Freeside Europe Online Academic Journal
Modern cultural, literary and linguistic perspectives
Freeside Europe Online Academic Journal
Modern cultural, literary and linguistic perspectives
“Global Englishes” is a paradigm which reflects the way in which English had expanded and transcended its original nature and role in the world and is finding its expression in the arts in multiple and diverse incarnations. Global Englishes extends its scope of research in the fields of education, science and business, it encompasses a broad range of topics.
Under the aegis of Kodolányi János University’s 30-year jubilee, the Department of English Language and Literature organized an international conference titled, “Seizing the day”: current research in Global Englishes, on 28-29 March 2022. The conference was partly in-person and online, and took place at Kodolányi’s Budapest Campus. The participants came from sundry Hungarian higher education institutions and other neighbouring countries.
The present publication of Freeside Europe Online Academic Journal, issue 13, 2022 has put together a collection of papers, research and interviews that highlight the theme “Global Englishes” in the fields of linguistics, literature, and culture.
Four papers are devoted to linguistic aspects of the globalization of Anglo-Saxon culture and the English language. Viktória Albert and Judit Szitó examine certain linguistic, textual, and functional peculiarities of various early recipes of the apple pie from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The selected recipes also provide insight into the interplay between language and socio-cultural relationships during these historical periods. The paper by Ekaterina Strati Gjergo and Daniela Meçe investigate the foreign language anxiety in the students learning English for specific purposes (ESP) and the relationship between foreign language anxiety and English test results. The study indicates that foreign language anxiety is a problem among ESL students, and has a significantly negative correlation with the students’ results in ESP. Máté Huber discusses whether two EFL coursebook series that are widely used in Hungary, Pioneer and English File, represent pluricentricity. Huber concludes that while the British standard dominates both series at the expense of American and other standards, Pioneer contains a higher amount of pluricentric content. The paper gives specific suggestions to textbook authors and publishers on the application of the pluricentric model to language teaching. Eszter Sándor examines the use of Business English as a lingua franca. Sándor’s findings indicate that young business professionals try to use simple and clear language and rely on paraphrasing and repetition when they communicate in English in multicultural and multilingual environments. The paper offers advice on how Business English courses should be changed to be more efficient in developing the speakers’ pragmatic competence.
Three papers focus on how literary works represent hybrid identities that result from a dialogue between Anglo-Saxon countries and other nations. Eszter Mohácsi’s paper offers a brief overview of the theme of transnational identities in Korean American literature and analyses how Catherine Chung’s Forgotten Country contributes to this tradition. The novel contrasts two different ways second-generation immigrants approach their heritage: whereas the protagonist has a bicultural identity, her sister tries to reject her Korean roots. The paper sheds light on how the behaviour of the siblings shows signs of multigenerational trauma. While Mohácsi concentrates on second-generation immigrants, Ágnes Harasztos takes a look at a literary depiction of the first generation: she examines Rose Tremain’s The Road Home, a novel about an East-Central European immigrant’s life in London. According to Harasztos, the book echoes the plot of Hamlet in an attempt to imagine how the Eastern European Other might see Britain. Tremain follows in Shakespeare’s footsteps in associating liminality with madness, the play-within-a-play device, and what Kierkegaard described as the dilemma of the immovability of death versus the activity of life. Péter Tamás’ paper also focuses on how a British author engages with East-Central Europe. He argues that poet Norman Jope construes Hungary as a heterotopia that destabilizes the speaker’s identity and draws attention to his mortality. Jope’s poems on Hungary question the validity of an exclusively British understanding of the world and celebrate multicultural experiences.
The further articles, one scholarly essay and two interviews with novelists, discuss how national identity is perceived across different cultures. The definition of stereotypes and clichés, and their significance in intercultural communication allows for a myriad of interpretations, which is duly explored on the specific examples of the UK and the US in Bálint Szele’s paper, in which he draws up a list of the most common stereotypes collected on the two countries, a list of 29 stereotypes altogether. The conference was privileged to host two prestigious international writers: Lisa McInerney from Ireland and Lisa de Nikolits from Canada. The two authors took part in the conference online in a separate panel organized as interviews. These were conducted by Krisztina Kodó and Borka Richter and the full-length texts of the interviews are available in publication within the present volume of Freeside. The interview with Lisa McInerney focused on Irish identity, Irishness in a multicultural society, and Ireland and Irishness globally. Thus, the identity of the “Corkonians” globally. Lisa de Nikolits has been hailed the Queen of Canadian speculative fiction and her novels all have a strong sociological base.
