• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.3
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• pp.361-381
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• 2018

Shakespeare reflects/refracts the controversial spirit of his age in the epistemological and political skepticism of his Roman plays: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Skepticism doubts all received truth and suspends judgment, and it often takes the form of mental jousting on both sides of a question. Renaissance skepticism was strengthened by rhetorical education. Arguing on both sides of the question (in utramquem partem) was a practice taught in Shakespeare's grammar school in order to enhance students' mental abilities in logic and dialectic. This rhetorical exercise seldom leads to a third-term resolution: it just reveals all the apparent and hidden aspects of a problem at issue. Shakespeare's Roman plays, especially his Julius Caesar, demonstrate this skeptical attitude, leaving the judgment to the audience.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.461-482
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• 2008

The science fiction was established as a typical genre of the American popular culture by the monumental releases of two series: Star Wars and Star Trek. Based on the popular science discourse, these two series have functioned as an ideological apparatus for re-appropriating Frontierism which reflects the essential values of American myth. Arguably, the SF genre owes its success mainly to the increasing popularity of science during the 1960s and 1970s, which was well represented in the space project of NASA. This power of popular science, however, tended to weaken in the 1990s as the public interest in NASA's project gradually decreased. "Deep Space Homer," an episode of The Simpson's fifth season, reflects the changing attitude of the American audience toward the new American hero created in the SF series of popular science in the previous popular culture.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1139-1161
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• 2009

This paper deals with the reduction of unstressed prevocalic /u/ and the appearance of /w/ which are observed in such words as ambiguity [ˌæm bǝ ˈgju: ǝ ti] - ambiguous [æm ˈbɪ gjǝ wǝs]. This phenomenon is recorded in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, and the draft revisions of Oxford English Dictionary Online. Since this phenomenon has not been studied in detail up to now, this paper aims 1) to collect the data related to the reduction of unstressed prevocalic /u/, 2) to classify them systematically, and 3) to explain the phenomenon in terms of Optimality Theory. In the course of analysis, Prevocalic Lengthening, which is crucial to the preservation of unstressed prevocalic /u/, is reinterpreted as one of the ways to prevent hiatus (annual /æ nju: ǝl/). /w/-insertion is another way to prevent hiatus (annual /æ njǝ wǝl/). In addition it is argued that prevocalic /u/ behaves differently from prevocalic /i/ due to the difference in the articulators involved.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1163-1190
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• 2010

Korean EFL learners' stylistic sensitivity was examined through the two types of letter writing, professional and personal. The base of comparison with the English native speakers' stylistic sensitivity was the linguistic style markers that were statistically found by Biber's (1988) multi-dimensional model of variation of English language. The main finding was that Korean university students were sensitive to stylistic difference in the correct direction, though their linguistic repertoire was limited to the easy and simple linguistic features. Also, the learners were skewed in the involved style in both types of the letters unlike the native speakers and it was interpreted as due to the general developmental direction from informal to formal linguistic style. Learners were also skewed in the explicit style in both types of letters unlike the native speakers and it was interpreted as due to the learners' heavy reliance on one particular linguistic feature. As a whole, the learners' stylistic sensitivity heavily relied on the small number of linguistic features that they have already acquired, which happen to be simple and basic linguistic features.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.1199-1212
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• 2011

This paper is to scrutinize Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea through a Marxist criticism. While critics were industriously excavating discourses of feminism, post-colonialism, and racism in the novel, they tended to regard the Marxist attribute as supplementary material and to diminish the significance not considering as an independent subject to be examined. However, the novel, in which all the major relationships are based on capital, exemplifies class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat. Marx and Engels believe that the foundation of our society is capital and that society evolves through class conflict to obtain more capital, and thus they assert people's relations are the product of the commodification of individuals. Furthering their study, Louis Althusser specifies the power system through the (repressive) state apparatus and the ideological state apparatus. With the theories of the thinkers' above, this paper analyzes the relationship between Annette and Mason, Antoinette and her nameless husband, allegedly Rochester, Rochester and Amelie, and Rochester and Daniel Cosway. This paper offers an alternative reading of a classical feminist and post-colonial text.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.911-938
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• 2011

The present study examined the effect of two variables of task complexity, reasoning demand and time pressure, each from the resourcedirecting and resource-dispersing dimension in Robinson's (2001) framework of task classification. Reasoning demand was operationalized as the two types of texts to read and summarize, expository and argumentative. Time pressure was operationalized as the two modes of performance, oral and written. Six university students summarized the two types of text orally and twenty four students from the same school summarized them in the written form. Results from t test and ANCOVA showed that in the oral mode, reasoning demand tends to heighten the complexity of the language used in the summary in competition with accuracy but such an effect disappeared in the written mode. It was interpreted that the degree of time pressure is not the only difference between the oral and written modes but that the two modes may be fundamentally different cognitive tasks, and that Robinson's (2001) and Skehan's (1998) models were differentially supported by the oral mode of tasks but not by the written mode of the tasks.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.1043-1065
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• 2011

This study investigates i-umlaut which occurred in the period of pre Old English (OE) in two aspects: what motivates i-umlaut in OE and how the phenomenon can be analyzed within the framework of OT. Unlike root-controlled vowel harmony, i-umlaut in OE is triggered by the suffixal i or j in the unstressed syllable whereby a stressed root vowel becomes fronted or raised. In this study, it is proposed that i-umlaut in OE is driven by the weak trigger i or j to improve its poor perception: I-umlaut improves the poor perceptibility of the weak trigger by extending its feature-either [-back] or [-low]-onto the vowel in the stressed syllable. This study provides an OT-theoretic analysis utilizing the licensing account to vowel harmony proposed by Walker (2004, 2005). The licensing constraints, IDENT-IO(F) and the locally conjoined constraints are proposed and their interaction correctly captures the pattern of i-umlaut in OE. Also, it is shown that the licensing account proposed in this paper is superior to the previous analyses as well as the nonlicensing approaches in that it can provide a perceptual motivation couched in i-umlaut in OE.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.391-411
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• 2011

This paper examines Du Boisian critique of American exceptionalism through a close textual analysis of his writings from early essays to later works. As an attempt to respond to the persistent grip American exceptionalism has on both the academia and the intellectual world at large, this paper tries to fill in the gaps within the discourse of American exceptionalism by exploring the works of one of the most towering American intellectual figures, and suggests that the discourse of American exceptionalism has remained within the purview of white scholars. Although at times inconsistent and contradictory, Du Bois's trenchant critique of American civilization and Western imperialism deconstructs the original ideals of America, creating more than a fissure in the ideology/hegemony/state fantasy of American exceptionalism. I argue that Du Boisian critique of American exceptionalism shows its violent marginalization and racialization based on white supremacy. Du Boisian critique should be a cautionary tale for those scholars who talk of "reform" or "replenishment" or even who occlude the possibility that American exceptionalism has not always functioned as a "state fantasy" by assuming its absolute blinding powers.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.475-495
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• 2009

In this paper, I discuss some asymmetries of bracketing paradoxes from a corpus-based perspective. Through a critical examination of previous analyses of bracketing paradoxes, it is demonstrated that the cases of apparent asymmetries of bracketing paradoxes are consistently accounted for when combined with the frequency-based parsability in morphological processing. Based on the relative frequency, this paper argues that bracketing paradoxes are well-atttested when their immediate bases are frequent and productive enough to be accessed as a unit and stored as such in memory. This is an extension of Hay 2002 which conducted a comprehensive survey of differential frequency effects in suffix pairs. A frequency-based approach to bracketing paradoxes adopted in this paper can be a challenge to the conventional formal theory by assuming a major role of language use and have the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the asymmetries observed in the real language world.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1135-1161
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• 2010

The interpretations of degree expressions require the postulation of new entities to represent degrees. Diverse entities such as degrees, intervals, and vectors are adopted for degree expressions. Positive degree sentences and questions are properly construed with the introduction of these entities, but their negative counterparts need more consideration. Negative degree sentences show dual patterns of entailments depending on contexts, and negative degree questions are unacceptable, making weak islands. To explicate the distinct nature of negative degree sentences and questions, Fox & Hackl (2006) provide an analysis based on degrees while Abrusan & Spector (2010) suggest a proposal in interval readings of degree expressions. I have pointed out the theoretical problems of these analyses and proposed an alternative in the framework of the vector space semantics, following Winter (2005). Bi-directional scales in vector space fit well with the dual patterns of negative degree sentences, and the notion of a reference vector is useful to accommodate the contextual influence in negative degree sentences and to deal with the unacceptability of negative degree questions.