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Scholars Symposium 2024: English, Literature, & Modern Language

English, Literature, & Modern Language

Monolingual Attitudes Toward Bilingual Picture Books: A Comparative Case Study of American College Students

by Justin Kemp (Undergraduate)

Given that 22% of Americans do not exclusively speak English at home, it is important for educators to be informed about bilingual resources. Picture books have long been researched by those in the education profession, but little research has been conducted on bilingual picture books and the attitudes toward them. This case study addresses that research gap. To do so, the researcher collected a sample of picture books (half bilingual and half monolingual) from the Curriculum Materials Center (CMC) of a university in the Midwestern US and questionnaire responses from five monolingual undergraduate students to compare the attitudes of education and non-education students toward bilingual picture books. This case study revealed that while education students’ attitudes toward bilingual picture books were more nuanced than non-education students, all students with limited exposure to bilingualism indicated hesitation and a lack of awareness concerning the uses and effects of bilingual books regardless of their major. These findings reflect preexisting literature, suggesting that educators and education students need more exposure to bilingual resources in order to effectively teach the growing number of minority language speakers in their classrooms and that conversely, educators who have seen the benefits of bilingual resources are more prepared to teach in such environments.

 

The Use of Contemporary Language Policy Research Regarding Indigenous Languages by the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages

by Erin White (Undergraduate)

Language death, and especially that of indigenous languages is a crucial issue with destructive social, cultural, and political ramifications. Recognising this, the United Nations has enacted an International Decade of Indigenous Languages in response to the critical status of many indigenous languages. International attention for this issue has the potential to be quite beneficial, assuming it is done well. This current research aims to consider the goals of the decade by asking the following question: To what extent do the United Nation’s policies for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages reflect current scholarly recommendations regarding Language Policy and Planning? To address this question, a meta-analysis of contemporary Language Policy and Planning research was conducted, and compared against the clauses establishing the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Diverse recommendations from both the research and the United Nations were categorized along three policy-making levels: community, national, and international. While the United Nations’ recommendations at the national and international levels were strong, if overly-optimistic, there was very little mention of the community level. This is notable due to the strong emphasis on community and bottom-up approaches present in the academic literature, and provides a valuable opportunity for the United Nations to improve as they move forward with more specific recommendations.

 

Formal Education and the Ferrars Brothers in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility

by Anastasia Cook (Undergraduate)

Critics have long recognized Jane Austen’s interest in the education of her characters, identifying it as a theme present in all of her works. Though all of her heroines receive some level of education during her novels, their desire and access to academic learning varies by character and situation. In Austen’s day, boys’ education was far better established on a social and institutional level than girls’, making the education of her male characters informative for a discussion of formal learning in her works. Notably, Sense and Sensibility links the Ferrars brothers’ divergent personalities to their educational backgrounds. Edward–serious, dutiful, and retiring–received a private education from a tutor, while his flashy and vain brother, Robert, studied at a public boarding school. The direct consideration of public and private schooling, unique to Sense and Sensibility, can contribute to an understanding of Austen’s vision of education in its more formal sense, its value and limitations. While Austen concludes that private education is better suited to develop active and virtuous minds in its students, further experience in the world is needed to develop judgment and enable the learner to act rightly.

 

Anthropomorphism of AI and Copyright

by Micaiah O'Malley (Undergraduate)

In November 2018, computer scientist and visionary Stephen Thaler submitted a copyright request for a piece of artwork titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise. Thaler listed the author of the piece as the Creativity Machine, a cutting-edge computer program that Thaler designed and owns. In addition to requesting that copyright be granted to the computer-generated program, Thaler requested that the copyright be transferred to him, as the owner of the machine. While Thaler acknowledged that the machine was an atypical author, he argued it should be recognized as an author for fitting non-human characteristics. This event leads us to investigate the impact of anthropomorphism of AI attributes ownership of AI-generated art. By turning to the theory of anthropomorphism, we can understand the aspects of anthropomorphism, see that Thaler exemplifies each aspect in his interactions with and about his machine, and conclude with implications about the issues that anthropomorphism of AI has for blame for related problems, credit for successes, and the future for AI and copyright.

 

Reading the Daily: Entertaining and Recreation in Martha McMillan’s 1889 Journal

by Emily Frasier (Undergraduate), Adam Caldwell (Undergraduate), Haley Kollstedt (Undergraduate)

The journals of Martha McMillan demonstrate the power of daily Christian life and the influence of a growing community. In her journals, Martha recounts her daily duties as a woman, mother, wife, and homemaker. She views her work as difficult and worthwhile and also pours into the community through her active involvement in the church and her general hospitality. In this panel, we will be discussing her journal from 1889, particularly the months of January through early May and also most of December. In these months, Martha reflects on Sabbath lessons, chronicles the daily weather, and records the whereabouts of her children and other close family friends. Throughout her entries, she ultimately demonstrates her desire of living out a life that honors Christ as king. This desire influences all aspects of her life and completely unifies the journal as she continuously reflects on Christ’s work in her life. In this panel, we will explore the themes of transportation, entertaining, and holiday celebrations. All of these themes give us a window into how Martha served her family and community. All of this is relevant to the audience because we should model Martha’s life in her dedication to Scripture and her comprehensive Biblical worldview and attitude towards her demanding, yet meaningful farm life.

 

Religion and Hospitality in Community in May-October of Martha McMillan’s 1889 Journal

by Rachel Knierim (Undergraduate), Emma Bapst (Undergraduate), Rachel Crane (Undergraduate), Brodie Crowder (Undergraduate)

As life writing scholar Desiree Henderson stated in her book How to Read a Diary, “diaries are significant and complex works of literature that challenge readers’ expectations” (Henderson 18). Some readers might be tempted to dismiss journals as irrelevant and self-centered; however, Martha McMillan’s 1889 journal challenges her readers’ expectations through recording details of how she structures her life around her faith. Her faith informs her hospitality, which involves comforting families amidst grief and loss, transporting her guests and hired help to and from their homes in town, and treating her children’s friends like her own children. By providing research into the surrounding cultural context, we propose to examine how Martha’s example of neighborly hospitality represents a hospitality informed by faith and practiced in the 19th-century farming town of Cedarville, Ohio. Because her diary speaks firsthand to Cedarville’s history and documents Cedarville College’s first commencement ceremony, students of Cedarville University and members of the Cedarville Village community can relate to Martha’s story. Studying excerpts from Martha’s 1889 journal gives Cedarville students and villagers an example of a woman who, through love and hospitality, sought to live for Christ and King.

 

Human vs. Machine Translation

by Micaiah O'Malley (Undergraduate)

This paper discusses a brief history of the field of translation, translation theories, technological translation and more specifically ChatGPT and Google Translate, and the life and work of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. This paper performs a study of various translations of Neruda's work, analyzing a professional translation, a novice translation, a ChatGPT translation, and a Google Translate translation. This paper analyzes and discusses each translation type's differences from the others, in both positive and negative ways, focusing on the three criteria of Grammar, Vocabulary, and Poetic Form.

 

Created to Create?: Restoring a Biblical Understanding of Imago Dei to Literary Studies

by Alicia McCartney (Faculty)

Writers from Sidney to Sayers have defended the value of reading and writing literature by stating that such activities reflect the imago Dei: that we were created to create. Christian literary academics frequently invoke this idea to justify the existence of their discipline in a higher education landscape – both secular and religious – that devalues the humanities. Yet is this defense a biblical picture of what it means to be created in the image of God? What implications does this theological truth about our natures have for our activities as readers, writers, and literary critics? This paper argues that we must reframe this argument for the value of the humanities within a proper theological understanding of imago Dei. To rightly understand the relationship between human making and our Maker, we must think of literary sub-creation as God’s gift: one of many beautiful intended consequences of bearing His image. This biblical worldview should encourage us to value human creativity rightly, neither exalting it in idolatry nor underestimating its value.

 

Faculty Perspectives on the Arts and Humanities at Cedarville University: A Preliminary Report

by Merideth Pitts (Faculty), Annette Seefried (Undergraduate)

Justification of the humanities is a major outlet of academic effort, inspiring a steady stream of scholarly and popular articles, books, and conference talks. As is widely observed, discourses in such publications often cast the humanities as victims of hostile forces including neoliberalism or progressivism, utilitarianism or sheer philistinism (e.g. Agresto 2022; Donoghue 2008; Dorn 2017; Musto 2021). In the United States, defense of the humanities often emphasizes their role in forming intelligent and moral citizens (Agresto 2022; Dorn 2017; Jacobs 2012; Rice 2023). For educators working in the context of Christian higher education, conversations about the value of humanities disciplines are freighted not only by such material calculations but also by perennial reckonings with questions of eternal value (cf. Kenyon 2012). How do believing educators understand their work in the humanities? What motivates that work? What constrains it? What paths forward do humanities educators envision? In the inaugural year of Cedarville University’s School of Arts and Humanities, the project described in this preliminary report explores how faculty in that School perceive the value of studies in their fields. The goal of the project is to provide a synthesis of faculty views that may inform future deliberations in the School. In particular, the study seeks to answer the following question: What are the perspectives of faculty in Cedarville University’s School of Arts and Humanities on the disciplines represented in their school? To address the question, the study uses qualitative analysis of self-report data acquired through focus groups and interviews. The study has been approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board. Findings to date are presented.

 

Of Battles and Books: Raphael's Anachronisms in Milton's Paradise Lost

by Stephen Schuler (Faculty, ELML Dept. Chair)

In composing Paradise Lost, Milton scrupulously observes a principle that he would have understood as historical realism: characters in Paradise Lost should use language that reflects the limits of their immediate experience, and they should avoid anachronistic references. Adam and Eve’s conversation topics are limited to their remembered experience and immediate surroundings, and whatever they can infer from them. When Raphael begins to narrate the War in Heaven, however, he acknowledges how difficult it will be to explain spiritual events to people who have no experience with the kinds of things that will appear in his story. Thus, having promised to use familiar, earthly images to describe the otherwise imperceptible events of the spirit world, Raphael proceeds to tell a story that refers to numerous objects that cannot be familiar to Adam and Eve. This paper explores the possible reasons for Raphael's use of anachronistic imagery in his narrative. Ultimately in the poem, Raphael confronts the limits of his own intellect, inviting both his audience in Paradise and the poem’s human readers to reflect on their own cognitive and lingual limitations.

 

A Study on the Field of Runology

by Annette Seefried (Undergraduate)

My proposal is to present my project from the class LING 4220 Senior Research in Linguistics II as a poster at the research symposium. My project is a study conducted on Germanic runes. My study delves into the writing system used by Germanic peoples (particularly those in Scandinavia and Britain) prior to their adoption of the Latin script. In this project, I examine the current state of the field of runology--the methods and theory--and how those methods can practically applied. To put the methods into practice, my study includes a section on a database of runic inscriptions, tracing the interaction of the writing system and religion. The goal of the project is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current state of runology, apply the methods of the field, and contribute to the body research on runes.

 

Recovering Martha McMillan’s 1889 Journal: Faith, Community, and Hospitality

by Rachel Knierim (Undergraduate), Brodie Crowder (Undergraduate), Emma Bapst (Undergraduate), Rachel Crane (Undergraduate), Emily Frasier (Undergraduate), Adam Caldwell (Undergraduate), Haley Kollstedt (Undergraduate)

We intend to craft a display to be shown in the Centennial Library showcasing the findings of our study and recovery of Martha McMillan’s 1889 Journal. This display will include various artifacts from the archives that help tell the story of McMillan’s life and relate to our findings. We will also design an accompanying poster that will complement and explain the display. The poster will introduce the reader to Martha McMillan and her writings held in the Cedarville University library archives. We propose to include the poster in the Scholars Symposium while the display itself is housed in the Centennial Library. This display will help introduce Cedarville students and visitors to the Martha McMillan collection. In addition, McMillan’s exemplary life of faith, service, and hospitality will resonate with the school’s Christian community.

 

A Study of Goethe and Schiller

by Angela Lee (Undergraduate), Justin Kemp (Undergraduate), Hannah Grace Patton (Undergraduate)

This research analyzes ten lesser-known works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller–two notable authors of late 18th and early 19th century German literature–for how the pieces display the author’s worldview and how they fit into the literary genres of the time. These works have not been previously studied in depth. To gain a holistic view of the writings, the researchers also analyzed previous research on Goethe and Schiller. Conclusions to the literary analysis explain the reasoning behind why each piece fits within the Klassik, Romantik, or Sturm und Drang literary period.