects in business, science, and arts disciplines to move instruction in academic literacies from a supplemental, outside of class model to an embedded, in-class delivery. Working towards collaborative projects enhances opportunities for writing centre professionals to impact their institutions while remaining flexible in delivering support in a variety of modes. These collaborative projects enhance the professional development of both teaching faculty and writing centre professionals, allowing both parties to gain insight on the often-implicit processes of thinking, using information, and writing that distinguish disciplines from one another.