IJES 2024, v. 24, n. 2
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- PublicationOpen AccessRecrafting the model of the Portuguese nun in England : Aphra Behn and delarivier manley´s letter fictions.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Villegas-López, SoniaAbstract: The first English translation of Lettres portugaises was published in 1678 as Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier. Capitalising on its literary success, the nun’s letters were extended and revised in two sequels. Their influence on women’s autochthonous fiction was strong in the years that followed. I will first focus on the history of the English reception of these French works to concentrate afterwards on two texts: Aphra Behn’s Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684-85) and Delarivier Manley’s Letters (1696). Whereas the former questions the veracity of the love letter by exploring the artificiality of love discourses and their dangerous effects on women’s lives, the latter recrafts the tradition of the female complaint by choosing a protagonist who voices her lament on the run. The reproducibility of the nun’s model makes us read Portuguese Letters not merely as the expression of unbidden emotion, but as a letter manual that could be revised and adapted.
- PublicationOpen AccessESP students processing multimodal websites through the eye-tracking technique.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Bort Mir, Lorena; Fortanet Gómez, InmaculadaAbstract: With the increasing importance of the Internet for teaching and learning, websites have become an interesting pedagogic resource as they entail interconnected modes of communication to convey meaning. When combined with multimodal website analysis, eye-tracking can provide valuable insights into how users engage with different modes of communication on a website. In this pilot experimental study, we analyze and compare how twenty-six Computer Science and Business and Law double degree students process two entrepreneurial websites to understand their meaning through eye-tracking (RealEyeTM online tool, https://www.realeye.io/). On the one hand, we analyze to what extent the eye-tracking technique contributes to the ESP students’ perception of the multimodality of websites. On the other hand, we tested the students’ reactions to using an activity with an eye-tracker in ESP courses, and we compared the results between two academic backgrounds. Our results show more fixations on titles and body text than photos or graphics, and the overall reading pattern entails fast scanning with no significant differences between the two groups. This research proves that eye-tracking can be a valuable tool for understanding how people process multimodal texts. It can be used to improve the effectiveness of such texts for communication and learning.
- PublicationOpen AccessIf you weren’t my friend I wouldn’t know who I was : care virtues and the relational self in Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Carregal-Romero, JoséAbstract: Set in contemporary Ireland, Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021) focuses on the relationship dynamics between characters who struggle with intimacy and human connection, against the backdrop of the individualist ethos and existential anxieties induced by current neoliberal systems. Drawing on care ethics, vulnerability and relationality theory, this analysis of Beautiful World underscores how Rooney constructs her characters’ psychological evolution through their progressive, albeit irregular, adoption of care virtues within relationships. The analysis shall apply Khader’s taxonomy of care virtues (2011), which include “loving attention” –a willingness to appreciate and accommodate the particular nature of the other–, “the transparent self” –an awareness of how our self-interests block our recognition of the other’s needs–, and “narrative understanding”, a desire to engage with the other’s personal history so as to make decisions that promote his/her well-being.
- PublicationOpen AccessIncestuous relations in Bessie Head and Sindiwe Magona : the perversion of apartheid and the migrant labour system.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Gil-Naveira, IsabelAbstract: Apartheid and the migrant labour system affected the residential stability of black South African families in terms of wife-husband and father-child relations. The control exerted by apartheid laws made it impossible for generations of fathers for over one and a half centuries to raise their children (Wilson, 2006), affecting their personal and social behaviour. This article contends that in their use of literature as a political tool, writers Sindiwe Magona and Bessie Head offered a similar vision about the father-daughter relationship. Magona’s short story “It was Easter Sunday the day I went to Netreg” (1991) and Head’s short story “The Cardinals” (1995) portray a daughter and a father who do not know each other and who, years later and unknowingly, establish a sexual relation. This article will claim these incestuous relationships can be interpreted as the writers’ representation of the use and abuse the state exerted on its black citizens.
- PublicationOpen AccessMourning the human? Posthuman death and ontological vulnerability in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Ferrández-Sanmiguel, MaríaAbstract: This article reads Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy from the perspectives of critical posthumanism and trauma theory, paying particular attention to how the two discourses perceive the relationship between self and other, the vulnerability of the human and the expectation of death. The discussion is articulated against the background of the trilogy’s explicit concern with the reconfiguration of the human and with the Anthropocene. This is carried out through an exploration of classical and recent definitions of trauma after its encounter with environmental degradation and under the threat of human extinction. As it is contended, the trilogy invites us to imagine an end to humanity that is not also the end of life on the planet. While this might be read in the key of horror or induce feelings of anxiety or mourning, it compels us to confront the ethical implications of our embeddedness to the natural world and our shared vulnerability. The article ultimately argues in favor of the power of the imagination to spark change.
- PublicationOpen AccessGender-based variation in the perception of Northern Irish accents in performance.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Díaz Sierra, SaraAbstract: This paper builds on previous research that explores the relationship between gender and language perception (Bishop et al., 2005; Coupland & Bishop, 2007). It investigates the influence of speakers’ gender and listeners’ gender, two variables that have been usually examined separately, on how voices with Northern Irish English (NIrE) accents are rated on the traditional dimensions of prestige and pleasantness. The questionnaire responses of 138 informants from Northern Ireland reveal two main trends: (1) female respondents award more favourable ratings on prestige and pleasantness than males; and (2) female voices are evaluated more positively than male voices. These trends corroborate previous findings by Bishop et al. (2005) and Coupland and Bishop (2007). Finally, this study also shows that the first of these trends is reversed when informants evaluate the voices on the Mild-Broad and Intelligible-Unintelligible scales, where the ratings by male participants are more favourable that those given by women.
- PublicationOpen AccessA theoretical model of self-concept and self-esteem in the foreign language classroom.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Rubio-Alcalá, Fernando David; Cano-Jiménez, Pablo AntonioAbstract: This paper proposes a domain-specific theoretical model of self-concept and self-esteem in the foreign language classroom context. We studied different dimensions and factors, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) yielded a three-dimensional structured acceptable model fit with a reliability coefficient of ω= .92 (n=252), supporting the dimensions of language competence, task performance skills, and perceived social support. The specific factors within these dimensions and their interactions were analysed. Implications for research and pedagogy are also discussed.
- PublicationOpen AccessClause initial null subjects in Web-based written language : an analysis of eight varieties of English.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Tamaredo, IvánAbstract: Null subjects in English(es) are a phenomenon that has recently received much attention in the specialized literature. However, most studies are based on small datasets and samples of varieties due to the difficulty of extracting null subjects from corpora. The present paper is a first step towards the automatization of the data retrieval process of null subjects and analyzes a much larger sample of cases and varieties than previous research, namely, Australian, Canadian, Jamaican, Singaporean, Nigerian, Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani Englishes. By focusing on referential and non-referential third person singular clause initial null and overt subjects, a variationist examination of the data is conducted by means of mixed-effects logistic regression analyses which shows that non-referential null subjects are a much more pervasive and stable phenomenon in World Englishes than their referential counterparts. In addition, a cline of varieties emerges with respect to referential null subjects: these null subjects are more frequent the more advanced varieties are in Schneider’s Dynamic Model.
- PublicationOpen AccessLexical availability in CLIL : differences in language of instruction.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Geoghegan, LeahAbstract: Within the context of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), vocabulary acquisition is of central importance. However, while CLIL is increasingly being implemented throughout Spain, there remains a clear preference, both in practice and research, for using English over other languages such as French. This study thus investigates the token production of Spanish students taking both English and French CLIL classes by means of a lexical availability task. It aims to determine if there are quantitative differences between the learners’ language level and token production in English and French, and whether these differences exist across grades. Results indicate that learners have higher proficiency and produce more words in English, and that CLIL instruction has a clear impact on learners’ production across grades. The results are of key interest to multilingual CLIL educators seeking to make the most of vocabulary gains in multiple languages.
- PublicationOpen AccessThomas More in the Virorum doctorum de disciplinis benemerentium effigies XLIIII (1572).(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Olivares-Merino, Eugenio M.Abstract: While in Antwerp to work on his edition of the Polyglot Bible (1573), the Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano met the Dutch engraver, Philip Galle. They collaborated on the publication of the Virorum doctorum de disciplinis benemerentium effigies XLIIII (1572), a collection of over 40 portraits, each accompanied by a Latin epigram by the Spaniard. One of these portraits corresponds to Thomas More; and it was the first time that an engraving of Henry VIII’s Chancellor appeared in a portrait book. This study analyzes More’s presence in Galle’s and Arias Montano’s volume. After dealing with the sources of Galle’s graphic representation of More and its formal analysis, we clarify why the Spanish Netherlands were a most fitting context for the popularisation of More’s image in printed works. The Spaniard’s possible role in the creation of the final list of 44 illustrious men is also relevant, though it has primarily been argued by Spanish scholars. Other aspects related to the genesis of the Virorum doctorum are also taken into account before concluding with an analysis of the two versions of the Latin epigram that Arias Montano composed for More, a synthesis of what the Spaniard admired in the ill-fated English author.
- PublicationOpen AccessMe not a good kisser, that’s like Mother Theresa, not a good mother : an analysis of the hyperbolic like comparison construction.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Rosca, AndreeaAbstract: Given the scarcity of research on hyperbole and simile in Cognitive Linguistics, it is important to explore these figures of speech, whose interaction has only been tangentially addressed in this field. Thus, the main aim of the study is to provide a detailed description of hyperbolic like comparison constructions by examining the structural and conceptual diversity of the source and target domains, as well as the characteristics of the third component of hyperbolic similes, namely the elaboration. With this objective in mind, we carried out an analysis of 120 examples of hyperbolic similes retrieved from the comedy sitcom Friends (1994-2004). Our findings show that the source domains of hyperbolic like comparison constructions are both structurally and conceptually more complex than the target domains.
- PublicationOpen AccessMusical input and a multiliteracies approach to facilitate intercultural EFL learning.(Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Fernández-García, AntonioAbstract: The current multicultural context has influenced how we learn languages. On the one hand, different models of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) have emerged to deal with the cultural diversity of narratives and promote heterogeneous identities. On the other, the need to consider other literacies has given rise to the incorporation of a Multiliteracies pedagogy into language learning curricula. Educators have employed numerous resources to engage students in intercultural communicative activities through this pedagogy. However, little has been analysed with respect to the effectiveness of musical input. Among the multiple reasons for its implementation is the possibility of exploring cultural contents from a critical and affective point of view. Therefore, this study seeks to propose a musical input-based approach in a multilingual EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning context which may serve as a guide to facilitate the development of ICC through a pedagogy of Multiliteracies. Moreover, this paper aims to illustrate the applicability of musical input to facilitate intercultural EFL learning through pedagogical suggestions.