Modern Languages Commons^™

Biutiful: En Los Márgenes De La Cosmópolis Neoliberal, Alberto Ribas-Casasayas

Modern Languages & Literature

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, the city operates as a sort of anti-model exposing the dark side of neoliberal economies in larger fashionable cities, with an emphasis in precarization and exclusion and dynamics of violence against migrant populations. To this end, he uses an aesthetics of incongruence and a focus over a motley society, in permanent tension and negotiation between variegated groups. These strategies coexist with two other themes: exclusion represented as a form of expulsion or excrecence, and the appeal to memory as an ethical imperative that disrupts the logic of monetary calculus in which the main characters …

The George Harris Show August 08, 2022, Part 5 Spanish To English Translation, Jonathan Gerweck

Honors College Theses

This thesis is an attempt at a Spanish-to-English translation of part of a comedy skit by Venezuelan American comedian George Harris performed on October 11, 2022, in Miami, Florida. As an academic, I have been captivated by foreign languages since a young age and have studied German up to the collegiate level. After moving to New York and studying at Pace University, an educational institution that does not offer German, I decided to teach myself Spanish. I reached the Advanced level of the language within my second semester of officially studying it at Pace University. I believe that the future …

Translating (Or Not) A South American Philosopher The Paratexts Of The Works Of José Enrique Rodó In English, Gabriel Gonzalez Nunez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study will consider translation as a tool to transfer ideas from Latin America to North America (and the rest of the English-speaking world). It will do so by exploring some of the paratextual strategies that have been employed in transmitting the ideas of Latin American philosophers to the English-speaking world. Specifically, it will rely on a case study, namely, the translation into English of the works of José Enrique Rodó, an important South American philosopher from the early twentieth century. The paper will outline Rodó’s work as translated into English, focusing not on the quality of the translated texts …

Positioning As A Mediator Of Reader Self-Efficacy: A Case Study Of Literature Circles, Elena M. Venegas

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Literature circles are a socially supportive context in which students can cultivate their reader identities. This is especially promising for students with lower reader self-efficacies. This qualitative multiple case study explored the positioning practices of four Grades 5–6 students with comparatively low reader self-efficacy. In literature circles, the students responded to interactive positioning (i.e., positioning by others) and/or engaged in reflexive positioning (i.e., positioned themselves). Upon interpreting the data through positioning theory, two storylines emerged. In the first storyline, students reflexively positioned themselves in literature circles as strategic, engaged readers, thereby challenging initially lower reader self-efficacies. Yet the second storyline …

Violencia, Memoria Y Empatía Reflexiva En El Ruido De Las Cosas Al Caer De Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Carlos Gardeazábal Bravo

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, I show how Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s novel El ruido de las cosas al caer (The Sound of Things Falling, 2011) proposes an articulation of the works of memory and affects that can be ethically relevant within the context of the war on drugs in Colombia. I link this analysis with an interpretation of the novel that discusses the role of literature in debates about systemic violence in the global war on drugs. I propose that The noise of things falling, thanks to its affirmation of what I call reflexive empathy, questions the geopolitical designs that articulate that …

Clic Newsletter - Fall 2022, Kevin Zhou, Jesus Bautista, Antonio Gonzalez D'Orazio, Carli Van Haute, Matilde Ronchi, Ramiro Garcia, Silvana Davi, Jamilya Tuleutayeva

CLIC Newsletter

Page 1: Interview with our Past LP Manager: Daniel Alegre

Page 4: Event Throwback: Culture Fest Dance Class

Page 5: Recipe: Red Braised Pork Belly

Page 6: National Sports of Different Countries

Page 14: Student Work: Un Menu Francais by Jamilya Tuleutayeva

Page 15: Interview International Freshman

Page 16: Event Throwback: Calligraphy

Page 17: Restaurant Recommendations with Kevin

Page 21: Student Work: Self-Identity Poem by Carli Van Haute

Page 22: Interview with International Businessman: Luis Florez

Page 24: Recipe: Arroz con Maiz

Page 25: Student Work: Poesia in Inglese, Italiano e Spagnolo by Matilde Ronchi

Page 26: E-Sports: League of …

Reporting At The Border:Translation In Periodicals At The Texas-Tamaulipas Border During The 19th Century, Gabriel Gonzalez Nunez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper addresses the historical relationship between journalism and translation. It approaches translation history by considering journalistic translation as found in newspapers published in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (the southernmost, easternmost stretch of the Mexico-US border) during the 19th century. Specifically, the paper will ask whether translation was a tool employed in journalistic activity in the region and, if so, what the role was of translation in such activity. It will review the presence of translation in available border periodicals from the 1840s to the end of the century. This review will show that regarding certain aspects, historical news …

Spanish Heritage Speakers’ Processing Of Lexical Stress, Ramsés Ortín

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines the status of lexical stress in the processing system of heritage speakers of Spanish and whether or not it is influenced by their experience with English. Participants completed an ABX matching task with auditory stimuli differing in the location of stress or in one consonantal sound. Findings reveal that heritage speakers are more accurate in consonant-based trials than in stress-based ones, but only when matching stimuli were non-adjacent, which suggests that their stress-processing strategies pattern more closely with those of native English speakers. Furthermore, dominance and knowledge of Spanish appear to be associated with increased phonological sensibility …

Ancient Surgeons: A Characterization Of Mesopotamian Surgical Practices, Alison J. White, Jason Herbeck, Joann Scurlock, John Mayberry

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The Ancient Mesopotamian civilization, the earliest known, emerged in the fourth millennium BCE. While the advent of medicine is established, there is little understanding of surgery's origins. We sought to describe the characteristics and medical acumen of the surgeons of the first civilization.

Methods: Source documents and commentary on Mesopotamian medicine were systematically analyzed for evidence of surgery and physician descriptions.

Results: Early tablets reveal evidence of the incisional drainage of a scalp abscess and empyema, advanced wound care, fracture alignment, and possible caesarians without evidence of wound suturing, emergency procedures, trephination, or circumcision. While the asû and āšipu …

On Playful Language Divergences. Code-Switching Among Spanish-Portuguese Bilinguals, Ana M. Carvalho, Katherine Christoffersen

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Uruguayan Portuguese, a variety of Portuguese which occurs in contact with Spanish in northern Uruguay along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border, has been perceived to be a mix of Portuguese and Spanish, in which speakers are either unable to separate languages or engage in code-switching for pragmatic purposes. Here, we analyze in-group communication using visual and verbal data extracted from video recordings of conversations among bilinguals in northern Uruguay, in order to investigate whether all language mixing is random or if speakers engage in pragmatically meaningful code-switching. We identify instances where Portuguese was inserted into Spanish segments with the intention to shift …

The Levant: France’S Colonial Crucible, Michael Adelson

French Summer Fellows

In the medieval era of religious and political tumult that culminated with the Crusades, (mostly) Roman Catholic Western European citizens from all walks of life committed themselves to conquer Jerusalem and wrest control of historically Christian lands from the Muslim polities that claimed the region. The historical Kingdom of France was a major contributor to the Crusades, and as such, the feudal realms established in the Levant in the wake of the First Crusade were dominated by former French crusaders and citizenry. The geographic boundaries and demography of these Crusader States are reminiscent of French hegemony in the Middle East …

Composing Her Growing Identities As A Mexican American, Xiaodi Zhou

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article studies the growing and changing cultural identifications of one early adolescent Mexican American girl as represented by her engagements with literacy. Her writing behaviors in particular manifested a changing cultural identity that reacted to and represented her response to a changing world. Her bilingualism and biculturalism manifested a dialogic innervation of distinct voices and truths, particularly set in the Trump-era United States. Through a theoretical framework of cultural hybridity and bordered identity, this study analyzes the complex linguistic, developmental, and cultural identities of a young Mexican American woman in the rural South.

Review: Rethinking Joseph Conrad's Concepts Of Community: Strange Fraternity, John A. Merchant

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Kaoru Yamamoto, Rethinking Joseph Conrad's Concepts of Community: Strange Fraternity

Humanitarismo Literario Y Migración Forzada: Un Estudio De Las Tierras Arrasadas De Emiliano Monge, Carlos Gardeazábal Bravo

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Las tierras arrasadas (2015) de Emiliano Monge se encuentra entre el creciente corpus de novelas y películas sobre los migrantes centroamericanos y los diferentes tipos de violencia que afrontan. Monge aborda en esta obra los efectos de la militarización en la política migratoria de México, impulsada por la guerra contra el narco que comenzó en 2006. Esta novela lleva a cabo un desmonte crítico del humanitarismo literario al tiempo que enfatiza la vulnerabilidad de los migrantes y su agencia. En tal sentido, se explora la forma en la que, en cuanto ficción posthumanitaria, la novela encarna las diferentes formas en …

Writing Centers As Democratic Spaces: A Review Of A Writing Center Practitioner’S Inquiry Into Collaboration: Pedagogy, Practice, And Research By Georganne Nordstrom, Randall W. Monty

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Consecuencias Sociales En El Cine Latinoamericano: Alta Visibilidad De Lo Queer, Tucker Wayne Skipper

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This presentation explores hegemonic societies in the Caribbean and the Southern Cone of Latin America as framed by the cultural phenomenon of high queer visibility in four films: Fresa y chocolate (1995) by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, Antes que anochezca (2000) by Julian Schnabel, El beso de la mujer araña (1985) by Héctor Babenco, and Hoy quiero volver solo (2014) by Daniel Ribeiro. It examines the social consequences that each of the main characters must pay to their hegemonic societies because of this visibility. This research also makes a case for compulsive heterosexuality and how the heterosexist …

Temas Tempranos Del Feminismo En La Literatura Española De Principios Del Siglo Xx: Emilia Pardo Bazán Al Franquismo, Savannah Courter

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This presentation investigates Spanish feminist themes and how two authors—Emilia Pardo Bazán and Dolores Ibárruri—affected the role of women in their society during Franco’s regime. This presentation will discuss the main themes contributed by these two authors and how they fought against Francoism, Franco’s society, and the chauvinistic ideas and rules created for women during the regime.

Turismo En Nicaragua: Los Éxitos Y Fracasos De La Última Esperanza De Un Gobierno, Julia Devane

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

After decades of political instability left the people of Nicaragua to suffer with homelessness and poverty, the government turned to the tourism industry as a last effort to generate much-needed revenue, which had initially promised economic results. This essay will argue that the tourism industry was developed unsustainably for local populations and explain how the government's push for a tourism industry focused only on the needs of the tourists visiting their country rather than the needs of the locals participating in the tourism industry.

Abordando La Brecha De Desigualdad En Chile: Inquietud Civil Y Política, Savannah Taylor

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This essay analyzes the underlying causes of the socioeconomic and income inequalities from which Chile still suffers. Moving through a brief historical analysis, it discusses such inequalities from the perspective of the 2019 protests. Finally, the essay identifies three primary potential causes of the unrest and inequality. The unequal education system, unstable political institutions, and disagreement of the management of valuable natural resources all exist as a barrier to achieving a satisfactory level of equality among the people of Chile.

A Leadership Journey: How Advising Shapes An Institutional Culture, Jacquelyn Jones, Melissa Welker, Jonikka Charlton, Janna Arney

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although we know advising can be conceptualized as a critical component of an integrated and comprehensive student success strategy on a campus, it is often difficult to implement. This chapter will provide a case study of the development and execution of a leadership initiative at an American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) institution to transform advising in service of the goals of student equity and success. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's advising model grew out of a convergence of a handful of key momentum points including strategic planning processes and the use of emerging data surrounding …

Phonological Processing Of Stress By Native English Speakers Learning Spanish As A Second Language, Ramsés Ortín, Miquel Simonet

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

One feature of Spanish that presents some difficulties to second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) is English concerns lexical stress. This study explores one aspect of the obstacle these learners face, weak phonological processing routines concerning stress inherited from their native language. Participants were L1 English L2 learners of Spanish. The experiment was a sequence-recall task with auditory stimuli minimally contrasting in stress (target) or segmental composition (baseline). The results suggest that learners are more likely to accurately recall sequences with stimuli contrasting in segmental composition than stress, suggesting reduced phonological processing of stress relative to a processing …

Clic Newsletter - Spring 2022, Daniel Alegre, Michael Berman, Antonio Gonzalez D'Orazio, Penelope Soto, Qiaofei Yan, Kevin Zhou

CLIC Newsletter

Cover Page

PAGE 1: Interview with director of CLIC, Dr. Alessia Dalsant

PAGE 4: Event Throwback: International Trivia Night

PAGE 5: Restaurant Recommendations

PAGE 9: LP at Sea: Updates on Coti’s Study Abroad

PAGE 12: Event Throwback: UEFA Champions League @ CLIC

PAGE 13: Sports Across the World

PAGE 15: Recipes To Try From Our LPs’ Countries

PAGE 20: Interview with Students Who Studied Abroad

PAGE 24: Event Throwback: Foreign Language Karaoke Night

PAGE 25: Interview with Exchange Students at Bentley

PAGE 27: Cultural and Identity Student Organizations at Bentley University

PAGE 30: Interview with Mariana Varela – Fall LP …

Translation Studies And Public Policy, Gabriel Gonzalez Nunez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 9 discusses relationships between translation and public policy. When challenges of organizing public spaces involve the use of more than one language, translation is often employed, and, in such circumstances, translation may serve a variety of functions, including the deployment of language policies alongside other policy aims such as the promotion of human rights or multiculturalism. The chapter explores this link between public policy and translation, presenting a survey of insights that have been provided by scholars, and suggesting areas where scholarship can provide further understandings. These insights are important, given the continuing multilingualism and diversity of societies.

Us Central American Identities In Roberto Quesada’S Big Banana And Nunca Entres Por Miami, Adrian Taylor Kane

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Following several calls in recent scholarship for increased attention to the study of the Central American diaspora in the United States, this article offers readings of Honduran-born author Roberto Quesada’s novels Big Banana (1999) and Nunca entres por Miami (2003). Written in New York City, where he has resided since 1989, Big Banana highlights issues of Central American identity, migration, and immigrant experiences. Published four years later, Nunca entres por Miami continues to engage with these important topics. My readings of Quesada’s novels focus on the ways in which they construct cultural memory and identity by providing critical historical context …

Basque Studies At Boise State University, Ziortza Gandarias Beldarrain, Nere Lete

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise, the capital of Idaho that we Basques feel so close to and our own despite being far from the Basque Country, is a twinned city with Gernika-Lumo, known to us as the "eighth Basque province". Today, 12-15,000 people of Basque origin live in the state of Idaho. It can be unanimously said that the history of Boise and the history of the Basque diaspora have gone hand in hand since the discovery of gold in the American River in California in 1849. The first Basques arrived in Idaho in 1890, when silver was discovered in De Lamar and Silver …

Claves Y Complicidades De Los Signos En El Universo Digital De Belén Gache, Gioconda Marun

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Walt Disney And China: How Glocalization Shaped Shanghai Disneyland, Becca Maclellan

Modern Languages, Philosophy and Classics Theses

This thesis applies the glocalization theory to a comparative study of the Disney theme parks in the United States and Shanghai, China. It argues that Walt Disney’s glocalization through integrating Chinese culture into the Shanghai Disney theme park brought commercial success to the company. Additionally, it also set up a good example for other businesses interested in global expansion.

Laws For The Support Of Transgenders In Argentina And Brazil, Elias Choclin

Modern Languages, Philosophy and Classics Theses

In the last decade, the feminist and LGBTQ+ movements have shown the challenges transgender people face in different countries of the world. Specifically, Brazil and Argentina have proposed different regulations and laws that protect these individuals from violence and that intend to incorporate them into the job market. However, these countries have vastly different policies regarding healthcare for transgenders such as transition medication and surgeries, which will be further identified and explained in the paper.

Lost In Adaptation:The Silencing Of The French Female Concierge, Mariah Devereux Herbeck

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fictional representations of the female concierge frequently underscore her negative attributes, above all her meddlesome discourse. The female concierge character in Georges Simenon's 1933 novel, Les fiançailles de M. Hire, however, provides an exception to the rule as local law authorities give credence to her word and base their investigation on her testimony. However, in two filmic adaptations of the novel—Duvivier's Panique (1946) and Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire (1989)—the female concierge character is practically absent. This article demonstrates how, from page to screen, the concierge's role is dissected, disembodied, and displaced in Duvivier's and Leconte's films, and finally reflects …

"Mi Estilo Lo Confirma Letra Por Letra": La Literatura Criminal En "El Niño Proletario" De Osvaldo Lamborghini, Ana María Mutis

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

El presente ensayo examina el discurso del narrador en el cuento “El niño proletario” de Osvaldo Lamborghini como una reflexión ideológica sobre la complicidad entre literatura y violencia. Mediante la inspección del estilo lingüístico del narrador asesino, este trabajo propone que el cuento de Lamborghini presenta la escritura como una forma de expresión vinculada a la violencia y acusa a la tradición literaria hispanoamericana, específicamente al naturalismo y al modernismo, de participar en la violencia social que el relato denuncia. De esta manera, el sustrato ideológico del cuento de Lamborghini va más allá del desmonte de la tradicional dicotomía civilización-barbarie, …