Journal of Contemporary Philology

NOTE ON BARTHES’ CRITICISM OF PROUST AND THE DUALITY SENSE/FIELD OF SENSE

2025-01-09T12:10:13+01:00

The position that Barthes holds when reading Proust can be easily characterized today, thanks to the publication of Barthes’ main texts about Proust in Marcel Proust, Mélanges (2020). Barthes’ reading of Proust highlights the play of a duality between ‘sense’ and ‘field of sense’ in À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). It also examines the specific temporality of the narrative, which enforces an equality of past, present, and future, as well as the remarkable reflexivity and conclusion of the novel that makes Proust’s past the future of the narrator. Barthes’ comments on À la recherche du temps perdu illuminate and revise the main concepts of his literary theory, and find in the interplay of the sense/field of sense duality a means to redefine literature on one hand, and on the other, to surpass the critical impasses addressed in Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (Writing Degree Zero).

THE PARTICLE ZAR/ZAREM IN MACEDONIAN

2025-01-10T11:07:48+01:00

In this article, we look into the semantics and pragmatics of the particle zar in the standard Macedonian language, which is used interchangeably with its variant zarem. We argue that zar or zarem is employed in biased polar questions, particularly in contexts where there exists a discrepancy between the speaker’s presupposition and contextual evidence that contradicts it. Our investigation aims to uncover the role of zar/zarem in biased polar questions and determine the discourse functions of zar- questions. To achieve this goal, we conducted an analysis using a sample of questions extracted from contemporary Macedonian prose. The results of our analysis indicate that the particle zar/zarem in biased questions is not obligatory but rather serves to enhance the assertive component at the expense of the inquisitive component in the semantic structure of such questions. This enhancement is reflected in the speaker’s disbelief and surprise regarding the truth of proposition encoded in the question, especially in contradiction contexts. Such semantics enable zar-questions to serve rhetorical purposes or perform indirect claims, thereby functioning as effective persuasion strategies.

VOICING THE MULTILINGUAL SELF IN THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA’S DICTEÉ

2025-01-09T12:14:41+01:00

This study focuses on specific linguistic markers in the chief prose work of American poet and artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictée, that display commitment in utterance. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée is an autobiographical work which explores the protagonist's identity in relation to the author's personal family history as well as historical events as well as numerous references to female mythological figures. In it, layers of the self are further articulated through a specific relationship to the audience, and through a fragmentary form that resists genre classification. By focusing on the linguistic concept of commitment in speech act, the present study explores how in Dictée Cha develops the multilingual subject through voicing. By focusing on the pronoun use, the role of gerund in altering the syntax and the passage between French and English languages, this study exposes the link between the crafting of the speech act and of the multilingual self. We conclude that textual fragmentation in Dictée should not be read as disintegration or inability to attain utterance or a questioning of the woman's multilingual identity. Not only is fragmentary expression necessary for capturing the various elements of the multilingual self, but it also helps underscore the link between writing and speech as the site of the multilingual subject.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME SASANIAN PAHLAVI WORDS IN THE BOIR-AHMADI DIALECT

2025-01-10T11:08:11+01:00

Since the late Achaemenid period, the Sasanian Empire legitimated Middle Persian as the language of religion and government. Widespread in southwestern Iran, this language which was a continuation of Old Persian and was used in inscriptions and books for several centuries after Islam, gradually became obsolete and lost its place. Today, in the light of precise and scientific knowledge of Iranian languages, including Middle Persian, and because of in-depth studies of historical linguistics, it is possible to identify many words and expressions of this language being preserved in the local dialects of southwestern Iran. Among these dialects are Boir-Ahmadi, Mamasani, and Bakhtiari belonging to the southwest branch of Iranian languages and dialects known as Luri. These linguistic varieties are the continuation of the ancient languages of Iran in terms of linguistic evolution. The present study investigates and introduces some words of Middle Persian preserved in the Boir-Ahmadi dialect and spoken by successive generations. This study aims to identify and introduce several Sasanian Pahlavi words that are present and used in the Boir-Ahmadi dialect and, where possible, discuss their etymology and phonetic evolution from Avestan and Old Persian to Middle Persian languages of the Sasanian era.

THE BARBARIANS NEXT TO US, THE BARBARIANS IN US: ТHE CONTINENT’S HUMAN AND SUBHUMAN FACE

2025-01-09T12:14:40+01:00

The Western European civilizational and colonial paradigm has recognized and inscribed otherness in the wild, impulsive, sexually potent and aggressive barbarian, described in John Maxwell Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians. But Fortress Europe – on whose borders millions of Middle East refugees and migrants survive today – is not only the destination that the Other desperately desires, but also the place where his death takes place. The first perception of Europe represents the "zone of existence", the second "the zone of non-existence". One belongs to the citizens (the humans), the other to the "non-citizens" (the subhumans) - refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, the displaced, the discriminated - whose "bare existence" invalidates the contemporary understanding of subjectivity. Excluded from the system, the subhumans represent the constitutive non-part of Europe today. They are the differАnce of the "European apartheid", an external dialectic of its symbolic order, whose false humanitarianism reveals its dark colonial and racist face. This text attempts to show how, eventually, European politics is self-destructive, and its biopolitical system – thanatopolitical, because (being the essence of neoliberalism) the "death of the political" implies death itself.

THE STRANGE AND ITS COMIC EFFECTS IN THE NOVEL THE INVISIBLE MAN BY H. G. WELLS

2025-01-09T12:15:28+01:00

This paper explains the strange and gives examples of a comic relief resulting from the strange behaviour in the novel The Invisible Man ([1897] 2010) by Herbert George Wells. The strange can be defined as that which is unusual, extraordinary, and which does not belong to everyday life and routine (i.e., which is contrary to the norm and the expected social behaviour). The strange can both evoke fear and humour or laughter as an unexpected reaction to something serious, which then serves as a mechanism for creating tension that escalates with a plot twist.

What is regarded as strange are the stranger Griffin's appearance, his clothes, but also gestures, behaviour and his responses to other characters. The novel combines the comic and the serious, the funny and the horrific; in fact, the strange – the fear it evokes and the terror caused by it – does not necessarily exist in isolation from the comic or the bizarre. All these elements are a crucial part of the structure of the novel, which depicts scenes of strange and unusual occurrences, characters, and events producing a comic effect. The author uses the scenes that cause a potential comic effect as building mechanisms, which gradually unveil the unexpected culminating in an unusual plot twist towards the end of the novel. The Invisible man is neither a comic work nor a horror story although it combines both elements of humour and terror, which function as complementary literary devices.

HELIOTROPIC COMPASSES: THE SENTIMENTAL DREAM OF THE SOUTH IN THE POETRY OF MAXIMILIAN VOLOSHIN AND NIKOLAI GUMILEV

2025-01-09T12:15:27+01:00

The South is a profound odeoporic, symbolic, archetypal, and sentimental theme in the verses of Maximilian Voloshin and Nikolai Gumilev – two classical and eccentric figures in the literary and historical period of the Silver Age of Russian poetry. This article illuminates the mysticism of the South and delves into understanding the symbols of the Sun and the Sea, while exploring the fascination with African culture and nature in the verses of Gumilev and the enchantment with the historical and natural treasures of the Mediterranean in the topographical poetry of Voloshin. The article explores the essential roles of wanderlust, Otherness, the boundaries between physical and imaginary geography, romantic escapism, and the phenomenological understanding of the chronotopic determinant of the South as a metaphysical metonymy of Baudelaire’s Unknown. Consequently, this thematic interpretation sheds light on the strong currents of the geographical imagination in the poetry of Voloshin and Gumilev, which epitomize the idea of the South as a miraculous myth.

THE MYTH OF THE MONSTROUS FEMININE: A VIEW ON MESOPOTAMIAN, ANCIENT GREEK AND ALBANIAN FEMALE MONSTERS

2025-01-09T12:16:36+01:00

This paper analyses the expression of the monstrous-feminine in Mesopotamian, Ancient Greek and Albanian myths and folklore, while connecting them with and interpreting them through ideas expressed by Barbara Creed (1993) in her book The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. In this paper we can notice matters of the monstrous-feminine that connect between different cultures and geographies, what these matters show us about the cultural perception towards femininity, and how these matters have often been used to portray the danger and risk perceived by a male-dominated society, and the connection these myths and mythological creatures have with Creed’s interpretation of the monstrous-feminine in horror films. By studying this topic, we will better understand how the mentioned cultures, but not only, have portrayed female monsters and monstrous beings, what role they have had in the culture-building of these societies, how they reflect general psycho-social tendencies, and how they continue to be influential to this day in our understanding of gender-roles, societal duties and metaphysical views.

SOCIAL SATIRE IN COVID-19 MEDIA CARTOONS IN CÔTE D'IVOIRE: A MULTIMODAL CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

2025-01-09T12:17:15+01:00

This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach involving satire, multimodality, and critical discourse to investigate the interplay of semiotic modes used in Gbich! COVID-19 cartoons. It examines how these cartoons depict the socioeconomic and political realities of Ivorian citizens during the pandemic and how they served as tools to raise public awareness, critique governmental and global (in)actions, and challenge existing traditional structures and practices. The study is based on 6 purposively selected COVID-19 front-page cartoons of Gbich!, a prominent satirical and humorous newspaper in Côte d'Ivoire. The data were analysed using Kuiper's Perceptual Theory of Satire and Machin and Mayr's Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. The findings reveal that the newspaper satirised issues reflecting domestic, local, and global discourses during the pandemic. It highlighted power dynamics within family structures during crises, as well as between the virus, citizens and global entities. The paper concludes that the newspaper elicited discussions on gender roles and expectations, information management, crisis management and prioritisation of responses during emergencies. Moreover, it impressed its ideological stance on solidarity, power and marriage to its audience.