scholarly journals Youth Education with Proverbs: A Case Study of Polish Proverbs about Work

This paper focuses on the place of metaphorical narratives in education and in young people’s perceptions of work. Paremiology—the study of proverbs—explores cultural stipulates as scripts imprinted in proverbs, based on metaphor and metonymy, stored in collective wisdom. The article aims to present typical features of proverbs, indicating their potential in teaching: for example, helping in value clarification and career planning based on metaphorical narratives found in youth discourse. The paper discusses theoretical and methodological issues and the potential of applying them in education. First, the basic theoretical assumptions referring to language and culture are introduced, alongside the phenomenon of reasoning through proverbs. Then, proverbs are described, and their use in cross-cultural linguistic research is justified. The new concept of the paremioscript is introduced to demonstrate the power of proverbs in youth culture, and a few case studies are presented as metaphorical carriers of folk wisdom in the collective memory. The paper concerns the mechanism of valuing and embodiment in proverbs and finally discusses the advantages and limitations necessary to be considered in applying paremiology in education.

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Kubota ◽  
Ai Kubota

This paper presents a case study of the use of the NINJAL Parsed Corpus of Modern Japanese (NPCMJ) for syntactic research. NPCMJ is the first phrase structure-based treebank for Japanese that is specifically designed for application in linguistic (in addition to NLP) research. After discussing some basic methodological issues pertaining to the use of treebanks for theoretical linguistics research, we introduce our case study on the status of the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC) in Japanese, showing that NPCMJ enables us to easily retrieve examples that support one of the key claims of Kubota and Lee (2015): that the CSC should be viewed as a pragmatic, rather than a syntactic constraint. The corpus-based study we conducted moreover revealed a previously unnoticed tendency that was highly relevant for further clarifying the principles governing the empirical data in question. We conclude the paper by briefly discussing some further methodological issues brought up by our case study pertaining to the relationship between linguistic research and corpus development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001458582098650
Author(s):  
Gloria De Vincenti ◽  
Angela Giovanangeli

Researchers examining nationalistic conceptions of language learning argue that nationalist essentialism often shapes the way languages are taught by educators and understood by learners. While numerous studies focus on how frameworks informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and intercultural education offer alternative approaches to national stereotyping, these studies tend to focus on theoretical approaches, teacher perspectives or innovative teaching and learning resources. The literature to date, however, does not provide case studies on student responses to activities designed by the teacher to open up the classroom with opportunities that move beyond essentialist representations. This article responds to the need for such scholarship and presents a case study involving a focus group with tertiary students in an Italian language and culture subject. It reveals some of the ways in which students enacted and reflected upon alternatives to nationalist essentialising as a result of language learning activities that had been informed by the discursive processes of CDA. The findings suggest that students demonstrated skills and attitudes such as curiosity, subjectivities and connections with broader social contexts. Some of the data also indicates student engagement in critical inquiry and their potential for social agency.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Drescher

The aim of this paper is two-fold : First it argues for a stronger consideration of the pragmatic and discourse level in research on language contact. Secondly it contributes to the pragmatics of a specific regional variety of French, namely Cameroonian French. Starting with a picture of the complex linguistic landscape of this multilingual African country, the paper stresses the importance of the pragmatic and discourse level by raising some of the crucial theoretical and methodological issues that a broader, usage-based view on language contact has to cope with. First it suggests that pragmatic and discourse conventions may be influenced by the local contact languages and secondly it emphasizes that they may not be specific to a language, but be shared by a much larger and encompassing community of discourse. A case study of Cameroonian radio phone-ins where callers seek advice on medical issues points out some of these conventions. Here the participants establish a specific participation framework that avoids direct interaction between caller and expert while the host is set in as a mediator. This global mitigation technique then allows for quite direct realisations of the advice at a local level.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie M.E.A. Cornips ◽  
Vincent de Rooij ◽  
Irene Stengs

This article aims to encourage the interdisciplinary study of ‘languaculture,’ an approach to language and culture in which ideology, linguistic and cultural forms, as well as praxis are studied in relation to one another. An integrated analysis of the selection of linguistic and cultural elements provides insight into how these choices arise from internalized norms and values, and how people position themselves toward received categories and hegemonic ideologies. An interdisciplinary approach will stimulate a rethinking of established concepts and methods of research. It will also lead to a mutual strengthening of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and anthropological research. This contribution focuses on Limburg and the linguistic political context of this Southern-Netherlands region where people are strongly aware of their linguistic distinctiveness. The argument of the paper is based on a case study of languaculture, viz. the carnivalesque song ‘Naar Talia’ (To Italy) by the Getske Boys from the city of Heerlen.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
PATRICIA FRERICKS ◽  
MARTIN GURÍN ◽  
JULIA HÖPPNER

Abstract Family is one of the major principles of welfare state redistribution. It has, however, rarely been at the centre of welfare state research. This contribution intends to help remedy the research gap in family-related redistribution. By examining the German welfare state which is known to be both redistributive and family-oriented, we want to answer the question of how and how far the German welfare state institutionalises family as a redistributive principle. Our case-study of German welfare state regulations in terms of family is based on the tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD and its Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT). We differentiate 54 family forms to adequately reflect our three theoretical assumptions, which are: (1) redistributive logics differ across family forms, and in part markedly; (2) these differences are not the result of one coherent set of regulations, but of an interplay of partially contradictory regulations; (3) family as a redistributive principle manifests itself not only in terms of additional benefits to families, but also in terms of particular obligations of families to financially support family members before they are entitled to public support. These aspects have hardly been analysed before and combining them allows a clear evaluation of family-related redistribution.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
John Bosco Ngendakurio

Abstract This article seeks to reveal the primary barriers to fair economic development based on Kenyans’ perceptions of power and globalization. This search was initially sparked by the seeming disinterest of First World scholars to understand the reasons why poor countries benefit so little from the global market as reflected in a subsequent lack of a wide-ranging existing literature about the subject. The literature suggests that global capitalism is dominated by a powerful small elite, the so-called Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), but how does this relate to Kenya and Africa in general? We know that the TCC has strong connections to financial capital and wealthy transnational corporations. It also pushes neo-liberalism, which becomes the taken-for-granted everyday language and culture that justifies state policies that result in a further class polarization between the rich and poor. Using Kenya as a case study, this article draws on original qualitative research involving face-to-face interviews with Kenyan residents in different sectors who spoke freely about what they perceive to be Kenya’s place in the world order. My interview results show that, on top of the general lack of economic power in the world order, the main barriers to Africa’s performance are neo-colonial and imperialist practices, poor technology, poor infrastructure, general governance issues, and purchasing power.


Author(s):  
B.J. Epstein

Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably about the history of theUnited States in terms of slavery and race relations. How, then, can this be translated to another language and culture, especially one with a very different background in regard to minorities? And in particular, how can this be translated for children, who have less knowledge about history and slavery than adult readers? In this essay, I analyse how Twain’s novel has been translated to Swedish. I study 15 translations. Surprisingly, I find that instead of retaining Twain’s even-handed portrayal of the two races and his acceptance of a wide variety of types of Americans, Swedish translators tend to emphasise the foreignness, otherness, and lack of education of the black characters. In other words, although the American setting is kept, the translators nevertheless give Swedish readers a very different understanding of theUnited Statesand slavery than that which Twain strove to give his American readers. This may reflect the differences in immigration and cultural makeup inSwedenversus inAmerica, but it radically changes the book as well as child readers’ understanding of what makes a nation.


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