JournalTOCs

English Language and Literature Studies
Number of Followers: 16

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 1925-4768 - ISSN (Online) 1925-4776
Published by CCSE

[43 journals]

Reviewer Acknowledgements for English Language and Literature Studies,
Vol. 11, No. 4
- Abstract: Reviewer Acknowledgements for English Language and Literature Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2021.
  PubDate: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 06:41:26 +000
Infusing Critical Thinking Skills into Argumentative Writing: A Study of
Chinese College English Learners
- Abstract: Argumentative writing plays an important role in higher education with college students needing to know how to compose persuasive arguments for academic and career purposes. While writing an argumentative essay, Chinese college students not only face the challenges of the activity itself but also the difficulties of writing in a foreign language. To facilitate their argumentative writing, a revised six-element argumentative model based on Toulmin’s framework infused with critical thinking skills was taught to 30 students in an English course at a Chinese Teacher-training University. Using an argumentative essay test in a pre- and post-test design, it was found that the students’ holistic argumentative writing ability significantly improved after the intervention. However, the students’ ability to rebut remained weak.
  PubDate: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 04:47:07 +000
A Comparative Study of Postcolonial Aspects in T. Salih’s Season of
Migration to the North and C. Achebe’s No Longer at Ease
- Abstract: This study aims at investigating aspects of coloniality in both novels of the title. The two works expose a number of the evils of coloniality like masked colonisation, stereotyping and hybridity. The coloniser’s appointing of national agents to run the country in the coloniser’s stead, raising nonentities on the political hierarchy and sowing seeds of hatred among citizens of the same nation will be discussed under the first subtitle, masked colonisation. Under the second, stereotyping and misrepresenting Africans will be investigated. The paper will discuss ideas of language, culture and religion when dealing with hybridity, the third concept in such a trichotomy, to show how these have been affected by colonisation. The paper will respond to the following questions: how do Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and Salih’s Season of Migration to the North question the credibility of achieving independence' How (and why) did the (British) coloniser persistently stereotype African nations' How did the evil aftermaths of British colonialism reach and spoil the different aspects of the lives of the colonised nations, as shown in both'
  PubDate: Thu, 18 Nov 2021 03:29:05 +000
A Review of Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic
- Abstract: Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic is the latest monograph of Venuti. It firstly examines the “untranslatability” and "loyalty" widely existing in translation theories, translation proverbs, and subtitle translation. Then the work criticizes the instrumentalism behind them, and proposes to think translation in a hermeneutic way. This review mainly introduces the general idea of each part, the structure and methodology of this book, and gives a brief comment on its value, shortcomings, enlightenment as well.
  PubDate: Fri, 05 Nov 2021 09:44:28 +000
An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Ecological Narratives
- Abstract: American writer Mark Twain has witnessed changes of American environment of the 19th century, which changes his sense of place. Urbanization and industrialization separate human beings from nature, leading to various conflicts. City is always regarded as the symbol of order, reason, crime and degeneration, while nature means freedom and happiness. Twain advocates the return to nature to lead a simple life. He tries to reveal the ecological crisis in the 19th century and express his ecological concepts through redefining “place”, “space” and son on.
  PubDate: Fri, 05 Nov 2021 08:32:41 +000
The Unprescence of China’s COVID-19 Trauma and Its Impact on Social
Identity
- Abstract: In the psychology and literary fields, the theoretical study of trauma has received increasing attention. It is widely applied by experts and scholars across various aspects, such as war, gender and so on. To give it more practical significance, the main object of this study is to investigate the modern use of trauma by connecting it to the topic of a nation. China, the country first plagued by COVID-19—a representative modern trauma—has suffered not only physically but also mentally. This paper will analyze how trauma affects a nation by using classical theories on trauma, such as those from Sigmund Freud and Cathy Caruth. In terms of national collective trauma, new theories from Roger Luckhurst and Jeffrey C. Alexander would also be adopted. To achieve the sophisticated link between trauma and nation, the unprescence of trauma and its social identity threat to China are further discussed as main parts of this essay. This research will encourage a more rational treatment of collective trauma sufferers and calls for the realistic and practical use of the literary trauma theory.
  PubDate: Fri, 05 Nov 2021 08:31:35 +000
The Fall of the House of Usher: The Collapse of Roderick’s Nostalgia
Mechanism
- Abstract: As an attractive Gothic tale of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher creates a mysterious and violent fall, leaving multiple interpretations on why the house of Usher collapsed suddenly. From the perspective of Roderick, the last inheritor of aristocratic Usher, the fall of Usher is more like his shaky nostalgia mechanism in front of discontinued situation. In his seemingly stable nostalgia mechanism, Mansion Usher, the narrator and Lady Madeline play core roles in meeting the needs of avoidance, attachment and idealization to construct a seemingly stable nostalgia mechanism. With the weird fall of Usher, Poe probes into the irrational nature of human, permeating his attention to warn the significance of balancing comfortable dream and reality.
  PubDate: Fri, 05 Nov 2021 08:28:33 +000
Resuming Gynocratic Principles: Cultural Reterritorialization of Native
Traditions in Linda Hogan’s Fiction
- Abstract: Native Americans’ cultural system has been utterly undermined in the early colonial conquest and the later neo-colonial expansion. Cultural annihilation is primarily caused by the forced cultural assimilation, especially by the white government’s practice of eradicating native traditions and beliefs. To rebuild the native culture system, Native American writer Linda Hogan attempts to employ the pre-colonial gynocratic principles in her literary creation, thus reterritorializing their cultural identity among the modern natives. This paper reveals how Hogan effectively resumes the ancient gynocratic principles by portraying a series of typical female images in the woman-centered native community, with an aim to fight against cultural assimilation guided by the white male-dominated western metaphysical epistemology.
  PubDate: Mon, 27 Sep 2021 09:10:24 +000
Analysis of Humbert’s Ethical Choices
- Abstract: Humbert’s mumbling in prison shows the readers his true inner world and his tragic fate. Throughout Lolita, it is evidently clear that Humbert’s ethical choice is inextricably linked with his depressed heart and tragic fate. Based on ethical literary criticism proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao, this paper analyzes Humbert’s life, which is a life full of ethical choices. This article, based on Humbert’s ethical choice of Charlotte Haze, Lolita and Quilty, and his ultimate ethical redemption, reveals his ethical dilemma in ethical choice, his Sphinx Factors, the interweaving of his free will and rational will, and his ultimate ethical choice. Humbert’s ethical choices eventually led to his tragic fate.
  PubDate: Fri, 24 Sep 2021 07:58:37 +000
On “4321” Strategy of English Continuation Writing for Senior
High School Students
- Abstract: Under the new form of education, the continuation writing task is officially incorporated into college entrance examination English. This is a collision of imitation and innovation, and it is a very good direction of education and teaching. But at the same time, it brings challenges to both English teachers and students who have been stuck in the rigid writing mode. Therefore, they should change writing patterns, select high-quality composition materials reasonably, and set up interesting plots. Then, teachers should organize valid information to improve the students’ self-improvement levels. Finally, they should integrate high-quality articles to stimulate writing interest and enthusiasm, thus promoting students’ continuation wring abilities.
  PubDate: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:48:08 +000
Cross-Pollination of Freudian Psyche and Kantian Imperatives in Dubliners
- Abstract: The foundation of Dubliners of James Joyce was laid on the cross-pollination of Freudian and Kantian theories. Cross-pollination of Kantian imperatives and Freudian psyche is conspicuous in ‘Eveline’ and ‘Painful case’ in Dubliners, where lies the focal point of this analysis. Cross-pollination is highly obvious in the protagonists of two short stories ‘Eveline’ and ‘Painful case’. Psychological and scientific analysis of the characters brought the embedded cross-pollination into the limelight. For Freud, humans exist as a composite of a natural, biological matrix (termed unconsciousness) and another part, the conscious ego (Tauber, 2009). Sigmund Freud’s super-ego is the womb of guilt feeling, which functioned so well in the characters of Joyce. The explicit dilemma of Eveline and the implicit dilemma of Mr. Duffy have been analyzed through the lens of Kantian imperatives.
  PubDate: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:47:01 +000
The Spatial Cognitive Meaning of Across
- Abstract: Spatial relation is a basic existent relation in the objective world, and in English, prepositions are the important spatial terms to describe spatial relations people perceive. Using Langacker’s trajector-landmark theory from cognitive grammar, this paper attempts to analyze the cognitive process of the six main spatial meaning of English preposition across based on the entries collected by the Collins Dictionary, with data from the the Leeds Collection of Internet Corpora. The findings can be concluded: (1) The use of across should include at least a tr and a lm, and the lm cannot be covert. (2) The spatial relations across contains could be divided into simple atemporal relation and complex atemporal relation. (3) The tr in some dynamic relation of across sometimes will represent some kind of schema, such as source-path-goal schema.
  PubDate: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 09:44:31 +000