4. Dynamics between Applied Studies on Language and Literature
Pouyan Rezapour
Abstract
Emerging to challenge formalist and traditional historical criticism, New Historicism demands that literary works be analyzed within their complex socio-historical contexts, rejecting the notion of the autonomous aesthetic text. This article employs this interdisciplinary lens to excavate Anthony Burgess’s ...
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Emerging to challenge formalist and traditional historical criticism, New Historicism demands that literary works be analyzed within their complex socio-historical contexts, rejecting the notion of the autonomous aesthetic text. This article employs this interdisciplinary lens to excavate Anthony Burgess’s controversial 1962 novel, A Clockwork Orange. It argues that the novel’s dystopian vision of a youth culture addicted to ultraviolence and a state deploying oppressive behavioral conditioning functions not as mere speculative fantasy but as a critical interrogation of post-war Britain’s deepest anxieties. By situating Burgess’s work within the precise historical crucible of the Cold War, burgeoning consumer capitalism, a crisis in political authority, and the rising influence of Skinnerian behaviorism, this analysis demonstrates how the novel refracts the period’s pervasive cultural tensions. Ultimately, this study contends that A Clockwork Orange is a seminal document of its time, a symbolic act that absorbs and artistically transforms the very real discourses of social control, moral panic, and ideological conflict that defined the early 1960s.
4. Dynamics between Applied Studies on Language and Literature
Mohammad Hossein Mahdavi Nejhad; Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Arezoo Bahadori Moghaddam
Abstract
Many critics have read David Mamet’s (1993) Oleanna as a locale for issues of gender, misogyny, and sexual harassment. Another group, however, believe that it is the potentials of language and its manipulation which are central to the play, which need to be delved into. In line with the latter ...
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Many critics have read David Mamet’s (1993) Oleanna as a locale for issues of gender, misogyny, and sexual harassment. Another group, however, believe that it is the potentials of language and its manipulation which are central to the play, which need to be delved into. In line with the latter view, the present article assumes that the interactions of both John and Carol in this two-character play exemplify an interview in which they constantly attempt to preserve their faces through adopting a number of linguistic avoidance strategies. Therefore, by drawing upon linguistic avoidance frameworks suggested by Janney (1999) and Anchimbe (2009), the present article links up linguistic avoidance to Spencer-Oatey’s (2000) notion of rapport management and shows to what extent John and Carol adopt these strategies to attend to their personal and professional face needs at the cost of further alienation and frustration. The findings of this paper are also an affirmation of Žegarac and Spencer-Oatey (2013) who argue that participants’ self-oriented perspective due to face concerns may cause difficulties within joint projects, which is a barricade to spirit of cooperation and reciprocity.
