Understanding Rivalry: Staging Jealousy in Karnad’s “Broken Images”

Acclaimed Kannada and English playwright, Girish Karnad’s play Broken Images focuses on human relationships and their intricacies, as well as on the relationship between languages. Outwardly, it addresses the sibling relationship and focuses on its destructive side. However, on a close reading, this monologue unfolds a series of diverse human relationships, viz., the relationship of the two sisters, Manjula and Malini; the husband-wife relationship between Manjula and Pramod; the camaraderie of Pramod and Malini; the friendship between Pramod and Lucy; and the amity between Lucy and Manjula. Besides these personal relationships, the play deals with and explores at length another important relationship, the one between two languages, one regional and one global, the legacy of the erstwhile colonizers. The relationship between Manjula and Malini acts as a metaphor for the mismatch and the hierarchy between regional language writers and Indian English writers on the Indian literary scene. This paper, therefore, examines the aforementioned human relationships in the play to reveal the motives behind the enmity and the causes which lead to sinful actions that remain invisible at all times, and in the process comments upon the relationship between different language writers, as well as what leads to the formation of existing hierarchies. First, the paper investigates the sororal bond between Manjula and Malini; second, it examines the tripartite relationships and how the third party is perceived as a rival in the relationships of Manjula-Lucy-Pramod and Manjula-Malini-Pramod; and finally, it looks at the relationship that exists between the Bhasha writers and Indian English writers, and exposes the enmity in these relationships and its various causes.

“Appropriate” Meanings and American Traits in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

During the eighteenth century, many philosophers were attempting to determine the origin of language and to develop a universal theory of linguistics, but a debate at the Prussian Royal Academy questioned the endeavour by claiming that languages have different origins and that it is impossible to explain the progress of human thought by studying them because national languages influence the way their speakers see the world. In answer to that, Webster proposes that all modern languages have a common divine origin and that the universal truth could be accessed by studying etymology. He claims that words have an “absolute” significance, which, due to the development of the different languages, assumed meanings that are “appropriate” to each individual language. This article proposes that nationalism in the American Dictionary of the English Language is not represented by a substantial number of Americanisms, but by giving “appropriate” meaning that evidences how “absolute” significances evolved and came to characterize the United States. The article provides evidence to support that Webster’s lexicographic contribution is constituted by the new organization he gives to the entries and by definitions that show how old terms came to represent new concepts when compared to those in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary.

Intercultural Sensitivity and Adult Learners’ Willingness to Communicate in English as a Foreign Language

Intercultural sensitivity as coined by Bennett (2015) is a relatively new construct which refers to how an individual construes and makes sense of cultural differences. It is believed that it is not inborn and can be developed through intercultural experiences and formal instruction. Though the concept of intercultural sensitivity has been already investigated, particularly in relation to communication effectiveness; yet it has not been examined through the lens of the learner’s willingness to communicate. Hence, the purpose of the research paper is to investigate intercultural sensitivity and its correlation with willingness to communicate in English as a foreign language. The author employed the quantitative methodology, administering the online intercultural sensitivity and willingness to communicate questionnaires to adult learners of English representing various L1 cultures. The insights from the study may equip us with new knowledge on increasing learners’ willingness to communicate and as a result their engagement in communication in a language classroom.

Water as a Divine Mirror in the Poetry of Daud Kamal

In the poetry of Daud Kamal, water figures as an image of mercy, as in the Quran, and as a mirror that reflects a divine hidden presence. The rock pool evokes the memory of Gandhara and other foundational civilizations born in love and creative ferment. Conversely, the images of drought, heat, and dust symbolize a parched spiritual order. The river, a recurring archetypal image in Kamal’s poetry, represents the fluid self that is subsumed into collective identity to become a poetic distillate of history.

Speculations on the Future of Economic Models in the Wake of Trans/Posthuman Sentient Evolution in Charles Stross’s SF Novel “Accelerando”

Economy, understood as a domain of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, has been unquestionably comprehended as a social activity, the purpose of which is to satisfy first of all vital material, but also immaterial, needs of the biological natural human being. Whatever the underlying ideology—whether protectionist mercantilism, the physiocrats’ laissez-faire policy, Adam Smith’s free-market capitalism, Karl Marx’s socialist economics, Keynesian state interventionism, or present day neoliberalism—economic considerations have been invariably driven by the fundamental problem of scarcity. The objective of the proposed paper is to present Charles Stross’s speculative predictions, made in his SF novel Accelerando, about the future of economic models in light of trans/posthuman evolution hailed by, among others, Ray Kurzweil, Max More, and Hans Moravec.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Mind and Memory in the Old English “Daniel”

As Mary Carruthers observes in her seminal Book of Memory, the cultivation of memory was considered a mark of superior ethics in the Middle Ages. She claims, for example, that “the choice to train one’s memory or not, for the ancients and medievals, was not a choice dictated by convenience: it was a matter of ethics. A person without a memory, if such a thing could be, is a person without moral character and, in a basic sense, without humanity” (Carruthers 14). In the present article, which aims to discuss the Old English biblical paraphrase Daniel, I argue that memory plays an important, if not essential, role in Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion. The poet expands on the biblical source, the Old Testament Book of Daniel, to depict the Babylonian king as commencing a process of rectification of the self by incorporating and internalizing the word of God, mediated in the poem by Daniel the prophet, as part of his self.

Certified Interpreters’ Subjective Experience of Psycho-Affective Factors in Court Interpreting

This paper touches upon the theme of the certified interpreter’s psycho-affectivity, a construct studied within a branch of interpreting studies known as interpreter psychology, or more precisely, within its psycho-affective strand. What also lays the groundwork for the presentation of the outcomes of the investigation into the certified interpreters’ experience of the psycho-affective factors is an overview of certified interpreting. The major part of this paper is dedicated to the discussion of the results of a survey carried out among Polish-English certified interpreters who interpret consecutively in the courtroom. Seven factors experienced by study participants (i.e. anxiety, fear, language inhibition/language ego/language boundaries, extroversion/introversion/ambiversion, self-esteem, motivation and stress) are discussed. The discussion is supplemented with a selection of quotes taken from the certified interpreters’ responses, in which they directly or indirectly refer to the selected psycho-affective factors and their impact on the interpreting process and the output rendered. All in all, it emerges that, in quite a number of cases, in the respondents’ opinions, the psycho-affective factors under consideration are of a more negative than positive character, thereby disrupting the process of consecutive interpreting in the courtroom.

(Non-)Intentional Readings of Labile Object Experiencer Psych-Verbs in Polish: Insights from a Self-Paced Reading Study

Labile Object Experiencer psych-verbs are well-known to be compatible with intentional and non-intentional readings. When used in intentional contexts, labile OE psych-verbs exhibit properties of canonical agentive verbs. Previous studies on the agentive nature of labile OE psych-verbs indicate that it varies cross-linguistically. This article aims at investigating the properties of Polish labile OE psych-verbs in terms of their usage in non-intentional and intentional contexts, and in contrast to canonical agentive verbs. The results of the self-paced reading experiment showed that (i) processing of Polish labile OE psych-verbs in non-intentional and intentional contexts, as well as (ii) processing of labile OE psych-verbs as compared to canonical agentive verbs result in significantly faster reading times. The differences were, however, observed in different clause regions and therefore are argued to result from two distinct underlying causes.