Earticle

This paper examines how the genre elements parodied in Oliver Twist are related to Charles Dickens’s poetics, using the analytical perspective of M. M. Bakhtin. To this end, in this article, we replaced “parody” with the Bakhtinian term “parodic-reprocessing” in order to focus on the use of other genres, and looked into what kinds of genres are parodically reprocessed in the novel. A few of these genres include melodrama, fairy tales, Gothic literature, Pilgrim’s Progress, Newgate novels, magazines, and so on. By parodically reprocessing these genres, Dickens is able to criticize the social problems of 1830s England, especially those related to the New Poor Law, indirectly while simultaneously enhancing the entertainment value of the novel. This also allows Dickens to compose a novel that enables readers to think about various perspectives toward their society. At the level of language, Oliver Twist is a novel which has the multi-voiced consciousness and zone of maximal contact with the present. This allows readers to think about social issues from various angles. Through this narratology, Dickens prevented his social criticism from turning into dogma. Meanwhile, readers gained a new perspective on their society through the maximum interaction with the present facilitated by the novel.

This study compares the use of theatricality practiced by Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, with the theatrical strategies employed by Prince Henry and Falstaff in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, focusing on the Shakespearean allusion. These characters rely on theatrical tactics to achieve their respective objectives. Falstaff primarily pursues his own benefits and, through his decadent and debauched lifestyle, plays a role in assisting the prince in delaying the exposure of the prince’s authentic identity. However, he undermines the values and legitimacy that the prince strives to protect. Even though Prince Henry strategically adopts Falstaffian practices, he never harms language and societal norms because his enactment of an irresponsible prince aims to highlight his virtues of kingship and gain respect from the court. Rochester, similar to Falstaff’s self-serving use of theatricality, ultimately seeks to exploit Jane by manipulating her into revealing her love and becoming his mistress. Rochester’s aim to feign his identity resembles Falstaff’s deceitful methods, which undermines the values and language. This intertextual and comparative approach illustrates how Rochester emerges as the faithful practitioner of Falstaffian theatrical practices, for which Charlotte Brontë reuses Falstaff’s utterance through Rochester.

A Severed Head by Murdoch is a satire of the sexual escapades and identity issues of 20th-century British middle-class intellectuals. In the work, Murdoch humorously portrays the distorted knowledge and desires of the characters, including the protagonist Martin, using a primitive and mythic perspective represented by the character Honor Klein. The constant swapping of partners by these characters stems from their lack of identity, and Martin himself struggles to find an object that can shape his own identity. The Freudian perspective, which they mainly rely on for their identities, is distorted and perverted by the characters’ personal desires. As an alternative to the distorted relationships between men and women in modern society, Murdoch explores new alternatives for identity and gender relationships through the combination of Martin’s masochism and Klein’s primitive power. Therefore, this paper examines the issue of identity presented in The Severed Head through the relationship between mythic imagination and masochism.

It is well known that a plural marker is optional in languages that allow bare nouns, unlike English that does not allow bare nouns. This is so as a bare noun can denote either a singular or a plural meaning. However, in recent studies, it has been identified that even in a bare noun language such as Persian or Korean a plural marker is obligatory to indicate a plural meaning. The requirement of plural marker in these languages is identified to be only possible in an anaphoric context. This paper addresses an issue of why such a context in a bare noun language requires a plural marker. In particular, this paper focuses on the syntax of plural and anaphoric context that make possible the obligatory presence of plural. By building on the previous approaches on this issue, this paper proposes that a plural instantiates the Num(ber) head with a binary number feature such as [±plural]. Via Agree (Chomsky 1998), the feature on the Num head values an uninterpretable number feature on the D head that is the locus of definiteness. This paper shows that Korean allows an obligatory plural marking similar to English, but only in a restricted context, i.e., anaphoric context. Moreover, this paper identified that the strict presence of plural marking in Korean is cross-linguistic phenomenon found in other bare noun languages, which has not been paid much attention in the literature.

This paper critically reviews Sato’s (2023a, b) hypothesis on ellipsis constructions, specifically questioning the validity of the difference between elements elided at PF and those that meet identity criteria at LF. We support the traditional approach, aligning the elided constituent at PF with what satisfies identity in ellipsis at LF. Our study examines the contrast between inflectional and derivational elements in ellipsis, noting that inflectional elements can be included as part of the vP structure to be elided, while derivational elements cannot be. We also diverge from Kehler’s (2000) approach, focusing on the distinction between resemblance and cause/effect relations in VP/vP ellipsis. We propose that VP ellipsis typically occurs in resemblance relation and vP ellipsis does in cause/effect relation, with voice mismatches in VP ellipsis tolerated by the VP-external checking of structural Accusative Case. Discrepancies in Case feature or argument structure within vP, however, result in breach identity in ellipsis. Additionally, Case mismatches in larger constituent deletions, like TP/vP under Sluicing, are shown to significantly degrade sentence acceptability. Overall, we argue that the acceptability of mismatches in ellipsis hinges on meeting identity in ellipsis.

This study aims to examine the syntactic behaviors of control verbs using two diagnostic tests; long-distance passivization and permissibility of that-clause. Four different types of control verbs were identified from the results drawn from these tests. The first type is intend/plan type control construction, which allows LDP and that-clauses (A-movement type). The second type of control verbs is hope and wish that allow that-clauses but not LDP. Since these verbs allow that-clauses, the subject of the embedded clause can be independently licensed (PRO-type). The third type is communicative control verbs such as claim, argue, propose, agree, and suggest. These control verbs are found to show the syntactic characteristics of both A-movement type and PRO type. In A-movement control structure, these control verbs allow not only LDP but also backward binding. Conversely, in PRO-type control constructions, these verbs allow NOC PRO in embedded clauses, or both partial control and split control, but not LDP. The last type we examined is control verbs such as try, attempt, and seek which do not allow that-clauses at all. These control verbs are the only type of control verbs which can only have OC PRO as the subject of the embedded clause.

This study proposes an account of morphologically conditioned medial vowel deletion in a word when affixed with non-neutral suffixes {-al, -ic, -ous} of English. The syncope pattern in such data is intriguing because it is obligatory and does not allow a variant form. We assume that the schwa in the final syllable of base [Cər] is underlyingly present, which is against a traditional view that the schwa is epenthetic. The idea of an underlying schwa is grounded in the fact that when a neutral suffix like {-ing} follows a base word, the schwa shows variable realizations: winter+ing → win[tər]ing, win[tr]ing. If the schwa is epenthetic, it is not easy to explain the deletion of an inserted vowel. Considering the morphologically conditioned and general syncope data, it is rational to presume that the schwa is not epenthetic. Based on this, we argue that the schwa gets deleted obligatorily to improve foot structure ([cen.tra]l *[cen.te.ral]) and to maximize the syllable parsing. Syncopating a medial vowel but not an affix vowel is ascribed to WSP: [cén.tra]l vs. *[cén.ter]1. In addition, we can account for variant realizations of syncope by slightly modifying the low-ranked FtBin and Max-V of obligatory syncope constraints. An underlying schwa assumption can provide a more inclusive account of syncope in English.

This study explores how 65 sixth Korean-speaking students discern nativeness and identify English accents. It also examines their perceptions of English accents, considering factors such as preference, familiarity, comprehensibility, and instructional model suitability. For this investigation, the children listened to two native-accented and three nonnative-accented speeches and the results were subjected to statistical analysis. The findings are as follows: 1) The children faced challenges in accurately discerning nativeness, with an even greater difficulty in identifying accents. 2) Despite this, the children preferred and found AmE and BrE more familiar, comprehensible, and suitable as instructional models compared to nonnative accents, except for KoE. 3) No significant differences were found between native and KoE in preference, familiarity, and comprehensibility. However, KoE deemed less suitable than AmE for instruction, but not significantly different from BrE. 4) The assessed variables showed positive and statistically significant correlations, albeit with varying strengths. 5) Familiarity with the accents was the most influential factor in assessments of instructional model suitability. The study suggests pedagogical, materials development, and teacher education implications.

The purpose of this study was to analyze teacher questions in five 5th and five 6th-grade English teachers’ guidebooks from the perspective of creative-thinking competence. The teacher questions were analyzed in terms of frequency and types(question form, content, and purpose). Referential questions were also analyzed and described further in order to investigate how students’ creative-thinking competence can be enhanced through the manipulation of teacher questions. The findings are as follows. First, a total of 849 teacher questions were identified, but there was a significant variation in the number of questions among different teachers’ guidebooks. In addition, most teacher questions were drawn from the 4th and 1st periods of lessons. Second, the most frequent types were Wh- questions in form, textbook-related questions in content, and display questions in purpose. Third, a total of 130 referential questions were most frequently found in the 4th and 5th periods, in the Introduction part, and in activities such as Motivation, Let’s Read, and Think and Write. These questions often had the Wh- form and personal-related content. However, some examples of referential questions have shown that teacher questions with the Yes/No form and textbook-related content should also be considered for enhancing students’ creative-thinking competence.