Vol. 5, No. 1, 2015
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Item Documentary-Making Methodology: Step-by-Step Documentation of Life after Grey(East West University, 1/1/2015) Haque, Muhammed ShahriarOne of the unnoticed snares of a first-time documentary filmmaker, besides insufficient research and clear objective(s), is lack of specific knowledge of research methodology. Documentary filmmaking is a separate genre, with many sub-genres, which varies from commercial to alternative/art filmmaking. There is plenty of available literature in books and research articles that deal with separate aspects of this genre of filmmaking in terms of modes and approaches of documentary, research, preproduction, production, postproduction, and so on. However, there is hardly any academic book or article in the Bangladeshi context that comprehensively provides the step-by-step guide to documentary filmmaking, particularly through a pragmatic demonstration of a film that has been made for the purpose of emphasizing the methodology. Theory and practice may not always conform; in such case(s) overcoming unanticipated challenges that threaten an entire project is imperative. This paper endeavours to portray the step-by-step methodological journey of documentary filmmaking from the initial stage of idea generation, through research phase to pre and post production until the official screening from a first-time filmmaker’s perspective. The methodological steps are based on the making of documentary Life after Grey (2015).Item Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA): Evidence for Bangla-English Learning Bilingual Child’s Phonological Development(East West University, 1/1/2015) Parveen, ShaplaThis article falls within the domain of “bilingual first language acquisition”. It discusses the early phonological development of a Bangla-English learning bilingual child at 12 months of age focusing on the occurrences of universal and language specific sound patterns found in the pre-linguistic and first word stage of infant vocalization. The co-occurrences of universal trends were indeed visible in the infants’ babbling in both language contexts, which is consistent with previous studies. However, since language specific patterns for Bangla and English were not substantial at this early stage, “language differentiation” had not taken place. Traces of mixed sound segments from the two languages provide evidence that it is possible for infants to develop sounds segments from two separate phonological systems simultaneously, that is, a child is able to acquire two first languages simultaneously, though the production level may not be homogeneous. This could be related to input factors. Though this research is an extraction from an ongoing longitudinal study, the findings are noteworthy as they provide data for developmental process at a given phase of language acquisition.Item The Urge for ‘X-treme’: Super-Human Syndrome Followed by the Morality of Viciousness(East West University, 1/1/2015) Taslim, IsratX-treme is considered to be a new popular phenomenon which brings out the hidden fantasy of any normal human being, to test every possible limitation till the ultimate extent. Though the practice of extreme is considered as villainous and not easily acceptable by the society, it is the human fantasy to go to X-treme in order to be included in the minority of being superhuman. In our postmodern world aesthetics get more priority than ethics when media visualize the inner fantasy of violence in reality as a spectacle for the audience. This media increases the urge of being superhuman, while being human is too cliché. Now, X-treme has become so important to bring every possible limit out of people that they do not bother whether it is related to morality or not. It is obvious to find a superhero against the features of postmodernism because he is unmovable from the fixed convention of being good and not allowing the X-treme. That morality makes a superhero limited and stereotyped with all cliché traits of being inside the boundary. On the other hand, villains or anti-hero can possess the X-treme power and exhibit the extremity desired by the audience. So, villains are more appreciable than heroes because they become the example of living larger than life in this lifetime. The clean line of being good or bad is dead – thanks to postmodernism which justifies the practice of going to every possible limit of X-treme. When the postmodern ethics is already compromised, a new kind of ethics emerges in human mind. That ethics is more than personal which does not bother to maintain the universal ethics that is predetermined or enforced social ideology and silences the moral impulse of the individuals. When that personal ethics might also be the result of the enforced ideology, a free mind can create its own morality by stepping out of the influence of any kind of social ideology.Item Undergraduates’ Novel Experiences with Massive Open Online Courses(East West University, 1/1/2015) Hasan, Md. MasudulMassive open online courses (MOOCs) have revolutionized e-learning contexts through improvising new technology on its pedagogical features. Recently, much debate has been directed to the application of MOOCs in relation to higher education. However, research regarding students’ experiences of MOOCs is scant. Therefore, the present study aims to fill in the gap by examining undergraduates experiences with MOOCs. Data were collected from 29 undergraduates attending various degree programs at a public university in Malaysia. Undergraduates’ logbook notes were used for collecting data for this study. Results showed that most of the participants expressed positive attitudes towards learning in the MOOC. They valued the MOOC instructional features and tools and showed strong satisfaction in learning in the MOOCs environment. The empirical findings of the study have contributed to a better understanding of the nature of learning and participation in a MOOC environment from the perspective of undergraduate students. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have succeeded to create massive attention among educators, researchers, students, media, and stakeholders as elite universities from developed countries formed consortia to offer free courses on various disciplines. MOOC started with the promises to offer free education for all (Kop, Fournier, & Mak, 2011). A few number of commercial start-ups such as Udacity, Edx, Futurelearn and Coursera have been launched in collaboration with leading universities to deliver free courses online for massive participation. Many academic institutions, especially those in North America such as Duke University, Harvard University, MIT, and Stanford University have been offering courses in cooperation with MOOC providers. Big commercial institutions such as Google and Pearson are also planning to contribute to higher education by adopting MOOC instructional format (Yuan, Powell, & CETIS, 2013). While MOOCs are mushrooming in higher education, empirical research in the area is still very limited. Therefore, the present study aims to contribute some effort to this gap by scanning a small group of tertiary level students’ novel experiences with MOOC instructional features. The following part of the study deals with the background of the development of MOOC and its theoretical underpinnings.Item The House on Mango Street: Searching for Identity(East West University, 1/1/2015) Sultana, RajiaThis paper studies a Chicana adolescent Esperanza Cordero’s search for a “self” that she believes is essential to come out from the prevailing suppression she observes as a woman and as a Mexican-American. She realizes that to achieve her goal she has to establish herself in the society to eradicate her dependency on anyone. In her quest she has found some symbols that gradually helped her to construct her identity. Her imaginary house where she wishes to be alone to nurture her innate ability of writing is her first step toward her identity. Her name given after her grandmother and the sad past of the namesake is another symbol through which she searches for self-definition. Three skinny trees out of Esperanza’s window come as a metaphor of her own position in her father’s house and clear her perception about belonging and existence. Esperanza’s meeting with three sisters from Mexico serves as a turning point of her life. Their prophesy about Esperanza’s future enhances her search and ensures that she is in the right track. The three sisters appear as a fairy godmother for Esperanza and guide her toward her search Through this “self” searching journey, Esperanza matures as a woman and as a writer.Item An Existential Reading of Family Ties(East West University, 1/1/2015) Jahan, IsratExamining different characters of Family Ties (Lispector, 1972), the present paper aims at demonstrating Clarice Lispector’s projection of ties at various different levels often starting with family ties, stretching between individuals, objects, and natural world and then untying or losing previously existing ties. The paper highlights the attention she pays to the anxiety concerning all the disturbances of the body and the mind that has been so long denied. Through the research it is shown how her different characters respond to the cultivation of self, and bestows prominent attention to self-respect resulting from self-doubt. Her experimentations with female characters are not confined to the conflict of male and female; rather it continues with multifarious themes which find their abode in her collection of thirteen short stories entitled Lacos de Familia (Family Ties) where she writes about human suffering and failure, the disarray of humanity, human’s total awareness of inevitable alienation and the pressing need to overcome danger, and the most forcefully of all, encountering ultimate nothingness. Influenced by existentialist writers, Lispector illuminates the conflict between public and private self, and magnifies the terror upon realizing the failure of language to communicate; that results into the use of different tools of language to find a rescue (Pontiero, 1972. p. 134). Though the existential struggle of the characters consists of series of paradoxes with no solution, the paper will discuss the steps they have taken and the time they have passed through. IntroductionItem Representing the Unrepresentable in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day(East West University, 1/1/2015) Osman, Khan TouseefThis article looks closely at Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day from the critical perspective of trauma studies with a particular focus on the representational crisis posed by individual and collective catastrophic events. It positions the novel within the category of partition fiction so as to enable a contextual reading—one that takes the literary-historical milieu as well as the evolution of the genre into consideration. Such positioning makes comparison and cross-referencing between texts possible. Any traumatic event causes a mnemonic gap in the individual victim’s consciousness and a politically motivated suppression of memory on the level of the collective. This problematizes its representation in the realistic mode, and partition novelists, especially from the 1980s and onwards, have resorted to indirect means to represent this massive disruption of social cohesion in the subcontinental history. Anita Desai, for example, uses the motifs of sibling rivalry and fragility of social relationships to imply the antagonism between India and Pakistan as well as Hindus and Muslims. Clear Light of Day gives its audience a localized view of history in the sense that it illustrates the profound consequences of the Partition on the members of the Das family. This article has attempted to explore how this localized view through indirect means of representation may yield insights into the intersecting points of public and private traumas and their recovery.Item Creative Writing in English and EFL Students: Finding Motivation in Self-expression(East West University, 1/1/2015) Dougherty, PatrickThis article details an investigation of the application of creative writing to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at two universities, one in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It asks three questions: (1) do EFL students perceive creative writing in English as motivational in their English studies, (2) does creative writing in English encourage EFL students to write in English outside of the classroom, and (3) does creative writing in English motivate EFL students to be better users of English? The answers to these questions have universal applications to other English programs, in other settings, in other countries. The study outlined in this article will demonstrate that introducing creative writing to EFL programs can serve as a powerful motivational force in the classroom, benefiting the students academically, emotionally, and linguistically.