Vol15N32023 - Page 2

A Critical Analysis of Honorification in Human Relations

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Tanima Bagchi 1 & Rajesh Kumar 2
1IIM Indore, Indore. 
2IIT Madras, Chennai.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.24
[Article History: Received: 3 July 2023. Revised: 2 September 2023. Accepted: 2 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of honorification with a focus on the essential correlation between human relations and society. While the structural aspect of honorification, in the form of honorifics, has been discussed extensively the functional aspect of honorification as a research question requires equal consideration. It has often been claimed that obligation is one of the primary motivations behind honorification owing to its ubiquitous influence on social interactions due to differences in status, social distance, and power. However, a closer look will reveal how such social factors are a reflection of not the obligation but the underlying acknowledgement of this obligation leading to the social recognition of honorification and, thus, shifting the perspective from necessity to choice. In other words, this paper explores honorification as a synthesis of society, culture, and human nature.

 Keywords: Honorification, Deference, Prohibition, Volition, Respect.

Citation: Bagchi, Tanima, Rajesh Kumar. 2023. A Critical Analysis of Honorification in Human Relations. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.24 

A Saga of Cosmopolitan Friendship in Time of the Breaking of Nations: A Study of Ali Smith’s Autumn

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Mousumi Chowdhury
Department of English, Raja Rammohun Roy Mahavidyalaya, Nangulpara, Hooghly, West Bengal, India

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.23
[Article History: Received: 13 June 2023. Revised: 27 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

Brexit, Britain’s exit from the supranational polity of the European Union has unsettled the vision of European unity. Rather than nourishing an “and/ both” cosmopolitan view even in the limited context of continental relationship, Britain inculcates an “either/ or” jingoistic nationalism fed on Euroscepticism. English literature has a long tradition of invoking political issues and Brexit has inaugurated a new sub-genre, ‘BrexLit’. The paper seeks to attempt a detailed study of Scottish writer Ali Smith’s novel Autumn (2016), designated by The New York Times as “the first great Brexit novel”. The first of the seasonal quartet, this novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and bagged the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Embedded in the Brexit Britain, the novel raises questions of citizenship, particularly in relation to immigration, and mirrors the loss of cultural conviviality. The paper discusses anti-immigrant toxicity, the upsurge of nostalgic appetite for national heritage, and the territorial social ontology of the contemporary English national outlook. The paper studies, in the context of the narrative, how the media resorts to post-truth politics and right-wing nationalistic propaganda in media resulting in the death of democracy and the end of dialogue. The paper explores how the novel advocates an inclusive, realistic cosmopolitanism through Elisabeth-Daniel friendship.

Keywords: BrexLit, nationalism, Anti-immigrant toxicity, post-truth politics, Euroscepticism
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Chowdhury, Mousumi. 2023. A Saga of Cosmopolitan Friendship in Time of the Breaking of Nations: A Study of Ali Smith’s Brexit Novel Autumn. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.23

Socio-cultural practices and stress among working mothers of underage children in the Public Universities of Nigeria

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Ngozi Christina Nwadike 1, John Thompson Okpa 2, Nnana Okoi Ofem 3, Benjamin Okorie Ajah 4, Uzochukwu Chukwuka Chinweze 5, Isife, Chima Theresa6
1,3 Department of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
 2 Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Nigeria
3 Department of Social Work, University of Calabar, Nigeria
4 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka:
5 Social Sciences Unit, School of General Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
6Institute for Development Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Nigeria

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.22
[Article History: Received: 18 June 2023. Revised: 30 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

The study examined the sociocultural factors that bring about stress to working mothers of underage children at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka by recruiting 504 academic and non-academic staff.  To assess the study variables in a cross-sectional survey, a questionnaire, and an in-depth interview schedule were employed in collecting data from working mothers of underage children in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The Chi-square (?2) statistical analysis indicated that there is a significant relationship between the husband’s attitude towards domestic duties and the stressful experience of working mothers with underage children. The data also demonstrated that there is no statistically significant relationship between the husband’s educational status and the stressful experience of working mothers with underage children. The study concluded that the husband’s attitude is a significant predictor of working mothers of underage children’s stress experience. It was, therefore, recommended that policies should be enacted by the Nigerian government and enforced in public sectors to enhance ‘favorable’ working conditions for working mothers of underage children. This should include an extension of maternity leave to at least six months, less demanding/accommodative job times, and assigned duties in tunes that do not compromise the ethos of a given profession.

Keywords: Stress, working mothers, underage children, husband’s attitude towards domestic duties
Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Nwadike, Ngozi Christina, John Thompson Okpa, Nnana Okoi Ofem, Benjamin Okorie Ajah, Uzochukwu Chukwuka Chinweze, Isife, Chima Theresa. 2023. Socio-cultural practices and stress among working mothers of underage children in Nigeria Public Universities. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.22 

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Toleration and Tolerance as Human Challenges: The Voice of an Eighteenth-Century Dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, for the Twenty-First Century

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Albrecht Classen
University of Arizona, Editor-in-Chief, Humanities, MDPI, and Editor-in-Chief, Mediaevistik

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.21
[Article History: Received: 19 August 2023. Revised: 30 August 2023. Accepted: 1 September 2023. Published: 4 September 2023]
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Abstract

In light of countless problems, the modern world faces, especially religious fanaticism, violence, and hatred, it is high time to reflect on some of the older literary statements once again that had already voiced critical concerns about the principles of human interaction determined by good communication, love, and tolerance. Maybe surprisingly, when we turn to Lessing’s Nathan der Weise (1779), we come across a major literary document in which those ideals are formulated convincingly and dramatically. While German scholarship has already discussed this play for a long time, it deserves much wider attention because of its strong advocation of those ideals, which we are in the highest need as of today.

Keywords: Toleration; tolerance; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; Nathan der Weise; Enlightenment; religions; truth; love
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Classen, Albrecht. 2023. Toleration and Tolerance as Human Challenges: The Voice of an Eighteenth-Century Dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, for the Twenty-First Century. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.21

Towards a Problematic Canon: Indian Poetry Anthologies and the Construction of Modernism

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Benjamin Karam
Department of English, Tezpur University, India.
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.20
[Article History: Received: 11 July 2023. Revised: 19 August 2023. Accepted: 20 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

The history of modern Indian poetry in English as evidenced in anthologies is riddled with many modernist tendencies, both linguistic and political. Within anthologies, poetry becomes not merely literary and artistic pieces, but agents in a larger narrative. To establish an argument for Indian poetic modernism (post-1950) in anthologies requires an inquiry into the processes in which editors, through the paratextual matters, (titles, prefaces, introductory notes, headnotes, endnotes etc.) help create a persuasiveness about newness or modernity. With more than 200 Indian poetry anthologies published since 1950, there is also the problem of selecting an authoritative volume that reflects the national canon. By juxtaposing Gérard Genette’s (1991) paratextual theory and Ramond Williams’ (1977) epochal theory of classifying the dominant, residual, and emergent cultural tendencies, this paper attempts to understand poetry anthologies as commodities and cultural vehicles constantly striving for dominance. An argument is made that any canon – modernist or otherwise – is a sub-product of this cultural and material struggle. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide an alternate understanding of the arrival of modern Indian English poetry canon as a form of construction that occurs within the pages of anthologies.

Keywords: Anthology, Indian English poetry, Modernism, Archives, Canon
Citation: Karam, Benjamin. 2023. Towards a Problematic Canon: Indian Poetry Anthologies and the Construction of Modernism. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.20

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Born twice: A redemptive revisioning uncovering the metaphors of representation

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 Anu Mathai 1 & Rolla Das 2
1,2Department of English, Christ Junior College IBDP, Christ (Deemed to be University) Bangalore, India
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.19
[Article History: Received: 10 July 2023. Revised: 25 August 2023. Accepted: 27 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

The graphic narrative space is a complex labyrinth of nested stories subtly holding a tension between the visual and the verbal metaphors of representation. Every narrative canvas opens up possibilities of new ways of metaphorical seeing, unravelling the encoded signs of the dominant and the popular. Challenging and dissenting the normative ideas of gender representations, the graphic medium becomes a space to interrogate how the revisioned perspectives from the margins, embody a subversive voice to reclaim and reaffirm identity. This research paper aims to unfold the poetics of metaphorical representation in retellings and how the unconventional visual and verbal underscores an agency and voice to the female characters in the studied graphic narratives. The analysis will uncover how a revisioning of the aesthetics of the visual, the landscape of the mythological and the politics of the contemporary can subvert the traditional discourses that promote a conventional or hegemonic worldview. The paper situates Saraswati Nagpal’s Sita; Daughter of the Earth, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay and Sankha Banerjee’s Panchali: The Game of Dice and Priya’s Mirror by Paromita Vohra and Ram Devineni in the cultural milieu of graphic content that encourages new ways of metaphorical seeing amid the precariousness of identity, ideology and agency of the mythical women characters.

Keywords: Graphic narratives, mythology, postmodern feminist narratives.
Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Mathai, Anu, Rolla Das. 2023. Born twice: A redemptive revisioning uncovering the metaphors of representation. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.19

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Representing Gender Equality through Advertisements from the Electronic Media: A Study in Discourse Analysis

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Shubham Pathak 1, Swasti Mishra2 & Ipsita Mondal3
1,2Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi (U.P.), India
3Burdwan, Kolkata, mondal.ipsitamimi@gmail.com
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.18
[Article History: Received: 09 February 2023. Revised: 23 August 2023. Accepted: 27 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

Television advertisements play a significant role in shaping societal norms and values, particularly regarding gender roles and expectations. In India, where television is a major source of entertainment and information for many people, the portrayal of gender in television advertisements can significantly impact how gender is perceived and performed in society. This study attempts to understand and define the equality of gender roles in advertising, using select discourse analysis tools, including speech acts, deixis, politeness theory, modality, presuppositions, and vocabulary, to study the interplay of the verbal and visual effects. The study explores select advertisements from Indian media and finds that the theme of gender equality is gradually gaining prominence. The paper attempts to highlight that advertisements play a major role in creating and transforming gender stereotypes in society and in constructing a world of acceptability for those women who want to create their own identities. The study reveals that women now stand up for their rights against the societal norms and play a substantial role in influencing society, whereas men also participate in the tasks that are stereotypically assigned to women. The study also highlights that the verbal language in advertisements supports visuals in the text.

Keywords: Advertisements, patriarchy, masculinity, representation, manipulate, discourse analysis.
Sustainable Development Goals: Reduced Inequalities, Gender Equality, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Pathak, Shubham, Swasti Mishra & Ipsita Mondal. 2023. Representing Gender Equality through Advertisements from the Electronic Media: A Study in Discourse Analysis. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.18

 

The journeys of acculturation of Western culture in Vietnamese travel writing in the first half of the 20th century

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Nguyen Huu Son1 & Nguyen Huu Le 2
1Literary Research Journal, Granduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam
2Researcher, Hanoi, Vietnam
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.17
[Article History: Received: 29 June 2023. Revised: 25 August 2023. Accepted: 27 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

Western culture has had a profound influence on Vietnamese culture and literature during the colonial period, especially in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. During this historical period, records appeared about the journey of Vietnamese people to France with different purposes. Based on this context, the article studies the attitude of Vietnamese intellectuals towards French culture to see the acculturation of Vietnamese to Western culture. Based on the cultural approach to studying travel writing, the article explores the French cultural awareness of some Vietnamese intellectuals such as Pham Quynh, Dao Trinh Nhat and Nhat Linh. Each story of their journey as an explanation for the purpose of the journey is the expression of aspirations: reforming Vietnamese culture, awareness of colonialism and feminism, and renewal of novels. These are current issues of contemporary Vietnamese culture and literature. From that, it is possible to recognize the characteristics of the travel writing about the journey to France representing the travel stories of the colonized people to the Western imperial countries and the process of escaping from slavery norms of Western culture. With an interdisciplinary approach to studying travel history, the article also provides a view of the process of modernizing Vietnamese literature in the first half of the 20th century.

Keywords: travel writing, French culture, cultural criticism, acculturation, cultural sensitivity.
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Son, Nguyen Huu & Nguyen Huu Le. 2023. The journeys of acculturation of Western culture in Vietnamese travel writing in the first half of the 20th century. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.17

Redefining the Identity of People of Indian Origin in Mauritius

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Rashmi Kapoor
Department of African Studies, University of Delhi -110007, India.
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.16
[Article History: Received: 09 July 2023. Revised: 17 August 2023. Accepted: 18 August 2023. Published: 28 August 2023]
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Abstract

In the 19th century, Indian indentured labour went to Mauritius, facilitated by the European colonisers to accomplish their ambitious goal of dominating the world politically, economically and culturally. After the completion of the indenture period, Indians had little option but to stay in the new land as their zeal to return to India was sapped due to anticipated ostracisation by their respective communities. Despite the unique evolution of the identity and status of Indians in Mauritius, it has generated very little debate in academia. This article will attempt to understand whether the people of Indian origin in Mauritius can be termed as Indian diaspora at present or they have outgrown that status and evolved to attain an identity that can be defined as being ‘beyond Indian diaspora’. I argue that Indians in Mauritius were positioned in the wider Mauritian society in such a way that did not satisfy the criteria of them being referred to as diaspora, and, they have acquired a specific set of cultural, social and economic capital that brings them closer to being considered as Mauritian natives.

Keywords: diaspora, hybridity, ethnic identity, people of Indian origin, desi.
Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Kapoor, Rashmi. 2023. Redefining the identity of people of Indian origin in Mauritius. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.16

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The Text of Minangkabau Collective Riddles: Format, Figurative Language, and Social Function for the Collective Owners

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Hasanuddin WS 1, Emidar 2, Zulfadhli 3
1,2,3Indonesian Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang.
Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.15
[Article History: Received: 21 June 2023. Revised: 18 August 2023. Accepted: 25 August 2023. Published: 26 August 2023]
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Abstract

This research article aims to describe the format, figurative language, and social function of the traditional oral texts of Minangkabau collective riddles in West Sumatra, Indonesia. This research is based on the theory of folklore where riddles are categorized as a significant part of oral tradition that grows and develops orally and traditionally within the Minangkabau collective. The description of the research findings will explain the following points. First, how the format of riddles, consisting of descriptions or questions (descriptive) and answers (referent), is used by the Minangkabau collective. Secondly, it explains how the Minangkabau collective oral style uses figurative language to compose the format of descriptions or questions (descriptive) riddles that they ask to be answered by their listeners. Thirdly, it describes the Minangkabau collective attitude of the owners of the oral tradition, and it explains the importance of the riddles in their social life. This finding is in line with the theory about the social function of oral tradition for the collective owner.

Keywords: Riddles, format, figure of speech, social function, Minangkabau collective, West Sumatra.
Citation: WS, Hasanuddin, Emidar, Zulfadhli. 2023. The Text of Minangkabau Collective Riddles: Format, Figurative Language, and Social Function for the Collective Owners. Rupkatha Journal 15:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n3.15 

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