Earticle

One of the most well-known features of linguistic theory is that there exist various empty categories at various levels of mental representation. Languages such as Korean and Japanese are well-known for the fact that they allow arguments of a predicate to be freely dropped. Such null arguments have been a challenge to linguistic theory in that their contents are not recovered from the verbal agreement system. Simply put, null arguments occur in languages such as Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese, which has no agreement system whatsoever. If so, why should we allow the existence of pro? What types of empty categories appear in Korean? In order to give a plausible answer to these queries, we discuss the issue of assuming ECs such as PRO and pro. The present study assumes that both PRO and pro are allowed in Korean and that PRO appears as the subject of both tensed and untensed clauses, and pro as an empty pronominal in subject and object positions. Previous approaches assume that overt plural pronouns in Korean have a definite reading, whereas pro does not. Unfortunately, the picture turns out to be even more complicated. We have demonstrated in this paper that Korean pro can be more broadly used than the Korean overt pronoun ku in that pro can bear definite as well as indefinite interpretations, while overt pronouns have only definite interpretations. Finally, we have proposed that pro can function as a free variable depending on the speaker’s intention since the referent of pro is always influenced by the discriminating use of a demonstrative by the speaker. We have shown that this fact results from extending the spirit of Higginbotham’s (1992) analysis to pro.

The present study was aimed at investigating how much attention pre- service elementary English teachers paid when they were asked to write a class critique after watching a video-taped 6th graders’ English class. 49 pre-service teachers’ critiques were analyzed in an exploratory manner. Their comments were sorted, categorized, and examined to see if there were any outstanding common characteristics in their educational connoisseurship (Eisner, 1983). The results showed that most pre-service teachers had not yet developed their educational connoisseurship enough to be able to critically observe a class from the perspectives of the overall English curriculum and textbook structure. Only a handful of pre-service teachers provide comments on the structure of the class comparing it with that of the textbook. This implied that pre-service teachers need to become more familiar with the English curriculum and the textbook structure during their pre-service training at the universities of education. This study also found that about half of the pre-service teachers were aware of the qualities of language practice in the sample class, which is the most vital part in any language lesson. However, more training at universities of education was also called for regarding this matter. The most common topics to be commented on were techniques of teaching and class management.

In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Edward Thomas is introduced, together with Brooke, Sassoon, Gurney, Rosenberg and Owen, as one of the most talented poets to emerge from the First World War period. He himself, however, didn’t like to be called a war poet, but preferred that his writing should be estimated without reference to his military service. From his childhood he developed a passion for nature and relished outdoor pursuits, especially long walks in the country. His delight in nature and intensive observation of it has helped to produce lyric poems of rare imaginative power using what he sees in nature as a stimulus to personal reflection in the same way as in the Romantic meditative poems. But, because almost all of his poetry was written in the battlefield after the outbreak of war, it is all, in an important sense, war poetry. Even when he wrote poems which avoid all overt reference to war, behind every line of each poem, whether mentioned or not, lies imminent danger and disruption. Moreover, as part of the “Georgian” poetry, his poetry also represented an attempt to wall in the idyllic garden of English poetry against the impact of modernity. Independently and simultaneously with the Georgians, he sought to produce a poetry which would respond to the immediate threat and challenges of war and modernization while never abandoning the source of his inspiration in the natural world, constantly negotiating between these two opposing demands.

Ecocritical literature is an excellent vehicle for teaching children and it can unite facts and concepts and make it possible for children to make generalizations about environmental information as well as broaden children’s thoughts about the relationships between nature and people. Seven ecocritical children’s books discussed in this paper reflect a deep-seated dissatisfaction with contemporary environmental development and strive to establish or modify basic attitudes toward the good life or the eco-utopia. The problems and dangers condemned in these stories—the broad and fast industrialization or urbanization, the destruction of biological diversity and the disaster of nuclear explosion—exist in reality and can all endanger future conditions. Thus, the vigorous and often militant protest against existing environmental conditions in these books is a healthy and necessary response to requiring change. Ecocritical children’s books in this paper urge children to engage in environmental improvement and make the world green again. These books suggest that our future world can only be an eco-utopia with the efforts of children and future generation.

The purpose of this paper is to review the previous research on Korean ergative verbs critically by comparison with those of English, and redefine the term of Korean ergative verbs. We have investigated the concept of ergativity in English and Korean and the concept of English ergative verbs has been applied to those of Korean and found out that some Korean scholars have used the term ‘ergative verbs’ in some constructions in Korean inappropriately. This can be sometimes confusing and misleading. We will propose the well redefined term of Korean ergative verbs as follows. First, Korean ergative verbs are derived from transitive verbs with overt morphological change or without that. Although they have natural verb alternation, if they need any agentivity in meaning they can’t be ergative verbs. Second, every ergative verbs must have event argument. So if they don’t have it, they should be ruled out from ergative verbs. Third, in connection with passive sentences, overt morphological change can’t be the criterion to decide whether they are ergative verbs or not. At this time the meaning is very important to decide ergativity. If they make good sense without the help of agentivity they can be ergative verbs.

Moskal asserts that as far as antinomianism advocates lawbreaking for its own sake, it inevitably falls into a logical trap: any lawbreaking depends logically on prior lawgiving, thus having no independent conceptual foundation. She goes on to argue that Blake, in the face of its logical limit, began to develop the concept of forgiveness as an ethical alternative for his earlier antinomianism. In opposition to her views this paper attempts to elucidate the relevance Blake’s gospel of forgiveness had within the context of his antinomianism. Historically antinomianism had several ramifications and Blake’s antinomian position, being quite different from the one Moskal had in mind, left no room for logical contradiction from the first. Blake’s antinomian stance, which shows extreme aversion to the Mosaic law as an antithesis of Jesus’s gospel of love and forgiveness, implies the importance of forgiveness as its integral part. Moreover, Blake in his later life perceived that the moral law was responsible for self-righteous mind’s tendency to accusation. Through his own critical experiences he came to realize that a personification of accusation was Satan or spectre, which can only be cast out or remedied by the internal, self-annihilative process of forgiveness.

This paper investigates Bakhtin’s view on a language and provides implications for ESL students’ English writing in the era of globalization. Bakhtin’s primary concern on a language is the ‘word’ which he places in a dialogic condition. In his terms, the word is organic and contextual in its nature and is not a fixed entity. Consequently, he situates utterances in a culturally and historically specific environment. Bakhtin also makes a distinction between authoritative discourse and internally persuasive discourse. Within the realm of the authoritative discourse, which is the words of father, no dialogic relationship is possible, and the participants only succumbs to its authority. On the other hand, the internally persuasive discourse has become a place where words from different people clashes each other and contacts to other discourses are freely made. Individuals who are in the area of internally persuasive discourse are apt to create new words through the interactions with new materials and contexts. Bakhtin’s socio-culturally specific view on a language helps us to understand ESL student’s peculiar epistemological dimension. Also his distinction of two discourses provides an effective way to approach ESL students whose positions are situated in a politically and also ideologically complex plane.

Frankenstein showcases a male scientist’s fantasy of a self-rebirth and abjection against the maternal presence through narrative and scientific creation, which represents patriarchal culture of the early nineteenth century Britain. Victor’s narrative of demeaning description of women and his creation of life without female body are equal to the abjection process which Julia Kristeva explains in Powers of Horror. However, the novel makes a paradoxical turn for change and suggests the new ethics of love, as symbolized by the maternal body. As the mother’s body becomes a matrix space to create split subject and nurture the infant, the novel becomes the abject narrative: within this abjected body of a novelistic form, Mary Shelley embraces and incubates the socially subscribed subject. In the ending of the novel, the creature, the result of abjections, conducts Victor’s funeral-death and willingly embraces death, which becomes symbolic subversion and the manifestation of Kristeva’s ethics of love within the mother. Through writing the novel, Shelley creates a womb-like space to subvert the process of abjection and embrace the other within, thereby calling upon the new ethics of love encompassing abjection.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how much elementary school students developed their English proficiency, especially reading and writing ability, by specially planned literature-based literacy activities in an English program. Five elementary students participated in this program. Data such as their videotaped classes, writing artifacts and test results were collected for analysis. Their English proficiency in listening and speaking was assessed by the VERSANT test, and their reading and writing proficiency was assessed by video data and writing artifacts, respectively. The results of the study are as follows. First, the students’ English reading ability can be increased as they were involved in reading literature books chosen for their ability level. As for their writing change in ability, it is not easy to indicate that they have changed dramatically since they were involved in this program. Enhancing writing ability takes time and efforts. Therefore, this kind of literature-based English program can be a useful instructional method for teachers or researchers, as it provides a model of a concrete literature-based activity. Based on this study, it is necessary to further develop literature-based teaching and learning materials.

This study is a corpus-based analysis of ordering patterns of adverbial and main clauses in written and spoken English. The previous studies indicated that conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause more frequently than temporal clauses, and that temporal clauses are more frequently in the sentence-initial position than causal clauses. This study aims to present a more comprehensive picture for the usages of 13 adverbial clauses. The data are from LOB representing written English and parts of BNC representing spoken English. The corpus analysis shows that till-, until-, and before-clauses representing Time before follow the main clause most frequently among temporal clauses, but that as-clauses representing Same time precede the main clause frequently. Because- clauses show a strong tendency to occur sentence-finally, and causal as-clauses follow the main verb much more frequently particularly in spoken English. If-clauses tend to occur in the sentence-initial position, whereas unless- and though-clauses tend to be in the final position. Considered an informal variant of although-clauses, though-clauses are used frequently in written English, showing a preference for the final position in both written and spoken English. The ordering patterns are explained in terms of the principles of iconicity, processing, and information structure. Pedagogically, this study suggests that teaching materials should be developed for Korean learners of English based on these objective results of the corpus data in order to enhance the correct use of adverbial and main clauses in complex sentences.

Toni Morrison’s eighth novel, Love emphasizes the presence of African American ancestors who can play a crucial role in guiding their lost descendants. In this novel, the readers meet stray characters, Cosey, Heed, Christine, May and Junior who suffer from the loss of family ties and do not have any firm rootedness and connectedness. They do not have any guiding force as well as proper role models. Morrison lays great emphasis on the roles of black ancestors and points out the importance of reading African American novels through the prism of ancestors’ presence and absence. We can find positive black ancestors in Love: L., both a narrator and the cook of Cosey’s resort, and Romen’s grandparent, Vida and Sandler. As for Cosey, he is rather an ambivalent figure whom L. evaluates both as a good and evil man. Morrison depicts Romen’s gradual growth from innocence to experience and his grandparent’s careful and serious conversations related with his sexual relationship with sexually wild Junior. After remembering his grandfather’s hearty admonition, Romen becomes a maturer character who can give a successive healing effect to Junior who doesn’t have any secure sense of self. Morrison also introduces a more informative and protective narrator/ ancestor and character, L. In this novel, L. also plays an important ancestorial role by providing an order for survival in the Cosey family. L. even poisons Cosey to nullify his unreasonable will and makes a faked will which gives the reason for life for several characters. With the help of guiding roles of black ancestors, Morrison continuously suggests characters’ whole survivals.

This paper aims to present how to interpret the strong and weak readings of the donkey pronoun in terms of a pragmatic view, something like the cooperative principle by Grice (1989), the Q- and R-principles by Horn (2004), and a conversational postulate by myself. This paper is discussed under some assumptions as follow: first of all, the donkey pronoun has no inherent semantic content, and it is not ambiguous like variables, but rather it has bound or free uses through pragmatic principles, something like ‘Zipfian economy’. Secondly, the Q- principle and R-principle by Horn (2004) are introduced as a tool to solve the two readings of donkey sentence, instead of those by Grice (1989). Thirdly, a conversational postulate is proposed to interpret the strong reading, without something as seen in a maximality presupposition by Chierchia (1995). It can be inferred that the strong reading be default from the donkey sentences and preferred, if without a special clue. In result, it can be also insisted that the potential readings of donkey sentences isn’t two but, in fact, three like (26). In addition, this paper shows that the hierarchy of the three readings of donkey sentences can be established like (15), due to Zipfian economy.

Doris Lessing’s Landlocked is the fourth book in the Children of Violence Series, which follows the internal development of the heroine, Martha Quest. Doris Lessing has explored the theme on the individual conscience in relation with the collective in her works. To deal with this theme properly, Doris Lessing has used multiple techniques. The three books in the series present Martha Quest as divided by society. She is presented with realism while she struggles to achieve self. In The Four-Gated City, the fifth and the last of the series, Martha is presented with mysticism in the course of her development. However, this tendency emerges from Landlocked. In Landlocked Martha directs her development inward with Sufism. Sufism is a kind of mystic religion from Islam. In the West, it became a philosophy rather than a religion. It stresses pursuing, perfecting, and becoming more evolved human beings. The focus is perceived to be primarily on the self. These aspects of Sufism interest Lessing. So she accepted it as a means of unifying Martha’s divided self. Following Thomas Stern’s guidance Martha tries to find her inner self. In doing so she acquires awareness of herself, history and the universe. Sufism invites the use of irrational elements such as intuition, madness, and extra sensory perception to recover the divided self lost in rationalism and becoming a whole being.

Traditionally writing has been considered as the work of men because only men have occupied this area for a long time, while women have been recognized as the objects of their literature rather than independent and creative creatures. Although this is true in all the genres of literature, poetry and drama have been considered more difficult than the novel for the women writers to challenge. Emily Dickinson and Susan Glaspell are two women writers, who tried to recover their power as independent human beings through the act of writing poems and dramas respectively. They lived in the periods when women writers produced their works anonymously or in pseudonyms because the social prejudice against women writers were so strong. In almost all areas, social space was blocked completely for women; home was the only space given. But the dual-natured home was too weak to provide women any chances to realize their own identities. Dickinson and Glaspell emphasized that women could recover their own creative and independent power through writing. They both rejected their works to be subjected to the formulated patterns of the patriarchal culture. They both attempted to express freely instead of following traditional forms of the literature of their ages. After all, these two women writers proved that they could create new stories of their own through the pens in their hands beyond the boundaries of the patriarchal culture.

The variable behavior poses a problem for the Unaccusative Hypothesis, which claims that the unergativity or unaccusativity of a verb is determined by the meaning of that verb, since it loses its predictive power if a certain verb can be both unergative and unaccusative. A notable syntactic solution for the variable behavior has been suggested by the linguists like McIntyre (2004) and Mateu (2005). They try to solve this problem by assuming that these verbs’ unaccusativity is syntactically derived from their basic unergativity via a plug-in operation, which they call conflation. Despite its apparent simpler manner of explanation and explanatory power, the plug-in approach to the variable behavior is problematic in that it induces the overgeneration problem. Mateu (2005) tries to solve this problem by filtering out unacceptable sentences by relying on semantic constraints like Wechsler’s (1997) CRR. Pointing out the limitedness of Wechsler’s CRR, this paper proposes another semantic constraint based on the causal relation between the activity denoted by the source unergative verb and the directed motion sense represented by the canonical unaccusative structure.

This paper attempts to analyze John Keats’s Isabella, focusing mainly on the changes occurring in the perception of its heroine. Through such analysis, this paper aims at illuminating the ways in which the author’s own understanding of the contemporary reality as well as his ideas about poetic composition is projected in the text. Isabella, the tragic heroine in one of Keats’s early romances, simultaneously embodies the poet’s own problems and dilemmas in a rather vicarious way. Before undergoing the transformation of perception after the traumatic loss of her beloved, Isabella appears to remain in the isolated realm of private feelings. While the idyllic love story of Isabella and Lorenzo certainly provides a critique of materialistic capitalism that dominates the outside world surrounding them, the lovers lack a clear understanding of reality, completely immersed in their feelings for each other. The fragile nature of the lovers’ insulated world points to the incompetence of the aesthetic in resisting the increasingly capitalistic society of the early 19th century. In contrast, Isabella experiences an extremely painful transformation of perception after Lorenzo’s murder by her materialistic brothers. Isabella performs the ritual of severing the head of her dead lover from his body, simultaneously separating herself from the naive, innocence domain of the past romance. After this ritual, she strives at a creative endeavor of growing the basil pot that nurtures itself with the nutrients of Lorenzo’s rotten head hidden underneath. Isabella’s act of converting the gruesome remains of the past into the regenerative growth of a new life mirrors Keats’s own creative attempt to transform reality through poetic imagination. Although Isabella’s pot of basil gets violently snatched from her, the tragic love story survives long after her death and succeeds in reaching many people’s hearts. Likewise, Keats expresses his longing for posthumous fame, despite his fear of hostile contemporary critics who often snub and ignore his poetical works.