Department of Modern Languages and Classics

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    À la recherche des Ètats-Unis D'Afrique: une approche linguistique
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2020) Vignon, Kpatagnon Maxime; Picone, Michael D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    After centuries of colonization, the African continent saw most of its present nation-states emerge from colonization and achieve independence in the 1960s. Sixty years later, various formidable obstacles have hampered the development of the continent. In view of previous studies pointing toward a solution in the form of a continent-wide federal union of Africans, why does the advocated federation remain a dream? As demonstrated in the present study, the linguistic component of any projected African federation, taking into account both exogenous and endogenous obstacles, must be accorded its due importance in contributing to a successful outcome overall. The present study seeks to outline the salient issues involved and to analyze potential linguistic approaches that might play a role in preparing Africans’ minds for the advocated ambitious project of the ‘United States of Africa’, as a necessary component in the promotion of a new politico-cultural structure characterizing the development of the continent. Clearly, African languages must be promoted, but European languages need not be abandoned. What is crucial is that the overall configuration must not continue on as a haphazard relic of colonization imposed from without, but rather it must be an outgrowth of a real African-inspired development that promotes unity. Although the idea of the United States of Africa is not new and has been discussed by the pioneers of African independence over many decades, the originality of this study resides in the consideration of the unity of Africans from the perspective of a linguistic federation. It is understood that the linguistic union of Africans would be a complex and formidable undertaking, but carefully planned first steps in that direction must be taken in order to facilitate a successful federal integration of Africa. Therefore, this study aims to discuss the role of an African continent-wide lingua franca language planning in the layout of a potential union of Africans, as a corollary of great importance in a real and complex federal integration of the African continent.
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    A positive psychology perspective on designing a technology-mediated learning experience: Engagement and personal development
    (2020) Drewelow, Isabelle
    This study takes a positive psychology approach to the integration of technology in the foreign language classroom. Specifically, it explores the benefits of using flow criteria (Czimmerman & Piniel, 2016; Egbert, 2003) to guide the design sequence of a technology-mediated project for a French for business course (advanced level). In the course of six weeks, twenty students progressed through several collaborative and individual tasks culminating in the co-construction and presentation of a website designed to introduce a new company and product. The analysis of their reflection essays, produced at the conclusion of the project, shows that clear objectives, interest, time to explore, sense of control, and being pushed out of their comfort zone to address various challenges they encountered led to a meaningful experience. Experiencing positive emotions in relation to achievement and creativity was transformative leading them to build confidence, resilience, language skills and strategies, and plan for their future learning path. The findings suggest that fruitful integration of technology should not be judged solely on its effect on linguistic development but also on its potential to generate positive emotions to support engagement in foreign language learning.
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    A socio-constructivist approach to developing intercultural empathy
    (2017) Drewelow, Isabelle
    The pedagogical intervention presented in this chapter uses a recent event that received global exposure (the 2015 terrorist attack on the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo) to engage learners’ critical awareness of the subjective dimension of freedom, especially freedom of speech. To facilitate learners’ encounter with and reflection on variation of cultural frames of reference, the intervention integrates geosemiotics theory (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) within a socio-constructivist approach to learning. A collaborative engagement inside and outside the classroom is enabled with LinoIt, a digital and interactive bulletin board. The chapter begins with curricular considerations to create a participatory and empathy-generating classroom-based learning environment. A detailed description of the sequence of project-based activities and assessments designed for a third-semester French course follows. The research and creative projects can be adapted to lower or higher level L2 courses and include other culturally organized constructs. I conclude with insights into how to use the design of the learning activities and the pedagogical sequence as a model for further curricular development and for the professional development of graduate students and instructors.
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    Abajo el patriarcado: utopía lésbica en “No me llames cariño”, de Isabel Franc
    (Michigan State University Press, 2010) Corbalán, Ana
    A pesar de encontramos en los albores 􀁟el siglo XXI, la literatura lesbica contimia representando una voz minoritaria y marginalizada en la tradici6n literaria espafiola. Es imposible obviar el hecho de que la escritura y escritoras lesbianas se han vista hist6ricamente obligadas a codificar su lenguaje al experimentar una doble discriminaci6n social: por ser mujeres y lesbianas. Por lo tanto, para llevar a cabo la normalizaci6n .y celebraci6n de una comunidad identitaria 'queer que resulte subversiva frente al paradigma del heterosexismo dominante, es necesario mantener una agenda revolucionaria activa que promueva visibilidad lesbica. De hecho, la literatura y el cine, entre otros medias culturales, contribuyen a naturalizar el lesbianismo, cuestionando de este modo a cultura homofobica imperante en nuestra sociedad.
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    Actas Del XX Congreso de Literatura Española Y Latinoamericana
    (Literal Books, 2001) Cipria, Alicia; López-Luaces, Marta
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    Afrika, Afrikaner und schwarze Deutsche in Wolframs Von Eschenbach Parzival, Sebastian Musters Cosmographei von 1550, "Aneaso, der Neger aus dem Ibo-Lande" und Joy Denalandes Wem gehort die Welt
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Oduro-Opuni, Obenewaa; Lazda, Rasma; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    This study deals with the representation of Africa and Africans as well as Black Germans in four selected texts from different time periods of German literature, from medieval to contemporary literature. It should thus give an insight into the means by which the "other" is depicted in different time periods. The first chapter examines the medieval courtly epic Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach. The focus is on the depiction of the African Queen Belacane and her dealings with other characters within the courtly epic. The second chapter treats Sebastian Münster's Cosmographei (1550) as a text example from the Early Modern period. The sixth book of Münster's description of the world deals with Africa and its inhabitants. Here, I dedicate myself to the question of how the African regions and cultures are represented. The third text is a narrative which focuses on the evangelization of slaves in the time of colonialism. "Aneaso, der Neger aus dem Ibo-Lande" (1866) tells the story of an African slave in Jamaica who gets introduced to Christianity by missionaries. The story reflects the paternalism of the white population during the slave trade and the church's missionary activity in Jamaica. The steady and positive description of the protagonist and other Christian slaves is compared to those who reject Christianity. The last text is composed by an Afro-German artist, is a song lyric from 2002 and features a change in perspective. Joy Denalane's song Wem gehört die Welt deals with discrimination based on race and gender in present day Germany. The study demonstrates the transformation and change in the depiction of Africa, Africans and Black Germans over the centuries, as well as the emergence of certain stereotypes and influences of various ideologies throughout German literature.
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    Algún amor que no mate: Dulce Chacón ante la violencia de género
    (Visor Libros, 2008) Corbalán, Ana
    La violencia de genero es un alarmante problema social que perjudica la calidad de vida y vulnera los derechas humanos. Millones de mujeres en todo el munda son golpeadas por sus maridos, novios o exparejas en unos actos de control y coaccion de su libertad. Esta violencia se considera un asunto privado en la mayoria de las sociedades; se realiza en secreto y esta vista simbolicamente como una forma de mantenimiento del orden social y de expresion de las relaciones de poder. Segun reconocio Michel Foucault, en Discipline and Punishment, el cuerpa es un instrumenta de poder, y si alguien interviene en el para aprisionarlo, esta privanda al individuo de una libertad que constituye tanto un derecho como una propiedad (1979: 11).
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    Alternative Communities in Lavapiés: (Dis)Encounters between Spain and Cuba
    (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) Corbalan, Ana
    The district of Lavapiés in Madrid has become a multiethnic topography in which transnational migrations and intercultural encounters are promoted. This locality symbolises the centre of multiculturalism in the city, because between 1991 and 2006 its foreign population increased from 4.90% to 35.16% (Barañano et al. 2006, 61). Thus, Lavapiés exemplifies an economic, cultural, and political convergence of Spaniards and immigrants that can be understood as a synecdoche for the global movements that characterise our contemporary society. Indeed, alternative communities from different nationalities coexist in this urban space, configuring a hybrid mosaic of people and places that renegotiate sociocultural relations and interethnic dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. The inhabitants of Lavapiés distance themselves from the boundaries that originated in the underlying preconceptions of an exclusively homogeneous national paradigm, and instead open up spaces for multicultural transformations.
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    Aproximación a la imagen del musulmán en la España medieval
    (Parnaseo, 2003-03-24) Corbalan, Ana
    Este artículo trata sobre la construcción de la imagen del musulmán como el ‘Otro’ en los textos literarios de la Edad Media española. Esta imagen era totalmente estereotipada y negativa y sirvió para incrementar la hegemonía cristiana y la creencia en la superioridad del cristianismo frente a las demás creencias religiosas. Al representar al musulmán de esta forma arquetípica, se logró justificar la expulsión de los grupos minoritarios de la Península. Para llevar a cabo el objetivo de este trabajo, hemos analizado algunos poemas del Romancero Viejo y el cuento de “La doncella Teodor” y hemos llegado a la conclusión de que cualquier discurso disponible fue apropiado para defender la causa cristiana.
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    Aspecto Gramatical
    (Routledge, 2016) Cipria, Alicia
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    Back Matter
    (Women in French, 2025)
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    BITO Women's Museum
    (La Doxa, 2020) Toman, Cheryl; Kuoh-Moukoury, Therese
    A catalog plus description and history of the paintings in the BITO Women's Museum in Douala, Cameroon.
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    The body beautiful and the abject: a look into the manifold mirror of age
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Myers, Kathryn Kori; Schnepf, Michael; Edmunds, Bruce T.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    This project studies four novels by Rosa Montero, Te trataré como a una reina (1983), Bella y oscura (1993), La hija del caníbal (1997), and Instrucciones para salvar el mundo (2008), as well as four novels by Agnès Desarthe, Cinq photos de ma femme, (1998), Les bonnes intentions (2000), Mangez-moi (2006), and Dans la nuit brune (2010). This dissertation examines the representations of aging in these novels through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia and Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject. I consider the effects of cultural constructs of age and aging on: how the elderly characters are depicted; how the characters describe their own aging and that of others; the interpretation of reflections in literal and figurative mirrors; the obsession with youth in Western cultures; and the sexual identity of female characters. I will take an in-depth look at how identity, self-perception, and sexuality are linked to the aging body.
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    Book Review of Transnational Cervantes, William Childers
    (Iberoamericana Editorial Vervuert, 2008) Worden, William
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    Bringing the past to life: the effects of historical linguistics instruction on motivation, enjoyment, and identity in the foreign language classroom
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2018) Thomas Coffman, Jana M.; Picone, Michael D.; Rountree, Barbara; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    For centuries, languages have been changing and evolving in complex, systematic ways. The study of past stages of a linguistic system and the overarching linguistic patterns characterizing the arc of change over time characterize the field of linguistics known as historical linguistics. Historical linguistics serves to illuminate both the sources and earlier phonetic and morphosyntactic features of a given language and the present trajectories and modern features of those same systems. This has implications for Second Language Acquisition. Indeed, existing literature suggests that instruction in various aspects of historical linguistics correlates positively with increased confidence, motivation, global competence, and multicultural identity. This study explored the effects of introductory historical linguistics exposure on the L2 Motivational Self as defined by Dörnyei (2005) and revisualized for multilingual learners by Ushioda (2017) and Lasagabaster (2014), among others. After a one-week treatment period, qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed to determine if changes could be detected in middle and high school language learners’ levels of motivation, enjoyment, and sense of identity in the foreign language classroom. Quantitative results revealed significant results in the areas of self-efficacy and metalinguistic awareness. Qualitative analysis revealed strong support for increased L2 enjoyment, L2 motivation, and self-efficacy, and revealed moderate support for lowered L2 anxiety and higher self-confidence. Keywords: Historical linguistics, SLA, motivation, enjoyment, L2 self, L2 identity
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    Cervantes Transforms Ovid: The Dubious Metamorphoses in Don Quijote
    (University of Toronto Press, 2010) Worden, William