The paper considers Percival Everett’s novel James (2024) and its peculiar technique as an example of resignification and a contemporary reworking of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and American minstrel shows. The theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler’s idea of resignification and Eric Lott’s considerations of the notion of minstrelsy, highlighting the connections between the two. As the key aspect of both Everett’s novel and a minstrel show is performativity/performance, this notion is discussed in detail with a special emphasis on its use in the novel. We argue that Everett’s innovative and subversive use of language, and his decision to tell the story of the birth of a hero from the point of view of Jim/James, the (in)famous stereotypical slave character of Twain’s narrative, represents an instance of anti-minstrel fiction and thus sets new standards in contemporary (African) American literature. We argue that Jim’s/James’ journey from a runaway slave and a comic relief in Twain’s classic to a hero of his own narrative can be interpreted as an example of resignification, i.e., ‘enacted critique’, a deliberate, deviant, mis-performance (Loxley, 2006, 127) which paves the way for new roles and meanings in contemporary (African) American literature.

Older adults may experience certain forms of cognitive decline, but some forms of semantic memory remain intact in older age. To address how metaphor comprehension changes with age and whether metaphor comprehension relies more heavily on analogical reasoning (supported by fluid intelligence) or on conceptual combination (supported by crystalized intelligence), we compared performance of younger and older adults. In two experiments, healthy older adults (54-88 years) scored lower on a measure of fluid intelligence (Ravens Progressive Matrices) but higher on a measure of crystalized intelligence (Mill Hill Vocabulary Test) relative to younger adults (18-34 years). Groups were equally successful in comprehending relatively easy metaphors (Study 1), but older adults showed a striking advantage over younger adults for novel literary metaphors (Study 2). Mixed-effects modeling showed that measures of fluid and crystalized intelligence each made separable contributions to metaphor comprehension for both groups, but older adults relied more on crystalized intelligence than did younger adults. These age-related dissociations clarify cognitive effects of aging and highlight the importance of crystalized intelligence for metaphor comprehension in both younger and older adults. 

This study investigates the relationship between literature and poetry reading frequency and participants’ ratings of metaphors on key features: quality, aptness, familiarity, and comprehensibility. Using a set of Serbian poetic metaphors, we explored two main questions: how reading habits correlate with metaphor feature ratings, and whether the type of reading material (i.e., literature vs poetry) influences sensitivity to these features. The sample consisted of 140 native Serbian-speaking students from varied academic disciplines. Participants rated metaphors based on reading frequency (literature and poetry) using a 7-point Likert scale. Analysis showed that frequent readers generally gave higher overall metaphor ratings than infrequent readers, with significant differences noted particularly in familiarity and comprehensibility. Specifically, familiarity ratings yielded the most substantial differences between infrequent and frequent readers, which can indicate the influence of reading experience on the perceived recognition and understanding of metaphors. Aptness and quality ratings showed no significant differences, which suggests that familiarity and comprehensibility are more sensitive to variations in reading habits.

The study investigates the relationship between syntactic structure and metaphor features – quality, aptness, familiarity, and comprehensibility – using metaphorical expressions collected from Serbian poetry. Although metaphor research has traditionally focused on nominal forms like ‘A is B,’ this study explores more complex syntactic structures, and includes Subject + Predicate (SP), Subject + Predicate (Aux. + Nominal) (SCopP), Subject + Predicate + Object (SPO), and Subject + Predicate + Adverbial (SPA). The study involved 140 participants who rated 76 metaphorical expressions across the four metaphor features. Findings suggest that complex structures (SPO and SPA) scored higher in quality and aptness than simpler ones (SP and SCopP), challenging the predominance of nominal metaphors in research. However, simpler structures were rated as more familiar, potentially reflecting their syntactic simplicity. Comprehensibility was not influenced by syntactic complexity, likely due to participants’ linguistic proficiency. The results indicate that syntactic structure can affect metaphor perception and suggest that reliance on nominal forms in metaphor research may overlook the richness of more complex syntactic realisations. This study confirms the importance of considering syntax in metaphor research and highlights the potential for diverse syntactic patterns to enrich our understanding of metaphor processing and interpretation.

This study explores how far a variety of choices in the visualization of help givers in first aid instruction materials can be associated the perception of these help givers in viewers. We present a reception study, in which we analyze 40 images from a first aid corpus by focusing on variations in their image type, perspective, camera angle, shot size, color, facial expression visibility, and gender. A total of 107 participants evaluated these images using 20 pairs of trait adjectives on a 6-point scale. Results indicate that drawings had a slightly higher positive composite score than photographs. Bird’s-eye perspectives, front-facing camera angles, and full-body shots all yielded a higher positive composite score, which suggests a preference for visual cues related to directness and completeness. Color images were favored over grayscale. Interestingly, images with obscured facial expressions were rated higher, potentially due to reduced emotional cues allowing for individual interpretation. Images portraying female help givers consistently received higher positive scores than male help givers. These findings show the relation between visual design and the perceived positive characteristics of help givers. The insights can be useful in the process of optimizing first aid material design.

This paper analyzes the elements of the gothic and the grotesque in Carson McCullers’s novel “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”, within its distinct American South setting. By first describing the most prominent features of the South, on the one hand, and defining gothic fiction and the grotesque (both in their general and more specific senses), on the other, the authors examine numerous characteristics of the above concepts that permeate McCullers’s novel. These include, among others, the gloomy weather and the grim and decrepit atmosphere of the mill town in which the story takes place. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the novel is brimful of isolated and lonely grotesque characters that indulge in dreams and nightmares, with sickness, particularly mental illness, and death looming large over everyone. The authors also observe how these characters often find themselves in grotesque situations that end almost exclusively in tragedy and despair. All of these findings situate the analyzed novel firmly within the American Southern Gothic literary tradition.

The rapid development of LLM-based tools, such as ChatGPT, has significantly transformed teaching and learning processes, by providing  powerful language-processing capabilities. While ChatGPT offers valuable support in writing, summarization, and information retrieval, its unregulated use has raised concerns about academic integrity, critical thinking, and ethical considerations. This study examines teachers’ views on student engagement with ChatGPT from the perspective of language teachers in Serbia and Sweden. Through an open-ended questionnaire distributed to eight language teachers, this research explores four key areas: (1) students’ motivations for using ChatGPT, (2) perceived benefits and drawbacks, (3) ethical concerns and implications for academic integrity, and (4) the extent to which students’ real-world applications align with OpenAI’s guidelines. Thematic analysis of teachers’ responses reveals that while ChatGPT can improve research and writing skills, overreliance on the content it generates poses risks to cognitive engagement and independent learning. Moreover, concerns about plagiarism and the authenticity of student work are prominent. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions on the responsible integration of AI-based tools in education and offer insights into how language teachers deal with the related challenges and opportunities.

The Fallout game series has utilized in-game posters as both decorative and narrative elements, which have helped it shape its post-apocalyptic world. These posters often serve as (satirical) propaganda and reflect the societal structures, ideologies, and conflicts of the game’s dystopian setting. This study analyzes all propaganda-themed posters from six Fallout role-playing video games (1997–2018) to examine their multimodal features and propaganda techniques. Using a multimodal framework combined with propaganda studies, we explore how text-image relations, figures of speech, typography, color schemes, and iconography interact with propaganda strategies such as Appeal to emotion and fear, Name-calling, Glittering generalities, and Band wagon. Our findings reveal that text-dominant posters and sans-serif fonts are the most frequent design choices. Metonymy is the most used figure of speech, and it often reinforces ideological symbols, while red and blue emerge as dominant colors, frequently associated with military or nationalistic themes. The study also identifies strong correlations between specific propaganda techniques and multimodal features, demonstrating how visual and textual elements work together to achieve persuasive impact. The study situates Fallout’s posters within a broader context and provides insight into how video games appropriate and adapt real-world propaganda strategies and forms of political messaging.

Picture-text relations in multimodal first-aid instructions and the various nuances of meaning they can jointly produce have been the subject of assessment in numerous studies (e.g., Van der Sluis, Vergeer, & Redeker, 2018; Van der Sluis et al., 2022; Wildfeuer et al., 2023). In our current exploration, we specifically focus on the pictorial aspect of these instructions, particularly on the portrayal of help givers in first-aid guidance materials. Recognizing that these instructional materials can be presented in different formats (for instance, as drawings or photographs, in colour or monochrome, simple or detailed, and sometimes also very similar to characters in comicbooks or strips), our objective was to discover the attributes that individuals associate with help givers depicted in these various formats.

To achieve this aim, we selected 40 images showcasing help givers from the comprehensive corpus collected and organized within the PAT project (see Van der Sluis & Redeker, 2019), ensuring that the faces of the help givers were at least partly visible. These 40 images were then evaluated by a group of 107 participants (all of whom were university students), using two sets of representative adjectival traits presented in contrasting pairs (e.g., disorganized-organized, incompetent-capable, distrustful-trustful, rash-cautious), in line with Peabody’s (1987) catalogue of traits. The findings from this study suggest that a more favourable perception of traits is associated with images that are in colour, depicted from a bird's-eye view, or when the help giver is portrayed as a female, among other factors. It is our hope that the insights from this research will assist creators of future first-aid instruction materials to give more thoughtful consideration to the representation of help givers, thereby enhancing the effectiveness and relatability of their portrayals in first-aid guidance. The understanding of visual representation in instructional material stresses the importance of design choices in effectively conveying vital health information and optimizing learner engagement and comprehension

VR applications for medical simulations such as emergency situations offer new ways of providing knowledge and practical skills for saving a life and potentially represent a complex communicative environment. The communicative situations constructed by this environment bring with them an increasing level of interactivity and ergodicity and it is particularly challenging to address these analytically. We address this challenge by looking at Lifesaver VR and providing a foundational framework for the multimodal analysis of the communicative situations created in this application. We describe how information and content units of the game can be built and how these units can then be combined into complex discourse structures outlining the complexity and simultaneity of narrative, instructional, and interactive aspects of the game.