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Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature

Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang Jan 2024

Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This study used a survey to investigate self-study and university-enrolled Chinese learners’ habits in studying Chinese vocabulary in order to determine what study methods influence a.) learners’ confidence in learning Chinese vocabulary and b.) what aspects of Chinese vocabulary they consider easy or difficult. We were particularly interested in seeing what the data had to say about students’ attitudes towards characters and the written language, given that the field of Chinese language pedagogy is known for a stronger focus on the written language as opposed to the spoken language. We found that aspects of Chinese vocabulary associated with the spoken …


Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney Jan 2024

Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyzes Luiz Roberto Salinas Fortes’ Retrato calado (Silent Portrait) published in 1988, considering the theoretical discussions on testimonio's epistemology—addressing the challenge of narrating trauma and the risk of stylization. It compares Fortes' memoir with Fernando Gabeira's O que é isso, companheiro? (What's This, Comrade?) from 1979, examining diverse approaches to capturing historical trauma through literature and its impact on collective memory about Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-1985).


Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco Jan 2024

Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Adriana Cavarero's conceptualization of Medusa serves as a potent metaphor for the subtle redirection of violence of oblivious women who ignored the brutalization of pregnant victims during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-83). In Luis Puenzo’s La historia oficial (1985) and Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 (2022), skillfully unveil the ghastly practice of torturing pregnant women, unraveling the vulnerability of both mothers and their infants, evoking a sense of disgust and repugnance that is eventually shared by oblivious women. Beyond mere storytelling, these films challenge prevailing power dynamics and discourses, shedding light on the complicit ignorance of elite women during an era marked …


Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane Oct 2023

Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article explores the innovative language strategies employed by Senegalese writer Ken Bugul in her novel Aller et retour to construct a dynamic and interconnected linguistic landscape that challenges fixed language boundaries. Ken Bugul's "langue fabriquée" combines elements of French, Wolof, and English, reflecting a transglocal dimension that embodies the essence of afrophonics—a poetics of resistance that empowers local cultures in a globalized context. Through a detailed analysis of Ken Bugul's linguistic choices, including the use of quotation marks, footnotes, and arbitrary transcription, the study reveals how she creates a language that defies categorization and decolonizes French without resorting to …


Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr Jan 2023

Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion students have been affected during the course of the global coronavirus pandemic by school and university closures. As a way to navigate this new instructional landscape, the researchers aimed to find a tool that would allow students to develop and practice communicative language skills in their online Spanish classes. In this research study, participants used VoiceThread over the course of a semester and then reflected on their comfort level using communicative skills in Spanish before and after using the tool, as well as whether they perceived that using the platform in their …


La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez Jan 2023

La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Le parfait crime (1995) by Jean Baudrillard and Crimen ferpecto (2004) by the Basque director Alex de la Iglesia are two works that not only have in common almost identical titles. They both reflect on how in consumer societies, an imperfect real world is substituted for an illusory hyperreality in which the distinction between subject and object has disappeared. While Baudrillard explains how the denial of a transcendent reality in contemporary society is “a perfect crime” that destroys the real, Alex de la Iglesia uses black humor and a mix of genres (mainly grotesque comedy and thriller) to show the …


De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe Jan 2023

De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …


Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon Jan 2023

Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Cercas’ protagonist, Gafitas, narrates his memories of being a member of "el Zarco's" youth gang in the barrio chino of Girona during the summer of 1978, from the vantage point of the early 2000s. The novel is simultaneously viewed through the intertextual lens of José Antonio de la Loma’s cycle of quinqui films based on the life of the famous Catalan delinquent, El Vaquilla, Juan José Moreno Cuenca. There is renewed interest in these films from the Transition period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the success of this novel and director Daniel Monzón's film based on Cercas’ …


Pensar El Límite: El Símbolo Indígena En Los Proyectos Políticos Cubanos De Principios Del Siglo Xix, Jorge L. Camacho Jan 2022

Pensar El Límite: El Símbolo Indígena En Los Proyectos Políticos Cubanos De Principios Del Siglo Xix, Jorge L. Camacho

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article investigates the way in which Cuban literature reflected on indigenous people during the early half of the nineteenth century and uses the symbol of the Amerindians to demonstrate a moral disjuncture between them and the colonizer. In this article, I call attention to the way Cuban independentists and Spanish nationalists used this figure to support their views and thus created a split in the Cuban creole imagination. I start by pointing out that these appropriations started at the end of the 18th century when historian José Martín Félix de Arrate, and poets such as Miguel González and Manuel …


Language Learning Through Interaction: Online And In The Classroom, Andrew J. Demil, Rachel Kozikowski Jan 2022

Language Learning Through Interaction: Online And In The Classroom, Andrew J. Demil, Rachel Kozikowski

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Online language teaching has become a popular alternative to classroom learning (Liu et al; Warschauer and Meskill). This led to research comparing the two learning environments (Young). Regardless of the learning environment, in order to be effective, the second language classroom must be designed to lead learners to acquisition. Studies suggest that collaborative tasks that push learners to negotiate meaning lead to acquisition (Leeser; Loewen and Erlam; Mackey and Philp; Stafford, Bowden, Sanz). Participants in this study were in two environments; a second language classroom in the typical in person classroom format, and a language learning course in an online …


La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez Jan 2022

La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This paper explores the concepts of "Border Culture" and "Borderlands" by Gloria Anzaldúa in Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, by Lorraine López and the novel Mijito Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Jaime Martínez. The paper argues that the Mexican American character in the southeast of the United States lives in the "Borderlands" and practices a "Border Culture" because they don't follow the traditional stereotypical role of the Mexican American character within the literary canon of both the dominant culture and Chicana/o literature.


Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun Jan 2021

Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second …


A Story To Tell… How To Integrate The Three Modes Of Communication Through A Story Time Program In French, Frederique Grim Jan 2020

A Story To Tell… How To Integrate The Three Modes Of Communication Through A Story Time Program In French, Frederique Grim

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Bilingual story time programs found in local community libraries not only benefit children, they can also serve a need for L2 college students: the development of their communicative skills in an authentic environment. In addition to linguistic benefits, experiential learning has proven to prepare students for real-world skills, such as networking, mock professional experience and a sense of community engagement. This paper recounts how a world language story time program supports L2 learners’ three modes of communication, as articulated by ACTFL, and necessary for language development. Based on students’ perceptions, this study highlights their increase in motivation and confidence in …


Performing Militancy In Laura Alcoba’S The Rabbit House (2008), Stephanie R. Orozco Jan 2020

Performing Militancy In Laura Alcoba’S The Rabbit House (2008), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Laura Alcoba’s The Rabbit House (2008), belongs to the cannon of post- dictatorship child survivors—who themselves lived under the precarious life of militancy during Argentina’s Dictatorship (1976-1983). This paper exams the image of a young seven-year-old child’s who undergoes serious confrontational mischief's due to her inability to fully acquire militant norms and live by adult rules because of her child-like nature during her stay in la clandestindad. Moreover, rather than assuming the role of an innocent child figure of the 1970s Left-wing revolutionary war, Alcoba’s child protagonist assumes a politically active character that has the ability to perform childhood as …


Memory, Metatheater, And Intertextuality In "La Madrugada" By Juan Tovar, Brian T. Chandler Jan 2018

Memory, Metatheater, And Intertextuality In "La Madrugada" By Juan Tovar, Brian T. Chandler

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This work explores the concepts of temporality, memory and history in the play La madrugada by Juan Tovar presented through the use of metatheatricality and intertextuality with works such as Pedro Páramo and various historical corridos. The processes through which official history is constructed are shown in contrast with collective memory that endures in the corrido, the “authentic” voice of the people, suggesting that the only possibility for redemption is found in memory, a space where one can learn from history to rectify the mistakes of the past whose impact in politics and society is felt to this …


Flora Tristan’S Plural Identities In "Peregrinaciones De Una Paria": Challenging And Reproducing Existing Power Structures, Nancy Tille-Victorica Jan 2017

Flora Tristan’S Plural Identities In "Peregrinaciones De Una Paria": Challenging And Reproducing Existing Power Structures, Nancy Tille-Victorica

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyses the ways in which Franco-Peruvian author Flora Tristan crosses the border of her plural identities in her famous travel book Peregrinaciones de una paria (1837). It especially looks at how she performs as a male in certain situations and how these are generally associated with her French identity. It also considers her identification as a woman and how it is linked to her Peruvian identity. These examinations reveal how Tristan actually redefines herself as a pariah and how her definition differs from that of outcast imposed on her in France prior to her departure for Peru.