• Title/Summary/Keyword: Language Conflict

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Neuroscience and the Social Powers of Narrative: How Stories Configure Our Brains

  • Armstrong, Paul B.
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.64 no.1
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    • pp.3-24
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    • 2018
  • Stories are important instruments for configuring our cognitive and social worlds, but they do not necessarily make us more caring or less aggressive and self-involved. The ability to tell and follow a story requires cognitive capacities that are basic to the neurobiology of mental functioning, and so it would stand to reason that our experiences with stories would draw on and re-shape patterns of interaction that extend beyond the immediate experience of reading or listening to a narrative. Our intuitive, bodily-based ability to understand the actions of other people is fundamental to social relations, including the circuit between the representation of a configured action emplotted in a narrative and the reader's or listener's activity of following the story as we assimilate its patterns into the figures that shape our worlds. The activity of following a narrative can have a variety of beneficial or potentially noxious social consequences, either promoting the shared intentionality that neurobiologically oriented cultural anthropologists identify as a unique human capacity supporting culturally productive collaboration, or habitualizing and thereby naturalizing particular patterns of perception into rigid ideological constructs. The doubling of "me" and "not-me" in narrative acts of identification may promote the "we-intentionality" that makes socially beneficial cooperation possible, or it can set off mimetic conflict and various contagion effects. Neuroscience cannot predict what the social consequences of narrative will be, but it can identify the brain- and body-based processes through which (for better or worse) stories exercise social power.

Looking through Others' Eyes: A Double Perspective in Literary and Film Studies

  • Kim, Seong-Kon
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.60 no.2
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    • pp.249-267
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    • 2014
  • An outsider's perspective is often illuminating and enlightening, as he or she perceives the world differently from us, and sees things that insiders tend to miss. While an outsider's views are fresh and penetrating, an insider's vision is often banal and myopic. Although outsiders' perspectives may not be quite right at times, they always shed light and provide insight, allowing us to reevaluate the conventional interpretations of our literature and folktales. In order to prevent our own understanding and knowledge from growing stale and narrow-minded, we should endeavor to consider outsiders' opinions and view all things from multiple angles. When reading literary or cultural texts, therefore, we need to read through others' eyes because it provides alternative perspectives. And we should learn to co-exist with others and see things from others' eyes. In his celebrated novel, My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish Nobel Laureate, explores the themes of clashes between the East and the West, the young and the old, and conservatism and radicalism. The confrontation between the stubborn defenders of tradition and the self-righteous innovators ultimately results in bigotry, hatred and murder. As Pamuk aptly perceives in his novel, the inevitable outcome of such uncompromising conflict is degradation of humanity and annihilation of human civilization. That is precisely why we need to embrace others who are different from us and learn to look through others' eyes. Sometimes, we fear other voices and different perspectives. As the movie "The Others" suggests, however, there is no reason for us to be afraid of others.

Questions of Social Order in Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno": The Conflict Between Babo's Plot and Delano's Abject Fear

  • Kim, Hyejin
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.55 no.6
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    • pp.1123-1137
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    • 2009
  • Revisiting the horror of slave mutiny in nineteenth century America via Julia Kristeva's concept of abject, this essay examines abject fear in Amasa Delano and Babo's subversive act to deceive Delano in Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno." Babo, the slave, exercises subversive power, thereby reversing racial hierarchy aboard the slave ship-the San Dominick. Babo's ability to mimic and control racial stereotypes exposes how nineteenth-century racial hierarchy was only a social fiction, which becomes the very source of Delano's fear. Delano's dread belies upon the possible disruption of social order triggered by Babo'sblack rebellion. In order to repress his fear, Delano consciously and unconsciously attempts to re-inscribe white dominion and reaffirm black inferiority and stereotypes by means of rationalizing the disturbing signs he witnesses on the San Dominick. When Delano discovers the realsituation of the ship, he must relinquish the abject resonance that disturbs the previous racial order. Employing a legal document, Delano re-inscribes the official position of the blacks as slaves, defining them as violent savages, and thereby silences Babo. However, Melville's text is not a testament to white power. "Benito Cereno" actually endorses abject instability to challenge racial hierarchies through the poignant image of Babo's dead gaze in the last scene of the novella. Thus, "Benito Cereno" exemplifies the recurring power of abject as a threat to social hierarchy and as a constant reminder of the falsity and insecurity of a social order.

A Traumatic Face of Colonial Hawai'i: The 1998 Asian American Event and Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Blu's Hanging

  • Kim, Chang-Hee
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.56 no.6
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    • pp.1311-1337
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    • 2010
  • This paper deals with one of the hottest debates in the history of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) since its inception in the late 1960s. In 1998 at Hawai'i, the AAAS awarded Lois-Ann Yamanaka its Fiction Award for her novel Blu's Hanging, only to have this award protested. The point at issue was the inappropriate representation of Filipino American characters called "Human Rats" in the novel. This event divided the association into two groups: one criticizing the novel for the problematic portrayal of Filipinos in colonial Hawai'i, and the other defending it from the criticism in the name of aesthetic freedom. Such a "crisis of representation" in Asian American identity reflects on the ways in which local Hawaiians are positioned in the complicate power dynamic between oppositional Hawaiian identity and cosmopolitan diasporic identity within the larger framework of Asian American pan-ethnic identity. The controversial event triggered the eruption of Asian Americans' anxiety over the identity-bounded nation of Asian America where intra-racial classism and conflict have been at play, which are primary themes of Blu's Hanging. This paper shows how Yamanaka's Blu's Hanging becomes so disturbing a work to prevent the hegemonic formality of Asian America identity from being fully dogmatic. Ultimately, it contradicts the political unconscious of the reading public and unmasked its false consciousness by engendering a "free subjective intervention" in the ideological reality of colonial Hawai'i.

The Value of Film as Material for Learning a Foreign Language: Using Posh Discourse (영상자료가 지니는 외국어 학습 자료로서의 가치 : 공손한 언어를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Hye-Jeong
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.643-651
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    • 2016
  • This study considers the value of English-language films as material for learning a foreign tongue using posh discourse. In daily life, when we decline an invitation or convey unpleasant information to a listener, we use polite expressions; we are careful with our words. English language learners need to learn polite expressions in order to interact peacefully with others; doing so can minimize conflict, which is inherent in social relationships. This study uses the British drama Downton Abbey, which is about aristocracy. This study analyzes the posh discourse used in Downton Abbey and insists that students need to learn it explicitly. It is important to learn the polite expressions of this authentic drama in a real classroom. This study suggests that students work in groups to create a short video, and to try to understand the characters' personalities. Movies, TV dramas, and sitcoms provide great content that shows the various functions of the language that students want to learn. As a source of learning material, film can help improve students' motivation and interest in learning a foreign language.

Going global: The Study Abroad Experiences of Chinese and Korean Students (세계화:중국학생과 한국학생들의 해외 유학 경험)

  • Kidd, Ella;Kim, Hye-Kyun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.18 no.7
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    • pp.401-411
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    • 2018
  • This study includes three students' whose country origin is of a political and economic success, therefore the pursuit to learn English is important. The participants evaluated in this study are two students of Korean descent and one Chinese student. The purpose was to evaluate their overall language learning experiences outside of their home country. While the participants in this study share similar cultures and learning styles their process towards second language readiness is different. The internal factors (readiness) that motivated them to study abroad were synonymous. However, the classroom situations (assessment), social settings (environment), and strategies used were disparate. The methodology of this paper used a holistic approach with a snowball sampling technique. The responses were collected by a prepared questionnaire and unstructured interviews, then later analyzed by the inductive reasoning process. The 3 specific categories identified were despondency, culture and communication conflict. The present study revealed that the participants' earlier preparation from their home country plays a significant contribution to their success abroad.

Widening of Lexical Meaning in Russian Loanwards (차용어 유입에 따른 어휘의미 확장 - 현대 러시아어를 중심으로 -)

  • Kang, Ducksoo;Lee, Sungmin
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.31
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    • pp.287-308
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    • 2013
  • Russian language tends to be quite open to borrowing. In Russian it has been for a long time the conventional way of expanding the lexicon, accepting many words from adjacent languages, including Church Slavic. In the contemporary Russian English has been the main source for loanwords. There are several linguistic factors for lexical borrowing: 1. the necessity of denominating new facts, phenomena or concepts, 2. the necessity of differentiating concepts, 3. the necessity of specializing new concepts, 4. the introduction of new international terms, 5. the increase of periphrastic expressions, 6. the needs for the more elegant and modern words. These factors have caused borrowing to enlarge the component of the lexicon and phrasal expressions, but excessive use of foreign words has brought about negative effects such as linguistic pollution. Some borrowed words are assimilated without serious conflicts, but other words undergo semantic changes in confrontation to existing words of similar meanings. These types of semantic changes comprise total change of meaning, reduction of semantic scale and extension of meaning. Semantic changes are caused by linguistic factors such as lexical conflict with existing words or by socio-culural factors such as misunderstanding of foreign words. And extension of meaning shows two types: qualitative extension and quantitative extension. The first means extending the semantic scope of a borrowed word and the latter - increasing the number of its sememe. In contemporary Russian language we can witness two productive phenomena: qualitative extension by socio-cultural factors, in which words with negative nuances are changed into those with positive ones and professional terms become common words, losing their professional meanings. On the other hand, by quantative extension some loanwords change their concrete meanings into abstract ones. In such cases loanwords acquire the additional meanings of abstractness, putting aside their original concrete meanings as the basic. On the contrary, the qualitative extension of adding the special meaning to general words or giving the concrete meaning to abstract words is not productive. And it is rarely witnessed that words of positive nuances are negatively used. It is considered that such cases are partly restricted in the spoken language or the jargon. Such phenomena may happen by the incomplete understanding of English words.

Post-War Zainichi Magazines in Japan and Zainichi Society -Focusing on the Quickening Period until 1959- (전후 재일잡지미디어 지형과 재일사회 -1959년까지의 태동기를 중심으로-)

  • Lee, Seung-Jin
    • The Journal of Korean-Japanese National Studies
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    • no.35
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    • pp.107-144
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    • 2018
  • This paper summarizes the genealogy of post-war Zainichi magazines in Japan until 1959 and examines their meaning in the context of magazine history in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to prepare the framework to view characteristics of Zainichi magazines in Japan after the war until the present from a continuous and comprehensive perspective. Zainichi, who were left behind in Japan after the war began to project diverse aspects of their lives onto magazines. Despite the poor publishing environment, censorship of GHQ, shortage of writers and financial limitations, the Zainichi society did not give up the public sphere of magazines. The confusion in this time period acted as an element to expose limitations of Zainichi magazines in Japan. Most of magazines published in 1940s and 50s had to focus on political propaganda within the political frame, and many of such magazines were only published for a short term. In other words, it is ambiguous to define the majority of them as 'magazines' and a considerable number of them cannot even confirm the existence, making it difficult to examine the whole picture of magazines from this period. However, recently excavated materials indicate that most of Zainichi magazines in Japan attempted to reflect the reality of the Zainichi society in various ways, though they were confined in the political frame. The process in which language of magazines was changed from Korean language to Japanese and then again to Korean language suggests that Zainichi magazines in Japan tried to consistently express their existence in 'ethnicity,' 'homeland' and beyond, mediated by 'politics' and 'culture.' Moreover, the experience of seeking for the possibility of Zainichi culture in Japan from the flow of cultural movements in Japan during 1950s is an experience of seeking for a popular 'expression' that overcomes the political conflict of homeland. This reveals the diversity the Zainichi society to occur afterwards. A more precise study on individual magazines published during this period would be necessary in the future.

The Dual Language Usage and Hybrid Identity of the Student of Daegu Chinese Middle·High School (대구화교중고등학교 학생의 이중적 언어사용과 혼종적 정체성)

  • Park, Kyu Taeg
    • Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.354-365
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    • 2017
  • This study is to analyze the dual language and hybrid identity of the students of Daegu Chinese Middle.High School. Such a phenomenon is being produced and changed at the site or zone of meeting different or conflict factors such as Chinese and Korean. The Chinese Korean students had learned Korean from their mother and her relative at a young age, and their dual and complex language habit was produced due to the learning of Chinese from father and his relative. A large number of the students were educated at a Korean kindergarten, but they were formally learned Chinese and China's society and culture at a Korean Chinese school after primary school. The Chinese Korean students talk with parents, brother and sister, teacher, friend and neighbor at home, school and local by Chinese and/or Korean. They use a dual language of Chinese and Korean based on various situations, but they do not particularly distinguished both language in cognition. The students have a hybrid identity of simultaneously recognizing Chinese and Korean. But some of them think Chinese or Korean. It is necessary for the results of this study to be objectified from the following research on the students of Chinese Middle・High School in Seoul, Incheon and Busan.

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Methodology for Extended Schema Representation in Database Integration

  • 김철호
    • Journal of the military operations research society of Korea
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.85-102
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    • 1997
  • There have been several research efforts to support interoperability among multiple databases. In integrating multiple databases, we must resolve schema conflicts due to the heterogeneity in databases. To resolve these conflicts, not only meta-data for database schemas but also general knowledge expressing the real world meanings associated with the database schemas are required. This paper presents a uniform representation method for relational schema and general knowledge base that is composed, among other things, of concept hierarchy and thematic roles in relationship, using the knowledge representation language Lk. This representation method has a flexible descriptive power which facilitates concepts to be expressed at different levels of granularity and can describe knowledge expressed in Lk are used for input of the next step, such as conflict resolution and query processing of multiple database.

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