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Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 · Heft 2 | 2021 Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (0) 7071 97 97 0 \ Fax +49 (0) 7071 97 97 11 info@narr.de \ www.narr.de \ narr.digital Notice to Contributors All articles for submission should be sent to the editor, Bernhard Kettemann, as a WORD document as mail attachment: bernhard.kettemann@uni-graz.at Manuscripts should conform to the AAA style sheet or follow either MHRA or MLA style. (Copies of the MLA Style Sheet may be obtained from the Treasurer of the Modern Language Association of America, 62 Fifth Ave, New York, N. Y., 10011; copies of the MHRA Style Book from W.S. Maney & Son Ltd., Hudson Rd., Leeds LS9 7DL, England.) Documentation can be embodied either in footnotes or in an appended bibliography, with name and date reference enclosed in brackets in the text. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and listed on a separate page. The footnotes will appear on the bottom of the page where they are mentioned. They should be limited to a minimum. Languages of publication are German and English. Authors are requested to provide an English abstract of their contribution of about 15 lines in a separate document. In the normal procedure first proofs will be sent to the authors and should be returned to the editor within one week. Authors receive one free copy of the issue containing their contribution. It is our policy to publish accepted contributions without delay. Gründer, Eigentümer, Herausgeber und für den Inhalt verantwortlich / founder, owner, editor and responsibility for content: Bernhard Kettemann, Institut für Anglistik, Universität Graz, Heinrichstraße 36, A-8010 Graz. Tel.: +43 / 316 / 380-2488, 2474, Fax: +43 / 316 / 380-9765 Web: https: / / narr.digital/ journal/ aaa Herausgeber / editor Bernhard Kettemann Redaktion / editorial assistants Georg Marko Eva Triebl Mitherausgeber / editorial board Alwin Fill Walter Grünzweig Walter Hölbling Allan James Andreas Mahler Christian Mair Annemarie Peltzer-Karpf Werner Wolf Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) Heft 2 Inhaltsverzeichnis Artikel: Monika Fludernik In the Twilight of Nostalgia: Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in Two Classic Muslim Novels..................................................................................... 3 Frančiška Lipovšek The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions ...................... 31 Aleksandra Izgarjan and Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević Post-Memory and History in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club ................................................................................ 55 José Antonio Álvarez-Amorós Overt Unreliability and the Metarepresentational Frame: On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration ..................................................................... 71 Heinz Tschachler A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency ...................................... 99 Vesna Lazović Dehumanization Revisited: Media Reports on the Refugee Crisis in British Online Newspapers .............................................................................................115 Daniel Becker Let’s (Not) Address the Monster: Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht - Eine curriculare Perspektive ....................................................................139 Jürgen Meyer German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere ......................................... 159 Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Der gesamte Inhalt der AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Band 1, 1976 - Band 40, 2015 ist nach AutorInnen alphabetisch geordnet abrufbar unter http: / / wwwgewi.uni-graz.at/ staff/ kettemann This journal is abstracted in: ESSE (Norwich), MLA Bibliography (New York, NY), C doc du CNRS (Paris), CCL (Frankfurt), NCELL (Göttingen), JSJ (Philadelphia, PA), ERIC Clearinghouse on Lang and Ling (Washington, DC), LLBA (San Diego), ABELL (London). 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Printed in Germany ISSN 0171-5410 In the Twilight of Nostalgia Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in Two Classic Muslim Novels Monika Fludernik The article maps out the affinities between Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940) and Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk (1956). It traces the central mood of nostalgia for a lost past in the two novels and demonstrates how this ambivalent mood plays out in three respects: in the characters’ leisure activities, marked by their indolence and retrospective yearning; in the exaggerated assertion of patriarchal self-importance, compensating for a loss of actual political significance; and in the fraught relationship with the British. These three issues coalesce in the male protagonists’ amorous exploits, which link with the production of traditional poetry and song, serial adultery and the cultural clash between British and vernacular culture. In the final section, I discuss the two novels from the perspective of literary history and propose that they may be typical of a genre of the Muslim novel on its emergence from colonialism. The topic of my essay is the combination of several observable ambivalences due to colonial disempowerment and its clash with aspirations towards modernity, illustrated in two novels which I happened to read in close proximity with one another, namely Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi (1940) and Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk (1956). In both novels, an atmosphere of nostalgia and indolence prevails, a conjunction typical of South Asian texts focusing on otium or otiose leisure and which has been a recent focus of my research. 1 I was greatly struck by the similarities between the two novels despite their apparently very different spatial and 1 See Fludernik (2020, 2021) as well as Pernau (2015) and Noor (2020) for this connection. Research conducted on Ahmed Ali was part of the SFB 1015 (CRC 1015) AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0006 Monika Fludernik 4 political settings, i.e. Delhi in 1911-1919 versus Cairo after the British takeover during World War I (1917-1919). Besides displaying a marked temporal overlap in the period before 1919, both novels are infused with a number of key affects: nostalgia for former national glory (of Muslims in Delhi and Egyptians under Ottoman rule); resentment of British colonial intervention; and a celebration of a class of (Muslim) citizens that is comparatively well-to-do but finds itself to be disintegrating and passing into the twilight of its former social and financial elite status. 2 Another prominent aspect shared by the two novels concerns the focus on a male family patriarch. In both cases, this figure keeps a strict discipline on his family at home, lording it over his sons and women folk, while secretly indulging in drink and sexual exploits outside the family residence. Both novels implicitly criticize the patriarchs’ hypocrisy and at least to some extent sympathize with the perspective of the oppressed family members. The two texts moreover thematize the budding nationalist movements against British colonial power. In what follows, I will first provide a brief background on the two works and then discuss three sets of ambivalences that emerge from the analysis of the texts. Section 1 will discuss the practices of leisure and indolence in Ali and Mahfouz, concentrating on flânerie, hobbyhorses and sexual exploits. I will show how the background of political disempowerment and the nostalgia for former times of national glory play out in a retreat into privacy, passivity and idleness. In both novels, the spaces of the old Delhi and the old Cairo are juxtaposed with the invasions by the colonial power and result in a nostalgia for the ancient city. Section 2 will focus on the ambivalences of patriarchy. My analysis will foreground the attempts to preserve self-respect despite the humiliations endured under colonialism, but also expose the resulting victimization of women. I will moreover trace the connection between patriarchy and religion, a fraught relation especially in Mahfouz. Section 3 returns to nostalgia and its political instrumentalizations and ambivalences. Section 4, finally, will consider the ambivalence between literary tradition and the influence from international modernist fiction on the two authors and presents a thesis regarding the genre of a Muslim colonial novel. It should be underlined at the outset that I am a scholar of English studies and not of comparative literature and that, alas, I do not know any Arabic and have therefore had to rely the English translation of Mahfouz’ text and on criticism in English. Ahmed Ali’s novel was written under British tutelage before the Second World War and published in 1940, thus before Indian Independence in funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), project number 197396619. 2 Haider (2017: 169) characterizes Mir Nihal as belonging to the “ashraf or the uppermiddle-class Muslim family” in Delhi at the turn of the century and adds that he is a “Sayyed, an Arabic honorific title denoting descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad” (172). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 5 1947. By contrast, the publication of Mahfouz’s text occurred after Egyptian independence in 1952, though the novel’s setting during and after World War I frames it within the British protectorate. 3 Palace Walk was written and completed between 1945 and “just before the Free Officers Revolution of July 1952 brought both British Empire and Turco-Egyptian puppet monarchy in Egypt to an end […]” (Tageldin 2012: 87). The political situation of the setting of Mahfouz’s novel therefore much resembles the real-life situation of Ahmed Ali. The two novels depict the fraught relationship between tradition and modern colonial influences in the experiences of the two representatives of their respective cultures. These experiences are inherently ambivalent. The two families find themselves torn between nostalgia for former glory and self-confidence (the older generation, labouring under a feeling of dispossession) and a desire to participate in scientific and political progress, associated with the British oppressor (the sons). In Twilight in Delhi, nostalgia is linked to politics and to the negative social and economic consequences that affected the Islamic population in India after the destruction of the Delhi sultanate and the move of political power away from Delhi. Chapter 8 of Part II of the novel, describing the massacre in Delhi during the rebellion of 1857, 4 highlights the protagonist’s resentment of colonial domination. In Palace Walk, active political anticolonialism is more or less restricted to the younger generation, though the father is certainly in favour of political independence. In the subsequent volumes of the Cairo Trilogy, the sons become political rebels. 1. Spaces and Practices of Leisure: Nostalgia, Disaffection and the Retreat into Privacy The atmosphere of both novels and the activities of the family heads are characterized by their leisurely life style, which revives nostalgic memories of former cultural preeminence. These leisure activities include strolling through the old town, reminiscent of traditional native life, reciting poetry, womanizing and daydreaming besides engaging in a number of hobbies. In Ali’s Twilight in Delhi, the patriarch Mir Nihal and his son Ashgar love to quote poetry to delineate their mood or corroborate an argument, as does Ashgar in his discussion with his friend Bari. Leisure activities in Twilight 3 It was in 1914 that the de facto protectorate over Egypt (in force since 1882) was declared official and the Ottoman Empire superseded by British rule. The British takeover in 1882 occurred in response to the threat by the ministry under Ahmad Urabi of the Egyptian independence movement (from 1879) to introduce democratic reforms. The Muhammad Ali dynasty, which had survived the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, was now reduced to serving as a figurehead. 4 The publisher thought this was seditious, and only E. M. Foster’s intercession with the censor allowed the novel to be printed in unabbreviated form (Joshi 2002: 213). Monika Fludernik 6 also include Ashgar’s sessions of daydreaming, for instance when he is looking at the stars (I,ii; 11-3; I,xii; 56). 5 Mir Nihal, on the other hand, indulges in the “idleness” of his interest in “medicine and alchemy” (II,v; 87). In Palace Walk, Kamal and his father go strolling through the old Cairo. The pastimes of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad are singing and playing the tambourine in an almost professional manner (xxxix, 248). 6 He is also said to be an expert in the conversational arts and in flirting. Flânerie is an important motif in both novels. As Trivedi notes, Mir Nihal lives near the Chandni Chowk in Mohalla Niyariyan; he walks home “from the shop in Chandni Chowk via the Clock Tower and Balli Maran” (Trivedi 1986: 52) and continues on via the Kucha Pandit and Jangli Kuan (Ali II,i; 66-7), while Ashgar returns home “from Mushtari Bai’s Kotha in Chaori Bazar [sic] via Hauz Qazi and Lal Darwaza” 7 (Trivedi 52), turning into Kucha Pandit and then into Jangli Kuan (Ali I,ii; 55-6). Father and son meet and observe many people and exchange greetings; they also appreciate the wares on display and delight in the buildings they pass, especially landmarks like the Fatehpuri Mosque “at the bottom of Chandni Chowk” (Trivedi 52) or the Jama Masjid (Ali I,I; 4, I,iv; 23 et passim). In Palace Walk, too, the male characters are depicted roaming the streets. Yasin, the eldest son, “headed toward the Goldsmiths Bazaar and then to al-Ghuriya. He turned into al-Sayyid Ali’s coffee shop on the corner of al-Sanadiqiya” (xii, 71). Especially the youngest son Kamal likes to loiter in the streets after school. He passes the “mosque of al-Husayn” (viii, 48) and crosses “al-Husayn Street”; then he “turned into Khan Ja’far. From there he headed for Bayt al-Qadi Square. Instead of going home by way of al-Nahhasin, he crossed the square to Qirmiz Alley, despite its desolation and the fears it aroused in him, in order to avoid passing by his father’s store” (viii, 49). He “approached Qirmiz Alley with its vaulted roof” (viii, 50) and reaches home: “At the end he could see Palace Walk and the entrance of Hammam al-Sultan. Then his eyes fell on his home’s dark green wooden grilles and the large door with its bronze knocker” (viii, 50-1). The fateful outing with his mother is described in great detail, particularly Kamal’s headstrong decision to extend the excursion by passing through busier thoroughfares (xxvii, 167-73). As Williams observes, “[e]ven within this limited area [the “Al-Gamaliyya and al-Ghuriyya quarters of al-Qahira” - 52], the action of each novel [of the trilogy] is primarily confined to only a few blocks” (53). 5 Quotations from Twilight reference Part and chapter numbers in Roman numerals and use Arabic for page numbers. 6 Roman numerals are used for chapter numbers, Arabic for page numbers in Mahfouz’s Palace Walk (1991). 7 Note that the spellings in Ali’s novel are often different from those common in anglophone novels set in India: bazar and not bazaar, begam and not begum; moazzin and not muezzin; darbar and not durbar. Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 7 As has been noted in the criticism of Twilight, the town which serves as the scenery of Mir Nihal’s and Ashgar’s walks is a setting that brilliantly evokes the feel of the old Delhi, circumscribed by the religious affiliation of its inhabitants (Trivedi 1986: 65). According to Iftikhar, Mir Nihal is “a representative of a whole Muslim culture, through which Ali [focuses] on every nook and corner of individual as well as collective lives of Muslims” (2012: 396). The fact that Delhi had more Hindu inhabitants than Muslim ones (Malik 2008: 436-8) is backgrounded against the all-pervasive, indeed predominant and even exclusive, atmosphere of a Muslim community and neighbourhood (Trivedi 51-3). Not least does this become obvious from the central importance of the Muezzins’ prayers from the towers of the Mosques: A moazzin from a nearby mosque raised his voice, calling the faithful to the evening prayer. Other moazzins called from the other mosques. As their voices were nearing an end there rose on the wind the voice of Nisar Ahmad, for Ashgar’s mohallah was not far away from where he sat. His resonant voice came bringing peace and rest, and a sense of the transience of life, that all that we do is meaningless and vain. Ashgar sat listening to the azaan until it died away […] (I,iv; 23) The pastimes of the inhabitants of “the Muslim Delhi founded by the Mughals” (Trivedi 65) focus on religious holidays, ceremonies and songs. Thus, we learn that Ashgar, who is an excellent singer, regularly performs at the “meelad” (mawlid, birthday of the prophet) (II,xii; 58-9). Among the other Islamic festivals mentioned is the feast of Eid (Eid-al-Fitz - “Eed” - II,vi; 93-6), the conclusion of the Ramadan. Other ‘pastimes’ of the Delhi inhabitants mentioned in the book include watching the ceremony of King George V’s coronation durbar in December 1911. Though Mir Nihal belongs to those who “rag[e] within their hearts at the thought of subjection to a foreign race” (II,vi; 97), many others were “dying” to see “the big fair”: For the residents of Delhi never miss an opportunity of enjoying themselves, and this quality is peculiar to Delhi-ites alone of all the peoples of India. Even during the terrible days of 1857, when the guns were spitting fire, they used to climb up on the roofs to watch the fun of cannon balls shooting red hot out of the cannons’ mouths, and compared the firing to fireworks during the festival of Shab-barat. (II,vii; 99) Mir Nihal compares the valour of Delhi’s citizens defending the Jama Masjid against the British army during the Mutiny to the cowardly inhabitants of Delhi in the present, excoriating “their slavishness and their treacherous acceptance of the foreign yoke” (II,viii; 105); yet, the above passage Monika Fludernik 8 demonstrates that already in 1857 there existed numerous inhabitants who were indifferent or politically uninvolved. A particularly interesting pastime of Mir Nihal’s is pigeon-flying. As Brown (2018: 842) points out, pigeon-flying “was referred to as love-play or ishq-baazi”. His love for pigeons and women are thus related. Mir Nihal flies his pigeons in the morning (I,v; 28) before he goes to the “shop of lace dealers” in which he has a “share” (ibid). Since he belongs to the ruined class of Delhi Muslims who lost property and income in the wake of the Mutiny (IV,ix; 192, see also Haider 2017: 175), he needs to supplement his income by working to meet the expenses of a growing family (I,v; 28), but also to pay for his pigeons and his mistress (II,iii; 82). His pigeon-flying has a central symbolic status in the novel, since the loss of the pigeons due to a cat sneaking into their cage coincides with Mir Nihal’s loss of his beloved courtesan, Babban Jan. Both disasters are to some extent incurred through his fault: he leaves the cage door open; he leaves it until too late to call a doctor for Babban Jan. Moreover, he fails to visit her in time before she dies from typhoid fever because he was busy buying new pigeons (II,iii; 83). Mir Nihal’s pastime of flying his pigeons is parallelized in the novel with his son’s, Ashgar’s, flying of his kite (I,iv; 21-6), which in turn comes to symbolize sexual attraction or even obsession. It is during his kite-flying that Ashgar talks to his friend Bari about his love for Bilqueece; similarly, Mr. Nihal’s pigeons invoke his relationship to women and his sexual prowess.Let me turn to Palace Walk. Strolling through town is a frequent pastime also in Mahfouz’s novel, and the motif of idleness and indolence plays an important role in the text. While the patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al- Jawad, often referred to as “the proprietor”, takes a walk through town mostly en route to the shop and to his various amorous assignations, his leisure activities concentrate on the art of conversation, especially of the humorous kind, the reciting of poetry and the playing of the tambourine. His oldest son Yasin, who is a “civil servant” (lvi, 373), seems to spend most of his office hours in Ahmad Abduh’s coffee house (lvii, 377) and his evenings in Costaki’s bar or “al-Sayyid Ali’s coffee house in al-Ghuriya” (ibid), where he watches out for Zanuba, his latest mistress. Even the second and favourite son Fahmy is a frequenter of coffee houses, where he talks to his fellow students about politics. As El-Enany observes, [n]o account of Mahfouz is complete without mention of the maqhā (café) and the important role it played both in his life and in his fiction. In his youth, in common with men of his generation, the café acted as a social club - much like a public house in Britain. There personal and literary friendships were forged and many intellectual, heart-searching discussions took place […]. There is hardly a novel by Mahfouz in which the café does not represent a significant part of the scene, and there are several in which the café is the most important element in the setting. (32) Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 9 The reference to intellectual exchange in coffee-houses provides a parallel with the Bengali practice of adda described by Dipesh Chakrabarty. Strolling through town is an activity that allows one to observe others, but also to display oneself. Yasin comes across as a bit of a dandy and most closely resembles a flâneur: He went along slowly in a friendly, complaisant manner. He strutted vainly and proudly […], his face radiating vitality and manliness, his elegant garments that received more than their fair share of attention, the fly whisk with its ivory handle that never left his hand winter or summer, and his tall fez tilted to the right so it almost touched his eyebrows. (xii, 70) Even the youngest son, Kamal, likes to rove through town and he also sings and plays with the British soldiers encamped before the house after the rebellion. The most indolent person in the novel, though, is Aisha’s husband Khalil, who does nothing all day but “smoking his water pipe or strumming his lute” (xlvii, 317). Aisha’s sister Khadija notes the couple’s “laziness, mildness, and indolence”, commenting that “her husband spends the whole day smoking and playing music while she adorns herself and flits back and forth in front of the mirror” (lxvi, 458). We can therefore observe that both novels are concerned with forms of urban leisure that have a correlation with art; moreover, eroticism (as we will see in the next section) plays a constitutive role in the daily activities of the two patriarchs. Both novels depict their settings in great topographical detail and paint a portrait of the Muslim community in Cairo and in Delhi. In what follows, I will focus on the institution of patriarchy in the two texts and their implicit censure of Mir Nihal’s, al-Sayyid’s and Yasin’s womanizing. The two novels showcase the patriarchs’ hypocrisy regarding their morality but also in reference to al-Sayyid Ahmad’s religiosity. 2. The Ravages of Patriarchy and the Uncovering of Hypocrisy Twilight in Delhi dwells extensively on Mir Nihal’s authoritarian behaviour in relation to his household and demonstrates that he is responsible for the suffering of those around him. At the same time, the high moral horse on which he takes his stand is being undercut by his philandering, insensitivity and even cruelty. Thus, it emerges that Begum Nihal had a complete mental breakdown when her husband’s affair with the maid Dilchain resulted in the latter’s pregnancy (I,vi; 33) and that he banished her from his house with their two children (Ashgar and Begum Nihal) until she got better. Besides this ugly affair there is Mir Nihal’s failure to save Mehro from a disappointing marriage to a very ugly man because his honour cannot brook a reneging on his promise (III,iv; 138). Mehro, as a result, “felt like Monika Fludernik 10 a cow under butcher’s knife. But she could not alter her fate, and had to accept it with as much courage as she could muster” (ibid). Another passage hints at Mir Nihal’s irresponsible arrangement of a marriage for his servant Ghafoor to Sheikh Mohammad Sadiq’s niece, with tragic consequences for the bride: […] the girl had died within six months of the marriage of ulcers in the womb. She was really too young for the strong and virile Ghafoor, and the strain had been too much for her. Sheikh Mohammad Sadiq had wished to get some compensation, but Mir Nihal had got rid of him. He had warned him that the girl was too young for Ghafoor. If he had persisted in his folly it was his lookout. (III,vi; 147) Obviously Mir Nihal had been aware of possible negative consequences of such a marriage but had refused to take responsibility for his insouciance either morally or financially. The unenviable situation of women in Indian Muslim society is not merely criticized implicitly, it is also counterpointed by an extensive emphasis on the female characters’ perspective, including access to their consciousness. The female point of view emerges in connection with the depiction of the women’s domestic environment. The novel dwells at length on the atmosphere of the zenana, and it does so by representing the conversations of the female characters among themselves before even having the patriarch enter the scene. Thus, in the opening chapter, after the panorama of Old Delhi and the history of Delhi, the narrative enters “the house of Mir Nihal” (I,I; 5) and moves directly into the zenana. The conversation of the women introduces major thematic leitmotifs of the novel like the Mutiny (I,I; 6), the criticism of British cruelty as well as the nostalgic mood centring on former Mughal greatness. We thus encounter the patriarchal setting of “Mir Nihal’s house” (I,I; 5), but - unlike the contemporary Muslim man in real life, for whom the zenana is a no-go area - are allowed to visit. Not only does the novel start by introducing readers directly into this secret sphere; the zenana setting recurs frequently throughout the novel and quantitatively is more important than the rooms in which Mir Nihal stays in the house (Begum 1995). With its atmosphere of stagnation (one could almost speak of Joycean paralysis), the zenana serves as a counterpoint to the men’s strolls around town; thus we have a juxtaposition of female enclosure (compare the pigeons in the cage) and promiscuous male roaming (in the public sphere). The atemporality of female existence in the zenana is underlined in the text: In the zenana things went on with the monotonous sameness of Indian life. No one went out anywhere. Only now and then some cousin or aunt or some other relation came to see them. […] Mostly life stayed like water in a pond with nothing to break the monotony of its static life. Walls stood surrounding them Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 11 on all sides, shutting the women in from the prying eyes of men, guarding their beauty and virtue with the millions of their bricks. (I,v; 29) The initial displacement of the patriarch through the focus of the text on the zenana is rectified when Mir Nihal returns home. His status as the head of the household emerges immediately: everybody has had to wait for his return to have dinner. He is consulted about Mehro’s marriage. Most importantly, he demonstrates his virility by killing the snake that is threatening his pigeons (I,I; 9) - and therefore his womenfolk. His violence in killing the snake in the opening chapter represents heroic action. However, when he later kills the cat that has eaten his pigeons (II,iii; 81), his fury, fuelled also by his grief over the loss of his mistress, results in excessive cruelty, a cruelty that harkens back to his behaviour towards his wife when he banned her. This cruelty hints at his unbalanced emotional state of mind. Finally, when he threatens the children with the sword in III,vi, his anger, which is morally justified as a didactic lesson, gets the better of him: the boys are frightened. The formerly heroic sword is abusively employed to intimidate children (not men! ), and the whole scene turns into bathetic melodrama (146). It is instructive to compare this behaviour with the heroic defenders of the Jama Masjid during the Mutiny and Mir Nihal’s disgust at the “chickenhearted” citizens of Delhi in 1911 (II,viii; 107). Though his contemporaries are admittedly opportunists, he himself also fails to exemplify traditional heroism when succumbing to anger and violence directed at vicarious objects. His eventual humiliation at the hand of a kind of poetic justice arrives in the shape of a heart attack on the way back from a funeral (III,ix; 156). In the course of the novel, Mir Nihal declines in vigour and health as he ages from 62 at the start of the novel to 71 at the end (Trivedi 47). Significantly, his malaise begins when he looks at a dead pigeon before attending the funeral and remembers his grief for Babban-Jan. The paragon of patriarchal values is not only compromised by his actions but also by his own body. Mir Nihal emerges as a representative of a male-centred culture whose claim to moral superiority is being seriously undercut by his hypocrisy especially in the realm of sexual mores. Psycho-analytically, his assumption of the role of the strong man can be argued to correlate with nostalgia and to compensate for his social inferiority complex under colonialism. Turning to Palace Walk, one can observe that the sway of al-Sayyid Ahmad’s power in the family is apparent everywhere. He lords it over the household, expecting complete obedience and submission to his dictates, which are overly traditional and restrictive. 8 He is especially hard on the 8 Malak (2005: 32-3) cites Iqbalumisa Hussain’s novel Purdah and Polygamy (1944), who ironically presents the traditional doxa of the Muslim husband: “A woman as a Monika Fludernik 12 women; thus, from sheer malice he at first forbids his wife to visit Aisha after her confinement. When his first wife Haniyya (El-Enany 1993: 79) had refused to obey him, he had beaten her and she had escaped to her father’s house and insisted on a divorce (ch. xvii). Al-Sayyid Ahmad primarily wishes to “protect his dignity and image at home” (ii, 9) and cannot brook being overruled by others. He is indignant when he hears that Fahmy would like to marry the neighbour’s daughter Maryam (before he himself had taken a decision). When his beloved second son, Fahmy, turns out to be a revolutionary and refuses to swear on the Koran that he will not again participate in demonstrations (lxii, 425), Ahmad is furious. Even when the British seem to have relented regarding Egyptian agitation for political freedom and he makes up with his son (lxx), he continues to resent the fact that his will has not been consulted and bowed to (lxii, 422); he is only concerned to have Fahmy admit he cannot live without his father’s approval (lxx, 486). Actually, al-Sayyid Ahmad is in favour of the demonstrators’ aspirations for Egyptian independence and even signs a petition (xlix), but, despite his approbation of the demonstration in principle, “[…] it was a totally different matter for any of these deeds to be performed by a son of his” (lxii, 425). The patriarch is a very ambivalent figure, combining the roles of “disciplinarian despot” and “convivial epicure” (Siddiq 2007: 124). He instils both fear and admiration in his family. When he leaves the house to attend to his business, [e]veryone greeted it [“their father’s departure”] with a relief that was innocent rather than reprehensible, like a prisoner’s satisfaction on hearing the clatter of chains being unfastened from his hands and feet. Each knew that he would shortly regain his liberty to talk, laugh, sing, and do many other things free from danger. (iv, 22) Kamal is unable to face his father’s “haughty, tyrannical will” (viii, 49). Though al-Sayyid Ahmad used to be kind to him when he was a child (viii, 50), he has now turned into a strict disciplinarian (viii, 49). When the father has banished Kamal’s mother from the family residence after their illfated excursion to the mosque, Kamal visits the proprietor in the store to plead for her. Though tongue-tied with fear in his father’s presence, when escaping from the shop, he finally manages to shout: “Bring back Mama” (xxxiv, 217). Kamal’s terror of his father is mixed with respect and love: He admired his strong, imposing appearance, his dignity that swept everyone along with it, the elegance of his clothing, and the ability he believed him to wife should be subservient in everything to man’s comfort and exist for him and for him alone”. Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 13 have to do anything. […] He could not imagine that any other man in the world could equal al-Sayyid Ahamd’s power, dignity, or wealth. (viii, 50) In fact, “everyone in the household loved the man to the point of worship. Kamal’s small heart absorbed its love for him from this environment, but that love remained a hidden jewel, locked up inside him by fear and terror” (ibid). As El-Enany notes, the novel portrays al-Sayyid Ahmad as a god, “attribut[ing] to him epithets and qualities appropriate to Allah” (81; 227, n.18). It is therefore logical that respect for the father and belief in God disappear together when all authority becomes suspect. 9 In Siddiq’s reading of Kamal, he suffers from an Oedipus complex (2007: 126-32). Fahmy, too, is in awe of his father, and would face death rather than his parent’s ire: “He could rebel against the English and defy their bullets almost every day, but the English were a frightening and hated enemy, while his father was his father, a frightening and beloved man” (lxii, 424). This puts the colonial power and God on the same level as al-Sayyid. Despite being an anti-colonialist, the father compensates for his political disempowerment by assuming the authority of a ruler, thereby directing the sons’ rebellion in the direction of Egyptian nationalism against British rule. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s treatment of women is even more dogmatic than that of his sons. He has found a very uncomplaining wife in Amina, whom he wedded when she was only thirteen. She, too, finds her husband “so wealthy, strong, and handsome” (i, 5) and has become used to his moods, obeying him blindly. When he banishes her, he does so not out of anger— he had been really concerned for her health and allowed her to get well again, so had time for his anger at her disobedience in leaving the house to cool down—, but is afraid of losing control of his household: he wants to reassert his patriarchal position of unquestioned authority (xxxi, 194). He jealously guards the virtue of his women. For instance, when Aisha is very weak after giving birth to a girl, al-Sayyid Ahmad blames her husband Khalil for calling a doctor, who will “take such a searching look at your wife” (lxviii, 476). The unblemished reputation of his daughter, i.e. his own dignity, are more important to him than her life. Not only does he smell a rat when a proposal of marriage for Aisha comes in from of a police officer (in fact, Aisha has been smiling at the man from a window), but he also suspects, again correctly, that Fahmy’s wish to marry Maryam from next door derives from his having seen her, which throws a bad light on the neighbour’s reputation. The conflict about women’s proper behaviour comes to a head around Zaynab, Yasin’s wife. Yasin takes her out at night 9 In Palace of Desire, Kamal, too, also ends up rebelling against religion with a God that is like his father: “But it is not you alone whose image has changed. God himself is no longer God as I worshipped Him in the past. I am sifting through His attributes to clean them from tyranny, despotism, coercion, dictatorship and the whole gamut of human instincts” (xxxvii, 1991: 396; qtd. El-Enany 83, quoting a different translation). Monika Fludernik 14 to the theatre (xlvi, 309) and when he comes home, there is an altercation. Ahmad accuses his two grown sons of being ‘women’, i.e. of lacking male authority, dignity or proper pride in their family honour: if they had, they would not have put the women’s reputation at risk. When shouted at by his father, Yasin, chicken-hearted, blames his wife, and Ahmad responds he should have beaten her into obedience to his will (xlvi, 314-15): “‘[…] Only men can ruin women, and not every man is capable of being a guardian for them’ (Qur’an 4: 34)”. 10 Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s tyrannical behaviour and cruelty are fuelled by his extremely strict views regarding female honour, and this profound traditionalism relates to an inherent gynophobia and to a need to defend his domestic power under the cloak of family honour. Yasin, the eldest son from his first marriage, shares this gynophobic inclination, but is even more excessive in both his lust for and his disparagement of women. Yasin soon gets bored with his wife Zaynab 11 after his initial satisfaction of having somebody to sleep with constantly at his disposal (xliv, 300). When she becomes unhappy at his neglect of her, he quips: “What more does any woman want than a home of her own and sexual gratification? Nothing! Women are just another kind of domestic animal, and must be treated like one” (l, 338). Not only does he have no romantic strain in him, but sees women exclusively as objects of his lust; when his desire for his mistress Zanuba overtakes him, “he fell on her like a bull elephant crushing a gazelle” (xxxix, 251). As for his wife, he regards her as his “property” (xlvi, 307), since her presence and availability can now be taken for granted: his desire for his wife “was no longer the desire of a fasting person for a tasty delicacy” (xlvi, 308). Stuck at home during the curfew, Yasin descends into a “life of idling his time away” in order to fend off his “boredom or ‘the emptiness of life,’ as he put it” (l, 333). Having before the curfew escaped the tedium of marriage by again devoting his evenings to drinking and womanizing, “[h]e thought to escape through relaxation, entertainment, and distraction” in a manner similar to his earlier “temporary life of amusement” (ibid). This leads to his rape of the maid Nur. Zaynab catches him in flagranti and loudly complains of his infidelity - a behaviour both Amina and her husband find off-putting—a decent wife does not advertise her husband’s lapses. When Zaynab’s father insists on a divorce, Yasin’s primary emotion is related to his honour, thus replicating his father’s priorities: he feels “more humiliated by this than by anything else in his life except his mother’s conduct” and comments: “There was nothing strange in a man casting out a pair of shoes, but shoes were not supposed to throw away their owner” (all lx, 409). This pronouncement 12 The Koran reference is in the original. 11 Her name may be meant as an ironic reference to the first Egyptian novel, Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s Zaynab (published 1913). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 15 again exposes his conception of a wife as his property, and one that can be disposed of when soiled or no longer of use. Yasin’s attitude towards women may have been provoked by his problems with his mother, who keeps getting married and divorced again - a behaviour that he considers harmful to his personal honour. 12 Yasin and his father share a neurotic regard for their own dignity. Sexual affairs are a pastime that both the father and Yasin indulge in; they are philanderers and extremely virile. Al-Sayyid Ahmad, at the age of “fortyfive […] still “enjoy[s] an ardent and exuberant vigor like that of an adolescent youth” (vii, 41). For Yasin, as for his father, “[w]ine and women in his life were inseparable and complementary” (xii, 75). Al-Sayyid’s “amorous adventures” (xvi, 99), like his son’s, are centred on lust: “His lust was always distinguished by a taste for luxury”, by “a refined sense of selection” and “social qualifications” (all lviii, 390): “Just as he loved beauty in the abstract, he loved it in its glittering social framework. […] He had been the lover of some of the most famous entertainers of his time” (lviii, 390- 1 1). Yet, in many ways he resembles Yasin: “In his fury, he neglected to remember that his own past was a long and repeated series of slips like Yasin’s” (lviii, 388). However, unlike Yasin, Ahmad plays the role of the unimpeachable authoritarian with a reputation for honesty and virtue. This takes me to the issue of hypocrisy, a theme that the novel dwells on in detail. Hypocrisy derives from the inherent ambivalences experienced by the characters. The motif appears early in Palace Walk when al- Sayyid Ahmad receives a visit from Shaykh Mutawalli Abd-al-Samad, who upbraids the proprietor for his indulgence in alcohol and his adultery (“What do you have to say as a devout Muslim concerning your lust for women? ” - vii, 40), even calling him “you, fornicator” (vii, 41). Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s answer reflects his manner of guarding his reputation above everything else: “I have never allowed myself to offend against honor or dignity at all” (40). He then excuses himself for not taking an additional wife to take care of his sexual urges by claiming that this would reduce the inheritance of his sons. In response to the shaykh’s reprimand for his drinking, al-Sayyid ends up telling the shaykh that he is a good person, and why should it be wrong for him “to refresh myself with a little fun, harming no one, or for me to overlook one rule? ” (vii, 43). 13 It is therefore obvious that the patriarch is perfectly aware of his sins, but mainly interested in keeping up the façade of reputation, honour and dignity. When Yasin, going to his assignation with Zanuba, finds that the gentleman visiting her foster mother, the famous singer Madame Zubayda, is his own father, he is completely amazed that the expert player of the tambourine could be identical with “[t]hat stern, tyrannical, terrifying, God-fearing, reserved man who 12 See chapters 13, 17, 18 and 63. Compare Siddiq (2007) and his Freudian reading of the novel. 13 For a very insightful analysis of this scene see Siddiq (2007: 123-4). Monika Fludernik 16 kills everyone around him with fright […]” (xxxix, 248). Yasin had “never before seen his face smile. It was glistening with such affection and goodwill that Yasin was stunned […]” (xxxix, 249). Unlike Mir Nihal’s secret liaison with Babban Jan, Ahmad’s womanizing is not only discovered by Yasin (and later by Fahmy, who is deeply shaken by the revelation - xl, 270-1), but it is even made public at Aisha’s wedding (xl, 265-8). Although the patriarch at first “curs[es] his luck which had decreed for him to be disgraced before the eyes of many, including his family, who knew him as a shining example of earnestness and dignity” (xl, 269), yet, “assuming the worst”, he is not overly worried: “Their [his family’s] subservience to him and his domination over them both assured that no convulsion would shake them, not even this scandal” (ibid). Where the secret practices of the patriarch are most strikingly at odds with his self-image is in the context of his religious beliefs. He prays fervently every morning: When he prayed, his face was humble, not the smiling, merry face his friends encountered or the stern, resolute one his family knew. […] Piety, love, and hope shone from its relaxed features, which were molded by a wish to ingratiate, cajole, and seek forgiveness. He did not pray in a mechanical way limited to recitation, standing, and prostration. His prayer was based on affection, emotion, and feelings. (iii, 17) The omniscient narrator’s portrait of al-Sayyid Ahmad therefore grants the patriarch a valid religious life, which sits uneasily side by side his philandering, lack of affection in his amorous escapades and his demonstrated cruelty. When Yasin attends the Friday prayers with his father, he speculates on his father’s hypocrisy (lxi, 413-14). Yet hypocrisy extends even to the preacher, who is rumoured to have a preference for boys. The father’s sincere religious belief could be contrasted with Yasin’s lack of commitment in this scene. As the narrator remarks, he “did not have [the] ability to reconcile his piety and his practice or did not feel in need of it” (lxi, 413), whereas his father, listening to the preacher, is “troubled by anxiety and doubt”, as he was on the day of Shaykh Mutawalli’s visit. Ahmad prays for “pardon, forgiveness, and mercy” but not for “repentance, or if he did it was only with his tongue and not his heart” (all 413). He experiences the strife between tongue and heart as “a pair of musical instruments playing together in a single orchestra but rendering different tunes”. And he manages to excuse himself by vowing to “increase [his] dedication to the performance of [his] religious duties and [his] ability to do good deeds” (413). Yasin’s doubts do not go as deep. He complacently imagines that his sins are not all that serious: “God was too merciful to cause a Muslim like himself to burn in hell for transitory lapses that harmed no one. And there was always repentance. … It would come one day and erase everything that had preceded it” (413). Thus, though Yasin and the Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 17 patriarch differ in their religious commitment, in practice they both expose themselves to the censure of hypocrisy. I have demonstrated that both novels focus on a patriarch whose furtive sexual exploits undermine their public dignity and status and their moral authority. Implicit criticism of patriarchy in Palace Walk operates much in the same manner as it does in Twilight. One of the most striking parallels between Palace Walk and Twilight emerges in the opening of the two novels: both texts start with a view into the zenana; Palace Walk even begins with a chapter written from Amina’s perspective on her apparently happy marriage. As in Twilight, we have the wife wait up for the return of her husband. This ‘feminization’ of the novel has been discussed in detail by Shaden M. Tageldin (2012): The original Arabic […] begins not with this pronoun [she] but with an expression of time […] ‘At midnight she awoke’ […] the sentence ends with the verb ‘awoke’ conjugated in the third-person-feminine singular, rendering feminine the condition of the novel’s awakening and perhaps also that of the Egyptian nation. (91) This “awakening” can be linked to the political one, of “Nahda, or Arab literary renaissance” (91), though the unlettered Amina is actually against the revolution. 14 Like Ahmed Ali’s novel, this book therefore likewise offers extensive insights into the women’s perspective. However, its main strategy of criticizing patriarchy is not through the depiction of Amina’s consciousness but in the listing of the patriarch’s and Yasin’s actions against women: the banishment of Amina; the rapes committed by Yasin; the unreasonable restriction of women’s lives; and al-Sayyid Ahmad’s overly strict role as a father, meant to support his own self-esteem rather than justice or morality in the abstract. Similar implicit strategies of critique are utilized in Twilight, though Mir Nihal’s sexual exploits are not as serious as al-Sayyid Ahmad’s. Both novels present a situation in which the fathers are unhappy about their three sons, who fail to attain the level of manliness that the patriarchs themselves (believe they) symbolize. The stories are therefore also tales of the emasculation of a family dynasty, of its decline. Which returns us to the subject of the nostalgic mood in the two works, meant to ‘shore up’ the ruins of former significance. 14 Tageldin talks about “Amina’s antinationalist vision of the nation” (95). Amina’s role as mother is linked to “the prenational Islamic umma, the mother ‘community of Muhammad’” (96), umma deriving from umm, ‘mother’ (95). Tageldin argues that “[the] laws of the domestic world of women - to which men are subject in the family home - obstruct, enable, and obstruct again Fahmy’s access to the house for which he years: the House of the Nation, the public sphere of nationalist struggle” (94). On the nahda, see Starkey (2006, chapter 2). Monika Fludernik 18 3. Political Marginalization of Muslims and Nostalgia Mir Nihal in Twilight in Delhi is depicted as chafing against colonial power and especially at the marginalization of Indian Muslims, who used to rule the subcontinent. 15 The trigger for political disaffection in Twilight is the coronation of George V - a ceremony perceived by Nihal and his friends as an affront against the citizens of Delhi, Delhi having been the seat of the Mughal ruler whom the British have exiled. Since, politically, the inhabitants of Old Delhi can do nothing against the coronation, their response limits itself to emotional frustration and a nostalgic memorialization of Mughal culture (especially poetry). It is interesting to observe that there are few passages that celebrate Mughal victories or Mughal power. What is emphasized in the opening chapter is the Mughals’ building of Delhi, which is contrasted with the British supplanting of Old Delhi with colonial New Delhi and the partial destruction of the old town (III,vi; 143-4). The nostalgic memories focus on the armed resistance to the British troops during the Mutiny and on Delhian prowess and heroism in defence of the central mosque, the Jama Masjid (II,viii). Delhians’ erstwhile virility, as already noted, is contrasted with present-day opportunism and cowardice (II,viii; 105-7). The second focus of nostalgia relates to the former Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah, and his offspring, who have been reduced to beggary. Mir Nihal primarily reproaches the British for the Mughal downfall (“the treachery of the East India Company had become too well known” - II,vii; 103). In a discussion with his son, Mir Nihal additionally blames intrigues against the ruler as a further reason for his defeat. He charges “Zinat Mahal, the second wife of Bahadur Shah, who wanted the throne for her son Jawan Bakht” (II,vii; 102), with the shah’s downfall. Moreover, the “real Emperor of India” was “deceived by that traitor, Mirza Elahi Bakhsh” (II,vii; 103), whom Mir Nihal accuses of having been a spy in the employ of the British and having convinced the shah of “the honourable intentions of the English which proved to be nothing else but imprisonment, murder and banishment” (103). The beggaring of the Shah’s numerous offspring provides a recurrent element in the text’s nostalgic discourse. II,viii ends on Mir Nihal’s encounter with Mirza Nasirul Mulk, the youngest son of the exiled emperor (109). The women receive a visit from Gul Bano, a granddaughter of the Shah, who sings songs of Bahadur (II,vii; 100-2). And then there is the blind beggar who goes under the name of “Bahadur Shah” (II,vi; 96-7). What is particularly pathetic about the economic destitution of the former Shah’s 15 Malik (2008) quotes Sayyid Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali Nadwi’s What has the World Lost with the Decline of the Muslims? (wr. 1944-1947), in which he insists on ‘Islamic superiority’: “Muslims, he claimed, had awakened every country and also India from a deep slumber and had led it to the heights of civilisation” (438). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 19 family is its contrast with the traditional expected bounty and hospitality of the Mughals. Shahs were expected to lavish gifts on their retinue, including generous sponsoring of the poetic arts. Mir Nihal’s frequent reciting of poems and his familiarity with the Mughal literary tradition invoke the Mughals’ symbolic connection with the arts. He considers British culture vastly inferior to the civilization of the Mughals, whose stellar accomplishments he cherishes: “The glory had gone, and only dreariness remained. The richness of life had been looted and despoiled by the foreigners, and vulgarity and cheapness had taken its place” (IV,iv; 176). The pervasive nostalgia in the novel has been a recurrent focus in the criticism. In sociology and literary studies, the concept of nostalgia has moreover become a much debated issue. Naqvi (2007) and Pernau (2015) outline how the term nostalgia started out as a medical concept, soon associated with pathology and linked to what Lombroso considered as the degeneracy and atavism of criminal (wo)man. Subsequently, nostalgia became associated with ‘primitive’ peoples and generally with those unable to adapt to modern life (Naqvi). In this semantic history, the symptoms of nostalgia (depression) are malingering (in the army) and the rueful hankering after one’s former life of freedom from constraint. Hence, both Naqvi and Pernau assume that nostalgia is a subversive strategy against, or a manifestation of disaffection with, the forces of modernity (especially industrialization and disciplining in the Foucauldian mould). Originally a descriptor of those overwhelmed by the exigencies of modernity, nostalgia turns into a source of consolation or retrospective fantasy and ultimately into a nucleus of envisaging a better future (Smith 2000). These conceptualizations of nostalgia are focused on the perspective of the subaltern, but can be extended to mainstream scenarios of failed adaptation. (The story of British Heritage movies and their influence on Brexit might be cited.) Much on these lines, Alam argues that political disenfranchisement results in a “potent assertion of one’s role in these private spaces” (2016: 31) - implicitly suggesting that Mir Nihal’s authoritarianism at home is a compensation for his feelings of public disempowerment. Alam sees the most important private space as that of religion, which provides an environment “where anti-colonial nationalism finds its potent expression” (32). It seems to me that religion certainly provides a framework for the traditional life that the Nihal household upholds, but for Ashgar it is poetry - and love (since the ghazals are love poems) - that plays a much more central role in the novel. Nostalgia of course features prominently in immigrant fiction, not only from South Asia, and could be argued to constitute a tradition in South Asian fiction in the past half century. (A classic example is Anita Desai’s Bye-Bye Blackbird, 1968.) What is particular about the nostalgia in Ahmed Ali’s novel is its close link with Islam and Indian Muslim culture. Most critics link the atmosphere of nostalgia in Twilight with Islam. Niven even ascribes to Islam an inherent gloominess and pessimism: Monika Fludernik 20 What Ali seeks to distil in these novels is the essence of Muslim philosophy, the encompassing despondency, the hankering for former glories, and the discomfort not just of individuals within a community but a complete society facing a derelict future. (1980: 5) On this view, nostalgia is not merely a politically motivated nostalgia for the loss of cultural importance and the marginalization experienced in the wake of colonial oppression. In a trenchant analysis of the novel, Padamsee argues that the Indian concept of time is cyclical, but that in Indian Muslim culture cyclical renewal has been displaced by traditional uprootedness. In his view, Ali “repositions Indo-Muslim culture as a transitional moment between the colony and the nation, a temporality defined by its elusive ‘passing’” (Padamsee 2011: 34): “The ‘twilight’ of the title […] underlines that somewhere between Azad and Ali the temporal has slipped from an instrumental tool for locating the community into a form of homelessness” (34). 16 From this perspective, nostalgia is less compensatory than centred on an elimination of history through negation. The timelessness of nostalgic presentification of the past allows for the suppression of current agency, indulging in lethargy, without any prospects for an apparent future. 17 As Brown puts it, “Ali sees literature as offering a mode of rescue - rather than a mode of solace, catharsis, or political intervention […]” (842). 18 Indeed, most readings of the novel, though they deplore Mir Nihal’s nostalgia, do not see it as a strategy of subversion or resistance. This viewpoint links with the combination of nostalgia and leisure that I have noted above. These concerns will take me in the next section to the question of style and Ali’s choice to compose the novel in English, which may have led to its discounting in both Indian and Pakistani literary history. Like Twilight, Palace Walk is steeped in the appreciation of traditional poetry and song, at least for the patriarch. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s nearly professional handling of the tambourine and his ability to sing well and quote 16 Azad refers to Muhammad Husain Azad, author of a commentary on Urdu poetry entitled Water of Life (1880). 17 Compare: “Competing within the space of Delhi, then, are at least two temporal modes: one a nostalgic historical memory and the other a flattened present with no energy to spare” (Brown 831). Pernau (2015: 75-6) also emphasizes the prevalence of literature about a lost Delhi and conceptions of nostalgia as an “emotion turned exclusively towards the past and lacking the will to confront the present and the future” (76). 18 See also: “[…] the passivity that is read exclusively as a political stance […] must be interpreted more broadly as an enabling fantasy of survival at the thinnest edges of life, or as the persistence of an alternative temporality that cannot accept death even while death exerts its inarguable force” (Brown 842). By contrast, Alam sees the novel as basically hopeful; nostalgia does not constitute a check on energetic renewal: “The writer believes that the time of awakening has approached. Delhi has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. But it has an unprecedented political strength and resilience and like a phoenix, it always builds itself from its own ashes” (2016: 28). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 21 poetry in style convey an atmosphere of nostalgia for a former past of cultural achievement based on political power. As in the case of Delhi and the Mughals, the patriarch and his friends wish for a restoration of the former Turkish rulers, the Ottomans, and lament the enthronization of a stooge by the British. Yet unlike the ill-fated Bahadur Shah of Twilight, the exiled person on which the Egyptians pin their hopes - namely Sa’d Zaghlul Pasha, or Saad Zaghloul (1859-1927) - is still alive. While in Twilight the political nadir for Mir Nihal is the coronation of the British king, in Palace Walk, it is the arrest of Saad after the independence movement wanted to participate in the peace negotiations after World War I. The banishing of Saad to Malta triggers the 1919 revolution, which involved all levels of Egyptian society (DeYoung 2012: 53). That revolution led to Egyptian independence as a monarchy under the Muhammad Ali dynasty in 1922 and, under Fuad I, to the creation of a constitution in 1923. Saad became the first Egyptian prime minister. At the end of Palace Walk, the revolution has not yet won out against the British. The period during which the novel was written was also one of despondency, with the loss of the Palestine war in 1948-9; a final break from Britain was imminent but not yet achieved. 19 This political situation prepares the soil, generating a longing for the recovery of erstwhile self-esteem and a nostalgic retreat into tradition and faith. That wistful yearning is especially marked in the title Palace Walk (Bayn al-qasrayn), originally the name of the undivided very long novel, whose first third was published serially in the journal Al-Risala ad-Jadida between April 1954 and April 1956. Thus the novel unfolds, as its Arabic title suggests, […] between two palaces: the crumbling edifice of the Ottoman Empire and the thickening stronghold of the British. It also unfolds between two other ‘palaces,’ […]. The first is the house of the merchant, bon vivant, patriarch, and philanderer Ahmad ‘Abd al-Jawwad [standard Arabic spelling Abd al-Jawad] […]. This family house is situated in the medieval quarter of Cairo for which the novel is named: ‘Palace Walk.’ The other palace is the more distant House of the Nation (Bayt al-Umma) of the Egyptian nationalist leader Sa’d Zaghlul […]. (Tageldin 87) Pace Tageldin, I think that in the first book of the trilogy the Bayt al-Umma plays no role at all, but the opposition of Ottoman Empire and British occupation is patent. The old city of Cairo seems to be menaced by the British (as Delhi is in Twilight), particularly in the scene where curfew is imposed and the weapons of the British soldiers appear as a haystack or pyramid in front of the proprietor’s house. It is noteworthy that Amina is the first to 19 Ramadan (2019) discusses another Cairo novel set before the Free Officers’ Revolution, Yūsuf Idrīs’s A Love Story (1956; translated title). Monika Fludernik 22 notice this arrival of the British troops acoustically by their noise, and that these unfamiliar sounds are contrasted with the familiar pounding of the dough, which usually wakes up the household (iii). The world of Amina, which is the symbol of the old Egypt, is therefore invaded by the British just as the men of the family are prevented from going about their business and pleasure. One could therefore argue that there are two sites of nostalgia in the novel - the home overseen by Amina and the old city of male business and pleasure. Both are disrupted by colonial occupation. The political background of the novel emerges forcefully in the episode of al-Sayyid’s detention and subjection to forced labour 20 meant to offset the revolutionaries’ attempted traffic boycott (ch. lxv). The emphasis in the narrative is on the patriarch’s humiliation at being compelled to work under threat of death: “Abd al-Jawwād’s family is thus made to embody the condition of the entire nation and historical danger is seen to be as close to the individual as the front door of his own house” (El-Enany 74). 21 For the younger generation, the British are not merely a nuisance and a source of vexation. They experience a seductive attraction to the occupying force since the British symbolize progress and civilization in contrast to the strictness and fossilized traditionalism of Arab society. In Chapter 59 of Palace Walk, Yasin encounters a smiling Englishman, whom “he imagined to embody all the perfections of the human race. Yasin probably detested the English as all Egyptians did, but deep inside he respected and venerated them so much that he frequently imagined they were made from a different stuff than the rest of mankind” (lix, 395). Kamal, too, thinks the English are extremely good-looking (lvii, 382; lix, 402). What Tageldin (2012: 99) sees as an ambivalent love and hate relationship to the British, to me also appears to be a fascination for the other and a desire to escape from the fetters of traditionalism. 22 After Fahmy’s death, the family’s attitude towards the English naturally swings towards hatred. Even earlier, Kamal is disgusted with the soldier’s interest in the womenfolk of the houses they are watching and refuses to take a message to Maryam, who has been ogling his British soldier friend Julian (lxiv). The family evinces the typical ambivalence felt by the colonized between the “emotive appeal of progressive and humane Western ideas in the abstract, and the unspeakable historical record of Western brutalization of much of the non-Western world” (Siddiq 2007: 13). 20 The arrest is his own fault for leaving the house and indulging in an assignation with Umm Maryam. 21 But see DeYoung, who criticizes Fredric Jameson’s 1986 essay on the allegorical quality of postcolonial literature (“[t]he story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society” - 1986: 69; DeYoung 2012: 56). 22 I do not agree with Tageldin that in the scenes of Yasin’s and Kamal’s gushing enthusiasm “the colonizing Englishman, by masking his power with love, effectively seduces the colonized Egyptian into submission to his power” (99). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 23 Though both novels are steeped in nostalgia, Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi has less prospect of a future for Indian Muslims, paradoxically so since the creation of Pakistan followed close on the publication of the text. While in Twilight nostalgia relates to the grand Mughal past, there is no comparable hankering for the former glories of the Ottoman Empire in Mahfouz 23 ; al-Sayyid Ahmad’s nostalgia relates to traditional values, especially to the values of his class, the lower middle-class (El-Enany 1993: 27- 8; Starkey 2006: 123): “The nostalgia behind [the city] is not nostalgia for village life but a need for a stable focus-for the kind of stability and trust found in a solid setting-and for a dependable narrator’s voice, which characterizes the realistic novel” (Beard & Haydar 1993: 3). With the mention of realism, we can turn to the final section of this essay and for a concern with literary history. 4. A New Genre? Muslim Novels and Nostalgia Palace Walk and Twilight in Delhi are both notable for the successful blending of vernacular generic and stylistic features on the one hand and, on the other, narrative strategies familiar to Western readers as key elements of the Modernist novel, particularly the extensive representation of consciousness of the main characters, especially the women. Both works therefore display an ambivalence between native tradition and Western influence. Ahmed Ali’s novel has been praised extensively for its poetry and its use of traditional poetic models. 24 Brown emphasizes the inclusion of “Urdu poetry” in the novel: “its presence refuses the effacing of a vibrant poetic culture” (Brown 831). Snehal Shingavi (2013: 110) “reports that more than 60 verses of poetry appear in the novel’s pages, ranging from ghazals, qawwalis, songs, to shehrashob” (cited Brown 831). The last of these is “a lament on a misgoverned, ruined, or declining city in classical Urdu poetry” (Haider 180-1; citing Sharma 2004: 77 and Joshi 2002: 216). Ali’s use of indigenous writing traditions is also foregrounded by Padamsee, who illustrates the importance of the shehrashob with reference to the kite passage: “the author turns the kites into a shahrashob motif, drawing on its earlier more celebratory mode of sheer variety, and predicated on forms of repetition and variation which apparently foreground the priority of wordplay” (Padamsee 2011: 39). Suggestively, Pernau notes that the shehrashob (“shahr-e ashob”) originated in Persia and developed from a lament about the lost beloved, imagined as a city, to the Urdu topos of the destruction of the city (Pernau 2015: 85). Padamsee moreover emphasizes the “shahr- 23 But see the political attempts to revive Ottoman ‘nationality’, if not rule, on the part of various political actors (Siddiq 2007: Chapter 3). 24 But see Niven, who considers the style faulty: “Ali’s writing can be charged […] with two permeating weaknesses: its tendency towards a tired vocabulary and its sorrow for the past which at times collapses into ineffective nostalgia” (1980: 9). Monika Fludernik 24 ashob’s” “necessary priority […] of linguistic wordplay over its literal referents” (39). This, as Niven points out, results in a “mood of sustained elegy” (1980: 9). Yet this reliance on Urdu traditions of poetry is not necessarily always regarded as an exclusively anti-Western strategy; in fact, it reaches out to Western traditions of writing: clearly, Ali as a member of the Progressive Movement - like Premchand - was initially critical of Urdu literature 25 and keen to adopt a progressive Western modernist poetics: “Ali’s use of the ghazal, in addition to other poetic forms, not only channels an Urdu literary tradition, but also demonstrates some affinities with a cosmopolitan effort to remake the novel for poetic ends or to bring poetry’s powerful expressive capacity to a modern and innovative prose form” (Brown 836). Virginia Woolf and her deployment of poetic prose is frequently mentioned in this connection (Stilz 1990: 380). Ali could therefore be argued to balance the traditional and contemporary British models, reserving the former mode for the delineation of a nostalgic vision of the past and tempering it by means of modernist techniques of writing. Similarly, Mahfouz’s work is appreciated as a fruitful coalescence of Arab and Western traditions. Mahfouz is said to have been strongly influenced by Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987), particularly his novel The Return of the Spirit (1933). Another influence was Tāhā Husayn’s The Tree of Misery (1944), the first Egyptian novel to present three generations of the same family, as the Cairo Trilogy was to do (Sakkut 2000: 25). On the other hand, Mahfouz’s oeuvre spans several decades of artistic developments. He started out with historical novels, moved into realism and modernism in the Cairo Trilogy, later turning to writing that is more experimental, using multiperspectivism (Starkey 2006: 125-6, DeYoung 2012: 60), and ending with a more pointedly political phase (Allen 1982: 63-4; El-Enany 1993: 23-6). According to Sakkut, Mahfouz’s oeuvre moreover includes “novels of the absurd, existentialist novels, and novels of magical realism” (2000: 27). The move from translations, travelogues of a semi-autobiographical nature (with protagonists returning from sojourns in the West), to historical novels and then imitations of Western realism and modernism seems to be a recurrent pattern in the Arab novel (Sakkut 2000: 17-25, Starkey 2006: 121). Like Ali, Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim before him, belonged to a generation of writers initially attempting to implement realism on the 25 Premchand and the other followers of the Progressive Movement counted “the paintings of the Bengal school, and of Chugtai, all mystical, devotional and dream literature and art” as “futile” (Brown 828). As Ali argued, they “drag us down to inaction, and are moribund” (cited Brown 828; Ali, “Progressive Views” 72). He moreover criticized Tagore and Iqbal: “Iqbal sings of the sorrow of Islam, preaches an impossible and meaningless Pan-Islamism, cries, weeps, denounces, sings of the ancient Bulbul and the Rose” (829; citing Ali, “Progressive Views” 80). On the Progressive Movement see also Stilz (373-6) and Joshi (2002: 206-11). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 25 Western model and to leave behind traditional modes of fabulation: “Realism thus moved - transported and translated - becomes a literary analogue of modernization, indistinguishable from modernism at its least resistant to the pressures of modernity” (Tageldin 89). More recently, the characterization of the Egyptian novel as a cultural import from the West has been questioned. Thus, Siddiq (2007), Gana (2013) and Hassan (2017) argue for a continuity between traditional genres of Arabic narration and nineteenth-century Arab texts that are usually not classified as novels. El-Enany draws attention to the fact that Mahfouz “was well aware that realism was already a spent force in Europe”, having “read Proust, Joyce, Lawrence and other contemporary modernists”. Mahfouz had to “go through the natural stages of evolution” (all 18). Siddiq (2007: 22) moreover underlines a traditional combination of aṣāla (‘authenticity’) and ḥadātha (‘novelty’) in Egyptian and Arab literature, thus locating realism inside vernacular forms of narrative. In Mahfouz, this nationalist consciousness is undergirded by his use of Arabic in his novelistic oeuvre. With Ali, the choice of the novel as genre and of the English language remains an oddity that cries out for explanation: Twilight in Delhi, in consonance with its grand theme, is very likely the most indigenous and home-spun of all Indo-Anglian novels, and if it is a triumph, as it undoubtedly is, it is so in utter disregard of the alien literary language and form which are to all appearances its putative progenitors. (Trivedi 1986: 70) Here the argument is that the novel is successful and fulfils its purpose of conveying Indianness despite its alien form and language. Priya Joshi, by contrast, finds the choice condign and a successful attempt to marry East and West: The narrative Twilight deploys, seeped in nostalgia and despair, nevertheless posits an alternate way of apprehending historical rhythms and preserving them within the once alien form of Macaulay’s literary legacy that serves this time to connect Ali’s world within the British rather than to alienate one from the other. (Joshi 2002: 227) In a similar vein, for Haider the triumph of the novel lies in its being “the first major work of fiction written by a Muslim ever to be published in English” (2017: 170). This emphasizes the work of cultural transfer that Ali achieves: he gives Western readers an insight into a world that is alien to them and different from the (Hindu) South Asia that they are familiar with from colonial and (mostly) Bengali novels about India. 26 26 I noted Tawfiq al-Hakim as a model for Mahfouz. As for Ali, there are several novelists in Bengal and Delhi that wrote novels in Bangla and Urdu in the nineteenth century. For Urdu one can mention Altaf Hussain Hali, Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi, Mirza Monika Fludernik 26 This viewpoint can be extended to observe that Ali goes both beyond a focus on Muslims in India and beyond a nationalist representation of the particular situation of Mir Nihal. In a review of the novel, Muhammad Hasan Askarei saw the twilight of the title as pointing to the “dawn of Pakistan” (1949, quoted Anjaria 2011: 200). In response, Anjaria underlines that “the paucity of language in nationalist discourse with which to imagine a heterogeneous and minoritarian nation makes it ultimately uncertain to which nation the novel refers” (201). This ambivalence, she argues, suggests “the absurdity of Partition and the impossibility of separating a shared colonial history into two, often opposed national histories”; in fact, “[…] the novel […] offers us a place where the content of the nation in question can safely be neither India nor Pakistan - in fact, can be nothing […] recognizably nationalist” (all 201; original emphasis). Certainly, the nationalism of the novel consists in anti-colonial feeling rather than a call for action or a vision of a future independent nation. In this respect it differs strongly from Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk, which does have a very definite plan for Egyptian independence lined up. Both Twilight and Palace Walk participate in the movement affecting many postcolonial literatures, namely a common attempt to create sympathy for the respective countries’ culture and citizens, and to do so by deploying the genre of the novel and the modernist techniques of consciousness representation to achieve this objective. Yet, the literary historical affinity goes beyond mere narrative strategy. Tageldin notes that “Egypt and India [are] two regions whose experiences of modern European colonialism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries engendered surprisingly similar debates about the idea of literature and the forms that literature should take” (89). What I would therefore like to propose, with all due tentativeness, is whether there might not exist a subgenre of this modernist postcolonial novel which portrays Islamic societies and attempts to convey sympathy and understanding for Muslims from a variety of colonial cultural backgrounds. The specifically ‘Muslim’ nature of these texts would consist in their nostalgia both for traditional life in a society steeped in Islamic faith and for the country’s original political power and importance now lost. Since I am not an Arab scholar or even a proper comparatist by training, I would like to merely mention Ivo Andrić’s novel The Bridge on the Drina (first published in 1945), which nostalgically laments the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and provides insights into several characters’ minds (though not into women’s). I am fairly confident that similar novels exist from Turkey and the Near East, especially from what are now Lebanon, Hadi Ruswa and Sajjad Zaheer; for Bangla, Peary Chand Mitra, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore and Bibbhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. However, Ali’s Twilight is the first anglophone Muslim novel from South Asia, preceded only by a short story written in English (Malak 2005: 2-3). Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 27 Palestine, Syria and Iraq. My essay is therefore meant to stimulate a discussion with scholars familiar with Turkish and Arab literature to find out whether they, too, can observe such a genre having arisen in the wake of Ottoman and Mughal power. Positing a genre of this type must not involve a neglect of the specific national qualities of the novels belonging to it; the centrality of Islam and the theme of nostalgia for former political relevance need not inevitably eradicate all other social, political and cultural alignments, even though this happened politically in South Asia and, to some extent, in Egypt: […] the religious representatives of the Muslim elites who remained in India sought to imagine a corporate Muslim identity - as did those in Pakistan - irrespective of the fact that Muslim communities themselves are highly differentiated in terms of education, social and cultural and economic capital […]. The representatives of this mostly urban religious elite […] holding on to the fabulous narratives of a glorious past, usually supported some kind of an Arabised or Persianised version of Islam […]. … they considered ‘their’ community as a religious minority - in contrast to a national minority. (Malik 2008: 436, my emphasis) Likewise, as Siddiq (2007: 144-7) notes, similar tensions were to be observed during the rise of nationalism in Egypt, where secular versus religious, and nativist versus Ottoman, concepts of an Egyptian state were being played out against one another. When I focus on the commonality of such early nationalist novels, the idea is to underline a particular moment in the phase between colonization and independence, during which the historical novel and the techniques of modernist fiction offered a particularly useful mould for nationalist aspirations and their embedding within cultural traditions that were perceived to be under threat and which therefore evoked nostalgic longing, particularly in conjunction with memories of former political power and significance. Both Ali and Mahfouz see the nostalgia evinced by their protagonists as a strategy of preserving one’s dignity in the humiliating circumstances of colonial oppression, but also as problematically directed towards the past rather than a national future that should be actively brought into being. The same ambivalence attaches to the function of the novels’ immersion in traditional religion, since Islam provides a cultural and personal home for the characters but also impedes their growing away from religious precepts that are no longer appropriate to a world determined by Western modernity, science and progress (however threatening these influences are to social and religious customs and attitudes). Both novels therefore reflect the irresolvable cultural hybridity engendered by colonialism, in which the promise of renewal is compromised by disillusionment with the West. At the same time, nostalgia for a traditional past, reflected in the exaggerated performance of patriarchal authority, is paired with the Monika Fludernik 28 younger generation’s impatience at religious and cultural traditions that are experienced as overly restrictive or hypocritical. Nostalgia itself is an ambivalent emotion, merging a love for the past with disaffection for the present, though - for the young - it may also contain the seed of nationalist revival. Works Cited Alam, Khurshid (2016). “Private Space as a Site for Anti-Colonial Imagination: A Critical Study of Twilight in Delhi”. Journal of Research (Humanities) 52. 23-40. Al-Hakim, Tawfiq (2019). The Return of the Spirit [1933]. Trans. Russell Harris & William Maynard Hutchins. New York: Penguin Books. Ali, Ahmed (1979). “View of Art”. The Marxist Cultural Movement in India: Chronicles and Documents (1936-47). Ed. Sudhi Pradhan. Calcutta: Mrs. Santi Pradhan. 67- 83. Ali, Ahmed (1998-1999 [sic]). “Our Lane. 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Begum, Jameela (1995). “Reconstructing Personal History: The Purdah in Twilight in Delhi and Sunlight on a Broken Column”. In: Ed. Jasbir Jain & Amina Amin (Eds.). Margins of Erasure: Purdah in the Subcontinental Novel in English. New Delhi: Sterling. 206-15. Brown, Judith (2018). “Ahmed Ali and the Art of Languishing”. ELH: English Literary History 85 (3). 823-46. Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2008). “Adda: A History of Sociality”. Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference [2000]. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 180-213. Desai, Anita (1991). Bye-Bye Blackbird [1968]. Delhi: Orient. DeYoung, Terri (2012). “Mahfouz’s Novels and the Nation”. In: Hassan, Waïl S. & Susan Muaddi Darraj (Eds.). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 53-64. El-Enany, Rashee (1993). Naguib Mahfouz. The Pursuit of Meaning. London: Routledge. Fludernik, Monika (2020). “Nostalgia for Otiose Leisure: Laying Claim to an Indian Tradition of Otium”. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 7 (1). 14- 34. Fludernik, Monika (2021). “Narrating Otium - A Narratology of Leisure? ” Journal of Narrative Theory 51 (2). 179-99. Ambivalences of Leisure, Patriarchy and Genre in two Classic Muslim Novels 29 Gana, Nouri (2013). “Introduction: The Intellectual History and Contemporary Significance of the Arab Novel in English”. The Edinburgh Companion to the Arab Novel in English: The Politics of Anglo-Arab and Arab-American Literature and Culture. Ed. Nouri Gana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. 1-35. Haider, Nishat (2017). “Imag(in)ing the City: A Study of Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi”. In: Madhurima Chakraborty & Umme Al-wazedi (Eds.). Postcolonial Urban Outcasts: City Margins in South Asian Literature. New York: Routledge. 169- 86. Hassan, Waïl S. (2017). “Toward a Theory of the Arabic Novel”. The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions. Ed. Waïl S. Hassan. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. 19-47. Hassan, Waïl S., and Susan Muaddi Darraj (Eds.) (2012). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz. New York: Modern Language Association of America. Iftikhar, Shabnum (2012). “The Twilight of Muslims in Ahmad Ali’s Twilight in Delhi”. Language in India 12 (9). 395-403. Jameson, Fredric (1986). “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism”. Social Text 15. 65-88. Joshi, Priya (2002). “Chapter 6. The Exile at Home: Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi”. In: Another Country. Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in India. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 205-27. Mahfouz, Naguib (1991). Palace of Desire [1957]. Trans. William Maynard Hutchins, Lorne M. Kenny & Olive E. Kenny. London: Doubleday. Mahfouz, Naguib (1994). Palace Walk [1956]. Trans. William Maynard Hutchins & Olive E. Kenny. London: Black Swan. Malak, Amin (2005). “Ahmed Ali and the Emergence of Muslim Fiction in English”. Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. 19-27. Malik, Jamal (2008). Islam in South Asia. A Short History. Leiden: Brill. Naqvi, Naumann (2007). “The Nostalgic Subject: A Genealogy of the ‘Critique of Nostalgia’”. CIRSDIG Working Paper 23. 4-54. Niven, Alistair (1980). “Historical Imagination in the Novels of Ahmed Ali”. Journal of Indian Writing in English 8 (1-2). 3-13. Noor, Farha (2020). “Negotiating Nostalgia: Progressive Women’s Memoirs in Urdu”. South Asian History and Culture. DOI: 10.1080/ 19472498.2020.1848144. Padamsee, Alex (2011). “Postnational Aesthetics and the Work of Mourning in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi”. Journal of Commonwealth Literature 46 (1). 27-44. Pernau, Margrit (2015). “Nostalgia: Tears of Blood for a Lost World”. South Asia Graduate Research Journal (SAGAR) 23. 74-109. Rahman, Tariq (2015). “Chapter 2: Ahmed Ali”. A History of Pakistani Literature in English: 1947-1988. Karachi: Oxford Univ. Press. 35-68. Ramadan, Yasmine (2019). “Revolutionary Cityscapes: Yūsuf Idrīs and the National Imaginary”. Nizar F. Hermes & Gretchen Head (Eds.). The City in Arabic Literature: Classical and Modern Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. 186- 205. Sakkut, Hamdi (2000). The Arabic Novel. Bibliography and Critical Introduction, 1865-1995. Vol. 1. Cairo: The American Univ. in Cairo Press. Sharma, Sunil (2004). “The City of Beauties in Indo-Persian Poetic Landscape”. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24 (2). 73-81. Shingavi, Snehal (2013). The Mahatma Misunderstood. The Politics and Forms of Literary Nationalism in India. London: Anthem Press. Siddiq, Muhammad (2007). Arab Culture and the Novel. Genre, Identity, and Agency in Egyptian Fiction. London: Routledge. Monika Fludernik 30 Smith, Kimberly K. (2000). “Mere Nostalgia: Notes on a Progressive Paratheory”. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 3 (4). 505-27. Starkey, Paul (2006). Modern Arabic Literature. New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press. Stilz, Gerhard (1990). “‘Live in Fragments No Longer’: A Conciliatory Analysis of Ahmed Ali’s Twilight”. In: Geoffrey V. Davis & Hena Maes-Jelinek (Eds.). Crisis and Creativity in the New Literatures in English: Cross/ Cultures. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 369-88. Tageldin, Shaden M. (2012) “Mahfouz’s Posts”. Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz. In: Hassan, Waïl S., & Susan Muaddi Darraj (Eds.). Approaches to Teaching the Works of Naguib Mahfouz. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 85-104. Trivedi, Harish (1968). “Ahmed Ali: Twilight in Delhi”. Major Indian Novels: An Evaluation. Ed. N.S. Pradhan. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Open Humanities Press. 41- 73. Williams, Caroline (1993). “Place and Time in Mahfouz’s Al-Qahira”. In: Beard, Michael & Adnan Haydar (Eds.). Naguib Mahfouz. From Regional Fame to Global Recognition. Ithaca, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press. 52-60. Monika Fludernik English Department University of Freiburg The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions Frančiška Lipovšek The paper presents a study on fictive motion (FM) expressions, linguistic manifestations of the conceptualization of stationary scenes in terms of motion (e.g. The road slowly climbs through fertile valleys and plantations). It focuses on the role of manner adverbials, building on the premise that since motion verbs in FM uses do not describe actual motion events, the manner adverbial utilized by an FM sentence cannot express the manner of motion but must refer to some correlated property of the stationary subject entity. This function of manner adverbials, together with their grammatical form, is examined on the basis of English FM sentences extracted from the British Web corpus (ukWaC) and featuring vertical motion verbs (e.g. climb) or complex-path-shape motion verbs (e.g. meander). The findings show that the adverbials are realized by adverbs in -ly and prepositional phrases and that their manner-related meanings, pertaining to the speed, intensity, geometry and style of motion, are metonymically mapped onto properties such as the gradient, shape, orientation and general appearance of the subject. The mappings are systematic and are explained on the basis of contingency relations between the path properties and the manner of motion that can be observed in the mentally simulated motion involved in the processing of FM sentences. 1. Introduction Babies crawl around on their hands and knees; fish swim in circles; skaters glide smoothly across ice. Each of the italicized adverbials expresses manner by foregrounding a particular aspect of motion. Another such aspect is speed: AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0007 Frančiška Lipovšek 32 (1) 1 a. They walked slowly through the trees and shrubs in the otherwise deserted park. b. The road slowly climbs through fertile valleys and plantations. Sentence (1a) is perfectly straightforward: slowly describes the speed of the people walking. Sentence (1b), by contrast, involves no actual motion: roads do not move in space-time. It follows that slowly in (1b) cannot refer to the speed (or any other aspect of motion) of the road. Sentence (1b) is a fictive motion (FM) expression describing a stationary scene by evoking an image of something in motion. Featuring a motion verb 2 accompanied by path and speed adverbials, the sentence exhibits a “linguistic pattern in which the literal meaning of a sentence ascribes motion to a referent that one otherwise normally believes to be stationary” (Talmy 2000: 101). Fictive motion is a cognitive operation reflecting our “cognitive bias toward dynamism” (ibid.: 171): a stationary scene is construed in terms of motion. Talmy speaks of discrepancy between a “more veridical”, “factive” representation involving stationariness and a “less veridical”, “fictive” representation involving motion (ibid.: 100f.). A plausible explanation for the possibility of conveying stationariness and motion at the same time is offered by conceptual blending (cf. Fauconnier 1994, 1997, Fauconnier & Turner 2002): the immobility space and the motion space get conceptually integrated into a new space, with the stationary entity from the immobility space and the path from the motion space projected onto a single element in the blended space (e.g. the road in (1b) emerges as the path of some fictively moving entity). Fictive motion is also interpreted as involving conceptual metaphor, whereby the stationary entity from a fictive motion event, the (more abstract) target domain, is conceptualized as the moving entity in an actual motion event, the (more concrete) source domain (cf. Jiménez Martínez-Losa 2007). Fictive motion is experienced subjectively and involves “mentally simulated motion” (Matlock 2004a, 2004b): the conceptualizer mentally simulates travelling along the path. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that FM sentences activate the motor regions in the brain (Cacciari et al. 2011) and that the processing of fictive motion takes more time than that of actual motion, which serves as evidence for additional mental simulation (e.g. Matlock 2004a, Matlock and Richardson 2004, Tomczak & Ewert 1 All example sentences are taken from the British Web corpus (ukWaC). 2 It should be noted though that fictive motion is not incompatible with non-motion verbs (e.g. two roads meet). Moreover, there are non-motion verbs (e.g. jut, taper) that occur exclusively in FM expressions (cf. Ruppenhofer 2006: 310, fn. 4). The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 33 2015). Other simulations include sequential scanning (i.e. moving one’s focus of attention) and movement of the subject entity itself. These types of simulations find counterparts in Blomberg and Zlatev (2014)’s experiential motivations for the use of non-actual motion 3 constructions: enactive perception, visual scanning and imagination of motion. The importance of enactive perception, experientially grounded in bodily action, is used by Stošić et al. (2015) as an explanation for the universality of FM expressions. Blomberg and Zlatev (2015) point out that the motivations for non-actual motion interact with “language-specific conventions for expressing actual motion” (p. 156). It is the linguistic pattern of an FM sentence that invites motion (cf. Talmy 2000). The pattern equals that of an AM sentence; for example (1a) and (1b) above share the pattern S + A manner + P motion + A direction . Nevertheless, (1b) communicates a stationary situation and cannot (factively) involve the same type of participants: the road is not a moving agent and the valleys and plantations do not represent the road’s path. Rather, the road is a stationary theme (i.e. located entity) and the valleys and plantations represent its location. Crucially, slowly does not express the speed of motion but must refer to some other aspect of the road. In fact, the presence of slowly evokes an image of a road with a gentle gradient, i.e. displaying little change in elevation over the same distance. The motion-related meaning of slowly is mapped onto gradient - a property of a stationary entity. Such mappings are observed in many motion verbs themselves. To illustrate, the verb climb contains the semantic component [+ upward motion]. In example (1b), this component is mapped onto another physical property of the road: it conveys the information that the road is situated on sloping terrain. Similarly, the manner component of the verb weave in (2) below is mapped onto the shape of the road: the sentence evokes an image of a road with numerous curves and bends. (2) The road weaves its way through the Glen. In fact, the mapping of the manner-of-motion component onto a certain property of the stationary subject (which corresponds to the path of motion of some fictively moving entity in the fictive representation) is crucial to the acceptability of sentences like (1b) and (2) above. Matsumoto (1996: 194) proposes two conditions for the linguistic manifestations of fictive motion along spatially extended entities: the “path condition” and the “manner condition”. The path condition states that an FM sentence has to express some property of the path of motion and the manner condition 3 The concept of fictive motion involving mental simulation is reinterpreted by Blomberg and Zlatev as “non-actual motion” (for discussion see Blomberg & Zlatev 2014, 2015). Frančiška Lipovšek 34 states that “[n]o property of the manner of motion can be expressed unless it is used to represent some correlated property of the path.” For illustration (ibid.): (3) The road wanders/ *walks through the park. While the verb wander evokes an image of an irregular path shape, walk is precluded by the manner condition since its manner-of-motion component cannot be mapped onto any property of the path. 4 Waliński (2015) complements Matsumoto’s set of conditions by the “instrument condition” precluding verbs expressing the instrument of motion (e.g. drive). Instrument, however, can to some extent be subsumed under manner, so the two conditions overlap. The road’s shape in (3) is understood as irregular on the basis of association with the action of walking around without any clear purpose or direction. The image of a gentle gradient evoked by slowly in (1b) is in a contingency relation with a slow change in elevation: the gentler the gradient, the slower the change in elevation over the same distance. Association and contingency are essential to metonymy (cf. Barcelona 2011, Langacker 2000, Panther & Thornburg 2005, Radden & Kövecses 1999), and the mapping involved in fictive motion can indeed be perceived as metonymic: some aspect of the manner of motion stands for some aspect of the path (cf. Matlock 2004b: 11ff.). Jiménez Martínez-Losa (2007), for example, defines fictive motion in terms of metaphor, but at the same time argues that the metaphor involved is motivated by metonymy: motion along the path activates the path of motion (564ff.). The recognition of mapping between the elements of the fictive and factive representations is crucial for understanding the function of manner in fictive motion: the manner element refers to some physical property of the carrier of the relation in a stationary scene. Building on these observations, the paper presents a qualitative study that examines the use of manner adverbials in English FM expressions and their role in communicating stationary situations. 2. The aim of the study The aim of the study was to find out which types of manner adverbials occur in English FM expressions and in what ways they contribute to the conceptualization of stationary scenes. The study was based on the assumption that the meaning of a manner adverbial utilized by an FM sentence must be mapped onto some property of the stationary subject entity and 4 The only exception in this respect is the verb run, which occurs readily in English FM expressions. For explanation see Matsumoto (1996: 200). The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 35 that there is a logical correlation between this property and the aspect of manner that would be expressed in an actual motion scene. In order to avoid terminological confusion, a comment is needed on the expression “manner adverbial”. Adjuncts of manner are traditionally subsumed under process adjuncts, together with adjuncts of instrument, agency, etc. (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 556-563). Nevertheless, these relations are closely intertwined; moreover, manner is often part of the conceptualization of relations extending beyond those expressed by process adjuncts. For example, if a person goes to the gym five times a week, the adverbial expresses not only frequency, but also intensity or measure (cf. they go to the gym a lot) - and the conceptualization of both involves, at least to some extent, manner: going to the gym on a frequent basis (i.e. a lot) is one of the ways of keeping one’s body fit. In short, there are various types of “semantic blends” (ibid.: 560) between manner and other adverbial relations, also referred to in the literature as “manner plus” phenomena (Virtanen 2008). Our use of the term “manner adverbial” is in line with these observations. Throughout the paper, the term applies to phrasal structures that function syntactically as adverbial adjuncts expressing manner in the broad sense. 3. Methodology The study was conducted on the basis of FM expressions extracted from the ukWaC, a web-derived corpus of British English, with the help of the Sketch Engine corpus tool. The procedure comprised the following steps: 1. Three sets of motion verbs were selected that occur readily in FM expressions: i) four verbs of inherently directed motion encoding upward vertical motion (ascend, climb, rise, soar); ii) four verbs of inherently directed motion encoding downward vertical motion (descend, dip, drop, plunge); iii) six manner-of-motion verbs encoding a complex path shape (meander, wind, weave, wander, snake, zigzag). 5 2. The corpus was queried for subject collocates of the above verbs. The lists of collocates generated by the queries were examined manually to extract those nouns that could be recognized as subjects in FM sentences. 3. For each noun + verb combination, all FM sentences generated by the search were examined manually to extract those containing manner adverbials. 5 Levin (1993) speaks of “meander verbs”, but her category does not include snake and zigzag. Waliński (2018: 208) subsumes such verbs under “verbs of irregular motion”, admitting at the same time that the pattern can be quite regular. Frančiška Lipovšek 36 The procedure yielded FM sentences with the following nouns as subjects, according perfectly with Egorova et al. (2018)’s designation of the language of fictive motion as a “particularly geographic use of language” (p. 2248): cliff, ground, hill, land, lane, mountain, passage, path, peak, road, route, slope, staircase, track, trail, walk, wall for vertical motion and canal, course, lane, passage, path, river, road, route, track, trail for complex-path-shape motion. The manner adverbials identified in each group were examined from the points of view of grammatical form and meaning. The data are presented in section 4. 1. 4. Findings 4.1. Analysis results: types of manner adverbials in FM expressions The general picture obtained by the analysis of the extracted FM sentences is as follows. Manner adverbials in FM expressions are realized by adverbial and prepositional phrases; the prevalent form is the adverb in -ly. Semantically, they pertain to properties that have been subsumed under four categories: speed (and duration); degree and intensity; geometry of the path; style. In what ways these properties relate to the properties of stationary subject entities will be discussed in section 4. 2. The data are presented in the tables below. 4. 1. 1. Vertical motion i) Adverbial phrases Upward motion Downward motion abruptly, briefly, briskly, considerably, continuously, diagonally, dramatically, drastically, easily, gently, gradually, grandly, immediately, instantly, majestically, menacingly, precipitately, quickly, rapidly, relentlessly, repeatedly, resolutely, sharply, significantly, slightly, slowly, smartly, spirally, steadily, steeply, suddenly, unexpectedly, uniformly, vertically aggressively, diagonally, dramatically, easily, gently, gradually, immediately, noticeably, quickly, rapidly, sharply, slightly, slowly, smartly, steadily, steeply, suddenly, vertically Table 1. Adverbs in -ly The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 37 Both directions Upward motion only Downward motion only diagonally, dramatically, easily, gently, gradually, immediately, quickly, rapidly, sharply, slightly, slowly, smartly, steadily, steeply, suddenly, vertically abruptly, briefly, briskly, considerably, continuously, drastically, grandly, instantly, majestically, menacingly, precipitately, relentlessly, repeatedly, resolutely, significantly, smartly, spirally, unexpectedly, uniformly aggressively noticeably Table 2. Adverbs in -ly and the direction of motion Speed and duration High speed briskly, quickly, rapidly, smartly Low speed slowly Short duration briefly Suddenness abruptly, immediately, instantly, precipitately, suddenly, unexpectedly Degree and intensity High degree considerably, drastically, noticeably, significantly Low degree slightly High intensity aggressively, continuously, relentlessly, repeatedly, resolutely Low intensity easily, gently, gradually, steadily Geometry Gradient sharply, steeply Shape spirally, uniformly Frančiška Lipovšek 38 Direction diagonally, vertically Style dramatically, grandly, majestically, menacingly Table 3. The meanings of adverbs in -ly a little, a bit more, a little more (degree) once more, yet again (intensity) high, higher and higher, ever higher, up and up (altitude, direction, intensity) Table 4. Other adverbs and their meanings ii) Prepositional phrases Complement noun angle at a sixty degree angle, at an angle little short of miraculous ascent with a gradual ascent of about one foot in twenty degree at about 45 deg gradient down a very steep gradient, with gradients of 1 in 5 inclination at a steep inclination incline at a slightly less perilous incline section down several steep sections slant in a steepish slant Table 5. Prepositional phrases expressing gradient The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 39 Complement noun bend around a right-hand bend, down some hairpin bends, in a series of (huge) hairpin bends, in great sweeping curves and bends, round several hairpin bends, through a number of nearly blind bends, with a series of sharp bends, with hairpin bends curve in a series of curves, in great sweeping curves and bends, on a sharp curve form in semi-circular form hairpin in crazy hairpins, with yet another series of hairpins line in a straight line path down a zigzag path semicircle in a semicircle switchback corner with many switchback corners zigzag in a series of long winding zig-zags OTHER by successive terraces, in a series of steps, in ledges Table 6. Prepositional phrases expressing path shape Complement noun fashion in dramatic fashion splendour in lonely splendour style in a grand style, in almost alpine style Frančiška Lipovšek 40 OTHER like a cathedral, like a white cat, like dots on a page of braille 6 Table 7. Prepositional phrases expressing style 4. 1. 2. Complex-path-shape (CPS) motion i) Adverbial phrases Verb Adverbs in -ly meander aimlessly, delightfully, entertainingly, erratically, extravagantly, gently, helplessly, invitingly, lazily, peacefully, slightly, slowly, tortuously, uncertainly, unhurriedly, wildly wind endlessly, increasingly, languidly, lazily, precariously, remorselessly, slowly, steadily, steeply, swiftly, tortuously, unobtrusively weave gently, pleasantly, relentlessly, steeply wander gently, uncertainly snake gently, intricately, seductively zigzag gently, slightly, steeply, tightly, viciously, widely Table 8. Adverbs in -ly Speed High speed swiftly Low speed languidly, lazily, slowly, unhurriedly 6 The particle like is treated as a preposition on the basis of its case-governing properties. Nevertheless, the given structures can also be analysed as elliptical clauses introduced by a conjunction. For discussion of the fuzzy border between the two interpretations see Quirk et al. (1985: 661f.). The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 41 Degree and intensity Low degree slightly High intensity increasingly, relentlessly, remorselessly, viciously, wildly Low intensity gently, peacefully, steadily Geometry Shape intricately, tightly, tortuously, widely Direction aimlessly, endlessly, helplessly, uncertainly Gradient steeply Style delightfully, entertainingly, erratically, extravagantly, invitingly, pleasantly, precariously, seductively, unobtrusively Table 9. The meanings of adverbs in -ly a bit, a little, somewhat, so much (degree) around and about, back and forth (direction, intensity) uphill, upwards, up and up and up, up and down (direction, intensity) Table 10. Other adverbs and their meanings ii) Prepositional phrases Complement noun bend around a series of gentle bends, with 12 hairpin bends, contour roughly on the 100’ contour, with the contours of the water’s edge Frančiška Lipovšek 42 curve in sharp curves lock without a single lock loop in a loop, in two large loops, round a large loop OTHER ALONG X - & Y - AXES in and out of boulders, in and out of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, round and round the mountain ALONG Z - AXIS up and down the mountains, up hill and down dale Table 11. Prepositional phrases expressing path shape Complement noun incline up a very steep incline OTHER up a surprisingly steep slope Table 12. Prepositional phrases expressing gradient Complement noun fashion in a more sedate fashion style in this fine style way in funny ways OTHER like a river Table 13. Prepositional phrases expressing style The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 43 4.2. Discussion 4. 2. 1. The form of manner adverbials in FM expressions The abundance of adverbs in -ly, the form prototypically related to manner, demonstrates the importance of manner in processing fictive motion. An interesting observation can be made in connection with vertical motion: the number of different adverbs is considerably higher for upward motion than downward motion; moreover, although many adverbs are found with both directions, even more adverbs are found exclusively with upward motion and only two adverbs exclusively with downward motion. 7 Although this may simply be due to a difference in number between the FM sentences featuring upward motion verbs and those featuring downward motion verbs in the analysed sample, the data suggest a relative prevalence of upward motion in the conceptualization of stationary scenes. Other adverbial forms identified in the extracted FM sentences are few in number. With the exception of high, they are based on quantifiers and directional particles. The latter appear in “expressive” coordination structures (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 980f.), which make possible a manner interpretation in terms of intensity, conveying the idea of continuation (4a) or alternation (4b). The same applies to comparative forms (4c): (4) a) The road winds up and up and up. b) In truth the world of GUN is not all that big, the narrow and winding trails often snaking back and forth to give you the impression of increased distance. c) The road out climbs and twists higher and higher around some twenty-seven hairpin bends before descending slightly more gently to Santiago del Teide. The prepositional phrases are interpreted as manner adverbials by virtue of their nominal constituents, i.e. complements to prepositions. The nouns heading the complements refer to geometric properties such as gradient 7 A note on terminology: with reference to FM sentences, the expressions downward motion and upward motion signal the presence of a vertical motion verb in the predicator and are by no means intended to suggest that there is any actual motion involved. In other words, the downward/ upward motion is exclusively a fictive one. The same note applies to the use of the term manner of motion in the context of FM expressions. Frančiška Lipovšek 44 and shape (e.g. angle, curve) or belong to general nouns that typically combine with adjectival modifiers in prepositional manner adverbials (e.g. style). They tend to be preceded by classifiers (e.g. hairpin bends) and descriptive modifiers (e.g. long winding zig-zags). These constituents shape the meaning in different ways. For example: (5) a) We could see the road descending in crazy hairpins towards Andalsnes, visible three thousand feet below! b) Here, the road drops down a very steep gradient. In (5a), the PP expresses the manner of descending in terms of shape, referred to directly by the noun hairpins. The meaning is intensified by the modifier crazy. In (5b), by contrast, the complement noun (gradient) does not contribute to the meaning since it designates a property inherently involved in vertical motion, already implied by the verb. The meaning of the PP thus relies largely on the modifier: a road dropping down a very steep gradient is a road dropping very steeply. The PPs headed by like express manner by virtue of comparison (e.g. to soar like a cathedral). Last but not least, some of the PPs included in the study as manner adverbials are basically directional adverbials representing the path of motion. For illustration: (6) a) From here the official route descends down a zigzag path through a stand of trees to reach the beach just west of the town centre. b) It is one of the Tour’s great sights, the road snaking round and round the mountain, and the riders struggling up it, visible for a distance of five kilometres. c) The road meanders up hill and down dale through starkly dramatic countryside. In the underlined PPs the directional meaning is combined with that of manner. In (6a) the manner component derives from zigzag (cf. the route descends zigzagging through a stand of trees), in (6b) and (6c) from the use of expressive coordination (cf. (4) above). The coordinated prepositional head round and round in (6b) evokes the image of a coil shape as well as the idea of endlessness or even (especially if considered from a rider’s point of view) relentlessness. The coordination of two PPs involving the antonymic pair up/ down in (6c) presents the road as advancing through the countryside in undulating fashion. The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 45 It should be noted at this point that many a phrase representing the path of motion mentions terrain features that may suggest a particular manner of motion. Compare: (7) a) A typical Pulham garden would consist of a woodland stream meandering over a series of rocky cascades. b) The route wanders up through a chaotic landscape of deceptive and seemingly endless boulder fields. Although it is not difficult to imagine the stream in (7a) as hopping over cascades and the route in (7b) as undulating through the countryside, the two interpretations are much less straightforward than those in (6) above. Adverbials of the kind were not included in the analysis. 4. 2. 2. The function of manner adverbials in FM expressions The previous section focused on the relationship between the form of adverbials and their ability to express manner, and was not concerned with the fact that there was no actual motion involved. The absence of actual motion, however, is central to the present study: a manner adverbial utilized by an FM sentence cannot express the manner of motion but must be mapped onto some motion-independent property of the subject entity. This section will look at the four types of manner adverbials established in 4. 1 and the correlations between their adverbial meanings and the properties they describe. i. Speed and duration An adverbial expressing speed or duration must refer to a property that is directly related to the speed/ duration of movement. In the case of vertical motion, the conceptualizer mentally simulates movement involving a change in elevation. A quick change logically evokes the image of a steep gradient, and vice versa (cf. Introduction): (8) a) From the Aegean coast the land rises rapidly to about three thousand feet (1,000 m). b) The path drops pretty smartly now, and is rewarding in that you have the upper reaches of Swaledale directly ahead of you. c) The trail descends slowly and then levels off. Frančiška Lipovšek 46 In CPS motion, the time of travel from point A to point B depends very much on the path shape. Slow motion seems to evoke the image of large curves and bends, and vice versa: (9) a) From Llanberis, the path meanders lazily along the sheltered shore of Llyn Padarn. b) The road wound and descended swiftly among masses of chestnuts. c) The Sangker River languidly winds its way through the city. Two brief observations should be made in connection with CPS motion. First, low-speed adverbials tend to occur with bodies of water as sentence subjects (river, canal). A question arises as to whether the processing of such sentences could in any way be affected by the fact that the water itself is actually moving. Second, CPS motion may be combined with vertical motion, as in (9b). The question arising at this point is whether the manner adverbial foregrounds the shape or the gradient in the conceptualization of the scene. Both observations go beyond the scope of the present paper, but nevertheless offer promising implications for future research. An interesting subtype of speed/ duration adverbials is adverbs that express suddenness - a meaning combining short duration with unexpectedness. These adverbs were found only with vertical motion. For example: (10) a) From thence a rugged and uneven track descends suddenly into a narrow glen. b) The development enjoys an elevated position [...] with panoramic views overlooking the Firth of Clyde where the hills rise almost instantly from the shores of the Firth Broadstone House. c) You will marvel at the magnificent shoreline with dense forest and glacial peaks rising abruptly from the water’s edge. d) A narrow central ridge of hills rises unexpectedly from the surrounding pastoral landscape, famed for its mineral water springs. The examples suggest that the notion of suddenness correlates with the notions of contrast and spatial closeness (proximity). The track in (10a) displays a noticeable change in gradient and orientation. 8 The hills and peaks in (10b-d) are in stark contrast with their immediate surroundings in terms of size and orientation. Spatial closeness is foregrounded in (10b). The correlation with contrast is easily explained by mental simulation in- 8 Orientation is the stationary counterpart of direction. The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 47 volving a moving observer: moving through the scene, the observer experiences any significant changes (including new entities coming into view) as sudden and/ or unexpected. The correlation with spatial closeness is based on proportionality between time and distance: if two elements of the scene are observed that are situated close to each other, the observer’s gaze will move from one to the other in an instant. ii. Degree and intensity The notions of degree and intensity are very close; the classification adopted for the purposes of the study relies on the distinction between “to what degree / how much” (e.g. slightly) and “with what intensity/ force” (e.g. steadily) although the borderline is sometimes blurred. Intensity in our classification includes the notions of continuation and repetition: the perceived intensity of an action may be due to its continuative or repetitive character. With vertical motion, degree is mapped onto gradient (11a-c). With CPS motion, it is mapped onto the shape configuration. In (11d), for example, the adverbial evokes the image of a road with rapidly alternating bends: (11) a) From here the road climbed but not too drastically. b) However, a few metres east of the present chancel, the ground drops away noticeably. c) The path then ascends slightly to the slopes of Sands Hill. d) The bus route to the village of Masca is the worst for this and the bends are so tight and the road zigzags so much that a full size bus cannot be used. Intensity adverbials behave in a similar way, referring to the gradient (12a) or shape (12b). Sentence (12c) illustrates CPS motion coinciding with vertical motion, the adverbial following a CPS verb but referring to the gradient. (12) a) The path climbs gently and quickly leaves the forest to cross a field. b) The river meanders gently along the length of the valley from Fasnakyle, passing the villages of Cannich and Struy on the way. c) The road wound steadily upwards. Frančiška Lipovšek 48 Adverbials expressing continuation or repetition evoke the image of endlessness. The road below is imagined as one with a gentle gradient (referred to by gently and steadily respectively) and, crucially, as never levelling off. (13) a) The road climbs gently, but continuously. b) It was intensely hot, and the road climbs steadily but relentlessly up the valley. High intensity adverbials like relentlessly are of particular interest because their meaning is metaphorically related to manner in terms of severity, violence and lack of control - meanings that are easily mapped onto a steep gradient or a tortuous shape. For example: (14) a) Head inland to the Gorges du Verdon which is France’s equivalent to the Grand Canyon for a very special day out, but pace yourself as the roads wind remorselessly. b) Highclere castle is on the horizon to your right and your road is descending aggressively to the left. c) From its source in Langley Hills, near Clavering in Essex, the river meanders wildly through picturesque countryside before reaching the town. iii. Geometry Geometry adverbials express the shape, gradient and direction of the path of motion, translating in FM sentences as the shape, gradient and orientation of the subject entity. As already observed with some of the previous groups, the adverbial may refer to a property other than the one encoded in the verb’s meaning: (15a) below combines verticality and shape, (15b) verticality (i.e. up-down orientation) and left-right orientation, (15c) shape and gradient: (15) a) A broad staircase ascended spirally on the opposite side. b) The path drops diagonally yet steeply down the hill to reach a bridge carrying what used to be a back lane over the new bypass. c) This is the toughest part of the ascent, as the path weaves steeply between boulders and granite outcrops. The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 49 Only one adverbial has been identified that refers directly to the size (height) of the subject entity, namely high. Its motion-related use implies reaching a high altitude - a meaning that is easily mapped onto height: (16) I see mountains and chasms and peaks soaring high. Geometry adverbials represent a relatively straightforward category. They are realized largely by prepositional phrases, whose nominal complements to prepositions often describe geometric configurations in a detailed and vivid manner: (17) a) Most of the mountains rise from the sea at an angle little short of miraculous. b) Travelling south from Marwar Junction the track climbs in great sweeping curves and bends, over mighty viaducts and narrow culverts, high onto the Khamli Ghats. Adverbs in this function are derived from adjectives that can describe the given properties directly (e.g. a sharp angle, an intricate shape): (18) a) Thus west and north of the churchyard the ground is reasonably level but to the south and east the ground drops away sharply to the stream. b) The path snakes its way intricately through the bottom of the gorge to exit onto the plain above with a gentle walk back to Lara Beach. Some adverbs are used metaphorically to suggest lack of a clear orientation or endpoint: (19) a) The route meanders aimlessly for hours. b) Several roads meandered helplessly from nowhere to nowhere, and at one point you could see roads on the outside but you couldn’t reach them. c) The gradient falls away and the path meanders uncertainly a little as it approaches the highest point, marked by an old fence post or two. Frančiška Lipovšek 50 iv. Style Style adverbials in FM expressions refer to the general appearance of the subject entity. They are more evaluative and subjective in meaning than the previous types. For example: (20) a) The lanes meandered delightfully between fields and hedgerows, ever flower-decked and pretty. b) As I walked through the woods I noticed a particular viewpoint through the trees, with the cart track snaking seductively down towards the lighthouse. c) Inland, mountains rise in lonely splendour and you may glimpse a Java deer vanishing into the bushes. d) The canal wound unobtrusively along behind some houses and there was a little footbridge. Nevertheless, many style adverbials still suggest a particular geometric configuration. It is easy to imagine the steepness of the track in (21a) below, the looping bends of the river in (21b) and the dot-like arrangement of the hills in (21c). Sentence (21d) features a coordination of two adverbials, the former suggesting a great size, the latter a contrast in size and orientation. (21) a) From the main road a stone track winds its way precariously down the mountainside but doesn’t quite reach the bottom. b) The river meandered extravagantly here, some times we were almost back where we started from. c) This manifested itself in small, knobbly hills rising from a gentle plateau like dots on a page of braille. d) Its most famous and breathtaking sight has to be the Pitons in the southwest: twin volcanic peaks rising majestically and dramatically from the water. In coordination structures like the one in (21d), the meaning of one adverbial logically complements the meaning of the other. Erratically in (22) below is on the borderline between a style adverbial and a geometry adverbial describing motion characterized by an irregular path-shape involving unpredictable changes of direction. The coordination of erratically and entertainingly may suggest that the streets are entertaining (also) because of their erratic layout: The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 51 (22) Downtown streets meander erratically and entertainingly. The last example leads us to one final observation. While erratically is perfectly compatible with actual motion (e.g. one can drive erratically), entertainingly is less likely to describe the manner in which a moving entity advances along its path. In fact, quite a few manner adverbials utilized by FM sentences do not readily express the manner of actual motion or cannot express it at all. For example, a path can climb steeply or weave pleasantly, but a moving entity cannot: (23) a) *We climbed steeply. b) *He weaved pleasantly through the crowd. What seems to be crucial is the fact that it is only in FM sentences that such adverbials can be understood as referring to a property of the subject entity (compare the path was steep/ pleasant and *we were steep/ pleasant). The majority of adverbs functioning as style and geometry adverbials are derived from adjectives that can describe the subject entity directly. Describing the subject is what makes them similar in function to the “optional predicative” (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 261ff.) - a special type of subject complement occurring with full lexical verbs. For example: (24) Jagged mountains rise steep from the frozen shore, and somewhere behind them the icecap hides. The sentence states that there are mountains rising from the shore and that these mountains are steep. The underlined predicative displays characteristics of the subject complement (i.e. as an adjectival phrase describing the subject) as well as the adjunct of manner (i.e. as an optional constituent occurring with a verb of complete predication). 9 Last but not least, another syntactic constituent whose function in FM expressions is similar to that of manner adverbials is the locative object featuring a descriptive modifier. Like in adverbials realized by prepositional phrases (cf. 4. 2. 1), it is the modifier that lends the structure a manner interpretation: (25) 9 In fact, Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 262) regard such “optional depictive predicatives” as adjuncts (as opposed to complements) that are “integrated into the structure as modifiers”. Frančiška Lipovšek 52 a) This path climbed a steep hill and turned at the top, and at this point you were about a quarter of a mile in either direction from the roads. b) The companions had reached a wide boulevard paved with blue grey bricks across which a silvery grey trail snaked a serpentine course. The role of the optional depictive predicative and the locative object in FM expressions - especially in comparison with manner adverbials or from a crosslinguistic perspective - is another implication for future research. 4.3. Synthesis The established correlations between the individual (sub)meanings of manner adverbials and the properties they refer to when used in FM expressions are summarized below. 10 The findings show that manner in fictive motion is mapped predominantly onto those properties that inherently characterize the given type of motion. The fact that a single meaning will be mapped onto one property with vertical motion and onto another property with CPS motion is a clear manifestation of contingency between the defining property of the path and the manner of motion along that path - a relationship making the mapping possible in the first place. in fm → gradient shape orientat. z x/ y size endlessness contrast proximity appearance speed V C suddenness V V V V V degree V C intensity V C V gradient V shape C direction z-axis x-/ yaxes V C C style (V, C) 11 (V, C) (V) (C) (V) (V) V, C Table 14. The role of manner adverbials in FM expressions 10 V = vertical motion; C = CPS motion. 11 The brackets indicate that the property is referred to less directly (i.e. it is implied by the general appearance). The Function of Manner Adverbials in Fictive Motion Expressions 53 5. 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Corpus ukWaC = web-derived (domain .uk) corpus. ˂https: / / the.sketchengine.co.uk/ ˃ Frančiška Lipovšek Department of English Faculty of Arts University of Ljubljana Post-Memory and History in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club Aleksandra Izgarjan and Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević A postmodern understanding of history renders it is a system of signification by which we make sense of the past. Maxine Hong Kingston’s and Amy Tan’s critical approach to history underlines the fact that our perception and understanding of events is unavoidably determined by the present moment. In their novels, Kingston and Tan create layer upon layer of memories of second-generation immigrants, shaped by their immigrant parents’ stories about the native country they have lost. The second generation lives in post-memory, determined by their parents’ nostalgia and exile, which causes a communication gap between generations. By giving voice to women and immigrants, the motive for their writing becomes obvious: to render visible previously invisible and marginalized groups and to insert their (his/ her) stories into the dominant historical discourse. 1. Introduction Memory, as Edward Said observed, is to a certain extent a nationalistic attempt to construct loyalty to a country, tradition, and religion and to develop an insider understanding of that country. The study of memory, with its focus on the past events which can be conveniently used for political purposes, has been especially prevalent in the early twenty-first century, marked as it has been by rapid changes, mass societies, and crumbling family and social ties (Said 2000: 176). The connection between memory and identity is one of the central themes of the novels of Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. For Kingston, words come before memories and sharpen one’s vision (Kingston 1987: 177). In turn, memory presents a basis for writing, whether it is related to a real event or the desire of the AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunther Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2020-0008 Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 56 writer to construct a world which is unattainable to them. As Kingston states: I think that my stories have a constant breaking in and out of the present and past. So the reader might be walking along very well in the present, but the past breaks through and changes and enlightens the present, and vice-versa. The reason that we remember a past moment at all is that our present-day life is still a working-out of a similar situation (Kingston 1987: 177). Tan also commented on the ways her work depends on the interplay between memory and imagination: What I draw from is not a photographic memory, but an emotional one. When I place that memory of feeling within a fictive home, it becomes imagination. [...] And as I write that possibility, it becomes a part of me. It has the power to change my memory of the way things really happened. […] For me, writing from memory is more about remembering my psychological place in the world at different stages of my life. […] My memory, then, is entirely subjective. And that, I think, is the kind of memory that is simultaneously the most unreliable and the most authentic element a writer can infuse into her work (Tan 2003: 108, 110). Generally, the corpus of research of Kingston’s and Tan’s work can be broadly put into three major categories. The main group comprises works which discuss the socio-cultural struggle that their characters experience as firstor second-generation Chinese immigrants in American society (Butler Evans 1989, Li 1998, Wong 1999, Huntley 2000, Shu 2001, Bloom 2003, Snodgrass 2004, Adams 2005, Grice 2006, Izgarjan 2017). In particular, early research on Kingston’s The Woman Warrior revolved around the issue of whether the novel is a work of fiction or a memoir and whether it can be regarded as representative of the life of Chinese Americans in the U.S. (Hsu 1983, Myers 1986, Wong 1995, Woo 1999). Debates on the (in)authenticity of her representation of the Chinese American experience have surrounded Tan’s novels as well, and both authors have responded repeatedly over the years to this criticism which they perceived as unsound (Kingston 1982, Rabinowitz 1987, Wong 1995, Wong 1999, Tan 2003). The second group focuses on the dynamics between the mother and daughter characters in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club (Frye 1988, Heung 1993, Shen 1995, Hamilton 1999). The third branch of scholarship examines the linguistic aspects of the two novels in questions, especially Kingston’s and Tan’s usage of code-mixing, intertextuality, and story-telling as their hallmark narrative strategies (Souris 1994, Cook 1997, Lee 2004, Lim 2006, Izgarjan 2007). However, despite Kingston’s and Tan’s focus on the importance of memory in their novels, very few scholarly Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 57 works (Xu 1994, Ho 1999, Lotfi 2014) examine this aspect of their oeuvre. That is why we have decided to explore the dynamics between memory and history in their two novels The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club, with particular emphasis on a postmodern approach to this topic. In this article we will focus on Kingston’s and Tan’s postmodern understanding of memory and history as subjective constructs that are open to reinterpretations which brings new readings to these two ground-breaking novels. 2. Memory and Post-Memory In the opinion of Marianne Hirsch, our imagination feeds on a desire to know what the world looked like and what people felt before we were born (Hirsch 1998: 419). This desire is even more precious for those who came into this world after it was irrevocably changed. Hirsch writes about a specific kind of exile lived out by the children of immigrants who have left their homeland forever. However, this homeland lives in their memories and they talk about their past and native land so vividly that their children grow up feeling exiled from this world that they have never visited and will never see because it is impossible to return to it. Through their parents’ memories, the children internalize this lost world to such an extent that they can imagine streets, houses, and rivers they have not seen. Although the past was destroyed, it still has the power to survive as a fantasy in the minds of immigrants and their children. Fantasy is made much more powerful by being infused with a sense of permanent loss. The very fact that the home country was destroyed by a sudden act of violence (be it World War II, the Chinese Communist Revolution, or the Holocaust in Europe) makes it inaccessible to the children of the immigrants. Immigrants transfer to their children their feelings of being in exile between two cultures. The second generation thus yearns not only to know this lost world, but also to create it anew, to resurrect it. For the survivors, memory is indispensable not only as an act of reminiscence, but also as an act of mourning (Hirsch 1998: 419). Hirsch calls this secondary memory or the memory of the second generation - post-memory. Its power lies in the fact that its connection to the object or source of memory is transmitted not through reminiscence but through imagination and creativity. Post-memory is characteristic of those who grow up hearing the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events they are not able to comprehend completely (Hirsch 1998: 420). Hirsch developed the theory of post-memory to explain the lives of the descendants of Holocaust survivors, but as this article will show, it can be successfully applied to the members of second-generation immigrant families whose childhood has been shaped by memories of the homeland their families belonged to before they immigrated. Although they themselves have not experienced the trauma of dislocation, they still remain in Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 58 the exile of the diaspora. For example, Brave Orchid, the mother of the narrator in The Woman Warrior, teaches her children that China is the central nation and the family’s only point of reference. She perceives living in the United States as transitory and something that has to be endured before going back to China: “Someday, very soon, we’re going home, where there are Han people everywhere. We’ll buy furniture then, real tables and chairs. You children will smell flowers for the first time” (Kingston 1977: 90). However, when the Chinese Communist Revolution makes return to China impossible for the narrator’s parents, the family struggles with the knowledge that they will have to remain in the United States, where they are viewed not as members of the Central Nation, but only as second-rate citizens. The only recourse for the narrator’s parents is to live in their memories of the China they used to know. Kingston’s and Tan’s characters fit Hirsch’s definition of people living in post-memory. Both The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club contain passages of first-generation Chinese American immigrants reminiscing about their native country and trying to pass on their memories to their American descendants, only to realize that this process is impeded by the barriers of the two different languages and cultures they and their children belong to. Another obstacle to the successful transmission of the Chinese culture and language is the illegal status of Chinese immigrants in America. Many immigrants have to be careful what they tell their children, since they do not want their children to inadvertently reveal some family secret at school or to their American circle of friends. As Kingston explains in her novel: Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America. The emigrants confused the gods by diverting their curses, misleading them with crooked streets and false names. They must try to confuse their offspring as well, who, I suppose, threaten them in similar ways - always trying to get things straight, always trying to name the unspeakable. The Chinese I know hide their names; sojourners take new names when their lives change and guard their real names with silence (Kingston 1977: 10). Ho notes that “[t]his is a trickster’s advice for survival in a racist society. Lying, for example, has a long tradition in the political memory of the Chinese living in this country; it stems from America’s history of violence and discrimination against the Chinese” (1999: 122). Tan’s characters also cannot speak about the lives they left in China. For example, Lena St. Clair comments upon her mother’s reluctance to talk about the circumstances that led to her immigration to the United States and the way she left behind her Chinese identity: Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 59 My mother never talked about her life in China, but my father said he saved her from a terrible life there, some tragedy she could not speak about. My father proudly named her in her immigration papers: Betty St. Clair, crossing out her given name of Gu Ying-Ying. And then he put down the wrong birthyear, 1916 instead of 1914. So, with the sweep of a pen, my mother lost her name and became a Dragon instead of a Tiger (Tan 1989: 107). Another character of Tan’s, Lindo Jong, gives a similar description: “It’s hard to keep your Chinese face in America. At the beginning, before I even arrived, I had to hide my true self” (Tan 1989: 294). Since members of the second generation cannot fully understand their parents’ immigrant experience, they have trouble translating it to themselves, which points to a communication gap between the first and second generations. 3. Memory, Post-Memory, and History in The Woman Warrior For the narrator of Kingston’s novel The Woman Warrior, the search for self turns into the search for a home, a place where she can belong and be herself. However, first she has to create a definition of home in order to be able to find it. As it turns out, this is not an easy task for a person born in the US to Chinese immigrant parents. Her mother teaches the narrator and her siblings only directions to her home in China, a place her children have never visited. Consequently, the narrator repeatedly asks herself whether her home is the US, China, or some place in between. As she says: “I could not figure out what was my village” (Kingston 1977: 54). For her, China is not so much a physical space, as it is a construction her parents created to blunt the pain of nostalgia that never ceases to gnaw at them. By tenaciously holding on to their Chinese identity and memories of the country they left behind, they avoid assimilation into American society. Yet, China is the ultimate puzzle for the narrator, which she tries to solve, hoping that that will lead her to some resolution. During childhood, she exists in the realm of post-memory, on the margins of the world her parents have painfully reconstructed in exile. She cannot completely believe the stories her parents tell of China and she cannot dismiss them altogether, since she has no way of checking their veracity. She can only construct her own versions of the stories about a country she has never visited, but in which she grew up. “In the process of articulating her conflicted narratives of self, [the narrator] depicts her ongoing struggles with this polysemic originary myth of a past homeland as part of re-envisioning a more radical politics of memory, identity, culture, and community in the United States” (Ho 1999: 122). Finally, the narrator must convince the reader that her memory is the “true history,” a continuous process ever renewed, a mythology, a folklore, a living, cyclic embrace of the universe that, like the individuals in the village, “depend on one another to maintain the real” (Kemnitz 1991: Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 60 177). Throughout the novel, the narrator maintains this double vision, encountering cultural dualities and contradictions of the communities to which she belongs while she tries to discover what is true and what is false. The narrator’s subjective, modern experience, which Hutcheon calls “ex-centric” (Hutcheon 1988: 60) includes a critical perspective aimed at both the Chinese and American communities. Her position on the margins enables her to expose racism and sexism in disparaging attitudes toward women in Chinese society and the racist attitudes and norms of beauty in the US that prevent her from fitting into American society. By creating layer upon layer of intricate memories, the narrator subverts the notion that there is just one story and one history, and undermines the hegemonic discourse which insists upon the unchangeability of official records. Similar to a palimpsest through which sediments of the original meaning sometimes become visible, Kingston does not try to hide the narrative strategies with which she undermines the dominant text and genre conventions. On the contrary, she carefully establishes an event, only to later refute the narrator’s description of it, which is in keeping with the postmodern tradition of subversion of the factuality of history. Hutcheon suggests that historiographic novels in their overt metafictionality “acknowledge their own constructing, ordering, and selecting processes, but these are always shown to be historically determined facts” (Hutcheon 1992: 92). Beginning with the first chapter, the narrator presents the reader with several versions of the story her mother told her and each new one cancels the previous one, teaching the reader to become wary of the authority of the “original.” Kingston applies the same strategy successively in each chapter. The story of the warrior woman told in the first person is filled with subjunctives and improbable plots, sharply juxtaposing the world of fantasy that belongs to China and the gray reality of American suburban poverty. As she, the narrator, grows up in the US, there are no wise old people, magic birds, and beads from Chinese tales to help her combat racial and sexist prejudice. The episodes about Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid stand in stark opposition to the “true versions” of the same events told by different protagonists. For example, after dedicating a whole chapter to the confrontation between Moon Orchid and her husband, she opens the next chapter with the narrator admitting that she was not present during that event and that she only heard about it from her siblings: “In fact, it wasn’t me my brother told about going to Los Angeles; one of my sisters told me what he’d told her. His version of the story may be better than mine because of its bareness, not twisted into designs” (Kingston 1977: 190). Kingston underlines the trickery of memory as she shows Brave and Moon Orchid reminiscing about the glorious days in China from which they fled nonetheless. The end of the chapter “White Tigers” shows the narrator’s painful realization that she has been living in post-memory, that the China she knows through the stories of her parents, the China they grew up in, the land they considered their true home, no longer exists. It disappeared Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 61 in the chaos of World War II, the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution that followed. The news that the system of values which held the country together has been destroyed renders the narrator’s parents powerless and for the first time she sees them crying. Despite the fact that she realizes that there is no China to return to, the narrator’s mother, even in her old age, longs for this vanished country, comparing it to her life in the United States: Human beings don’t work like this in China. Time goes slower there. Here we have to hurry, feed the hungry children before we’re too old to work. […] I can’t sleep in this country because it doesn’t shut down for the night. Factories, canneries, restaurants - always somebody somewhere working through the night. It never gets done all at once here. Time was different in China. One year lasted as long as my total time here; one evening so long, you could visit your women friends, drink tea, and play cards at each house, and it would still be twilight. It even got boring, nothing to do but fan ourselves. Here midnight comes and the floor’s not swept, the ironing’s not ready, the money’s not made. I would be still young if we lived in China (Kingston 1977: 98). 4. Historiographic Metafiction: Digging up Memory and History Kingston’s and Tan’s archeological project of digging up the memories of their parents and other members of the Chinese immigrant community leads them to discover both the durability and ephemerality of memory. Evoking the lost world of immigrants, they reveal deposits of language, culture, customs, legends, and myths. Their endeavor breathes life into traditions and the people who cultivated them, so that they become alive once again for the readers of their novels. Equally importantly, Kingston and Tan bring into the foreground of their novels memories of women, thus abolishing the silence that was imposed on women, and revealing their suppressed stories. By giving voice to women and immigrants, the motive of their historiographic metafiction becomes obvious: to make visible previously invisible and marginalized groups and to insert their stories into the dominant historical discourse. Their project accordingly contains elements of autobiographical fiction, since it brings out the private and suppressed lives of ex-centric people. As Hutcheon notes: “To elevate ‘private experience to public consciousness’ in postmodern historiographic metafiction is not really to expand the subjective, it is to render inextricable the public and historical and the private and biographical” (Hutcheon 1992: 94). The strategic positioning of the chapters in both novels enables the authors to examine the theme of the reliability of history. The narration oscillates between different versions of the same event, reality and fantasy, Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 62 history and myth. Kingston and Tan undermine the authority of institutionalized history by contrasting it with various stories of immigrants as counter-memory which negates its content (Cheung 1993: 104). Both authors use autobiographic fiction to underline the link between memory and fiction. Oscillations between reality and fantasy, memory, and history in Kingston’s and Tan’s novels reflect the feeling that their characters are constantly translating themselves from English into Chinese, from oral into written discourse, and vice versa. This process of translation reveals two ways of thinking and being. This is most clearly reflected in misunderstandings between mothers and daughters in Kingston’s and Tan’s novels. In their battles of words, mothers and daughters, who are products of two different cultures, speak two different languages and create two different narratives. However, for Kingston’s narrator, the problem of the veracity of memory undermines her attempts to come to a definite answer to her questions about her childhood. When, for example, she tries once and for all to establish whether her mother cut her frenum in order to hurt her and turn her into a silent Chinese girl or to liberate her and make her move easily in any language, she is incapable of ascertaining any definite version of the event. She cannot remember what happened because she was too small and once again she depends on the memory of her mother who does not want to give her any details. She pushed my tongue up and sliced the frenum. Or maybe she snipped it with a pair of nail scissors. I don’t remember her doing it, only her telling me about it, but all during childhood I felt sorry for the baby whose mother waited with scissors or knife in hand for it to cry - and then, when its mouth was wide open like a baby bird’s, cut. […] Sometimes I felt very proud that my mother committed such a powerful act upon me. At other times I was terrified - the first thing my mother did when she saw me was to cut my tongue (Kingston 1977: 146). This deliberate act of non-memory locates the whole event in the realm of fantasy. While she can still check some details with her peers from the Chinese American community, the narrator is at a loss when it comes to her mother’s memories of China. For her, the central problem is not whether the events described really happened, but whether she understands the stories properly, since they are told in Chinese. Dissatisfied, she starts to question the reality of her parents’ stories. In the final confrontation with Brave Orchid, the narrator accuses her parents of telling her lies in order to confuse her. The hesitant concession of her mother who admits that Chinese “like to say the opposite” (Kingston 1977: 237) forces the narrator to question her own interpretations of her parents’ memories and whether what she is writing as her own memories of her childhood and her family life is “truth” or a “lie.” The consequence of the confrontation with Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 63 her mother is the narrator’s growing sense that the truth is relative and this elusiveness becomes the impulse behind her text. 5. Memory and Post-Memory in The Joy Luck Club In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the impulse for narration is similarly framed by autobiographical circumstances. Tan was inspired by her mother’s memories of China and she promised her that she would not forget the stories she had heard (Tan 2003: 109). As with Kingston’s novel, The Joy Luck Club also features layers of the memories of firstand secondgeneration immigrants. The novel opens with the death of Suyan Woo, which serves as a trigger for narration. “To preserve the memories of an individual might not be of a great significance in a nonmigrant context, but for migrants, each death reminds them that there is a danger of memory loss which is equated to the loss of some part of the identity that was brought to this new world” (Lotfi 2014: 145). Suyan’s female friends, who founded The Joy Luck Club with her, are afraid that when they die, their stories and memories will die with them, since their children do not remember anything they have told them. [T]hey see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. […] They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation (Tan 1989: 40-41). The novel centers on storytelling, and consists of 16 stories divided into four cycles of narration: two belonging to the Chinese mothers and two to their American daughters. Each cycle is preceded by a prologue featuring a generic mother and daughter, which shapes the emotional curve of the stories within it. The first prologue sets the framework of the whole novel by portraying an immigrant mother who wants the best for her daughter and raises her to be an American, but when the daughter grows up, the divide between them is so vast that the mother no longer knows how to bridge it and to tell her stories to her daughter. Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English (Tan 1989: 3). Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 64 Both the mothers and daughters in the novel see storytelling as a way to gain a better insight into their lives, to face the past and problems in their relationships. Thus storytelling, as a form of remembering, serves to fill the void and create balance. Each mother and each daughter is searching for her identity, trying to understand the Chinese and American parts of it. According to William Boelhower, memory plays a crucial role in the process of understanding of ethnicity (Boelhower 1987: 87). Through memory, people become connected to the world of their ancestors and perceive themselves as members of an ethnic community and are capable of creating and understanding ethnic discourse. When the parents die, cultural heritage is transferred to their children, but they must be capable of remembering in order to be able to put together the pieces of their heritage. The theme of quest for identity is a leitmotif of each narration in The Joy Luck Club. The daughters need to understand the immigrant past of their parents in order to be able to understand themselves. Therefore, the novel largely consists of two processes: narration and listening. The stories of the firstgeneration immigrants’ past serve as a foundation for the second generation’s cultural identity in the present. The first cycle of stories comprises the mothers’ stories about their childhood in China and the daughters’ stories about their childhood in the US. It is obvious that both the mothers and daughters live with the burden of the past. As Mistri aptly states, it is not so much that they live in the past, as that the past lives in them (Mistri 1998: 255). Each story in the first cycle depicts a crisis that determined the character of the narrator. Suyan Woo’s story about the origins of the Joy Luck Club serves as a background for other stories, since it is marked by the loss of family, home, and language. However, despite the painful legacy of their mothers, the daughters have never taken the stories about China seriously in their reluctance to identify with them. June Woo comments that she grew up listening to some version of a Chinese fairy tale of how her mother escaped Kweilin while Japanese troops advanced during World War II. With the fall of Kweilin, the whole of the southwest Chinese front collapsed. Too exhausted and ill to take care of her two infant daughters, Suyan leaves them by the road. She is transported with other refugees first to Chungking and then to the US and never manages to find her children again. Lindo’s story tells how her family pushed her into an arranged marriage at the age of 12 after it lost everything in a flood. An-mei recounts losing her mother who became a prostitute and had to abandon her family. Ying-Ying describes losing herself and her child in a loveless, arranged marriage in China. Yet, as Ben Xu observes, the members of the club are not guided by mere survival stories. They transmit to their daughters the memories of their victimhood, but from these memories their narration always shifts to the stories about how they surmounted the circumstances that limited them. Thus the mothers transform the very process of remembering into a battle with the past from which they emerge victorious (Xu 1994: 7). They want to pass on to their Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 65 daughters this perception of memory as a source of strength, but in the first part of the novel their daughters are incapable of coming to terms with the memories of their childhood and their mothers’ past. In contrast to their mothers’ stories, the daughters recount growing up in Chinese families in America and grappling with the challenges of assimilation into the dominant culture and society. In these stories, the mother figures are perceived as larger than life. They demand that their daughters be perfect, obedient Chinese girls, but at the same time successful in American society, which turns out to be an impossible task. Once they start school, the daughters become more drawn toward English language and American customs in their desire to blend in. They stop being interested in hearing their mothers’ stories about China and their Chinese stagnates. One of the daughters, Rose Hsu, remarks: “I still listened to my mother, but I also learned how to let her words blow through me. And sometimes I filled my mind with other people’s thoughts - all in English - so that when she looked at me inside out, she would be confused by what she saw” (Tan 1989: 214). The daughters are paralyzed by their painful memories of misunderstandings with their mothers. Especially Lena St. Clair’s story gives an account of growing up with a mother who lives in post-memory. Ying-Ying St. Clair is obsessed with her life in China and everything she lost by moving to the US. Lena feels burdened by her mother’s memories of her ruined marriage which caused her to lose her baby, high class status, and wealth. As she grows older, she stops listening to her mother’s complaints and makes no effort to translate Ying-Ying’s Chinese for her American father who speaks only English. The families live surrounded by silence and unspoken hurts. It is obvious that the memories of Suyan, An-mei, and Ying-Ying negatively affect their daughters. Instead of explaining their background to them and instilling in them a sense of ethnic pride, Suyan’s, An-mei’s, and Ying-Ying’s stories invoke fear in their daughters, which makes it more difficult for them to embrace their double identity as Chinese Americans. June comments that whenever her mother assured her that her Chinese origin would forever be a part of her, she would panic, seeing herself “transforming like a werewolf, a mutant tag of DNA suddenly triggered, replicating itself insidiously into a syndrome, a cluster of telltale Chinese behaviors, all those things my mother did to embarrass me” (Tan 1989: 307). The stories of June, Lena, and Rose are marked by the same imbalance that is apparent in their mother’s stories. They are not satisfied with their life, their careers, houses, and on top of that, Lena and Rose are facing divorces. Lindo and Waverly Jong’s stories stand in marked opposition to this triad of mothers and daughters. Lindo’s memories of her childhood in China start similarly to those of the other members of the Joy Luck Club, but in telling how she managed to extricate herself from an arranged mar- Aleksandra Izgarjan & Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević 66 riage and emigrate to the US, she imparts an important lesson to her daughter that she should not accept unfavorable circumstances but instead strive to overcome them. Her mother’s strategies that she absorbs as a child enable Waverly to become a chess champion and later a successful businesswoman. Her and Lindo’s stories are marked by similar misunderstandings between mother and daughter as are present with the others in the novel, but Lindo and Waverly come across as more balanced than the other characters. As Tan’s narrators provide layers upon layers of memories and narrations of past events that constitute the history of their families and communities, the vision of history as monolithic and unchangeable is replaced by the plurality and temporality of experience. “Existence of multiple layers of truth, by different characters shapes the framework of the novel’s discussion on the notion of discursive quality of memory. Characters of Tan’s story are aware of the fact that recalling is subject to amendment, open to interpretation and mixed with fantasy” (Lotfi 2004: 146). In one poignant moment in the novel, as her mother is telling her the ever-changing story of how she fled the approaching Japanese army, June Woo becomes aware of multiple versions of her mother’s and ultimately her family’s history: It was the story she would always tell me when she was bored, when there was nothing to do […] She would snip the bottom of a sweater and pull out a kinky thread of yarn, anchoring it to a piece of cardboard. And as she began to roll with one sweeping rhythm, she would start her story. Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine. […] I never thought my mother’s Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale. The endings always changed. […] The story always grew and grew (Tan 1989: 243). Until one day June hears a completely different ending to the story. Her mother confesses that while escaping she left her two twin daughters by the road because she was too tired to carry them. After that, there are no more stories. June’s approach reflects her demeaning attitude towards both her mother and the culture she comes from. Just like the narrator in The Woman Warrior, June prefers the Western way of thinking with a clear-cut distinction between reality and fantasy. But when, after her mother’s death, she receives a letter from these long lost half-sisters, June embarks on a journey in search of her identity, embodied in the legacy of her mother that she has to transmit to her half-sisters. Trying to unravel the mysteries of her mother’s past, she encounters the Kweilin story several more times. Every time the narrator changes, the story changes as well. An-mei, Lindo, and Ying-Ying, who knew of Suyan’s guilt and desire to find her daughters, tell June of her mother’s tenacity, motherly love, and hope that she would one day be reunited with her children. In China, she hears from her father Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 67 and his relatives’ painful stories about the war and deprivation after it. She understands that her family’s Chinese past is part of her and that her mother’s legacy continues to live in her just as the members of the Joy Luck Club had told her. The novel’s ending confirms the importance of memory and storytelling, as well as the connection between the first and second generations (Izgarjan 2008: 346). We can see this trend “where the mother’s confessional nature of uncovering secrets […] is related to home and the desire to unite truly with it, in order to gain a true Chinese identity” (Lotfi 2014: 145) in Tan’s subsequent novels as well. 6. Conclusion: The Enduring Power of Memory and History Following on from David Carroll’s insights, Hutcheon notes that “the new and critical ‘return to history’ is one which confronts ‘the conflictual interpenetration of various series, contexts, and grounds constituting any ground or process of grounding. […] it does so by first installing and then critically confronting both that grounding process and those grounds themselves. This is the paradox of the postmodern” (Hutcheon 1992: 92). As we have seen, Kingston and Tan also first establish an event only to later question its veracity by providing different versions or challenging the narrators. Kingston compares such storytelling with an intricate knot whose maker goes blind while making it. This method of complex design of the past points to the basic feature of historiography: the imaginative reconstruction of the process of examination and analysis of the records and survivals of the past. In its focus is “the problem of how we can and do come to have knowledge of the past” (Hutcheon 1992: 92). It is important to note, however, that neither Kingston nor Tan question the existence of the past or whether something happened in the past. Their critical approach to history rather underlines the fact that our perception and understanding of events is unavoidably determined by the present moment and our subjectivity. That is why Kingston’s knot making and Tan’s unraveling of yarn are such apt metaphors for their own methods of reconstituting and reevaluating history and memory. They are inextricably linked to storytelling and fictionality. Kingston and Tan emphasize in their novels that history is a human construct determined by race, ethnicity, and gender as they reveal to the readers blank spaces in institutionalized history. Works Cited Adams, Bella (2005). Amy Tan. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bloom, Harold (2003). Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. 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(1988). “The Woman Warrior: Claiming Narrative Power, Recreating Female Selfhood.” Faith of a Woman Warrior. Ed. Alice Kessler Harris. Greenwood Press. Westport. 293-301. Grice, Helena (2006). Maxine Hong Kingston. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Hamilton, Patricia L. (1999). “Feng Shui, Astrology, and the Five Elements: Traditional Chinese Belief in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” Melus 24 (2). 125-45. Heung, Marina (1993). “Daughter-text/ Mother-text: Matrilineage in Amy Tan’s Joy Luck.” Feminist Studies 19 (3). 596-616. Hirsch, Marianne (1998). “Past Lives: Postmemories in Exile.” Exile and Creativity, Signposts, Travelers, Outsiders, Backward Glances. Ed. Susan Robin Suleiman. Durham: Duke University Press. 418-445. Ho, Wendy (1999). In Her Mother’s House: The Politics of Asian American Mother- Daughter Writing. Oxford: Altamira Press. Hsu, Vivian (1983). “Maxine Hong Kingston as Psycho-Autobiographer and Ethnographer.” International Journal of Women Studies 6 (5). 429-42. Huntley, E.D. (2000). Maxine Hong Kingston: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Hutcheon, Linda (1988). A Poetics of Postmodernism History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge. Hutcheon, Linda (1992). A Poetics of Postmodernism History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge. Izgarjan, Aleksandra (2007). “Language as a means of shaping new cultural identity in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” B.A.S. British and American Studies. 9-18. Izgarjan, Aleksandra (2008). Maksin Hong Kingston i Ejmi Ten: ratnica i šamanka. Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet. Izgarjan, Aleksandra (2017). “Contested Spaces in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and China Men and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” Folia Linguistica et Litteraria: Journal of Language and Literary Studies 15. 109-125. Kemnitz, Charles. (1983). “The Hand of Memory: Forging Personal Narrative.” Genre 16 (2). 175-189. Kingston, Maxine Hong (1977). The Woman Warrior. New York: Vintage Books. Kingston, Maxine Hong (2002). To Be the Poet. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Li, David Leiwei (1998). “The Naming of a Chinese American ‘I’: Cross-Cultural Sign/ ifications in The Woman Warrior.” Criticism XXX (4). 497-515. Lim, Jeehyun (2006). “Cutting the Tongue: Language and the Body in Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Melus 31 (3). 49-65. Lotfi, Naeimeh Tabatabaei (2014). “Scrutinizing the Discursive Nature of ‘Memory’ in Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife & Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature 3 (3). 141-50. Post-Memory and History in The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club 69 Mistri, Zenobia (1998). Discovering the Ethnic Name and the Genealogical Tie in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Studies in Short Fiction 35 (3). 251-8. Myers, Victoria (1986). “Significant Fictivity of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Biography 9 (2). 112-125. Rabinowitz, Paula (1987). “Eccentric Memories: A Conversation with Maxine Hong Kingston.” Michigan Quarterly Review 26. 177-87. Said, Edward (2000). “Immigration, Memory, Place.” Critical Inquiry 26. 175-192. Shen, Gloria (1995). “Born of a Stranger: Mother-Daughter Relationships and Storytelling in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.” International Women’s Writing, New Landscapes of Identity. Anne E. Brown & Marjanne E. Gooze (Eds.). Greenwood Press. Westport. 233-44. Shu, Yuan (2001). “Cultural Politics and Chinese American Female Subjectivity: Rethinking Kingston’s Woman Warrior.” Melus 26 (2). 199-223. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2004). Amy Tan: A Literary Companion. McFarland & Company. Souris, Stephen (1994). “‘Only Two Kinds of Daughters’: Inter-Monologue Dialogicity in The Joy Luck Club.” Melus 19 (2). 99-123. Tan, Amy (1989). The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books. Tan, Amy (2003). Opposite of Fate. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Woo, Deborah (1990). “Maxine Hong Kingston: The Ethnic Writer and the Burden of Dual Authenticity.” Amerasia Journal 16 (I). 173-200. Aleksandra Izgarjan English Department University of Novi Sad Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević English Department University of Montengro Matthew C. Jones University Writing Program University of Florida Overt Unreliability and the Metarepresentational Frame On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration José A. Álvarez-Amorós In this paper, I argue that Henry James’s unreliability in his short fiction shows a recurring peculiarity hitherto undiscussed or, at best, subsumed under the standard approach to this phenomenon. Even when his character-narrators report questionable information at odds with the authorial design as inferred by the reader, they seldom fail to trace such information to their own subjectivities and distinguish it explicitly from authenticated fictional fact. Relying on the metarepresentational capacity of real (and realistic) minds to process information inseparably from its source and aided by key rhetorical notions, I theorize this special kind of unreliability which I call overt, transparent, or selfacknowledged. Then I explore its different manifestations in “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” (1878), “The Aspern Papers” (1888), and “The Way It Came” (1898), three Jamesian tales whose narrators variously manage to keep track of their own minds as the source of their (often unwarranted) representations. On the resulting evidence I conclude that the limits of James’s unreliable narration are narrower and less disruptive than customarily held to be. One third into Henry James’s “The Aspern Papers” (1888), and just as the narrator is gathering data about the arresting oddities of the Bordereau household, he ponders on Miss Tita’s revelations and suspiciously notes AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0009 José A. Álvarez-Amorós 72 that her “story does not hang together” (CS 3: 264) 1 . This paper deals precisely with Jamesian stories that do not seem to hang together, and, more specifically, with the epistemic consequences of deploying narrators who openly admit that they are projecting what could be loosely called their subjectivity onto their reporting, and thereby representing their own mental states (belief, fear, desire, hope, etc.) as if they were the presumed baseline ontology of the fictional storyworld, that is, fictional reality 2 . In what follows, I present a possible approach to the dynamics of unreliability admission based on the metarepresentational ability - a cognitive endowment of the human mind that seems tailor-made for the purpose - and then I suggest how it can be used to probe the limits of James’s unreliable narration in his shorter fiction. 1. Initial assumptions That the names of Wayne C. Booth and Henry James tend to co-occur whenever one revisits the vexed issue of narrative unreliability is, by now, a critical commonplace. Booth identified and first formulated this phenomenon within a rhetorical context, while James employed it in his fiction and came close to theorizing it in rudimentary terms when he famously discussed his reflectors and centres of consciousness as endowed with the right balance of lucidity and bewilderment, of conscience and inconscience. This felicitous combination, he thought, would allow them to preserve the illusion of reality derived from the “general human exposure” (1984: 16) without rendering the story incomprehensible. And yet Jamesian unreliability should not be equated with internal, epistemically limited point of view, even if the line between both is not always sharply defined in the critical literature (e.g. Weinstein 1970: 208) 3 . It is rather a potential 1 References to James’s Complete Stories (1996-1999) will be given in the text as CS indicating volume and page 2 This paper is not on possible-world semantics. However, any reader of Marie-Laure Ryan (1991) and Lubomír Doležel (1998) will recognize approximations to their respective concepts of text actual world (TAW) (Ryan 1991: 24) and factual domain (Doležel 1998: 150) behind my multiple references to baseline fictional ontology, fictional reality, fictional fact(uality), etc. As explained in the text, my view is that the baseline fictional ontology is constructed by the implied author using the whole gamut of narrative resources at his or her disposal (e.g. the narrator’s voice). The information reported by the narrator is processed by readers as true when in agreement with that ontology and as false when opposed to it. 3 Narrative unreliability has been made contingent on a number of factors such as limited point of view, first-person narration, and ethical or psychological flaws in those characters who double as narrators. These kinds of associations have been jocularly called “package deals” by Yacobi (2001). They have empirical, statistical nature at most, she argues, and cannot be taken as universal conditions for unreliability to occur. In fact, she discusses several counter-examples in her paper (2001: 225-28). Here I will stick to Jamesian first-person unreliability to avoid the discussion of yet another On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 73 consequence of the radicalization of internal point of view and the concurrent want of authoritative commentary, plus the necessary development of discrepancies between what narrators actually say and what they honestly think they say. In James’s narrative practice, internal, uncorrected point of view insensibly slides into unreliability when pushed to the limit, thus suggesting that the former is a first step, an indispensable though by no means a sufficient condition for the latter. If discrepancies fail to occur, circumscribed point of view and unreliability remain distinct compositional resources within the narrative text. 1.1. The two faces of narrative unreliability Unreliability comes in two main varieties - rhetorical and cognitive. It first emerged as a rhetorical device from the pages of Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction in 1961, and was later revised and considerably enriched by James Phelan on equally rhetorical grounds (e.g. Phelan & Martin 1999, Phelan 2005, Phelan 2007, Phelan 2017). Nowadays, and despite countless tweaks and updates, it is still considered the standard approach. For Booth, an unreliable narrator is one who departs from “the norms of the work (which is to say, the implied author’s norms)” (1961/ 1983: 158), and produces a text that has a surplus of meaning for the reader which the narrator is hardly aware of. In consequence, the three main participants in the narrative communication are not perfectly aligned, the narrator being out of the loop and ironically displaced. What matters in this model is the intervening distance between the implied author and the unwary narrator as perceived by the reader. This formula is utterly reversed in the cognitive approach. For theorists such as Ansgar Nünning (1979, 2008) and Tamar Yacobi (2000, 2005), the implied author is a superfluous entity which Occam’s razor should take care of. In their view, when readers encounter disturbing incongruities between what the text denotes and their own internalized norms, cognitive schemata, and general foreknowledge (for instance, when the act of breaking into an old woman’s rooms to steal a bundle of letters of her property and almost shocking her to death in the process is simply reported as “this last indiscretion” or “these irregularities” [CS 3: 301, 304] by the narrator of “The Aspern Papers”), they tend to naturalize such incongruities by positing an unreliable narrator, “a mere integrative hermeneutic device” (Nünning 2008: 87), on which to hang the blame for the said lack of fit. Since the emphasis falls on the reader and his or her interaction with the text, the implied author becomes a dispensable figure, and the distance which counts now is that between the narrator and the reader. theoretical point. But James’s “The Liar” (1888), for instance, is ample proof that unreliability and third-person narratives are all but compatible. José A. Álvarez-Amorós 74 1.2. Unreliability and the metarepresentational frame Cutting across these two allegedly incompatible models of unreliability (Sternberg & Yacobi 2015: 335), a third one was proposed by Lisa Zunshine in 2006 4 . Unreliability, for her, is a function of the human - and humanlike - capacity to process situated information, that is to say, information closely linked to the circumstances in which it was obtained, whether place, time, or, especially, provenance. Such capacity to store in memory representations of physical or mental states of affairs along with the details of their acquisition is often called metarepresentational ability in the specialized literature on cognitive evolutionary psychology (e.g. Cosmides and Tooby 2000: 59-61, 69-71, 75, 79). Those in possession of it, whether flesh-and-blood individuals or their fictional replicas, enjoy a highly efficient protection mechanism which enables them to monitor the sources of contingent information, assess its truth potential according to the trustworthiness of such sources, and handle it with due precaution so that, if proved false, it will not damage wholesome information mentally stored or encourage unwarranted actions. Confronted with a statement such as “Drastic home lockdown will be enforced as from today”, any individual with normal metarepresentational abilities will most likely process it with an unmistakable source tag, and gauge its truth value differently if it comes from a government agency or from the next-door neighbour. Given the complexity and indirection of the fictional genre, the metarepresentational ability is vital for readers to make sense of narrative texts by tracking at all times who said what, who thought what, and, ultimately, who must answer for the truth value of a piece of information. Consider in this regard two contrasting cases. If emulating Don Quixote himself, and paying no heed to a whole set of explicit textual pointers, a reader of Cervantes’ novel proved unable to trace the existence of the giants to its proper source - the knight’s runaway fancy - he or she would perform a faulty reading of the episode and even risk the comprehension of the entire work. Responsibility for the misreading would lie in this case with the reader’s metarepresentational ability which could have malfunctioned for a variety of permanent or transitory reasons. On the contrary, if a standard metarepresentation such as “I thought she had turned a little pale” (CS 4: 616), to be found in James’s story “The Way It Came” (1898), composed by an unambiguous source tag (“I thought”) and an element of content (“she had turned a little pale”), got speciously reported in the text as “She had turned a little pale” tout court, all sorts of uncanny things would start to happen, as, for instance, that a state of mind - the speaker’s thought - might pass for a fictional fact, thus interfering with the reader’s capacity to ascribe truth values to different kinds of information and reconstruct a 4 See Marsh (2018: especially 1336-38) for a recent application of the metarepresentational frame to the analysis of standard unreliability. On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 75 consistent account of the storyworld. Misreading here would be induced by textual design. Instead of this partially fabricated example, consider now the similar case of Boffer Bings, the much-instanced unreliable narrator of Ambrose Bierce’s “Oil of Dog” (1890). He describes his mother, a murderess of unwanted children, and his father, a manufacturer of dog oil whose raw material are stolen dogs, as “honest parents” (1979: 800), and the nearby river into which he is instructed to throw “the débris of her work” (1979: 800) as “thoughtfully provided [by nature] for the purpose” (1979: 801). The clash of Boffer’s account with what readers infer the implied Bierce would actually endorse is so obvious - this tale being a fairly bold case of unreliability - that they can hardly accept a baseline ontology constructed on such outrageous principles. Rather, they tend to attribute every reported aberration to the problematic subjectivity of a teller who has lost track of himself as the origin of his own representations and has consequently omitted from the narrative text all verbal clues pointing to that origin. (Compare “I was born of honest parents” [1979: 800] with, for example, “I was born of honest parents, or so they seemed to me at that time”.) To all practical effects, Boffer perceives his states of mind as fact and, what is ethically worse, acts on this perception. Authoritative narrators are generally cooperative and, when appropriate, tag information correctly; what we call unreliable narrators, however, make more or less sporadic mistakes in that respect. They often ignore they are reporting their beliefs, fears, or desires in lieu of established facts, and hence they misleadingly drop essential source indicators. This tampers with the phenomenological status of unreliability, since the improper - and deceptive - omission of source tags turns metarepresentations into elliptical metarepresentations (Recanati 2000: 74-75), but not into actual representations. A conception of (un)reliability based on degrees of success or failure of the narrator’s metarepresentational skills forms, to my mind, an ideal theoretical template to discuss the trustworthiness of those narrators, like James’s, who often substitute their mental states for fictional facts, but can still keep track of their responsibility in the substitution by expressing qualms about the provenance and truth value of the information they relay. Carried out either by readers in the process of extracting meaning from a fictional text or by narrators as they come to grips with their material, source tagging is not a binary procedure with static, irreversible results. Information can be stored with varying degrees of precaution, and these can alter as the narrative develops. Take a piece of intelligence such as the existence of the Aspern papers in James’s namesake tale. Most readers and critics will store it in memory with no source tag, that is, as an absolute certainty which can unrestrictedly condition the comprehension of the text. Other readers, however, in view of how peculiarly James introduced and sustained this issue in the tale, will opt for processing it with a weak, hesitant tag pointing to the narrator’s subjectivity; they will still use it as a José A. Álvarez-Amorós 76 basis to infer the meaning of the tale, but will keep it cautiously decoupled from more factual facts such as the existence of the Bordereau women or of Venice itself. Finally, a small number of readers will assimilate it with a screaming tag pointing to the narrator’s fancy and will surround it with an impregnable cordon sanitaire to prevent it from insidiously determining the interpretation of the tale. Jacob Korg, for one, produced in 1962 a reading of “The Aspern Papers” in which the papers themselves only exist in the narrator’s mind, and other critics have often expressed similar doubts (Falconer 1987: 1, Rivkin 1989: 136, Snyder 2004: 135). The intensity of these tags, moreover, is not permanent. It can fluctuate with the informational progression of a narrative and form its metarepresentational dynamics. The default attitude is to accept the narrator’s version and process it without source tags or very weak and general ones at most. But inconsistencies between this version and the norms presumably sponsored by the implied author, or simply the emergence of new, relevant information, will alert our metarepresentational instinct and make us retroactively revise the allocation and intensity of tags and often the global meaning of a narrative, especially when unreliable narrators tend to be introduced as fairly reliable ones whose fallibility only transpires as the story moves forward. And yet this constant revision of the metarepresentational frame of information, integral to any reading of (fictional) narrative, may only achieve partial success. There will often be vital pieces of information recalcitrant to stable, rational tagging, such as the presence of the supernatural in “The Way It Came” or “The Turn of the Screw” (1898), but not, for instance, in “Sir Edmund Orme” (1891). This may result in strong metarepresentational ambiguity, and, contingent on the reader’s disposition, in large, rewarding doses of aporetical pleasure. 2. Jamesian overt unreliability and the dissociation of the teller and the told Framed by the foregoing assumptions, my position in this paper is that James’s narrators mostly tag the information they pass on in correct and cooperative fashion. On the whole, they manage to keep track of themselves as the sources of their representations, and are often aware that what they report may be traced back to their own subjectivities, whether it agrees or not - speaking in rhetorical terms - with what the implied James would say if he had a voice like that of a narrator. This means that his tellers often incur a more attenuated, reader-friendly kind of unreliability, or, in other words, that the gap between what they report and what they think they report is narrower and more easily bridged than in less conscientious narrators. To put the case in these terms, however, has significant consequences as it leads to the dissociation of the teller and the told in the specific area On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 77 of narrative unreliability. This results in a hitherto unexplored duality between reliable/ unreliable reporter and true/ false information whose members do not implicate each other by necessity and can be decoupled and independently discussed 5 . In fact, a simple typology could be built by combining the reporter and information options separately placed on two axes. Reporters diversify according to their trustworthiness, which is, after all, a pragmatic notion, and, for the purposes of this paper, a function of their capacity to sense and verbalize the difference between imaginary states of affairs and the domain of fictional fact by attaching appropriate tags to the former, i.e. by metarepresenting them. In other words, I hold that the tendency to show open concern for the origin of reported content is a basic symptom of reliability. Information, for its part, is more properly depicted as true or false - rather than as reliable or unreliable - which, in a context of rhetorical theory, primarily means aligned or misaligned with the implied author’s project, and so either true or false within the world modelled on that project. In consequence, an unreliable narrator is one who believes to be telling the truth even if he or she is not, and acts in the casual, matter-of-fact way of someone who has no qualms about the content of his or her utterances. A false piece of information, however, is one which conflicts with the implied author’s norms as apprehended by the reader. Boffer Bings communicates as fact his conviction that nature has thoughtfully placed a river close to his mother’s studio to facilitate his task; but readers rightly infer that the proposition “Nature thoughtfully provided a river to facilitate Boffer’s task” is false with reference to the implied Bierce’s ethics and general worldview. Conversely, Jamesian narrators of the kind under discussion here can be reliable and cooperative, can warn readers that they may be voicing mental states rather than fictional facts by metarepresenting them correctly, and supplying textual clues to this effect particularly when the information provided is hardly endorsed by the implied author. Put another way, that a piece of information is appropriately tagged does not mean it is true; it rather means that the narrator is reliable or, at least, that he or she has taken significant steps towards reliability. 3. Information and source tagging - a tentative typology Though its value is purely heuristic and it has no pretensions to any systematic treatment of narrative (un)reliability, the typology suggested 5 Köppe and Kindt provide the only glancing reference to this issue I have been able to find: “What is more, the relationship between the unreliability of an informant and the unreliability of his information is rather complex” (2011: 87). José A. Álvarez-Amorós 78 above may still have some illustrative potential 6 . It is based (a) on two kinds of information, and (b) on the attachment of source tags to each in order to indicate their factuality within the narrator’s mind. Information can be true or false, that is, it can concur or not with the implied author’s design for a story as inferred by the reader; and it can be processed and reported by narrators either as source-free, unconditional fact, or as sourcebound content explicitly contingent on their subjectivities. Ideally, four distinct types result from this intersection, but there are subtle branchings and nuances that call for brief commentary. 3.1. Cases of authorially endorsed information In any narrative, there is a large amount of external, presumably objective information which does not trigger any metarepresentational unrest and is assimilated as established truth in need of no precautionary tag. Such is the case with the existence of Mrs. Prest or the Venetian statue of Bartolommeo Colleone in “The Aspern Papers”, Corvick’s death in “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896), the weekend at Newmarch in The Sacred Fount (1901), and so on. Few readers would wonder at the absence of protective source tags qualifying the certainty of these elements within their respective storyworlds. But in James, as in any other novelist of consciousness, there is also a substantial volume of information about mind which does not challenge the norms of the work and also enjoys factual status. While conversing with Miss Tita, the acquisitive narrator of “The Aspern Papers” describes himself as “not having her rectitude” and as “the reporter of a newspaper who forces his way into a house of mourning” (CS 3: 280). These propositions express self-incriminating content which both the implied James and his readers would subscribe to in view of what happens in the story. We sense the teller is correctly diagnosing his ethical deficit. We read them as wholly factual, and so we do not process them as conveying source-contingent information. Pressing the analogy a little, one could even say that the city of Venice and the narrator’s lack of rectitude have the same ontological status within the fictional universe of “The Aspern Papers”. And yet nothing prevents a narrator from reporting as explicitly sourcebound content a piece of information which, true in his or her mind, is also signalled as true by the implied James. Two instances can illustrate this type. “Then I guessed”, says the narrator, “that nocturnal prowlings were not in the least her [Miss Tita’s] habit” (CS 3: 261). Given her meek character and the overwhelming control Juliana Bordereau exercises over the 6 Evidence of the limitations of this typology is that it employs binary categories when a continuum would reflect the nature of unreliability in more precise terms. For example, appropriate tagging as a criterion for a speaker’s reliability is not a binary phenomenon, but rather admits of degrees and intensities as previously argued. On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 79 whole range of her life, the narrator’s comment feels wholly factual (“Nocturnal prowlings were not in the least her habit” would be a perfectly equivalent alternative in information-processing terms). But he chooses to bind the content to his subjectivity - i.e. to metarepresent it - and this is verbally indicated by the source tag “Then I guessed”. Similarly, after the narrator of “The Figure in the Carpet” has vented his irritation at the pleasure Corvick and Gwendolen find in pursuing Vereker’s secret, he traces back his annoyance to his own mind, admits that his words look “unamiable”, and confesses that “what probably happened was that [he] felt humiliated at seeing other persons derive a daily joy from an experiment that brought [him] only chagrin” (CS 4: 587). Here again the narrator’s mental reconstruction of his own motives seems to agree with the authorial plan for the story. In all these cases, and regardless of the tagging strategy implemented in the text, James’s tellers handle information we deem well aligned with the implied author’s norms and thus endowed with factual status. By a wide consensus, the types of reporting just noted, whether tagged or not, are held to be reliable. 3.2. Cases of authorially disowned information: standard vs. overt unreliability When this default situation is reversed, it yields two further possibilities based on the telling of information which appears to be incompatible with the general drift of the work. Let us consider the following passages from “The Aspern Papers”. They relate to the situation created by Miss Tita’s alleged offer of her hand to the narrator as a condition for him to obtain the coveted documents: My gondolier, behind me, must have seen my ears red as I wondered, sitting there under the fluttering tenda, with my hidden face, noticing nothing as we passed - wondered whether her delusion, her infatuation had been my own reckless work. Did she think I had made love to her, even to get the papers? I had not, I had not; I repeated that over to myself for an hour, for two hours, till I was wearied if not convinced. (CS 3: 315, my emphasis) But I had not given her cause - distinctly I had not. I had said to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her; but it had been a joke without consequences and I had never said it to Tita Bordereau. (CS 3: 316) Both fragments belong to the same episode and both deal with the narrator’s befuddled reaction to Miss Tita’s offer. But they are not, I think, identical takes on the state of affairs in hand. They report questionable, if not downright false, information to the effect that the narrator had never made love to Miss Tita, a proposition amply refuted by his general behaviour which, by authorial design, accords fairly well with conventional courtship José A. Álvarez-Amorós 80 (e.g. sending her flowers every day, taking her out on his gondola, treating her to ice-creams at Florian’s in Piazza San Marco, dazzling her with his conversation, allusions to Romeo and Juliet, and what not). But while the second fragment presents this unwarranted information as fictional fact, without the least awareness on the teller’s part that he may be reporting a case of wishful thinking, the first one explicitly shows that he has not lost track of himself as the source of his representations and excruciatingly doubts if his alleged restraint counts as true in the baseline ontology of the storyworld or is just a comforting, unrealized desire. These two quotations turn on the narrator’s ability to perceive and express the difference between the world of fictional fact and that of imagination. When such ability fails for a number of reasons, we have standard cases of unreliable telling. Take, for instance, the “scruple[s]” the narrator of “The Aspern Papers” ostensibly attributes to himself four times in the story (CS 3: 251, 266, 290, 305), or his statement that it “would be brutal” to take Frech leave of Miss Tita, as his “idea was still to exclude brutal solutions” (CS 3: 317). In view of his grossly unethical conduct, which includes raiding Juliana’s rooms, both his “scruple[s]” and his professed intention to avoid “brutal solutions” clearly infringe the norms of the work and can hardly exist anywhere but in his mind. Similarly, the narrators of “The Figure in the Carpet” (1897) and “The Way it Came” make trenchant statements that seem out of step with the signals the reader receives from the implied James. One boasts his capacity for fine discernment - as in “waves that promised, I could perfectly judge, to break in the end with the fury of my own highest tides” (CS 4: 608, my emphasis) - which contradicts his customary obtuseness and is reported as deceptively factual; the other makes the unqualified claim that the effective occurrence of the contentious post-mortem interview featured in the tale “was simply a question of evidence” (CS 4: 626), which, of course, it wasn’t. This type of standard unreliability based on instances of covert onelevel mental embedment whereby a state of mind (“[I thought, felt, imagined, etc.] I had scruples about going back”) is reported as fact (“I had scruples about going back” [CS 3: 305]) coexists with more complex cases of covert two-level mental embedment formed by reports of states of mind which are actually reports of states of mind about further states of mind. This usually happens when a narrator forces minds on other characters to fit his or her own aims and preconceptions, and yet makes them pass for authoritative, factual descriptions by removing the primary tag which points to his or her subjectivity. In “A Light Man” (1869), for instance, the narrator says, “Theodore likes him [Mr. Sloane] - or rather wants to like him; but he can’t reconcile it to his self-respect […] to like a fool” (CS 1: 416). That the narrator’s friend Theodore likes Mr. Sloane is perfectly in line with the progression of plot and character in this tale, but the second part of the sentence - as from “or rather wants to like him” - is a groundless statement that betrays the narrator’s frame of mind rather than his friend’s; On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 81 so restoring the missing tag (e.g. “I think”, “in my view”, etc.) seems consistent with the overall thrust of the story. Planting groundless thoughts in other characters’ minds without due narratorial acknowledgement is an occasional source of local pockets of unreliability in Jamesian narrative practice from his earliest experiments to his mature handling of the technique in the late 1880s and 1890s 7 . Standard unreliability, however, gives way to a more transparent variety illustrated by the first passage about Miss Tita’s offer quoted above. The teller’s incapacity to metarepresent his own mental states correctly is replaced here by some form of explicit awareness that what he communicates is an imaginary construction rather than factual information. Flaunting qualms about the origin of a piece of intelligence, and hence about its factual status, does not seem to promote unreliability; instead, it contributes to its deactivation, or, at least, to controlling its disruptive potential. That Holden Caulfield often admits to lying does not make him more unreliable. It rather allows the reader to process his narrative with extra metarepresentational precautions. It would be much more damaging if he lied and had no inkling of it. Likewise, the fact that the narrator of James’s “The Figure in the Carpet” confesses that he “was shut up in [his] obsession forever” (CS 4: 604) does not render him unreliable, as Kellum suggests (1976: 106). At any rate, what could provoke unreliability is his mild mental disorder, not its open recognition, especially when such recognition involves an accurate feat of introspection and closely corresponds with the signals readers get from the implied author. In sum, when the governess of “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) voices her heart-rending self-doubts - “for if [Miles] were innocent what then on earth was I? ” (CS 4: 739) - she is partially moving towards reliability by showing she is not wholly oblivious that vital representations of fictional reality may originate in her mind, at least in one reading of the novella. Overt, self-acknowledged unreliability has, in my view, bonding effects quite similar to those described by Phelan in his 2007 analysis of the ethics of Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), and first suggested by Booth in relation to Tristram Shandy (1759-67) (1961/ 1983: 230-32, 240). In rhetorical terms, standard unreliability results from the growing distance between the narrator and the alignment formed by the implied author and the implied reader. Paradoxically, however, some of the perceived discrepancies that 7 For additional illustration see “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” (1879): “he wondered who I was and what I wanted, and he did me the honour to perceive that, as regards these points, my appearance was reassuring” (CS 2: 457); “The Aspern Papers”: “At this a singular look came into the face of Miss Bordereau’s niece - a kind of confession of helplessness, an appeal to me to deal fairly, generously with her” (CS 3: 279); “The Figure in the Carpet”: “Of course, he knew; otherwise he wouldn’t return my stare so queerly” (CS 4: 601); “The Way It Came”: “He gave a loud sound of derision; but it was not a genuine one” (CS 4: 633) (my emphasis in all cases.) José A. Álvarez-Amorós 82 make narrators unreliable also invite readers to bond with them, generating six subtypes of bonding unreliability identified and discussed by Phelan in his study (2007: 225-32). It seems to me that the cognitive effort of keeping track of oneself as the source of one’s own representations even in distressing circumstances tends to enlist the reader’s sympathetic trust in much the same way. In 1981 Brian McHale asserted that the “history of our poetics of prose is essentially a history of successive differentiations of types of discourse from the undifferentiated ‘block’ of narrative prose” (1981: 185), a dictum that has been approvingly echoed by later narratologists (e.g. Palmer 2004: 7). In this section I have attempted to implement McHale’s insight in the specific area of (un)reliable narrative discourse. By “successive differentiations” based on criteria such as the types of information and the narratorial source-tagging activity, I have arrived at the kind of unreliability that forms the speculative core of this paper, that is, overt unreliability as the blend of questionable information and the narrator’s more or less keen awareness of its counterfactuality. The next step is, of course, to investigate how James deployed this variety of unreliable discourse in his short fiction. 4. Varieties and emphases of overt unreliability in James’s tales It is just obvious that James did not invent unreliable narration. Although we still lack a detailed account of the emergence of this narrative resource in Western literature, it seems to have been deployed, with ups and downs, since modern realistic fiction took centre stage in the late eighteenth century (Zerweck 2001: 159). And yet James’s oeuvre, which is itself a microcosm of the transition between nineteenth-century realism and the experimental writing leading to modernist narrative, is also indicative of the evolution of unreliability at a strategic point in the history of the genre. James’s unreliable narration follows an arguable trajectory from blunt obviousness to subtle complication. His earliest attempts in “A Light Man” or “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” (1879), where the double vision at the root of this technique becomes a conspicuous, so-what cliché, were gradually superseded by the elusive uncertainties of “The Figure in the Carpet”, “The Way It Came”, or “The Turn of the Screw”. This trajectory, however, is not smoothly homogeneous, but rather comprised of two segments which join at about 1888, the year of publication of “The Aspern Papers” and “The Liar”, its heterodiegetic counterpart. Unreliability in the first of these segments is what Booth would call a stable ironic form “in the sense that once a reconstruction of meaning has been made, the reader is not then invited to undermine it with further demolitions and reconstructions” (1975: 6). Despite the progressive refinement that typifies the passage from “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” to “The Aspern Papers”, the ironic treatment of their narrators, once properly detected, supports a single, abiding interpretation. On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 83 In sharp contrast, “The Turn of the Screw” epitomizes the second segment. As is well known, it encodes an ironic view of the governess-narrator in unresolved coexistence with a straight reading of her plight. In metarepresentational terms, those unreliable stories based on stable irony contain a number of propositions denoting misaligned information whose source tags can be rationally, and perhaps even consensually, restored by readers. For this to happen, however, a consistent authorial design must show behind the narrator’s utterances so that elliptical metarepresentations can be identified and processed. When the signals sent by the implied author to his audience do not cohere - e.g. ghosts are both epistemic and ontological - then interpretation - e.g. ghosts are either epistemic or ontological - must inevitably precede any attempt at rationally restoring source tags. But interpretation entails choice, and choice has proved an almost impossible task in some of James’s late nineteenth-century short fictions. Understood as the reporting of a mental state plus some form of explicit awareness that it is a mental state, overt unreliability is not limited to a specific phase of James’s storytelling. Tales from three different decades display phenomena that can be viewed as aspects and modulations of this type of unreliability - as well as so many keys to its nature and functionality. Self-doubt in “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” erupts in a kind of coda that prompts readers to append source tags retroactively to pieces of intelligence such as the alleged factual analogy between the narrator and his young confrère, on the one hand, and between the Countess Salvi and her daughter, on the other. In “The Aspern Papers”, for its part, the narrator parades his own subjectivity as the origin of his representations at least in three ways: first, by standard propositional tagging (e.g. “It seemed to me” [CS 3: 253], “I sat spinning theories” [CS 3: 257]); second, by textual resources that go beyond the sentential boundary; third, and very especially, by a deluge of defactualizers and conjectural pointers - “as if” recurring no fewer than 89 times - which operate as impersonal, condensed metarepresentations referring intelligence to an unspecified source and hence preventing its confusion with hard fictional fact. Finally, “The Way It Came”, a notable instance of James’s conflicted unreliability, merits attention for the frequent intertwining in it of the telling and the experiencing selves, that is, of the narrator and the character as the two existentially linked components of a first-person narrative situation. Considering the visibility of both, a set of important questions beg themselves - who introduces the awareness that a state of mind might be just a state of mind? is it the narrator, the character, both, none? who progresses towards reliability by properly distinguishing fact from fancy? how does the (dis)agreement between these two figures generate the ambivalence of this story? Any attempt to answer these questions, as well as others raised by “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” and “The Aspern Papers”, calls for a closer look at these three stories. José A. Álvarez-Amorós 84 “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” is a tale of warped remembrance. It consists of eighteen diary entries of dissimilar length wherein the diarist-narrator, an aging English soldier, relates his return to Florence twenty-seven years later, revisits his past in the light of his present experience, and strives to prevent young Edmund Stanmer from committing “an act of thumping folly” (CS 2: 454) which he claims to have avoided, at great emotional expense, when he first came to the Tuscan city. On December 12, 1878, James entered in his notebooks a synopsis for this narrative which closely informs the narrator’s version of the events up to its denouement. At this point, synopsis and tale diverge fundamentally. James’s notes conclude with the narrator’s triumph - convinced that Stanmer is going to make a life-long mistake by marrying a countess’s daughter, whose mother he himself loved but renounced in self-protection, he “determines to warn him and [Stanmer] opens his eyes” (James 1987: 9). The tale, however, closes with three entries in which we know of Stanmer’s eventual marriage, of his immense happiness three years later, and, finally, of the narrator’s painful doubts as to whether his actual mistake might not have been to forsake an extraordinary woman for unfounded reasons. As often with James, a set of unconditional, source-free facts in the notebooks become contingent in the tale on a specific subjectivity - in particular that of the first-person narrator - and are thus destabilized and rendered problematic. This is especially so, moreover, when the implied author curtails the narrator’s capacity to discriminate between fictional fact and imaginary construction, and he or she is reduced to reporting the latter as if it were the former creating, as we know, the standard conditions for narrative unreliability. The central piece of information on which “Diary” hinges as an unreliable narrative act is a presumed analogy. This likens it to a much later Jamesian novella, The Sacred Fount, whose basic - and permanent - gap is the truth value of an analogy established by the narrator between what he deems two parallel vampiric processes obtaining between two pairs of characters. In “Diary” the analogy also involves four characters and two temporal planes. Twenty-seven years ago, the narrator had a romance with now deceased Countess Salvi which he allegedly discontinued lest he should be exposed to disastrous consequences given her inconstant, coquettish nature. Now, as he revisits Florence, he meets Stanmer who is in love with Countess Salvi’s daughter. Persuaded that the youth is a replica of his earlier self and that the ethical flaws he attributed to Countess Salvi are also her daughter’s, he schemes hard to draw him away from her. In James’s notebook entry the analogy is presented as fact - he witnesses “a certain situation of his own youth reproduced before his eyes”, “[t]hat episode of his youth comes back to him with peculiar vividness”, “the daughter is a strange, interesting reproduction of the mother”, the “mother had been a dangerous woman […] an unscrupulous charmer”, “her daughter […] strongly resembles her,” “[s]he is a beautiful dangerous coquette”, On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 85 he sees in the young man “the image of his own early innocence”, and so on (James 1987: 8-9). But much as the notebooks support the factual nature of the analogy, the implied James signals against it in the tale. Artistic execution seems to have dissolved its factuality and turned it into a mental state, a mere imaginary construction on the narrator’s part. The issue, of course, is to determine if he is aware of reporting information sourced from his own mind, that is, if his metarepresentational ability is correctly in place or has been disturbed by a sense of loss and regret, possibly compounded by misogyny, jealousy, or, in Bradley’s view (2000: 69-74), by a latent homosexual feeling for Stanmer concealed under an ostensibly heterosexual plot. For most of the tale the narrator remains unconscious that the analogy is a product of his mind. He often wields it as a magic wand to argue his point with Stanmer and Countess Salvi’s daughter, as when the young man protests that she never lied, and the narrator, instead of offering evidence to the contrary, only exclaims, “That’s just what I would have said to any one who should have made the insinuation” (CS 2: 477; see also CS 2: 460, 464, 466). Initially unwary, the reader soon feels drawn into processing the narrator’s countless analogic assertions with growing caution - first, because the analogy obsessively recurs to the point of becoming his only mode of argument; second, because his ascription of mental states to his fictional peers is often conditioned by its terms and speciously directed to strengthen it; third, because it is challenged from within the storyworld by Stanmer himself when he charges the narrator with “‘overdo[ing] the analogy’” (CS 2: 469) and highlights the disparity between his conduct and his words (CS 2: 475), and by Countess Salvi’s daughter when she denies any resemblance between the narrator and his young protégé (“‘And yet you don’t look at all like him! ’” [CS 2: 473]); and fourth, because the narrator himself, as he slowly progresses to his final anagnorisis, admits to shortcomings (e.g. confusion [CS 2: 460] and inconsistency [CS 2: 474]) which, in themselves, do not constitute unreliability, but may stand in a causal relation to it. Of special interest is the ad hoc construction of Stanmer’s mind to satisfy the preconditions of the analogy. “‘You are in love with her, and yet you can’t make her out’”, states the narrator, and promptly adds, “‘that’s just where I was with regard to Madame de Salvi” (CS 2: 468). This can be read as two mutually supporting assertions - “you can’t make her out” and “that’s just where I was” - each based on nothing except on the narrator’s commitment to his fixed idea. The same pattern holds when the narrator, after telling Stanmer that the two women “‘are mother and daughter - they are as like as two of Andrea’s Madonnas”, constructs a mind for the young man ad libitum just to make it match his own, “‘Your state of mind brings back my own so completely … You admire her, you adore her, and yet, secretly, you mistrust her’” (CS 2: 469; my emphasis). The narrator’s early “[h]appiness mitigated by impertinent conjectures” (CS 2: 454) undergoes a sea change in the closing part of “Diary”. Stanmer’s José A. Álvarez-Amorós 86 blissful marriage and the sedate admonition “Depend upon it, you were wrong! … Was it not rather a mistake? ” (CS 2: 484) he addresses to the narrator deactivates the last remnants of the analogy for the reader and undermines the former’s conviction about its factuality. Dithering source tags appended to the analogy and signalling its origin in the narrator’s mind are retroactively validated, and his insistent doubting reveals a new awareness of his epistemic role in the representation of the Salvi affair. But we can still delve somewhat deeper. The analogy is twofold and equates the narrator to Stanmer and the countess to her daughter. The first equation proves to be false - Stanmer is not a reflection of the narrator’s younger self. For one, he follows his instinct in the face of overwhelming pressure and marries his lover, whereas the narrator’s circumspection led him to back out to protect his mental welfare. The second equation, however, remains undecidable, and it is precisely this informational gap which provokes the narrator’s uncertainties and our cognitive reprocessing of the whole tale. If the equation holds, he misrepresented the mother and made the mistake of his life. This is as far as he goes in his brooding. But we can still go further - if it is false, he might have been right or wrong in his past decision, but all his analogic reasoning since he met Stanmer, his rather bullying advice to him, and his mildly offensive attitude to his lover turn out to be baseless and severely misplaced. Either way, however, and at the eleventh hour, the narrator manages to show some evidence that he can keep track of himself as the source of his representations, and the implied James wholly ensures that his true role in this petty Florentine drama is not lost upon the reader. What I have been calling overt, transparent, or self-acknowledged unreliable narration can be observed under a different lens in “The Aspern Papers”, often held as the apex of James’s unreliability as a stable ironic form. The operation of the metarepresentational skill in fictional characters, whether narrators or not, leaves behind verbal traces which I have termed (source) tags following Zunshine’s lead in her book Why We Read Fiction (2006). Consider these four texts taken from “The Aspern Papers”: […] though her [Miss Tita’s] face was in deep shadow […] I thought I saw her smile ingenuously. (CS 3: 297; my emphasis) I was surprised at […] her [Miss Bordereau] having the energy, in her state of health and at her time of life, to wish to sport with me that way simply for her private entertainment - the humor to test me and practice on me. This, at least, was the interpretation that I put upon her production of the portrait […] (CS 3: 288; my emphasis) She became silent, as if she were thinking with a secret sadness of opportunities, forever lost […] (CS 3: 278; my emphasis) I did not know what to do, as I say, but at a venture I made a wild, vague movement in consequence of which I found myself at the door. (CS 3: 315) On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 87 The first three are successful metarepresentational operations effected by the narrative agent in the sense that content in them is explicitly processed as coming from his subjetivity, and should not be confused by readers with the baseline ontology of the storyworld. The last one, by contrast, is an elliptical metarepresentation and makes a fine instance of standard unreliability for the two usual reasons - the information provided is discredited by the authorial design, and yet no tag indicates the narrator’s awareness that what he says may only be true in his mind. This passage occurs just after Miss Tita has offered herself in marriage to the narrator in exchange for the Aspern papers. When he realizes the full meaning of her proposal, he feels a kind of trap has been laid for him and only thinks of escaping. So finding himself “at the door” can hardly be the result of “not know[ing] what to do”, of “a wild, vague movement” made “at a venture”. To readers, this movement seems more deliberate and consistent with his urge to escape than vague or random. It can only be the latter in his mind as he tries to shake off the responsibility for his indelicate treatment of Miss Tita. There is, however, no verbal clue to this effect. (Compare with “but at a venture I made what then it seemed to me a wild, vague movement”.) Each of the three first quotations above illustrates one way in which language can describe metarepresentational operations, and especially how the linkage between content and source is realized. We have, on the one hand, standard propositional subordination whereby a state of affairs (“I saw her smile ingenuously”) is embedded under a metacognitive verb (“I thought”) which conveys the teller’s attitude towards that state of affairs. Equivalent syntactic forms are parenthetical phrases pointing to the source of a piece of information, such as “Miss Tita met them [the narrator’s eyes] quickly and read, I think, what was in them” (CS 3: 294). But the semantics of the metacognitive verb governing the embedded state of affairs is of fundamental import here (Zunshine 2006: 110). Contrast these metarepresentational statements: I guessed that her aunt had instructed her [Miss Tita] to adopt this tone […] (CS 3: 248; my emphasis) I believed for the instant that she [Miss Bordereau] had put it on expressly […] (CS 3: 241; my emphasis) I knew she would come out; she would very soon discover I was there. (CS 3: 308; my emphasis) But poor Miss Tita would have enjoyed one of Florian’s ices, I was sure. (CS 3: 260; my emphasis) […] I was sure she [Miss Tita] was speaking the truth. (CS 3: 279; my emphasis) […] though Miss Tita gave no high-pitched voice to her satisfaction I felt that she surrendered herself. (CS 3: 276; my emphasis) José A. Álvarez-Amorós 88 […] though my friend [Miss Tita] gave no high-pitched voice to her glee I was sure of her full surrender. (James 1908: 76; my emphasis) Although the embedded content is made contingent on the narrator’s subjectivity in all cases, the intrinsic attitudinal meaning of guess, believe, and feel is heavily at variance with that of know and be sure. Given their marked subjective profiles verging on self-confessed uncertainty, guess, believe, and feel make for glaring source tags whose removal would be quite disruptive; on the contrary, know and be sure originate weak, almost transparent source tags that casual reading can more easily pass over as if they introduced factual information in need of no guarded processing by the reader. That these semantic nuances are highly instrumental in the construction of overall meaning is evidenced by James’s own practice. The last two quotations above are respectively taken from the original 1888 publication of “The Aspern Papers” and from its revised version included in volume 12 of the New York Edition of his novels and tales (1908). In line with the general tendency to stress the narrator’s shameful treatment of the Bordereau women, James played his lexical cards to bring Miss Tita’s surrender as close as possible to a fictional certainty without fully erasing its metarepresentational nature. This is attested to by the existence of a third possibility (“[…] though Miss Tita gave no high-pitched voice to her satisfaction, she surrendered herself”) which James chose to discard. Going beyond the bounds of the sentence, we enter the realm of textual interpretation proper. Here source ascription is a distributed phenomenon. It can happen over a whole stretch of discourse as more or less substantial pointers accrue and make the overall effect that a piece of intelligence is contingent on the narrator’s mind rather than absolute fact. At the end of “The Aspern Papers”, there is a passage whose essentials I give below: As soon as I came into the room […] I also saw something which had not been in my forecast. Poor Miss Tita’s sense of her failure had produced an extraordinary alteration in her […] Now I perceived it […] She stood in the middle of the room with a face of mildness bent upon me, and her look of forgiveness, of absolution, made her angelic. It beautified her; she was younger; she was not a ridiculous old woman. This optical trick gave her a sort of phantasmagoric brightness, and while I was still the victim of it I heard a whisper somewhere in the depths of my conscience […] (CS 3: 319; my emphasis) This passage describes Miss Tita’s “transfiguration” into a younger, beautified woman as the narrator’s wishful precondition “to pay the price” (CS 3: 319) of marriage in order to seize the Aspern papers. The information supplied is clearly at odds with fictional reality as endorsed by the implied author and inferred by the reader, for she is instantly “changed back into a plain, dingy, elderly person” (CS 3: 320). Even so, the narrator never On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 89 loses track of himself as the source of his representation of Miss Tita’s metamorphosis; rather, he drops a number of clues - “saw”, “perceived”, “optical trick”, “victim of it” - that collectively ascribe the whole experience to his obsessed frame of mind in a fairly standard case of overt unreliable narration. Though instances of these two tagging methods abound in this tale, they are massively outnumbered by the occurrence of adverbs and adverbial phrases with strong metarepresentational roles, namely, (a) to identify the subjective provenance of a piece of information, and (b) to decouple it from the baseline ontology of the storyworld. Both roles can be performed by adverbials such as “from my point of view” (CS 3: 280) and “in my mind” (CS 3: 302). But what catches the eye is the striking recurrence of tiny metarepresentational systems encapsulated in such terms as apparently, evidently, sort of, perhaps, and, very especially, as if. When associated with the representation of a state of affairs, they tend to fulfil role (b) as stated above, but not role (a), and, for this reason, we might call them defactualizers. The statements “Inga likes Otto”, “[It appears to me that] Inga likes Otto”, “It appears to me that Inga likes Otto”, and “Apparently, Inga likes Otto” respectively denote a representation, a spurious representation, a metarepresentation with an explicit source, and a anomalous metarepresentation whose source is not declared, but whose content could hardly be mistaken for unconditional fact. Most defactualizers are employed in “The Aspern Papers” to relativize mental attributions and show that they come from another mind which remains impersonal even if, with few exceptions, it can be transparently ascribed to the narrative agent. They tend to neutralize the unreliability that may emerge when a primary tag silently vanishes as a signal that the speaker’s metarepresentational ability has been somehow compromised (e.g. in the second Inga-Otto example above). Take, for instance, the following case, “[…] said Miss Tita, as if she had become conscious that her own question might have looked overreaching” (CS 3: 245; my emphasis), which could be unpacked as “It seemed [to the narrator] that Miss Tita had become conscious that somebody might have thought her question overreaching”. This makes a three-level recursive metarepresentation if the adverbial as if amounts, as I suggest, to an impersonal source tag denying factuality to Miss Tita’s mental processes and turning them into (narratorial) inferences. The pattern I have described is general all through “The Aspern Papers”. As if is constantly used to defactualize mental representations of living characters (Miss Tita, Miss Bordereau, Mrs. Prest, the doctor), but also of deceased ones (Jeffrey Aspern himself), and so are the other adverbials listed above, in particular evidently and perhaps (e.g. “as if she were ashamed”, “as if she failed to understand”, “as if she might be thinking”, “with the sense evidently that she had said too much”, “as if she herself appreciated”, “perhaps she found it less genial”, “as if he were amused”, José A. Álvarez-Amorós 90 etc. [CS 3: 230, 249, 262, 268, 270, 273, 312]). It is interesting to note that finite verbal expressions such as appeared and seemed can fill the same role as apparently and seemingly when the dative complement is omitted, which results in a construction with a high rate of occurrence in this tale (e.g. “in no case did she appear to know”, “she appeared to become aware”, “she seemed to wish to notify me”, “He seemed to smile at me”, “Miss Tita appeared to consider”, etc. [CS 3: 248, 248, 300, 312, 314]). The limits of standard unreliability in “The Aspern Papers”, as set by the above remarks on tagging, are narrow indeed. To the more or less expected occurrence of propositional and textual traces of metarepresentational activity, one must add an inordinate number of adverbial defactualizers that decouple information from the baseline ontology of the storyworld and inferentially show the narrator’s awareness of its non-factual nature for the reader’s guidance. As it happens, apparently, evidently, sort of, perhaps, and as if make a 4.04‰ of the total word count in this narrative, whereas they make 2.58‰ in The Sacred Fount, 2.42‰ in “The Way It Came”, 1.88‰ in “The Figure in the Carpet”, and only 1.59‰ in “The Diary of a Man of Fifty” - stories all of them open to be discussed in terms of unreliability. In combination, these three tagging strategies do form in “The Aspern Papers” a fairly obtrusive pattern, a closely-knit metarepresentational tissue attesting that the narrator’s ability to distinguish between fact and fancy is (mostly) in place, and so that he tends to be reliable even when he reports information arguably at odds with the implied James’s design. To close this paper, I will briefly address the duality between the telling and the experiencing selves as it bears on the issue of overt unreliability in “The Way It Came”. It is standard knowledge in narratology that first-person narrative situations entail the existence of two selves who, except in cases of extreme simultaneous narration, are ontologically identical, but functionally distinct. This means that characters become narrators at a given moment and report their experiences from epistemic vantage points which are inaccessible to their former selves. It is frequent, however, that narrators openly refer to the telling NOW in order to confirm, correct, pass judgement on, or otherwise consider their past experiences. Exploring the complexity of the relations between the telling and the experiencing selves clearly exceeds the scope of this paper. But James’s inveterate habit of alternating the reporting of the THEN , the reporting of the NOW , and the reporting of the THEN from the hindsight of the NOW provides yet another angle of approach to overt unreliability. “The Way It Came” turns on an eerie love triangle formed by two women and a man, all unnamed. It is prefaced by a rather skeptical editor’s note which, given the topic and the narrative resources of this story, functionally resembles the introductory section to “The Turn of the Screw”. If we stick to the first-person female narrator’s version, this is a tale of preternatural love “just engulfed in the infinite and still vibrating with human On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 91 emotion” (CS 4: 630). She has two friends, a man and a woman, who suffered alleged visitations from their respective mother and father at the moment of death. They have never met, and, despite many efforts to bring them together, fate has it that they always fail to come face to face. The man becomes the narrator’s fiancé, but he develops a disturbing interest in the woman he has never met, an interest which is requited. Obsessive jealousy erupts in the narrator who now goes to extremes of disloyalty to prevent their meeting, and bitterly regrets having sparked their mutual interest. The woman suddenly dies, but the narrator insists, in the face of the man’s hesitant denial, that both do now what they could not do before - meet and carry on an astral love affair. The narrator is abundantly conscious of her troubled mental condition bred by jealousy and of her shameful manoeuvres to keep her friends asunder, but it never occurs to her at the time the events happened that their growing affection and its supernatural consequences may only be true in her mind. This means that she is unable to keep track of herself as the source of her representations and thus fails to leave behind the usual verbal traces in the form of tags. By accommodating their gaze, however, readers can perceive a different story based on what might be called self-sustaining jealousy. It can be understood as a kind of a priori jealousy, disconnected from evidence. Nothing can dissipate it, not even the rival’s death, for, when this death happens, the subject simply transfers his or her obsession to the supernatural realm. In the case of “The Way It Came”, two factors seem relevant to the narrator’s mental construction - first, that both male and female appear to have medium powers; second, that the narrator herself confesses a taste for supernatural experiences and thinks it “gratifying to be the subject of one of those inexplicable occurrences that are chronicled in thrilling books and disputed about at learned meetings” (CS 4: 630). Since she cannot enjoy this “magnificent distinction” (CS 4: 632), she forces a volitional pattern on fictional reality and shapes it according to her emotional needs. The expected causal sequence is thus altered as in Miss Tita’s transfiguration episode, where the woman adopts in the narrator’s mind the personality and looks that another part of his mind requires to consider marrying her. The problem is, of course, that there is little ground in “The Way It Came” to rationally choose between the narrator’s version as spelt out above and its being an imaginary construction contingent on her subjectivity. The implied James appears to signal alternatively in both directions, and it is quite revealing that this is the only tale whose notebook discussion explicitly features the word “ambiguity” (1987: 153). Rather than a stable ironic form, it displays a shifting pattern which, in metarepresentational terms, means that the same portion of information can be processed either as traceable to the narrator’s - and/ or to the character’s - mind or as a sourcefree, positive fact. And this heavily conditions interpretation and hence any analysis of unreliability. José A. Álvarez-Amorós 92 To say that a first-person narrator reports intelligence consistent (or not) with the implied author’s inferred plans is to say little when there is a gap of variable width between the telling self and the experiencing self, that is, between the narrator proper and the character. Older narrators, for instance, can be at odds with their younger selves, but agree with the implied author’s design, or else both narrator and character can form a monolithic unit jointly at variance with such design. From the vantage point of the telling NOW the narrator can show awareness that the character’s view of factuality was misplaced and put it right by disclosing its subordination to his or her mental processes. But the narrator’s metarepresentational ability can also fail and bring about the spurious treatment of mental states as hard fictional fact. Both situations can alternate, though, and lead to a dual reading of “The Way It Came”. Let us consider four passages where the narrator’s NOW and the character’s THEN emerge and interact: I see now that she gave me no pretext and that I only found one in the way she looked at the fine face in the Bond Street frame. (CS 4: 614; my emphasis) I had thought it best to let her come; singular as this now seems to me I thought it diminished my guilt […] I blush to tell my story - I take it as my penance. (CS 4: 618; my emphasis) He stood there pleading with a candour that now seems to me beautiful for the privilege of having in spite of supreme defeat known the living woman; while I, with a passion I wonder at to-day […] could only reply […] (CS 4: 625; my emphasis) “She was dead! she was dead! ” I asseverated with an energy, a determination that it should be so, which comes back to me now almost as grotesque. (CS 4: 629; my emphasis except in “be”) Though with varying explicitness, all these texts highlight the ironic distance developed between the narrator and the character as the former progresses towards reliability by correctly indicating the role of her younger mind in shaping the reported material, which is, as we know, a standard symptom of overt unreliability. The first passage marks the turning point of this story. From the way the narrator’s friend looks at her fiancé’s photograph, she infers that her unguarded efforts to bring them together have produced unforeseen results. This is the first link in a long chain of suspicion, speculation, vague evidence, and guesswork culminating in the break-up of their engagement on grounds of a “monstrous” secret relation (CS 4: 634). But from the hindsight of the telling NOW the narrator knows better than the character. The word “pretext” is itself a revelation. As employed here, it ascribes the initial impulse for the whole process to her subjectivity, not to a factual state of affairs, and thus contributes to undermining the supernatural reading of the tale from the very outset. The sec- On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 93 ond passage proceeds along the same line. It hints at the narrator’s desperate ruse to wreck a meeting she had herself fixed for her two friends. She lies to the man to prevent him from turning up, but acts differently with the woman and meets her at the appointed time. A mind-easing strategy THEN becomes an eccentric move NOW , a notion which we feel closer, in principle, to the implied James’s narrative plan, and hence consonant with the contrition voiced by the narrator. Though less explicit, the last two passages work similarly. In the third one, the narrator’s corrective perception NOW of the man’s pleading and of her own passion opposes the character’s earlier view of them. The only difference is that readers are not expressly given the terms of contrast as in the two previous examples - e.g. “she gave me no pretext” vs. “I only found one” - even if they are easily inferred. The fourth text poses an enticing question whose answer may bear on the overall reading of “The Way It Came” - i.e. what looks “grotesque” to the narrator NOW ? Grammatically, it is the “determination” of her statement, granted, but it could also be her whole speech act and its content - i.e. that the woman visited the narrator’s fiancé after her death to effect a tryst that chance and deliberate interference had rendered impossible before. One way or another, these passages show a narrator actively engaged in destabilizing her earlier notions by decoupling them from fictional reality and foregrounding their mentalized status. This pattern, however, is occasionally reversed as becomes an ambiguous narrative. Here are two cases where the narrator aligns with the character, bridges the ironic gap between both, and, depending on which reading of the tale we assume, reports information in (dis)agreement with the implied James: I see it all now, I feel it, I live it over. It’s terribly void of joy, it’s full indeed to overflowing of bitterness; and yet I must do myself justice - I couldn’t possibly be other than I was. (CS 4: 631; my emphasis) [In the man’s sudden death] I distinctly read an intention, the mark of his own hidden hand. It was the result of a long necessity, of an unquenchable desire. To say exactly what I mean, it was a response to an irresistible call. (CS 4: 634; my emphasis) The first passage pivots on the striking phrase “I must do myself justice”. Uttered from the narratorial NOW , backed up by a number of present-tense verbal forms of perception and experience, and followed by a trenchant statement of inevitability, it denotes the narrator’s reluctance to correct the character’s habit of losing track of herself as the source of her representations. But the second one is even more categorical in this regard as it obliterates any distance between both figures concerning the supernatural issue. If a few pages earlier the narrator used the loaded term “pretext” to José A. Álvarez-Amorós 94 imply how she felt NOW about her former self’s perceptions, the emphatic “I mean”, strategically placed in the last sentence of the tale, balances prior doubts and misgivings and grants alleged authority to the interpretation of the narrative as a hapless love affair turned ghostly by untimely death. As the implied author’s view of what happens is not univocal, it is hard to infer what baseline ontology sustains the story, and so to decide which epistemic position(s) accord(s) with it. If the authorial plan was to concoct a supernatural tale, the narrator gains reliability as she identifies herself with the character’s version; if it was to tell a story of obsession and selfsustaining jealousy, the narrator grows more reliable as she openly denounces the character’s misperceptions as in the “pretext” case above. Discussing overt, self-acknowledged unreliability in “The Way It Came” is a vexing affair - as it is too, for instance, in “The Figure in the Carpet” - because two variables obtain and generate mutually supporting instabilities. We have, on the one hand, an ambivalent authorial project, and, on the other, the persistent interplay of the narrator’s and the character’s (conflicted) representations of authorial ambivalence, no less! Circularity rules, and it is a fairly arbitrary decision where to break the circle and start attributing truth values to the set of representations that comprise the story. 5. Concluding remarks In this paper, and aided by a blend of metarepresentational and rhetorical theory, I have attempted to make a case for what I call overt, transparent, or self-acknowledged unreliable narration in James’s short fiction as opposed to the more standard, covert, or opaque variety that has been the critical target for most commentators. Overt unreliability results from James’s propensity to deploy first-person narrators who are openly concerned with the existence of interferences between their mental processes and the baseline ontology of the storyworld, and so with the possibility that they should be reporting unwarranted or counterfactual information. That a narrator may be making a number of misplaced representations and at the same time reflecting on their fictional truthfulness does not intensify, in my view, his or her unreliability; it rather contributes to exposing its limits and keeping it under control. My contention here is that the bounds of Jamesian unreliability are rather modest and circumscribed, even in cases of unstable irony. The obstacles posed by such instability lie in opting for one of two plausible interpretations. But once a reading decision has been made, narrators can be argued to punctuate their telling with verbal clues visibly pointing to their subjectivities as the source of their representations. In “The Diary of a Man of Fifty”, a string of such clues culminates in a barrage of narratorial self-doubt that prompts readers to revise how they have assimilated the information previously provided; in “The Aspern Papers”, the sheer abundance of distancing and defactualizing expressions On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 95 underline the narrator’s coyness about claiming as fact what may only exist in his mind; and in “The Way It Came”, a jealousy-consumed woman-narrator has the occasional presence of mind to trace her younger self’s representations to her early subjectivity, even if such tracing fails at other times and promotes the overall undecidability of this tale. This is not all, however. Other first-person Jamesian narratives often branded unreliable - at least in one interpretation - also conform to this pattern. Looking back on the story’s THEN , the anguished narrator of “The Figure in the Carpet” can still tell fact from fancy and acknowledge the role of his foibles in the shaping of his report. “At last they [Corvick and Gwendolen] even bored me,” he says, “and I accounted for my confusion - perversely, I confess - by the idea that Vereker had made a fool of me” (CS 4: 583; my emphasis). Whether Vereker actually deceived the narrator is a moot point in this tale. But it is undeniable that the latter managed to keep track of the source of his representations, correct his earlier views, and even describe the mental attitude that prompted them (see also CS 4: 587). Likewise, the narrator of The Sacred Fount is insistently conscious of his fancy’s role in the construction of “a larger theory (and thereby a larger ‘law’) than facts, as observed, yet warranted”, and admits that this practice is “the common fault of minds for which the vision of life is an obsession” (James 1979: 23). And even tales seldom discussed in terms of unreliability do feature narrators forever preoccupied with their mental states pervading their narratives, as when the young critic-narrator of “The Death of the Lion” (1894) manages to trace his extravagant praise for Neil Paraday’s artistry to the fact that he was “at the end of three days, a very prejudiced critic” (CS 4: 360). As things stand, and despite occasional episodes of bewilderment experienced by James’s “supersubtle fry” (James 1984: 221) of hair-splitting narrators, it seems safe to argue that lucidity won the day. Works cited Bierce, Ambrose (1979). “Oil of Dog”. In: The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce. Intr. Clifton Fadiman. Secaucus: Citadel P. 800-803. Booth, Wayne C. (1961/ 1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. London: Penguin Books. Booth, Wayne C. (1975). A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P. Bradley, John R. (2000). Henry James’s Permanent Adolescence. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Cosmides, Leda & John Tooby (2000). “Consider the Source: The Evolution of Adaptations for Decoupling and Metarepresentation”. In: Dan Sperber (Ed.). Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Oxford: Oxford UP. 53-107. Doležel, Lubomír (1998). Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore/ London: Johns Hopkins UP. Falconer, Graham (1987). “Flaubert, James, and the Problem of Undecidability”. Comparative Literature 39 (1). 1-18. James, Henry (1984). The Art of the Novel. Ed. Richard P. Blackmur. Boston: Northeastern UP. José A. Álvarez-Amorós 96 James, Henry (1987). The Complete Notebooks of Henry James. Leon Edel & Lyall H. Powers (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford UP. James, Henry (1996-1999). Complete Stories. 5 vols. New York: Library of America. James, Henry (1908). “The Aspern Papers”. In: The Novels and Tales of Henry James. New York: Scribner’s. 12. 3-143. James, Henry (1979). The Sacred Fount. Leon Edel (intr.). New York: Grove P. Kellum, Sharon Smart (1976). “The Art of Self-Incrimination: Studies in Unreliable Narration”. Diss. U of California at Berkeley. Köppe, Tilmann & Tom Kindt (2011). “Unreliable Narration with a Narrator and Without”. Journal of Literary Theory 5 (1). 81-94. Korg, Jacob (1962). “What Aspern Papers? A Hypothesis”. College English 23 (5). 378-381. Marsh, Huw (2018). “Narrative Unreliability and Metarepresentation in Ian McEwan’s Atonement; or, Why Robbie Might Be Guilty and Why Nobody Seems to Notice”. Textual Practice 32 (8). 1325-1343. McHale, Brian (1981). “Islands in the Stream of Consciousness: Dorrit Cohn’s Transparent Minds”. Poetics Today 2 (2). 183-191. Nünning, Ansgar (1979). “‘But Why Will You Say that I Am Mad? ’: On the Theory, History, and Signals of Unreliable Narration in British Fiction”. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 22. 83-105. Nünning, Ansgar (2008). “Reconceptualizing the Theory, History, and Generic Scope of Unreliable Narration: Towards a Synthesis of Cognitive and Rhetorical Approaches”. In: Elke D’hoker & Gunther Martens (Eds.). Narrative Unreliability in Twentieth-Century First-Person Novel. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. 29-76. Phelan, James (2005). Living to Tell about It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca: Cornell UP. Phelan, James (2007). “Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita”. Narrative 15 (2). 222-238. Phelan, James (2017). Somebody Telling Somebody Else: A Rhetorical Poetics of Narrative. Columbus: Ohio UP. Phelan, James & Mary Patricia Martin (1999). “The Lessons of ‘Weymouth’: Homodiegesis, Unreliability, Ethics and The Remains of the Day”. In: David Herman (Ed.). Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio UP. 88-109. Recanati, François (2000). Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta: An Essay on Metarepresentation. Cambridge: MIT Press. Rivkin, Julie (1989). “Speaking with the Dead: Ethics and Representation in ‘The Aspern Papers’”. The Henry James Review 10 (2). 135-141. Ryan, Marie-Laure (1991). Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana UP. Snyder, Katherine V. (2004). Bachelors, Manhood, and the Novel, 1850-1925. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Sternberg, Meir & Tamar Yacobi (2015). “(Un)Reliability in Narrative Discourse: A Comprehensive Overview”. Poetics Today 36 (4). 327-498. Weinstein, Philip M. (1970). “The Exploitative and Protective Imagination: Unreliable Narration in The Sacred Fount”. In: Morton W. Bloomfield (Ed.). The Interpretation of Narrative: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 189-209. Yacobi, Tamar (2000). “Interart Narrative: (Un)Reliability and Ekphrasis”. Poetics Today 21 (4). 711-749. Yacobi, Tamar (2001). “Package Deals in Fictional Narrative: The Case of the Narrator’s (Un-)Reliability”. Narrative 9. 223-229. On the Limits of Henry James’s Unreliable Narration 97 Yacobi, Tamar (2005). “Authorial Rhetoric, Narratorial (Un)Reliability, Divergent Readings: Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata”. In: James Phelan & Peter J. Rabinowitz (Eds.). A Companion to Narrative Theory. Malden/ Oxford: Blackwell. 109-123. Zerweck, Bruno (2001). “Historicizing Unreliable Narration: Unreliability and Cultural Discourse in Narrative Fiction”. Style 35. 151-178. Zunshine, Lisa (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP. José A. Álvarez-Amorós Department of English Studies University of Alicante Michael Fuchs University of Oldenb A Contested Space Women on U.S. Coins and Currency Heinz Tschachler The year 2020 saw any number of events to commemorate the ratification of the 19 th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Exhibits about women’s suffrage and related topics were being staged in numerous museums. The U.S. Mint issued a 2020 Women’s Suffrage Centennial Silver Dollar and, to complete the set, a matching silver Medal. The national currency likewise was to take notice of the anniversary of women’s suffrage. From 2014 onwards, there had been plans to print faces of women on federal paper money, including Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, there to replace Andrew Jackson. This would not be unusual, as pictures of women have appeared on U.S. coins and currency quite frequently, representing various ideals long before women achieved equal rights. Women or, more generally, female figures have traditionally symbolized fertility and thus became the perfect embodiment of the very qualities the issuers wanted to suggest—financial stability and wealth. Yet during the entire Trump presidency, all indications were that Harriet Tubman would not become the face on the $20 bill until after Donald Trump left office. What this shows is that the space on the nation’s money is a contested one, one that women will occupy only after a long and bitter struggle. The year 2020 saw any number of events to commemorate the ratification of the 19 th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This landmark event in American history guarantees all American women the right to vote, ending almost a century of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see the final victory in 1920. A hundred years later, the vital role of women in American history was being AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-00010 Heinz Tschachler 100 celebrated nationwide. In March 2020, known as Women’s History Month since 1987, exhibits about women’s suffrage and related topics were staged in numerous museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, and National Park Service. 1 A month later, the American Numismatic Association (ANA) celebrated their National Coin Week under the theme “Remarkable Women: Catalysts of Change.” 2 Women in Numismatics (WIN), a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to help gain recognition for women in the hobby, was celebrated the centennial with special presentations. Last but not least, the ANA’s Edward C. Rochette Money Museum honored the women who have served as Mint directors since the 1930s, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Eva Adams, Mary Brooks, Stella Hackel Sims, Donna Pope, and Henrietta Fore. Each has been honored on U.S. Mint medals (Dickes 2020: 62-63). On June 4, 2019, the U.S. Senate passed the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, which mandates the production of $1 silver coins that are “emblematic of the women who played a vital role in rallying support for the 19 th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” (Dickes 2020: 62). In compliance with the Act, the U.S. Mint issued a 2020 Women’s Suffrage Centennial Silver Dollar and, to complete the set, a matching silver Medal. The $1 coin features on its obverse three women, each wearing a different type of hat, representing the long and difficult struggle for voting equality. The reverse shows a ballot box rendered in Art Deco style. The medal’s obverse features a heavy stone held aloft by the hands of women and children, symbolizing the different generations and countless people who helped women achieve suffrage. The reverse presents lines from the 19 th Amendment superimposed upon the U.S. flag. Proceeds from the sale of the sets (only 10,000 will be produced) will benefit the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative. 3 The national currency likewise was to take notice of the anniversary of women’s suffrage. In July 2014 President Barack Obama announced that the time had come to print faces of women on federal paper money (Siegel 2014). The president’s words must have rung sweetly in the ears of “Women on 20s.” “Women on 20s” is an advocacy group incorporated in January 2014, whose agenda is, primarily, to lobby the administration for a redesign of the $20 bill to bear the portrait of a woman, to be released by 2020. 4 As the organization explains on its website, “keeping an Andrew Jackson bill in wide circulation means we celebrate and elevate historic figures who used and condoned violence against personal enemies and populations of marginalized people” (Women on 20s n.d.). A petition was sent 1 To learn more, visit http: / / womenshistorymonth.gov/ . 2 To learn more, visit http: / / nationalcoinweek.org/ . 3 To learn more, visit http: / / usmint.gov/ . 4 Women on 20s, http: / / www.womenon20s.org/ ; postal address: Women on $20s, Inc., PO Box 2353, Mount Vernon, NY 10550, U.S.A. A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 101 out in May 2015, calling upon President Obama to order the Treasury Secretary to redesign the current $20 bill—taking off Andrew Jackson’s portrait and ensuring that the new bill reflects “the remarkable accomplishments of an exemplary American woman who has helped shape our nation” (Women on 20s 2015b). The “exemplary American woman” who was finally selected as the face for the new $20 bill is Harriet Tubman (c.1822-1913). 5 Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman escaped to the North and became a conductor in the Underground Railroad, helping slaves to escape to freedom. During the Civil War, she was active in the Union cause, serving as a nurse, a cook, and a scout, gathering intelligence. The Treasury Department, too, decided that the contributions of women to the nation’s progress ought to be acknowledged on the currency. On June 18, 2015, Treasury Secretary Jacob L. Lew announced plans to redesign the $10 bill by 2020, the anniversary year, to bear the portrait of a woman. There is, however, no evidence that Secretary Lew had taken any action beyond the conceptual design by the time he handed the keys over to his successor, Steven T. Mnuchin, in January 2017. At the time it also was not yet known how the Trump administration would approach the currency redesign, though there was considerable concern about a rollback. Yet during the entire Trump presidency, all indications were that Harriet Tubman would not become the face on the $20 bill until after Donald Trump left office (Tschachler 2020: 140-41). Plans to unveil the Tubman in 2020 were postponed until at least 2026, and the bill itself is not likely to be in circulation until 2028. The delay was the decision of Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin, who appears to have been concerned that the president might create an uproar by canceling the new bill altogether (Tschachler 2020: 141-42). Identity politics was never one of President Trump’s political priorities. On the contrary, when the planned redesign of the $20 bill was officially announced in April 2016, Trump said in response that bumping Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill was “pure political correctness,” and suggested that Harriet Tubman be put on the $2 bill instead. For Trump, Jackson “had a great history” and so, he added, it would be “very rough” to take him off the bill (Frizell 2016). 6 5 Harriet Tubman received some 30 percent of a total of more than 350,000 votes cast in the final round on April 5, 2015. Runners-up were Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller (Women on 20s 2015a). For a conceptual design of a new $20 note produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 2016, see Rappeport (2019). 6 One wonders how (if at all) Donald Trump would have responded to Harriet, a Focus Features biopic released in November 2019. The film, which stars Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman, follows Tubman’s daring escape from the slave South to Philadelphia and her subsequent return trips to the South where she rescued her family and other slaves on what came to be known as the Underground Railroad. It also shows her involvement in the early days of the Civil War as a member of the Union Army. According to Newsweek, the film was getting early Oscar buzz months ahead of its release (Scott 2019). Heinz Tschachler 102 America’s 45 th president seems a great admirer of Jackson, the first populist politician in American history, calling him, through a spokesman, “an amazing figure in American history—very unique in many ways” (Greenwood 2017) and, on the occasion of a visit to Jackson’s plantation home, “the people’s president,” whose victory “shook the establishment like an earthquake” (Trump 2017). It is also a matter of record that right after his inauguration President Trump hung a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office, as “inspiration” (Haberman 2017). Remarks of this kind reveal the extent to which selection of portraits for the currency is influenced by politics. Take, for instance, the $10 bill, which features, on its obverse, a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. The fact that Hamilton was also an immigrant from the West Indies does not appear to have played a role in selecting his portrait, not just for the current $10 bill but also for a variety of earlier bank and government notes. At the very least, Hamilton is never marked as an immigrant. The point is that Hamilton was part of the monetary economy represented by the notes. By contrast, women (as well as Native Americans and African Americans) generally were not. Women had what John Adams called the “masculine system”—though if we are to believe Abigail Adams, they rather had “tyrants.” 7 Abigail Adams was painfully aware of the fact that she was living in a time and culture that accepted unequal standards and conditions as a matter of course, and then chose exceptions to its rules, but only on its own terms. Thus, women would make payments with notes bearing pictures of themselves. Notes bearing pictures of women have appeared on the currency quite frequently, representing various ideals long before women achieved equal rights. Women or, more generally, female figures have traditionally symbolized fertility and thus became the perfect embodiment of the very qualities the issuers of notes wanted to suggest—financial stability and wealth. However, most of the female figures are not representations of actual persons but represent an idealized beauty; in Virginia Hewitt’s memorable words, they constitute “soft images to give hard currency a good name” (1995: 156). Allegorical or idealized women at the same time conceal and enshrine real women’s exclusion from the material world of markets and capital. For the same reason, use of women as money icons becomes problematic when attempts are made to supplant the position occupied by the allegorical woman for the real, from Martha Washington to Susan B. Anthony to Sacagawea to Harriet Tubman. Nevertheless, “real,” that is, historical women have appeared on the currency with a certain degree of regularity. 8 Most of the women chosen had better-known husbands or were connected with more famous men. If 7 Qtd. in Ferguson (1997: 156, 158). 8 Fred Reed has trotted out the names of altogether seventeen, possibly even eighteen, actual women who appeared on U.S. paper money (Reed 2007: 50). A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 103 this was a criterion for their inclusion on the currency, it underlines the gendered nature of monetary practices, for it was not for their deeds that women were honored but for their association with revered men. Martha Washington fell into this category, and a dignified portrait of her was put on the back of the $1 Silver Certificate, Series 1886 and 1891. The identical portrait was used for the $1 Silver Certificate of 1896, alongside George Washington. The note’s rhetoric conveys Washingtonian refinement and knowing one’s place. The design is, therefore, a good example of the way elite society appropriated Washington for the purpose of increasing its legitimacy, but the notes also set the stage for society’s highest strata to crown the Father of the Country the father of their own good taste, with Martha as a sidekick, a founding mother to go with the founding father. As the Indiana Democrat wrote on February 20, 1901: “Persons fortunate enough to possess a one-dollar Silver Certificate have an excellent picture of Martha Washington, the wife of the Father of His Country.” 9 What the newspaper did not say was that on this note the many truly dissolve into one—E pluribus Unum—, though in a cruelly ironic reworking of a passage from William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage [...] incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-french, a feme-covert.” 10 Pocahontas, whose baptism was depicted on $20 National Bank notes as of 1863, and who appeared in a number of guises on other notes, may also qualify as a “real” woman. However, the mode of her representation is never far from the mythic and allegorical. Safer bets for realism are Rachel Jackson, Catherine “Bonnie Kate” Sevier, Dolly Madison, Maria Knox Innes Todd Crittenden, the “Belle of Kentucky,” and Lucy Holcombe Pickens. Rachel Jackson and Dolly Madison both were wives of presidents, respectively of Andrew Jackson and James Madison. Catherine Sevier was the wife of John Sevier, Revolutionary War hero, Indian fighter, and governor of Tennessee. Mrs. Pickens likewise was the wife of a governor, John Jordan Crittenden, governor of South Carolina. Her portrait was chosen for several Confederate notes, as she purportedly personified the very essence of the best Southern qualities—magnanimity, honor, chivalry, courtesy, and hospitality; also, significantly, she graced more paper bills than any other woman in American history did (Doty 2004: 74). As regards Maria Crittenden, she too was the wife of a governor. John J. Crittenden, governor of Kentucky, later served as attorney general under President Millard Fillmore. Mrs. Crittenden’s portrait appeared on $5 notes issued in the 1850s by the Farmers Bank of Kentucky, Frankfort, the Rockingham Bank, 9 Qtd. in Tschachler (2020: 117). For an illustration of the note, see ibid. 10 Qtd. in Ferguson (1997: 160). Heinz Tschachler 104 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as the Planters Bank of Fairfield, Winnsboro, South Carolina (Tschachler 2010: 78-79). Of the few females who arrived on the notes by their own merit, the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (actually Johanna Maria Lind) was one. Others were Henriette Sontag, a German-born opera singer who made the first of several American tours in 1852 and was immortalized on a Connecticut note not long thereafter, as well as Florence Nightingale, the English reformer and founder of modern nursing, whose portrait appeared on notes from banks in Virginia and in Georgia in 1861 (Doty 2004: 77-78). One can only speculate why portraits of these foreigners were chosen. Was it because of the women’s celebrity status? Two of them were opera singers, irresistible to music lovers both for the ear-splitting sounds they were emitting and the heroic roles they were inhabiting. (Opera singers also allowed the audience to enter otherwise forbidden territory.) And Florence Nightingale’s fame at the very latest had reached the U.S. following her no less heroic (and real-life) engagement in the Crimean War. All three were European celebrities who, unlike their modern counterparts, could not yet make the rounds at talk shows and so were made to circulate as curios on bank notes. Or, as so often happened, they may have arrived on the notes because engraved portraits of them were readily available from various print media, which would save banknote producers considerable expenses. Be that as it may, that was it for real women on American paper money. For, most “real” women depicted on the currency enjoyed a subordinate reality, and they were placed there to represent an activity, from milking cows to factory work to motherhood, or else to point out a moral, like the Pilgrim women who appeared on vignettes respectively called Embarkation (after Robert Weir’s painting) and Landing (in an engraving by the Scottishborn artist Charles Burt, better known for his 1869 portrait of Abraham Lincoln, which remained on the currency until 2000). The earliest depictions of female figures on American paper money had been as small black-and-white engravings, rendered in a neo-classical style, of goddesses of European extraction, Juno, Diana, Moneta, Liberty (usually in a state of clothing approaching the pornographic, and occasionally dressed as Columbia), or Justice (with her scales, fittingly blind). Private commercial banks might feel that by choosing a female figure representing Plenty or Agriculture they could successfully advertise the prosperity of local trade and, of course, of the bank itself. What probably also influenced the decision was that bankers and their engravers knew that female figures were not supposed to be fully clothed. Not only was semior total nudity part of the story. Images of such figures on bank notes also served as anticounterfeiting measures. It was widely believed that people’s attention was directly proportionate to the amount of bare skin visible on the notes (Tschachler 2010: 79). Occasionally, the nation’s first president too is seen in the company of sparsely clad females. On $10 notes issued by the Windham County Bank, A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 105 Brattleboro, Vermont, in the late 1850s, George Washington’s decidedly Roman bust is surrounded by three scantily clad female allegories. The identical vignette was used for $100 notes from the Citizens’ Bank of Louisiana, New Orleans in the early 1860s. It is tempting to relate the somewhat pained expression on the first president’s face to the ladies’ sparse clothing (Tschachler 2020: 60). Even as late as 1899, Washington’s portrait was centrally placed on the ornately designed front of the $2 Silver Certificates, Series 1899, between two allegorical figures, Mechanics (male) and Agriculture (a bare-breasted female). 11 By the 1840s, a seemingly more realistic depiction of women set in. Women were shown involved in everyday pursuits, such as child rearing, work on the farm, factory work, or even taking a walk with a special young man. Looking at these notes now makes the realism dwindle and shrink, though, disclosing their hidden agenda of identifying a happy domestic and working life with the solid foundation of a bank in a local community. Farm life is usually depicted as idyllic, harvesting grain, occasionally even tobacco or hop, caring and feeding livestock and fowl, and churning. Nowhere, however, is the need to idealize and romanticize women more forcefully expressed than in images of milkmaids. Based on the testimony of the notes, “milking cows must have been the growth industry of the nineteenth century” (Doty 2004: 75). In fact, these sweet-faced maidens were put on the notes to represent innocence, youthfulness, and purity, qualities that must have had a special appeal to bankers. For one thing, these qualities seemed at risk as the beginning industrialization and modernization began to transform the nation. For another thing, innocence, youthfulness, and purity might have veiled the nefarious practices many banks engaged in, especially the violation of state laws providing for the backing of notes by specie (Tschachler 2013: 50-58). Numerous pictures on pre-Civil War notes depict factory work, though it does not have any of the degrading qualities we have come to associate with the dark, satanic mills of the coming industrialization. On notes issued in the aftermath of the War of 1812, for instance, factory work even has a tinge of patriotic labor, as the war had forced the United States to become more self-reliant for manufactured goods. Women are seen making thread, weaving it into cloth, and even doing piecework at home, along with their men. It should also be noted that depictions of factory work are to be found almost exclusively on notes from northern banks, thus foreshadowing the North’s material and technological superiority that eventually decided the outcome of the Civil War (McPherson 1988: 318). Representations of women engaged in factory work also show that those who so frequently appeared on the country’s currency were at long last beginning to achieve the means of earning and of spending it. At least some of them, for most women in antebellum America were still employed in 11 For an illustration of the note, see Tschachler (2020: 122). Heinz Tschachler 106 that oldest form of female labor, motherhood. Indeed, images of mothers graced a large number of notes, and always engaged in nurturing, protecting, educating—apt symbols of creation, including the creation of wealth. Of course, that was also the manner by which those in power could keep women within safe, traditional bounds. At times, the quality of the imagery was silly, if not insincere, as on a note from Medford, New Jersey, which features a seated woman tenderly cradling her child, Madonna-like, and oblivious to her surroundings. Other images likewise reinforced the status quo and the popular perception of reality in the—unequal—relation between the sexes. According to Richard Doty, a former curator at the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection, images that romanticized wives and daughters as delicate flowers needing the protection of their husbands and fathers were especially popular. So were images that portrayed women as temptresses, which lent a kind of pin-up quality to the notes, at the same time as they would allude to the equation of women with untamed nature, or as incipient consumptives for whom male protection might come too late (Doty 1995: 122). The gap between appearance and being, between perceived and photographic reality, did not close with the advent, during the Civil War, of a federal currency. Allegorical images of women in particular continued to be a major visual motif on National Bank as well as Legal Tender notes until the introduction of Federal Reserve notes in 1915. It is as though there was a strong desire to make the Gilded Age more romantic by making abstractions such as Liberty, Victory, Justice, and Peace, take the forms of attractive young women, often clothed in classically inspired gowns. For instance, on a $500 Legal Tender note we have a proudly standing, barebreasted Victory, now in recognizably nineteenth-century dress. That she was to symbolize the outcome of the Civil War is obvious from her sharing the stage with a portrait of Major General Joseph King Mansfield, killed in the battle of Antietam in 1862 (Tschachler 2010: 80). On the $50 Legal Tender notes of 1874, Liberty is dressed as Columbia. On other notes, she is shown wearing a feathered headdress, thus with the Native American attributes she had had before Independence. (This was a grim distortion of history, as female Indians, regardless of tribe, never wore feathers.) Often, Columbia appeared together with the American eagle, wings spread, the flag and other national symbols, such as a liberty cap and pole. These allegorical representations identify her with the most grandiose theme—she was “America,” the “Indian Princess.” At the same time, however, they reveal both the historic (ab-)uses of the woman’s body to image an American national identity and the symbolic appropriation for the national symbolic of an indigenous population that in reality was colonized. 12 12 On the distortions Native Americans were subjected to on the currency, see Tschachler (2010: 81-87) and, for an illustration of the $50 Legal Tender note showing Liberty dressed as Columbia, 81. A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 107 In the course of the nineteenth century, the mass production of paper money became a clear sign of capitalist expansion. As the accumulation of capital expanded, those new forms of money whose value depends less on precious metal backing it than on the promise of growth, the regaining of values, expanded as well. Thus, the ornaments on bank and government notes were not only a way of legitimating capitalism; the notes themselves had to be charged with guardian spirits representing happiness, prosperity, economic health, fertility, and so on. On one hand, these measures not only lent a certain dignity to the newly emerging financial institutions and instruments, whose increase was dramatic—from a few dozen by 1810 to hundreds by 1830, to thousands by 1850, with the value of circulating notes going up from $62 million to $140 million by 1837, and to some $200 million by 1850 (Tschachler 2013: 25). On the other hand, the guardian spirits also served as ways and means to cope with or even conceal economic and social instability. They would help appease white males’ racial anxieties, their fears for their traditional prerogatives as well as their unease over Eastern and Southern European immigration. There is a third aspect. Classical and allegorical images also were reminiscent of representations on coins that had always had such figures placed on them. The notes therefore evoked an era before the widespread circulation of paper money, an era when civic personality was grounded in real property and endowed with classical virtue. A good example is a $5 note from the Bank of East Tennessee, Knoxville, issued in the 1850s, on which an angel extends a hand to Ceres at left and hands an apple to a woman with a sextant at right; however, the three females are placed under the authority and supervision of Liberty and the national bird, who eye them critically, perhaps in order to lend a less risqué appearance to the composition (Tschachler 2010: 76-77). In allegorical depictions of commerce in seventeenth-century paintings, such as Johann Heiss’s The Allegory of Commerce (1690) 13 , grail-like cornucopias were common features. Cornucopias became popular again on antebellum bank notes. On $10 notes issued by the State Bank in Trenton, New Jersey, in the 1820s, Ceres, with her cornucopia, together with Liberty, complete with staff and cap, flank a shield showing three plows; above the shield is a horse head. The state seal is centered at the top, while George Washington’s portrait is placed at right (Tschachler 2020: 53). About 1860, a $5 note from the Citizens’ Bank of New Orleans showed a female figure with a staff tipped by a liberty cap and a cornucopia from the tip of which flows a seemingly endless stream of precious coins (Tschachler 2010: 194). The tendency to allegorize women reached a kind of apotheosis with the 1896 issue of three Silver Certificates known as the Educational Series. The notes were crucial in the designing of the national money icon, though 13 To view the painting, which is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, go to https: / / www.mfab.hu/ artworks/ allegory-of-commerce/ . Heinz Tschachler 108 they are also the last notes to date on which any women are depicted. The first note in the Educational Series was the $1 Silver Certificate, series 1896. Its face is known as “History Instructing Youth” (Tschachler 2010: 115). An allegorical figure of History is pointing out to an equally allegorical Youth the principal sights of Washington, DC—the Washington Monument (which had finally been dedicated in 1885) and the Capitol—and presumably telling the narratives behind them, including the story of the United States Constitution, which appears at right. Clearly, the note speaks to a basic social and political problem of the time—how to assimilate a heterogeneous mass of people who were Americans not by birth but by immigration. Americans, Eric Hobsbawm found, “had to be made. The invented traditions […] in this period were primarily designed to achieve this object” (1983: 279). Immigrants were encouraged to accept rituals commemorating the history of the nation—the Revolution and the Founding Fathers (July 4) or the Protestant Anglo-Saxon tradition (Forefathers Day, Thanksgiving Day)—as indeed they did, since these became holidays and occasions for public and private festivity. The educational system too was transformed into a machine for political socialization by such devices as the worship of the flag, which, as a daily ritual in the nation’s schools, spread from the 1880s onwards. An even more effective vehicle of nationalist messages was the currency, which provided a much more frequent reminder to people that they were members of what nationalists considered to be a real community. The mass immersion in the nationalistic iconography on the currency molded people’s identity, perceived their destiny, and expressed commands to them (Tschachler 2010: 116-17). While the allegorical figure of History on the $1 Silver Certificate was uncontroversial, other female figures on the Silver Certificates were not always well liked, such as the $5 entry, which showed an allegorical motif, Electricity Presenting Light to the World. The highly dramatic and decidedly overwrought image caused uproar among several Boston society women, who were scandalized by the uncovered bosoms of certain of the figures in the scene. Although the symbolic association between a woman’s breast and nourishment from a fertile nation should have been clear enough (and had been intended by the note’s designer, Walter Shirlaw, the co-founder of the Chicago Institute of Art), some banks even refused to take the notes. From this originated the idiom “banned in Boston.” 14 Surely less of a stir would have been created by the silver dollar of 1795, on the obverse of which appears a bust of Liberty facing right (the reverse shows the American eagle). The field is taken up by a circle of stars, with the word LIBERTY spelled out at the top, and the year, 1795, at the bottom. The design was continued until 1798, when new reverses were prepared; 14 Tschachler (2010: 81). For an illustration of the $5 Silver Certificate, go to the Bebee Collection of the American Numismatic Association, http: / / www.ana-museum.org/ 1987_126_126.html. A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 109 the obverse, engraved after Gilbert Stuart’s 1795 sketch, now lost, lasted until 1836 (Tschachler 2020: 24). New reverse designs appeared at various intervals through 1836, manifesting all the symptoms of a fledgling nation trying to create a coinage that was to be as dignified as that of the world’s leading powers, England and France. The impact of the Flowing Hair silver dollar, which was struck from bullion deposited by Mint Director David Rittenhouse, is best described by the words from the New Hampshire Gazette of December 1794: “The tout ensemble has a pleasing effect to a connoisseur; but the touches of the graver are too delicate, and there is a want of boldness of execution which is necessary to durability and currency” (qtd. in Vermeule 2007: 29). While the coin lacked artistry, there is a crude vitality, and its role in the creation of an American sense of identity cannot be mistaken. Still, this role was out of proportion to the coin’s commercial success. In the late nineteenth century, the validity of the female form as a symbol of the nation was profoundly questioned. “What is it that we have the ugliest money of all civilized nations? ” Galaxy magazine provocatively asked in June 1876. The contemptuous slur also insinuated that American coins did not even look like money. The reason given was the female figure of Liberty stamped on the silver dollar—a muscular woman in a seated position, with a shield resting at her right side and a cap and pole in her left hand. It would be far better, the article concluded, to place the portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington on the coinage and, as well, on the national currency (Tschachler 2020: 26). The controversy over the Seated Liberty Type coin, which was designed by the Mint’s Chief Engraver Christian Gobrecht and was produced from 1840 to 1873, is a good example of the gendered division between realism and classicism on the nation’s coins and currency: realist iconography then was largely a male domain, whereas allegories were usually female. This should not come as a surprise, as those who were producing, bringing into circulation, and using coins and currency were predominantly males, white males, that is. Consequently, representations of human figures on coins and currency would be filtered through the dominant group’s perception of the “truth.” What the clamor for images of Franklin and Washington therefore reveals is that stylistic “realism” was to enhance a sense of “national subjectivity.” That subjectivity, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg found (1992: 844-48), from the Constitutional Convention forward had been largely the domain of white males, who, although riven along class lines and differentiated by historical crises, were the primary claimants of an American cultural logic that demanded the formulation and performance of national identities. White masculinity thus was linked to civic identity. Looking more closely, however, we see that the referential power of white manhood hinged on the normalization of unequal standards and conditions, that is, on contrasts between white males’ own national sense of self and that of a series of “Others”—Native Americans, African Americans, women, and the poor. Heinz Tschachler 110 Since these groups were considered to be dangerous and polluting, they had to be excluded from the body politic (Nelson 1998: 6-7, 29-59). Ultimately, these strategies of exclusion helped maintain a “racial patriarchy,” meaning a hierarchy based on differences in race, culture, class, and gender (Schloesser 2002: 12-13). Seated Liberty dollar production was halted by the Coinage Act of 1873. However, it took almost another century for the gendered division between realism and classicism on the nation’s coins and currency to disappear. In 1979, a year after Jimmy Carter’s election to the Presidency, a new dollar coin was issued, honoring the noted feminist leader Susan B. Anthony. Ms. Anthony’s portrait was put in place of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s, which had been chosen by the incoming Nixon administration in 1971. Minting of the “Susies” began with tremendous enthusiasm, but despite heroic efforts on the part of the U.S. Mint, the coin was not widely accepted by the public. While it became popular with collectors, I have never seen one. Alternatively, if I have, like most Americans I might have mistaken it for a quarter because of its size. The quarter at least fits the slots of vending machines, in contrast to the Anthony dollar, which does not even look like it was worth a dollar and so ended up in storage. A proposed revision was abandoned by the incoming Reagan Administration and never got beyond the planning stage. 15 In 1999, Congress authorized a new mini dollar. Gold in color and with a smooth edge, there would be no more mistaking it for a quarter. Thanks to then Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who by virtue of his office had the final say in the coin’s design, the obverse shows a portrait of Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian woman who, with her infant son, helped guide Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the first national expedition across the North American continent. The introduction of the coin, which has an American eagle on its reverse, coincided with the bicentennial of the expedition. Per the Native American $1 Coin Act of September 20, 2007, new reverses have been introduced. The first coin in the series features a Native American woman planting maize. As of 2009, the Sacagawea reverses have honored Native American tribes through design themes such as the creation of the Cherokee written language, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Olympian Jim Thorpe, even the Pueblo Revolt. 16 The Sacagawea Dollar did not fare much better than its predecessor, despite a massive marketing campaign. The campaign, which cost taxpayers some $67.1 million, did nothing to lift coin usage above about one percent of dollar transactions. People “just aren’t buying the idea,” an article 15 For more, see Sanders (2020: 24-32). For an illustration of the Anthony dollar, see Tschachler (2010: 93). 16 See United States Mint (2014). A Contested Space: Women on U.S. Coins and Currency 111 in the Sacramento Bee was headlined. 17 Disappointing news of this kind even reached the upper echelons in the Clinton administration, prompting a General Accounting Office’s recommendation that no more money be spent on marketing the Sacagawea Dollar, even though the Office also said that the government could potentially save up to $500 million annually, mostly on the production and shipping of bank notes, and on account of the greater durability of coins. According to the Federal Reserve, current production costs for the $1 and $2 denomination are at 5.5 cents per note. Notes of higher denomination cost more to produce because of security features. The $100 denomination costs 14.2 cents per note, the $20 note 11.5 cents. 18 And the new $20 note bearing Harriet Tubman’s portrait? That, of course, is still unclear. What is clear is that the space on the nation’s coins and currency is a contested one, one that women will occupy only after a long and bitter struggle. Addendum On October 6, 2021, the United States Mint unveiled the designs for the first batch of coins in the American Women Quarters Program, which was authorized by Congress earlier this year (Public Law 116-330). The coins recognize the achievements of poet Maya Angelou; astronaut Sally Ride; actress Anna May Wong; suffragist and politician Nina Otero-Warren; and Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. The front of the coins will feature a portrait of George Washington, created by prolific 20 th -century sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser in honor of his 200 th birthday (it was submitted as a candidate for the 1932 quarter, but ultimately passed over). The new Quarters will be available for sale online starting next year. 19 References Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2018). “How much does it cost to produce currency and coins? ” (27 December). [online] http: / / www.federalreserve.gov/ faqs/ currency_12771.htm [18 December 2018] Bowers, Q. David (2009). Whitman Encyclopedia of U.S. Paper Money. Atlanta, GA: Whitman. ——— (2006). Obsolete Paper Money Issued by Banks in the United States, 1782-1866. Atlanta, GA: Whitman. 17 Lundstrom (2002: 3). For an illustration of the Sacagawea coin, see Tschachler (2010: 92). 18 See United States General Accounting Office (2000, 2002). On production costs, see Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2018). 19 To learn more, visit https: / / www.usmint.gov/ news/ press-releases/ united-statesmint-announces-designs-for-2022-american-women-quarters-program-coins. Heinz Tschachler 112 Dickes, Andy (2020). “Voting Rights at Last.” The Numismatist (March). 62-63. 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[online] http: / / thehill.com/ homenews/ administration/ 316115-trump-hangs-portrait-of-andrew-jackson-in-oval-office [16 April 2017] Guth, Ron (2015). 100 Greatest Women on Coins. Atlanta, GA: Whitman Publishing. Haberman, Maggie (2017). “A Homebody Finds the Ultimate Home Office.” The New York Times (25 January). [online] https: / / www.nytimes.com/ 2017/ 01/ 25/ us/ politics/ president-trump-white-house.html? _r=1 [20 April 2017] Hewitt, Virginia H. (1994). Beauty and the Banknote: Images of Women on Paper Money. London: British Museum Press. ———. (1995). “Soft Images, Hard Currency: the Portrayal of Women on Paper Money.” In: Virginia H. Hewitt (Ed.). The Banker’s Art: Studies in Paper Money. London: British Museum Press. 156-65. Hobsbawm, Eric (1983). “Mass-Producing Traditions, 1870-1914.” In: Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger (Eds.). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 263-307. Lundstrom, Marjie (2002). “Sacagawea dollar coin? 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[online] http: / / www.womenon20s.org/ the_petition [29 June 2015] Heinz Tschachler Department of English and American Studies Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Dehumanization Revisited Media Reports on the Refugee Crisis in British Online Newspapers 1 Vesna Lazović Media reports have the power to change the opinions of the readership on any topic simply by repetitively using certain wording and structures. In certain cases, the reader may be prevented from forming an objective stance and unprejudiced perspective, which can prove dangerous if the topic in question is highly sensitive. Ever since the European refugee crisis in 2015, newspaper articles in the UK press have frequently used a range of dehumanizing language. This paper attempts to examine the issue by both quantitatively and qualitatively comparing the structures used to describe refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and immigrants in two consecutive years (2015 and 2016 respectively). Three British online newspapers were selected for this purpose: The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent. Through a combination of conceptual metaphor theory, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and corpus linguistics, this paper examines and analyzes the common collocations and metaphors used in media reports to refer to refugees at the outset of the crisis, and then again during the referendum year. The comparison between different periods is crucial, in that it can reveal whether expressions recur over time, especially because the media reports initially provided general information about the refugees such as their number and origins, but later also discussed the impact of the crisis on European countries. This analysis centres around the frequent use of dehumanizing language, which has not weakened over time, despite appeals from the UN Refugee Agency and numerous non-governmental organizations, who have sought to remind the press that words do matter in the migration debate. The findings show 1 This research is part of the project funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (BI- ME/ 21-22-005). AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0011 Vesna Lazović 116 that dehumanization is recurrent and ubiquitous in this context, resulting in the reinforcement of inhumane media treatment of this vulnerable group. 1. Introduction This paper aims to explore the dehumanizing language employed in British online media reports about refugees. In addition to facing extreme difficulties in their everyday lives, refugees rarely have the same opportunities and tend to be treated differently in media reports, which can result in further social exclusion. The European refugee crisis has been the most severe one since the Second World War, so it is crucial to understand the ways readers are acquainted with the situation as well as to acknowledge the discriminatory nature of media discourse. Dehumanization can be realized in different ways, one of which is the use of metaphors. These have the power to structure our perception and understanding, and their repeated use in media discourse can establish prejudice amongst the readership. Inhumane treatment of refugees by the media can mean that negative implications and attitudes towards these people can take root and subsequently affect the readers’ viewpoints. Apart from dehumanizing metaphors, other linguistic strategies can be used for negative constructions in the discourse, including the choice of particular words and frequent collocates, which will be examined in this paper. This study is inspired by the research conducted by Gabrielatos and Baker (2008) and the report written by Allen and Blinder (2013). From the beginning of the European refugee crisis in 2015 onwards, newspaper articles in the British press have made abundant use of dehumanizing language. By analyzing the discourse in three British online newspapers, this paper compares lexical association patterns, exploring reports on refugees both quantitatively and qualitatively. 2. Theoretical Framework In order to examine the role of discourse in creating societal attitudes and beliefs, the language used in online newspaper articles is analyzed within a critical discourse analysis framework (Fairclough 1995, van Dijk 1997, Wodak & Meyer 2009). This approach asserts that significant social changes and the manifestations thereof are embedded and maintained in discourse. In other words, discourse and the mass media play a crucial role both in disseminating potentially prejudiced ideologies and in re/ constructing and re/ creating personal attitudes and ‘knowledges’ (van Dijk 2003). More importantly, the media play a significant ideological role, where certain public problems are deliberately foregrounded and addressed as relevant. Thus language produces, maintains and changes social Dehumanization Revisited 117 relations of power through media discourse, constructing stereotyped assumptions, legitimating dominance and introducing inequality (Fairclough 1989). Critical discourse studies foreground the discursive mechanisms adopted in the realization of ideology and investigate how societal power relations are established and reinforced through language use in the media. In this way, the roles of the social, cultural and cognitive contexts of linguistic usage are revealed. The choice of different linguistic forms is directly linked to the process of producing systems of ideology and power hierarchy, since language itself can manipulate public opinion. The studies of Hartman and Husband (1974) and of van Dijk (1987) confirm that the mass media are a major source of prejudiced knowledge among people who have not yet created their beliefs and attitudes towards certain groups. Furthermore, metaphorical concepts are analyzed within a cognitive linguistic framework established by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and later further developed by Kövecses (2002). According to them, metaphor is not only a device of the poetic imagination and a rhetorical flourish, but can actually structure our perceptions and understanding. They define metaphor as understanding one conceptual domain - the target domain in terms of another, experientially closer conceptual domain - the source domain. Conceptual metaphors thus structure our thinking and our perception of the world. Finally, corpus linguistics can help us study examples in context and obtain a more objective picture. Following this approach, linguistic phenomena can be described using both qualitative and quantitative methods (Baker 2006). Examples from corpora, especially larger ones, reveal trends and tendencies of lexical and grammatical associations, distributions and frequencies, collocational patterns and so on. Through using text analysis software, corpus analyses can reveal certain concordances and semantic preferences of a word, which might otherwise go unnoticed. 2.1. Dehumanization as Underlying Concept Dehumanization is often defined in dictionaries 2 as the process of depriving people of human qualities, personality or dignity and the process of making human beings seem like objects. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary also lists the situations when dehumanization occurs, i.e. (a) when a person is subjected to “conditions or treatment that are inhuman or degrading”, (b) when a person is portrayed “in a way that obscures or demeans that person’s humanity or individuality”, or (c) when human involvement is removed or reduced. 2 For example, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary. Vesna Lazović 118 Dehumanization as the concept is understood in this paper as a dangerous rhetorical tool, which can result in people believing that dehumanized groups should not be respected and should not be treated in the same way. Moreover, dehumanization can result in linguistic, semiotic and physical manifestations, e.g. violence or verbal abuse (Stollznow 2008), the lack of empathy or indifferences toward their well-being (Guillard and Harris 2019), but also in negative emotional responses, e.g. hatred, disgust or contempt (Haslam 2006, Utych 2018). Guillard and Harris (2019) claim that dehumanization is a pervasive force in society that can have harmful consequences and emphasize that language can facilitate dehumanization. They state that dehumanizing language can result in negative emotional responses and negative attitudes toward dehumanized groups (i.e. anger and disgust toward immigrants), can increase xenophobia and support for strong national security, and can shape perception. Consequently, such language can generate and reinforce anti-immigrant public opinion and anti-immigrant policies. By being exposed to such media messages, people may develop an implicit bias and the use of dehumanizing language could impact the perception of another group in the long term (Guillard & Harris 2019). Bar-Tal and Hammack (2012: 181) suggest that dehumanization involves categorizing a group as nonhuman with the aim to approve and justify harm toward the dehumanized group. In their opinion, it can be manifested in discourse in different ways by using rhetorical strategies and labels (e.g. subhuman epithets, biological/ zoological labels). Haslam (2006) proposes two forms of dehumanization: (a) animalistic dehumanization, when people are compared to animals and their uniquely human attributes are denied (e.g. the ability to reason, think critically or feel emotions), and (b) mechanistic dehumanization, when people are compared to objects or machines, and their true human nature is denied. There are both cognitive mechanisms and social conditions that enable dehumanization, which is a common social phenomenon (Haslam 2006, Stollznow 2008). The objectification or animalization of a group aims to deny the equal human status of an individual or a group and therefore justify their mistreatment, usually by depriving them of fundamental human rights (Stollznow 2008). When groups are dehumanized, they are excluded from the typical moral consideration given to other human beings (Haslam 2006). Stollznow (2008: 177-178) also underlines that dehumanization is a key word in the discourse of discrimination used by governments, movements and individuals to portray a target as ‘bad’, ‘inferior’ ‘unhuman’, and therefore unworthy of equal respect or protection. She (2008: 191) further regards the use of metaphorical derogatory epithets to be a form of everyday dehumanization and calls it linguistic objectification ( SOMEONE IS SOME- THING ). As a consequence, these dehumanizing terms “can present the enemy as an object that must be handled in a rational and unemotional Dehumanization Revisited 119 manner, absolving the agent of guilt, empathy and social or moral responsibility” (ibid.: 194). Using experimental data, Utych (2018) proved that dehumanization of immigrants through disease metaphors can influence political attitudes toward immigration by causing more negative attitudes toward immigrants. Dehumanizing refugees and immigrants by portraying them as contaminants, viruses, diseases, pollutants can affect political attitudes (Guillard & Harris 2019) and make the public support harsh and punitive action against the dehumanized (Utych 2018). This form of dehumanization denies attributes of affect and cognition to the group that is dehumanized (Tipler & Ruscher 2014), and as such is a powerful tool commonly used in political propaganda. 3. Previous Research on Dehumanizing Metaphors Numerous studies have been conducted on the use of metaphors in news articles about refugees. The media refer to these people using numerous terms, including migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, and even illegals, sea arrivals and boat people. Baker et al. (2008) coined the acronym RASIM 3 (refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and migrants) during the ESRC-funded project Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press 1996-2006 (the RAS project), which combined corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. These studies have pinpointed a number of metaphors, mainly with negative implications, in immigration discourse. Santa Ana (1999) analyzed the 1994 anti-immigration political debate in California and identified the dominant conceptual metaphors IMMIGRANTS ARE ANIMALS along with less frequent metaphors IMMIGRANTS ARE WEEDS and IMMIGRANTS ARE COMMODI- TIES . Refaie (2001) discovered several main metaphor themes in Austrian newspaper reports on the Kurdish asylum seekers who arrived in Italy in January 1998, including: water, crime, business/ trade, war, animal, drama/ emergency and weight/ burden. Pickering (2001) singled out the water metaphor in the Australian media reports about refugees entering the country. O’Brien’s study (2003) on the metaphors used in the early 20 th century immigration restriction debate in the United States revealed a list of dehumanizing metaphors, which identified immigrants as natural catastrophes, objects, infectious diseases, conquering hordes, animals, and even waste materials from Europe. Baker and McEnery (2005) examined discourse which framed refugees as packages, invaders, pests or water in British news reports. In addition, Charteris-Black (2006) identified two prevalent immigration metaphors in the 2005 British election campaign: 3 The term refugees and the acronym RASIM will be used throughout this paper for people who are forced to leave their homes in order to escape horrific life conditions. Vesna Lazović 120 NATURAL DISASTER metaphors, which are mostly related to fluids, and CON- TAINER metaphors, both of which “discourage empathy with immigrants by treating them as objectsˮ (ibid.: 569). In both cases, fear and xenophobia towards immigrants is strongly reinforced. Media reports about refugees frequently use water metaphors (floods, tides, flows, etc.). Lee (2007) investigated the media representation of Chinese refugees arriving in California during the years 1850-1890. The common theme in the news of the time was the “trope of inundationˮ; as he explains, unwanted immigrants were described as ʻpouring inʼ, ‘swampingʼ, ʻflooding inʼ, or as coming in ‘tides’ and ‘waves’.(...) The metaphor alludes to an allied and recurrent image typical of this racist discourse, that of the fear of contamination, the terror of being made unclean by the filthy and sick. (Lee 2007) The above-mentioned list of dehumanizing metaphors is not exhaustive, though. Cisneros (2008) focused on an appalling metaphor IMMIGRANT AS A POLLUTANT in news media discourse on immigration, emphasizing the discriminatory nature of such discourse, in which immigrants are constructed as threatening substances and a mobile, toxic threat. Another study by Gabrielatos and Baker (2008) explored the discursive construction of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press during the period 1996-2005. They noted that negative metaphors of water mass are often used to depict refugees in British newspapers. Similarly, KhosraviNik (2010) claimed that refugees are predominantly depicted in a negative manner, since they are presented via water metaphors and metaphors of natural disasters and labelled as danger, burden and law abusers. In addition, Cunningham-Parmeter’s investigation (2011) focused on legal texts, where the most prevalent metaphors identified were IMMIGRANTS ARE ALIENS , IMMIGRATION IS A FLOOD , and IMMIGRATION IS AN INVASION . Parker (2015) analyzed the representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK and Australian print media in the first decade of the 21 st century (2001- 2010). He discovered that metaphors of criminals and water were commonly used in both countries, but in different ways. In Australia, the focus was on border protection, while in the UK, it was on repatriation of refugees. Two more recent research studies have found other instances of metaphor use. Musolff (2017) tracked so-called parasite metaphors in weblogs and discussion forums, where immigrants were depicted as parasites, leeches, or bloodsuckers, whilst Marder (2018) readdressed the implications of the metaphor which links refugees to weapons of mass destruction (first discussed by Greenhill 2010). Table 1 summarizes the negative metaphorical concepts and lists the source domains used in media reports on RASIM and immigration. Dehumanization Revisited 121 Target domains Source domains REFUGEES ASYLUM SEEKERS IMMIGRANTS MIGRANTS ARE ECONOMIC / SOCIAL BURDEN AN UNWANTED PROBLEM SAFETY / SECURITY / ECONOMY / HYGIENE THREAT SUBHUMAN ENTITIES NON - HUMANS ANIMALS INSECTS PARASITES A SOURCE OF INFECTION AND CONTAMINATION INDIGESTIBLE FOOD CONQUERING HORDES INVADERS WASTE MATERIALS POLLUTANTS MATERIAL OBJECTS DISEASED ORGANISMS INFECTIOUS DISEASE COMMODITIES NATURAL DISASTER ( FLOOD , INFESTATION ) TOXIC WASTE WEEDS Table 1. The Metaphorical Concepts Found in Media Reports on RASIM As can be seen from Table 1, reports widely use metaphors of invasion, disease and natural disaster. The common denominator for all of the source domains is a threat, which evokes a negative cognitive concept: that of refugees threatening the integrity, the security, the economy and the wellbeing of society and the nation. Such a narrative can have harmful consequences, since the inhumane discursive treatment of a vulnerable and marginalized group can lead to inhumane or adverse social policies and social treatment (O’Brien 2003: 44). Moreover, if refugees are seen as a threat to the community, harmful policies and public actions against them can be easily justified as measures of self-defense (Brennan 1995, Saxton 2003). 4. Research Methodology The target years analyzed in this paper included the year 2015 and the year 2016. These two consecutive years were chosen because they marked Vesna Lazović 122 the watershed events with far-reaching consequences for the whole continent - the outbreak of the crisis in 2015 and the Brexit referendum in 2016. Although the referendum about the UK’s membership in the EU had been on the table for several years, it was finally held in June 2016 amidst the difficult times the EU was facing while struggling with problems regarding the refugee crisis and the refugee quotas. The historical Brexit decision may have been a surprise, but the UK had always wanted stricter immigration controls and tougher immigration restrictions even for the EU citizens. This research focused on the context surrounding RASIM words in the online newspaper articles from three British quality newspapers: The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent. The three online newspapers were chosen because they are the leading national broadsheet newspapers and their role cannot be neglected. According to National Readership Surveys (2017), their reports reached the vast readership. Chart 1 shows the number of average monthly visitors to different newspaper websites in the UK from 2013 to 2016. It is evident that the three online newspapers chosen for the analysis were all ranked among the first five. The other two leading websites are categorized as the tabloid newspapers or the popular press. Chart 1. Newspaper Websites Ranked by Monthly Visitors in the UK from 2013 to 2016 (in Million Visitors). Source: National Readership Surveys, Statista Dehumanization Revisited 123 The website of The Guardian had 8.8 million monthly visitors in 2015 and 7.7 million visitors in 2016. Similarly, 9.1 million visitors accessed the website of The Telegraph on a monthly basis in 2015 and approximately 7.3 million monthly visitors accessed the website in 2016. The Independent reached approximately 5.3 million visitors monthly in 2015 and 4.4 million visitors monthly in 2016. Since the paper tackles the sensitive issue of refugee treatment, it should be noted that political stances of these newspapers are not the same. The Guardian is seen as Britain’s most left-wing newspaper, The Telegraph as predominantly right-wing, while The Independent is viewed as having a center-left political stance (Smith 2017). 2015 2016 2015 and 2016 analysis quantitative quantitative qualitative corpus Timestamped JSI web corpus 2014-2020 English Timestamped JSI web corpus 2014-2020 English representative RASIM examples in Timestamped JSI web corpus 2014-2020 English subcorpus GTI 2015 GTI 2016 GTI 2015 and GTI 2016 approx. no. of words 106,251,726 64,619,222 / methodology Sketch Engine, automatic search Sketch Engine, automatic search examination of concordance lines results word sketches and concordances word sketches and concordances examples in broader context Table 2. Overview of the Methodology The time periods observed were the years 2015 and 2016, and the corpus used for the investigation was the English Timestamped JSI web corpus 2014-2020, which allowed a chronological search to be conducted on the chosen sites. This English corpus consists of news articles gained from their RSS feeds, which is updated on a daily basis (cf. Sketch Engine). Using the text analysis software Sketch Engine, the corpus was further subdivided into two subcorpora: GTI 4 2015 and GTI 2016, which comprised the data found on the official websites of these three newspapers in the years of 2015 and 2016, respectively. The analysis was both quantitative and qualitative in 4 The subcorpora included the articles on the official sites: www.theguardian.com, www.telegraph.co.uk, and www.independent.co.uk, which were found within the chosen timestamped corpus in the respective years. The acronym GTI stands for the names of the newspapers in question (The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent). Vesna Lazović 124 nature and consisted of three major methodological steps, summarized in Table 2. It should be noted that each subcorpus included reports on various topics. RASIM words were mostly found in the reports covering the EU refugee crisis, but also immigration worldwide. After the subcorpora were created, the first step was to check the word sketches for RASIM words separately. The results were considered for further discussion if they fulfilled the two criteria: 1) the logDice score, showing the strength of a collocation pair, was equal to or above one, and 2) the raw frequency of their co-occurrences was at least ten for GTI 2015 and at least five for GTI 2016. All of the raw automatic frequency counts were then normed to a basis of a million words of text (pmw - per million words), so that the distribution could be compared across the subcorpora. The threshold value of logDice was set to one so that a wider range of collocation candidates be included in the analysis, primarily because the scores in this context ranged from 0.01 to 6.92 (mostly from 1 to 6). Log- Dice makes the comparison across different corpora easier since it is not affected by the corpus size (Rychlý 2008). Within the second step, additional qualitative analyses were carried out to uncover and examine patterns. To verify the quantitative findings, the concordance lines were further analyzed and thoroughly examined in order to ascertain the surrounding context and identify metaphors and other immediate collocates. Looking at the broader context is crucial since collocation sets can provide “a semantic analysis of a word” (Sinclair 1991: 115- 116) and also reveal information about “the most frequent or salient ideas associated with a word” (Gabrielatos & Baker 2008: 10). 5. Findings and Discussion This paper looks at dehumanizing language used to represent RASIM, primarily by investigating the use of dehumanizing metaphors, i.e. examples of RASIM being compared to non-human entities. In addition, dehumanization can occur more subtly through other linguistic strategies, such as the use of particular wording. For that reason, the paper further investigates collocational patterns and word choice surrounding RASIM. Choosing particular words over others can create different cognitive and emotional responses in individuals, who may not be aware of this process (cf. Utych 2018). Finally, the overuse of quantification to premodify RASIM can also obstruct the process of their identification with other human beings and also the process of readers empathizing with them. Quantifiers in this respect may have a devastating effect, since the focus of the information switches away from real people and their life stories. This part addresses the quantitative findings of both subcorpora - GTI 2015 and GTI 2016, including the frequency of RASIM words, their word sketches, i.e. typical multiword units and concordance listings. As noted Dehumanization Revisited 125 earlier, both subcorpora include the articles found in the TimeStamped JSI web corpus 2014-2020 English for each newspaper and for each year separately. It also includes a qualitative discussion of examples found in both subcorpora and the word choice surrounding RASIM. The first step involved the automatic identification of RASIM words. Table 3 summarizes the frequency and distribution of RASIM words across the newspapers and time periods. Table 3. The Frequency and Distribution of RASIM words Concerning the subcorpora size, GTI 2015 is significantly bigger than GTI 2016. There are approximately 106,251,726 words in the articles found in these three newspapers in 2015 compared to 64,619,222 words found in 2016. However, when the normed frequency counts of RASIM words are cumulatively compared, it is evident that they were used slightly more often in 2016 (1226.05 occurrences pmw 5 ) than in 2015 (1057.16 occurrences pmw). This difference is not of crucial importance given the fact that the crisis was widely reported in both years. 5.1. Analysis of GTI 2015 Since the primary research idea revolved around the question of dehumanizing language, the next step was to investigate word sketches and collocation patterns, thus identifying association patterns possibly connected with RASIM words. The most typical collocates for every lemma in GTI 2015 with the logDice scores are shown in Table 4. 5 The counts were normed in relation to the approximate number of words in the whole corpus (pmw - per million words). Vesna Lazović 126 LEMMA/ PHRASE REFUGEE ASYLUM SEEKER IMMIGRANT MIGRANT Modifiers of a lemma/ phrase nationality: destitute 5.68 nationality: nationality: Syrian 4.91 Mexican 2.24 non-EU 3.89 Eritrean 4.43 Cuban 2.13 Eritrean 3.31 Somali 3.36 status: Burmese 3.22 Rohingya 2.66 undocumented 4.25 EU 2.21 Sudanese 2.36 illegal 2.63 Bangladeshi 2.17 Iraqi 1.63 would-be 1.07 Mediterranean 2.12 Afghan 1.45 other: Rohingya 2.06 numeral: secondgeneration 3.99 Sudanese 1.17 thousand 1.91 first-generation 2.92 status: feelings/ emotions: undocumented 3.41 desperate 2.27 irregular 2.56 vulnerable 1.08 would-be 2.12 status: unemployed 1.59 genuine 1.93 illegal 1.43 skilled 1.16 feelings: desperate 1.99 location: Calais 5.61 Nouns and verbs modified by a lemma/ phrase UNHCR 4.59 solidarity 1.64 resettlement 4.54 crisis 3.37 quota 3.28 influx 3.20 camp 3.08 exodus 2.20 intake 1.60 welcome 1.52 status 1.23 shelter 1.14 Verbs with a lemma/ phrase as an object resettle 6.92 fail 1.23 deport 2.14 resettle 3.54 redistribute 3.40 deport 3.12 relocate 2.50 drown 3.03 drown 1.77 camp 3.00 house 1.71 ferry 2.92 strand 1.37 smuggle 2.78 accept 1.30 rescue 2.52 Dehumanization Revisited 127 Table 4. Word Sketch Results for RASIM with logDice in GTI 2015 Regarding the modifiers, RASIM words are most frequently premodified by adjectives denoting nationality (Syrian, Mexican, Eritrean, Somali), feelings and emotions (desperate, vulnerable), immigration status (illegal, undocumented, irregular, genuine), encampment locations (Calais), but also by quantifiers and numerals, as will be discussed later. It should be noted that negative adjectives prevail when the refugees’ status is described, which is consistent with the hardship and torment they experienced at the time. They could not prove their status and could not reside legally, therefore faced problems obtaining valid visas and getting a job. The only exception is the adjective skilled in the noun phrase skilled migrants. When the context is further examined, it becomes clear that the phrase is used to refer to migrants who have particular skills required by the country (in this case, the UK) and who decide to move in pursuit of better employment conditions, and not to people who have been forced to leave their homes. The Sketch Engine statistics also reveal common patterns and co-occurrences of nouns and verbs. The occurrences of the nouns crisis, camp, UN- HCR, status and shelter, or the verbs arrive, and camp are expected, and refer to the immediate events following the initial crisis. These collocates denote their temporary residence (camp, shelter), their journey (cross, ferry), but also describe how they left their countries (flee, escape) and how they were made to return back (deter, deport). Moreover, the words referring to their treatment during the strenuous journey imply their illegality (smuggle) and their inability to move (strand). This is shown in examples 1 and 2: (1) As many as 100 Britons are believed to have been jailed in France during the past year for attempting to smuggle migrants across the Channel into the UK. [The Guardian, 23 June 2015, document no. 19524991] (2) More than a 1,000 refugees stranded in Hungary took matters into their own hands on Friday and attempted to walk to Austria. [The Telegraph, 4 September 2015, document no. 22375114] Other lexical verbs around RASIM words reveal the topics and events found in the reports in this particular period. Contextual clues suggest that some welcome 1.11 deter 1.62 strand 1.56 strip 1.27 Verbs with a lemma/ phrase as a subject flee 3.73 drown 3.63 drown 2.59 camp 3.61 risk 1.94 risk 3.00 pour 1.58 cross 2.07 arrive 1.52 flee 1.74 escape 1.28 attempt 1.20 flood 1.23 sleep 1.02 cross 1.01 arrive 1.02 Vesna Lazović 128 people managed to cross the Mediterranean and borders, risking their lives in the process, but were eventually accepted and welcomed, while others were not rescued and, unfortunately, lost their lives by drowning. By closely examining examples in context, two metaphors can be observed. First of all, the water metaphor is used to indicate the uncontrollable movement of people. At the same time, it symbolizes the loss of control over immigration (Van der Valk 2000: 234). Through the use of liquid metaphors (e.g. People flood / flow / stream / pour into a country) instead of neutral phrases (e.g. People travel / migrate / move / arrive to/ in a country), refugees are transformed into a mindless, overwhelming and potentially unstoppable mass (Bleasdale 2008). The features of water, such as lack of shape and colour, are hence attributed to humans, which leads to the metaphorical dehumanization of refugees (Kainz 2016). The most frequent water metaphors include the noun influx and the verbs pour and flood, as illustrated in examples 3-5: (3) Together these measures suggest that the EU’s Schengen agreement has effectively broken down, as EU states come up with their own unilateral initiatives to stop, or at least slow down, the refugee influx. [The Guardian, 14 September 2015, document no. 22585639] (4) Despite its generosity, Germany says that it cannot cope with the sheer quantity of refugees now pouring into it territory. [The Independent, 3 September 2015, document no. 22294481] (5) In response, refugees flooded instead into Croatia, which immediately tried to move them back into Hungary and Slovenia, prompting quasi-military manoeuvres from its neighbours. [The Guardian, 19 September 2015, document no. 22030904] The use of the word flood conveys the notion of danger. According to Charteris-Black (2006: 570), water metaphors are particularly powerful and compelling since flooding is connected to a more familiar experience, i.e. the severe floods in Britain in 2001, but also floods which have been increasingly occurring in the country in the last decade. This recall of recent experience can in turn evoke more powerful reactions in the readership. The second metaphor REFUGEES ARE PROPERTY OR COMMODITIES implies the notion of ՙ passiveness ՚ , as they have little or no ability to act or move and are stripped of their benefits and human rights. EU officials make decisions about their future, resettling and relocating them to different places according to the EU’s requirements and criteria. Sometimes, refugees are stranded and cannot move further unless they pay to be smuggled in desperate attempts to reach Europe. It seems they are unable to control their lives and act properly since they largely depend on others. The use of this Dehumanization Revisited 129 metaphor is an example of mechanistic dehumanization, since human nature characteristics including individual agency are denied to others and refugees are seen as object or machines (cf. Haslam 2006). They are in this way represented as passive and inert, lacking the autonomous agency. In the subcorpus RASIM words are frequently used with the noun resettlement and the verbs resettle, redistribute and relocate (examples 6-7): (6) The €50m (£36m) scheme is aimed at redistributing refugees across the continent, using criteria including GDP, population size, unemployment rates and past numbers of asylum seekers and resettled refugees. [The Independent, 14 May 2015, document no. 18279062] (7) On Tuesday, interior ministers also decided to relocate 120,000 refugees among most of the EU states, defying opposition from eastern countries Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia. [The Telegraph, 25 September 2015, document no. 22932540] The qualitive analysis revealed other verbs as well. Example 8 contains the water metaphor flooding to the region, but also the verb dump: (8) Germany has accused Austria of dumping asylum-seekers near its border to force them to cross into Bavaria, escalating a row between the countries over thousands of refugees flooding to the region. [The Telegraph, 28 October 2015, document no. 24975468] The action of dumping is mainly associated with waste, garbage and trash. The search for other lexical verbs used with RASIM words is, however, beyond the scope of this paper. 5.2. Analysis of GTI 2016 The subcorpus GTI 2016 with approximately 65 million words was much smaller in size, but the findings reveal a striking similarity with the 2015 results, as the comparison shows consistency in terms of semantic preferences and metaphors. Based on the collocation sets, the media hype surrounding the referendum did not significantly influence the treatment of refugees. Table 5 lists the word sketches for RASIM words with the logDice scores in GTI 2016. Vesna Lazović 130 LEMMA/ PHRASE REFUGEE ASYLUM SEEKER IMMIGRANT MIGRANT Modifiers of a lemma/ phrase nationality: destitute 4.63 nationality: nationality: Syrian 4.06 unaccompanied 2.45 non-EU 2.19 non-EU 4.79 Eritrean 2.89 Cuban 1.64 Albanian 3.40 Angolan 2.73 Mexican 1.46 EU 2.86 Somali 2.33 status: status: Ugandan 1.71 undocumented 3.79 irregular 3.07 Sudanese 1.43 illegal 1.86 undocumented 2.53 Afghan 1.27 other: unaccompanied 1.46 numeral: second-generation 3.35 would-be 1.37 thousand 1.25 first-generation 2.94 numeral: feelings/ emotions: thousand 1.10 desperate 1.23 location: status: Calais 4.49 unaccompanied 5.30 location: Calais 4.52 sexual orientation: lgbti 2.08 age: child 1.56 Nouns and verbs modified by a lemma/ phrase resettlement 3.76 taskforce 3.38 crisis 3.00 camp 2.76 influx 2.16 encampment 1.65 quota 1.57 hostel 1.29 Verbs with a lemma/ phrase as an object resettle 6.42 deport 2.86 deport 3.55 deport 3.44 strand 2.18 resettle 2.28 drown 2.05 relocate 2.08 ferry 2.03 help 2.03 camp 1.83 deport 1.94 repel 1.52 deter 1.35 Dehumanization Revisited 131 strand 1.25 smuggle 1.21 Verbs with a lemma/ phrase as a subject flee 3.14 drown 2.12 drown 2.69 queue 2.61 camp 1.96 risk 1.96 board 1.64 arrive 1.13 Table 5. Word Sketch Results for RASIM words with logDice in GTI 2016 To begin with, RASIM words are once again premodified by adjectives denoting nationality (Syrian, Eritrean, Angolan, etc.), feelings and emotions (desperate) and encampment locations (Calais). The reports covered the refugee crises worldwide, discussed the need for skilled non-EU migrants, but also highlighted the problems with immigration status, as shown by the use of the adjectives undocumented, irregular and illegal. In addition, the collocates again denote their temporary residence (camp, hostel), hardship during their perilous journey (smuggle, strand, risk), which started when they had to flee their home country and use different means of transport to reach Europe (ferry, board, arrive), eventually queuing to register and receive food in camps. Unfortunately, not all of them survived trying to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats. The newspapers reported on tragic events of refugees drowning when overcrowded boats capsized. The word sketches also reveal that the reports in 2016 focused more on RASIM deportation and foregrounded the topic of unaccompanied juvenile refugees, as illustrated in examples 9-10: (9) According to the EU police agency Europol, more than 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have disappeared in Europe in the last two years. [The Independent, 2 April 2016, document no. 33936542] (10) Home Office figures show that the number of unaccompanied child asylum seekers arriving in Britain rose by 56% in the year to 2015, to 3,043. [The Guardian, 20 April 2016, document no. 35100594] In addition, the collocates indicate the recurrent use of two dehumanizing metaphors. The water metaphor is again found in the examples, in particular, with the use of the noun influx (example 11). However, the qualitative analysis of expanded concordances revealed that the nouns wave and flood were also used to refer to refugees in the subcorpus (example 12). (11) The 2.3 mile wire fence is being built by Austria on its border with Slovenia to “control” the refugee influx. [The Telegraph, 1 March 2016, document no. 31736571] Vesna Lazović 132 (12) Greece has been warned that it could be expelled from Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone if it does not manage its borders better and slow the current wave of refugees. [The Independent, 27 January 2016, document no. 29215095] This is in line with the research results of Baker et al. (2008: 287), who noticed that refugees tend to be quantified in terms of water metaphors, being dehumanized in this way, since they are depicted as an out-of-control, agentless, unwanted natural disaster. The metaphor REFUGEES ARE PROPERTY OR COMMODITIES emphasizes yet again the lack of agency and creates a negative framing, in which refugees are not seen as active human participants. RASIM are in the hands of others, who resettle and relocate them (examples 13-14): (13) In September, EU members pledged to relocate 120,000 refugees from Greece and Italy, the frontline states where most new asylum-seekers enter Europe. [The Guardian, 24 May 2016, document no. 37565363] (14) The Prime Minister has promised to resettle 20,000 refugees from Syria in the UK by 2020. [The Independent, 16 January 2016, document no. 28455272] Denying their active involvement and agency is a form of mechanistic dehumanization. Refugees seem not to have any possibility to take control of their own lives. Finally, the verb repel holds a particular semantic preference since it often co-occurs with insects, invaders and intruders. Due to its semantic preference, it could be argued that another dehumanizing metaphor REFU- GEES ARE INSECTS 6 is deployed (example 15): (15) On Monday migrants were repelled with teargas after using a road sign to break open gates. [The Telegraph, 2 March 2016, document no. 31780192] According to Haslam (2006: 257-258), this animalistic form of dehumanization occurs when uniquely human characteristics are denied to people (e.g. civility, moral sensibility and higher cognition). Consequently, they are perceived as uncultured and unintelligent. 5.3. Analysis of Quantification in GTI 2015 and GTI 2016 Quantification is another rhetorical strategy repeatedly used in the representation of RASIM. The use of “quantitative” collocations signals a burden or a problem, particularly those expressed through emotionally charged 6 It could also be seen as the war metaphor, where refugees are enemies and intruders who need to be defeated. Dehumanization Revisited 133 water metaphors (Gabrielatos & Baker 2008: 22), as they warn about the increasing and uncontrollable number of refugees. Luu (2015) argues that such metaphors “rapidly zoom out from a focus on individual humanity and individual stories”, which results in migrants becoming statistics, not people. Along with water metaphors, RASIM were frequently premodified by quantifiers. Transforming human beings into anonymous masses and pure numbers is another instance of dehumanization. The overuse of quantifiers may hide real problems or real people, as seen in example 16: (16) Last month the EU announced plans to relocate 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece to elsewhere in Europe over the next two years. [The Guardian, 7 June 2015, document no. 18680163] Baker et al. (2008: 287) pointed out that “...about one in five references to refugees and asylum seekers are accompanied by quantification (the Number category).ˮ Their research was based on the analysis of a 140-millionword corpus of British news articles about refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and migrants in the UK press, from 1996 to 2006. Similarly, the results of this research study reveal an abundance of numerals surrounding RASIM. Table 6 shows the number of occurrences of each RASIM word with a premodifying numeral in both subcorpora (three collocates to the left within the same sentence were included in the search). subcorpus GTI 2015 GTI 2016 raw counts per million raw counts per million refugee 2410 22.68 1822 28.20 asylum seeker 415 3.91 369 5.71 immigrant 302 2.84 238 3.68 migrant 1447 13.62 885 13.70 TOTAL 4574 43.05 3314 51.29 Table 6. The Frequency Counts of RASIM Words Premodified by a Numeral As can be seen, there is an apparent increase per million words, from 43.05 pmw in 2015 to 51.29 pmw in 2016 with regard to the total number of words in each subcorpus. However, there is one similarity when only the total number of RASIM occurrences is taken into consideration: in both years, RASIM words were used with a premodifying numeral in approximately one in ten references (12.44% of all the occurrences in the subcorpus in 2015 and 13.16% in 2016). Example 17 from GTI 2015 can be used to illustrate the point: Vesna Lazović 134 (17) European Union governments have failed to reach agreement on how to divide up the tens of thousands of refugees pouring into southern Italy from north Africa, increasing Rome’s fears that it will be left to cope with the Mediterranean migrant crisis. [The Guardian, 16 June 2015, document no. 19374479] Refugees are treated as property, while the notion of passiveness is highlighted by the use of the phrasal verb divide up. Apart from the water metaphor pouring into southern Italy, the quantifier tens of thousands premodifies the noun refugees. This vague number can influence the reader’s perception of the crisis, since the situation is presented as unstoppable and uncontrollable. The output results contain many examples with premodifiers related to numbers, including more than a million migrants and refugees, 5 million undocumented immigrants, thousands more refugees, hundreds of migrants, the soaring numbers of immigrants, etc. Moreover, the reports extensively commented on the refugee quotas and intake each EU country was prepared to accept. Since the EU countries could not agree, their redistribution caused disagreements (examples 18-19): (18) Cameron limits UK’s Syrian refugee intake ‘to discourage risky journeys’ [The Guardian, 4 September 2015, document no. 22343342] (19) The Government has refused to take part in UN and EU refugee quotas and is instead taking 4,000 Syrian refugees a year from camps near the Syrian conflict zone. [The Independent, 29 January 2016, document no. 29355063] The emphasis on refugee quotas and the overuse of quantifiers in reports may have a devastating effect, since the focus of the information switches away from real people and their life stories (cf. cf. Lazović 2017). As a result, the reader’s empathy can slowly fade away. By turning refugees into faceless numbers, their voices are silenced and rights are suppressed. Yet again, individuals are deprived of their humanity and “lost in the mass sense of these volume terms” (Santa Ana 2002: 73). 6. Conclusion This paper has shown that dehumanization is linguistically constructed in media discourse on immigration with the reinforcement of water metaphors, the overuse of quantification and linguistic objectification. The results mirror the previous studies, which have extensively documented the negative representation of RASIM in the press. Dehumanization Revisited 135 The choice of words in close proximity to RASIM suggest that reports in three British online newspapers do negatively frame the subject of immigration. As Gabrielatos and Baker (2008: 13) emphasized, particular meaning attributes can be arbitrarily associated with RASIM if particular collocates are repeatedly used, esp. in the case of negative constructions. This research study has confirmed that dehumanization is frequently used in the reports on refugees. It is hence important to understand how dehumanizing language operates and how it can lead to serious consequences for dehumanized groups (Utych 2018). Language as a media weapon can construct dominant ideologies, change beliefs and systems and profoundly influence the policies surrounding immigration and the way society treats migrants (cf. Cisneros 2008). When immigration is depicted as threatening, this can arouse feelings of fear and xenophobia, resulting in discrimination towards refugees. Even after numerous appeals by both NGOs and UN experts, the rhetoric on immigration and immigrants has not significantly changed. There are many different examples of harmful metaphors which compare refugees with criminals, animals, water, invaders and aliens. They are seen as a threat, burden and disaster. Owing to their effectiveness as instruments of social control for political organizations, mass media and other institutions, metaphors seem to be deliberately reestablished and reinforced. The majority of research studies on this topic highlight the negative impacts such metaphors can create. They change the way society treats immigrants, discouraging empathy, depriving immigrants of their identity and their rights, reinforcing conscious and subliminal fears, developing and fostering negative social images, and also legitimizing oppressive national practices (cf. Brennan 1995, Santa Anna 2002, Charteris-Black 2006). This list is, unfortunately, not exhaustive. Such inhumane media treatment can also encourage racism, xenophobia, marginalization and discrimination. The results presented in this paper could serve as a foundation for future research, examining the recurrence of themes in longitudinal studies (cf. Baker et al. 2008), comparing the use of metaphors in different languages (cf. Fijavž & Fišer 2020), and also searching for positive metaphors in the discourse on immigration (cf. Santa Ana 1999, Salshour 2016). Salshour (2016), for example, examined the use of liquid metaphors in the representation of immigrants in a New Zealand newspaper and discovered a surprisingly high number of positive representations, where these metaphors were used to portray immigration as beneficial. To conclude, dehumanization can leave deep marks on the ideology of a society, especially if / when used by politicians and journalists and other authority figures, in turn triggering hostility and diminishing interest in helping other people. Therefore, a human perspective should be adopted and more positive and immigrant-affirming metaphors should be used in the media, as words really do matter when issues that affect lives of so Vesna Lazović 136 many people are discussed. The society should strive for more balanced and more objective media reporting. References Allen, William & Scott Blinder (2013). 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Online sources Sketch Engine language corpus management and query system, www.sketchengine.eu Timestamped JSI web corpus, www.sketchengine.eu/ jozef-stefan-institute-newsfeed-corpus Vesna Lazović Department of English Faculty of Arts University of Ljubljana Let’s (Not) Address the Monster Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht - Eine curriculare Perspektive Daniel Becker Over the past two decades, the phenomenon of depression has been rapidly spreading among adolescents. With this in mind, it has become necessary in public discourse to discuss ways to help teenagers deal with this mental illness in a reflected and informed manner. In this context, schools play a most important role: as, for instance, pointed out in the Empfehlung zur Gesundheitsförderung und Prävention in der Schule (KMK 2012), every school subject has the responsibility to integrate topics such as depression into their curricular framework, thus helping pupils develop competences in dealing with depression-related thoughts and behaviours in their everyday environment. In this setting, the present paper will take an exemplary look at the subject of English. More specifically, the paper will examine in how far the current curricular guidelines of English have accommodated the topic of teenage depression and have thus followed the recommendation of the KMK. This question will be answered by conceptually analysing the current national educational guidelines (Bildungsstandards). It will be argued that the contemporary curricular framework of English paints a rather ambivalent picture when it comes to addressing the topic of depression. 1. Einleitung Monsters don’t live under our beds. They scream inside of our heads. Die Monster, auf die sich die jugendliche Sprecherin in Katie Q. McKees Gedicht „The Monster” (2017) bezieht, sind nicht die fiktiven Gestalten, denen Heranwachsende regelmäßig in Filmen, Videospielen oder Romanen AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0012 Daniel Becker 140 begegnen. So wird die Sprecherin in diesen Zeilen nicht von Schreckgespenstern, Zombies oder Vampiren heimgesucht, die bedrohlich in dunklen Ecken oder unter Betten lauern. Stattdessen kämpft sie mit einem verinnerlichten Monster unter ihrer Haut („the monster that’s under my skin”; Zeile 42), das in Form von negativen Gedanken und Selbstzweifeln ihren Verstand kontrolliert („this darkness beneath consumes my mind”; Zeile 15) und so die Sprecherin zunehmend in ein schwarzes Loch („black hole”; Zeile 8) der Trauer und Hoffnungslosigkeit hinabzieht, in dem jeglicher Lebenswille zu ertrinken droht; denn, im Angesicht dieses Monsters, „you don’t need water to be drowned” (Zeile 14). Auch wenn die Sprecherin das innere Monster nicht beim Namen nennt, so geht doch aus ihren Beschreibungen deutlich hervor, dass es sich bei diesem Ungeheuer um eine Personifizierung der psychischen Krankheit Depression handelt. „The Monster” gewährt demnach besonders eindrückliche Einblicke in die Gefühlswelt einer jungen Person, die unter einem andauernden Zustand der emotionalen Niedergeschlagenheit leidet (vgl. Rey & Hazell 2009: 4) und nähert sich damit auf kreative Weise einem Sachverhalt an, der sich in den vergangenen zwei bis drei Jahrzehnten verstärkt in jugendlichen Lebenswelten verankert hat: Gegenwärtige medizinische Studien konstatieren, „dass depressive Symptome und Störungen im Kindes- und vor allem im Jugendalter ein recht verbreitetes Phänomen darstellen” (Groen & Petermann 2011: 5). Depressionen in der Jugend sind längst kein Einzelfall mehr, sondern gelten mittlerweile als die am häufigsten auftretende psychische Erkrankung bei 12bis 17-Jährigen, mit einem „erheblichen Einfluss auf Gesellschaft und Gesundheitswesen” (Bramesfeld & Stoppe 2006: 1). Depressive Störungen bei Heranwachsenden müssen somit heute als „ernstzunehmendes Gesundheitsproblem” (Groen & Petermann 2011: 14) wahrgenommen werden, zumal sie bei (pubertierenden) Jugendlichen zu erheblichen und lebenslangen Einschränkungen des Selbstwertgefühls sowie der sozialen und beruflichen Handlungsfähigkeit führen können (vgl. Essau 2007: 88). Diese zunehmende Verbreitung von Depressionen unter Jugendlichen führt unweigerlich zur Frage, welchen Beitrag verschiedene gesellschaftliche Instanzen leisten können (und müssen), um diesem wütenden Monster produktiv entgegenzutreten. In diesem Kontext steht vor allem die Institution Schule vor der Verantwortung der gesundheitlichen Aufklärung, spielt sie doch eine maßgebliche Rolle in der jugendlichen Sozialisation und Lebensgestaltung: Wenn an Schulen von einem Bildungsverständnis ausgegangen wird, das über eine reine Wissensvermittlung hinausgeht und das sich auf die Persönlichkeitsbildung junger Menschen konzentriert und den Schülern bei der Entwicklung eines konsistenten Selbstkonzepts und der Fähigkeit zur kritischen Selbstreflexion unterstützend begleitet, dann schafft dieses Verständnis die Basis dafür, dass die Auseinandersetzung mit Aspekten bzw. Wirkmechanismen, die junge Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 141 Menschen in ihrem Entwicklungsprozess behindern und sich langfristig auf ihr Leben auswirken, nicht aus den Bildungs- und Erziehungsaufgaben aller Fächer - und damit jedes Einzelfaches - ausgeklammert werden kann. (Trumm 2014: 142) Schule, so argumentiert auch die KMK Empfehlung zur Gesundheitsförderung und Prävention in der Schule (2012), muss den veränderten Krankheitsbildern vieler Jugendlicher aktiv begegnen und kann sich so auch vor dem Phänomen der Depression nicht verschließen. In diesem Sinne ist Schule verpflichtet, auf die „Verschiebung […] von somatischen zu psychischen Störungen” (KMK 2012a: 2) zu reagieren: Jedes Einzelfach hat die Aufgabe, prävalente Themen wie die Jugenddepression in die eigenen curricularen Rahmenvorgaben zu integrieren, um so einen fachspezifischen Beitrag zur Förderung gesundheitlicher „Alltagskompetenzen” (ebd.: 2) im Umgang mit diesem Phänomen zu leisten. Der vorliegende Beitrag möchte vor diesem Hintergrund einen beispielhaften Blick auf den schulischen Englischunterricht werfen. Genauer soll es um die bisher in der fachdidaktischen Diskussion nur wenig beachtete Frage gehen, ob und inwiefern die derzeit geltenden curricularen Richtlinien dieses Hauptfaches das Thema Depression aufgreifen und somit der Forderung der KMK nachkommen. Wird dieses Thema bereits als Teil der offiziellen Zielsetzungen beachtet und damit von Englischlehrkräften im Kontext ihres Unterrichtsgeschehens eingefordert, oder wird das Phänomen Depression vernachlässigt und bleibt für die curriculare Konzeption des Englischunterrichtes irrelevant? Diese Fragen sind besonders wichtig, gehen sie doch mit der Annahme einher, dass Englischlehrkräfte nur dann systematisch einen fachspezifischen und kompetenzorientierten Beitrag zur Ergründung der Depression leisten können, wenn dieses Phänomen auch auf der strukturellen Rahmen-Ebene des Englischunterrichtes ernst genommen wird. Der vorliegende Beitrag erörtert somit grundlegend, inwiefern der Englischunterricht curricular ‚bereit’ für das Thema Depression ist, und liefert eine wichtige Basis für weitere fachdidaktische Auseinandersetzungen mit der Depression im Englischunterricht. Zur Beantwortung dieser grundlegenden Fragen wird im Folgenden eine theoretisch-konzeptionelle Analyse der bundesweit geltenden Bildungsstandards für die erste bzw. fortgesetzte Fremdsprache vorgestellt, welche sowohl die konzeptionellen Freiräume als auch Beschränkungen der Englisch-Richtlinien im Hinblick auf das Thema Depression erörtern soll. Hierbei steht das Argument im Vordergrund, dass die Rahmenvorgaben bisher ein eher ambivalentes und teils widersprüchliches Bild im Umgang mit Depressionen zeichnen: Während die Standards auf der einen Seite durchaus Möglichkeiten bieten, das Thema Depression kompetenzorientiert im eigenen fachlich-curricularen Diskurs zu integrieren, weisen diese andererseits gleichzeitig auch Tendenzen auf, die einer zielkonformen Begegnung mit diesem Thema im Englischunterricht zuwiderlaufen; diese Tendenzen werden insbesondere in Daniel Becker 142 Hinblick auf das zentrale Leitbild der interkulturell verorteten und im globalen Wettbewerb handlungsfähigen Bürger*innen sichtbar. Der Beitrag geht hierbei wie folgt vor: In einem ersten Schritt soll das Phänomen der Jugenddepression näher definiert werden. In einem zweiten Schritt soll anhand einer Besprechung bisheriger Ansätze diskutiert werden, welche Kompetenzen Jugendliche genau im Unterricht erlernen sollten, um dieser Krankheit im Alltag produktiv begegnen zu können. In einem dritten Schritt wird schließlich analysiert, inwiefern die fremdsprachlichen Bildungsstandards eine Förderung solcher Kompetenzen antizipieren und welche curricularen Möglichkeiten und Hindernisse damit einhergehen. 2. Depression im Jugendalter: Definition und Epidemiologie Gefühle der Traurigkeit und Niedergeschlagenheit gehören zur emotionalen Ausstattung eines jeden Menschen. Sobald sich diese Gefühle jedoch über mehrere Wochen oder gar Monate verfestigen und dabei eine Intensität erreichen, die das eigene alltägliche Denken und Handeln erschweren oder gar zum Erliegen bringen, spricht man in der Regel von einer Depression (vgl. Jans, Warnke & Remschmidt 2013: 12). Dieser belastende Zustand zeichnet sich durch das Zusammenspiel verschiedener Symptome auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen der eigenen Persönlichkeit aus: So weisen etwa Bramesfeld und Stoppe darauf hin, dass „[a]uch wenn depressive Erkrankungen in erster Linie als Erkrankungen des Gefühlslebens beschrieben werden, [so] gehen sie auch mit erheblichen Störungen im Denken und im körperlichen Bereich einher” (2006: 5). In ähnlicher Weise definiert Essau (2007: 19) den Zustand der Depression anhand vier interagierender Merkmalsebenen: Betroffene weisen neben den bereits erwähnten Gefühlen der Traurigkeit oder der Leere auf emotionaler Ebene auch Merkmale auf der Ebene der Kognition (z.B. Konzentrationsschwierigkeiten, Interessensverlust, geringes Selbstwertgefühl), des Verhaltens (z.B. sozialer Rückzug, Selbstverletzungen) und des Körpers (z.B. Müdigkeit, Schlafstörungen, Unruhe) auf. Die Depression ist demnach als äußerst komplexe und multidimensionale psychische Erkrankung zu verstehen. Als solche kann sie, je nach Individuum, in verschiedenen Formen und Schweregraden in Erscheinung treten, ist aber in jedem Fall mit einer Beeinträchtigung verschiedener Lebensbereiche verbunden (vgl. Rey & Hazell 2009: 4). Wie bereits in der Einleitung angedeutet, tritt diese komplexe Symptomatik in den letzten Jahren zunehmend bei Kindern und Jugendlichen auf. So vermerkt etwa die Stiftung Deutsche Depressionshilfe (2020), dass mittlerweile bis zu 10% aller Jugendlichen zwischen 12 und 17 Jahren unter einer Depression leiden, während die Bremer Jugendstudie sogar von 17,9 % spricht (vgl. Essau, Conradt & Petermann 2000). Diese Zahlen jedoch beziehen sich ‚nur’ auf die klinisch diagnostizierten Fälle der Depression. Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 143 Folgt man zudem einigen an Schulen durchgeführten sub-klinischen Studien - d.h. Studien, die neben den strengen medizinischen Kriterien des Diagnosesystems DSM-III/ IV zusätzlich auch Aspekte der subjektiven Selbstbeurteilung einbeziehen, - so zeichnet sich ein noch wesentlich höherer Anteil tatsächlich Betroffener ab: [O]hne unbedingt die Diagnose einer depressiven Störung [nach DSM-III/ IV] zu erfüllen, [berichten] nahezu 42% der zwölfbis 17-jährigen Jugendlichen, sich schon einmal über mindestens zwei Wochen fast täglich traurig, niedergeschlagen oder deprimiert gefühlt zu haben. Jeweils knapp ein Viertel (24.5% bzw. 23.3%) fühlten sich schon einmal über mindestens zwei Wochen ständig müde, abgespannt und erschöpft oder hatten die Freude und das Interesse an fast allen Dingen verloren. 11.6% der befragten Schülerinnen und Schüler fühlten sich in den letzten zwei Jahren überwiegend bzw. über die Hälfte der Tage traurig, niedergeschlagen, interessenlos oder deprimiert. (Groen & Petermann 2011: 33) Neben den klinisch diagnostizierten Fällen jugendlicher Depression ist demnach auch eine gewisse ‚Dunkelziffer’ der Ausbreitung zu erwarten, und die Zahlen legen die Vermutung nahe, dass in den letzten Jahren ungefähr jede/ r zweite bis vierte Jugendliche, aus verschiedensten Gründen, 1 bereits Erfahrungen mit Depression bzw. zumindest mit anhaltenden depressiven Symptomen gemacht haben könnte. 3. Alltagskompetenzen im Umgang mit Depression: Bisherige Ansätze Im Angesicht dieser Zahlen werden dringend effektive Unterstützungsmaßnahmen erforderlich, die Jugendlichen dabei helfen, mit negativen Gedanken und depressiven Verhaltensweisen informiert und reflektiert im Alltag umzugehen. Die schulische Bildungslandschaft hat diese Notwendigkeit ebenfalls erkannt und tritt der „neue[n] Morbidität” (Schlack 2004: 292) psychischer Erkrankungen seit einigen Jahren mit dem Ziel der Förderung gesundheitsbezogener Kompetenzen entgegen. So argumentiert etwa der 1 In der Depressionsforschung geht man derzeit von einem multifaktoriellen Erklärungsmodell aus, in dem ein Zusammenspiel genetischer, hormoneller, emotionaler und sozialer Faktoren als Entstehungsursachen für Depressionen angenommen werden. Gesondert werden auch gesellschaftliche Veränderungen der letzten Jahre (z.B. „veränderte Familienstrukturen” oder ein „zunehmende[r] Pluralismus von Wertevorstellungen und Lebensentwürfen”; Groen & Petermann 2011: 37) für ein verstärktes Auftreten depressiver Symptome verantwortlich gemacht. Zudem wird die Phase der Pubertät allgemein als für Depressionen besonders anfälliger Lebensabschnitt diskutiert. Eine genauere Beschäftigung mit den verschiedenen Ursachen findet sich bei Abel & Hautzinger (2013). Daniel Becker 144 Referenzrahmen schulischer Gesundheitsförderung, dass Schüler*innen „Bewältigungs- und Gestaltungskompetenz[en]” (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit 2008: 25) im Umgang mit dem „neue[n] Thema” (ebd.: 25) der depressiven Erkrankung entwickeln müssen, und auch die bereits erwähnte KMK Empfehlung (2012) spricht von der Notwendigkeit, Schüler*innen die Möglichkeit zu bieten, „Kompetenzen zu gesunden Lebensweisen und zu einer gesundheitsfördernden Gestaltung ihrer Umwelt zu erwerben” (KMK 2012a: 3). Die Ausbildung dieser Kompetenzen muss sich dabei an „aktuelle gesundheitliche Belastungen, [wie] z.B. Beeinträchtigungen der psychischen Gesundheit” (ebd.: 3) anpassen und umfasst demnach notwendigerweise auch die Entwicklung von depressionsbezogenen Kompetenzen. Doch worin genau bestehen nun diese Kompetenzen? Mit anderen Worten: Was genau sollen Schüler*innen in der Schule über und im Umgang mit Depression im Alltag erlernen, um als kompetent zu gelten? Im Folgenden sollen kurz einige dieser zu erlernenden Aspekte erläutert werden. Auch wenn bisher noch kein umfassendes Konzept zur Beschreibung depressionsbezogener Schüler*innen-Kompetenzen vorliegt, so lassen bereits existierende Ansätze zum Umgang mit Depression in der Schule erkennen, dass sich diese Alltagskompetenzen grundsätzlich in drei interagierende Kompetenzbereiche aufgliedern lassen. Demnach beruht ein kompetenter Umgang mit depressiven Störungen zunächst auf einem fundierten Wissen über Depression. In diesem Sinne z.B. entwickelt die Schulinitiative Mindmatters: Mit psychischer Gesundheit gute Schule entwickeln gezielt Unterrichtsmaterial, „das Wissen über psychische Krankheiten vermittelt” und so Schüler*innen eine Grundlage bietet, „[p]sychische Störungen in der Schule verstehen [zu] lernen” (Mindmatters, Modul: Wie geht’s 2020). Im gleichen Kontext sieht der bereits erwähnte Referenzrahmen Wissen sogar als „die Basis einer jeden Gesundheitskompetenz” (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit 2008: 25) an. Im Rahmen depressionsbezogener Kompetenzen müssen Jugendliche somit unbedingt Kenntnisse darüber erwerben, anhand welcher Merkmale eine Depression spezifisch in Erscheinung treten kann, „welche möglichen Ursachen” (ebd.: 118) eine depressive Störung auslösen und wie und wo Hilfsangebote für Betroffene gefunden werden können. Dieses Wissen ist umso wichtiger, wenn man bedenkt, dass in Deutschland, trotz der hohen Ausbreitungsrate unter Jugendlichen, immer noch „große Irrtümer bezüglich der Ursachen und Behandlungsmöglichkeiten von Depression” (Stiftung Deutsche Depressionshilfe 2017: Abs. 1) vorherrschen 2 . Nur ein fundierter Kenntnisstand kann Jugendlichen dabei helfen, diese existierenden Irrtümer kritisch zu hinterfragen, die Dringlichkeit des Phänomens zu erkennen und depressive Verhaltensweisen bei sich selbst oder im Umfeld gewissenhaft zu reflektieren. 2 So gehen viele Menschen z.B. weiterhin von der Annahme aus, dass depressive Zustände verschwinden, sobald man sich nur zusammenreißt (19 %) oder in den Urlaub fährt (78 %; vgl. ebd.: Abs. 3). Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 145 Neben diesem notwendigen Wissen umfassen depressionsbezogene Kompetenzen auch spezifische persönliche Einstellungen gegenüber der Krankheit Depression. Dieser zweite Aspekt wird beispielhaft in den neuen Bildungsplänen Baden-Württemberg (2016) angedeutet: So wird hier u.a. das fächerübergreifende Bildungsziel formuliert, Schüler*innen zu einem respektvollen Umgang mit Menschen verschiedener „psychischer, geistiger und physischer Disposition” (ebd.: Abs. 1) zu verhelfen. In Bezug auf depressionsbezogene Kompetenzen bedeutet dies, dass Schüler*innen in der Schule, als „Ort von Toleranz und Weltoffenheit” (ebd.: Abs. 3), auch erlernen müssen, die ‚psychische Disposition’ der Depression aus der Perspektive der Vielfalt zu betrachten. Demnach erschließt sich ein kompetenter Umgang mit Depression nicht nur im Wissen über die Krankheit, sondern auch in der persönlichen Überzeugung, dass depressionsbedingte Lebensentwürfe als gleichwertige Daseinsformen innerhalb einer Kultur der „Pluralisierung von Lebensentwürfen” (ebd.: Abs. 1) zu begreifen sind. Schüler*innen müssen lernen, depressiven Mitmenschen offen und wertschätzend zu begegnen, indem sie sich „in diese hineinversetzen und sich mit diesen auseinandersetzen” (ebd.: Abs. 3). Dies erlaubt ihnen, bestehende Stigmatisierungen, Vorurteile und Ängste gegenüber der Depression abzubauen, um so einen gesellschaftlichen Diskurs zu fördern, in dem es möglich ist, „sich frei und ohne Angst vor Diskriminierung zu artikulieren” (ebd.: Abs. 3). Ein kompetenter Umgang mit Depression, so suggeriert der Bildungsplan, beruht somit grundlegend auf Werten der „Solidarität”, der „Inklusion” und der „Antidiskriminierung” (ebd.: Abs. 5), die Jugendliche auf emotionaler und normativer Ebene verstehen lassen, dass das Phänomen der Depression nur mit persönlicher Offenheit und gegenseitiger Achtsamkeit produktiv thematisiert werden kann. Zu guter Letzt ist der Kompetenzbereich der konkreten Handlungsstrategien und Fertigkeiten zu nennen. Wie der bayerische Lehrplan für Gymnasien im Bereich ‚Gesundheitsförderung’ deutlich macht, gehört zu jeder gesundheitsbezogenen Kompetenz „die Kenntnis von Bewältigungsstrategien in Belastungssituationen” (Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungsforschung 2020: Abs. 2). Die in Nordrhein-Westfalen entwickelte Matrix emotionaler und sozialer Kompetenzen (MesK) definiert diese allgemeinen Bewältigungsstrategien spezifischer für den Bereich psychischer und emotionaler Belastungen: Im Rahmen eines fünf-stufigen Selbstkompetenzkonzeptes (vgl. QUA-LiS 2020) wird hier darauf hingewiesen, dass ein kompetenter Umgang mit eigenen emotionalen Belastungen mit der Fertigkeit beginnt, „komplexe Gefühle (wie Wut, Angst, Trauer) in vertrautem und geschütztem Rahmen” identifizieren und benennen zu können (Stufe 1+2; ebd.). Daran schließen sich Strategien an, die es Schüler*innen erlauben, „Zusammenhänge zwischen Gefühlen und eigenen Verhaltensweisen” zu erkennen (Stufe 3; ebd.), eigene emotionale „Regulationsprozesse zu initiieren” (Stufe 4; ebd.) und schließlich belastenden Situationen aktiv mit „[s]ituationsangemesse[n] Reaktionen” entgegenzutreten (Stufe 5; ebd.). Diese Daniel Becker 146 emotionsbezogenen Strategien lassen sich auch auf den Umgang mit Depression übertragen: Kompetente Jugendliche kennen demnach strategische Verfahren, die ihnen erlauben, einerseits depressive Gefühlslagen und depressionsfördernde Verhaltensweisen zu identifizieren und zu benennen und andererseits depressive Emotionen zu regulieren und entsprechende Handlungen zur Entlastung depressiver Phasen zu initiieren. Zu letzterem Bereich, so impliziert die Jugend-Initiative FIDEO (Fighting Depression Online) des Diskussionsforums Depression e.V. (2020), gehört etwa die Fähigkeit, gezielt positive Alltagshandlungen einzusetzen, um akuten depressiven Phasen abmildernd entgegenzuwirken. Auf Grundlage der bisherigen Ausführungen lassen sich depressionsbezogene Kompetenzen wie folgt zusammenfassen: Depressionsbezogene Kompetenzen Wissen Persönliche Einstellungen Strategien und Fertigkeiten Merkmale der Depression kennen Ursachen der Depression kennen Kenntnisse über gängige Irrtümer Kenntnisse über Hilfsangebote Offenheit gegenüber Betroffenen Abbau von Ängsten/ Stigmatisierungen Psychische Disposition als Vielfalt Depressive Stimmungen reflektieren und verbalisieren Verhaltensweisen regulieren Gegenmaßnahmen initiieren Abb. 1: Übersicht der drei Bereiche depressionsbezogener Kompetenzen Wie auch bei anderen Gesundheitskompetenzen muss die Förderung dieser drei Kompetenzbereiche als eine Gemeinschaftsaufgabe aller schulischer Fächer angesehen werden, in dessen Rahmen jedes Einzelfach einen spezifischen Beitrag leisten sollte - so auch der Englischunterricht. 4. Die fremdsprachlichen Bildungsstandards und das Thema der Depression: Eine theoretisch-konzeptionelle Analyse Grundsätzlich bietet der gegenwärtige Englischunterricht sowohl aus literatur-/ kulturdidaktischer als auch aus sprachdidaktischer Sicht das Potenzial, sich auf vielseitige Weise mit dem Thema Depression auseinanderzusetzen. So lässt sich einerseits etwa in den vergangenen Jahren in vielen englischsprachigen jugendkulturellen literarischen Texten ein wesentlich Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 147 offenerer Umgang mit psychischen Erkrankungen im Jugendalter verzeichnen (siehe z.B. Jay Ashers Thirteen Reasons Why (2011), John Greens Looking for Alaska (2006)). Als Literaturunterricht verstanden, kann der Englischunterricht Schüler*innen durch eine gezielte Behandlung dieser Texte Einblicke in fremde Gefühlswelten und deren Bewältigungsstrategien ermöglichen. Andererseits bietet insbesondere die Behandlung dieses schwierigen Themas in einer Fremdsprache die Möglichkeit, eine reflektierte Auseinandersetzung mit der Jugenddepression anzuleiten: Wie neuere Studien (vgl. Keysar et al. 2012) zeigen, begegnen Lernende einer Fremdsprache, als bewusst erlernter (und nicht unbewusst erworbener) Sprache, eher aus einer kognitiv-intellektuellen Perspektive und weisen somit ein weniger emotional behaftetes Verhältnis zu dieser Sprache auf. Dies bietet einen entscheidenden Vorteil für die unterrichtliche Behandlung des Themas Depression: Die Verwendung der englischen Sprache bringt eine notwendige emotionale ‚Distanz’ für Schüler*innen mit sich, die es ihnen erlaubt, auch emotional stark besetzte Themen aus einer eher geschützten und reflektierten Position heraus zu diskutieren. Wie die folgenden Ausführungen zeigen sollen, wird dieses grundlegende Potenzial jedoch in den derzeit geltenden Bildungsstandards nur bedingt aufgegriffen, und somit wird auch die Förderung depressionsbezogener Kompetenzen nur bedingt als Gegenstand des Englischunterrichts eingefordert. So zeichnen sich die verbindlichen Zielsetzungen des Faches bisher durch einen eher ambivalenten Umgang mit dem Thema Depression aus, indem sie dieses auf einer Position zwischen fachlich-curricularen Akzeptanz und Ablehnung verorten. Diese ambivalente Position soll im Folgenden anhand einer theoretisch-konzeptionellen Analyse der Bildungsstandards für die erste bzw. fortgeführte Fremdsprache näher erläutert werden. 4.1 Tendenzen der Akzeptanz Aus dem Blickwinkel der Akzeptanz betrachtet, muss zunächst erwähnt werden, dass die derzeit geltenden Richtlinien durchaus das Thema Depression zumindest stückweise integrieren. Denn auch wenn die Bildungsstandards für die erste bzw. fortgeführte Fremdsprache 3 die psychische Erkrankung nicht explizit ansprechen, so beinhalten diese Dokumente dennoch einzelne Passagen und Formulierungen, die zumindest indirekt Anknüpfungspunkte für eine kompetenzorientierte Einbindung des Themas in die curricularen Rahmenvorgaben bieten. Bei all dem vordergründigen ‚Schweigen’ über das Thema gewähren die Bildungsstandards so z.B. Gestaltungsspielräume, die einen Beitrag des 3 Diese umfassen die Bildungsstandards für den Hauptschulabschluss (2004; danach: BHS), die Bildungsstandards für den mittleren Schulabschluss (2003; danach: BMS) und die Bildungsstandards für die allgemeine Hochschulreife (2012; danach: BAH) Daniel Becker 148 Englischunterrichts zum Kompetenzbereich des Wissens über Depression erkennen lassen. Wenn etwa die BMS davon sprechen, dass Schüler*innen die „Kulturabhängigkeit des eigenen Denkens, Handelns und Verhaltens” (KMK 2003: 16) begreifen müssen, dann lässt sich unter diesem übergeordneten Ziel des kulturellen Lernens auch die wichtige Aufgabe subsumieren, Schüler*innen zu einem Wissen über die Kulturabhängigkeit des Denkens über Depression zu verhelfen. Diese Lesart wird insbesondere durch die Tatsache untermauert, dass die BMS einfordern, im Rahmen kultureller „Begegnungssituationen” auch den „Umgang mit Missverständnissen, mit schwierigen Themen und Konfliktsituationen” (ebd.: 11) zu schulen. Das Phänomen der Depression beinhaltet zweifelsohne ein deutliches Konfliktpotenzial, wenn man bedenkt, dass das Thema in verschiedenen kulturellen Konstellationen unterschiedlich offen bzw. tabuisierend behandelt wird. Depressive Erkrankungen können somit gut als thematischer Bestandteil kultureller Lernprozesse im Englischunterricht verhandelt werden, indem Schüler*innen verschiedene kulturspezifische Aspekte des Umgangs mit Depression kennen lernen, „die sich aus verschiedenen kulturellen Hintergründen ergeben” (ebd.: 10). Mit seinem spezifischen Fokus auf kulturelle Praktiken kann der Englischunterricht demnach potenziell Schüler*innen darin unterstützen, den eigenen Kenntnisstand über Depression um eine kulturelle Dimension zu erweitern: Schüler*innen lernen nicht nur die Krankheit selbst kennen (siehe Punkt 3), sondern werden auch dazu ermutigt, dieses Wissen aus einem kultur- und kontextsensiblen Blickwinkel zu reflektieren. Sie lernen somit, das eigene Wissen über den Umgang mit Depression mit der „Analyse fremdkultureller Perspektiven” (ebd.: 16) auf dieses Phänomen zu vereinen, um so rückwirkend die jugendrelevante Krankheit in der eigenen Lebenswelt noch detaillierter betrachten zu können. Neben diesem wissensbezogenen Potenzial bieten die Bildungsstandards zudem curriculare Freiräume, die den Englischunterricht für eine fachspezifische Förderung persönlicher Einstellungen gegenüber der Depression öffnen. Diese Freiräume werden vor allem im Bereich der interkulturellen Kompetenzen sichtbar. So heißt es z.B. in den BHS, dass Schüler*innen lernen sollen, „kulturelle Vielfalt ohne Angst und Vorbehalte” (KMK 2004: 15) zu akzeptieren, indem sie dazu befähigt werden, „ungewohnte Erfahrungen auszuhalten [und] sich auf fremde Situationen einzustellen” (ebd.: 15). Sofern man unter dem Begriff der ‚Vielfalt’ auch die Vielfalt psychischer Dispositionen versteht (vgl. Bildungspläne Baden-Württemberg 2016), ergibt sich im Rahmen dieser Zielsetzung die Möglichkeit, im Englischunterricht auch einen toleranten und wertschätzenden Umgang mit Depression zu verhandeln. Wie die zahlreichen existierenden Irrtümer über das Phänomen andeuten, stellt die Begegnung mit Depression für viele Menschen ebenfalls immer noch eine ‚fremde Situation’ dar, die mit einigen „ungewohnte[n] Erfahrungen” einhergeht. In Anbetracht der weitläu- Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 149 figen Ausbreitung depressiver Störungen unter Jugendlichen wird es insbesondere für Schüler*innen immer wichtiger, genau diese Erfahrungen „auszuhalten”, um möglicherweise Betroffenen im eigenen sozialen Umwelt offen begegnen zu können. Durch seinen Fokus auf den produktiven Umgang mit Fremdheit (vgl. Bredella et al. 2000) bietet der Englischunterricht eine ideale Grundlage, Jugendliche in diesem Unterfangen zu unterstützen. So ist z.B. die in den BMS formulierte Erwartung, dass Schüler*innen „das Fremde nicht als etwas wahrnehmen, das Angst macht” (KMK 2003: 16), auch für den kompetenten Umgang mit Depression relevant: Anstatt sich aufgrund von Ängsten und Vorurteilen von Betroffenen abzuwenden, müssen Jugendliche lernen, eben diese Ängste abzubauen, indem sie, in den Worten der BHS, „neugierig auf Fremdes” sind (KMK 2004: 15) und so eine offene Haltung entwickeln. Im Rahmen der Thematisierung von kultureller Verschiedenheit erlauben die Bildungsstandards demnach durchaus die Möglichkeit, sich dem Komplex der depressionsbezogenen Kompetenzen auch aus einer affektiven Perspektive zu nähern. Schließlich umfassen die curricularen Richtlinien einzelne Anknüpfungspunkte zur Förderung von Strategien und Fertigkeiten im Umgang mit Depression. Wie unter Punkt 3 beschrieben, stellt die Fähigkeit, komplexe Gefühle zu versprachlichen (vgl. MesK Stufe 1+2), eine zentrale Voraussetzung für die alltägliche Bewältigung auftretender depressiver Stimmungen dar. Als Sprachenunterricht verstanden, ist der Englischunterricht geradezu prädestiniert, Schüler*innen bei der Ausbildung dieser Fähigkeit zu unterstützen, wie die Bildungsstandards im Kontext der funktionalen kommunikativen Kompetenzen erkennen lassen. Diesbezüglich weisen z.B. die BMS im Bereich ‚Sprechen’ darauf hin, dass Schüler*innen auf dem Sprachniveau B1 in der Lage sein sollen, „Gefühle wie Überraschung, Freude, Trauer, Interesse und Gleichgültigkeit aus[zu]drücken und auf entsprechende Gefühlsäußerungen [zu] reagieren” (KMK 2003: 13). Wie der Bereich „Trauer” bereits andeutet, sollte der Englischunterricht im Rahmen der Förderung einer sprachlich-emotionalen Ausdrucksfähigkeit auch die Beschreibung negativer Gefühlslagen umfassen und bietet somit eine gute Grundlage, sich im Laufe des Sprachlernprozesses u.a. der Verbalisierung von komplexeren Emotionen wie der Niedergeschlagenheit oder der inneren Leere anzunähern. Der Englischunterricht kann einen Beitrag dazu leisten, sukzessive sprachliche Fertigkeiten zu entwickeln, die sich im fortgeschrittenen Stadium zu der Fähigkeit verdichten, „Sachverhalte bezogen auf ein breites Spektrum von Vorgängen des Alltags sowie Themen fachlichen und persönlichen Interesses strukturiert dar[zu]stellen” (ebd.: 17). Zu letzterem kann potenziell auch das Thema der Depression zählen, in dessen Kontext Schüler*innen z.B. erlernen können, die für depressive Störungen typische Vielschichtigkeit emotionaler, sozialer und physischer Merkmale (siehe Punkt 2) sprachlich strukturiert zu beschreiben, um so eigene Erfahrungen mit Depression (bei sich oder Mitmenschen) angemessen mitteilen und einen Dialog starten zu können. Daniel Becker 150 Die Tatsache, dass diese Mitteilungsfertigkeiten in der englischen Sprache erworben werden, spielt hierbei eine wichtige Rolle: Der Englischunterricht kann Schüler*innen dabei helfen, nicht nur an muttersprachlich verhandelten Austauschprozessen auf lokaler, regionaler und nationaler Ebene teilzunehmen, sondern auch, im Sinne einer fremdsprachlichen Diskursfähigkeit (vgl. Hallet 2012), internationale und globale Diskurse zu diesem Thema mitzubestimmen. Dies erlaubt ihnen letztendlich, im Rahmen einer zunehmend vernetzten Welt, eigene Erfahrungen mit einer Vielzahl von betroffenen und nicht-betroffenen Akteuren zu teilen und Handlungsoptionen auch über den eigenen nationalen Tellerrand hinaus zu diskutieren. 4.2 Tendenzen der Ablehnung Aus dem Blickwinkel der Ablehnung betrachtet, muss erwähnt werden, dass die Bildungsstandards, neben all den suggerierten Freiräumen, gleichermaßen auch Tendenzen beinhalten, die eine Förderung depressionsbezogener Kompetenzen, insbesondere in den Bereichen Fertigkeiten und persönliche Einstellungen, geradezu aus dem Englischunterricht ausschließen. Diese Tendenzen werden im Leitbild der Sprachenlerner*innen als interkulturell verorteten und im globalen Wettbewerb handlungsfähigen Bürger*innen sichtbar, wie im Folgenden aufgezeigt werden soll. Zu Beginn kann argumentiert werden, dass das in den Bildungsstandards formulierte Idealbild der Sprachenlerner*innen als „mündigen Bürgern” (KMK 2004: 6) sich nur bedingt mit einer Förderung von Strategien und Fertigkeiten vereinbaren lässt, die Jugendlichen einen Blick ‚nach innen’ erlauben, um eigene Gefühlslagen ergründen und beschreiben zu können. Genauer wird die Ausbildung solcher für depressionsbezogene Kompetenzen grundlegenden Introspektionsfertigkeiten auf zwei Ebenen des Leitbildes erschwert. Zunächst wird auf der Ebene des kulturellen Handelns ersichtlich, dass eine Innensicht auf die individuelle Persönlichkeit nur wenig im Paradigma der interkulturellen Sprecher*innen beachtet und somit geradezu aus den zentralen Zielsetzungen des Englischunterrichtes ausgegrenzt wird. Dieser Sachverhalt wird z.B. in der folgenden Zielformulierung aus den BMS angedeutet: Mit der Fähigkeit, eigene Sichtweisen, Wertvorstellungen und gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge mit denen anderer Kulturen tolerant und kritisch zu vergleichen, und mit der Bereitschaft, Interesse und Verständnis für Denk- und Lebensweisen, Werte und Normen und die Lebensbedingungen der Menschen eines anderen Kulturkreises aufzubringen, erleben die Schülerinnen und Schüler einen Zuwachs an Erfahrung und Stärkung der eigenen Identität. (KMK 2003: 6) Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 151 Gemäß dem interkulturellen Lernparadigma wird die eigene Identitätsformation maßgeblich durch Hinwendung zu einem kulturell Anderen bestimmt, welcher mit seinen jeweiligen kulturellen „Normen” und „Lebensbedingungen” Rückschlüsse auf die „Wertvorstellungen” im eigenen Kulturkreis erlaubt. Die „Stärkung der eigenen Identität” vollzieht sich somit primär im Prozess des „Erkennen[s] von eigen- und fremdkulturellen Eigenarten” (ebd.: 12). Diese stark binäre Sichtweise auf Identität als Aushandlungsprozess zwischen verschiedenen Kulturen weist jedoch einen deutlichen ‚blinden Fleck’ auf: Ausgehend von einem in der fachdidaktischen Diskussion häufig kritisierten Verständnis von „in sich homogener, deutlich voneinander abgrenzbarer Kulturen” (Fäcke 2006: 13), betrachtet das interkulturelle Lernen das Individuum fast ausschließlich im Rahmen einer (national-)kollektiv geteilten kulturellen Identität, während komplexere private und idiosynkratrische Aspekte der Identitätsbildung auf Ebenen fernab der öffentlich kulturellen Sphäre missachtet werden. So vernachlässigt das interkulturelle Leitbild etwa die bereits in Meads klassischer Identitätstheorie (vgl. Parkovnick 2015) diskutierte Erkenntnis, dass das Konstrukt der Identität neben dem nach außen gerichteten Anteil einer sozialen Identität (Me) immer auch einen nach innen gerichteten Anteil einer persönlichen Identität (I) beinhaltet; oder wie Delanoy schreibt: „[D]er einzelne Mensch [ist] aufgrund seiner einzigartigen Biographie mehr […] als ein Repräsentant von Kultur(en)” (2014: 23). In diesem Sinne, wie auch Jackson im Kontext ihres Civic Education Ansatzes (2019) andeutet, fehlt dem interkulturellen Lernparadigma die Einsicht, dass Identität nicht nur eine Frage kultureller Werte ist, sondern sich durch komplexe Zugehörigkeiten (allegiances) einer Person zu einer Vielzahl von konzentrischen Kreisen des persönlichen Handelns gestaltet. Der elementarste Kreis der Identitätsbildung stellt dabei das ‚Self’ dar, womit eine intime Perspektive auf die eigenen Persönlichkeitsmerkmale - sprich: eine Innenansicht auf das eigene Selbst - gemeint ist. Von diesem inneren Kreis weitet sich das persönliche Handeln und Identitätsverständnis schließlich über familiäre und Peer-Gruppenbezogene Situationen bis zu über das nationalkulturelle Grenzen hinausreichende Agieren in globalen Kontexten sukzessive aus. Laut Jackson setzt eine erfolgreiche gesellschaftliche Teilhabe ein klares Verständnis jedes einzelnen dieser Kreise voraus: „living together well in concentric circles relates to understanding what is in each of the circles” (Jackson 2019: 4; original Hervorhebung). Doch genau diese holistische Betrachtung der Identität wird im Kontext der interkulturellen Sprecher*innen nicht vorgenommen: Durch den Fokus auf nationale Zielkulturen ist das interkulturelle Leitbild lediglich im konzentrischen Kreis der Nation und ihrer nationalkulturellen Werte verhaftet und setzt somit, gemäß Jacksons Modell, auf einer Ebene der persönlichen Identitätsstiftung an, die die fundamentale Zugehörigkeit des Self zu seinen intimeren Handlungsräumen außer Acht lässt. Ein Englischunterricht, der diesen Ziel- Daniel Becker 152 setzungen interkulturellen Lernens folgt, ersetzt somit die für den kompetenten Umgang mit Depression notwendige Introspektion der eigenen emotionalen Verortung mit einer Extrospektion der persönlichen Verortung in einem kulturellen Kollektiv und bietet daher curricular wenig Anreiz zur Förderung von Strategien und Fertigkeiten der Selbstreflektion. Diese fehlende Innensicht auf das eigene Selbst wird, zweitens, auch auf der Ebene der sprachlichen Handlungen deutlich, die ideale Sprachenlerner*innen im Rahmen „Europa[s] als Kultur- und Wirtschaftsraum” (KMK 2012: 11) vollführen sollten. Denn obwohl die Bildungsstandards an einer Stelle den Ausdruck von Gefühlen als Lernziel andeuten (siehe 4.1) und damit einen potenziellen Freiraum für die Förderung depressionsbezogener Introspektionsfertigkeiten im Englischunterricht eröffnen, so wird dieses Potential in der Gesamtschau der geforderten sprachbezogenen Kompetenzen geradezu marginalisiert. Gemäß den curricularen Vorgaben nämlich wird Sprache im Englischunterricht insgesamt weniger als Medium einer individuellen Selbstreflektion gesehen als vielmehr - im Sinne einer Berufsorientierung und „funktionalen Ausrichtung” der Standards (De Florio- Hansen 2008: 60) - in die Funktion eines pragmatischen ‚Werkzeuges’ für ein effizientes Handeln und Problemlösen in verschiedenen kommunikativen Szenarien gestellt. In diesem Sinne erlernen Schüler*innen die englische Sprache mit dem Ziel, z.B. „Kontakte her[zu]stellen und [zu] beenden”, „Sachtexte [zu] lesen und nach Sachinteresse aus[zu]werten”, „Ergebnisse der eigenen Arbeit [zu] präsentieren” oder „sich auf eine angebotene Stelle [zu] bewerben” (KMK 2003: 9), während Ziele der Selbstreflektion nicht explizit genannt werden. Dieser Trend eines rein funktionalen Sprachgebrauchs setzt sich auch im weiteren Verlauf der Standards fort, etwa wenn im Bereich Sprechen der BHS das noch in den BMS formulierte Ziel des Sprechens über Gefühle zu einem „sagen, was sie gern haben und was nicht” (KMK 2004: 12) verkürzt wird, während die übrigen Lernziele lediglich funktional-pragmatische Sprachakte wie „Verabredungen treffen” oder „in einem Interview einfache Fragen beantworten” (ebd.: 12) fordern. Die Bildungsstandards verschreiben sich somit, wie bereits im kulturellen Bereich, auch im Bereich sprachlichen Handelns einer exklusiven Vorstellung der Sprachenlerner*innen, die in ihrer Betrachtung rein pragmatischer Sprachfunktionen nur wenig Raum für eine reflexive Instrumentalisierung der englischen Sprache lässt; oder wie Grimm, Meyer und Volkmann zusammenfassen: Durch ihren vordergründigen Fokus auf einer messbaren, funktional-sprachlichen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit fehlt es den Bildungsstandards an Bildung, im Sinne einer klassischen Perspektive auf Aspekte der individuellen Persönlichkeitswerdung (vgl. 2015: 13). All diese bisher genannten curricularen Beschränkungen weisen schließlich auf ein noch fundamentaleres Problem des Englischunterrichts bezüglich der Ausbildung einer wertschätzenden Einstellung gegenüber depressiven Menschen hin. Dieses Problem wird in der bereits erwähnten cur- Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 153 ricularen Wettbewerbsorientierung des Leitbildes deutlich. In der fremdsprachendidaktischen Forschung wird seit einigen Jahren auf die mit der Einführung der Bildungsstandards verstärkt auftretende Ökonomisierung des Sprachenunterrichts hingewiesen (vgl. Barkowski 2005). So wird argumentiert, dass sich der Fremdsprachenunterricht der letzten beiden Jahrzehnte, vor dem Hintergrund einer zunehmend wirtschaftlich vernetzten Welt, einem dominanten Diskurs der „wettbewerbsmäßigen Marktrationalität” verschrieben hat (Breidbach 2008: 122). Demnach wird das fremdsprachliche Lehren und Lernen von den Leitsätzen der Leistungs- und Konkurrenzfähigkeit sowie der Effizienz gerahmt, wie Block mit Hilfe des Begriffes ‚McCommunication’ beschreibt: McCommunication may be understood as the framing of communication as a rational activity devoted to the transfer of information between and among individuals in an efficient, calculable, predictable and controllable manner via the use of language. (2002: 118) Diese dem Fremdsprachenunterricht curricular zugrundeliegende ökonomisierte Auffassung von Sprache und Kommunikation geht unmittelbar mit einem spezifischen Leitbild der Sprachenlerner*innen einher: Wie etwa Heinemann (2008) aufzeigt, entwerfen die Bildungsstandards ein Bild von Schüler*innen als „Ich-AGs”, die darauf getrimmt werden, „die Ausbildung der eigenen Arbeitskraft” und somit das eigene „Human-Kapital” (Heinemann 2008: 52) stetig zu steigern. Die den Bildungsstandards immanente Idealvorstellung umfasst somit nicht nur die Idee der interkulturellen Sprecher*innen, sondern auch das Credo eines Individuums, das rationale Prinzipien einer globalen Marktwirtschaft auch im eigenen lokalen Lebensbereich adaptiert und sich so im (internationalen) Wettbewerb als handlungs- und konkurrenzfähig erweist. Genau dieses ökonomische Credo des Leitbildes jedoch stellt den Englischunterricht vor eine maßgebliche Hürde, wenn es um die Ausbildung persönlicher Einstellungen gegenüber der Depression geht. So stellt sich in der Gesamtschau der Bildungsstandards die ernstzunehmende Frage, inwiefern Schüler*innen, die von einem allumfassenden Diskurs der Effizienz und Handlungsfähigkeit geprägt werden, tatsächlich Menschen als gleichwertig betrachten können, die sich krankheitsbedingt gerade durch eine weitgehende Ineffizienz und Handlungsunfähigkeit auszeichnen. Diesbezüglich kann genauer argumentiert werden, dass der den Bildungsstandards inhärente Leistungsgedanke das Bekenntnis der curricularen Vorgaben zu Werten der Offenheit und Vielfalt (siehe 4.1) ins Wanken bringt, indem er verdeutlicht, dass im Angesicht eines dominanten Diskurses der „Marktrationalität” nicht unbedingt alle Formen der Vielfalt gleich offen behandelt werden. Viel eher, wie Barkowski (2005) andeutet, geht mit der Standardisierung der fremdsprachlichen Bildung gemäß dem Effizienz- Daniel Becker 154 Prinzip ein Selektionsprozess einher, in dessen Rahmen Elemente und Identitäten ausgegrenzt werden, die sich nicht mit dem wettbewerbsorientierten Leitbild vereinbaren lassen oder dieses sogar gefährden. Vor diesem Hintergrund kann die Tatsache, dass das Thema Depression (und psychische Krankheiten allgemein) in keiner Weise explizit in den Bildungsstandards erwähnt wird, entsprechend als ein Akt der Exklusion und der Tabuisierung gedeutet werden: Das ‚Nicht Gesagte’ wird hier zum ‚Nicht Gewollten’, da ein Leitbild, das gesellschaftliche Teilhabe zu erheblichen Stücken mit dem Credo des beruflichen und interkulturellen Funktionierens korreliert, kaum dazu in der Lage ist, eine tatsächliche Offenheit gegenüber Menschen aufzubringen, die aufgrund ihrer Erkrankung den Werten und Identitäten eines Rationalitätsdiskurses diametral entgegenstehen. Die Thematisierung der Depression widerspricht somit in Teilen den Zielsetzungen und Leitgedanken des Englischunterrichts. Während die Bildungsstandards also einerseits auf der Ebene einzelner Zielsetzungen kulturellen Lernens Möglichkeiten bieten, eine Förderung depressionsbezogener Einstellungen aufzunehmen (siehe 4.1), marginalisieren sie diese Offenheit andrerseits geradezu auf einer strukturell-diskursiven Ebene, auf der eine tatsächliche und tiefgreifende Wertschätzung depressiver Menschen kaum über ein Lippenbekenntnis zur Akzeptanz von Vielfalt hinaus gefördert werden kann. 5. Fazit und Ausblick Laut KMK sollten derzeit prävalente Themen wie die Jugenddepression in allen Schulfächern Beachtung finden. Dies geschieht, indem die jeweiligen Fächer diese Themen in die eigenen curricularen Rahmenvorgaben integrieren. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellte einen ersten Versuch dar zu ergründen, inwiefern die curriculare Konzeption des schulischen Englischunterrichts dieser Forderung nachgekommen ist. In diesem Sinne richtete der Beitrag den Blick auf die grundlegendste Ebene des unterrichtlichen Geschehens: die offiziellen und verbindlichen Zielvorgaben. Auf Grundlage einer Analyse der Bildungsstandards für die erste bzw. fortgeführte Fremdsprache wurde dabei argumentiert, dass das Thema Depression in den Rahmenvorgaben des Faches Englisch eine eher ambivalente Stellung einnimmt. So konnte gezeigt werden, dass der Englischunterricht curricular einerseits Möglichkeiten bietet, einen Beitrag zu allen Bereichen depressionsbezogener Kompetenzen (d.h. Wissen, Einstellungen, Fertigkeiten) zu leisten, und andererseits gleichermaßen auch Tendenzen aufweist, die insbesondere in den Bereichen Fertigkeiten und persönliche Einstellungen ein Hindernis der Kompetenzförderung darstellen. Diese Tendenzen der Akzeptanz und Ablehnung stehen dabei teilweise in einem widersprüchlichen Verhältnis zueinander, wie etwa anhand von Aspekten der Selbstreflektion und der offenen Haltung gegenüber depressiven Menschen gezeigt wurde. Zum Thema der Depression im Englischunterricht 155 Insgesamt betrachtet muss so konstatiert werden, dass sich der Englischunterricht, wie auch andere Schulfächer, bei all den Potenzialen auch seinen eigenen Beschränkungen bezüglich einer gesundheitlichen Bildung stellen muss, um einen noch produktiveren Beitrag zur Bekämpfung des sich ständig wandelnden Monsters der Depression zu leisten und so dessen ‚laute Schreie’ in den Köpfen vieler Jugendlicher zumindest etwas erträglicher zu gestalten. Denn eines steht fest: Soll das Thema Depression zu einem ernstzunehmenden Bestandteil des Englischunterrichts werden, so muss es auch auf der grundlegenden curricularen Ebene Eingang finden. Der Englischunterricht liefert deutliche Potenziale zur Ergründung der Depression (siehe Sektion 4). Diese können jedoch nur eingefordert werden, wenn von curricularer Seite auch eine entsprechende Beschäftigung mit dem Thema angedacht ist. Zu guter Letzt zeigt die hier vorgenommene Analyse auf, dass das übergreifende Thema der Depression nicht alleine von einem Einzelfach bewältigt werden kann. Viel eher, wie auch die KMK vorschlägt, stellt dieses eine fächerübergreifende Aufgabe dar, in der sich fachspezifische Zielsetzungen mit allgemeinen Bildungszielen vereinen müssen. Der schulische Englischunterricht ist kein ‚Allheilmittel’ wenn es um Depression geht, und kann auch in seinem fachspezifischen Rahmen nicht alle allgemeinen Ziele einer depressionsbezogenen Kompetenzförderung erfüllen. Im Verbund mit anderen Fächern jedoch kann er wertvolle Perspektiven beisteuern, die andere Fächer weniger beachten (z.B. die kulturelle und literarische Verortung der Depression), während andere Fächer wiederum Defizite des Englischunterrichts ausgleichen können (z.B. die Gefahr einer oberflächlichen Behandlung der Materie aufgrund begrenzter fremdsprachlicher Fähigkeiten oder der starke Fokus auf Nationalkulturen). Referenzen Abel, Ulrike & Martin Hautzinger (2013). Kognitive Verhaltenstherapie bei Depressionen im Kindes- und Jugendalter. Heidelberg: Springer. Asher, Jay (2011). Thirteen Reasons Why. London: Penguin. Barkowski, Hans (2005). „Standardisierung - Evaluation - Selektion: Meilensteine einer ökonomisch motivierten Ausbildungsoffensive und ihre Umsetzung im Bereich schulorientierter Reformierungspläne”. In: Karl-Richard Bausch, Eva Burwitz-Melzer, Frank G. Königs & Hans-Jürgen Krumm (Hrsg.). Bildungsstandards für den Fremdsprachenunterricht auf dem Prüfstand. 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Rey & Boris Birmaher (Hrsg.).Treating Child and Adolescent Depression. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. 3-16. Schlack, Hans G. (2004). „Neue Morbidität im Kindesalter - Aufgaben für die Sozialpädiatrie”. Kinderärztliche Praxis 75. 292-300. Trumm, Tanja (2014). Dem Schweigen Worte geben: Wege der Annäherung an Tabu und Tabuisierung im Deutschunterricht. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag. Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungsforschung (2020). Schulart- und fächerübergreifende Bildungs- und Erziehungsziele sowie Alltagskompetenz und Lebensökonomie: Gesundheitsförderung. [online] https: / / www.lehrplanplus.bayern.de/ uebergreifende-ziele/ gymnasium [2. Mai 2020] Stiftung Deutsche Depressionshilfe (2017). Deutschlandbarometer Depression 2017. [online] https: / / www.deutsche-depressionshilfe.de/ forschungszentrum/ deutsc hland-barometer-depression/ 2017 [26. April 2020] Stiftung Deutsche Depressionshilfe (2020). Depression im Kindes- und Jugendalter. [online] https: / / www.deutsche-depressionshilfe.de/ depression-infos-und-hilfe / depression-in-verschiedenen-facetten/ depression-im-kindes-und-jugendalter [26. April 2020] Daniel Becker English Department WWU Münster German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere Jürgen Meyer The present article is a case study of various specimens of textbook-based teachware (TBT) appended as CD-ROMs or DVDs to the current generation of students’ English workbooks, ranging from primary school to general education (Sekundarstufe I) at Realschule and Gymnasium. Focusing in particular on different dimensions of feedback as established by Hattie (2014), the subsequent content analyses highlight a number of significant features of these TBT systems, designed for an autonomous learner. They are compared to a web-based alternative with genuinely interactive feedback-options, the FeedBook research project. The analysis aims to show whether, how, and to what degree these different learning management systems (LMS) may contribute to efficient learning in times of mandatory home-schooling and intensified distance learning. 1. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in spring 2020 and continuing well into 2021, has occasioned a considerable acceleration not only in the public discussion of digitization processes, but it has had also a huge impact on the implementation of computer-assisted language learning and teaching strategies in teachers’ and learners’ daily lesson routines. In their survey taken immediately during and after the first general school lockdown in Germany from March to July 2020, Huber et al. conclude that homeschooling may have opened a vast potential in dealing with the heterogeneity of a learner group in their home environment (Huber et al. 2020: 24; for details cf. 49-50). They confirm what earlier research on e-learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has shown, to be summed up in the following words: AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 46 (2021) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ AAA-2021-0013 Jürgen Meyer 160 Digital media support learning processes in many ways. The use of digital media […] fosters self-directed and cooperative learning and supports the development of more open forms of teaching. […] Learning processes can be better individualised and differentiated through digital media, […] because of adaptable and adaptive software and Internet, through self-selected materials, and students choosing their own learning approaches. […] [F]urther advantages are gained with software that is both interactive and provides individual feedback on results or on learning status and/ or proficiency. (Eisenmann 2019: 114; cf., for example, Schmidt 2007, Eisenmann & Strohn 2012, Grünewald 2017) Accordingly, schoolbook publishers have responded to the challenge of integrating digital language learning and teaching methods with their increasingly digitized teaching materials. These materials have been in strong competition with commercial educational software ever since the ideas of digital learning entered the classroom in the mid-1980s. 1 Typically, the current generation of textbooks still offers a range of multimedia resources, such as extra audio-CDs and/ or DVDs, and the three largest schoolbook publishers have developed their own, more advanced online content-learning platforms, such as Alfons (Westermanngruppe) for primary education, or scook (Cornelsen), e-course (Klett) and kapiert.de (Westermanngruppe) for secondary education. 2 Whilst scook offers largely digital twins of the publisher’s printed textbooks, to be enhanced either by materials else available as disc-based TBT, or by materials from other sources, kapiert.de and e-course are specifically presented to teachers eager to promote cloud-based instead of textbook-based learning. Still, since the implementation of competence-oriented educational standards and curricula in the first decade of the 21 st century, the textbook with its wide range of individually adaptable materials may have gained even more significance as “Leitmedium” (Thaler 2012: 88) than in times of input-driven foreign language teaching with its detailed content prescriptions outlined in specific frameworks (Rahmenrichtlinien). Thus, for a long time before COVID-19, learning materials of a variety of sources were permitted, although school legislation has given preference to printed copies of published material that has passed earlier administrative assessment: such as 1 This article cannot consider the vast number of commercial open educational resources (OERs), mentioned in Eisenmann (2019), Schmidt (2016) or Strasser (2012), let alone the vast range of apps listed in the “Padagogical Wheel” (Carrington 2016). 2 In addition to these publishers’ platforms, many other private companies offer their own, textbook-independent LMS for individual use (see a brief comparative assessment in Fritzen 2021), whilst public and private institutions sign up with extremely complex LMS using ISERV or Moodle. The latter two differ from the ones mentioned above in that their main focus is on providing a comprehensive digital learning environment which substitutes the real world classroom, equipping teachers with a wide range of tools for feedback, assessment and evaluation, which exceed the facilities of any disc-based TBT geared towards the individual, offline learner. German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 161 coursebooks in the shape of “Druckwerke für die Hand der Schülerin oder des Schülers” (Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium 2020a: § 29 “Lehr- und Lernmittel”), 3 to be enhanced by a multitude of additions and alternatives with or without such official quality assessment. 4 Education ministry websites are now offering large samples of download materials for distance learning (cf., for example, Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium 2020b). Since one among many sobering experiences with distance learning in the COVID-19 crisis has been the technical unreliability of many platforms hired by schools, with their frequent system breakdowns making many materials unavailable for learners, 5 it makes sense to take a look at offline contents made accessible in the digital extras appended to the textbooks by the publishers: May these materials sufficiently help developing learners’ competences in EFL, thus serving as a possible backbone for phases of increased distance learning? In view of the almost complete absence of any comparable studies analysing and assessing the material under review in this article, 6 the following case studies will highlight a number of didactic features and characteristics of current TBT. Assessing different examples of disc-based TBT covering two of the three stages in the German school system, early and intermediate learners, this paper analyses Helbling and Klett’s Playway 3 and 4 (for primary education), as well as Cornelsen’s Lighthouse 3, Diesterweg’s Camden Town 3 3 Still, the political demand for a higher degree of education in, and by, digital media emerges from the strategy paper of the standing conference of ministries of education in Germany (Ständige Kultusministerkonferenz, hereafter KMK) “Bildung im digitalen Zeitalter [Education in the Digital Age]”, signed in 2016. With the administrative agreement between the German federal government and the individual states, “DigitalPakt Schule 2019 - 2024 [Digital Initiative School]” (BMBF 2019), educational policies had moved far beyond any point of return even before the pandemic struck in 2020: It is supposed to secure the financial and institutional backgrounds for establishing the digital infrastructure within school-buildings and classrooms. The short temporal gap between the agreement and the crisis may be one reason why so many schools, teachers and learners were caught wrong-footed when they had to organize the massive shift from classroom instruction to distance learning. 4 For the procedures in administrative textbook assessments, cf. Stöber 2010. Since the German federal states have different assessment practises, or have abolished them altogether (ibid.: 4), it seems necessary that publisher-external quality management ought to be be taken over by the respective branch of Fachdidaktik which is also responsible for teacher education in a particular school subject. 5 To date, there is no reliable survey on the problems encountered by institutions, teachers, learners and parents alike in the management of distance learning during the COVID-19 crisis. However, there has been an ongoing coverage about the political and institutional governance of the situation, including success and failures, across the whole public sphere. 6 The notable exception to this observation is Schmidt’s empirical study, dating back prior to its publication in 2007, which analyses an older generation of TBT and its application in cooperative learning scenarios. Jürgen Meyer 162 and Klett’s Red Line 3, 7 all targeting Sekundarstufe I learners in Year 7. 8 This is at a stage in their education career equally far away from the first and second transitions (the latter paving the way to either a general school certificate with subsequent vocational training, or to advanced learning in Sekundarstufe II). Finally, the focus shifts towards an innovative textbookbased LMS: the FeedBook research project which has its foundation in the above mentioned Camden Town 3 workbook (addressing Gymnasium). 9 As web-based interactive software with split teacher and learner interfaces, this system allows far-reaching, contrastive insights as “adaptive” software going far beyond the limitations of any of the disc-based TBT discussed before. Evaluation criteria in the subsequent argument will be, for each of the software items analysed, the following ones, enabling a heuristic assessment matrix of the respective object: 10 a) Needs analysis b) Feedback types, according to Hattie c) Pedagogical and methodological appeal d) Other criteria (language policy, etc.) Each of these criteria is essential for an autonomous student to become successful in his / her language learning efforts, implying that, first, in order to improve one’s foreign language proficiency, a solid needs analysis might prepare the learner for contents and language topics. Without such needs analysis, a TBT will not respond to, or direct, a student’s individual performance, but it will offer, by way of a scattergun approach, a range of 7 Klett’s complex “Colour Lines” system comprises textbook series for Hauptschule with transition option for Realschule (Blue Line), Realschule (Red Line), Realschule with transition option for Gymnasium (Orange Line), and Gymnasium (Green Line). Despite marginal differences in language policy (see footnote 13 and in task complexity, as well as to avoid confusion, I shall limit my attention here to the Red Line 3-LMS; for the same reason I will neglect Camden Market, the Realschule-equivalent to Camden Town. 8 The volume ciphers in each of these coursebook series, stretching from “1” (Year 5) to “6” (Year 10), are anachronistic, because they indicate the students’ learning year, ignoring the fact that learner biographies begin with obligatory English language courses at Primary education level. Due to the federal system of education in Germany, there are two countries in which primary education lasts for the first six years (Brandenburg and Berlin), and there are three countries in which EFL begins as early as in the second term of Year 1 (Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg and Rhineland-Palatinate). 9 I am indebted to Prof. Dr. Detmar Meurers and Björn Rudzewitz, M.A., Eberhard- Karls-University Tübingen, for permitting me access to their FeedBook system, which was a project in the SFB 833 “The Construction of Meaning: The Dynamics and Adapticity of Linguistic Structures”, running from 2016 until 2019. 10 Since these disc-based software items work as facultative options for the autonomous learner, there will be no assessment category such as cooperative learning facilities. German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 163 unspecific activities which may or may not target any individual learner’s demand. Second, feedback in particular is an important assessment category, because it serves a number of different functions and takes on different shapes in any learning environment: Process-oriented and scaffolding (formative) feedback is considered more efficient than product-based, evaluative (summative) feedback; still, both forms are necessary for any meaningful statement about a learner’s progress (De Florio-Hansen 2018: 307). Furthermore, it is most important to provide a kind of feedback which takes into view both the quality of the learning process and its regulating forces, for which reason John Hattie has defined four levels, displayed in the table below (adapted from Hattie 2014: 130): These levels differentiate quality of content (task), choice of method (process and self-regulation) as well as reflection of meta-cognitive processes. Yet, in contrast to Hattie who attributes all these dimensions to the learner perspective, in the present model there is a further distinction of monitors who provide and process either form of feedback: on the one hand, it will be provided by the teacher who - whichever degree of learner-orientation s/ he may chose - is in control of the task and its expected content (goal). In the case of an automatic control system integrated in an LMS, this individual range of feedback, including determining methodical liberty to solve a problem, is strictly limited. On the other hand, the learner/ s will solve a task on the basis of their cognitive and methodical knowledge, with the effect of being aware which method/ s may be suitable to accomplish the goal, and will then also be able to assess the degree of complexity experienced. Dimension Assessment Criteria Monitor 1 Task Quality of performance Quality of solutions Error correction (competence) Teacher / LMS 2 Process Choice of strategies needed to perform the task Awareness of, and selection from alternative approaches Teacher 3 Self-Regulation Knowledge, cognition, motivation (content-related and methodical) Error avoidance (performance) Self-monitoring competence Learner 4 Self Evaluation of learning effort Table 1. The four levels of feedback (adapted from Hattie 2014: 130) In an autonomous, digitized learning arrangement, the question of feedback following a learner’s action in the foreign language is an even more sensitive issue than direct teacheror peer-feedback. The question is (how) Jürgen Meyer 164 can digital software achieve a similar complexity of feedback so that it may efficiently support and develop the learner’s EFL competences? Third, both the possibility of a needs analysis and the type of feedback has an impact on the methodological design of tasks, exercises and activities: Are the expected language products oneor multidimensional, i.e. do they permit ambiguity and individual language production, or do they limit the range of possible solutions to a minimum? The wider the range of possible answers, the more complex and “intelligent” the software would have to be. Likewise, the general didactic character of the software is determined by its underlying student profile, which allows a placement within the continuum between behaviorist and constructivist task designs. Finally, an “open” category assesses, for instance, the language policy of the respective software (for instance, is the software all in the target language, or are there code switches). 2. Playway 3 and 4 (Primary School) The first case study turns to early foreign language education, as it was implemented in the state curricula in 2003. Most federal states in Germany begin teaching English in year 3 within the regular four year course of primary education. The pupil’s book Playway 3 comprises ten units with the topics “What’s your name”, “Hello”, “School”, “Animals”, “Clothes”, “Family”, “Body”, “Weather”, “Lunch time” and “On the farm”, plus three special topics on religious holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter). Playway 4 features another nine units, “Pets and Animals”, “In Town”, “Birthdays”, “Shopping”, “Free Time”, “Feelings”, “Time”, “At Home”, and “Food and Drink”. As can be easily inferred on the basis of these topics, the main focus in the primary education course is to lay a discursive and lexical rather than grammatical foundation of the foreign language. Usually, teachers are free to consider the textbook-units as modules, since there is no strict grammatical progression and learners may be involved in the selection of topics. The software for both consecutive volumes may be installed on a hard drive and it works like a video game. It begins with a travel narrative in which the learner meets a guide, Max, and is invited to accompany him on a bus-ride to the educational village centre. In due course, Max will appear also as instructor and character. At the end of this brief introductory sequence, Max stands in front of a map displaying all the learning topics known from the book units. Despite its modular character, it suggests a circular way from the periphery to the centre, from simple to complex themes, but the pupils are not required to follow this sequence: They are free to choose the topic. By clicking onto one station, the next screen opens and, after an introduction of the most relevant thematic lexical items, a German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 165 series of language exercises begins. The introductory exercise helps conceptualizing, via a re-iterative matching routine, these lexical items visually (by image and text) and acoustically, whilst the subsequent exercises serve practising their usage and internalization. A top menu bar shows a sequence of eight exercises addressing different learner types (in particular, the communicative, the visual, and the auditory) and “intelligences” (Gardiner 1987) in each: Thus, the game “promotes emotional learning while providing informal knowledge” (Eisenmann 2019: 137), even though it does not, as in more advanced gamification scenarios, foster strategic thinking or productive language competences. The range of exercises includes, in accordance with primary school foreign language learning, receptive rather than productive skills with a focus on comprehension (reading, listening, with matching or ordering exercises), whereas writing (e.g., gap filling) and speaking (e.g., singing along, assisted by a recording device) are minimised. 11 A memory game and/ or a skill game conclude the sequence of exercises in each unit. In a more detailed approach, the focus is now on the final, most complex exercise in the first learning unit for Year 3: a skill game. The aim is to practise applying and identifying the numbers 1-10 and an equal amount of colours, which are presented visually (both as cipher and as word) as well as acoustically (as voice clip). The learner’s task is to collect the items showering down on Max on a meadow by moving him to and fro in order to catch the “correct” objects, i.e. the ones where voice, text and image correlate; those numbers and colours which do not represent the spoken word must be escaped from, or they will hit Max on the head and kill one of the three flowers on the ground at his feet, which thus symbolise the number of “lives”, or attempts at completing the task. Although the speed of the items falling down is reasonably slow, the pupil will have to concentrate on the acoustic signals and the visual representation, and s/ he must coordinate Max’s movement in order either to catch or escape an item. Each correct solution is then indicated by a square in a vertical bar, thus representing the learner’s achievement. When each of the ten items has been collected, a rainbow indicates the learner’s success. In case all the flowers on the ground are dead, there will be a thunder and lightning hitting Max. This means “game over”, and the player may restart the game. Additionally, a final monitor shows Max skateboarding speedily across the screen after successful completion of a task, or - in case of failure - he hits the ground. It is obvious that both the symbolic weather and the final 11 The most recent primary education textbooks (Klett’s Come in, Oldenbourg’s Flex and Flory) bear witness to a change in attitude towards raising early learners’ awareness of the English graphemic system (Elsner 2010: 94 - 97; cf. also Treutlein et al. 2013); thus, reading and writing play a larger role than in previous textbook generations. Neither of these new product lines has been (as yet) equipped with learning software, which is why they are no subject of analysis in the present context. Jürgen Meyer 166 screen stand in for a teacher’s summative feedback, yet lack any detailed information value. The question is what changes ensue in the software for Year 4. Structurally, Playway 4 accords with the beginner’s volume, although the sample of lexical items in each unit is slightly increased. Although one might have expected a certain qualitative progression from the most elementary unit to one which might serves to prepare the pupil for the transition into Year 5, there is no such advancement except in quantity - the cognitive stimuli are largely identical at the beginning and at the end of the whole two-year course, focusing on memory and reproduction. In order to visualize the learning effects achieved by the software of both volumes, the following table may be indicative: Advantages Disadvantages no learner-oriented needs-analysis focus on discursive features: listening, viewing, reading comprehension as main skills vocabulary work storytelling / games no individual language production learners may select the order of exercises within a topic at their own liberty addressing all learners (instead of everyone) learners proceed at their own pace ad libitum repetition may generate aleatory results, without a genuine learning effect feedback mainly on product (= summative, evaluative) hardly any scaffolding, formative feedback on process no self-regulating feedback monolingual repetitive practice (drill) as regular approach to solutions Table 2. Red Line 3, Lighthouse 3 and Camden Town 3 It is striking that neither of the two Playway CD-ROMs contains a single word of German, and that all the instructions are exclusively available in the target language English: The tasks are presented as audio-files and by illustrations, but without any written ‘back-up’. This engages the user’s multi-channel perception and s/ he has to focus on the information displayed on screen, listen carefully to the instruction, and follow it in action. Moving to Sekundarstufe I, Year 7, we see a remarkable difference in the various LMS-discs appended as optional material to the workbooks complementing the series Camden Town, Lighthouse, and Red Line: Exercises in Camden Town and Lighthouse offer a button to switch from English to German, whereas Red Line is English-only for tasks. 12 The feedback pages / status reports are German throughout. In terms of their contents, each TBT 12 This bilingualism may have a drawback in learners’ attitude towards the foreign language, since it remains only a language of learning, instead of becoming a language for and through learning (for these small, but significant nuances cf. Coyle, Hood & Marsh 2010: 36). German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 167 system establishes a close connection between workbook and learning software by alpha-numerical codes in the former, which call up specific anchoring exercises in the latter. Obligatory core-curricular themes in Year 7 focus on Great Britain and Ireland, manifesting in Red Line 3 as “England now and then”, “Adventures in Wales”, “Made in Scotland”, “In Northern Ireland” and “Welcome to Ireland”. Four learning objectives are targeted in each topic: In the first unit, objectives are headlined 1) “I can understand information about historical places in England”, 2) “I can give and understand directions”, 3) “I can talk in more detail about where I live”, 4) “I can understand a story from the past”. Usually, the can-descriptors nos. 2) and 3) in each unit are divided into two parts each, so there are six parts per unit altogether. Each “objective” leads to a set of exercises which focus on the unit and often use gap-filling as well as matching and ordering exercises, or students listen to audio-files and answer multiple choice questions. At the end of each set, the learner may call up a feedback page in which the results are listed as bars indicating green (correct), red (incorrect) solutions, and grey for the ones yet unsolved. The general layout of the software, especially in its directory surface, is at the same time easily accessible and plain, as well as uniform and repetitive, hardly inspiring for learners expecting a motivating learning extra-stimulus. The feedback is limited to the product assessment, without any of Hattie’s procedural or self-regulating dimensions, apart from the admonitory suggestion “Hier musst du wohl noch etwas üben”, if the objective has not been accomplished, and an unspecific, rather laconic, “Super! ” in the opposite case. Although Lighthouse 3 is thematically similar to Red Line 3, its learning software is more complex both in design and feedback options. It comprises five units on different regions in the UK and Ireland: “I love London”, “Country Life”, “Liverpool - the world in one city”, “Bonnie Scotland” and “A Summer in Dublin”. The software offers 56 exercises in total, with 14 each for the first two units, 12 for the next two, and five for unit 4; most of these exercises feature functional-grammatical (language) phenomena (22) and vocabulary work (20); four of the five core skills - listening and reading (5 each), speaking (3) and mediation (1) - are represented to a far lesser degree. With the exception of the final unit, a self-assessment precedes the concluding chapter quiz. This arrangement according to competence areas, rather than such strictly communicative objectives as in Red Line, allows the student to specifically filter on skills which s/ he needs to improve. As in the software for primary education, none of these tasks require actual language production. However, again in contrast to the previous example, there is the possibility of learners self-assessment and differentiation, indicated by three levels of complexity: in the first and easiest, the student has to drag and drop given word chunks into the correct order of a sentence; the intermediate level often presents matching exercises in Jürgen Meyer 168 which a solution has to be inserted into a particular grammatical category; the highest level requires to enter individual items (lexical or grammatical) into gaps, with a remnant of incorrect alternatives from which the student had to choose. At the end of a task, the student receives feedback on the solutions after completing the exercises, although it is not a feedback which details in which category exactly the learner should further improve. Still, this may be done by going back to the items, and then it is possible to compare the correct solution with the wrong entry. However, no equivalent to a teacher’s explanation or scaffolding is provided, so the learner must infer the underlying grammatical rule. Alternatively, before answering, one may use the “Tipp”-option which tells the user the initial letter of the solution (as a rudimentary form of scaffolding), or the learner may look up the solution as a whole. At the end, the number of correct forms filled in is counted, as is each call for assistance. In the examination mode, in contrast to practising (“prüfen” instead of “üben”), there is no such assistance available, but the student has to take risks and enter suggestions until the correct solution is found. What is not counted, in either mode, is the number of incorrect attempts before the correct solutions are complete. Finally, the pupil may assess the exercise as difficult, intermediate or easy. The Gymnasium-targeted Camden Town 3-TBT proves to be technically the most advanced software discussed so far, although most of the exercises, again, are closed and do not allow for alternative solutions. In contrast to the others systems, with their printable, introductory text-document as instruction manual for the respective TBT, it offers three videos in German which, as “Programmtour”, explain the various features of the software. Like in Lighthouse, exercises can be differentiated according to the level of complexity; but what is more, the learner may filter exercises by “Fertigkeiten”, according to his/ her own needs: It is possible to choose from a drop-down menu writing exercises and give this skill preference over those of (viewing-)listening comprehension, reading, grammar, lexicon, mediation or communication; notwithstanding, many tasks combine two or three competences. Learners must complete all tasks and extra activities in a unit (including a test, a portfolio, and vocabulary training) before they get access to a “fun game” in which they play against the cartoon-figure Taylor, who may be considered an equivalent to Max in the Playway software; however, in this case, the character functions as challenger rather than as partner. In accordance with the core curriculum for Gymnasium which goes beyond regional aspects of the UK and the Commonwealth, Camden Town comprises additional topics on travelling and communication / social media: “On the move”, “Welcome Wales! ”, “Famous Brits”, “Keep me posted”, “Diverse Britain” and “The Great Outdoors”. Each of these chapters contains up to 25 exercises plus the aforementioned additions and the “fun game”; the character of these exercises is of comparable complexity to German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 169 those ones for Realschule: Sets of gap-filling or matching/ ordering exercises, jumbled letters (to form words) or word clusters (for sentences) reoccur several times, as do memory, crosswords and similar game activities. The feedback page, however, is - like that in the Red Line TBT - rather a status report about which exercises have been solved, but it does not present such a detailed learning profile for each chapter as does Lighthouse. It turns out that all the specimen of disc-based software discussed so far may be categorised as assistive in the sense that they expand both the pupil’s book and the printed workbook. Installed on a desktop or notebook with a disc drive, they encourage computer-assisted language learning at home and offline. 13 Whether designed for primary or secondary school, all exercises comprise a closed range of accepted solutions; ambivalence or an individual’s active language production being reduced to a minimum. In contrast to Red Line, which allows no differentiation in exercise complexity, and Camden Town, with selected exercises allowing for differentiation, Lighthouse stands out in the sense that it allows subjective differentiation with different degrees of task complexity for all tasks, thus even stronger appealing to the competitive learner who is ambitious to try the next grade after completing a lower task level. The feedback type may, at best, be classified as “summative”, since after every exercise the learner is given feedback on the whole product, either by means of visuals or/ and a score. It is true that learners receive automatic real-time feedback on their solution, and the Camden Town system allows three attempts, before it shows the solution, meaning that the learner has to start the exercise anew. Usually, feedback going beyond a colour-coded highlighting of problematic suggestions is unspecific and does not, for instance, encourage the user to revise syntax, or grammatical features such as tenses and reported speech, etc. Since exercises may be repeated at the learner’s liberty, it may even be questioned that any degree of memorizing and understanding is necessary in order to obtain positive feedback eventually. Only the Lighthouse-TBT presents an exception to the rule with its book-keeping of assisted attempts, and by allowing the learners to assess the degree of complexity experienced in the process of solving a task: In this case Hattie’s categories of product, process, self-regulation and self are more closely monitored than in the other software systems. All these digital activity formats and most of the feedback types are largely indebted to learning methods which, from today’s point of view, have been long outdated but which are, in the commercial language learning software market, quite average: Playway employs the direct approach, using English only and offering many audio-lingual components. Each new word field foregrounded by the respective units is introduced by activating 13 When registering on the publisher’s website, the system may also be accessed online, without any changes in design or contents. Jürgen Meyer 170 the various perception channels by sound, image and text. In contrast, software for Sekundarstufe I is rather indebted to the behaviouristic sequence of stimulation - response - feedback. Still, these LMSs for intermediate learner levels also feature a number of assets, so that the following table juxtaposes in conclusion their main pedagogical features: Advantages Disadvantages Camden Town 3: possibility to filter particular competences, i.e. allowing a learner to select items s/ he finds important Lighthouse 3 / Red Line 3: no preceding learner-oriented needs-analysis main foci on function/ grammar competence and discursive skills (lexicon) no individual, autonomous language production, no attention to intercultural communicative skills or text-/ media competences Lighthouse 3: differentiated feedback, acc. to Hattie’s model: product (task, content), self-regulation (learning methods), selfawareness (complexity) Red Line 3 / Camden Town 3: no formative, scaffolding feedback, student action may lead to trial-and-error (operant conditioning) bilingual design: Feedback in German; optional code-switch English/ German in tasks repetitive practice (drill) as regular approach to solutions Table 3. FeedBook: A research project Usually the most problematic didactic issue of the disc-based TBTs analysed above is their deficient, unspecific feedback: 14 After all, ideally the goal is to give immediate feedback on the language produced by the learner, e.g., to help students complete homework exercises in the system step by step. For meaning-oriented exercises, such as reading and listening comprehension, this is especially challenging, since the system needs to evaluate the meaning provided by the student response and possibly give helpful feedback on how to improve it in the direction of an acceptable answer. (Ziai et al. 2019: 93) Considering this as a premise, the final analysis turns to a web-based LMS, transforming the Camden Town-workbook. 15 Its metamorphosis into an online medium was targeted at the aim of providing teachers and students 14 “Feedback” is here understood as the gap between a didactic competence goal and the learner’s actual performance at a given point in the competence development process. Accordingly, “Feedback involves information; goals involve evaluation” (Locke & Latham 1990: 197). 15 To avoid any misunderstandings: If the previous section focused on the publisher’s offline, disc-based TBT addressing the autonomous learner, FeedBook is based on the print-/ ebook-workbook itself, to be used in lessons also at school, as an alternative to the ‘original’ rather than as addition: Therefore, the following paragraphs focus on learning materials not contained in the DVD but only in the workbook. German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 171 with a learning device which allows both individualisation and differentiation, i.e. at the reintroduction of the teacher as active monitor. The formal advantage of this LMS is that its contents have been approved of by the educational authorities - a massive asset compared to most OERs which are often grassroots and DIY projects, but which are not systematically aligned with the particular contents of a publisher’s workbook, let alone the core curriculum and educational standards. FeedBook is an online system “provid[ing] immediate scaffolded feedback to students on form and meaning for various exercise types, covering the full range of constructions in the seventh-grade English curriculum” (Meurers et al. 2019: 161). It consists of two different surfaces, one for the teacher and the other for the learners - in contrast to all the other discbased learning systems discussed above, this one is not designed for the individual but interactive learner, and it allows real-time teacher/ student communication. The two interfaces enable participants to give and receive feedback as well as to generate individual (i.e. personal) learner profiles. The student, entering a solution, immediately gets systemic feedback not only on content level (correct/ false or complete/ incomplete), but also on grammar and, to a lesser degree, spelling. This feedback differs significantly from the merely colour-coded highlights in the TBTs, and it includes several forms of scaffolding feedback, allowing the student to revise an incorrect attempt. The system checks each answer against a background of ten grammatical categories, plus “others”: tenses (future, present, past), reported speech, comparatives, conditionals, relatives, reflexives, gerunds, and passive voice. For example, if the formation of the progressive faulty, the system will provide a drop-down list with alternative solution in different tenses from which the learner has to pick the appropriate one. A second error correction draws the learner’s attention to a grammatical phenomenon, such as syntactical rules: “Use a comma before ‘and’ if it connects two independent clauses (unless they are closely connected and short).” There are, in all, 188 such pre-fabricated feedback and scaffolding types on the different grammatical topics, which pop up as the learner enters a faulty solution. Likewise, in a reading exercise instructing the student to collect a set of information from a text (“scanning”), s/ he has to prove his/ her text comprehension in a multiple choice format. After detecting an error, the system highlights a text-passage containing the relevant information and opens a dialogue field: “This is not the correct option. Look at the highlighted passage in the text again”. The solution proper is not marked, but the context where it is located is displayed to the learner who then will have to identify the actual word or phrase. The most significant feature of FeedBook, therefore, is its scaffolding feedback which not only detects incorrect grammatical forms or discursive elements, but also helps the student to achieve a higher degree of reading comprehension by directing attention to specific text information which may be expected in a solution (for details see Meurers et al. 2019: 169-170). Jürgen Meyer 172 In the teacher’s interface of the LMS the user may see whether, and how many, students have submitted a task, and can then begin analysing their solutions. 16 It is possible to choose from two kinds of teacher feedback: On the one hand, there is an asterisked general feedback type, used when the task has been solved satisfactorily and does not require any specific commentary. Apart from this evaluative type of feedback, the teacher may also use the informative type for which s/ he may enter his/ her impulses or explanations into a writing box, and the student will see the individual comments after receiving the teacher’s feedback. After completion of a few exercises, the teacher may use the system’s diagnostic option, and will recognize how many students share the same difficulties, or in what direction they develop. It is thus possible to encourage the individual to practise a particular phenomenon, for example the simple past. The system will select a thematic range of tasks from all workbook-units focusing on the past tense. Neither teacher nor student will have to invest time in searching for specific exercises addressing the student’s need; instead the choice of exercises is numerous enough to allow the student to take his/ her own decision - which is in effect a differentiation according to performance (strength/ weakness) met by personal preferences. The difference from the filtering option in the Camden Town LMS is that the FeedBook options go far beyond the skill level, profiling particular grammatical structures. The system helps create a fine-tuned customized individual learner model for each student, mapping all the grammatical features of the system in a graphic profile, and thus providing individual assessment of the learning progress. By grouping several students in a class according to their specific needs, the teacher may practise a more individualised form of differentiation and respond to the demands of a heterogeneous classroom with a wide range of learner abilities. All in all, FeedBook takes the original medium to the next level, showing the following four most distinctive features in comparison to the previous examples of TBT: Main Features Contents: - possibility to generate individual learner-oriented needs analysis and progress matrixes Feedback: - combination of systemic (automatic) and personal = didactic (teacher) feedback - feedback includes not only product, but also processand self-monitoring (regulation and assessment) Methods: - contents remain identical with the print edition, but are rearranged according to the student’s individual needs 16 The learner’s submission and the teacher’s subsequent assessment are reminiscent of a messenger system in which each participant is notified whenever a document has been sent. Thus, this communication, in contrast to the systemic feedback, is not in real-time. German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 173 Disadvantages: - explicit didactic situation, loss of gamification appeal unreliable error detection and correction by the system 17 3. Results and Outlook The respective publishers’ digital resources are closely related to the contents of the actual textbooks, addressing specifically those autonomous learners who are able to work with the offline digital media in a self-directed way, yet agree to follow the curricular, textbook-related contents of the respective software. This means that the learner can always fall back on the contents explained in the textbook, and is thus not left alone, as might be the user of an LMS unrelated to any textbook. However, it may be said that generally, digital TBT-products turn out as didactically conservative, in that they still lag behind modern teaching and learning paradigms, drawing on behaviorist rather than constructivist methods. Deplorably, Schmidt’s conclusion to his earlier OER software analysis remains valid also for publishers’ TBT products for the present textbook generation: All in all it would be desirable to find fewer apps [and other software, JM] that treat learners rather like Pavlovian dogs by reducing their activities to drills with rewards, feedback loops and repetitions […] than inviting them, in accordance with current foreign language learning, to discover and dive into the foreign language and enable them to contextand content-rich communicative and still play-oriented learning. (Schmidt 2016: 100, transl. JM) More efficient and motivating for the learner may be a genuinely interactive system based on algorithms which should be able to decode and assess a student’s outcome in real-time - FeedBook is a step into this direction, geared towards the cognitive rather than the affective dimension of learning, thus lacking any gamification device. However, any such “intelligent” commercial software, with the potential to create learner profiles is, from a data-security angle, a highly sensitive issue, apart from the expensive background software necessary to develop and implement in correlation to 17 This appears to be rather a quantitative than qualitative criterion, requiring a (vastly) increased “intelligent” background data-base which would allow the system to add, identify, and process correct grammatical forms and lexical items. - That said, it seems fair to add that the dynamic lexicon in the publisher’s TBT is equally deficient, leaving no space for ambiguity. Thus, if the system tests the learner’s command of words, it does not acknowledge correct solutions, but is dependent on the context of a specific unit where the item is used. For example, “because”, “for” or “as” are not accepted when “since” is required for the German word “da, weil”, and for “Stadt” only “town” but not “city” is ‘correct’ - the conceptual specification of “town” = “Kleinstadt” is merely implied in the defining sentence “I live in a small town”. Jürgen Meyer 174 the various standards of language proficiency for different learner levels. Regarding competence training, publishers’ TBT, at present, focuses primarily on communicative skills, i.e., functional-grammatical, lexical and discursive competences, as well as (text-/ media)comprehension on the level of reception, and spelling. 18 Also, the shift from offline to online, cloud-based contents becomes more and more visible, providing access to these contents both by via local workstations and mobile devices (notebook, tablet, smartphone, etc.). For example, most recently Westermanngruppe have replaced their digital version of Bumblebee by the more comprehensive LMS Anton.de, and Playway, in its 2020 revised edition, offers an online LMS which comprises the identical set of exercises known from the earlier DVD software. 19 Furthermore, an additional media app has substituted the former set of audio-CD and film-DVD for teachers, with 16 films and 17 audio-files to be accessed either independent of the Playway textbook or as augmented reality (i.e. by scanning the book page with a mobile device, which identifies the respective file and plays it). 20 These learning materials are now available and accessible for learners and teachers alike, thus promising - stable connectivity and sufficient broadband capacity provided - at least a short-term motivational appeal for the learner, though with hardly any communicative or linguistic gain (cf. Grünewald 2016: 464-465), since there are no tasks for the students to solve: The app functions focus merely on reception, i.e. listening and viewing competences. Owing to its close alignment with the textbook contents, disc-based TBTs might be valued for an important function which the Lower Saxony ministry of education pays attention to - the repetition and consolidation (anchoring) of foreign language structures: “Während im normalen Unterrichtsalltag dafür oft zu wenig Zeit bleibt, bietet das Distanzlernen die Chance für Üben und Wiederholen und Festigen von Gelerntem in intelligenten Settings und sollte entsprechend genutzt werden. Eine Konzentration auf Basiskompetenzen wird empfohlen.” (Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium 2020b: 23). For this particular, rather specific EFLobjective, the variety of publishers’ TBT will be sufficient, provided they 18 This focus changes at a more advanced proficiency level reached in Sekundarstufe II, when text-mediaand intercultural competences are expanded in such areas as text interpretation or film analysis (both coming along with extensive writing tasks). A case in point may be Schöningh’s Pathway film analysis software. 19 In this case, the game character of the disc software may actually have been more motivating than the explicit learning scenario characterising the online LMS, if only for the brief introductory travel-narrative, in which the learner accompanies Max to the educational village. It is this short sequence that allows the young learner to immerse with the “story”, seeing Max as guide rather than instructor. 20 On primary education level, Cornelsen have developed a similar “Augmented Reality” (AR) app, “Buchtaucher”, for their Sally and Sunshine series; Diesterweg addresses secondary education by specific AR-apps for Camden Market and Notting Hill Gate. For a critical review of the latter, cf. Kurtz 2018. German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 175 allow, at least in rudimentary form, a needs analysis and scaffolding feedback. Works Cited 21 Berwick, Gwen et al. (2014). Lighthouse: Workbook 3. Includes Audio-CD and TBT (CD-ROM). Berlin: Cornelsen. BMBF (2019). Bundesministerium für Bildung und Familie: Verwaltungsverordnung DigitalPakt Schule 2019-2024. [online] https: / / www.bmbf.de/ de/ mit-dem-digital pakt-schulen-zukunftsfaehig-machen-4272.html. Carrington, Allan (2019). The Pedagogical Wheel, Version 5. [online] https: / / designingoutcomes.com/ english-speaking-world-v5-0/ Cornelsen (n.d.). scook. [online] https: / / www.scook.de/ . Coyle, Do, Philip Hood & David Marsh (2010). CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. DeFlorio-Hansen, Inez (2018). Teaching and Learning English in the Digital Age. Münster/ New York: Waxmann. Edelbrock, Iris (Ed.) (2017). Pathway Advanced: Lese- und Arbeitsbuch für die gymnasiale Oberstufe. Qualifikationsphase Sekundarstufe II. Includes film analysis software-DVD. Paderborn: Schöningh. Eisenmann, Maria & Meike Strohn (2012). “Promoting Learner Autonomy in Mixedability Classes by Using Webquests and Weblogs.” In: Katja Heim & Bernd Rüschoff (Eds.). Involving Language Learners: Success Stories and Constraint. Universitätsverlag Rhein Ruhr. 145-158. Eisenmann, Maria (2019). Teaching English: Differentiation and Individualisation. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. Elsner, Daniela (2010). Englisch in der Grundschule unterrichten: Grundlagen, Methoden, Praxisbeispiele. München: Oldenbourg. Fritzen, Florentine (2021). “Lernfutter für den Lockdown: Online-Programme im Vergleich.” FAZ-NET, 25 Jan. [online] https: / / www.faz.net/ aktuell/ rhein-ma in/ wirtschaft/ online-programme-im-vergleich-lernfutter-fuer-den-lockdown- 17162708.html Gerngross, Günter, Herbert Puchta & Carmen Becker (2013). Playway 4 Pupil’s Book. Rum/ Innsbruck: Helbling, Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag. Gerngross, Günter, Herbert Puchta & Carmen Becker (2016). Playway 3 Activity Book. Includes audio-CD and TBT (DVD). Rum/ Innsbruck: Helbling, Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag. Gerngross, Günter, Herbert Puchta & Carmen Becker (2020). Playway 4 Activity Book “Fördern”. Rum/ Innsbruck: Helbling/ Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag. Includes online keycode to Playway Media App and Playway Learning Software. Grünewald, Andreas (2016). “Digitale Medien und soziale Netzwerke im Kontext des Lernens und Lehrens von Sprachen.” In: Eva Burwitz-Melzer et al. (Eds.). Handbuch Fremdsprachenunterricht. 6 th ed. Tübingen: Narr. 463-466. Grünewald, Andreas (2017). “E-Learning.” In: Carola Surkamp (Ed.). Metzler Lexikon Fremdsprachendidaktik: Ansätze - Methoden - Grundbegriffe. Stuttgart: Metzler. 52-57. Hanus, Pamela et al. (2014). Camden Town 3: Workbook. Includes Audio-CD and TBT (CD-ROM). Braunschweig: Diesterweg. 21 All web-resources last accessed 28 January 2021. Jürgen Meyer 176 Haß, Frank (Ed.) (2015). Red Line 2: Workbook. Includes Audio-CD, TBT (CD-ROM). Stuttgart: Klett. Haß, Frank (Ed.) (2015). Red Line 3: Workbook. Includes Audio-CD, TBT (CD-ROM). Stuttgart: Klett. Haß, Frank (Ed.) (2016). Blue Line 3: Workbook. Includes Audio-CD, TBT (CD- ROM). Stuttgart: Klett. Hattie, John (2014). Visible Teaching: Maximising Impact on Learning. New York/ London: Routledge. Klett (2020-). e-course. [online] https: / / www.klett.de/ inhalt/ ecourse/ ecourse-sta rtseite/ 93471. KMK (2016). Ständige Kultusministerkonferenz, ed. Strategiepapier “Bildung in der Digitalen Welt”. [online] https: / / www.kmk.org/ themen/ bildung-in-der-digitalen-welt/ strategie-bildung-in-der-digitalen-welt.html Kurtz, Jürgen (2018). “Adopting Augmented Reality for Task-Oriented EFL: Textbook Development, Instruction, and Learning.” FLuL 47.2: 45-63. Locke, Edwin A. & Gary P. Latham (1990). A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Meurers, Detmar et al. (2016-2019). Camden Town 3 FeedBook (based on Hanus et al. (2014)). Tübingen: SFB 833 “The Construction of Meaning”, Project A4 “Constructing Meaning in Context”. [online] https: / / feedbook.schule/ FeedBo ok/ #init. Meurers, Detmar et al. (2019). “KI zur Lösung realer Schulherausforderungen: Interaktive und adaptive Materialien im Fach Englisch.” Sonderheft Künstliche Intelligenz: Chancen, Herausforderungen, Praxisbeispiele, Schulmanagement Handbuch 169. 65-84. Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium (Ed.) (2020a). Niedersächsisches Schulgesetz: Lesefassung. Update issued Dec 01, 2020. [online] https: / / www.mk.niedersachsen.de/ startseite/ service/ rechts_und_verwaltungsvorschriften/ niedersachsisches_schulgesetz/ das-niedersaechsische-schulgesetz-6520.html Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium (Ed.) (2020b). Umgang mit Corona-bedingten Lernrückständen: Hinweise für den Unterricht. Issued Aug 07, 2020. [online] https: / / www.mk.niedersachsen.de/ startseite/ aktuelles/ schule-neues-schuljahr -190409.html Schmidt, Torben (2007). Gemeinsames Lernen mit Selbstlernsoftware im Englischunterricht: Eine empirische Analyse lernprogrammgestützter Partnerarbeitsphasen. Tübingen: Narr. Schmidt, Torben (2016). “Die Appschaffung der Lehrkraft.” Friedrich Jahresheft “Lernen” 34. 100-102. Stöber, Georg (2010). “Schulbuchzulassung in Deutschland: Grundlagen, Verfahrensweisen und Diskussionen.” Eckert. Beiträge 3. 1-24. [online] http: / / nbnresolving.de/ urn: nbn: de: 0220-2010-00146 Strasser, Thomas (2012). Mind the App! Inspiring Internet tools and activities to engage your students. Innsbruck: Helbling. Thaler, Engelbert (2012). Englisch unterrichten: Grundlagen, Kompetenzen, Methoden. Berlin: Cornelsen. Treutlein, Anke et al. (2013). “(Frühe) Schrifteinführung im Englischunterricht - Überlegungen zu Zeitpunkt und Methode auf Grundlage von psycholinguistischen Studien”. ZFF 24.1. 3-27. Westermann (2003-). Alfons. [online] https: / / alfons.westermann.de/ alfons/ #/ information Westermann (n.d.). kapiert.de. [online] https: / / www.kapiert.de/ German English-Textbooks and Their Digital Sphere 177 Westermanngruppe (s.d.). kapiert.de: Mit Schulbuch oder nach Kompetenzen lernen. Instruction for teachers. [online] https: / / www.kapiert.de/ broschueren/ Prospekt_Lehrer/ html5.html Ziai, Ramon et al. (2019). “The Impact of Spelling Correction and Task Context on Short Answer Assessment for Intelligent Tutoring Systems”. Proceedings of the 8 th Workshop on NLP for Computer Assisted Language Learning. Turku: LiU University Press. 93-99. [online] https: / / www.aclweb.org/ anthology/ W19-6310/ Jürgen Meyer Institut für Anglistik Universität Vechta BUCHTIPP Daniel Becker Videospiele im Fremdsprachenunterricht 1. Auflage 2021, 107 Seiten €[D] 12,99 ISBN 978-3-8233-8437-3 eISBN 978-3-8233-9437-2 Videospiele sind nicht nur äußerst beliebt bei Jugendlichen, sondern weisen auch vielseitige Potentiale für das Fremdsprachenlernen auf. So zeigen etwa zahlreiche Studien, dass digitale Spiele u.a. einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Förderung kommunikativer und kultureller Kompetenzen leisten können, und somit einen idealen Lerngegenstand für den Fremdsprachenunterricht darstellen. Doch wie kann man diesen Lerngegenstand konkret im Unterricht umsetzen und anwenden? Bei all der Fülle an Studien zum didaktischen Mehrwert von digitalen Spielen wurde diese unterrichtspraktische Frage bisher kaum beantwortet. Das Buch von Daniel Becker setzt an genau dieser Stelle an und beschäftigt sich mit den didaktischen Voraussetzungen und Herausforderungen des fremdsprachlichen Videospielunterrichts. Hierbei werden sowohl curriculare, technische als auch methodische Überlegungen berücksichtigt. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG \ Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (0)7071 97 97 0 \ Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 \ info@narr.de \ www.narr.de BUCHTIPP Jürgen Meyer Fachdidaktik Englisch - Fokus Literaturvermittlung Eine hermeneutische Analyse von Lehrwerken der gymnasialen Oberstufe 1. Auflage 2021, 312 Seiten €[D] 68,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-8519-6 eISBN 978-3-8233-9519-5 Seit den Lehrplanreformen der frühen 2000er Jahre hat sich der Stellenwert von Literatur im Englischunterricht verändert: Die Vermittlung sprachlich-kommunikativer und handlungsorientierter Kompetenzen ging zulasten der literarischen Interpretation mit ihrem Bemühen um ein Verstehen der Vieldeutigkeit von literarischen Texten. Es zeigt sich, dass das Bemühen um lebensweltliche Bezüge zur Realität der Leser: innen nicht immer zu Umgangsweisen mit Texten führt, die der erfolgreichen Ausbildung von literarischer Kompetenz zuträglich sind. Diese Studie vergleicht Unterrichtsmodule aktueller Lehrwerke (Camden Town, Context, Green Line Oberstufe und Pathway Advanced) und legt an ihnen dar, wie Literatur wieder als Literatur betrachtet werden kann. Thematisch rücken neben Ausschnitten aus Shakespeares Werken vor allem Dystopien und Science Fiction des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts in den Vordergrund. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG \ Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (0)7071 97 97 0 \ Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 \ info@narr.de \ www.narr.de narr.digital ISSN 0171 - 5410 Mit Beiträgen von: Monika Fludernik Frančiška Lipovšek Aleksandra Izgarjan and Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević José Antonio Álvarez-Amorós Heinz Tschachler Vesna Lazović Daniel Becker Jürgen Meyer