نشریه نقد زبان و ادبیات خارجی
سال بیستم شماره 31 (پاییز و زمستان 1402)

Nowadays, speaking about immigration and its consequences is a controversial topic of many academic groups. The rise of postcolonialism and immigration has led to indescribable changes in world public affairs. In the field of immigration studies, the individual experiences of women in the diaspora are not significantly considered as the dominant experiences of immigrant men who are still claimed to represent all immigrants. Thus, it can become challenging to examine female migration experiences and it consequences which are ignored and overlooked. For this reason the eminent novel of Mohsin Hamid, Exit West, is chosen. This article carefully examines the consequences of assimilation of female characters in the hybridized Space.

Background of the Study:

Although assimilation to the host cultures in hybridized spaces situates migrant women in impossible situation or inbetween, the transformation of the migrant women’s identities can also become a tool to deconstruct stereotypes of third world women and patriarchal hegemonic discourse. In Exit West the main character, Nadia, is presented as the migrant woman with hybridized identity. The migrant woman is not obliged to choose between two identities, particularly between the cultural identity of the country where she comes from and that where she finds herself. In other words, both identities can co-exist in the same person, dialoguing and promoting cultural understanding. In this way immigrant woman in hybridized space is empowered to move freely between cultures and establish a sense of home and belonging even in her new places. These ideas of identity transformation and identity creation are very evident in Nadia at Exit West, portrayed as a key example of an immigrant woman whose identity is influenced by the places and cultures she encounters around the world. She feels like “vermin” at first in the host culture yet she turns to a beautiful butterfly at the end of the story.

The present article explores the ignored parts of female experiences as subalterns in migration and it focuses on the process of their assimilation in the host countries in accordance with the Gayatri Spivak’s theories. Her intention to illustrate that the level where the subaltern could be heard or read cannot be reached because what is said is either ignored, forgotten or it simply disappears from the official, male-centered historical. As the migrant woman’s identity transforms from “somebody” to “nobody”, she further more hopelessly agonizes as she also turns from a former member of a society to someone who is just “the Other”. This predicament of otherness is a universal reality among migrant women as they do not only experience it from people whose nationalities are different from them but also from men with whom they share similar race or background.

The idea that female migrants consider their identities as multiple or fluid is a key theme in literary representations of the female migrant experiences in the novel, Exit West. The key point to consider is that such representations of the experience of the migrant woman underlines how this shift in identity does not only come in the form of a physical alteration of her body and geographical crossing of borders but, more so, in her symbolical and psychological being. Despite the number of challenging experiences for migrant women in Exit West, it does overall emphasizes on the positive impact of such migration experiences. In fact, migration is also depicted as an opportunity that opens doors for the migrant woman to be exposed to a multicultural life and to improve her quality of life.

 The learning of German language vocabulary can be investigated from two points of view: "meaning and morphological structure". There are different ways to expand the vocabulary, most of the new words are created by word building method. Since the German language is rich in derivational and compound words, One of the suggested strategies for better learning German vocabulary is teaching vocabulary based on the word-formation knowledge. The two main forms of word formation in the German language are "compounds and derivatives" which make up a wide range of German words, Therefore, the importance of learning German vocabulary based on identifying the root of the word and using morphology becomes more visible. The research problem is that  whether there is a relationship between the teachings of morphology and etymology in learning and expanding potential German vocabulary for the learner of this language? This research aims to measure the effect of using morphological and etymological teachings in increasing the learning of potential German vocabulary. The hypotheses  of  this  research  are  that  etymological  and  morphological  teachings  help  the learner  to  analyze  and  understand  the  meaning  of  new  words  and  also  help  the  learner  to effectively store  and expand new German words in memory.  

Background of the Study: 

There are various theories in vocabulary acquisition according to experts such as Rainer Bohn, Bernd-Dietrich Müller  and others, which  Wolfgang Hallet and Frank G. Königs collected in their vocabulary acquisition chapter, including learning words in the text, classifying words in different situations,  and synonymous and opposite categories, etc, but what this research deals with is the potential vocabulary and the  importance of teaching the rules of word formation in vocabulary lessons. According to Rainer Bohn, it is one of the vocabulary acquisition strategies.  because if the learner is familiar with the rules of word formation, It will also have the ability to infer the meaning of many unknown words. And this  means  that  when  faced  with  many  new  words,  he  tries  to  guess  the  meaning  of those words and less needs to refer to the dictionary.                                                     

Methodologie:  

For this purpose, an experimental method was used, And it is analytical-field type, during which two identical groups of German translation students were tested.To compare the two groups, their class scores were calculated using the Mann-Whitney test. The result of the Mann-Whitney test showed that there is no significant difference between the scores of the two groups at the five percent level, which means that the two groups were equal and at the same level before the test. Then the vocabulary test was held for two groups. Data analysis in this method  is for applying the right statistical or logical technique so that the raw data makes sense.                                              

Vocabulary test results of both groups showed that the vocabulary of the students who learned vocabulary By identifying the root of the word, morphology and word formation rules was wider than the control group.Thus the test results based on statistical analysis and the T-test were checked. In the T-test, the comparison of the average scores of the two groups is significant at the significant level of one percent, and this itself shows a significant difference between the results of the two groups. The result of the statistical analysis on the experiments as well as the hypotheses of the research evaluates the answers to the research questions positively. Therefore, the results of the research show the positive effect of vocabulary analysis in learning and expanding potential German vocabulary.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories have been studied more or less as expressing the cultural conflicts and problems of living in a host land. However, this study hopes to open new horizons in studying works of Lahiri from a new point of view – that of trauma and traumatic studies, with the special focus on works of Cathy Caruth. Traditionally defined as the wounds to the body of a person in an event, the word trauma has come to be related with the mental problems resulting from being a participant in the events which happen so suddenly that the person would not have enough time to understand it. Cathy Caruth, following the ideas of Sigmund Freud, attributes the shock experienced by the people in a traumatic event to the fact that the people do not have an access to the reality of trauma, which necessitates its recurrence which would provide an opportunity for the same person to experience it again. This paper intends to have a view on the short story “A Temporary Matter” by Lahiri from the viewpoint of the trauma studies. It will clarify how the ideas expressed by Caruth and similar critics can be detected so well in this story – ideas such as the unconscious and incomplete meeting of the trauma by the people going through it and that in order to overcome the following problems and restless feelings, it would necessary for having the trauma re-experienced by the same person.

The discourse of labor (and idleness) is theorized in ancient classical times by Hesiod who regarded labor as an affliction, and the aristocratic Plato-Aristotelian circle of thought who ignored its value since they attributed it to the slaves, celebrating instead the man’s ‘Noble Idleness’. The theory of labor developed in the medieval period by the ambivalent Church fathers who related it to the Fall of man, and the consequent strife as penance. In the late medieval, however, the attitude to labor changed dramatically, as it is manifested in the thoughts of late medieval Church fathers such as Thomas Aquinas, who valued labor as a virtue, forestalling the more secularized Renaissance, which is anticipated in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Background of the Study:

With the advent of Christianity and the decline of the ancient slavery system and the rise of feudalist system in Europe, attitudes to labor and wealth were modified. Christianity broke radically with the previous view of labour, yet labor was still seen as a punishment for the Fall of Man. However, in the late fourteenth century England the estate of the clergy encountered a paradoxical attitude towards labor. On the one hand, according to the Biblical instructions, labor is necessary and virtuous, and idleness or sloth a deadly sin, and on the other hand, this praiseworthy labor is allotted to the peasant estate, leaving the role of the clergy still uncertain. The clergy are mostly consumers rather than producers.

In the late medieval England, the development of the middle class and the rise of mercantilism on the one hand, and the long futile wars, famine and death tolls caused by the plagues on the other hand secularized Europe and highlighted the value of laboring bodies. Attitudes to labor changed, especially labor for food production. The attitude of the clergy, however, was paradoxical towards labor. According to the Christian doctrine and ethics, work was a virtue, but practically in the feudal system of medieval period manual work was allotted to the peasants. To cope with this ideological flaw, the clergy triumphed in their (non-productive) clerical labor and services in their meditative and ascetic lives. Failure in achieving these ideals is satirized by the pilgrim-Chaucer’s highlighting the significance of food and food-makers. Accordingly, labor and the images of labor are praised in the “General Prologue” as useful in contrast with the idleness or uneconomic labors of the clergy. The praise is often applied for those pilgrims that are involved in the productive labor, or more specifically, in the food production, namely, the Plowman, the Miller, and the Cook. In connection with the food production, the motifs of eating, consumption, and gluttony are also related, with the medieval mores.

Since the ultimate purpose of learning a foreign language is being capable of communicating in that language, the concept of interactional competence is of dire importance in teaching and learning a second language. Interactional competence is the ability to use language in different social contexts. Furthermore, as a paralinguistic code, intonation has direct influence on the accent of learner or the so-called foreign accent.

 Literature Review:

 Chomsky (1965) introduces performance versus competence. Hymes (1972) broadens competence to include language use in social situations that he calls communicative competence. According to Kramsch (1986) concepts of addressee and communication context are main factors that differentiate interactional competence from communicative competence. Based on Young (2011), interactional competence includes identity, linguistic and interactional resources. Markee (2008) views interactional competence in three elements, namely, a formal system, a semiotic system and paralinguistic features.  

This article aims at going from linguistic and communicative competence to interactional competence that is both context- and interactants-dependent, in order to study intonation in real conversation. To this end, functions of intonation in German language are introduced and described in the process of reaching interactional competence and maintaining successful communication in this language. 

In teaching a foreign language, we should engage the learners in social and cultural aspects of the language in order to improve and develop their interactional skills and reach near native accent.

La traduction permet d’échanger des idées et des réflexions du monde. Parmi divers textes littéraires, la traduction de la poésie semble difficile selon certains chercheurs. La difficulté majeure est de recréer l’union du sens et de la sonorité qui caractérise la poésie et fait partie du sens des poèmes. Parmi les poètes français, les poèmes de Leconte de Lille occupe une place particulière dans la littérature française, car ce poète fait partie des adeptes de l'école de «l'art pour l'art» et est très sensible à la forme, à la musique et à la beauté de la poésie. En tant que traducteur de certains poèmes de ce poète, Shojauddin Shafa a tenté d'établir un compromis entre la fidélité au texte et l'esthétique des vers.Dans cette recherche, on tente d'examiner la traduction persane du poème «le Sommeil de Laila» écrite par Lecomte de Lille à partir des opinions d'Henri Meschonnic afin de savoir si la forme, le rythme et les éléments esthétiques de ce poème ont été transférés dans la langue cible ou non. Pour atteindre cet objectif, les vers de ce poème sont divisés en trois catégories : rythme linguistique, rythme rhétorique et rythme poétique, puis, on compare les vers de ce poème avec sa traduction afin d’évaluer le degré de divergence et de convergence entre les poèmes de Leconte de Lille et les textes traduits par Shafa à différents niveaux. Les résultats obtenus indiquent que le traducteur a utilisé plutôt la méthode "traduction-interprétation".

Etat de connaissance :

Dans l'article «Etude du rythme dans les traductions persanes des œuvres de Christian Bobin: le cas des traductions de Geai (Idiot du quartier) et d'Isabelle Bruges faites par Qavimi», Mohseni examine le rythme dans les traductions de cette traductrice. Selon l'auteur, Bobin exprime une pensée simple et sincère. Ses écrits sont pleins de phrases courtes dont le rythme lent ou rapide exprime les sentiments et les pensées des personnages. En examinant la traduction des deux récits d’Idiot du quartier et d'Isabelle Bruges, Mohseni montre que le traducteur s'est parfois écarté du rythme du texte original pour respecter les règles d'orthographe, mais il a réussi à recréer le rythme et les signes de l'oralité.

Méthodologie :

Notre travail de recherche a pour objectif la critique de la traduction « du Sommeil de Leila » en persan selon Meschonnic afin de voir si la rigueur et la recherche formelle de Leconte de Liste pour dessiner l’art et la beauté ont été bien transmises dans la traduction. Nous allons étudier la divergence et la convergence entre l’original et le texte traduit sur différents plans tels que le sens, la forme, le style, la musicalité, le rythme, la sonorité, etc.

Les analyses présentées ont montré que la traduction des poèmes parnassiens n'est pas possible simplement en choisissant des équivalents appropriés et en transmettant le sens, car la principale caractéristique de leurs vers se base sur le rythme, la musique et le chant. Les opinions de Meschonnic sur l'importance du rythme dans le texte et l'attention portée au «sens général d'un discours» ont clairement montré que la reproduction de la musicalité du discours est très importante dans la traduction. En comparant le tableau contenant la sonorité, la richesse des rimes et les strophes en version française et en version persane de notre travail, on pourrait conclure que le traducteur n’a pas bien transmis ni la musicalité, ni les sonorités des vers dans la traduction.

In the course of one’s life, a person constantly changes due to various environmental and social factors and inevitably adopts new frameworks. One of the most radical changes that a person experiences is the transformation of beliefs and the development of a new identity. In this context, Pierre Bourdieu believes that human being is influenced by factors such as the family, the media, and the governing educational system, and thereby acquires and internalizes a set of schemas, dispositions, and habitus. Serving as a reflection of the realities of the world, literature narrates these developments. Joris-Karl Huysmans’s cycle of four novels—Là-bas (1891), En route (1895) and La cathédrale (1898), and L'Oblat (1903)—is a salient instance of this literature. The author seems to represent the course of spiritual transformations of human being in these works. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory, the present research intends to show how the protagonist changes in these narratives.

Sociological criticism, as a method for approaching literary works, helps examine the social dimension of a text. Many researchers in this field such as Marcel Mauss and Bernard Lahire have explored habitus as one of the key concepts of this type of criticism. There are many literary works that exhibit the function of habitus. Prominent examples include Lost Illusions (1843) by Honoré Balzac, Man's Fate by André Malraux (1933), and Submission (2015) by Michel Houellebecq. This research analyzes Huysmans’s cycle of four novels to demonstrate the impact of habitus in triggering social and spiritual transformation in a person. By studying the protagonist—who is a consistent character and [seems to be] the author’s alter ego in all four works—and the actions of other characters as well as the impact they exert on him, and finally by citing examples from all four works, we will show how an individual undergoes personal, spiritual, and social changes when placed in different situations and socializing with people from different spectrums. MethodologyAs a way to decode human behavior and development, habitus is an important subject of social studies and has attracted the attention of many researchers. This paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of habitus, which he proposed to decode and interpret individual and social developments.

In Distinction:

 A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), he refers to habitus as a system of practical structures that directs the actions of social agents. In general, habitus means the set of schemas that a person acquires during their lifetime as a result of interaction with different environments. These schemas include how to eat, dress, and socialize, as well as one’s interests and preoccupations, among others.

Analyzing Huysmans’s cycle of four novels with the help of Bourdieu's theory showed that the protagonist, Durtal, was transformed under the influence of society and cultural and religious domains as this character develops new habits such as performing religious acts and practicing spiritual meditation. Thus, our analysis highlighted the extent to which one’s identity, beliefs, behavior, and actions are subject to environmental and social conditions, which are marked by interaction with other social agents. Durtal’s interaction with clerics is a conspicuous instance in this regard. Huysmans has carved out the course of his spiritual development by representing himself through Durtal’s personality.

Einleitung:

Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, zu untersuchen, welche Bedeutung die kulturbiografischen Faktoren in DaF-Lehrwerken der sechsten Generation haben. Der Fremdsprachenunterricht wird als der zentrale Ort der Begegnung zwischen mindestens zwei Kulturen betrachtet, und dies kann manchmal zu Missverständnissen und Vermittlungsproblemen beim Sprachenlernen führen. Daher ist es sinnvoll, jede Gruppe von Lernenden als unabhängige, wenn auch sehr kleine Kultur zu betrachten. Bei der Erstellung von Lehrwerken ist es wichtig, dass die neuen Lehrwerke auf der Grundlage der Lernbedürfnisse von Sprachlernenden konzipiert und zusammengestellt werden. Daher ist die Berücksichtigung der Altersgruppe, Lerngewohnheiten und Traditionen der Lerngruppe eines der wichtigsten Ziele der Fremdsprachendidaktik. Die wichtige Forschungsfrage lautet nun: Warum ist es wichtig, bei der Konzipierung und Gestaltung von Lehrwerken auf die kulturbiografischen Faktoren der Lerngruppe zu achten? Und inwieweit wurde dies bei der Erstellung von Lehrwerke der sechsten Generation, vor allem für die iranischen DaF-Lernende berücksichtigt? 

Stand der Forschung:

Das Ziel dieser Forschung besteht darin, die Faktoren der Kulturbiographie in der Fremdsprachendidaktik zu untersuchen, und bisher wurden viele Forschungsarbeiten auf diesem Gebiet veröffentlicht. Einerseits glauben Einige, dass die Durchführung pädagogischer Lernziele nur dann effektiv ist, wenn die Lehrkräfte für die Integration der kulturbiografischen Faktoren der Lerngruppe in den Fremdsprachenunterricht mehr sorgen können. Andererseits glauben die anderen, dass Verallgemeinerungen im Unterricht vermieden werden sollten und Lehpersonen keine strengen Grenzen zwischen Lernenden aus verschiedenen Kulturen ziehen sollten. Einige Forschungen besagen, dass es eigentlich keine einheitliche Lernkultur gibt, sondern dass man ebenso viele Menschen, Lernstile, Inhalte, Schwächen und Stärken findet. Angesichts der spezifischen Auswirkungen der Alltagskultur auf die Lernstile ist es außerdem notwendig, Lehrmethoden zu entwickeln, die die verschiedenen kulturellen Dimensionen wie Individualismus und Kollektivismus, Machtdistanz und Kurz- oder Langzeitorientierung berücksichtigen. Schließlich ist es nur durch die Interaktion mit unterschiedlichen Kulturen möglich, die Kriterien lernbiografischer Faktoren zu kennen und daraus Nutzen zu ziehen und Lernergebnisse zu verbessern.

Methodik:

Zur Realisierung des Forschungszieles folgt diese Arbeit einer analytischen Methode. Zwei Lehrwerke „Das Leben“ und „Starten wir“ auf dem B1-Niveau werden mit Hilfe der von der Forscherin erstellten Kriterienkatalog analysiert.    Kriterium 1: Gibt es im Lehrwerk Übungen, bei denen das kritische Denken des Lernenden gefördert wird?   Sind im Lehrwerk unterschiedliche Sozialformen integriert?  Kriterium 3: Gibt es im Lehrwerk Übungen, die die Emotion und Motivation des Lernenden zum Weiterlernen erwecken?   Kriterium 4: Entspricht die Progression der Lerngruppe?   Kriterium 6: Gibt es im Lehrwerk Lerntipps, die auch Lernstrategien aufgreifen؟Die Ergebnisse zeigten Folgendes:1. „Das Leben“ ist besseres Lehrwerk als „Starten wir“, da es Übungen mit Partner- und Gruppenarbeiten nutzt, um die individuellen Meinungen und Überzeugungen der Lernenden herauszufordern.2. Beide Lehrwerke haben alle unterschiedlichen sozialformen verwendet, darunter Einzel-, Partner-, Wechsel und Gruppenarbeiten.
3. Beide Lehrwerke haben eine langsamen und flache Progression.4. In beiden Lehrwerken werden, mit einem leichten Unterschied von 14 (Das Leben) zu 13 (Starten wir), unterschiedliche Lerntipps zum Lernen verschiedener Sprachelemente wieGrammatik und Wortschatz eingeführt.5. Beide Lehrwerke zeigen nicht nur ausreichend Aufmerksamkeit für die kulturbiografischen Faktoren der iranischen Lernenden, sondern bieten auch die Möglichkeit, die Vielfalt der Lerntraditionen in anderen Kulturen kennenzulernen und sich damit auseinanderzusetzen. FazitDie Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Lehrwerke der sechsten Generation die kulturbiografischen Faktoren der iranischen Lernende weitgehend berücksichtigt haben und sie ermöglichen Deutschlernenden im Iran die Begegnung und Auseinandersetzung mit Lerntraditionen anderer Länder und Kulturen. Aus diesem Grund kann man sagen, dass beide Lehrwerke für den Unterricht für Deutsch als Fremdsprache im Iran geeignet sind. Ergebnisse haben darüber hinaus gezeigt, dass sich beide Lehrwerke im Bereich der Einführung didaktischer Lertipps zum Erlernen verschiedener Sprachelemente teilweise schlecht eingesetzt haben. Daher wird empfohlen, dass die Lehrpersonen, wenn sie diese Lehrwerke im Iran verwenden möchte, bei der Vervollständigung der Lerntipps sorgfältiger vorgehen sollten.

Role of nature is undoubtedly undeniable in literature. Due to environmental crises, addressing environmental dilemmas in literature is crucial. This research investigates eco-grief and eco-apocalypse in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010). It is based on the interrelation of natural environment and eco-trauma and by focusing on apocalyptic feeling, it examines Freedom. This novel is a practical work depicted to enlighten humans to save the nature. This interdisciplinary article is relied on the correlation of ecocriticism, trauma, and apocalypse and to do so, Lawrence Buell’s views on eco-apocalypse have been utilized. According to Buell eco-apocalypse is the only master metaphor of the currant age as people have not understood the fact that the environment is under complete destruction and do not realize the seriousness of this crisis. Reflection of eco-grief in Freedom proves that Franzen is endeavoring to alter the attitude of humans towards nature to play an effective role in saving nature. His unity with the natural environment mirrors ecological issues in Freedom. Franzen informs and convinces humans to save the creatures that are unable to save themselves. Background of the Study: This study intends to show Franzen’s eco-traumatic and eco-apocalyptic views. Franzen (1959- ) is one of eco-aware American novelists and essayists whose attentiveness for the environment has been reflected in his life and works. He devoted his time to birds and their life. By publishing Purity in 2015 and Crossroads: A Novel in 2021, he highlighted his name as a great author who portrays family life. Franzen is known for the vividness of characters with breadth of social insight. He has been introduced to a new universe by birdwatching and manifesting the importance of natural surroundings.

This research applies an interdisciplinary approach that integrate ecocriticism, trauma, and apocalypse. The discussions will be conducted around eco-trauma, that according to Narine Anil, encompasses traumas that humans impose to nature or vice versa, the harms and traumas that are inflicted to humans by nature. Human beings have stood at a critical period in which the use of technology has resulted in possibility of human extinction and catastrophic end of the environment. By using a qualitative approach based on theory, this article will focus on ecocriticism as its core building block. Although the risk of catastrophe is not so high, people should act consciously to change their behavior toward nature to avert calamity as the disaster will result in traumatic condition for human beings’ psyche. Humans should take sufficient action to ameliorate the condition of the environment to improve human psyche; those, who are traumatized due to environmental crisis, try to help the nature to restore itself. Hence, Franzen reflects his concern for such an environment in the postmodern apocalyptic world

Franzen expands human’s knowledge of the surrounding world in Freedom by representing eco-trauma and sense of ending. Ongoing environmental problems have turned the nature into an apocalyptic end and Franzen gets human’s attention to the traumatic ecological apocalypse. He hints at the capacity of the earth to recover from its ecological trauma and grief due to apocalyptic end of the benevolent nature. Franzen investigates the role of nature in causing anxiety due to the catastrophic state of the nature; however, he is careful to explore this role in rehabilitating the ecological grief in humans. He portrays a hopeful future for the environment and humans’ awakening for taking care of it, and suggests that humans can take refuge in the nature to heal their own traumatic wounds.

Vonnegut’s fiction is often read for science fiction, black humor, satirical, and postmodernist. However, the present research reads Slaughterhouse-Five mainly as an anti-war story. Thomas F. Marvin contends that the meaning of the novel as anti-war is a mixture of “brutal realism with science fiction” in the context of which it “challenges readers to make sense of a world gone mad” (131), while its madness is illustrated in (a) Billy’s physical and mental inability to take his role as the protagonist because of which war is, for him, not more than a senseless slaughter of many victims, and (b) the portraiture of a nation that has destroyed the basic human rights including freedom and democracy. Other critics have evaluated Vonnegut’s prose style in this novel as an anti-war story. After reminding the reader about the inseparability of the form and content of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kevin Aleaxnder Boon (2011) points to the replacement of nonlinear narrative with the conventional linear narrative through which the author stages the experiences of Billy who is “unstuck in time”. Background of the Study: In Chapter 35 of his last novel, Timequake (1998), Vonnegut divides story-tellers into two groups of “swoopers” and “bashers” while he considers far different working methods for each. He admits that swoopers write quickly and then come to painstakingly revise their writing. Then, he claims that “Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done” (108), and he puts himself in the second group. In Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style (2019), Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell argue it is through bashing that Vonnegut has achieved a major breakthrough in the American postmodernist fiction to formulate answers to two major questions: “What in heck should we be doing? What in heck is really going on?” (165). Although Timequake came out about three decades after Slaughterhouse Five, the latter is often regarded as Vonnegut’s answer to these questions. The high frequency and worldwide dispersion of war is the major problem which he repeatedly satirizes in the novel to show war as trivial and the war authorities as clownish, so that the people take war as down to their ambition.

Taking it that Vonnegut’s text is a postmodernist anti-war story, a descriptive-analytical methodology is used to show how the “brutal realism” of the novel along with its episodic structure, its delicate or fragile characterization, its “tralfamadorian concept of time” which makes it possible for Billy to go “from life to death to life and then back to pre-birth in the novel” (McGinnis 2011, 155), and the features of a “plotless” novel help trivialize war through the analysis of the more important scenes, the more frequent language structures, the interfusion of form and meaning, etc.

Via a two-sided plot that simultaneously looks to the past and the future, Slaughterhouse-Five provides a discourse that shows war as a ridiculous and sinister yet avoidable phenomenon. It shows war as ugly and ridiculous, and as tedious, trite, and clownish, and war authorities as buffoons, so that the readers take war as down to their ambition and turn back to it. The stylistic features Vonnegut employs in this novel for the achievement of his anti-war purposes include the use of satire in objective and virtual narrative, historiographic metafiction, the sci-fi features, the protagonist as unstuck in time, juxtaposition of the real and the imaginary, the use of adaptive narrative structure, as well as the traits of intertextuality and narrative focalization.

Learning vocabulary and its memorization represent crucial challenges in language education. With the evolution of educational methodologies, contemporary techniques aim to streamline this process. Mind maps have emerged as a recent educational aid, offering effective learning strategies.Background of the Study: This study examines how the application of mind mapping, directed at fostering reasoning and enhancing language skills (reading and writing) among French-learning children and teenagers, influences the acquisition of fictional texts vocabulary. The investigation seeks to gauge the impact of employing the mental mapping model to develop reasoning prowess and fortify language aptitude in children and teenagers. By emulating the brain's structure, the utilization of mind maps facilitates connecting the brain's left hemisphere (associated with reasoning and logic) to the right hemisphere (linked to literature and language).

To test the hypothesis regarding the impact of mind mapping on fictional texts vocabulary acquisition and the enhancement of reasoning and language skills (reading and writing), 50 Iranian children and teenagers learning French in the sixth grade were selectively chosen through a clustered and randomized approach. These students were then divided into two groups of 25 individuals each, identified as the control group and the experimental group. Both cohorts underwent preliminary testing through a semi-experimental method before the training phase, with their scores meticulously recorded in group-specific tables.Subsequently, the control group received conventional education, involving storytelling sessions where new words were presented on the blackboard, accompanied by synonyms, with students tasked to write and remember them. Post-sessions, a vocabulary post-test was conducted for the control group, and their scores were documented. In parallel, the experimental group, comprising 25 language learners, engaged in sessions where a page from the William Poire stories by Jean-Claude Lumet was read. These learners were taught words extracted from the text utilizing the mind map technique. Each session involved selecting a key word, establishing it as the central idea within the mind map, and subsequently connecting related words as sub-branches to the central concept, thereby introducing new vocabulary. A research questionnaire was designed for the experimental group's post-test to assess their acquired knowledge.

The analysis of the test results substantiates the hypothesis, demonstrating that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the post-vocabulary test. This confirms the significant impact of mind mapping on the acquisition of fictional texts vocabulary, fostering reasoning ability, and fortifying language skills (reading and writing) in French language learners. The experimental group showcased remarkable progress in the vocabulary post-test.

 William Blake's long-lasting connection with Swedenborg has long been reflected by many researchers and it is impossible to examine the poet's works within the scope of ecological criticism without considering the importance of the Swedish philosopher in the formation of the poet's mentality. With infrequent exception, every foremost revision of William Blake's works embraces reference of the inspirations of Emanuel Swedenborg's theological books.

Background of the Study:

 There are some of the leaders of Eco-Romanticism such as Jonathan Bate and Karl Kroeber who fundamentally evade considering Blake an eco-conscious poet in the Romantic era. At the same time there are other critics who try to manipulate and ignore some of Blake`s negative representations of nature and show that he can be enlisted in Eco Critical readings of the present era. One of them is James McKusick who reads Blake`s Golgonooza as an “Ecotopia” of “human scale technology”; he advises the interested reader to read Jerusalem plates 18 and 19 as a caution against one of the most important ecological problems of the current era, the pollution (McKusick 102-05). There have also been some Blakean supporters who have tried to enter Blake into the ecological discussions of the present era and have attempted to raise Blake`s ecological concerns against those vast conventions that simply recognize him as a poet who sacrifices nature in favor of systematic imagination. Imagining Nature by Kevin Hutchings is an astonishing example which hopefully strives “to delineate an alternative, distinctively Blakean view of the relationship between humanity and nature” (Hutchings 3). Based on the aforementioned points, an Eco Critical reading of Blake’s selected poems has been done in this article considering Swedenborg`s “Correspondence” and “Influx”. Selected poems include The Hymn Jerusalem, parts of Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion and parts of Milton.

The art practitioner in the Romantic realm wishes to design all surrounding phenomena to pass through whole. It is widely believed that nature possesses its own self-governing language and all its features function regularly and it also has got a symbolic value, which makes it closer to the structures and peculiarities of unwritten language.  Swedenborg`s two conceptions of 'Influx' and 'Correspondence' have been believed to generate an accord between the surrounding natural world and the Man and he thought that there must be a genuine action of mind on our brain. The idea of ‘Correspondence’ seems to have a long history and it becomes an essential means to comprehend the cosmos and the essence of Man`s creation in Swedenborg`s thought. The reason that they are called correspondences is that they are entirely reactive and represent what they portray. There is an independent language spoken by natural elements and this conveys a symbolic asset which makes Man keep a closer contact to the structures and peculiarities of their surrounding environment. As was mentioned before ‘Correspondence’ acts as a universal principle and it is definitely dynamic so it involves causality. The true indication of this causal relation is named as ‘Influx’.

The author of this article concludes that the traditional eco-friendly metaphysics affirms the spiritual experience of plants and animals in nature after the environmental critical reading of selected parts of Blake's poems and suggests that it is possible to use nature itself to restore the consciousness of humans in the face of nature and all creatures and as a result, it is applicable to explore the deep ecological thought in Swedenborg's ancient concepts as well as Blake`s selected poetry.