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Kim, Yoonji. “Why is Being Earnest Important to Victorian Women?: New Woman and Social Geography of Victorian Culture in Oscar Wide’s The Importance of Being Earnest.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 1-24. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde portrays female characters who comically contest over the name Ernest. Such comical adventure highlights idiocy of Victorian social decorum and gender hierarchy. Wilde’s portrayal of women in the play suggests that he celebrates the idea of New Woman who expresses her own thoughts and values the autonomy in choosing her own husband. As an editor of women’s magazine, the Woman’s World, Wilde challenged distorted representation of New Woman in mainstream magazines and he also attempts to popularize positive images of New Woman by creating Gwendolen and Cecily as women of opinions who habitually write. This paper examines how Wilde portrays New Woman in Earnest in relation to the modernity that reorganizes the social geography of Victorian society. (Korea University)

Kim, Jeongho. “Black Film Aesthetics: A Reading of Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 25-44. Shange’s choreopoem is a kind of deeply political mode of theatrical expression. Her peculiar and conspicuous discursive strategy such as vernacular expression, resistance to normative language and story, and disruption of conventional narratives opens up the plurality of multi-layered meanings and thematic politics of the black feminism dramas, In the hands of Tyler Perry, shange’s feminist tone and tenet of gender equality and reproductive justice and sexual liberation are compromised and delivered seriously and effectively. Perry’s For Colored Girls narrative evolves from the traditional black story-telling style and black aesthetics. Perry’s film primarily reproduces rather than reduces negative representations of black women on-screen. Under Perry’s directorial eye, the end of this film more subtly shows a moralizing sermon and female resistance. (Chonbuk National University)

Park, Yunki. “Reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy: Is There Any Hope in the Hopeless World?” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 45-62. This essay is to find any hope in the hopeless world of The Road and identify the real meaning of ‘Hope.’ The word hope is very important because it has close relation to the term redemption in the work. Though it is absolutely collapsed, the unnamed boy and his father try to preserve a vision of the world as good and meaningful. The conviction of their goodness and carrying the fire can support the redemption in the post-apocalyptic world. As his father suggests, “Goodness will find the little boy” and he can transcend his suffering and move ahead into a more promising world. However, the destruction is full and unrelenting in the book, and so it is not easy to conceive of restoration and redemption. If that is the case, is there any hope of redemption in the darkened world of the Road? As we already know, the boy is really good and is willing to help the others out of humanity, and as a result he is rewarded for his persistence in trying to be good and altruistic. Above all, The Road confirms the belief that it does matter to be good and to be human. Moreover, if they experience the apocalyptic world and death in this peaceful world, they will have time to keep it from irrevocable annihilation. (Paichai University)

Park, Jai Young. “A Mortal Fight with Madness: Reading Desire in Cuju.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 63-81. This essay attempts to construe Stephen King’s Cuju as a text of desire with various desire theories. Many thinkers have attempted to clarify the perception of desire. For example, Hegel contends that people experience various stages like “consumption” and “recognition” in order to resolve desire. Freud asserts that (sexual) desire is engendered from an uncompromising gap between “the affectionate” of childhood, who is an idealistic person that the child loves, and “the sensual,” the target of his/her physical desire. And Lacan claims that desire is substantiated in the loss of “completeness” in the chasm between the Imaginary Order and the Symbolic Order. Employing those philosophical thoughts, this essay scrutinizes the characters of Cuju and dissects the significance of their psychic changes while they are dealing with desire. It ponders on the implication of madness in relation with aberrational desire. It also explicates the historical connotation of the name Cujo and attempts to expose the substantiation of desire embedded in the myth of killer Dodd, Tad’s monster dreams, Donna’s infidelity, and the allegorization of Cujo. (Chonbuk National University)

Suh, Kyungsook. “Teaching Poetry through New Media.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 83-98. This paper aims at examining how combination of poetry education and new media technology helps to enhance media literacy and eventually encourage students to enjoy and understand poetry better. The paper employs the short historical overview on video poetry to examine the long connection between poetry and moving images and then, presents merits of poetry education through new media introducing some specific teaching methods for video poetry production. (Chungnam National University)

Lee, Il Jae. “Two Selves in “Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude.”” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 99-117. The poem entitled “Alastor” may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind as Shelley wrote in the preface of the poem. The poem is allegorical because it is engaged in an attempt to find verbal equivalents for inner states. Shelley shows two points of view that the empirical Narrator and the idealistic Poet have, but they are mixed into each other rather than each of them is in the opposite side. The Narrator and the Poet represent Shelley’s two selves. Each figure seems to project inner self of the previous figure, both desired and resisted. This kind of aspect can be also found in the relationship between the Narrator and ‘Mother of this unfathomable world’, the Poet and a veiled maid in his dream. The relationship they have reveals the ambivalence in this poem and Shelley’s self-exploration. Shelley realizes and acknowledges the ambivalence in life through the relationship. The aim of this paper is to trace the course of realizing the ambivalence of life in “Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude.” (Chonbuk National University)

Yi, Jae Eun. “The Role of The Ashes and Mirror as The Loci of Shifts in Consciousness in The Ash Girl.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 119-138. This study attempts to examine the role of the ashes and mirror in Wertenbaker’s play The Ash Girl as spaces which reflect Ash’s desperate desire for a change in consciousness. The ashes are ‘Nook’ of repose which encourages remembrance of her past happiness, and replenish her with the energy. The mirror is a ‘Gap’ between dream and reality, a place where Ash comes face to face with the internal confusion. In this way, the ashes and the mirror are psychological spaces which reflect Ash’s desires and anticipate change. Wertenbaker is dealing with the particular ability of the ashes and the mirror, as instruments of revitalization and restoration, to bring about self-development of self-criticism. The Ash Girl shows that space is needed if one is to avoid the danger of getting stuck in the subjectivity and achieve objectivity in self-appraisal. This space actually plays a role in expressing and reflecting one’s own individual consciousness. (Chungnam National University)

Kim, Jeongho. “Black Film Aesthetics: A Reading of Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 25-44. Shange’s choreopoem is a kind of deeply political mode of theatrical expression. Her peculiar and conspicuous discursive strategy such as vernacular expression, resistance to normative language and story, and disruption of conventional narratives opens up the plurality of multi-layered meanings and thematic politics of the black feminism dramas, In the hands of Tyler Perry, shange’s feminist tone and tenet of gender equality and reproductive justice and sexual liberation are compromised and delivered seriously and effectively. Perry’s For Colored Girls narrative evolves from the traditional black story-telling style and black aesthetics. Perry’s film primarily reproduces rather than reduces negative representations of black women on-screen. Under Perry’s directorial eye, the end of this film more subtly shows a moralizing sermon and female resistance. (Chonbuk National University)

Jeon, Deuk Ju. “Robinson Jeffers’ Ways for Detachment.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 159-183. Robinson Jeffers’ inhumanism “to turn from man to not-man” means “to touch the diamond within to the diamond outside.” To reach the diamond within, detachment from self-involvement is necessary. Jeffers’ many poems show his ways for detachment. For Jeffers, a rock embodies detachment. Based on his interest in geology and his experience as a mason to build his own Tor House and Hawk Tower, he meditates the inner spirit of a rock. The other ways involve “thinning humanity a little” which means human consciousness and "knowing that our angry choices and hopes and terrors are in vain." He attempts to thin humanity through the verbal destruction of it and the realization of human limitations, and to detach from evils and tragedies by inventing bad dreams and distancing human actions spacially and temporally. Jeffers further proceeds to make the reader realize a real place in the cosmos and their relative triviality. The final way is his God-centered thought. He requires the reader to love God and grow to it, but not to expect to be loved by God. All these ways are part of his inhumanism which he claims offers “a detachment as rule of action.” (Hongik University)

Juhng, Chullsung. “The Juxtaposition of Myth and Market in the Settings of John M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea.” Studies in English Language and Literature. 40.1 (2014): 185-207. John M. Synge’s reputation as a playwright has been swayed between two extremes. The first repulsion has given its way to complements, which naturally raises a question: what happened in between? Scholarly approaches, which began to see Riders to the Sea as a tragedy, found out that it is not as impressive as Greek and/or Shakespearean tragedies. Other researchers put more emphasis on nature’s ferocious power to interpret the inevitability of events. They failed to look into the real life of the Aran Islands where primitivism kept its traces but the process of modernization was making its steady advance. Maurya and her children live in the two different worlds: the traditional and the modern. The young priest plays a role as a mediator between the island and the mainland. Bartley who is attracted by the profit he can get from a market in Galway defies his mother’s traditional wisdom. Among these people lies a conflict that tears them up between Maurya’s mythical explanation of what happens in the island and the logic of mainland market that attracts the younger generation. Primitivism, inevitability and even tragic lyricism belong to the island myth while modernization is represented as a force that is invisible but ever-influential over the islanders. In the first half of the play, the myth and the real occupy their respective territory on the stage. After Maurya’s vision with her “second sight,” however, mythical lamentations and prayers presides over the atmosphere. The play shows the fear of remote islanders who will face the inevitable modernization sooner or later. (Jeonju University)

Cho, Sook Hee & Park, Hye Rim. “A Study of Ceasar Must Die: The Power of Transformation.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 209-229. A field of drama therapy is a relatively new form of remedy using drama or play to help people with some mental troubles. Caesar Must Die is an adaptation from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, in which the prisoners of an Italian prison start preparing to perform the play, rehearsing it, and finally finishing the successful performance. The aim of the project is to educate and rehabilitate the prisoners more effectively through cultivating artistic sensibility by the artistic experience. It turns out that the prisoners-actors enjoy the experience more than the director expected, by concentrating on the roles given to them and trying to convey the meaning they got from the Shakespearean lines. After the final, successful performance, the participants of the performance find themselves moved far from what they were before the project began. They have carried out the painful process of healing through looking back on their painful past, reflecting their true self and realizing the meaning of their lives. As a result, the film shows that drama therapy can be a most effective means to heal inner scars of people as well as to show the real power of art in every human being. (Chungang Univeristy)

Choi, Hie Sup & Shim, Sang Wook. “A Study on Using Pluralistic Literary Theory in Postmodern Age.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 231-246. This paper is to examine the using pluralistic literary theory in postmodern age. Most readers assume that great literature was universal and expressed general truths about human life, and that readers required no special knowledge to read a work. However, things began to change now: Readers of literature have been troubled by a seemingly endless series of challenges to the common sense. Therefore literary study must research the text by the pluralistic theories employing not any one method in interpreting a work of art but every method which might prove efficient. In addition to this, literary study must be surveyed the text by the pluralistic theories employing not any one method in interpreting a work of art but every method which might prove efficient. As we know structuralism hit the headlines when Colin MacCabe, who wrote an article according to structuralism in literature, failed to obtain a tenured appointment at Cambridge University in 1980. To know pluralistic literary theories we must understand filiation and affiliation in Edward W. Said’s travelling theory, and ‘context framework’ which involves the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or idea about author, reader, language, text, and reading. (Jeonju University)

Ku, Keong Yeun. “Benefits of Telecollaboration with Australian Peers: A Focus on Korean Primary School English Learners’ Affective Factors.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 247-269. The study was designed to investigate whether telecollaboration with Australian peers influence on Korean primary school English learners’ affective factors, especially their English anxiety, motivation to learn English, and willingness to communicate in English. 52 Korean fifth graders participated in this study. They were twice asked to respond to the two same sets of questionnaires before and after the twelve 45-minute telecollaboration lessons with six different topics. The findings are (1) Korean primary school students decreased their English anxiety, and especially, the changes in their communication anxiety and test anxiety were statistically significant, while the decrease of their fear or negative evaluation anxiety of their English was not statistically significant. (2) They also increased their motivation to learn English, and especially, the level of their motivational intensity and desire to learn English significantly increased, while changes in their integrative as well as instrumental motivation were not statistically meaningful. Last, (3) their telecollaborative learning experiences failed to change the level of their WTC in English. The pedagogical implications and its limitations are also suggested. (Kyungnam University)

Park, Chang-beom. “Aspiration in English Revisited: A Constraint-based Account focusing on Asymmetric Variation in Syllable-final.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 271-296. The analysis of English aspiration has been focused on syllable onset in most literature, ignoring syllable-final position. In fact, however, voiceless plosives in English can be aspirated in word-final position, resulting in free-variation. Nevertheless, they do not exhibit variation if there is another consonant after or before them. To account for this asymmetric variation of English aspiration in syllable-final, this paper provides a new look on English aspiration on the whole within the framework of Optimality theory(OT). The main idea is inspired from Iverson and Salmons (1995), Spencer(1996) saying that voiceless plosives are underlyingly aspirated, and aspiration occurs by elsewhere condition. However, this approach provides fundamentally different formalization by employing OT without any arbitrary underlying specification and rules. As a result, this approach using anti-aspiration only in certain environment is proved to be superior to the previous ones using pro-aspiration in accounting for asymmetric variation in syllable-final as well as English aspiration in general. (Seowon University)

Shin, Changok. (2013). “A comparison study of English learning engagement outside the classroom between an elementary school and a middle school.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 297-324. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how learners engage in English learning activities outside the classroom between elementary school and middle school. Mixed methods (surveys and interviews) were used for this study. English learning activity questionnaires were distributed to 281 sixth grade elementary school students. After nine months, the same questionnaires were given again to the same group (275 in this time) who became the first grade of the middle school. The data analysis showed that the English activity items of “going to a private institute”, “studying”, and “using a smartphone” showed statistically significant differences between the grades. The analysis of the 12 focal students' interviews showed that they engaged in three aspects of learning: Joining private institutes, using the Internet or smartphones, and losing interest in English learning. With regard to these findings, it will be discussed the lack of self-directed learning, the necessity for exposing to diverse texts, and the widening gap between the advanced and the struggling students. (Changwon Hogye Middle School)

Yang, SoYoung. “A Study of the Use of Downgraders by Korean Learners of English.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 325-341. This study examines the realization strategies of downgraders of English requests for thirty subjects in a way to identify the interlanguage characteristics of Korean learners of English. Using the DCT (Discourse Completion Test), the responses of the thirty advanced Korean learners of English to the test were obtained. Their responses to the DCT in which twelve situations of requests were given were analyzed, following House and Kasper's (1981) coding scheme of downgraders. Additionally, a paired-samples t-test and a one-way ANOVA were used to investigate situational factors affecting the use of downgraders. The results of the study show that the Korean ESL learners' grammatical competence in English has an effect on their realization strategies of syntactic downgraders, rather than lexical or phrasal downgraders in requests. In addition, there is no difference in the learners' realization strategies of downgraders between interlocutors' relative distance. Finally, some theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study findings are discussed. (Kwangju Women's University)

Oh, Maria. “A Study on Pre-Service Primary Teacher Younghee’s and Jiia’s Autonomy in English Learning.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 343-370. The purpose of this present study is to explore how two pre-service primary school teachers develop autonomy in English learning. The informants took a class entitled ‘Advanced English Conversation’ in spring 2013 at a teacher's college. The class was led by three English-native-speaking teachers and one Korean teacher-researcher. One major research method was individual interviews. Furthermore, survey results measuring learner autonomy, learning contracts, learning logs, audio-taped speaking in classes and audio-taped classroom English practice were used to triangulate the interview data. Two findings immerse: (1) Two informants’ initial autonomy levels showed considerable difference, and they believed that teachers motivated them to be active or passive in English learning; and (2) one informant's initially strong autonomy in English learning was well practiced and the other informant's initially low autonomy was developed while they were advised about ways to practice English inside and outside the class for one semester. Based on the study findings, the following suggestions are made to enable the future success of the autonomy development program: The program needs to develop a teacher-education program to raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of learner autonomy in English learning; it should be individually approached to take students’ individual differences into account; teacher roles and councillor roles should be clearly defined and teachers should not be solely in charge. (Jeonju National University of Education)

Lee, Heechul & Kim, Sejin. “A Study on the Classroom Interaction in Light of the IRF Structures.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 40.1 (2014): 371-394. This paper analyzes a ten-minute long recording of an episode of Korean EFL classroom interaction in light of three different stages: initiation, response, and follow-up. It also deals with questioning techniques used in the initiation moves and feedback strategies in the follow-up moves. It was found that with the lack of quality questions and feedback, the IRF patterns implemented by the teacher in the recording were not effective enough to provide helpful learning environment. (Chonbuk National University)