Plenarios

Silences that speak in Donal Ryan’s Post-Millennial Fiction

Donal Ryan’s novels approach the concept of silence as a referential motif. Depicting many of the aspects of contemporary Ireland, especially those of the relationship between community and the individual, Ryan’s writing offers a nuanced representation of silence within post-millennial Irish literature. Drawing on the theoretical tenets of silence and the more extreme unspoken and unsayable, in the work of Macherey, Bourdieu, Steiner, Franke and Foucault, among others, this talk applies some of these tenets to Ryan’s writing to determine the qualitative nature of the references to silence, the unspoken and the unsayable and the importance of their presence in the development of the thematic contents of his fiction. This talk shows that Ryan’s narratives identify silence as a tool of social control that exerts its power over the situation of those individuals silenced, but which also extends to the community as a whole. As I will discuss, silence becomes a powerful signifier in Ryan’s narratives. These deal with a large variety of topics in conflicting social situations (such as recent immigration, multicultural realities, racism, inequalities of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath, ghost estates, illegal activities, lesbianism in Ireland in the 1970s, suicidal attempts, prejudice against the Irish traveller community, dysfunctional families, abortion, crime, corruption, minor traumas, illegitimate children and single motherhood). Silence functions as a subtle reminder of many social, economic, cultural and religious discourses in today’s Ireland, which show the containment and silent acceptance of more extreme expressions of the unspoken and the unsayable. Ryan’s fiction addresses various inconvenient and hidden truths, which remain unresolved and constitute pending issues in Ireland today.

Instructional approaches to multiword expressions in a second language: A critical review

The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of studies on multiword expressions (such as collocations, idioms, and phrasal verbs), including research on the effectiveness of diverse interventions intended to help L2 learners acquire such items. Such interventions range from the modification of texts (e.g., incorporating multiple instances of the same expressions and making them more noticeable through typographic means) to decontextualized practice (e.g., the use of exercises frequently found in mainstream textbooks) and the use of mnemonic strategies.
In this talk I will review a broad collection of such ‘treatment’ studies and will try to adopt a practitioner’s perspective in doing so. It will be argued, for example, that some of the approaches that have been put to the test in empirical research are unlikely to be tried by language teachers owing to the substantial investment of time and effort they require. A recurring theme in the talk will be the distinction between the statistical significance and the pedagogical significance of the research findings. While it is of course useful to detect whether one treatment condition leads to more learning than another according to inferential statistics, it is also worth taking a closer look at the descriptive statistics to evaluate how encouraging the learning gains really are under the more successful treatment. I will then highlight research findings that can directly inform pedagogy and textbook design in relatively straightforward ways. This includes quick and easy steps for making certain multiword expressions memorable, and the use of learning procedures that avoid trial and error. The talk will conclude with suggestions for further work in this area.

To switch or not to switch: How and why do bilinguals switch between their languages in different interactional contexts?

All language users have to select which words they want to use in order to communicate their message: Do you describe a Dalmatian puppy as “dog”, “puppy”, or “Dalmatian”? This word choice applies to both monolinguals and multilinguals, but the latter have the additional task of deciding which language(s) to select these words from. In some environments, this language choice might be dictated by the circumstances (for example, when a Spanish-English bilingual is talking to an English monolingual). In other environments, two (or more) languages can be used more freely (for example, both languages can be used when two Spanish-English bilinguals have a conversation). In this talk I will discuss how multilinguals produce words in the intended target language(s) and how they switch languages in different contexts. In the first part, I will discuss how multilinguals use language control in contexts that require them to use a specific language and to switch in response to cues (for example, the face of an English monolingual joining a Spanish conversation, requiring a switch from Spanish to English). I will discuss how language control is needed to avoid interference and language intrusions (for example, accidentally using a Spanish word when English is needed) in these contexts. In the second part, I will discuss interactional contexts where bilinguals are communicating with another bilingual who shares the same languages. In those cases, less control might be needed and a more opportunistic approach might be used, in which words are used that come to mind fastest, regardless of the language they are in. I will also discuss some factors that might influence language choice and switching in these contexts.