https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/ Critical Language and Literary Studies en daily 1 Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0330 Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0330 https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106102.html IntroductionWater is one of the elements of nature that exists throughout Michael Strogoff's novel. Water in various forms, such as ice in the images of a frozen river, stagnant and stinking water in the images of a swamp, etc. The main question is: what significant relationship do life-giving and stagnant waters have with the diurnal and nocturnal regimes of the imagination? To understand how sense is produced, this research aims to analyze the associative function of the double aspects of the water element in the confrontation of the main character of the story with the obstacles of the journey he has undertaken. Our hypothesis is based on the idea that as we witness the contradiction and duality of the characters from the beginning of the novel, the presence of two regimes of the imagination creates a situation appropriate to the manifestation of the different functions of the water element. In this study, through the ideas of Gaston Bachelard in the field of material imagination and the thought of Gilbert Durand in the poetic regimes of the imaginary, we seek to understand the nature of the imagination created by water in the novel Michel Strogoff by Jules Verne and to explain their semantic functions. In this regard, after having studied the imaginary functions of water in Bachelard, we will analyze the two diurnal and nocturnal regimes according to Gilbert Durand. Finally, by studying the nature of water in the descriptions and sentences taken from the novel Michel Strogoff, we attempt to decipher the semantics of this double element.Keywords : Water, the imagination's daytime regime, the imagination's nighttime regime, Gaston Bachelard, Gilbert Durand, Michel Strogoff.MethodologyIn Bachelard's study, the moment of perception of imaginative matter is precisely the moment of inner liberation; but this change of images leads to a surprising coherence between them: "If there were no change of images, no unexpected "unity" of images, there would be no imagination and no imaginative action." (Chelebourg 2000, 38) Transformation is therefore considered a characteristic of imagination. "Imagined images transform perceived images." (Chelebourg 2000, 39) According to Gilbert Durand's imagology, dominant reactions emerge in two distinct regimes of the imaginary: "nutritional dominance" and "copulative dominance" are associated with the "nocturnal regime of the imaginary", and "positional dominance" is associated with the "diurnal regime of the imaginary".(Chelebourg 2000, 60) In the Daytime Regime, we witness conflicts born of "contradiction." However, in the Nighttime Regime, night refers to tranquility.Background of the StudyThe cyclical quality of water makes this substance life-giving. (Bachelard 1942, 22) Frozen water, itself associated with the resistance of matter, appears in various forms in Jules Verne's novel Michel Strogoff. (Verne n. d., 177-178) According to the principle of Bachelard's material imagination and the reign of imagination, "it is the matter which commands the form." (Bachelard 1942, 10) Moreover, the water of the marsh has become the refuge of "thousands of flowers" (Verne, n.d., 303), which creates a mysterious contrast. Thus, the inverted structure of the nocturnal regime refers to the structure of the group of "images of intimacy" (Chelebourg, 2000, 65).ConclusionFrozen water serves an essential function. In Michel's struggle against the Siberian cold, imagination is seen as a diurnal structure so that Michel's resilient spirit can have a heroic function. Even though the marsh water has lost its cyclical properties, it remains a source of life and provides a breeding ground for growth and development. The disruptive and life-giving aspects of water do not act as two opposing aspects of water to negate or suppress the other, because the life-giving nature of water remains permanent. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106101.html The present paper means to attentively scrutinize the notion of plasticity in temporality and time in Sexing the Cherry and represent the innate temporality in trans-subjectivation which could be regarded as plasticity. In Malabouean perspective, plasticity enables humans to transform their identity and mental structures based on their life experiences and environmental influences. The attempt would be the manifestation of malleable time and identity which unavoidably could be intermingled with the concepts of mind and memory. Contemplating on the conceptualization of plasticity as revealing the relation between accident and substance, plasticity in time, identity formation, and memory would be lime lighted. Temporality as absolute plasticity would be demonstrated while trans-subjectivation and plasticity would be considered as the two faces of a coin. Brain and therefore identity as the incarnation of time and temporality in body express themselves in the novel in which the boundaries of temporality and identity appear blurring. In Winterson’s novel, Sexing the Cherry, time is transformed, broken, and redefined as a fluid and changeable entity. The notion of the other as the other of the self in the self would be labeled as alterity without transcendence in Catherine Malabou’s stance due to the fact that the other is permanently within the subject. Consequently, alterity without transcendence would be presented as the vital and significant part of plasticity without which the process of plasticity and trans-subjectivation would be flawed. Malabou considers plasticity as representing the brain’s fundamental abilities to change and adapt to new situations, which have major implications for our understanding of identity, authority, and responsibility. Background of Study: Seetha Lakshmi in “The Myth of Normative Gender” claims that “Jeanette Winterson is one of the daring voices among postmodern queer writers whose works celebrate gender fluidity and queer existence. Winterson abundantly alludes to myths and fairytales as vehicles to express the notion that gender also is constructed like a story or history and it is thus not fixed” (2018: 489). Mentioning the hetero-normative society and the obligatory prearranged gender roles in it, Lakshmi adds that Winterson’s characters in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Sexing the Cherry struggle to go beyond the pre-established standards.Methodology: The present study provides a close analysis which consists of selection and discussion of theoretical and descriptive material. The research method of the existing research is, thus, qualitative and categorized as theoretical study. Correspondingly, the existing research will be entirely literature-based in that, in the academic library research, the conclusions are based on the analysis of data of a particular area. The narrators’ definition of time and their contemplation on temporality would be underscored to express the Malabouian viewpoint on the notion of time. Temporality as the absolute plasticity which could be interwoven with the concept of trans-subjectivation would be featured in the novel and the physical manifestation of trans-subjectivation would be stressed in the relationship between the characters as each other’s alter ego, as well.Conclusion: It could be concluded that the narrator in Sexing the Cherry expresses the trans-subjectivity via contemplating on the plasticity of temporality. Not being able to distinguish the distinct boundaries of subjectivity, temporality, locality, and reality, the narrator addresses that the plasticity of temporality embraces all of them. Pondering on time and temporality, the narrator ends up mentioning the equality of the happened and not-happened owing to the fact that whatever has happened is merely a memory which could not be discernible from fantasy. Observing diverse layers of being, the narrator juxtaposes narration and reality, as well. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106040.html Introduction: This article examines the role of gender transfiguration in David Hare’s My Zinc Bed, and A Map of the World in the light of Judith Butler’s theory of Gender Performativity. It investigates whether what Hare’s characters performed through their body and discourse were the internal features in them or the hallucinatory effects of their naturalized and gendered bodies. Butler asserts that performativity is a ritualized production and a constrained reiteration of cultural intelligibility under the compulsory prohibition pressed by the power regimes. Based on what Buttler asserts, the culture constructs gender, which is understood concerning a set of laws. It seems that gender is as fixed as the biology-is-destiny formulation in which culture, not biology becomes destiny, and the domain of gendered subjects is constituted by the body which is itself a construction. Background of the Study: Works of the prolific writer, David Hare, have been studied by many researchers and critics from different points of view, yet, none of them has underlain the tenets of this research. Stephen Coates in his thesis “Alien Nation: David Hare’s History Plays” examines seven plays of Hare, among which Pravda exists. He considers the socio-historical background of Britain after the Second World War and capitalist-patriarchal system, which results in psychological damages mostly on the middle class. Coates challenges the political concepts of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and Herbert Marcuse, relating them to the oppression of different social spheres. Coates studies the significant effects of media on the society as well as the tension that each member of the newspaper industry deal. The hypocrisy of the English press which propagates false news to the civilians is the main problem of Coates in his thesis.Methodology: The theme of My Zinc Bed is faith to disillusionment in Thatcherian postwar as the title refers to an image of death. All significations happen in the circulation of the required form of repetition. Obedience is the primary principle in the discourse of AA meetings where both Paul and Elsa used to attend after they quit drinking. The performativity of such a discourse affected their body to the extent that caused both of them to betray Victor while what they experienced was not real love but the love of trouble. In A Map of the World, Stephen as an English journalist practices the social norms of his own culture when he stays in the same hotel with Mehta and Peggy in India. Their stylized bodies receive strict cultural laws based on the gender norms of the society. Hence, the bodily discourses gave the agents the feasibility to establish their intelligible social existence. Conclusion: It can be concluded from My Zinc Bed and A Map of the World that the agent cannot be known feasible out of the practices of cultural discourse. The AA meetings in My Zinc Bed and the years of living in England in A Map of the World transfigured the bodily discourse of Elsa, Paul, and Mehta. Attending AA cults caused both Elsa and Paul to reiterate and perform a kind of discourse, which prohibited them from any kind of addiction. The passive medium of Peggy’s body in A Map of the World was materialized in the American cultural discourse. Affected by the English cultural discourse, Mehta performed the theatricality of English self-representation, which failed to conform to the Indian naturalized cultural hegemonies thus resulting in his unintelligibility. The socially forcible prohibitions create the discursive conditions in which an individual attempt to constitute a hallucination of naturally standard bodily interactions. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106211.html Introduction: The present article surveys the concept of ideological fantasy as explored through Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children. The novel, longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is categorized as a post-9/11 novel. Unlike many prominent novels in this genre, such as Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and John Updike's The Terrorist, The Emperor's Children does not directly address the September 11 attacks. Instead, the narrative focuses on the lives of a group of New York's cultural and artistic elite in the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks.Background Studies: Pointing to the setting of the novel, Aaron DeRosa argues the novel is set in “set in the days and months prior to 9/11, but situating the reader in a position of suspense and anticipation, as he / she knows what will happen in the fall of 2001” (DeRosa 2014, 97). Likewise, Marjorie Worthington tends to read Messud’s The Emperor’s Children in the context of 9-11 declaring that 9/11 is a moment “when they either reevaluate what is most important to them” (Worthington 2011, 112). Reading the novel with reference to the 9/11 attacks, David Simpson suggests that what happens in the novel can be regarded as an “acknowledgement of the limits of fiction in the face of an appalling and indescribable event” (Simpson 2008, 218). Dominic Head argues that the novel is based on a professional quest and contends that in The Emperor’s Children “the nature of ‘success’ is the focus of the satire; but it is also at the heart of the seriousness, less easily categorized, that finally emerges” (Head 2009, 132). He also regards 9/11 attacks as “a kind of catharsis” (Head 2009, 134). Amanda Claybaugh argues that Messud’s novel relies on dialogue. In her perspective, the novel “allows these shallow people to speak for themselves, devoting a great portion of the novel to dialogue” (Claybaugh 2006, 15). Arin Keeble contends that The Emperor’s Children narrates the setting up of life-changing absolutes that appear in novels like Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Jay McInerney’s The Good Life (2005). However, unlike the aforesaid novels, in Messud’s novel characters “return quickly to their pre-9/11 conditions” (Keeble 2011, 369).Methodology and Argument: This study is based on the descriptive-analytical method examining Messud’s novel by drawing on the ideas of the distinguished contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek. Žižek considers ideology not as an epistemological issue or a form of false consciousness, but as a conscious act because in our modern world, we already know that we are receiving a distorted version of reality. Žižek calls an action that persists despite our awareness of its falsity an ideological fantasy. However, in some critical moments, the ideological fantasy collapses and the subject is confronted with the Real Order as a corollary of the disruption of the symbolization process in the Symbolic Order.Findings and Conclusion: Applying Žižek to The Emperor’s Children, it seems that Messud’s novel depicts an ideological society in which the characters are cynical subjects who, ruled by ideological fantasy, cynically convince themselves that they do not take things seriously, while in practice they take their fantasy seriously. Furthermore, the events of September 11, functioning as a spectral supplement, can be regarded as a rupture in ideological fantasy which makes readers confront the Real Order. Finally, by avoiding a definitive judgement and by making the readers of the novel participate in the experience that there is nothing behind the Other and the emperor has no clothes, Messud enables readers to traverse their ideological fantasy. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106614.html IntroductionThis study investigates how mystery and madness in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” emerge not as mere psychological traits but as readerly effects produced through poetic structure and interpretive activity. Rather than treating madness as an internal condition, the analysis demonstrates how devices such as repetition, gaps, negation, wandering viewpoint, and monologic narration generate uncertainty and interpretive pressure. Drawing on Wolfgang Iser’s reception aesthetics, the study approaches reading as a dynamic process in which determinate textual cues interact with strategic omissions, prompting inference and continual revision. The central argument is that experiences of mystery and madness are constructed through patterns of cancellation, reconfiguration, and retroactive interpretation embedded in each poem’s formal structure.Background of the StudyEdgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” occupies a distinctive position among his works both thematically and structurally. Accordingly, a wide range of literary studies have examined this poem from perspectives such as linguistics, Gothic studies, mythology, symbolism, and psychology. Literary critics have long regarded one of the primary reasons for the poem’s acoustic richness as deriving from the technical concept of the “refrain,” that is, the preservation of sound alongside the shifting meanings that the sound generates. Robert Browning is the most famous and influential figure in dramatic monologue in English poetry, to the extent that the term “dramatic monologue” is almost synonymous with his name. Browning’s dramatic monologues have been examined through various theoretical lenses, including psychology, power, crime, the relationship between speaker and listener, silence, and gender relations. Despite the breadth of the existing scholarship on both poems, no critical reading of the poems through Iser’s theories has yet been offered.MethodologyIser’s Reception aesthetics provides the theoretical foundation for this study. Iser posits that literary works consist of determinate segments linked by gaps or “blanks”, which require the reader to supply missing connections. These gaps create “negativity”, a force that propels meaning forward through constant hypothesis-making. The study uses a four-stage analytic method designed to trace how meaning develops through reader participation. First, a gap audit identifies instances of withheld information, which create interpretive indeterminacy. Second, a negation trace examines moments where the text cancels earlier possibilities or reverses interpretive expectations, producing the “negativity” central to Iser’s theory. Third, itinerary reconstruction maps the reader’s shifting perspective by analyzing how successive cues reshape initial assumptions. Finally, a constraint test evaluates the plausibility of interpretations for genre-based inference, ensuring that proposed readings remain grounded in textual features. Applied to “The Raven,” this method focuses on the refrain’s shifting semantics and the interplay of anticipation and surprise. For “Porphyria’s Lover,” the analysis emphasizes monologic form, the lack of an external truth-checking voice, and self-exonerating syntactic patterns. Together, these analytical steps reveal how each poem manages the reader’s interpretive trajectory to produce the sensation of mystery and madness.ConclusionThe findings demonstrate that both poems cultivate their atmosphere of mystery and madness through formal strategies designed to shape the reader’s interpretive labor. In “The Raven,” the refrain acts as a mechanism of iterative cancellation, maintaining sonic stability while compelling semantic readjustment. In “Porphyria’s Lover,” gaps and contradictions embedded in the speaker’s monologue demand active inference and correction. In each case, the psychological effects associated with the poems emerge from the interactive process between text and reader. By foregrounding the role of form and reader participation, the study affirms that the enduring power of these works lies in their ability to orchestrate interpretive uncertainty and emotional intensity. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106522.html This article examines Howard Barker's play The Bite of the Night (1988), one of the earliest dramatic works to exhibit sensitivity to the emergence of the post-truth era in the 1980s. Barker, the prominent English playwright, introduced his “Theatre of Catastrophe” style in political theatre, which transcends linear and realist narratives to focus on ethical complexities and ontological ambiguities. The article argues that The Bite of the Night simulates the crisis of truth and contemporary moral ambiguity by dismantling classical narrative structures—such as dramatic causality and psychoanalytic character development—and employing postmodern allegory. In this work, the post-truth worldview is represented through impulsive emotional decisions and oversimplified analyses, placing the audience in irresolvable ethical dilemmas.The historical context for this shift can be traced to Margaret Thatcher's policies (Thatcherism), which promoted extreme individualism and eroded collective narratives, thereby undermining public trust in cultural authorities. Concurrently, the dominance of digital media and visual culture from the 1980s transformed social communications, shifting civic participation toward digital interactions. Within this framework, political theatre moved away from rational analysis and started to seek emotional impacts and narrative-subverting strategies. Similarly, Barker, distancing himself from socialist theatre, offers no explicit message in The Bite of the Night; instead, he challenges the audience's emotions and ethics.The character of Helen, inspired by Homer's Helen of Troy in the Iliad, becomes an allegory of meaning’s instability and interpretive failure. Savage, a Greek classicist and archaeologist, searches for the original Troy and the essence of Helen amid eleven ruined cities, each symbolizing historical repetition and cultural decay. Helen’s gradual mutilation—from emblem of love and beauty to incarnation of sexual desire and death—not only showcases Barker's poetic violence but also exposes cultural processes of meaning-making. Drawing on new definitions of postmodern allegory offered by Jeremy Tambling, allegory in this play is not a tool for decoding fixed truths but a process of endless deferral and semantic slippage. This “possibility of multiple meanings,” draws the audience into a self-aware game of signification.The article’s theoretical framework rests on post-truth discourse, which Lee McIntyre (2018) describes as the abuse of power amid the weakening of truth's foundations. William S. Boltz (2022) traces its roots to 1950s advertising lies and Reagan's policies, yet the article emphasizes Barker's prescient sensitivity in the 1980s. The play's non-linear structure and contradictory dialogues immerse the audience in ontological bewilderment, where competing narratives supersede reality. The research builds on interpretations of the play by David Ian Rabey (1989), focusing on “ecstasy through catastrophe”; Charles Lamb (2005) discussing linguistic seduction; and Caroline Gritzner (2015) analyzing Helen's duality, and moves beyond them in correcting the misinterpretation of allegory in the play.Ultimately, this interpretation not only highlights Barker's significance in contemporary theatre, but also redefines political theatre as a “laboratory for the ethical crises of our age.” In today’s world, where Brexit and Trump epitomize post-truth, The Bite of the Night remains strikingly relevant, underscoring the need for innovation in representation to enable social intervention. The article suggests that Barker's Theatre of Catastrophe, by unveiling cultural mechanisms of reality construction, serves as a vital tool for resisting dominant narratives. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106483.html Introduction: This research examines the pragmatic dimension of Russian poetry through Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Although Grice’s four maxims—Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner—were introduced to explain cooperative conversation, poetic discourse deliberately violates them. In poetry, such violations are not communicative failures but strategic devices that enrich expression, creating implicit meanings, presuppositions, and multiple interpretations. Russian poetry, from classicism to the avant-garde, offers a rich field for observing how these deviations from conversational norms function as aesthetic and rhetorical mechanisms. The study aims to reveal how violating Grice’s principles contributes to the expressive, ambiguous, and ideological depth of Russian verse. This study draws on Grice’s (1975) theory of implicature and the Cooperative Principle, further developed by Levinson (1983) and Yule (1996). These frameworks emphasize that presuppositions and implicatures determine discourse interpretability. Building on this theoretical base, several scholars have extended Gricean pragmatics to various discourses. Yureva (2017) studied presupposition in social advertising, showing how existential, propositional, and evaluative presuppositions create implicit persuasion. Rahmani (2022) applied similar analysis to Persian drama, revealing that social hierarchies govern the use of structural vs. lexical presuppositions for control and interrogation. Meghdari and Ezaddost (2017) identified pragmatic effects—irony, metaphor, concealment, emphasis, ambiguity, contradiction, humor—stemming from Gricean violations in Persian interaction. Similarly, Piran Kashani and Modarreszadeh (2024) demonstrated that poetic dialogue length does not reduce aesthetic value but highlights creative deviation; breaches of the Maxim of Quality mirror inner emotion and intuition. Rashidi (2021) traced such violations in Hafez’s ghazals, linking them to deliberate departures from linguistic norms. In political pragmatics, Bots (2021) analyzed Putin and Obama’s discourse, where ambiguous or indirect strategies embody “disruptive communication” and enact rhetorical power. Collectively, these studies affirm that Gricean violations and the manipulation of presuppositions extend beyond conversation, permeating literary, cultural, and political texts. The present research builds upon this body of work by situating Russian poetry within this pragmatic framework, showing that deviation operates as a rhetorical and aesthetic principle. Alimohammad Mohammadi and Morteza Abdali (2023), through a comparative analysis of The School Principal and The Old Man and the Sea, argue that literary analysis at the level of discourse requires an understanding of linguistic, cultural, and metalinguistic cohesion. From this perspective, the literary text, viewed as a dynamic linguistic event, serves as the medium for realizing interconnected and implicit relations of meaning. Similarly, the study by Alavi and Mohajer (2025), analyzing the prison poetry of Naser Khosrow and François Villon, transcends historicism by exploring shared discursive patterns. Drawing on Mengneau’s framework, they demonstrate how the interaction between “discourse staging” and “linguistic context” generates meaning, presenting the prison experience as a space of resistance and linguistic implicature.Methodology: The study applies a descriptive–analytical approach. Canonical Russian poems were examined to identify specific maxim violations. Each excerpt was analyzed to determine which maxim(s) were flouted and how resulting presuppositions or implicatures shaped meaning. Integrating close reading with pragmatic theory, this method situates each instance within its dialogic or narrative context, revealing how poets manipulate linguistic norms to achieve expressive effects.Conclusion: Findings reveal systematic and purposeful violation of Grice’s maxims across Russian poetry. Pushkin often breaches the Maxims of Relation and Quantity through digressive imagery and abrupt thematic shifts, prompting readers to infer omitted meanings. Akhmatova ubverts Manner, embracing ambiguity and fragmentation that transform dialogue into interpretive struggle. Mayakovsky radically flouts all four maxims, fusing irony, hyperbole, and semantic rupture; his colloquial speech becomes a revolutionary linguistic act. Overall, these poets use Gricean violations as creative strategies rather than communicative failures. Such pragmatic manipulation generates polysemy, amplifies affective and ideological depth, and exposes identity conflicts within Russian poetic discourse. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106550.html Introduction: This study applies Irving Janis’s theory of groupthink to Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros to examine how the play dramatizes the psychological mechanisms of collective conformity and the gradual disappearance of critical thought. It asks to what extent the sequences of “rhinocerization” enacted on stage correspond to canonical groupthink components, such as illusion of invulnerability, collective rationalization, belief in the inherent morality of the group, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity, direct pressure on dissenters, and mindguards, and how these mechanisms are instantiated in dialogue, stage action, and dramaturgical structure. By reading Ionesco through a social-psychological lens, the study reframes the play as a case study of cognitive and linguistic processes that enable mass complicity rather than merely an allegory of fascism or existential absurdity.Background of the Study: Although Rhinoceros has been widely read for its allegorical resonance with totalitarianism and for its existential themes, scholarship has underexplored systematic psychological accounts of the play’s group dynamics. Previous criticism has privileged historical, ideological, and existential readings, while recent interdisciplinary work has pointed toward social identity, conformity, and performative aspects of mass subjectivity. Building on Janis (1982) and subsequent developments in group influence research (e.g., McCauley; Turner & Pratkanis; Tetlock et al.), this study situates Ionesco’s dramatic devices within an articulated model of groupthink. This framing addresses a gap in the literature by treating the play not just as political allegory but as an aesthetic experiment that stages the cognitive stages of communal self-deception.Methodology: The research is qualitative, interpretive, and text-centered. The primary text is Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, supplemented by authoritative Persian and English translations to ensure fidelity to linguistic and performative nuances. The analysis proceeded in two phases. First, key scenes, dialogues, and stage directions were identified and segmented for close reading. Second, these segments were coded against Janis’s groupthink taxonomy to track the emergence and interaction of groupthink symptoms across the play’s three acts. The study cross-referenced theoretical sources in social psychology and comparative literary criticism to validate interpretive claims. Attention was paid to how linguistic shifts, rhetorical strategies, character arcs, and mise-en-scène function as aesthetic equivalents of social-psychological processes. Limitations of applying a model derived from small decision-making groups to mass phenomena are acknowledged and addressed through an adapted, metaphorical deployment of the theory.Conclusion: The analysis demonstrates that Rhinoceros stages a coherent sequence of groupthink mechanisms: initial minimization of threat (illusion of invulnerability), collective rationalizations and rewritings of the past, moral inversion that legitimizes the group’s behavior, progressive self-censorship and manufactured unanimity, social pressure to conform, and the emergence of mindguards who control dissent. Characters such as Bérenger, Jean, Dudard, and Daisy exemplify different nodes in this process, Bérenger as the last human resisting absorption, others as vectors of assimilation. The study’s contribution is twofold: it extends literary interpretation by providing a systematic, psychologically informed account of the play’s dynamics, and it suggests a methodological template for applying social-psychological models to dramatic texts. By showing how theatrical form can model cognitive failure in collective contexts, the study argues that Ionesco’s Rhinoceros remains a timely exploration of how language, staging, and affective pressures can dismantle critical thought and normalize injustice. Moreover, the findings inform contemporary performance practice and pedagogy: directors and dramaturgs can employ the groupthink model to make cognitive pressures visible on stage, and scholars can apply the approach to other modern dramas. Future research could pair textual analysis with reception studies to observe how audiences enact or resist staged groupthink. In sum, this study shows that social-psychological models provide a productive hermeneutic for dramatic texts and affirms Rhinoceros as a lasting examination of the processes by which communities systematically normalize violence and silence dissent. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106388.html AbstractThis study investigates the perceptions of novice Iranian English language teachers regarding English as an International Language (EIL) and its role in fostering intercultural communication in EFL classrooms, both before and after attending a 30 hour professional development workshop. The workshop was designed around EIL principles and the integration of culture into language teaching. Findings revealed that teachers’ attitudes shifted from a native-speaker norm orientation toward a more inclusive view of multilingualism and multiculturalism. Teachers increasingly saw themselves as intercultural mediators, supporting learners in preserving their local cultural identity while developing skills for effective international communication. The study underscores the importance of embedding both local and global cultures into curricula to address identity concerns and counterbalance Western-centric content in textbooks. It concludes that targeted professional development can enhance teachers’ intercultural competence and promote culturally responsive EFL instruction.Background of the Study: In today’s interconnected world, cross-cultural communication has become a central skill for global citizenship (Anani Sarab & Monfared, 2024; McKay, 2018). English, functioning as a lingua franca, plays a pivotal role in facilitating communication across cultures. Scholars argue that adopting an EIL perspective positions English not merely as the property of native speakers but as a shared resource bridging diverse nations and cultures (Nguyen et al., 2021; Kirkpatrick, 2015; Matsuda, 2019; McKay, 2018).In the Iranian context, English language education faces the dual challenge of maintaining Islamic-Iranian cultural values while engaging with the cultural content embedded in global English use. This tension is heightened by the presence of Western lifestyle representations in textbooks, which may conflict with local traditions (Sharifian, 2017; Sadeghpour & D’Angelo, 2022; Monfared & Najjar, 2024). The question of how to balance local and foreign cultures in EFL curricula is therefore critical. While international research has explored teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of culture in language education, there is a scarcity of empirical studies in the Iranian context examining novice teachers’ views on EIL and intercultural competence (Sadeghi & Sepahi, 2018; Shin et al., 2021). Therefore, the present study addresses this gap by exploring how professional development can influence teachers’ attitudes toward EIL and their perceived role in promoting intercultural communication.Methodology: A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) was employed. The quantitative data was collected through a 15 item six-point Likert scale questionnaire administered to 352 novice English teachers—graduates in English translation, literature, or language teaching—selected via purposive sampling before and after a 30-hour workshop, incorporating lectures, slide presentations, and discussions, all grounded in EIL principles and the integration of intercultural content. The qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 35 volunteer participants from the initial sample. All interviews were recorded with participants’ consent. Quantitative data were analyzed by comparing the mean scores before and after the workshop to assess attitude changes toward EIL. Qualitative data were coded and thematically analyzed using MAXQDA software, enabling deeper insights into the reasons behind observed changes and the ways teachers envisioned integrating intercultural elements into their teaching.Conclusion: The study demonstrates that targeted professional development can positively shift novice teachers’ attitudes toward EIL, encouraging them to embrace multilingualism and multiculturalism in their teaching practice. Teachers emerged from the workshop with a stronger sense of their role as intercultural mediators, committed to helping students maintain their local identity while engaging effectively in global communication. The findings highlight the necessity of embedding both local and global cultural content into EFL curricula, not only to enhance linguistic competence but also to foster intercultural awareness https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106888.html One of the highly recommended and largely used EFL textbooks in Iran is American English File (AEF), published by Oxford University Press. To understand its potential effect on readers’ viewpoints and discover the underlying mindsets, the discourse of American English File 3, third edition, was analyzed based on James Paul Gee’s framework (2018), with a focus on his concept of “recipient design”, which involves how the readers of a text are supposed to read and react in certain ways and shape some aspects of their identity. Therefore, ten texts were selected from different parts of the book. To capture the recipient design of the texts, the highlighted and marginalized social goods, and Discourses in the texts were identified. Then, the readers' represented identity, the major actions of the texts and the potential effects on the readers were discovered. The findings revealed that the discourse of the textbook represents the issues of contemporary metropolitan life, reflecting the values of individualism including individual success, health and achievements. This study contributes to how language teaching materials influence the identity of readers. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106953.html AbstractIntroduction: Buchi Emecheta’s novel Second-Class Citizen has been interpreted through the lenses of racial discrimination, migration, and the colonial relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. While these perspectives are essential for understanding the broader historical context of the novel, an exclusive focus on external oppression risks overlooking the complex intra communal dynamics that shape the lived experiences of its female protagonist, Adah. This study aims to move beyond the framework of external colonial domination by examining how everyday interactions within family structures, marital relationships, and intra community networks reproduce forms of gendered inequality. Drawing on a cognitive postcolonial approach, the article explores how social expectations, emotional responses, and internalized social categories influence the formation of Adah’s subjectivity and her gradual development of female consciousness.Background of the Study:Scholarship on Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen often highlights Adah’s experiences with racism and economic hardship in Britain, focusing on external structural inequalities. Authors like Marie Umeh and M.J. Daymond suggest these analyses can sometimes overlook the significant intra-communal patriarchal pressures that shape Adah’s life. Nancy Topping Bazin and Gomatam Mohana Charyulu also present the complexities of navigating societal expectations within the community. Emecheta illustrates how oppression mirrors through mechanisms of moral judgment and social surveillance, a perspective explored by Donna Haraway. However, while all these reseraches focus on social and structural dimensions of Adah’s struggles, they pay less attention to the emotional and psychological aspects through which such pressures are internalized in her everyday life. The gradual accumulation of feelings such as exhaustion, shame, and emotional strain—produced through constant negotiation with family, community, and social expectations—remains relatively underexplored. The protagonist’s journey through childhood discrimination, marital struggles, motherhood, and professional challenges, as examined by researchers such as Bahmanpour, Nejadmohammad & Jabbari Khameneh, and Lennard J. Davis, highlights how deep and effective society’s beliefs about gender roles are. Emecheta complicates simple binaries of oppressor and oppressed, offering a portrayal of postcolonial female experience as a layered process of simultaneous domination and resistance. This study builds on existing scholarship by shifting attention to the internal, lived experience of social pressure in Second Class Citizen. By focusing on Patrick Colm Hogan’s cognitive–postcolonial framework, it shows how Adah’s emotional life, memory, and sense of self is developed in response to these pressures. https://clls.sbu.ac.ir/article_106958.html This article examines Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a literary mashup that stands at the intersection of two engaging fandoms, each constructed around a popular storyworld. It asks how narrative prototypes, the typical exemplars within genres, shape such a mashup storyworld across media. Considering Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and zombie-based apocalyptic narratives as prototypes, this study compares the PPZ novel (2009) and its film adaptation (2016), examining their prototype affiliation. Based on the categorization of Marie-Laure Ryan's narrativity model, it investigates their spatial, temporal, mental, and formal dimensions separately. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the PPZ novel gravitates toward Austen’s domestic and gender-centered prototypical core, while the cinematic adaptation aligns more closely with the conventions of zombie cinema and its apocalyptic logic. To account for this divergence, the article traces the historical formation of both prototypes and their associated fandoms, arguing that each adaptation privileges the prototype embedded in its respective medium. By linking narrative form to medium specificity and fandom formation, the study offers a framework for understanding how mashup storyworlds are shaped by competing narrative traditions.