The Journal of Contemporary Philology (JCP) is an international, peer-reviewed electronic journal that publishes high-quality scholarly articles in the fields of linguistics, applied linguistics, literary studies, and cultural studies. The journal is committed to advancing research that addresses both theoretical and applied issues, with particular emphasis on contemporary developments, innovative methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches. JCP welcomes original contributions that: - address linguistic, literary, and cultural aspects; - engage in comparative or contrastive analysis; - explore key issues in literary theory and criticism; - examine translation and intercultural communication. Original contributions focusing on topics in Balkan and Slavic studies are especially encouraged. Authors are invited to submit previously unpublished research articles, review articles, and book reviews written in English or Macedonian. The journal is published twice a year with the support of the Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. Indexed and abstracted in MLA (Modern Language Association) DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) Google Scholar ProQuest ERIH PLUS WorldCat LIBRIS BASE OpenAIRE Brill’s Linguistic Bibliography Online The Linguist List COBISS.MK-ID 109201930 (UDK 81) EBSCO
Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philology, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje, RN Macedonia
Copyright © 2014 Blaže Koneski Faculty of Philology, Skopje Journal of Contemporary Philology (JCP) Современа филологија
(Angelina Banović-Markovska, Zlatko Kramarić, Once Again Politics, Culture, Identity: Intercultural Dialogue 2, MI-AN, Skopje, 2024, pp. 396)
Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Contemporary Philology
CENTRAL EUROPEAN ENTANGLEMENTS AND WOMEN'S HISTORY: A CASE STUDY
This paper examines the intellectual and political entanglements of Alžbeta Göllnerová Gwerková (1905–1944), a Slovak scholar, translator, and activist whose work exemplifies the intersections of gender, culture, and politics in interwar Czechoslovakia. Positioned as both a supporter of Czechoslovakism and a mediator of Hungarian culture, Göllnerová Gwerková consciously inserted herself into academic discourse as a political actor. Her writings reveal a dual commitment: on the one hand, to democratic and liberal ideals that sought to transform estate society into civic society; on the other, to the promotion of Czechoslovak unity as a cultural and political project. The paper highlights how her feminist awareness, which started to take shape in the mid-1930s, intersected with her scholarly endeavors and with her marginal position in academia. By revisiting her intellectual biography, the study foregrounds the political dimension of her scholarship and argues for her reintegration into the history of Central European humanities. The paper also seeks to demonstrate that Slovak feminine identities are deeply entangled in the cultural dynamics of a small, non-dominant nation – an entanglement that shapes women's biographies and influences their intellectual work.
SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIGRANCY AS A LITERARY FORM OF GIORGIO AGAMBEN’S PROFANATION
This paper addresses Salman Rushdie’s idea of migrancy as a literary version of Giorgio Agamben’s notion of profanation. Contrary to Agamben, who refers to profanation based on the sacred man (homo sacer), Rushdie’s work shows that profanation or impurity is at hand through migrancy. It displays, surveys, and discusses migrancy as an ambivalent reality which does not only embody the potential of uplifting human condition, but also reinforces and nourishes ostracisms. This paper argues for continuous cultural negotiation and renewal required by migratory rationality to uplift life quality in human condition. Theoretically, an intersectional approach that looks at “relationships among seemingly different phenomena” is convoked to examine the intellectual affiliations between Rushdie and Agamben. Rushdie being a writer and Agamben a philosopher, the paper implicitly pleas for the necessary reinforcement of connections between all subjects, like literature and philosophy, in the field of humanities in academia. The study itself consists of three sections. The first section deals with the significance of migrancy in Rushdie’s work. The second section deals with Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. It addresses the relationship existing between migrancy and impurity in the novel. It also displays consequences of common perceptions about impurity in today’s cultural or ideological constellations. The last section deals with the scholarly affiliation of Rushdie’s impurity with Agamben’s profanation. It ends with discussion of impurity/profanation’s prospects in the ‘community to come.’
LOOK BOTH WAYS! CARRYING LITERATURE AND POETRY FROM ONELANGUAGE TO ANOTHER
The work of the literary translator is a complex process of transporting ideas, sounds, and images back and forth across languages. In this short paper I explore problems for translators working from Macedonian into English, systemic impediments to translation, and the development of a translator’s methodology and ethics. Working from my own experiences as a linguist and translator, and the experience of other well-known translators, I discuss the expanding corpus of works translated from Macedonian, the intersections of literary and linguistic knowledge, with examples from my translations, and the political implications of translating from Macedonian into English.
AL-HIJRAH. ARABIC, ITALIAN, AND ENGLISH MIGRATION TERMINOLOGY IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
This paper discusses, from a qualitative and quantitative corpus-based perspective, the features and challenges in comparable terminology in the field of migration in Arabic, Italian, and English. More specifically, it examines terminology related to the migration process, migration agents and socially related issues such as marriage and adoption, taking into account linguistic, social, and cultural obstacles in identifying suitable translation candidates when applying European law to languages that do not share similar juridical frameworks and social practices. The aim of the paper is to identify common linguistic issues and their root causes and to present best practices for adequately covering of this terminological area.
TRANSLATION OF COVID-19 ENGLISH NEOLOGISMS INTO AFRICAN LANGUAGES FOR PUBLIC USAGE: REFLECTIONS ON KISWAHILI IN THE TANZANIAN CONTEXT
This qualitative study investigated the translation techniques used to translate English COVID-19 neologisms into Kiswahili to suit the communicative needs of the general public. The data were collected from two websites which host health texts that are translated into many languages. From Medline Plus and Doctors of the World websites, a total of five English-Kiswahili translated COVID-19 texts were purposefully selected because they were the only available texts at the time of data collection. From these texts, a total of 18 COVID-19 related neologisms with their English-Kiswahili translations were obtained. The translation pairs containing the neologisms in both languages were extracted and analysed based on the framework of translation techniques proposed by Molina and Albir (2002). The findings show that borrowing, description, established equivalent, modulation, amplification, generalisation, literal translation and reduction techniques were used to adapt those medical terms to the general domains of use where they would be used and understood by the general lay public in the Tanzanian context.
ANGLICISMS IN THE MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE: DIRECT BORROWINGS VS LOAN TRANSLATIONS
The significant influx of Anglicisms into the Macedonian language has become an undeniable linguistic phenomenon. Anglicisms appear in various domains such as information technology, law, business, social welfare and science. They reflect the influence of English over Macedonian as well as the interest of the Macedonian society. The analysis is qualitative and it is based on a randomly collected corpus of 300 Anglicisms that appear in the Macedonian language from the beginning of the 21st century. The research, first, focuses on the identification and classification of visible Anglicisms and criteria that verify their visibility, and then it contrasts them with the loan translations. The study also examines the patterns of borrowing Anglicisms into Macedonian, focusing on the distinction between direct lexical borrowings and calques or loan translations. It aims to determine why certain English expressions are directly incorporated into the Macedonian language, while others are translated part by part, sometimes coexisting with their original English forms. Certain tendencies are noted, based on the analysis, which indicate that socio-cultural factors play more significant role than linguistic circumstances when establishing the predictable patterns of borrowing.
INDIRECT CAUSATION: ENGLISH GET-CONSTRUCTIONS AND THEIR MACEDONIAN EQUIVALENTS
This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation into the typology of indirect causation in English and Macedonian. The study focuses on English causative analytic constructions formed with the verb get and non-finite verb forms. The aim of this research is to identify typological differences in how indirect causation is encoded in the two languages by comparing English constructions with their translational equivalents in Macedonian. Given that English, unlike Macedonian, possesses dedicated lexicogrammatical markers for encoding indirect causation – such as the grammaticalized verb get, we hypothesize that the Macedonian translational equivalents of causative get-constructions will vary depending on the construction type. To test this hypothesis, we extracted examples of these constructions from both fiction and documentary prose. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that the functional equivalents of infinitival contructions are predominantly biclausal structures, whereas the translations of present participial get-constructions tend to use monolexical verbs.
EVENT MODALITY IN BALKAN TURKISH. FORMAL AND SEMANTIC VARIATION IN CONTACT
This article constitutes the second part of a two-part study on event modality in selected Turkish varieties spoken in Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Eastern Thrace (Turkey). Building on the analysis of expressions of possibility and necessity in Part 1, this part investigates expressions of volitive modality and their intra- and inter-dialectal variation in Western Rumelian Turkish and Eastern Rumelian Turkish contextualizing the dialectological data with reference to Modern Standard Turkish and Ottoman Turkish varieties. In addition to the consideration of lexical and semantic features, special attention is given to the complementation patterns, which involve both non-finite and finite linking strategies. The Balkan Turkish data will be discussed within the three-dimensional framework of heritage, universal tendencies, and language contact. The survey at the end of this part summarizes and compares the main findings of the study on expressions of possibility, necessity, and volition, and evaluate these findings in the context of Balkan linguistic.
LOST IN THE BALKANS: DIFFERENTIAL PLACE MARKING IN THE AROMANIAN VARIETIES
The phenomenon of Differential Place Marking (Haspelmath 2019), also called zero-marking of spatial relations (Stolz et al 2014), has often been mentioned in the languages of the Balkans. Examples of such differential marking have been documented in the Aromanian varieties (Kramer 1981; Caragiu-Marioțeanu 1975), Modern Greek (Holton et al 1997), Macedonian (Koneski 1965), Ancient Greek (Luraghi 2017), and Latin (Haspelmath 2019; Kramer 1981). However, while the presence of Differential Place Marking has been widely acknowledged, detailed descriptions of such patterns in different varieties are still lacking. Our aim is to present and discuss linguistic data from Aromanian and other Balkan Romance varieties (Istroromanian and Meglen Vlach) to better understand the inter- and intra-dialectal variation of Differential Place Marking. We study and compare their occurrences in the linguistic transcripts from different synchronic Aromanian varieties: from Kruševo (Gołąb 1984), Ohrid and Struga (Markoviḱ 2007), and Turia/Kranéa (Bara et al 2005). The results of the comparative analysis suggest that the dialectal and diachronic picture is not uniform. Various semantic factors, such as the type of noun indicating location (proper vs. common) and whether the location is perceived as proximal or distant seem to play a key role.
Special Issue -Dedicated to the study of the Balkan languages
THE MACEDONIAN AND BALKAN SLAVIC THREE-PART ARTICLE AND THE TYPOLOGY OF DEICTIC ARTICLES
Macedonian’s tripartite article system (proximal, neutral, and distal) aligns with similar systems found in other Balkan Slavic varieties, but also exhibits parallels with non-Slavic languages, such as Wolof, which feature deictic definite articles. This paper investigates the morphosyntactic and semantic features of these articles in Balkan Slavic, aiming to clarify their status within the broader typology of definiteness and deixis. We show through the study of the Macedonian spoken corpus that there are significant differences between the articles regarding their relative frequency. Cross-linguistic comparison further informs the typological status of these articles. In both Balkan Slavic and Atlantic languages like Wolof, definite articles are enclitics, with one form generally occurring significantly more frequently than the others. While interesting secondary functions such as nominal tense have been proposed for these articles, these features are not diagnostic of their “articlehood” and may be expressed by demonstrative pronouns in other languages.
The article examines two phonetic phenomena in the Balkan dialects of Macedonia: the restriction of accent placement to the last three syllables and double accentuation. These phenomena are characteristic of the Macedonian-Albanian-Greek area at the center of the Balkan Sprachbund. The author disagrees with the widely accepted thesis in Balkan literature that the western and central Macedonian dialects share a common accentual system with the Greek, Aromanian, and Albanian dialects in this region. The article presents arguments that challenge previous views on the central Balkan nature of the restriction of accent placement to the last three syllables. The author argues that this phenomenon does not merit special attention, as it represents a universal tendency driven by natural linguistic preferences. Regarding double accentuation, the author identifies a specific type of this phenomenon that may be considered a distinct Balkan trait. This type of accentuation is characteristic of a Balkan micro-region where Slavic and Greek dialects are in contact.
EVENT MODALITY IN BALKAN TURKISH: FORMAL AND SEMANTIC VARIATION IN CONTACT
The present article constitutes the first part of a two-part study on event modality in selected Turkish varieties of Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Eastern Thrace (Turkey). The linguistic structures will be compared with corresponding expressions in Modern Standard Turkish and pre-modern Ottoman Turkish varieties. The study identifies both common features and differences among the Balkan Turkish varieties. Variation occurs in different slots within the investigated constructions and concerns lexical, semantic and morphosyntactic features, including complementation patterns, where both infinitive and subjunctive structures can be found. The linguistic variation is partly dialect-specific and distributed differently among the eastern and western dialects of Balkan Turkish, but intra-dialectal variation is also observed. It will be argued that while some processes that have led to the present situation in Balkan Turkish may be attributed to internal developments of inherited structures and to universal tendencies, impact of language contact has also contributed to the distribution of certain structures within the Turkish dialects of the Balkans.
LABILE VERBS IN MODERN ALBANIAN: A PRELIMINARY CORPUS-BASED STUDY
The goal of the study is to analyze the use of labile verbs in the modern written Albanian language based on the Albanian National Corpus, which contains over 31 million words. In this paper, we present our findings from a pilot study of eight Albanian P-labile verbs belonging to different semantic groups that are typologically prone to lability. The study has shown that the selected verbs behave differently. Only phasal verbs filloj ‘begin’ and mbaroj ‘finish’ demonstrate consistent lability. The motion verb lëviz ‘move’ is used as a labile verb, with a predominance of active intransitive usages, while the verb ziej ‘boil; seethe; ferment’ shows variation between non-active and active intransitive usages. Deadjectival color verbs zbardh ‘whiten; brighten’ and skuq ‘make/color red; fry’ appear both transitively and intransitively, but only in their basic color-related meanings. The verb of distinction and change dalloj ‘distinguish; differentiate’ primarily employs active intransitive forms in reciprocal meanings and morphologically non-active forms in other meanings, while the related verb ndryshoj ‘change; vary, distinguish’ behaves as a typical labile verb, with a secondary development of non-active usages.
CONTACT-INDUCED CHANGES IN THE ORDER OF MODIFYING ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS IN SLAVIC DIALECTS IN ALBANIA
In this article, I investigate the sociolinguistic factors that influenced the word order in nominal phrases in the South Slavic dialects that are spoken in Albania, with a specific focus on the impact of Albanian. Utilizing data from the Corpus of Slavic Dialects in Albania, I examined variations in adjective placement (pre- or post-noun) across several dialects – Golloborda Macedonian (GM), Korça Macedonian (KM), Prespa Macedonian (PM), and migrational Štokavian dialects from Shijak (SŠ) and Myzeqe (MŠ). The analysis revealed that the Albanian-influenced Noun-Adjective order (NADJ) was increasing in these dialects, and was mainly influenced by age, gender, residence type (rural versus urban), and type of community dwelling (compact versus dispersed). The stability of the conservative Adjective Noun (ADJN) order in compact communities and older generations in contrast to the increased Albanian-influenced NADJ usage among younger speakers and by those in dispersed communities, was particularly notable. The influence of standard Slavic languages may reverse the process by supporting the conservative ADJN word order. These findings contribute to the research on the areal spread of word order patterns.
NEW RESEARCH ON ROMANI IN EASTERN NORTH MACEDONIA: THE MALESHEVO DIALECT
This article presents new data on previously undescribed Romani varieties spoken in the eastern part of the Republic of North Macedonia, specifically in the geographical region of Maleshevo. We show that this is a South Balkan dialect that differs from other South Balkan dialects spoken in North Macedonia (especially in Skopje), while sharing several features with the Romani dialects of southwestern Bulgaria. This pattern corresponds to the geographical distribution of South Slavic dialects. Following South Slavic terminology, these Romani varieties can be referred to as Maleshevo-Pirin Romani. In addition to describing typical dialectal features, this study pays special attention to borrowings from local Macedonian dialects.
SYNTAX OF CLITICS IN BULGARIAN CONTACT DIALECTS
The article analyzes interference phenomena in the syntax of clitics in Bulgarian dialects that have been in contact with the Romanian language over a long period of time. The analysis focuses on Bulgarian dialects spoken in the territory of Romania, as well as the specific dialect of Novo Selo in northwestern Bulgaria. It is assumed that both Romanian syntax and dialectal features introduced by Macedonian settlers have influenced this dialect. The principles of clitic order in the sentence, characteristic of Standard Bulgarian, are largely preserved in these dialects. This is mainly due to the fact that both the donor and recipient languages belong to the group of languages with verb-oriented clitics. The analysis shows that in the examined Bulgarian dialects, clitics can appear in initial position, which means that the Tobler-Mussafia law is violated under the influence of the contact languages. At the same time, most of the restrictions on initial clitic placement present in the donor language are shown to be irrelevant.
This volume presents a series of contributions that address key morphosyntactic, semantic, phonological, and contact-induced phenomena in the languages and dialects of the Balkans. The eight studies collected here examine diverse linguistic structures within a shared areal and typological context, offering new data and analyses that contribute to our understanding of the Balkan Sprachbund and its internal diversity.
AN INVESTIGATION INTO SOME SASANIAN PAHLAVI WORDS IN THE BOIR-AHMADI DIALECT
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.
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of Contemporary Philology
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.
SOCIAL SATIRE IN COVID-19 MEDIA CARTOONS IN CÔTE D'IVOIRE: A MULTIMODAL CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
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.
THE MYTH OF THE MONSTROUS FEMININE: A VIEW ON MESOPOTAMIAN, ANCIENT GREEK AND ALBANIAN FEMALE MONSTERS
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.
THE STRANGE AND ITS COMIC EFFECTS IN THE NOVEL THE INVISIBLE MAN BY H. G. WELLS
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
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.
VOICING THE MULTILINGUAL SELF IN THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA’S DICTEÉ
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.
THE BARBARIANS NEXT TO US, THE BARBARIANS IN US: ТHE CONTINENT’S HUMAN AND SUBHUMAN FACE
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.
NOTE ON BARTHES’ CRITICISM OF PROUST AND THE DUALITY SENSE/FIELD OF SENSE
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).
SOME TECHNIQUES OF HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN THE NOVEL FLAUBERT’S PARROT BY JULIAN BARNES
This research is based on the interest to critically analyze and elaborate some of the techniques of historiographic metafiction that are present in the novel Flaubert’s parrot(1984) by Julian Barnes. The paper explores the hypothesis on how some techniques used in the aforementioned novel, such as fictionalizing Flaubert’s biography, the leap from the intended biography of Flaubert to an “unintended” autobiography of the narrator Braithwaite, the mixture of different citations and intertextuality, reflect how the past, history, literature and truth are perceived. The hypothesis uses the methods of analysis and synthesis. The conclusion should show us that the past and history are available in the form of written texts, that there is not just one, but many truths in the novel, that fact and fiction coexist and their borders are not erased, but rather blurred, and that a great deal of the book can be read as a parody of the biography genre.
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Contemporary Philology
THE INITIATION PLOT IN THE STORIES THE METAMORPHOSIS BY FRANTZ KAFKA AND SAMSA IN LOVE BY HARUKI MURAKAM
Thе paper analyses the stories The Metamorphosis and Samsa in Love through detecting their similarities with the structure of the initiation rites. The analysis uses the findings of anthropology and folklore studies. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the story The Metamorphosis. The main ar-gument is that this story by Franz Kafka can be read as a reversed initiation in which the neophyte Gregor Samsa is going backwards till he is no longer part of the community. In the second part of the paper The Metamorphosis is analysed alongside Haruki Murakami’s story Samsa in Love. The two stories can be read as one continuous narrative in which we can see the whole structure of the initi-ation rite. The idea is that the character of Gregor Samsa can be interpreted as a neophyte whose initiation starts in The Metamorphosis and continues in the story Samsa in Love. These two stories function as opposites to one another, but the focus is on the reading which makes the two stories complementary.
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND GENDER DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC:ON THE POPULIST FEATURES OF METAPHOR USE
This study aims to show how different political leaders combine metaphor use with the populist sentiment in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To analyse the populist nature of the recurrent metaphor use, 17 leaders’ national lockdown speeches from different countries were collected and analysed within the theoretical framework of critical metaphor studies and frame semantics. Procedurally, metaphors in the collected speeches were identified by applying Pragglejaz Group’s MIP (2007) and coded into thematic categories via NVivo 12.0. Overall, four thematic codes (470 metaphorical expressions) were established, and their content analysis has demonstrated specific differences in the leadership style with regard to populism. It has been clarified that the male political leaders tend to prioritise the arousal of negative emotions discursively expressed through the antagonism between the collective Self and the collective Other (the virus), and a heightened sense of unpredictable (economic) future. By contrast, the female political leaders overwhelmingly focused on their affinity with the collective Self in the context of social accountability and mutual trust.
Copyright (c) 2022 Journal of Contemporary Philology