Language as a Value in a Pragmatic World: Global and National Approach

The article deals with the perception of language and languages in the economy-oriented contemporary world and its specific features in such language-centered countries as Latvia. Two main levels could be discussed concerning the ‘intellectual’, ‘symbolic’ and practical treatment of language: a global (supra-national) and a national one. In majority of countries special laws have been adopted or national level programs have been enacted in order to protect the most significant elements of respective national identities – folklore, traditional ways of life, beliefs and languages in particular. At the beginning of the 21st century, economic and political goals of the European Union have been associated with the ideas of European culture and European identity. At the same time, the popularization of the languages, histories, and traditions of the member states have also been emphasized. The Republic of Latvia belongs to the countries where the diversity of thoughts and viewpoints on language are ever present and intense in both the political debates and even in many informal conversations. The paper gives an insight in Latvian language policy against the background of global and European sociolinguistic processes and wide usage of so-called international languages, English in particular.

Intertextuality and Arthurian Women in David Lodge’s Small World (1984)

The present article analyses intertextual references in David Lodge’s Small World. An Academic Romance (1984), focusing on allusions to the corpus of medieval and twentieth-century Arthuriana in the representation of women characters. An analysis of Arthurian allusions in the portrayal of women characters shows that Lodge introduces Arthurian women to his academic ‘Camelot’ in response to medieval and post-medieval literature about King Arthur and the Grail quest. In this respect, his representation of academic women in Small World is different from the way they are described in Lodge’s other academic novels, Changing Places and Nice Work. Lodge rarely recasts Arthurian women characters as his heroines with the exception of Prof Fulvia Morgana, who is modelled on the Arthurian sorceress Morgane/Morgause. Nevertheless, in Small World, women appear in the traditional roles of being the object of a ‘knight’s’ quest, such as Persse’s beloved Angelica and Swallow’s lover Joy, and wise advisors (Miss Maiden). Alternatively, women are portrayed as antagonistic or negative characters, the so-called ‘whores’ or ‘demonic temptresses’: such are Angelica’s twin sister Lily and the lusty Fulvia Morgana.

Time Deixis in Engineering Discourse

Nowadays, it has become commonly accepted that the meaning of linguistic elements is interconnected with the context of their use. Deixis is one of the classical pragmatic phenomena that illustrates that context-dependence is inherent in language as meaning of deictic expressions cannot be constructed without the identification of the speech event where these expressions occurred. The present article discusses cases of time deixis in the context of engineering discourse. The goal of the research is to demonstrate how the deictic expression use in different genres of professional discourse impacts meaning construction. The study deals with the data obtained from scientific articles, encyclopaedia chapters and coursebooks. The findings indicate that temporal deictic expressions can be utilized both deictically and non-deictically and their frequency may depend on the genre within each professional discourse. Further research can be conducted to investigate the use of other categories of deictic expressions in engineering discourse.

From Defoe to Coetzee’s Foe/Foe through Authorship

The article investigates the concept of authorship in the works of two authors separated by three centuries, namely, Daniel Defoe and J. M. Coetzee, both concerned, in different ways, with aspects regarding the origin and originators of literary works or with the act of artistic creation in general. After a brief literature review, the article focuses on Coetzee’s contemporary revisitation of the question of authorship and leaps back and forth in time from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) to Coetzee’s Foe (1986). The purpose is that of highlighting the multiple perspectives (and differences) regarding the subject of authorship, including such notions and aspects as: canonicity related to the act of writing and narrating, metafiction, self-reflexivity and intertextuality, silencing and voicing, doubling, bodily substance and the substance of a story, authenticity, (literary) representation and the truth, authoring, the author’s powers, the relation between author and character or between narrator and story, authorial self-consciousness, agency, or ambiguity. The findings presented in the article show that both works are seminal in their attempts to define and redefine the notion of authorship, one (Defoe) concerned with the first literary endeavours of establishing the roles of professional authorship in England, while the other (Coetzee), intervenes in existing literary discussions of the late twentieth century concerning the postmodern author and (the questioning of or liberation of the text from) his powers.

Assessment of Academic Staff Performance in English Medium Instruction

One of the internationalisation strategies for higher education institutions is internationalisation of their curricula by delivering English-medium instruction programmes. These internationalization efforts can be successful if support for the language needs of all stakeholders involved is provided. English language proficiency assessment of academic staff is an essential prerequisite to the implementation of a high-quality study process in the English language. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to validate the assessment system of academic staff performance in English medium instruction at a university in Latvia and the use of mediation strategies as a basis for the assessment system development. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the test results suggests that the integrated assessment tasks demonstrate higher internal consistency and higher correlation with the test results and the performance of the academic staff in the international setting.

Metaphoric Conceptualization of Social Reality in the Language of News Media

Today, social reality can hardly be viewed as the one-state-one-nationone language ideological framework (Bauman and Briggs, 2003). The modern multilingual and multicultural communities are inclined to examine social reality in a multiple variety of socio-economic and political manifestations and forms. To understand how social reality can be explored through examining certain socio-political processes in a country, the present paper aims at analysing the role of conceptual metaphor in cases when political scandals, involving corruption charges of high-ranking officials in Latvia are considered. For this purpose, the present study has focused on the analysis of selected commentaries that deal with corruption charges which were revealed in December 2019 issues of the magazine IR. The Latvian-origin weekly magazine IR was selected deliberately because; on the one hand, it has an enormous influence on how social reality is constructed and perceived by Latvian citizens. On the other hand, it was important to reveal that the evidence-based theoretical premises on the relationship between metaphor and society in the English language are applicable and work cross-linguistically in Latvian. The research presents a case study type. With the focus on the conceptualization of corruption-related social problems, selected discursive practices that dealt with the corruption cases being revealed by the news medium IR were considered. The results demonstrated that the journalists of the commentaries tend to take a critical discourse perspective on the representation of corruption-related issues and political events, which can be represented at the levels of abstraction. Conceptual metaphors contributed to mental representations of political issues and communication of social reality by conveying additional negative evaluation of such an inherently derogatory concept as corruption. The metaphors CORRUPTION IS DIRT, CORRUPTION IS GARBAGE, CORRUPTION IS NUCLEAR DISASTER, CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE also fulfil a cognitive function, helping to understand the concept of corruption in terms of another more concrete concept. The use of metaphors in the commentaries may have causal effects such as bringing about changes in the readers’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes.

The Latvian Translation Scene at the Beginning of the 20th Century

The first decade of the 20th century was a period of huge advances and expansion in the Latvian translation scene. New, contemporary authors’ works became available to Latvian readers. The Latvian readership was consciously being integrated into general European literary trends. It was also a heyday of periodicals that published numerous translations, including numerous novels. There are countless parallel translations even reaching double digits. Translations included various genres and the traditional Latvian interest in plays was obvious. German was gradually losing its dominant positions as both a source and intermediate language, Russian was advancing. This period also saw a change of generations among translators, and with the new generation women became visible in translation scene. Practically all Latvian writers were also active translators. The translation method changed from localisation to a fidelity mode with a tendency towards foreignisation. Frequently translations now had prefaces and explanations by the translators. Translated literature now ranged from serious classical works to modern ones and from pulp literature to high quality creations. The quality of translations was also very varied. The expansion of translation and the cultivation of new domains went hand in hand with the development of the Latvian language itself.

Challenges and Opportunities of English Grammar Acquisition by Distance at the Tertiary Level

Distance learning introduced in almost all educational establishments in spring 2020 has raised interest among researchers how to deal with it in a more productive way. Thus, the goal of the research was to find out undergraduates’ views on distance learning of English grammar and the use of online revision materials in developing students’ independent study skills at a tertiary institution in Latvia. the research tool was a questionnaire consisting of open-ended and closed questions. Twenty-three students answered the survey questions. the research results indicate that studying by distance is preferred because it allows the students to choose the study time and place, to develop their timemanagement, independent study skills, as well as improve their motivation. the main drawbacks of studying by distance, according to the students, are insufficient feedback, inability to ask questions directly and receive immediate answers and problems with their own time management and independent study skills.

Technology-Enhanced Course in English Theoretical Grammar and Phonetics at Tertiary Level

The advancement of technologies and the recently forced lockdown by Covid-19 are bringing changes to the organisation of the learning process by accelerating the introduction of e-learning to create a learner-centred technology-based approach to English studies, thus stepping towards digital humanities. These trends initiated the institutional project Mobile and Desktop Software Integration in Bachelor and Master Study Programmes. The present study, using a questionnaire, elicits university students’ attitudes to the mobile applications and speech analysis software-based seminar activities in Moodle e-course in accordance with the blended learning model selected for the studies of theoretical grammar and phonetics. It is a cross-sectional, focused, and exploratory case study, comprising a description of factors, contributing to the problem of blended learning model selection. The yielded data demonstrate that students do not possess extensive prior experience with the use of software and mobile applications to study English grammar and phonetics. After completing seminar tasks, they favourably account for the integrated blended learning materials and consider that those facilitate their learning process.