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Aus dem Inhalt
Aus dem
Inhalt:
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Dirk
Siepmann: Determinants of Zero Article Use with Abstract Nouns: A
Corpus-informed Study of Journalistic and Academic English (abstract)
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Wolfgang
Wicht: Compound Intertextuality: A Joycean Drive (abstract)
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Gerhard Pfeiffer und Martina Pfeiffer: Hölle,
Fegefeuer, “Parodies”: Zum Bauprinzip von Hemingways “The Light of the
World” in seiner Bindung an die Divina
Commedia (abstract)
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Hans-Georg
Erney: Colonialism and Language in Herman Melville’s Typee
(abstract)
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Marek
Paryz: Herman Melville’s Pierre:
The Frontiers of Insanity (abstract)
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Christoph
Ribbat: Kent Haruf’s Fictions of the West (abstract)
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Miszelle:
Intermedialität: Text und Musik
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Buchbesprechungen
Dirk Siepmann, Determinants
of Zero Article Use with Abstract Nouns: a Corpus-informed Study of Journalistic
and Academic English
The present paper discusses new evidence on zero article use with abstract
English noun phrases using a corpus-based approach. In particular, it
investigates the role played by lexical and textual features of the linguistic
environment in determining article use. It is found that lexico-grammatical
determinants of zero article use can be classified under four major headings,
viz. “abstract nouns postmodified by periphrastic genitives”, “abstract
nouns postmodified by other types of of-phrases”,
“abstract nouns postmodified by prepositional phrases introduced by
prepositions other than of” and
“abstract nouns without postmodification”. Close examination of large
corpora reveals previously unknown aspects of these structures, and attempts at
translating them into German demonstrate the occasional necessity of complex
shifts from nominal to verbal constructions. Such findings, the conclusion
suggests, should be incorporated into teaching materials for non-native writers
and trainee translators.
Wolfgang Wicht,
Compound Intertextuality: A Joycean Device
Since its poststructuralist beginnings, the scholarly inquiry into literary
intertextuality has been characterized by methodological confusion. In spite of
this, a reading of Joyce’s Ulysses
attests to the urgency of analysing and interpreting intertextual relationships.
For this reason, a redefinition of the concepts and terminology of the
intertextual, intertextuality and intertext is proposed in the first part of the article and applied
to two examples of the annexation of the Moses saga to the text of Ulysses
in the second part. In contrast to the postmodernist conception of parody, which
foregrounds the critical and
affirmative aspects of intertextuality, Joyce’s method of compound
intertextuality or dual parody
practices a strategy of negation,
which strives towards a radical criticism of ideology. Placing intertexts within
intertexts, making them nomadic and ascribing to them semantic polyvalency,
Joyce deliberately dismantles conceptualized structures of meaning. Compound
intertextuality castrates the intertexts, cutting off their religious, national
or political identity.
Gerhard Pfeiffer und Martina Pfeiffer, Hölle,
Fegefeuer, ‘Parodies’: Zum Bauprinzip von Hemingways „The Light of the
World“ in seiner Bindung an die Divina
Commedia und seinen Anklängen an Joyces „Grace“
Usually considered as one of the most “literary” of Hemingway’s short stories, “The Light of the World“ has triggered a certain
number of discussions of possible sources and analogues. Besides the obvious
biblical implications of the story’s title, critics have spotted more or less
persuasive allusions to such a variety of works as Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,
Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineaux,” Maupassant’s “La maison
Tellier,” and Blake’s “The Tyger.” Given Hemingway’s lifelong
admiration for James Joyce’s Dubliners
and his detectable indebtedness to its narrative strategies, this article
suggests a sustained link between “The Light of the Worl”" and
Joyce’s “Grace.” Both narratives seem to rely heavily on parody as a
potent means to foreground the theme of spiritual deficiency that these writers
found prominent in their respective environments, and both pieces ironically
invoke Dante’s Divine Comedy as a contrastive foil to highlight this literary
intent.
Hans-Georg
Erney, Colonialism and Language in Herman Melville’s Typee
This postcolonial reading of Herman Melville’s Typee
analyzes the book’s ambiguous position between colonial and anti-colonial
discourse. Since a crucial arena in the colonial conflict is that of language,
this essay concentrates on the role of languages and the failure of English in Type,
Following examples that either critique or perpetuate colonial patterns, the
foregrounding of language will be addressed, as well as the Typeean language,
classification and naming, metaphors and malapropisms, and reading and writing.
Marek Paryz, Herman Melville’s Pierre:
The Frontiers of Sanity
The article is devoted to the dubiousness of the recognition of insanity in
Herman Melville’s novel Pierre. Its
argument combines Edwin Fussell’s reading of Pierre’s plight through the
prism of the experience of the American frontier as a signifier of madness with
Jacques Lacan’s definition of madness as “the captation of the subject by
the situation.” Pierre appears mad in different situations in which he
supposedly violates socially accepted and discursively sanctioned limits of
experience. Two crucial and interrelated factors in the recognition of madness
are discourse and ownership. Importantly, Pierre discovers “frontiers” in
both spheres when, on the one hand, he discovers the realm of the unspeakable in
discourse and, on the other hand, his status drastically dwindles. Discourse
substantiates the labelling of madness, but such a discursive operation depends
on various external factors. There is no single criterion of deciding about
Pierre’s insanity that exists outside discourse. There are only different
discursive situations in which Pierre reaches certain frontiers beyond which
there is no acceptance for his deeds. Besides, what makes the recognition of
madness so problematic is that alleged madness corresponds in some ways to
sanity, which is evident in the fact that Pierre, having left the family estate
and withdrawn from its symbolic order, creates his own symbolic domain which, in
a very imperfect manner, nevertheless follows the system which he has abandoned.
Christoph Ribbat, Kent
Haruf’s Fictions of the West
This essay explores the novels of American author Kent Haruf: The Tie that
Binds (1984), Where You Once Belonged (1990), and, with specific
attention, Plainsong (1999), his most recent and most acclaimed work. Haruf’s
prose is explored in the context of contemporary readings of the American West:
postmodern, feminist, and postcolonial critiques of “Anglo” hegemonic
narratives. The essay argues that Haruf indeed constructs his novels of
fictional Holt, Colorado as versions of traditional white, male Western realism.
However, within these parameters, his works transform the Anglo text, creating
narratives of a contemporary West shaped by redefined notions of gender and
power. The body, precarious and protected, has a central function in this
project. In Plainsong especially, Haruf’s fictions rewrite the syntax
of violence, isolation, and silence of both minimalism and conventional Western
narratives by developing intense visions of community.
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