miscelánea

vol. 71

2025

I S C E E AL Á N

literature, lm and

cultural studies

language

and linguistics

vol. 71

2025

a journal of english

and american studies

miscelánea

Prensas de la Universidad

Literatura, cine

y estudios culturales

Lengua y lingüística

miscelánea

revista de estudios ingleses

y norteamericanos

vol. 71

2025

Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies

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Prensas de la Universidad

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Universidad de Zaragoza

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Rosario Arias

Universidad de Málaga, España

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Jean-Michel Ganteau

University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier III, Francia

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3147-0430>

Terttu Nevalainen

University of Helsinki, Finlandia

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3088-4903>

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Universidad de La Rioja, España

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Dalarna University, Suecia

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Universidad Nacional de Educación a

Distancia, España

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Eva Alcón Soler

Universitat Jaume I, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2261-5378>

Bárbara Arizti Martín

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8803-1308>

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Universidad de Zaragoza, España

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Antonio Andrés Ballesteros

González

Universidad Nacional de Educación a

Distancia, España

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Gerd Bayer

University of Erlangen-Nurenberg, Alemania

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Jesús Benito Sánchez

Universidad de Valladolid, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8819-3411>

Miguel Ángel Benítez Castro

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8514-5943>

Ana Bocanegra Valle

Universidad de Cádiz, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2856-0814>

Christoph Bode

Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich,

Alemania

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5006-5804>

Ruth Breeze

Universidad de Navarra, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-225X>

Joseph Brooker

Birkbeck College, University of London, Reino

Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9245-010X>

Gert Buelens

Ghent University, Bélgica

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2683-0059>

David Callahan

University of Aveiro, Portugal

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4183-6691>

Javier Calle Martín

Universidad de Málaga, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1040-5979>

Johan Callens

Free University of Brussels, Bélgica

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1506-5942>

Mónica Calvo Pascual

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3846-468X>

Isabel Carrera Suárez

Universidad de Oviedo, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7121-6528>

Frederic Chaume Varela

Universitat Jaume I, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4843-5228>

María Rocío Cobo Piñero

Universidad de Sevilla, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3814-7799>

Francisco Collado Rodríguez

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2922-9194>

Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre

Universidad de Murcia, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6985-0036>

Stef Craps

Ghent University, Bruselas, Bélgica

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6720-1689>

Maria Josep Cuenca

Universidad de Valencia, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8606-713>

Rocío G. Davis

Universidad de Navarra, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1417-9702>

Celestino Deleyto Alcalá

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3087-4556>

Marc Delrez

University of Liège, Bélgica

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0817-8407>

Jorge Díaz Cintas

Imperial College, Reino Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1058-5757>

Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova

Masaryk University, República Checa

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0378-7975>

Isabel Durán Giménez-Rico

Universidad Complutense de Madrid,

España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6026-0184>

Maite Escudero Alías

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3116-3641>

Gibson Ferguson

University of Shefeld, Reino Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5748-577X>

Javier Fernández Polo

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1657-9323>

María del Mar Gallego Duran

Universidad de Huelva, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5518-7667>

María Luisa García Lecumberri

Universidad del País Vasco, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8651-7558>

Luis Miguel García Mainar

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3169-5920>

Cristina Garrigós González

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia,

España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8047-9733>

Rosa González Casademont

Universidad de Barcelona, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2038-0699>

Constante González Groba

Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0556-8362>

Pilar González Vera

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4919-8113>

Maurizio Gotti

University of Bergamo, Italia

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-4830>

Ignacio Guillén Galve

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5304-1290>

Christian Gutleben

University of Nice, Francia

Felicity Hand

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3766-6266>

Luc Herman

University of Antwerp, Bélgica

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6013-2900>

María Isabel Herrando Rodrigo

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3895-5534>

María Dolores Herrero Granado

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1363-0189>

Ana María Hornero Corisco

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0000-2714>

Tamar Jeffers-McDonald

University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, Reino Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4905-2525>

Deborah Jermyn

University of Roehampton, London, Reino Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9261-9887>

Jane Jordan

Kingston University, London, Reino Unido

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2129-6504>

Enrique Lafuente Millán

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4783-3953>

Rosa Lorés Sanz

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5574-6182>

Hilaria Loyo Gómez

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4933-2199>

Zenón Luis Martínez

Universidad de Huelva, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5228-7822>

María José Luzón Marco

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0454-5457>

Ana Manzanas Calvo

Universidad de Salamanca, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9830-638X>

Belén Martín Lucas

Universidad de Vigo, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5660-1559>

Paula Martín Salván

Universidad de Córdoba, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8514-2670>

María Jesús Martínez Alfaro

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7335-7690>

Silvia Martínez Falquina

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8054-095X>

Sergio Maruenda Bataller

Universitat de València, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3041-0110>

Paul McDonald

University of Nottingham, Reino Unido

Arsenio Jesús Moya Guijarro

Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha,

España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6591-6680>

Laura Muresan

Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest,

Rumanía

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5585-2863>

Silvia Murillo Ornat

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1369-3590>

Marita Nadal Blasco

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2902-7613>

Claus-Peter Neumann

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6950-9153>

Ana Luiza Pires de Freitas

Federal University of Health Sciences

of Porto Alegre, Brazil

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8285-6528>

Elena Oliete Aldea

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8197-1199>

Susana Onega Jaén

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1672-4276>

Beatriz Oria Gómez

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0663-0519>

Nieves Pascual Soler

Universidad Internacional de Valencia,

España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8962-5298>

Viorica Eleonora Patea Birk

Universidad de Salamanca, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3291-5574>

Beatriz Penas Ibáñez

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2418-4695>

Javier Pérez Guerra

Universidad de Vigo, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8882-667X>

Ramón Plo Alastrué

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1151-1661>

Juan Antonio Prieto Pablos

Universidad de Sevilla, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8912-2818>

Paula Rautionaho

University of Eastern Finland, Finlandia

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5239-8407>

Constanza del Río Álvaro

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3370-3020>

María Isabel Romero Ruiz

Universidad de Málaga, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8084-4865>

Miguel F. Ruiz Garrido

Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9647-1039>

Noelia Ruiz Madrid

Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9800-5624

Manuela Ruiz Pardos

Universidad de Zaragoza, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9115-1020>

Dora Sales Salvador

Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6290-2013>

Lena Steveker

University of Luxembourg, Luxemburgo

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6234-6790>

Juan Antonio Suárez Sánchez

Universidad de Murcia, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8303-044>

Rubén Valdés Miyares

Universidad de Oviedo, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9564-595X>

Javier Valenzuela

Universidad de Murcia, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0007-7943>

Rafael Vélez Núñez

Universidad de Cádiz, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0405-7357>

Francisco Yus Ramos

Universidad de Alicante, España

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5276-3251>

Krystyna Warchał

University of Silesia, Polonia

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8422-4911>

Articles

MARÍA MERCEDES PÉREZ AGUSTÍN

(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

ÁNGEL LUIS LAHOZ LEÓN

(CEIP Claudio Moyano, Madrid)

MACARENA PALMA GUTIÉRREZ

(Universidad de Córdoba)

YONAY RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ

(CUD-AGM Universidad de Zaragoza)

table of contents

How to Implement a Picturebook in

Primary EFL Classrooms to Develop

Children’s Intercultural Competence

Cómo implementar un álbum ilustrado

en inglés como lengua extranjera en las

aulas de primaria para desarrollar la

competencia intercultural de los estudiantes

Compositional Argument Selection in

N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse

of Cooking: A Corpus-based Study

Selección argumental composicional en

pares de qualia N+V en el discurso

de la cocina: un estudio basado en

corpus

A Study of Beliefs about EMI

Programmes in a Galician University

Estudio de las creencias sobre

el aprendizaje de contenidos en inglés

en una universidad gallega

Articles

INMACULADA FORTANET-GÓMEZ

(Universitat Jaume I)

VIKTORIIA DROBOTUN

(Taras Shevchenko National

University of Kyiv, Ukraine)

SHADIA ABDEL-RAHMAN TÉLLEZ

(Universidad de Oviedo)

JUAN VARO ZAFRA

(Universidad de Granada)

CARLOS DAVID VÁZQUEZ PÉREZ

(Universitat de València)

113

133

151

Collaborative Online International

Learning (COIL) between Spanish and

Ukrainian Students: New Tasks and New

Relationships

Aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en

línea (COIL) entre estudiantado español y

ucraniano: nuevas tareas y nuevas

relaciones

The Medarchy: Medical Discipline

and the Panopticon in Caduceus Wild

La medarquía: disciplina médica

y el panóptico en Caduceus Wild

The Mise en Abyme in The Drowned

World by James G. Ballard

La mise en abyme en The drowned world

de James G. Ballard

Hacia la cubanidad a través

de la santería: influencia de la nostalgia

como instrumento mercantilizado en la

protagonista de la novela Soñar en

cubano (1992)

Towards Cubanness through Santeria:

The Influence of Nostalgia as a Marketed

Tool in the Protagonist of the Novel

Dreaming in Cuban (1992)

TOMAS MONTERREY

(Universidad de La Laguna)

ÁLVARO ALBARRÁN GUTIÉRREZ

(Universidad de Sevilla)

SARA VILLAMARÍN-FREIRE

(Universidad de Santiago de

Compostela)

169

189

209

The Transnational Formation

of the English Novel: The Case of

Madame de Villedieu’s The Annals of

Love (1672)

La formación transnacional de la novela

inglesa: el caso de The annals of love

(1672), de Madame de Villedieu

The Power of Fancy: Liberty

and Imagination in Philip Freneau’s

College Writings

El poder de la fantasía: libertad e

imaginación en los escritos universitarios

de Philip Treneau

Tainted by (White) Trash: Class,

Respectability and the Language of Waste

in Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo

Campbell

Corrompido por la basura (blanca): clase,

respetabilidad y el lenguaje de los

desechos en Dorothy Allison y Bonnie Jo

Campbell

David Roberts, Andrew Milner

and Peter Murphy (eds.):

Science Fiction and Narrative Form.

Bloomsbury, 2023

251 261

Notes for contributors Acknowledgements

VANESA LADO-PAZOS

(Universidade de Santiago de

Compostela)

Constante González Groba, Ewa Barbara

Luczak and Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis

(eds.):

Pathologizing black bodies: the legacy of

plantation slavery. Routledge, 2023

MIASOL EGUÍBAR HOLGADO

(Universidad de Oviedo)

Reviews 231

237

243

FLOR DE LIS GONZÁLEZ-MUJICO

(Universidade da Coruña) Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid & Inmaculada

Fortanet-Gómez (ed.):

Teacher Professional Development for

the Integration of Content and Language

in Higher Education. Routledge, 2024

Articles

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

MARÍA MERCEDES PÉREZ AGUSTÍN

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

mapere65@ucm.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9178-7405>

ÁNGEL LUIS LAHOZ LEÓN

CEIP Claudio Moyano, Madrid

angel.lahoz@educa.madrid.org

<https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4394-1915>

Abstract

The aim of this article is to meet the increasing need to develop the intercultural

dimension of communicative competence through an authentic resource, in this

case, picturebooks. An innovative pedagogical initiative was carried out with two

primary-level classes (5th and 6th) in a bilingual school in central Madrid (Spain).

The selected resource was the picturebook entitled Fry Bread: A Native American

Family Story, about a present-day Native American family preparing a traditional

post-colonial recipe. The resource was introduced through reading aloud as part

of a project in which 44 students were asked to write a recipe in English for a dish

that is special to them or their families, accompanying the text with an illustration.

The contributions of students, which were compiled in a recipe book composed

of 44 main courses and desserts, were analysed in accordance with the main

topics of focus in the intervention, identifying who was the recipe-keeper in each

family. It was determined that the most popular topic was family time, followed

by tradition. In most cases, the mothers were the keepers of the recipes, and the

illustrations reflected a highly collaborative family effort to prepare the dishes. To

HOW TO IMPLEMENT A PICTUREBOOK IN

PRIMARY EFL CLASSROOMS TO DEVELOP

CHILDREN’S INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

CÓMO IMPLEMENTAR UN ÁLBUM ILUSTRADO

EN INGLÉS COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA EN LAS

AULAS DE PRIMARIA PARA DESARROLLAR

LA COMPETENCIA INTERCULTURAL

DE LOS ESTUDIANTES

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510148

María Mercedes Pérez Agustín and Ángel Luis Lahoz León

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

conclude, the recipes were analysed from the perspective of Byram’s (1997)

Intercultural Communicative Competence model, revealing that the dimension

of knowledge of self and other and discovery and interaction were the most

prevalent in the recipe book. This suggests awareness-raising among children of

the differences between countries and a willingness to familiarise themselves with

other cultures.

Key words: reading aloud, picturebooks, ESL/EFL (English as a Second

Language/English as a Foreign Language), Native American, interculturality,

Project-Based Learning (PBL), Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC).

Resumen

El objetivo de este artículo es responder a la creciente necesidad de desarrollar la

dimensión intercultural de la competencia comunicativa a través de un recurso

auténtico, en este caso, los álbumes ilustrados. La experiencia pedagógica

innovadora se llevó a cabo con dos clases de primaria (5º y 6º) en un colegio

bilingüe del centro de Madrid. El recurso seleccionado fue el álbum ilustrado

titulado Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story que presenta a una familia

nativa americana actual que prepara una receta tradicional post-colonial. Este

recurso se introdujo a través de la estructura de lectura en voz alta dentro de un

proyecto en el que se pedía al alumnado que escribiera una receta en inglés

acompañada de una ilustración que fuera especial para ellos o sus familias. Como

resultado, ambas clases escribieron un recetario compuesto por platos principales

y postres, 44 en total, que fueron analizados teniendo en cuenta los principales

temas abordados en la intervención y quién era el guardián de las recetas en sus

familias. Se determinó que el tema más popular era el tiempo en familia, seguido

de la tradición. En la mayoría de los casos, las madres eran las guardianas de las

recetas reflejando también una alta colaboración para preparar los platos con sus

familiares mostrados en las ilustraciones. Para concluir, se analizaron las recetas

desde la perspectiva del modelo de Competencia Comunicativa Intercultural de

Byram (1997), lo cual reveló que la dimensión de conocimiento de uno mismo y

del otro y descubrimiento e interacción eran las más prevalentes en el recetario.

Esto implica que los niños y niñas toman conciencia de las diferencias entre países

y están dispuestos a familiarizarse con otras culturas.

Palabras clave: lectura en voz alta, álbumes ilustrados, ILE (Inglés como Lengua

Extranjera), nativos americanos, interculturalidad, aprendizaje basado en

proyectos, competencia comunicativa intercultural.

How to Implement a Picturebook in Primary EFL Classrooms

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

1. Introduction

This article presents a pedagogical experience carried out at the primary-school

level involving two 5th- and 6th-grade classes in a bilingual public school in

Madrid, Spain. The objective of the experiment is to develop intercultural

competence in a multicultural classroom and encourage students to instill

democratic values citizens through the use of authentic resources. This paper

reflects upon picturebooks as literary resources that foster interculturality in an

ESL (English as a second language)/EFL (English as a foreign language) context.

The selected resource is a picturebook entitled Fry Bread: A Native American

Family Story (2019), which, as Dolan (2014) stated, “bridges the gap between

geographically distant places and the lives of the children in the classroom” (3).

As explained below through a detailed account of all classroom sessions and

activities, the picturebook was introduced through the reading-aloud structure

within a Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach under the heading “Recipe

Book” as part of the project. This led to the final product, which consisted of

writing a recipe for a dish with special meaning for students because it is consumed

on special occasions or is part of their family’s heritage, with all recipes compiled

in a book entitled “Recipe Book”. The expected outcomes of this initiative, in

which students were prompted to create multicultural recipes inspired by the

picturebook, are in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal

4 (Quality Education), whereby teachers foster global citizenship and value

cultural diversity. To highlight students intercultural competence, the recipes

were analysed from the perspective of Byram et al.’s (2002) Intercultural

Communicative Competence (ICC) model composed of knowledge, skills and

attitudes, and the descriptors of the Reference Framework of Competence for

Democratic Culture (RFCDC) (2013), taking into consideration the students’

cultural and linguistic background as well as the connection between these

features and the selected recipes.

The first section of the article will discuss the benefits of using picturebooks to

promote ESL/EFL learning and interculturality within the PBL methodology.

Next, the number of participants in the experiment will be presented together

with their familial-cultural background, with the purpose of bringing the reader

closer to a multicultural classroom model. The following section offers a detailed,

step-by-step explanation of the creative process, which followed the three phases

of reading aloud (pre-, while, post-), after which we offer an analysis of the final

“Recipe Book” based on six thematic blocks (1. Family time; 2. Tradition; 3.

Wish to carry on the tradition; 4. Identity; 5. Special occasions; 6. Any occasion)

based on the words used in the recipe book.

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2. State of the Art

2.1. Picturebooks as a Form of Literature

According to Barbara Bader,

A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a

commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document; and foremost an

experience for a child. As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures

and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the

turning of the page. (1976: 1)

This resource is an item of manufacture designed to have between 24 and 48

pages which are composed of the front matter, the body of the book and the back

matter. According to Genette, these peritextual features are the parts of the text

that “surround it and extend it, precisely in order to present it” (1997: 1) and also

to generate dynamism, magic and suspense. The front matter provides a brief

description of the main topic of the book and the back matter contains a biography

and a synopsis of the story and occasionally an image of the author and illustrator.

Picturebooks break with the traditional reading conventions because texts are

short and illustrations are appealing. This requires an active and supportive reader

to bring these elements together. This description highlights one of the features

that have generated high interest, namely the bimodal link between text and image

(Nodelman 1988; Nikolajeva and Scott 2006) which could be redundant,

complementary or counterpoint (Bateman 2014). Generally, picturebook images

complement the information provided in the narration, as in Fry Bread: A Native

American Family Story. This form of literature has typically been used in the home

for bedtime reading, allowing parents to engage in an entertaining and enjoyable

experience. The gap between the text and the image leaves an interpretative space

for the reader where they can construct meaning by linking literary works through

intertextuality (Mendoza-Fillola 2001) or by means of a semiotic code such as

“interpictoriality” (Hoster et al. 2018). What makes a picturebook different from

a storybook lies in conceiving of it as “a unit, a totality that integrates all the

designated parts in a sequence in which the relationship among them —the cover,

endpapers, typography, pictures— are crucial to the understanding of the book”

(Marantz 1977: 151). Therefore, the final result is a product of viewing the

picturebook not just as a story to be told but as an object of discovery where all the

images and the elements within the object contribute to the final result.

2.2. Picturebooks for EFL/ESL and Interculturality

This section presents the multiple benefits of picturebooks for teaching EFL/

ESL and interculturality. Although there are various interpretations of the word,

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here we understand interculturality in the manner provided by the UNESCO,

which “refers to the existence and equitable interaction of diverse cultures and the

possibility of generating shared cultural expressions through dialogue and mutual

respect” (Article 4.8 of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the

Diversity of Cultural Expressions, UNESCO 2005). This definition not only

reflects the multiculturalism present in today’s classrooms but at the same time

gives different cultures equal importance. In line with Byram et al.’s (2002) ICC,

“the basis of intercultural competence is in the attitudes of the person interacting

with people of another culture” (11-13). This implies that learners should be

open and willing to learn from other cultures.

In many cases, the main challenge for teachers is to introduce different realities in

the classroom, which makes picturebooks an optimal resource because they can

act as a mirror in which students are reflected and also as a window through

which they can see other cultural experiences (Wu 2017). Furthermore, as Boyd

et al. (2014) stated, picturebooks, with their firm commitment to diversity, also

encourage students to accept people who are different from them and are works

of literature that are open to the imagination and require meaningful thoughts

and a capacity for deep reflection (Encabo Fernández et al. 2012). According to

Braid and Finch (2015), the debate and interaction that takes place while reading

aloud will foster intercultural education, also allowing students to perceive

cultural interactions and traditions in a positive way (Hancock 2016).

Picturebooks have been used as a rich and authentic source of meaningful input

in the field of foreign language education for over four decades (Mourao 2023).

High-quality picturebooks facilitate language acquisition by enhancing both

linguistic and interpersonal proficiency. According to Ghosn (2013), humanising

English teaching allows individuals to enhance their moral reasoning skills,

emotional intelligence and empathy. In this same vein, Fleta-Guillén and García-

Bermejo argue that “picturebooks not only help students to understand language

and content, but also to develop positive attitudes toward the target language”

(2014: 38). Furthermore, they expose language learners to a variety of cultures

and afford opportunities for “combining critical literacy with intercultural

learning, as an empowering process” (Bland 2013: 26). Despite the existence of

well-developed theories describing the advantages of picturebooks for intercultural

learning, empirical research is relatively scarce, especially with regard to modern

foreign language learning in classroom settings.

In the following sections the pedagogical experience will be thoroughly explained

(i.e., participants, methodology, sessions) to answer the following questions:

— To what extent did the picture book Fry Bread: A Native American Family

Story help students abandon stereotypes toward Native Americans in a

Spanish EFL context?

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— To what extent does composing recipes in EFL classrooms contribute to

raising students intercultural awareness?

2.3. Project-Based Learning for Intercultural Communicative Competence

As Thomas and Peterson (2014) state, PBL is an instructional approach that

engages students in authentic, inquiry-based projects designed to address real-

world problems or challenges. PBL is characterised by its emphasis on student

autonomy, collaboration, inquiry and application of knowledge and skills to solve

complex problems (Helle et al. 2006). Inquiry and investigation foster curiosity,

promote self-directed learning and cultivate skills that extend far beyond the

specific project at hand, as Blumenfeld et al. (1991) state.

It can be said that the main characteristics of this instructional approach meet the

requirements to develop ICC. According to Kramsch (1993), ICC involves

multiple components, including intercultural sensitivity, knowledge of cultural

norms and practices, communication skills, empathy and adaptability. In today’s

globalised world, ICC is essential for meaningful communication, collaboration

and cooperation across cultures in various personal, professional and academic

contexts. Together with this, PBL promotes active learning, critical thinking,

creativity and the development of 21st-century skills such as communication,

collaboration and problem-solving.

PBL provides authentic contexts for students to engage in meaningful interactions

with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds (Helle et al. 2006). Projects

often require collaboration with peers from different cultures, which exposes

students to diverse perspectives and experiences, as in the pedagogical experience

shown in this article. In addition, PBL promotes cultural awareness by

encouraging students to explore and understand the cultural dimensions of the

topics or issues they are investigating (Thomas and Peterson 2014). This process

fosters an appreciation for cultural diversity and helps students recognise their

own cultural biases and assumptions.

Moreover, PBL enhances students’ communication skills by requiring them to

transmit their ideas, perspectives and findings to diverse audiences (Byram 1997).

Through collaboration and interaction with peers from different cultures,

students develop cross-cultural communication competencies, including empathy,

active listening and intercultural sensitivity. Furthermore, this methodology

challenges students to solve complex problems or address real-world issues that

may have cultural implications. By working collaboratively with peers from

diverse cultural backgrounds, as reflected in the picturebook through the topic

of identity, students learn to navigate cultural differences, negotiate meaning and

develop innovative solutions that are sensitive to cultural contexts.

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3. Method

3.1. Participants

The pedagogical experience was devised for a total of 44 primary-school participants

in the 5th (n=21) and 6th grade (n=23) in a public bilingual school located in

central Madrid. The general English level of the students ranges from A2-B1.

Regarding the origin of the students’ families (see Table 1), in half of the families

(50%) both parents are Spanish, which suggests a significant representation of

local or native Spanish-speaking families. In nearly one-third of the families

(27.3%), both parents originate from a country other than Spain, which

highlights a substantial level of cultural diversity within the classroom. Moreover,

nearly one-fifth of the families (18.2%) were composed of only one parent from

a country outside Spain, which adds another layer of diversity, bringing in

different cultural perspectives and backgrounds. In one of the two single-parent

families in the class, one had a parent from Spain and the other single parent was

from elsewhere.

(n=44) (%)

Both parents of Spanish origin 22 50

One parent from a country other than Spain 8 18.2

Both parents from a country other than Spain 12 27.3

Single-parent family in which the parent is from Spain 1 2.3

Single-parent family in which the parent is from a country other than Spain 1 2.3

Table 1. Students’ family origins

As can be seen in Table 2, in 61.4% of the families both parents’ mother tongue

is Spanish, which suggests a prevalent linguistic similarity among a significant

portion of the students’ families. About one-fifth of the families (20.9%) have at

least one parent with a mother tongue other than Spanish (i.e., Swedish, French,

Korean, English, Arabic) and a smaller percentage of families (14%) have both

parents with a mother tongue different from Spanish (Guaraní, Russian,

Romanian, Quechua), indicating a subset of students with a potentially richer

linguistic environment.

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(n=47) (%)

Both parents’ mother tongue is Spanish 27 61.4

One parent whose mother tongue is other than Spanish 9 20.5

Both parents’ mother tongue is other than Spanish 6 13.6

Single-parent family in which the parent’s mother tongue is Spanish 2 4.5

Table 2. Family’s mother tongue

It can be concluded that while Spanish remains the dominant language among

families, learners are exposed to different languages and cultures. This enhances

their linguistic and cultural awareness, but also shows the need to foster the

learners’ intercultural competence.

3.2. Creative Process

The aim of this pedagogical experience was to promote democratic values in the

students. Thus, we searched for an action-oriented approach (Piccardo and North

2019), promoting learning through realistic scenarios that lead up to a final

collaborative task. We also sought to achieve a number of objectives established in

the official curriculum for English in the third cycle of primary education, particularly

those regarding reception, production, interaction and mediation in the English

language as well as the development of the different Key Competences established in

the LOMLOE (Ley Orgánica 3/2020, 2020) and the Key Competences for Lifelong

Learning identified by the European Commission, Directorate-General for

Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (2019). In order to achieve these goals the

following methodologies (see Figure 1) were introduced in the classroom.

The transformative pedagogical approach of PBL was introduced through the

driving question, “Can you write a recipe in English that is special to you and

your family and share it with us?” This question aimed to encourage authenticity

and real-world learning, one of the core tenets of PBL. Thus, the pedagogical

experience intended to mirror a genuine challenge or problem present in the

Figure 1. Methodologies used in the pedagogical experience

Project-Based Learning

Reading aloud

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world whose authenticity not only engaged students by tapping into their intrinsic

motivation (Thomas 2000), but also ensured that the learning was applicable

beyond the classroom walls. Inquiry and investigation —two other characteristics

of PBL— were put into practice since students were encouraged to investigate a

recipe that was special for their family. In addition, the families were involved in

the process. Moreover, collaboration, or positive interdependence for the final

product, was present, as the collective success of the group depended on the

individual work of each student. Furthermore, students’ autonomy and decision-

making was fostered in this pedagogical experience as students could choose the

recipe that they wanted to write, and they had to make their own decisions about

their texts and illustrations. On top of this, the final product was a recipe book

that could be shared with their families, teachers and peers, adding authenticity

and accountability to the project.

Finally, the reading aloud technique (Ellis and Mourao 2021) was implemented

through mediation, which consists of selecting the picturebook according to the

students’ level, age, needs and interests, accompanied by scaffolded activities and

guidance through the various meanings that a multilayered picturebook may

offer. One of the main challenges EFL/ESL teachers face is using language

attached to a real and authentic context in a way that is engaging within a

multicultural setting. In this regard, the picturebook Fry Bread: A Native

American Family Story becomes an object of discovery due to its multilayered

text, which leads to multiple interpretations from the narrator’s and other

characters’ voices. Furthermore, from the reader’s perspective, the story opens up

necessary dialogue between two cultures that are so isolated from each other, the

Western and the Native American. The readers also become active learners when

they read about the 573 recognised tribes depicted in the endpapers, as well as

traditional Seminole pottery, basketry and dolls.

Kevin Noble Maillard is the author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family

Story. He belongs to the Mekusukey Seminole tribe, and by sharing ‘fry bread’, a

post-colonial recipe, he seeks to promote unity among all nations. The universal

topic of food and the call to readers to join in this feast with a racially diverse set

of characters not only foster intercultural understanding, but also help the reader

to challenge certain misconceptions, such as the belief that Native Americans

have red skin, wear feathers or ride horses. Consequently, this is more than a

book about food; it is a story of displacement, starvation and the struggle to

survive, subtly alluding to the historical event of The Long Walk, when between

1863 and 1864 hundreds of Navajo were forced to march 400 miles from Arizona

to eastern New Mexico and had to subsist entirely on rations of flour, salt and

water, that is, the ingredients to prepare fry bread.Summing up, this picturebook

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offers insights into other cultures that can be very beneficial to develop cognitive

and attitudinal skills for real-life experiences. In the following table we can see

the different stages of the reading aloud process.

Mediating a picturebook read-aloud

Stage 1: Before Stage 2: During Stage 3: After

Selection and preparation Use of expressive techniques:

— Body, eyes and voice

— Reading aloud

— Read-aloud talk

Follow-up and reflection

Table 3. Picturebook reading aloud structure (Retrieved from Ellis and Mourao (2021))

3.3. Sessions

Certain that Fry Bread could be a good trigger for promoting interculturality in

the classroom, a pedagogical intervention was designed, consisting of seven

sessions that followed the reading aloud structure, as can be seen in Table 4. In

the next section the activities carried out in each session will be explained

thoroughly, as the stages of the learning process are of utmost importance to

truly support intercultural competence.

Pre-reading aloud stage

Session 1: What is

fry bread?

Activity 1. See, think,

wonder. Activity 2. Where is

this bread from? Activity 3. Peritextual

features.

Reading aloud stage

Session 2: Close

reading of Fry

Bread.

Activity 1. Reading aloud

Fry Bread. Activity 2. Going

deeper into Fry

Bread.

Activity 3. Not this,

but that.

Post-reading aloud stage

Session 3: What makes this

recipe so special?

Activity 1. Speaking circles. Activity 2. Writing your

reasons.

Session 4: Recipe time! Activity 1. Reading Kevin’s

Fry Bread recipe. Activity 2. Specific content-

based language teaching.

Session 5: Can you write

your own recipe?

Activity 1. Writing my recipe. Activity 2. Typing up my

recipe.

Session 6: Talking

through pictures.

Activity 1. Analysing the

illustrations of Fry Bread. Activity 2. If I were

the illustrator… Activity 3: Let’s

draw!

Session 7:

Composing our

hymn.

Activity 1: Final reading

aloud of Fry Bread. Activity 2:

Rewriting Fry

Bread.

Activity 3. Reading

the new poem

together.

Table 4. Reading aloud sessions during the pedagogical experience

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3.3.1. Pre-reading Aloud Stage

At this point, the main aim was to spark students’ interest in the picturebook as

well as to support ICC by bringing the Native American culture to a European

context. As an ice-breaker activity, the teacher showed the students the front

page of the book and asked questions to help draw their focus to the title and

the illustration. They wrote a list of what they could see, what they thought of the

illustration on the front page, and what they would like to know about the book.

This routine encouraged students to make careful observations and thoughtful

interpretations and stimulated their curiosity, setting the stage for inquiry.

During the second activity, and in order to deepen their understanding of cultural

similarities and differences around the world, they were prompted to predict

where bread came from, guessing its name and origin. For example, pita bread is

from Syria or Greece, pretzels are from Germany, etc.

To conclude the pre-reading stage, the teacher showed students other peritextual

elements of the picturebook, such as the title page, the front and back covers, the

dedication page, the endpapers and awards. In this fashion, the picturebook was

presented as an aesthetic object, highlighting the importance of the illustrations.

Here are some examples of questions to be posed:

• “What do you think they are eating?”

• “Do you think these characters know each other?”

• “Why is the chosen food bread?”

• “What do you think fry bread symbolises?”

• “Can you think of important moments in your life where bread is present?”

• “What is the medal on the front cover?”

• “The book is dedicated to J.M.-N. and to K.N.M., who do you think they

are?”

3.3.2. Reading Aloud Stage

During the reading aloud stage, the teacher-narrator helped students to engage

more actively with the story through the use of rhythm, intonation, volume, body

language, gestures, etc. and by asking questions that helped the listeners to fill

the information gaps between the images and the text. This was accompanied by

some questions that helped students to understand the deeper layers of the story

and to develop into active and critical readers, such as

• “What do you think the mother is doing in this image?”

• “How do you think the characters are feeling in this image?”

• “Why are all the children looking at the grandmother telling a story?”

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In order to focus on words and their meaning, the following activity (“Not this,

but that”) consisted of retelling the story, but changing some words which

students had to identify. For example, the teacher said, “Fry bread is food. Flour,

salt, coke, …” The students had to stop the teacher and say: “Not coke, but water”.

3.3.3. Post-reading Aloud Stage

To begin with the post-reading aloud stage, the students were required to bring

a recipe that was special and meaningful for them or their family. During the first

activity, the students had to form two big concentric circles so that each student

had another student facing them. Then, the teacher projected a question on the

interactive whiteboard, and students were encouraged to share their answers.

Later, the teacher asked them to move clockwise and repeat this exchange of

experiences with a different pair and a different question. This activity helped

them to connect with the deep meaning of the recipe for their family and to learn

about recipes from other cultural backgrounds, fostering intercultural exchanges.

These were some of the proposed questions:

• “Which recipe did you choose?”

• “Who taught you this recipe?”

• “Who usually cooks it at home?”

• “Why is that person special to you?”

• “Where does this recipe come from?”

• “How is your family related to that place?”

• “When do you usually eat this dish?”

• “Why is this recipe so important for your family?”

The students were each expected to share their recipe, which is something personal,

authentic and intimate and something to be proud of. These speaking circles

created the necessary space for children to get to know themselves better, to

interpret and compare their culture and traditions to those of others, to exhibit

curiosity and openness and value the attitudes and beliefs of others, elements that

Byram (2008) identifies as necessary for the development of intercultural

competence. After sharing their ideas with their peers orally, the students had the

opportunity to write them down on paper, which were later used for the final

project. Some examples of this writing exercise appear in the results section below.

During the 4th and 5th sessions, the students wrote their special recipe. To model

this task, the teacher used the example of the fry bread recipe that the author,

Kevin Noble Maillard, shares in the author’s notes of the picturebook, where the

author explains that it is actually a recipe passed down from his aunt Maggie. This

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provided a real, contextualised recipe that helped students to learn about text

formats, parts of a recipe (ingredients, instructions), verb tenses, specific

vocabulary, quantities and the like.The students had previously received scaffolded

instruction on key words related to cooking (i.e., verbs, kitchen utensils, the most

commonly used ingredients) through images. At the same time, they were given a

recipe template that was divided into sections for ingredients and steps and were

taught how to explain the different steps using connectors.

Subsequently, each student had the chance to write down the special recipe that

was typical of their family. At this moment, the teacher’s role was to provide one-

to-one support to students when required. To finish this phase, the students had

to type out their recipe, explaining why it was special for them, and upload it to

a digital platform (Teams). The pedagogical aim behind this task was to foster

digital competence through the use of learning technologies in a confident,

critical and responsible way.

To promote the use of English and enhance the students’ creativity, during the 6th

session the teacher proposed that students create an illustration to accompany each

recipe. Before starting to think about their illustrations, the teacher helped them

analyse the illustrations of Fry Bread by Juana Martínez Neal, pointing out aspects

such as the colours used, the use of different sizes, the expression of each character

and the perspective chosen for some of the illustrations (Serafini and Reid 2022).

To lead the students to a decision-making process, the teacher asked them to

imagine the illustration they wanted to accompany their recipe, recalling that the

picturebook is also a piece of art. To help them with this process, the teacher

asked them to close their eyes and answer these questions in their minds:

• “Who appears in your illustration?”

• “What is the setting of your illustration?”

• “What details do you want to show in the illustration?”

• “What colours will you use?”

• “Which perspective do you want to choose: long shot, full shot, medium

shot or close-up?”

In the last part of this session, the students were provided with different materials

to use in their illustrations. This created a beautiful atmosphere of concentration

and work, and the results showed a deeper understanding of the picturebook and

what the students wanted to transmit with their illustration.

In the last session, the students were asked to rewrite the poem entitled Fry Bread

with the purpose of summarising the story and also celebrating the product

created, the recipe book. For this activity, the students formed pairs. Each pair

was inspired by one of the 12 headings that compose the picturebook. Then, they

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had to invent four new verses. At the end of the session, we put all the verses of

the poem together and the students read the new poem aloud, transforming it

into a hymn as seen in the Appendix.

4. Results

4.1. Data Analysis Procedure

The data collection process began by gathering information about students’

family origins and their corresponding native languages. The second step

consisted of collecting anonymised student recipes, which were coded as initial S

followed by the number of the recipe as it appeared in the book.

Firstly, the association of two variables was studied: the students’ multicultural

background and the origin of their recipes. The percentage of students who chose

a recipe related to their cultural background was calculated. Then, we calculated

the percentage of students with a multicultural background who had selected a

recipe associated with their family’s origin. In addition, we determined the

percentage of different relatives who acted as keepers of the recipe, the people

who cooked this recipe in the family and passed it down through generations.

The recipes were analysed thematically, and the most recurring themes were as

follows: 1) Family time, 2) Tradition, 3) Wish to carry on the tradition, 4) Identity,

5) Special occasions and 6) Any occasion. This analysis was based on the words and

expressions that appeared in the recipe book, as seen in Table 5.

Topics in the recipes Codes

1. Family time

Spending time together, good memories, all together, at home

together, everyone has their part, expressions of love toward their

relatives.

2. Tradition Passed from, remember, passed it on to me, continue, generation to

generation, heritage, connection to their roots.

3. Wish to carry

on the tradition

Would like for them to learn the recipe, would show it to them when

they are born.

4. Identity

Same country as my dad, belongs to that country, related to my

family, comes from my family’s place of birth, from here, sense of

pride and connection to the cultural and culinary aspects of their

home country and their love for it.

5. Special occasions Birthday, Holy Week, Christmas, Thanksgiving.

6. Any occasion Not on any special occasion, any moment, on any day, once a week,

once every two weeks.

Table 5. Most common topics when analysing the recipes

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Lastly, the recipes were analysed following Byram’s ICC model and the descriptors

of democratic citizenship appearing in the Reference Framework of Competence

of the Council of Europe (Council of Europe 2013).

4.2. Recipe Book Analysis

This section analyses the connection between the selected recipes and the students’

multicultural background. Simultaneously, the topics that make those recipes so

special will be examined as well as the role of the keeper of the recipes within their

families, as inspired by the author Kevin Noble Maillard, who was “the fry bread

lady” in his family. The most frequently mentioned topic was Family time followed

by Tradition and Identity.

A substantial majority of students (70.5%) indicated that the source of the recipe

was related to the origin of their family, as compared with 29.5% whose recipe is

not related to their family background On the one hand, this high percentage

reinforces the idea that there is a strong connection between cultural identity

and the food they choose. It suggests that students are consciously or

unconsciously drawing on their cultural backgrounds when engaging with the

topic of food. On the other hand, the percentage of students who chose a recipe

not related to their cultural background confirms the presence of intercultural

competence in the classroom, since for a significant minority, other factors such

as personal preferences or positive experiences with other countries and cultures

play a more prominent role in their choice of recipes.

In addition, 85.7% of students with a multicultural background presented

recipes from the countries associated with their family’s background whereas a

small subgroup of students with a multicultural background (14.3%) did not

show recipes from the countries associated with their family’s background. The

substantial majority of students with a multicultural background sharing recipes

from their family’s countries indicates a positive alignment between the student’s

cultural heritage and the content of their recipes. This outcome supports the

idea that the pedagogical intervention might have encouraged students to

express and share aspects of their multicultural background through their

choice of recipe. It can be highlighted that a minority of students with diverse

cultural backgrounds also chose to include recipes that are part of the Spanish

culinary tradition.

Another important area to be analysed concerns the reasons the students gave

when explaining why their recipe was special to them (Figure 2).

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Figure 2. Most commonly mentioned topics in the recipe book

The most frequently mentioned topic is Family time. It was mentioned by 35 out

of 44 of the students (79.54%). This suggests that Family time is a central theme,

encompassing various aspects of connection, union and shared experiences, as in

Fry Bread.

Statements referring to the topic Family Time

1. “It is a way to spend time with my father” (Arepas by S1).

2. “I have good memories with this recipe as we spend our weekend enjoying the dish

together” (Mixed rice by S4).

3. “But what really matters are not the days that we eat it. The important part is the time in

family” (Pasta Bolognesa by S6).

4. “I have good memories cooking this dish and eating it by the sea. It is delicious!” (Migas

by S10).

5. “This recipe is very special for me and my family, because it takes us all together around

one big table to prepare it, and everyone has their part to do from grandparents to

grandchildren, and we cook and talk and laugh, and then we eat all together” (Pelmeni

by S16).

6. “We usually bake it on weekends because on weekends we are all at home together”

(Lemon cake by S36).

Table 6. Statements referring to the topic Family Time in the recipe book

The next most notable theme is Tradition. Statements related to the topic of

tradition were written in 12 of the 44 recipes (27.27%). In addition, the Wish to

carry on with the tradition was expressed the same number of times (27.27%).

This theme reflects a strong sense of cultural continuity and the importance of

preserving family traditions.

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Statements referring to the topic of Tradition

1. “I love this recipe because it has passed from generations to my family. This recipe

reminds me of my grandparents” (Cookies by S42).

2. “My grandmother passed away, but I still can remember the pancakes” (Chocolate

pancakes by S38).

3. “The reason is that my grandmother taught my mother and my mother passed it to me

and I want to continue the tradition” (Chocolate kisses by S32).

4. “My dad taught me this recipe because it goes from generation to generation”

(Buñuelos by S28).

5. “It comes from my great grandmother and my great grandmother is special for me,

because she is very old and she is still living” (Turkey stew by S27).

Table 7. Statements referring to the topic of Tradition in the recipe book

Some students specifically expressed a desire to continue the culinary traditions

of their family and preserve the cultural heritage associated with their recipes.

Statements referring to the topic Wish to carry on the tradition

1. “I would like to explain this recipe to my kids but not only that, I will also explain that it

is a very important recipe for me and that it comes from our origin in Argentina”

(Argentinian corn pie by S2).

2. “If in the future I have kids, I would like for them to learn this recipe. I would explain that

it is important to us because we really liked Greece” (Greek salad by S13).

3. “If I had children, I would show it to them the first day they were born” (Crepes by S33).

Table 8. Statements referring to the topic Wish to carry on the tradition in the recipe book

Hereafter, the next most mentioned topic is the connection between the recipe

and Special occasions including family trips, celebrations (Christmas, New Year’s,

Thanksgiving, Holy Week, birthdays) because they are associated with memorable

moments they spend with their beloved ones. This category was mentioned by 23

of the 44 students (52.27%).

Statements referring to the topic Special occasions

1. “I usually cook this recipe at home for my birthday” (Three milk cake by S43).

2. “My family prepares it every Holy Week in Dominican Republic” (Sweet bean by S24).

3. “As I’m Jewish, I have to say that the turkey is not the most important thing of this day

(Thanksgiving), but a distraction” (Thanksgiving Turkey by S25).

4. “I eat it on Christmas night” (Seasoned carrots by S21).

Table 9. Statements referring to the topic Special occasions in the recipe book

Twenty-one students (47.72%) reflected upon their own identity as they mentioned

their love for their home country as a significant factor that makes their recipes

special. Though less frequently mentioned, some students specifically highlighted the

regional aspect of their recipes, connecting them to specific regions within Spain,

where their grandparents used to live. All these ideas have been labeled under Identity.

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Statements referring to the topic Identity

1. “My recipe comes from the same country as my dad: Venezuela. It connects me to my

Venezuelan roots” (Arepas by S1).

2. “My mother is from a different country called South Korea and this dish belongs to that

country. I get to enjoy authentic South Korean dishes at home” (Mixed rice by S4).

3. “Because when my family cooks it, we remember Morocco. This recipe is from Morocco.

My father is from Morocco and I usually visit this place with my family” (Cous cous by

S5).

4. “I have many good memories of this recipe related to my country, Ecuador, where I

grew up” (Salchipapa by S7).

5. “This recipe comes from my family’s place of birth: Extremadura” (Migas by S9).

6. “This recipe is special because it is my favorite food. This omelet is from here, from

Spain” (Tortilla de patata by S22).

Table 10. Statements referring to the topic Identity in the recipe book

A smaller but still notable theme is the idea that the recipe is special for Any

occasion (6). This suggests a versatility in the significance of the recipes, making

them suitable for various events and not tied to specific moments.

The diversity of topics mentioned by students indicates a rich tapestry of

experiences and feelings associated with the chosen recipes, highlighting the

multifaceted nature of the students’ connections to their recipes. These themes

align well with our pedagogical objectives of fostering intercultural competence

and showcasing the diverse cultural backgrounds of the students.

To conclude, this section refers to a topic which the picturebook author Kevin

Noble Maillard mentions at the end of Fry Bread, the one of the keepers of the

recipe. These findings are summarised in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Who is the keeper of the recipes?

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The data reflect a variety of family dynamics regarding the keepers of the recipes.

Mothers (45.5%) play a central role in preserving and passing down culinary

traditions within the family. Also, a notable percentage of students (20.5%)

mentioned that their fathers are the keepers of the recipe, which challenges

traditional gender roles in cooking and highlights the involvement of fathers in

the culinary aspects of family traditions. A considerable portion of students

(15.9%) mentioned their grandmothers as the keepers of the recipe (see Figure 2),

indicating the importance of the older generation in preserving family culinary

traditions. Some students (6.8%) noted that many relatives are involved in keeping

the recipe. This could suggest a collaborative effort or shared responsibility

within extended family networks. Nearly one-tenth of the students (9.1%) made

no reference to the keeper of the recipe. Finally, one student wrote about a

saleswoman in a creperie as the person who taught the recipe to him. This fact

exemplifies the idea that people from the neighborhood also enrich our collective

imagination.

4.3. Recipe Analysis from the Perspective of ICC

Through this section we will analyse to what extent creating recipes in English

has contributed to raising students’ intercultural awareness, following Byram’s

ICC model and focusing on the dimensions of knowledge (knowledge of self and

other), intercultural attitudes (exhibiting curiosity and openness) and discovery

and interaction (exploring cultures). We will also use the descriptors of the

Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, based on the four

dimensions of values, attitudes, skills and knowledge and critical understanding,

following the Council of Europe (2013), which states that “teaching and learning

practices and activities should follow and promote democratic and human rights

values and principles”. Through the creation of recipes, students became aware of

the multiple facets of their own culture, which allowed them to understand and

acknowledge the depth of others (Byram 2008).

Knowledge of self and the other and discovery and interaction are exemplified by

being aware of the difference between the countries and not being born or raised

in that culture and the willingness to explore other cultures. The following

statements are taken from the recipe book in English.

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Knowledge of self and others and Discovery and Interaction (Statements)

1. “This recipe comes from Greece. My family isn’t related to Greece” (S13).

2. “My recipe comes from the same country as my dad: Venezuela” (S1).

3. “This recipe is from Argentina and I am from Argentina” (S2).

4. “It is very important for the country because we love meat” (S20).

5. “This recipe is special because of my mother. She is from a different country called

South Korea and this dish belongs to that country” (S4).

6. “This recipe is from Morocco. My father is from Morocco” (S5).

7. “I have many good memories of this recipe related to my country, Ecuador, where I

grew up” (S7).

8. “Because it is very special in my country and my family prepares it every Holy Week in

the Dominican Republic” (S24).

9. “As I am Jewish, I have to say that the turkey is not the most important thing of this day,

but a distraction” (S25).

10. “This recipe comes from Romania because my family is from there” (S15).

11. “This recipe is special for me because it reminds me of my home country (Argentina)”

(S20).

12. “We are related to this place because we love Italian food” (S26).

Table 11. Statements related to knowledge of self and others and discovery and interaction from

the recipe book

The dimension of attitude is reflected through the openness and curiosity toward

other cultures and also the willingness to transmit this knowledge to the coming

generations.

Attitude (statements)

1. “If I have a kid I will share a recipe with them because to Romanian people and my

family this recipe is very important as a tradition” (S15).

2. “My family isn’t related to Greece. I would like to learn this recipe” (S13).

3. “This dish is also wonderful because you celebrate this day with other people, with

different religions and nationalities” (S25).

Table 12. Statements regarding attitude in the recipe book

The illustrations that accompany the recipe also display certain cultural elements

such as a Christmas tree (Figure 4) and a view of the great mosque of Casablanca

(Figure 5). Taking into account that the main topic is food, some traditional

ingredients that are less commonplace in Spain appear in some illustrations,

including sesame oil for the recipefor bibimbap (Figure 6) or Greek yogurt to

prepare tzatziki. Most illustrations display a traditional Western table with typical

cutlery (spoon, fork and knife) although most tables are rounded, likely influenced

by the illustrations that appear in the picturebook.

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Figure 4. Student’s illustration of roast chicken

Figure 5. Student’s illustration of couscous

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During this particular pedagogical experience, the teachers had a high impact on

students’ motivation by promoting self-confidence, openness to discussions and

critical thinking to help learners become more active citizens. This is also

interpreted through the 166 validated descriptors involving children below the

age of ten from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic

Culture (Council of Europe 2013), as mentioned above. In the dimension of

attitude, understood as openness to cultural otherness and other beliefs,

worldviews and practices, number 21 reflects the interest in learning about

people’s beliefs, values, traditions and worldviews through discovery and

interaction. The first step was to deconstruct stereotypes toward Native Americans

through the picturebook and the recipes become the object of discovery that

raises students’ interest toward other cultures (Korean, Romanian, Russian,

Ecuadoran, etc.) The dimension of attitude through civic mindedness is clearly

reflected in descriptor 33 through the expression of willingness to volunteer to

help people in the community. This can be seen when the children are very proud

of having these origins and really want to teach the future generations these

recipes, to preserve the tradition. Being active citizens is represented in descriptor

34 when the students participated in decision-making processes regarding the

affairs, concerns and common good of the community (in most cases helping

their mothers or grandmothers to prepare the recipe). To conclude, in the

dimension regarding knowledge and critical understanding, and more specifically

about how they understand the world, descriptor 159 refers to the ability to

describe basic cultural practices, in this case eating habits in one culture. This is

clearly reflected in the fact that it is the central topic of the project.

Figure 6. Student’s illustration of bibimbap

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5. Conclusions

During the intervention described here, students approached the Native American

culture through an authentic and current resource that allowed them to identify

with them and dispel stereotypes about these minorities. In creating recipes,

students were able to develop intercultural competence, specifically the knowledge

dimension, exemplified by the awareness of the differences between countries, as

well as discovering and interacting with other cultures. The multicultural reality

of the classroom is implicitly reflected in the recipes, since one-third of the families

come from countries other than Spain (Romania, Peru, Greece, USA, Morocco,

Dominican Republic, Argentina). In turn, some of the illustrations accompanying

the recipes refer to cultural elements such as a mosque or the Thanksgiving feast

or to unusual ingredients in Spain such as sesame oil. The attitudinal dimension

has also been represented through openness and curiosity toward other cultures

and the importance of passing on this tradition to future generations, as the theme

of tradition and the desire to pass traditions on is the second most recurring

theme after time spent with family. As in the picture book, women are central

figures as the caretakers of the recipes within the same family, as reflected in the

recipe book, where 45.5% of mothers are in charge of preserving the tradition.

According to the Reference Framework of Competencies for Democracy (Council

of Europe 2013), the students reflected an interest in other ways of thinking,

values, traditions and worldviews by taking an interest in the recipes made by

their peers. In some testimonies transcribed in the recipe analysis section, we can

see how the students are proud of their origins and feel responsible for transmitting

customs to the coming generations, as in the picture book. In turn, the need to

make decisions during the process, such as which recipe to choose in the first

place, as well as explaining why it is special to them, fosters student agency,

requiring them to seek the common good for the community, in this case helping

their mothers or grandmothers to prepare the recipe.

With respect to limitations, since the Native American culture depicted in the

storybook is so far removed from our own, it was essential to read the author’s

notes to learn more about the customs, food and history of the indigenous

peoples, as well as to interpret some of the symbols that appear in the illustrations.

In addition, it was the first time the students had written a recipe, making it

necessary to teach them the format, structures and vocabulary of the genre. The

students required teacher guidance in this process as well as for transcribing the

recipe in electronic format.

In general, it can be concluded that the selection of a quality picturebook

accompanied by guided and scaffolded activities guarantees more experiential

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and deeper learning that at the same time may turn the student into an agent of

change for society by being more aware of a multicultural world and showing a

greater openness to other realities different from their own, while improving

their linguistic competence.

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Appendix

THESE RECIPES ARE FOOD

Because they are delicious

Because they have nutrients

Because they have different ingredients

Because you can eat them

THESE RECIPES ARE SHAPE

Because they have many different shapes

They can be circles, squares, triangles

They can be flat, soft or large

THESE RECIPES ARE SOUND

The sound of the sugar

slowly falling in a bowl.

The sound of the flour

quickly mixing.

THESE RECIPES ARE COLOR

Red, yellow, green, blue and many other colors.

They have different colors and that’s fun

Because you are more excited

and enjoy more this experience.

THESE RECIPES ARE FLAVOR

Because they are made of ingredients.

There are a lot of types of flavors

in these recipes:

salty, sweet, sour, hot, …

THESE RECIPES ARE TIME

Because when you prepare them,

you are with your family.

Because they come from the past

and they will be in the future.

THESE RECIPES ARE ART

Art is passion

Passion is fun

When you have fun, you have everything

inside and outside.

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THESE RECIPES ARE HISTORY

They come from the past

They have stories inside

They are and they will be memories

They are our history

THESE RECIPES ARE PLACE

In the kitchen of my house.

In my grandma’s house

In my aunt’s restaurant

In a shop

THESE RECIPES ARE NATION

Because they are made in different nations

They transport us to those nations

Because is Peru, is Spain, Paraguay, Ecuador,

Korea, Venezuela, Extremadura, …

THESE RECIPES ARE EVERYTHING

The recipes feed you and make you have

a lot of fun with your family and friends.

These special moments are beautiful

when you think about them.

THESE RECIPES ARE US

THESE RECIPES ARE FOR YOU

Received: 20/01/2024

Accepted: 09/07/2024

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 43-66 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the compositional argument selection process

represented by different syntactic alternations within the specialised domain of

cooking, thus contributing to the characterisation of this specialised discourse.

The syntactic alternations studied include canonical actives, passives, causative/

inchoative alternations, middles and Instrument-subject alternations. These

constructions allow the incorporation of cooking verbs (Levin 1993) and denote

divergent argument structure realisations. As indicated here through

compositional analysis, the constructions contain distinctive N+V qualia pairs. As

in Pustejovsky (1991, 1995), this paper follows a lexico-semantic approach and

applies a corpus-based methodology to examine and compare over 8,300

contextualised examples from two corpora (a specialised corpus on cooking and

a general corpus) using the Sketch Engine corpus tool. The results show that the

syntactic alternations examined follow related but distinctive underlying patterns

in semantic composition, and thus are construed with N+V qualia pairs that

characterise the specialised discourse of cooking.

Keywords: argument selection, compositional analysis, syntactic alternations,

discourse of cooking, qualia pairs.

MACARENA PALMA GUTIÉRREZ

Universidad de Córdoba

l82pagum@uco.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0558-9358>

COMPOSITIONAL ARGUMENT SELECTION IN N+V

QUALIA PAIRS WITHIN THE DISCOURSE

OF COOKING: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

SELECCIÓN ARGUMENTAL COMPOSICIONAL

EN PARES DE QUALIA N+V EN EL DISCURSO

DE LA COCINA: UN ESTUDIO BASADO EN CORPUS

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510185

Macarena Palma Gutiérrez

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 43-66 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

Resumen

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el proceso de selección argumental

composicional representado por diferentes alternancias sintácticas en el ámbito

especializado de la cocina y, de este modo, contribuir a la caracterización de este

discurso especializado. Las alternancias sintácticas objeto de estudio son las activas

canónicas, las pasivas, las alternancias causativo/incoativo, las medias, y las

alternancias de sujeto instrumento. Estas construcciones permiten la incorporación

de verbos de cocinar (Levin 1993) y denotan realizaciones divergentes de la

estructura argumental y, en consecuencia, como se atestigua aquí, contienen pares

de qualia N+V distintivos en el análisis composicional. En línea con Pustejovsky

(1991, 1995), este trabajo sigue un enfoque léxico-semántico y una metodología

basada en corpus para analizar y comparar 8300+ ejemplos contextualizados de

dos corpus (un corpus especializado de cocina y un corpus genérico) mediante el

uso del software Sketch Engine. Los resultados muestran que las alternancias

sintácticas examinadas siguen patrones subyacentes relacionados pero distintivos

en la composición semántica y, por lo tanto, se interpretan con pares de qualia N+V

que caracterizan el discurso especializado de cocina.

Palabras clave: selección argumental, análisis composicional, alternancias

sintácticas, discurso de la cocina, pares de qualia.

1. Introduction

The language of cooking has been widely explored from a linguistic perspective

(e.g. Lévi-Strauss 1966; Lehrer 1969, 1972; Newman 1975; Bator 2014). This

paper contributes to the characterisation of this specialised domain by contrasting

data from two corpora: a specialised corpus of cooking and a general corpus of

English. Particularly, it focuses on the usage of N+V configurations and the most

productive syntactic patterns typically found in this specialised domain,

contrasting these patterns with those from the general corpus.

Scholars like Casademont (2014) and Durán and L’Homme (2020: 37) consider

verbs as ‘conveyances of knowledge’ that help characterise specialised discourse

because they specify information about argument structure in their corresponding

cultural domains. Unlike purely verb- or noun-centred approaches to

compositionality (Sager 1990; Hale and Keyser 2002), this study follows

Pustejovsky’s (1991, 1995) ideas, thus advocating a lexico-semantic approach

that spreads the semantic load across all the constituents of the utterance. Nouns

and verbs are both considered specialised units of language in specific domains

and as such contribute to the syntactic and lexico-semantic characterisation of a

specialised discourse.

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This study identifies typically-occurring N+V combinations in the discourse

of cooking as qualia pairs, that is, as linguistic elements that are paired

depending on the information predicated by a given verb about the meaning

of a particular noun. This linguistic connection, in fact, is triggered by our

basic knowledge about the nominal entity in question and our conceptualisation

of it in terms of its more inherent features, known as qualia roles (Pustejovsky

1991, 1995). A N+V qualia pair is “a combination in which the predicate

expresses one of the qualia values of the noun (like picture-paint, book-read, or

house-build)” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 13). The qualia relational structure

thus involves those lexico-semantic, syntactic and conceptual constraints that

are “based on the idea that there is a system of relations that characterises the

semantics of nominals” and “serves to specify the reading of a verb” (Yoshimura

1998: 115).

The hypothesis of this study is that there exists a correlation between the most

productive N+V qualia pairs and the most typically-occurring syntactic structures

in a given specialised domain, in contrast to those (qualia pairs and syntactic

structures) found in a general corpus. Therefore, there should be a correspondence

between the lexico-semantic and the syntactic features that characterise the

specialised discourse of cooking. For example, if corpus data confirms the N+V

qualia pair chef _cook as significantly productive, then it would follow that a

syntactic canonical transitive structure with an agentive subject and a patientive

object could be frequently found in this specialised discourse, thus revealing a

given pattern of qualia structure that specifies the meaning of the noun in relation

to the semantics of the verb.

This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents the analytical tools used

(namely, syntactic alternations with cooking verbs and notions of qualia and co-

specification phenomena). Section 3 describes the methodology employed.

Section 4 presents the main findings and a discussion of the results. Finally,

Section 5 offers some closing remarks.

2. Tools for Analysis

In this paper I examine the interaction between the lexico-semantic and syntactic

features that characterise the discourse of cooking. I analyse the frequency of

occurrence of different grammatical patterns and the most productive N+V qualia

pairs. To do so, Subsection 2.1 explores the different syntactic alternations that

appear with cooking verbs, and Subsection 2.2 examines the main principles of

qualia structure and co-specification phenomena.

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2.1. Syntactic Alternations with Cooking Verbs

Placing a particular nominal entity in subject position is anything but random,

since doing so requires a process of lexico-semantic and discourse-pragmatic

profiling. As stated in Palma Gutiérrez, “profiling is related to the specific

portrayal of the foregrounded domain of a given linguistic expression as the focus

of attention in discourse” (2024: 139). Depending on the profiling/defocusing

phenomena involved in each case, distinct portions of the action chain and

argument structure realisations are represented. This leads to the configuration

of different syntactic patterns where diverse energetic interactions occur among

the participants, that is, Agent, Patient and Instrument (Langacker 2013).

According to Levin’s (1993) typology, cooking verbs are classified by the distinct

methods or techniques of cooking they describe, such as baking, frying or

boiling. Their prominence and frequent use in the specialised discourse of

cooking reflects the centrality of these actions to this domain (cf. Levin 1993:

244). Following Levin’s classification, these verbs participate in the syntactic

patterns illustrated in Examples 1-5:1

(1) Jennifer baked the potatoes (with her new oven).

(2) The potatoes were baked (by the chef).

(3) The potatoes baked.

(4) Idaho potatoes bake beautifully.

(5) This oven bakes potatoes well. (Adapted from Levin 1993: 243-244)

The basic/canonical active form in Example 1 follows the SVO syntactic pattern:

it contains a +Animate agentive subject (Jennifer) which is profiled syntactically

and a -Animate patientive object (the potatoes), which is defocused. It also contains

an oblique Instrument. Therefore, the flow of energy within the canonical action

chain follows the sequence Agent-Patient(-Instrument). Traditionally, the

transitive active clause is considered the most basic/unmarked syntactic pattern.

As found in corpus studies by Givón, the assumption of the higher productivity

of transitive actives “is associated, among other things, with the predication that

the unmarked member of a binary distinction […] is more frequent in text”

(1993: 52). Additionally, as Stockwell claims, “a prototypical subject acts as both

topic and agent, and alternative clause-patterns represent a deviation away from

this norm” (2002: 35). Accordingly, syntactic patterns with a different argument

structure alignment, such as those illustrated in Examples 2-5, are considered

syntactic alternations to the canonical pattern, as detailed below.

The passive construction in Example 2 portrays the same situation as the canonical

pattern, but with the order of arguments reversed. It profiles a ±Animate Patient

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(the potatoes), and, when specified, the Agent occupies a defocused oblique object

position, introduced by a by-phrase (the chef). The causative/inchoative alternation

in Example 3 occurs with verbs of change of state/position to describe an eventive

situation (Levin 1993: 30). It follows the SV syntactic pattern since it only profiles

a -Animate patientive subject (the potatoes) and no Agent is coded. The middle

alternation in Example 4 follows the SVA syntactic pattern: it only profiles a

-Animate patientive subject (Idaho potatoes). It describes a potential/facilitative

(not an eventive) situation emphasised by the adverbial beautifully (26). Both

causatives/inchoatives and middles are intransitive counterparts of the basic/

canonical active form. In turn, the Instrument-subject alternation in Example 5 is

a transitive structure that follows the SVO syntactic pattern. However, it profiles

the oblique participant this oven (with an instrumental, not agentive, role) and a

patientive argument in object position (potatoes) (80). Here, the Instrument can

be understood as a metonymic extension of the Agent, paraphrased by the sequence

Agent-Patient-Instrument in Jennifer baked the potatoes with her new oven.

Following Pustejovsky’s ideas, patientive participants are classified by their

belonging to a natural or an artifactual kind (2001: 8; 2006: 54). The former are

described as naturally-occurring entities (e.g. water), whereas the latter are described

as artifacts, that is, objects created for a particular purpose (e.g. sandwich). Contrary

to artifactual objects, naturally-occurring entities lack an agentive value and denote

nominals that have not been created out of any intentional behaviour.

Table 1 summarises the features of the syntactic alternations examined in this paper

regarding the syntactic and semantic arrangement of their argument structures:

Canonical

actives

Passive

alternations

Causative/

inchoative

alternations

Middle

alternations

Instrument-

subject

alternations

Grammatical

roles at the

syntactic level

Subject and

Object

Subject (and

Oblique

Object) Subject Subject Subject and

Object

Subject’s

semantic role

(Profiled entity)

Agent Patient Patient Patient Instrument

Object’s

semantic role

(Defocused

entity)

Patient Agent X X Patient

±Animate

subject +Animate ±Animate -Animate -Animate -Animate

Table 1. Syntactic and semantic features of the alternations under examination

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2.2. Qualia Structure and the Process of Co-specification

The theory of qualia structure (Pustejovsky 1991, 1995) establishes a mechanism

to represent lexical meaning based on a system of four dimensions of meaning,

called qualia, whose main function is to “capture different properties of objects,

as they are represented in language” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 3).

A single quale indicates a particular aspect of a word’s meaning through the

relationship between the concept expressed by the word and another concept

evoked by it. Qualia roles rely on the conceptual relations that a word may activate.

The four basic qualia roles are as follows:

• Formal qualia (Qf) encode taxonomic information about a lexical item

(type-of relations), and they answer these questions: ‘What type of thing is

this?’ and ‘What is its nature?’

• Constitutive qualia (Qc) focus on partonomic information about the

constituent parts/material of an object (part-of/made-of relations), and

they address these questions: ‘What are its constituent parts?’ and ‘What is

it made of?’

• Telic qualia (Qt) capture information about the purpose/function of an

entity (used-for/functions-as relations), and they answer these questions:

‘What is its purpose?’ and ‘How does it function?’

• Agentive qualia (Qa) refer to information about the origin of an object

(created-by relations), and they address these questions: ‘How did it come

into being?’ and ‘What brought it about?’

Figure 1 illustrates the qualia structure of the lexical item house in terms of its

qualia roles:

Figure 1. Representation of the qualia structure of the lexical item house (adapted from

Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 8-9)

Even though this view of lexical meaning is basically decompositional,2 this

model also examines compositionality, that is, “how a word meaning may or may

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not compose with other meanings, and how it changes in the different contexts”

(Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 5). Consider the contextual modulation of word

meaning in Examples 6a- 6d below, paying special attention to how different

qualia roles are activated in the contexts provided:

(6) a. They have a three-story house.

b. Never forget to lock your house when you leave.

c. My cousin lives in a comfortable house.

d. It took four years to finish the house.

In 6a the lexical item house refers to a type of physical object, a building, thus

relying on a Qf relation between house and three-story. In 6b, the term house

metonymically evokes its most salient part (the door lock) in a Qc relation with the

predicate lock. In 6c the most salient feature of the house that is conceptually

activated in this context is its inhabitability and comfortability, that is, its function

(Qt). Finally, the conceptual relation between house and finish in 6d profiles a Qa

relation based on its process of creation/construction. Therefore, the meaning of

a lexical item adapts to the semantics of the elements surrounding it in a particular

context, thus profiling or activating the most salient features (qualia roles) evoked

in each case.

From this notion of contextual modulation of word meaning, it follows that

different elements in a grammatical construction can be paired in discourse in

accordance with their qualia structure to specify their meaning. In this study, I

concentrate on the relationship between nouns and verbs forming qualia pairs in

the specialised discourse of cooking.3 As proposed in Pustejovsky and Jezek, an

N+V qualia pair is a combination in which the verb promotes one of the qualia

values of the noun, as in book-read or house-build (2016: 13). This phenomenon is

known as co-specification. The results of this paper also show that metonymic

embedding can occur when certain qualia values are subsumed within others in

compositional analysis.

3. Data and Method

In this paper I conduct a corpus-based study of 8,385 instances to examine and

contrast the lexico-semantic and syntactic properties of four cooking verbs and

their syntactic alternations in a specialised corpus of cooking and a general corpus

(henceforth, SC and GC, respectively). I compiled 892 examples from the SC and

7,493 from the GC. Particularly, I examine those syntactic alternations that

involve productive N+V combinations in the domain of cooking.

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The data collection process and subsequent analysis was divided into different

phases. First, I used the Web search function of the Sketch Engine corpus tool

(Kilgarriff et al. 2004) to compile the SC using texts from the internet (e.g. food

blogs, cooking recipes, restaurant reviews). The resulting corpus contains

760,630 words. The GC used to contrast the data with the SC was the English

Web 2021 (enTenTen21) corpus, the largest English-language corpus available on

the platform (over 52 billion words).

The second step was to extract the most salient N+V qualia pairs in both corpora.

To do so, I used the Word Sketch function of Sketch Engine, which provides a list

of the most frequent collocates for a given target word in specific grammatical

relations. In this case, the target words were the four selected verbs (i.e. cook,

bake, boil, fry). I chose these four verbs for two reasons. First, as proposed by

Levin, these verbs “describe the basic methods of cooking”, and thus “are the

ones that show the widest range of properties” among their class (1993: 244).

The second reason was that these verbs proved to be highly frequent in the SC, as

demonstrated by the results displayed in the Wordlist function of Sketch Engine.

The Wordlist tool automatically generates frequency lists for the words in a

corpus. When a filter was applied to the SC, 2,241 items were found. In terms of

their frequency of occurrence, cook occupies the fourth position (3,273

occurrences), bake the ninth (2,243 occurrences), fry the twentieth (1,165

occurrences) and boil the twenty-third (1,100 occurrences).

I then manually coded the most frequent N+V collocates. Word Sketch collocates

are classified in terms of their association score with the target word4 and sorted

into categories depending on their grammatical relations. I analysed the collocates

in terms of the following two syntactic relations: ‘Words that serve as Subject of

the verb’ and ‘Words that serve as Object of the verb’. I selected the ten most

frequent collocates in each syntactic category in both corpora. As Sketch Engine

does not have the capacity to automatically filter out lexical/morphological

mismatches, these were discarded manually, removing the non-valid instances

that contained adjectives lemmatised as verbs (e.g. baking in baking soda) and

nominalised forms of verbs (e.g. fries in French fries).

Later, I sorted the Word Sketch results for both corpora by searching for those

nominals that co-occurred with the four cooking verbs and performed any of the

following semantic roles:

• Agents: [+Animate] entities relying on the value human

• Patients: [-Animate] entities associated with the value food

• Instruments: [-Animate] entities related to the value tool

Once the N+V combinations were retrieved, the contextualised instances in both

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corpora were then analysed and sorted according to their syntactic alternations.

In the case of the GC, I analysed the first 100 examples from each N+V

combination.

4. Results and Discussion

In this section, I discuss the main results of the corpus analysis. Firstly, I present the

most salient N+V combinations from both corpora, distinguishing the semantic

role of the nominal entities in each case. After this, I examine the modulation of

word meaning in some N+V qualia pairs and their co-specified values at the

lexico-semantic level. Finally, I explore the qualia patterns in compositional

argument selection phenomena that were most syntactically productive in both

corpora.

Table 2 shows the Word Sketch instances that were selected and thus identified as

the most frequent N+V qualia pairs in both corpora. To compare these results,

the pairs are ordered in terms of the raw frequency of occurrence of the nominal

entities with each verb (Nº) and their normalised frequency in number of hits per

million tokens (Freq).5 The semantic roles of the nominal entities (whether Agent

(A), Patient (P) or Instrument (I)) and the total number of occurrences (in both

subject and object positions) in both corpora are also provided:

VERB COOK

Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)

Subject position Object position Subject position Object position

Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)

potato(P) 6/(6.68) chicken(P) 98/(128) chef(A) 4,132/(0.07) food(P) 78,933/(1.28)

rice(P) 6/(6.68) potato(P) 66/(89.05) chicken(P) 768/(0.01) meal(P) 65,691/(1.07)

egg(P) 6/(6.68) fish(P) 48/(58.99) pasta(P) 757/(0.01) meat(P) 26,132/(0.42)

chicken(P) 5/(5.57) egg(P) 45/(53.44) meat(P) 751/(0.01) dinner(P) 25,159/(0.41)

fish(P) 3/(3.45) rice(P) 40/(52.71) rice(P) 734/(0.01) rice(P) 24,245/(0.39)

-- -- pasta(P) 35/(51.77) potato(P) 654/(0.01) dish(P) 21,247/(0.34)

-- -- food(P) 25/(34.51) oven(I) 537/(0.01) chicken(P) 19,254/(0.31)

-- -- corn(P) 23/(28.94) bean(P) 457/(0.01) breakfast(P) 13,998/(0.23)

-- -- onion(P) 21/(25.62) onion(P) 415/(0.01) vegetable(P) 12,525/(0.2)

-- -- noodles(P) 18/(20.04) steak(P) 374/(0.01) pasta(P) 9,741/(0.16)

Total nº 26 Total nº 419 Total nº 9,579 Total nº 296,925

TOTAL Nº: 445 TOTAL Nº: 306,504

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VERB BAKE

Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)

Subject position Object position Subject position Object position

Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)

oven(I) 6/(6.68) pie(P) 11/(12.24) bread(P) 5,696/(0.09) bread(P) 41,596/(0.68)

-- -- pastry(P) 8/(8.9) oven(I) 2,788/(0.05) dish(P) 32,684/(0.53)

-- -- fish(P) 8/(8.9) cookie(P) 2,567/(0.04) cake(P) 31,169/(0.51)

-- -- tart(P) 7/(7.79) cake(P) 2,437/(0.04) potato(P) 26,902/(0.44)

-- -- cake(P) 7/(7.79) pie(P) 1,410/(0.02) cookie(P) 22,328/(0.36)

-- -- bun(P) 6/(6.68) cupcake(P) 467/(0.01) bean(P) 20,099/(0.33)

-- -- cookie(P) 6/(6.68) pizza(P) 430/(0.01) pan(I*) 18,387/(0.3)

-- -- loaf(P) 6/(6.68) baker(A) 418/(0.01) pie(P) 10,299/(0.17)

-- -- chicken(P) 4/(4.45) pastry(P) 411/(0.01) apple(P) 5,040/(0.08)

-- -- biscuit(P) 3/(3.45) muffin(P) 322/(0.01) chicken(P) 4,373/(0.07)

Total nº 6 Total nº 66 Total nº 16,946 Total nº 212,877

TOTAL Nº: 72 TOTAL Nº: 229,823

VERB BOIL

Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)

Subject position Object position Subject position Object position

Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)

water(P) 16/(17.81) potato(P) 29/(31.3) pot(I) 2,692/(0.04) water(P) 101,495/(1.65)

mixture(P) 6/(6.68) corn(P) 21/(23.62) kettle(I) 1,628/(0.03) egg(P) 26,026/(0.42)

-- -- mixture(P) 20/(22.26) water(P) 633/(0.01) potato(P) 10,461/(0.17)

-- -- turkey(P) 16/(17.81) mixture(P) 612/(0.01) rice(P) 4,823/(0.08)

-- -- cookie(P) 12/(13.36) liquid(P) 519/(0.01) milk(P) 3,117/(0.05)

-- -- ham(P) 9/(10.7) soup(P) 95/(0) pot(I*) 2,977/(0.05)

-- -- kettle(I*) 8/(8.9) wort(P) 95/(0) kettle(I*) 2,797/(0.05)

-- -- chicken(P) 6/(6.68) pasta(P) 87/(0) peanut(P) 1,776/(0.03)

-- -- wing(P) 6/(6.68) cook(A) 82/(0) pasta(P) 1,613/(0.03)

-- -- pierogi(P) 4/(4.45) potato(P) 65/(0) noodle(P) 1,390/(0.02)

Total nº 22 Total nº 131 Total nº 924 Total nº 156,475

TOTAL Nº: 153 TOTAL Nº: 157,399

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Table 2. Frequency of the most salient N+V qualia pairs in both corpora

Table 2 illustrates the N+V combinations and lexico-semantic features that

characterise each corpus. With the verb cook, the most frequent semantic roles in

subject position are the Patient potato (in the SC) and the Agent chef (in the GC).

Additionally, both corpora reveal the saliency of Patients in object position

(chicken and food, respectively). The two corpora differ in that the verb cook only

occurs with Patients (in both subject and object positions) in the SC, whereas in

the GC, other semantic roles are found in subject position (chef as Agent and oven

as Instrument).

In the case of bake, the most salient semantic roles in subject position are the

instrumental participant oven (in the SC) and the patientive entity bread (in the

GC). No other nominal entities in subject position were found in the SC with the

verb bake, whereas in the GC, three different semantic roles were found in subject

position: Patient (bread), Instrument (oven) and Agent (baker). In both corpora,

all the participants have a patientive nature in object position, with the exception

of pan in the GC, working as Instrument and conveying a metonymic value. To

illustrate this, consider Example 7 from the GC:

VERB FRY

Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)

Subject position Object position Subject position Object position

Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)

-- -- onion(P) 113/(125.7) egg(P) 246/(0) egg(P) 4,872/(0.08)

-- -- shallot(P) 18/(20.04) bacon(P) 161/(0) chicken(P) 3,815/(0.06)

-- -- chicken(P) 17/(18.92) onion(P) 114/(0) onion(P) 2,869/(0.05)

-- -- egg(P) 16/(17.81) garlic(P) 76/(0) bacon(P) 1,986/(0.03)

-- -- mushroom(P) 12/(13.36) cook(A) 74/(0) potato(P) 1,782/(0.03)

-- -- gnocchi(P) 11/(12.24) turkey(P) 72/(0) rice(P) 1,150/(0.02)

-- -- potato(P) 11/(12.24) sausage(P) 35/(0) turkey(P) 897/(0.01)

-- -- garlic(P) 10/(11.13) chicken(P) 33/(0) tortilla(P) 620/(0.01)

-- -- bacon(P) 8/(8.9) burger(P) 19/(0) noodles(P) 620/(0.01)

-- -- pancetta(P) 6/(6.68) tofu(P) 14/(0) tofu(P) 457/(0.01)

Total nº 0 Total nº 222 Total nº 623 Total nº 19,068

TOTAL Nº: 153 TOTAL Nº: 19,691

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(7) Bake each pan 10-12 min.

Here, the term pan stands for the ingredients inside it, meaning ‘bake the

ingredients with the pan’. The conceptual metonymy underlying this process is

container for content.

Regarding boil, the most salient co-occurring semantic roles in subject position

refer to the Patient water (in the SC) and the Instrument pot (in the GC). Once

again, the GC presents the three different semantic roles found in subject position:

Instrument (pot and kettle), Patient (water) and Agent (cook). In the SC, the most

frequently co-occurring entities with boil have a patientive nature, either in subject

or object position. The only exception is kettle in object position (see Example 8

taken from the SC), which follows the same process as pan in Example 7:

(8) Boil the kettle.

Here, the term kettle stands for the water inside it, meaning ‘boil the water with

the kettle’. The conceptual metonymy underlying this process is container for

content as well.

In the case of fry, no statistically relevant nominal entities in subject position were

found in the SC, whereas two different semantic roles (Patient and Agent)

occurred in the GC, as illustrated by egg and cook, respectively. All the entities

found in both subject and object position in both corpora with fry have a

patientive nature (with the exception of cook in subject position in the SC).

The lack of nominal entities and variety of semantic roles in subject position

observed throughout the SC is due to the pervasive use of instructional

imperatives, where no agentive subject is syntactically coded, though semantically

recoverable as you. Consider the following instance in Example 9 taken from the

SC in this regard:

(9) Fry the onions.

Recipe texts commonly contain imperative structures that guide users in the

cooking process. The SC contains a higher concentration of this type of patterns

as compared with the GC. As detailed below in this section, the most productive

structure in both corpora is the basic/canonical pattern. The main difference is

that the GC tends to portray the whole action chain, including salient Agent and

Patient entities (in declarative patterns), whereas the SC focuses on patientive

participants (within imperative forms).

Below I discuss the corpus results by examining the subject-verb qualia pairs in

N+V combinations where we find the different semantic roles of the nominal

entity (Agent, Patient and Instrument). Figure 2 shows the qualia structure

representation of four lexical items and highlights the co-specified qualia values

of these nominal entities in subject position in combination with cooking verbs.

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The four lexical items and their semantic roles are chef (as an Agent), bread (as

Patient of the artifactual kind), kettle (as Instrument) and water (as Patient of the

natural kind).

Figure 2. Qualia structure representation of nouns with different semantic roles + cooking verbs

As illustrated in Figure 2, when these four nominal entities co-occur with cooking

verbs, they profile different qualia values depending on their semantic roles

(Agent, Patient and Instrument when in subject position) and the most

conceptually salient information they provide. The list below captures the main

principles of argument selection of these lexical items to form N+V qualia pairs in

the specialised discourse of cooking:

• Agentive participants (like chef) + cooking verb (like cook) = [Qt = ø = Qit]

• Artifactual patientive participants (like bread) + cooking verb (like bake) =

[Qa]

• Naturally-occurring patientive participants (like water) + cooking verb (like

boil) = [Qf/Qc]6

• Instrumental participants (like kettle) + cooking verb (like boil) = [Qt]

In the case of agentive and instrumental participants with cooking verbs, different

types of telic values are denoted, as represented by chef and kettle in Figure 2

above. The former refers to the ‘indirect telic’ (Qit) and the latter refers to the

‘direct telic’ (Qt) value. According to Pustejovsky and Jezek (2016: 30), the (Qt)

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characterises the entity as something used to perform a particular activity (as in

kettle_boil), whereas the (Qit) characterises the entity as something that has the

function of carrying out the action denoted (as in chef_cook).

Therefore, as stated in Pustejovsky and Jezek (2016: 29), even though the (Qt) is

mostly associated with instrumental objects (as in kettle_boil), a telic value is also

present in nouns that denote concepts such as professions (as in chef _cook),

agentive nominals (like runner_run) and functional locations (such as school_

learn).

As illustrated in Figure 2, chef denotes a person (Qf) having the ability (Qa) to

cook (Qit). Correspondingly, in the case of kettle, this nominal denotes a tool

(Qf) used to boil water (Qt). Hence, in N+V qualia pairs where the nominal entity

is an Agent, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qit) of its argument (either in

subject or object position). Similarly, in those N+V qualia pairs where the nominal

entity is an Instrument, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qt) of its argument,

either in subject or (oblique) object position.

The other N+V qualia pairs retrieved from the corpus analysis that also denote

the (Qit) relation between the Agent and a cooking verb are baker_bake, cook_boil

and cook_fry. These combinations only appear in the GC, since no salient Agents

were identified in the SC. However, a (Qt) relation is found in the following N+V

qualia pairs, where the nominal performs the semantic role of Instrument: oven _

bake (in both corpora), and oven_cook, oven_fry, utensil_cook and pan_bake (only

in the GC).

Regarding artifactual and naturally-occurring patientive participants with

cooking verbs, we observe different patientive entities (natural and artifactual

kinds) participating in cooking events, thus denoting divergent N+V qualia pairs.

This is represented by the lexical items bread and water, respectively, in Figure 2

above. Whereas artifactual Patient-oriented entities profile a (Qa) value, naturally-

occurring Patients rely on a (Qf/Qc) relation, as detailed below.

The patientive entity bread belongs to the artifactual kind since it has been

created intentionally through a baking event. In the field of cooking, artifactual

Patient-oriented entities denote specific types of food (Qf) that are meant to be

eaten (Qt) following a process of creation (Qa). Therefore, in N+V qualia pairs

where the nominal entity is an artifactual Patient, the cooking verb co-specifies

the (Qa) of its argument (either in subject or object position). The other most

productive N+V qualia pairs retrieved from the corpora analysis that also denote

artifactual patientive entities co-specifying a (Qa) value are potato _cook (in the

SC) and cake_bake and egg_fry (in the GC).

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Finally, the patientive participant water is a naturally-occurring entity. As

represented in Figure 2, the default value of (nil Qa) of this type of entities

captures “the primacy of a natural origin” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 34),

since they have not been created through any activity or intentional behaviour.

The only patientive entity of a natural kind found in the corpus is water, profiling

a (Qf/Qc) relation with the predicate boil. Thus, water denotes a type of liquid

that can boil due to its internal composition (Qf subsuming Qc); it is meant to be

drunk (Qt); and its origin possesses a naturally-occurring nature (nil Qa).

Therefore, in N+V qualia pairs where the nominal entity is a naturally-occurring

Patient, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qf/Qc) values of its argument (either

in subject or object position).

So far, I have analysed modulation of word meaning in N+V qualia pairs and their

co-specified values at a lexico-semantic level, paying special attention to salient

lexical items in the discourse of cooking and focusing on the semantic roles of

these nominal entities with regard to a set of cooking verbs. Let us now further

explore the qualia patterns in compositional argument selection phenomena at

the syntactic level. Examples 10, 11 and 17 were retrieved from the GC, whereas

Examples 12 -16 were taken from the SC:

(10) The chef had never cooked vegan food before.

(11) The cook boiled the water for sterilizing.

(12) The fish fillets cooked through after 10min.

(13) The water boiled after 3-4min.

(14) Baked potatoes cook in about half the usual time in an air fryer.

(15) Water boils rapidly.

(16) This oven baked the salmon recipe perfectly.

(17) The oven cooks quickly and evenly.

Examples 10 and 11 represent canonical active transitives, whereas Examples 12-

15 represent intransitive alternations classified as follows: 12 and 13 are instances

of the causative/inchoative alternation, respectively incorporating an artifactual

and a naturally-occurring entity as Patients in subject position (fish fillets and

water). Examples 14 and 15 represent middles, which also incorporate an

artifactual and a naturally-occurring entity as Patients in subject position (baked

potatoes and water). Finally, Examples 16 and 17 represent, respectively, the

transitive and intransitive counterparts of the Instrument-subject alternation

(with oven).

Examples 10-17 are represented in Figure 3 to profile their qualia patterns in

compositional analysis at the syntactic level.

Macarena Palma Gutiérrez

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Figure 3. Qualia patterns in compositional analysis at the syntactic level

As shown in Figure 3, canonical actives within the field of cooking (as in

Example 10) are transitive constructions that typically consist of patterns in

which the cooking verb expresses the (Qit) of the subject. Depending on the

nature of the Patient (whether artifactual or naturally-occurring), the cooking

verb expresses a different pattern in qualia structure: in combination with

artifactual Patients (like vegan food), the cooking verb expresses the (Qa) of the

object, thus profiling the creation process that the entity undergoes. Alternatively,

N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse of Cooking

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in combination with a naturally-occurring entity (like water), the cooking verb

expresses the (Qf/Qc) value of the object, since no (Qa) is found in natural kinds.

Thus, canonical active structures with artifactual Patients involve a [Qit + Qa]

qualia pattern in compositional analysis, whereas canonical actives with naturally-

occurring entities as Patients profile the [Qit + Qf/Qc] qualia pattern.

Figure 3 further illustrates both causatives/inchoatives and middles as intransitive

alternations. They have a common syntactic one-argument structure with a

patientive subject. However, depending on the nature of the nominal entity

(whether artifactual or naturally-occurring), a different qualia pattern is profiled

in compositional analysis. In those structures with an artifactual Patient-oriented

subject (as illustrated in Examples 12 and 14, respectively), the cooking verb co-

specifies the (Qa) of the subject by conceptually implying its creation processes.

However, in those structures with a natural-kind Patient-oriented subject (as in

Examples 13 and 15, respectively), the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qf/Qc)

values of the subject, since no (Qa) is found in natural kinds. Thus, causatives/

inchoatives and middles with an artifactual Patient-oriented subject underlie the

[Qa] qualia pattern in compositional analysis, but with natural-kind Patient-

oriented subjects they undergo the [Qf/Qc] pattern. The main difference between

these constructions is that causatives/inchoatives involve a specific time reference,

whereas middles incorporate adverbial/modal modifiers (time-oriented adjuncts

in 14 and 15) that influence their aspectual properties and reinforce their non-

eventive nature (Palma Gutiérrez 2022: 44).

The same qualia analysis can be applied to the passive structure. Even though

Levin (1993) does not contemplate passives as possible alternations with cooking

verbs, this Patient-subject alternation has been found very frequently in the

corpora examined, as detailed below.7 The main difference between the passive

and the other Patient-oriented structures (middles and causatives/inchoatives) is

that the passive Agent is either defocused (in a by- clause) or omitted syntactically,

whereas in the other structures, the Agent is totally demoted.

Finally, the Instrument-subject alternations illustrated in Figure 3 capture both the

transitive and the intransitive syntactic counterparts (respectively shown in Examples

16 and 17). Semantically, both alternations contain Instruments in subject position

(oven), and thus, their cooking verbs express the (Qt) of these participants. The

main difference between these alternations is that the transitive counterpart

encodes the patientive object at the syntactic level, whereas the intransitive

counterpart conceptually evokes it via metonymy. As detailed below, in order to

analyse the intransitive counterpart, I examine the notion of conceptual

modulation of noun meaning (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 12) based on the

predicate’s argument selection process through a metonymic operation.

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First, in the case of the transitive counterpart of the Instrument-subject alternation,

I observed the following. In the selectional context of the verb bake, the noun

salmon is used to explicitly denote the entity that undergoes the baking process

(Qa), thus profiling the [Qt + Qa] qualia pattern in compositional analysis.

However, in the intransitive counterpart, I explored the notion of conceptual

modulation of noun meaning via metonymy. In the selectional context of the verb

cook, the noun oven is used to implicitly denote the entity that undergoes the

cooking process (Qa) by means of the metonymic complex instrument for action

for result (Serrano-Losada 2015: 43). This metonymic complex implies a dual

analysis: first, a domain expansion metonymy whereby the instrumental entity

oven stands for the action denoted cooking (i.e. instrument for action), and then,

a domain reduction metonymy whereby the action of cooking stands for its resulting

product food (i.e. action for result). Therefore, intransitive alternations of the

Instrument-subject construction profile the [Qt[Qa]] qualia pattern in compositional

analysis, where the (Qa) value is metonymically embedded within the (Qt) of the

N+V qualia pair.

Yet, as observed in the corpora, another metonymic relation is possible with

intransitive Instrument-subject alternations like The kettle boiled. In this case, in

the selectional context of boil, the noun kettle is used to metonymically evoke a

container for content relation (‘kettle’ for ‘water contained in the kettle’). In

contrast to the analysis carried out in Example 17, where a (Qa) value is embedded

within the (Qt) relation between oven and cook ([Qt[Qa]]), in the case of The kettle

boiled, the embedded qualia values are (Qf/Qc) because the nominal water is of a

natural kind ([Qt[Qf/Qc]]). Exploring which type of nominal entity is most

frequently topicalised when in combination with these verbs demonstrates the

tendency of these N+V combinations to participate in certain syntactic alternations

more productively.

As shown in Table 3, the four verbs under study were more productive in the

canonical pattern in both corpora, despite their differences in size. The main

differences were found in the second most productive N+V pairs retrieved in

each case.

Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)

cook bake boil fry cook bake boil fry

Canonical 265 64 129 221 953 902 1042 975

Caus/Incho 20 0 18 0 661 499 436 500

Middle 2 0 4 0 139 296 208 38

Instr. Subj 2 6 0 0 99 213 206 0

Passive 156 2 2 1 115 69 32 110

Table 3. Frequency of the syntactic alternations with each verb in both corpora

N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse of Cooking

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The data displayed in Table 3 confirms the research hypothesis: there exists a

correlation between the most productive N+V qualia pairs and the most frequent

syntactic constructions found in the corpora. First, the N+V[cook] combinations

suggest the following: the most salient pairs are cook_chicken (in the SC) and

cook_food (in the GC), thus entailing a higher productivity of the basic/

canonical action chain with Patients in object position and Agents in subject

position (which can be elicited in the imperative form) in both corpora.

Additionally, other salient N+V[cook] combinations are potato_cook (in the SC)

and chef_cook (in the GC). The former indicates a higher productivity of

grammatical patterns containing patientive subjects (such as passives, causative/

inchoatives or middles) in the SC, whereas the latter implies a higher productivity

of Agent-subject structures, whether in the canonical form (i.e. also including a

Patient in object position) or in the unspecified object alternation (i.e. with no

object specified).

Second, the N+V[bake] combinations show that the most salient pairs are bake_

pie (in the SC) and bake_bread (in the GC), therefore pointing to a higher

productivity of the basic/canonical action chain with Patients in object position

in both corpora. Also relevant is the case of oven_bake, which is highly frequent

in both corpora and implies a higher productivity of the Instrument-subject

alternation (transitive and intransitive variants) in both corpora.

Third, the N+V[boil] combinations indicate that the most salient pairs are boil_

potato (in the SC) and boil_water (in the GC), thus revealing a higher productivity

of the canonical structure with Patients in object position in both corpora.

Additionally, the other most salient N+V[boil] combinations are water_boil (in

the SC) and pot _boil (in the GC). The former would lead to a higher productivity

of Patient-oriented subject (such as middles, passives or causative/inchoative

alternations) in the SC, whereas the latter would imply a higher productivity of

Instrument-subject alternations in the GC.

Finally, the N+V[fry] combinations show that the most salient pairs are fry_onion

(in the SC) and fry_egg (in the GC), therefore indicating a higher productivity of

canonical patterns with patientive objects in both corpora. Additionally, in the

GC we also observe another highly salient pair, egg_fry, therefore implying a

higher productivity of Patient-subject structures (like middles, passives or

causatives/inchoatives).

Therefore, the data provided in Table 3 above, together with the previous

discussion of the connections between the normalised frequency of occurrence of

certain N+V qualia pairs and certain syntactic patterns, demonstrate that these

correspondences are different in each corpus, and this contrast contributes to the

Macarena Palma Gutiérrez

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lexico-semantic and syntactic characterisation of the discourse of cooking. In

both corpora, the most frequent grammatical pattern is the canonical structure

with the four verbs. However, the second most salient syntactic alternations differ

in both corpora. In the GC, the second most productive structure is the causative/

inchoative alternation with the four verbs due to the saliency of N+V combinations

containing Patient-oriented subjects. On the other hand, in the SC, each verb is

more productive in different structures, either relying on the saliency of N+V

pairs with Patient- or Instrument-oriented subjects: cook is more frequent in the

passive form, bake in the Instrument-subject alternation, boil in the causative/

inchoative alternation and fry in the passive form.

5. Conclusions

This paper analyses naturally-occurring language by applying the principles of

argument selection phenomena to examine the motivating factors behind the

processes of qualia-pairing and co-specification in the specialised discourse of

cooking. To do so, I examined the selectional contexts of four cooking verbs

(cook, bake, boil and fry) and the most salient nominal entities (in subject/object

positions) in combination with these verbs in two corpora (a specialised corpus

and a general corpus). This led to the creation of different argument structure

realisations as well as distinctive syntactic alternations in which the N+V

combinations were found. The results of this corpus-based study shed light on

the lexico-semantic and syntactic characterisation of the specialised discourse of

cooking.

As demonstrated here, the type of nominal entity most frequently topicalised

with the cooking verbs examined shows the tendency of each N+V combination

to participate more productively in certain syntactic alternations. In both corpora,

the four verbs are more productive in the canonical pattern. Concerning the

remaining less prototypical syntactic alternations, there are different tendencies

depending on the nature of the most frequent N+V pairs with each verb. In the

GC, the most frequent non-prototypical alternation is the causative/inchoative

pattern with the four verbs. In contrast, in the SC, other grammatical structures

become salient.

Regarding the notion of qualia structure, I have also demonstrated that these

cooking verbs express a (Qit) value when combined with agentive subjects. This

is illustrated in the N+V qualia pairs chef_cook, baker _bake and cook_fry. These

cooking verbs express divergent patterns in qualia structure depending on the

nature of the patientive entities they accompany (whether artifactual or naturally-

N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse of Cooking

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occurring). Therefore, artifactual Patients (in both subject and object position)

with cooking verbs evoke a (Qa) relation in their qualia patterns. These nominals

co-specify the meaning of the predicates by conceptually implying their creation

process (Qa) and encoding the resulting outcome. This is illustrated in the N+V

qualia pair bread_bake, egg_fry and potato_cook. However, this relation is not

found in naturally-occurring Patients with cooking verbs, since natural kinds

have (nil Qa) and thus profile a (Qf/Qc) value in co-specification with the

predicates, as shown in the N+V qualia pair water_boil. Finally, the cooking verbs

examined here express a (Qt) value when combined with Instrument subjects in

both transitive and intransitive counterparts. This is illustrated in the N+V qualia

pairs pot_boil, oven_cook, oven_bake and kettle_boil.

When the above N+V qualia pairs are examined regarding the syntactic

alternations that these cooking verbs can undergo, the following patterns in

compositional co-specification are found:

(i) Canonical active structures represent one of these complex patterns

depending on the nature of the grammatical object: [Qit + Qa] or [Qit +

Qf/Qc].

(i) Causatives/Inchoatives, middles and passives illustrate one of these

simple patterns depending on the nature of the grammatical subject: [Qa]

or [Qf/Qc].

(iii) Instrument-subject alternations denote one of these qualia patterns

depending on the occurrence or not of a metonymically-based operation

on the grammatical subject: [Qt + Qa], [Qt[Qa]] or [Qt[Qf/Qc]].

This study has examined contextual modulation of word meaning by exploring

the process of compositional argument selection in N+V qualia pairs in the

specialised discourse of cooking. The significance of the present study for the

specialised domain of cooking is directly associated with its linguistic

characterisation in terms of its lexico-semantic and syntactic features, particularly,

when in combination with a usage-based approach. Future lines of research may

explore other syntactic alternations, as well as other metonymically-based

operations.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for taking the time and effort to

review the manuscript. I sincerely appreciate all their valuable comments and

suggestions, which helped me in improving the quality of the paper.

Macarena Palma Gutiérrez

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Notes

1. Levin also presents other

alternations with cooking verbs (adjectival

passive participle alternations (e.g. a baked

potato), and resultative phrases (e.g. Jennifer

baked the potatoes to a crisp)) (1993: 244).

However, these were discarded because the

former have a lexical (not a syntactic) nature,

and thus, no transitivity alternations can be

examined, and the latter, because no instances

were found in the corpora consulted.

2. The process of lexical

decomposition follows the idea that words

can be decomposed into semantic primitives

annotated as (±) binary values. For example, the

word chair can be decomposed as [-Animate],

[+Countable], [+Concrete], [+Artifact].

3. As Pustejovsky and Jezek

explain, “[a] qualia pair may take the form of a

verb-noun pairing, and adjective-noun

pairing, or a compound” (2016: 31). This paper

focuses exclusively on N+V qualia pairs to

analyse the argument selection process

within the specialised discourse of cooking.

4. Association score uses

pointwise mutual information between the

target word and its collocate, multiplied by

the log of the pair frequency for the particular

grammatical relation examined. Association

score uses the so-called logDice statistical

measure to automatically identify collocations

and frequent combinations of words and is

not affected by the size of the corpus (Rychlý

2008).

5. In Table 2, both raw frequency

and normalised frequency are provided. Even

though the raw frequency in the SC is minimal

compared to that of the GC, the normalised

frequency is higher in the SC. This is so

because the N+V pairs are more productive in

the SC than in the GC, despite their size.

6. The qualia representation of the

naturally-occurring entity water merges Qf

and Qc values because we cannot separate

what this entity is (Qf) from what it is made of

(Qc). In fact, we could specify the Qc value

since each water molecule is identical and is

made up of one oxygen atom and two

hydrogen atoms, chemically represented as

H2O. However, its Qf value cannot be

separated from this established Qc condition.

7. Two syntactic patterns not

proposed by Levin (1993) as potential

alternations with cooking verbs were

identified in the GC (not in the SC), particularly,

with the verbs cook and bake, distributed as

follows: 26 instances with cook and 19 with

bake in the unspecified object alternation, and

seven instances with cook and two with bake

in the benefactive alternation.

N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse of Cooking

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miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

YONAY RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ

CUD-AGM Universidad de Zaragoza

yonay@unizar.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1969-7218>

A STUDY OF BELIEFS ABOUT EMI PROGRAMMES

IN A GALICIAN UNIVERSITY

ESTUDIO DE LAS CREENCIAS SOBRE

EL APRENDIZAJE DE CONTENIDOS EN INGLÉS

EN UNA UNIVERSIDAD GALLEGA

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510358

Abstract

The beliefs that learners hold are a key variable in language learning, and from a

socio-cultural perspective, learner beliefs are connected to the context in which

learning takes place. This study, which forms part of a more extensive project on

beliefs about English as a foreign language (EFL), explores the views of a group

of students and instructors at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC)

regarding content learning in English. The beliefs of 373 students and instructors

were measured by means of a questionnaire and interview. Despite indicating a

generally positive predisposition towards EMI programmes, the responses varied

based on the academic field of the course content, students’ previous language-

learning experience and the type of English instruction used in teaching. In

addition, the data revealed a series of issues concerning the implementation of

EMI programmes at the USC. This study is the first of its type to be conducted

at this institution and one of the few in Galicia. Findings from the study

underscore the context-specific nature of beliefs in general while also drawing the

USC, together with other Spanish and foreign academic institutions, into a

broader assessment and discussion of EMI programmes.

Key words: beliefs, context, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI),

programme implementation.

Yonay Rodríguez Rodríguez

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

Resumen

Las creencias del estudiantado son una variable importante en el proceso de

aprendizaje de un idioma, y desde un enfoque sociocultural, guardan una estrecha

relación con el contexto donde se aprende. Como parte de un proyecto más

extenso acerca de las creencias sobre el Inglés como Lengua Extranjera (ILE), en

este estudio se exploraron las ideas preconcebidas de un grupo de estudiantes y

profesores de la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC) sobre el

aprendizaje de contenidos en inglés. Para ello se recopiló información de 373

participantes mediante un cuestionario y una entrevista. Los datos indican que, a

pesar de que los participantes mostraron una predisposición favorable hacia los

programas EMI, el área académica del alumnado, su experiencia previa en el

aprendizaje de idiomas, y el tipo de instrucción en inglés del profesorado marcaron

algunas diferencias. Además, se identificaron una serie de cuestiones relacionadas

con la implementación de estos programas en la USC. Al ser el primero de su tipo

que se realiza en esta institución y uno de los pocos en Galicia, este estudio

refuerza el carácter contextual de las creencias y ubica a la USC, junto a otras

universidades españolas e internacionales, en la evaluación de los programas EMI.

Palabras clave: creencias, contexto, instrucción en inglés, implementación de

programas.

1. Introduction

In recent decades, research has focused on the different ways in which beliefs are

formed and how beliefs relate to the actions, emotions and identities of learners

and instructors within the social and political contexts in which the teaching-

learning process takes place (Ellis and Tanaka 2003; Kalaja et al. 2015). Several

studies conducted in Spain have addressed the ways in which beliefs are related to

different language-learning variables (Roothooft and Breeze 2016; Doiz et al.

2019; Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al. 2020). However, few have been carried out in

Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain. One study, conducted by Cal Varela and

Fernández Polo (2007), explored self-perceptions of English proficiency among

the teaching staff at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the

ability of these academics to carry out activities related to their work. However,

students were not included as participants in the study. Another study, by Loredo

Gutiérrez et al. (2007), surveyed the attitudes of Galician students toward

multilingualism. The present study intends to fill the research gap by exploring

the views of 373 USC students and faculty members regarding English as a

medium of instruction (EMI).

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As part of a process of internationalisation, Galician universities have enacted

various initiatives to enhance their curricula in order to attract more students

from outside the country. At the USC, where the present study was carried out,

the last decade has seen the introduction of a wide range of extracurricular

courses offered in different foreign languages (FLs) and an increasing number of

for-credit courses in English. In addition, universities have taken measures to

apply the Regulation for Quality Teaching in FLs (LEDUS in Galician), which

demands that all university teaching staff demonstrate a CEFR C1 proficiency

level if they are to teach a subject in English; to enrol in these courses, students

are required to have a B2 level. This expanded course offering in FLs has had a

direct impact on the beliefs and attitudes that students and faculty hold about

English as a language of instruction for learning course content, and this is the

dimension of EFL learning that this project sets out to explore. Evaluating how

students and instructors perceive the implementation of academic programs such

as EMI is necessary to make informed decisions that have implications for future

educational initiatives of this kind.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Content Learning through English Instruction in Higher Education

The presence of EMI programmes in higher education curricula has expanded in

recent times in step with the process of internationalisation. Yet, findings from

studies on their effectiveness for learning have been rather ambiguous. On the

one hand, EMI programmes are generally welcomed by students and educators

(Doiz et al. 2011; Aguilar 2017; An and Thomas 2021) and have been associated

with significant improvements in all four main English skills (Rogier 2012).

Students have also acknowledged that EMI-based teaching has certain

advantages, such as high student motivation due to the instrumental role of

English, as EMI increases students’ opportunities to practice their linguistic

skills, thus making them better prepared for mobility and more competitive

within the job market (Avello et al. 2016; Fernández-Costales 2017; Serna

Bermejo and Lasagabaster 2023). University faculty also report that EMI

programmes help them develop their linguistic competence, giving them an

added feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction; additionally, these programmes

are often tied to certain administrative and/or financial incentives (Dearden and

Macaro 2016; Macaro et al. 2019).

On the other hand, several common issues surrounding the implementation of

these programmes have been identified, mainly concerning the English

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proficiency of learners and the preparedness and attitudes of instructors, together

with issues relating to policy implementation and the involvement of other

stakeholders. Regarding linguistic competence in English, much concern has

been voiced about the ability of learners to assimilate content and develop

linguistic skills through EMI (Doiz et al. 2011; Murata 2019; Wang 2021). In

addition, challenges related to the development of disciplinary literacy and the

distribution of EMI subjects across the curriculum are also seen as problematic

(Airey 2011; Dearden 2018; Dafouz and Smit 2020).

The introduction of EMI programmes also leads to a change in the role of

lecturers and professors. Different studies (Doiz et al. 2013b; Kirkgöz and

Dikilitaş 2018; Murata 2019; Bowles and Murphy 2020) have identified both

positive and negative aspects of EMI in this regard. The disadvantages include,

for example, the general tendency for instructors who teach through EMI to

sidestep linguistic issues in their practice (Doiz et al. 2011; Dafouz 2014; Aguilar

2017), largely because they are not English specialists. In addition, merely

possessing linguistic expertise in English does not make an instructor qualified

to deliver this type of teaching (Dearden and Macaro 2016; Akincioğlu 2024).

Other issues such as the need for effective EMI assessment tasks, educators’

concerns about the additional responsibilities and workload that EMI entails and

the lack of administrative and financial support from other stakeholders (Aguilar

2017; Mede et al. 2018; Shohamy 2019) have also been detected.

Most of the concerns identified thus far in research seem to point to problems

stemming from inconsistencies in policy implementation, which results in limited

or incongruent procedures that hamper successful teaching and learning. This,

coupled with the need to monitor and assess these programmes, plus the need for

more human and financial resources, are pressing concerns in many institutions

of higher education today (Roberts and Palmer 2011; Doiz et al. 2013a; Ekoç

2018), including the USC, as the present study seeks to show.

2.2. The Concept of Beliefs

In simple terms, a belief can be understood as a strong opinion about what is

considered right, good or appropriate. In EFL, the beliefs of students and

instructors are central to their approaches to and expectations about the learning

process (Ellis 2008; Sadeghi and Abdi 2015). Beliefs have been found to play a

key role, for instance, in the mismatch between the aims and behaviour of

students and educators in the classroom, in the way students choose and deploy

learning strategies, in levels of student anxiety, and in the degree of autonomy in

the learning process (Barcelos and Kalaja 2006; Dafouz et al. 2016; Sydorenko et

al. 2017; Doiz and Lasagabaster 2018; Moncada-Comas 2022). Woods (1996)

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showed that teachers’ beliefs about knowledge (BAK) were closely linked to

their decisions when organising and delivering the course and also to their

professional identity, which has been supported by more recent studies (Huang

et al. 2021; Er 2024).

According to Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory (SCT), beliefs change under the

influence of significant others (Barcelos and Kalaja 2011), that is, individuals or

conditions relevant to the learner, such as other learners, friends, teachers,

advisors and academic programmes. These sources provide varied interpretations,

experiences, or circumstances related to the learning event, which learners and

teachers assimilate and act upon. Among these significant others, scholars have

identified, for example, the language-learning context (ESL vs EFL), classroom

instruction, institutional policies, socio-cultural factors and new situational

experiences (e.g. university transfer due to changing cities, migration or Erasmus

programmes) (Orduna-Nocito and Sánchez-García 2022; Sato and Storch 2022;

Cots and Mancho-Barés 2024).

In the Spanish context, in their analysis of different learning environments (EFL

formal instruction, Study-abroad (SA) and English as a Medium of Instruction

(EMI)), Pérez Vidal et al. (2018) reported on more pragmatic benefits and more

self-confidence for EMI students as compared to students with SA experience. In

addition, Doiz and Lasagabaster (2018) and Serna Bermejo and Lasagabaster

(2023) found a relationship between L2 motivation and EMI contexts among

Spanish learners. More recently, interest has focused on the socio-academic

context and perceptions of students and teachers (Pérez-Llantada 2018; Rubio-

Cuenca and Perea-Barberá 2021; Velilla Sánchez 2021) to identify issues and

implement initiatives to improve the quality of EMI programmes.

3. The Study

EMI programmes are a type of significant other according to SCT and discussed

above. That is, they are a learning environment which will inevitably affect the

beliefs of students and instructors. In turn, their beliefs about these courses will

influence their choice of learning and teaching strategies, as well as their

motivation and attitude towards the learning process. With this in mind, the

present study focused on two main research questions:

RQ1. What are the beliefs of USC students and instructors from different

academic disciplines about learning course content in English?

RQ2. How do USC students and teaching staff evaluate the implementation

and functioning of EMI programmes?

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3.1. Participants

Of the 649 USC informants who participated in the main study about beliefs,

57% (n=373) provided data about their beliefs regarding content learning in

English, 338 of whom were students and 35 were instructors. Table 1 below

outlines the main demographic characteristics of this population sample.

STUDENTS (n=338)

Academic level Sex Nationality Academic areas

1st year

n=124 (37%) Females

n=238 (70%) Foreign

n=32 (10%)

English Studies n=99 (29%)

Other lang and lit n=20 (6%)

Cultural studies n=7 (2%)

2nd year

n=75 (22%) Males

n=100 (30%) Spanish

n=306 (90%)

Chemistry n=78 (23%)

Physics n=16 (5%)

Double degrees (Nat Sc) n=9 (2%)

3rd year

n=70 (21%)

Engineering n=17 (5%)

Journalism and AdV Comm n=6 (2%)

Criminology and Law n=19 (6%)

4th year

n=61 (18%)

Odontology n=27 (8%)

Educational Sciences n=40 (12%)

Master P.

n=8 (2%)

INSTRUCTORS (n=35)

Level taught Sex Nationality Type of English instruction

Undergraduate

n=17 (48%) Females

n=17 (49%) Foreign

n=4 (11%) EMI programmes

n=16 (45%)

Under- and

postgraduate

n=17 (48%)

Males

n=18 (51%) Spanish

n=31 (88%)

General English programmes

(Philology, ESP)

n=19 (55%)

Postgraduate only

n=1 (3%)

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the USC population sample

3.2. Methodology

A total of 338 students completed an online questionnaire on beliefs, of whom 56

were also interviewed. Meanwhile, 35 faculty members responded to the

questionnaire, 22 of whom participated in an interview. The student questionnaire

was a 39-item inventory based on the Beliefs About Learning Language Inventory

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(BALLI) for FL students (Horwitz 1988). It included four items on beliefs about

EMI programmes, of which one close-ended question (36) was an opener to

another three (37-39). The 34-item questionnaire version for instructors included

two items related to EMI programmes. To tailor the study to the USC context,

the two questionnaires were available in multilingual format (Galician, Spanish,

English) and included a final section for open comments. The reliability of each

tool, which was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, ranged between 0.6 and 0.7.

Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were carried out with students and

instructors, using a set of 16 questions for students and 12 for instructors; each

set included one question and a number of prompts about EMI programmes. The

shortest conversations with students lasted about 27-30 minutes, and 31 of these

shortest conversations were held individually. The longest interviews lasted

approximately 52 minutes, six of them were held with two students and three of

them with focus groups of 4-5 students. Meanwhile, the instructors discussed

EMI programmes during individual interviews that lasted about 37 minutes. The

interviews were also offered in multilingual versions, and all answers were

transcribed orthographically for analysis.

As stipulated by the ethical guidelines of the USC (Código de Boas Prácticas Na

Investigación 2018: 11-12), consent was obtained from all participants prior to

collecting the study data, and informant anonymity was guaranteed through data

coding. Quantitative data were analysed using a variety of statistical tests available

in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) with an alpha level set

at.05, while NVivo software was used for thematic analysis of the interview data.

Based on the research questions, three variables were used to contrast each group

of participants, that is, the students’ field of study, their foreign language

experience, and their sex; in the case of instructors, the variables used were years

of professional experience, type of English instruction, and sex.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. The Pattern of Beliefs of Students and Instructors about EMI

As regards the student questionnaire, three main statements (STs) were used to

explore their perceptions about learning through EMI.

ST37. My level of satisfaction about learning English through another subject

is (very low /low/a bit low/a bit high/high/very high).

ST38. When I learn other subjects in English, my English skills develop (not a

bit/very little/a bit/moderately/much/very much).

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ST39. When I learn a subject in English, I learn the content of this subject (I

can’t learn it/with much difficulty/with difficulty/with some difficulty/

easily/very easily).

Concerning the first research question, the findings show a generally homogenous

pattern of beliefs both among students and teaching staff about EMI, with differences

emerging based on variables such as disciplinary area and the type of instruction.

4.1.1. Quantitative Data from Students’ Questionnaire Responses

The reported level of satisfaction with learning content through English among

students was rather minimal (M=3.7). Whereas the informants expressed that

they are capable of learning the content of the academic subjects relatively well

(M=4.21), they believed the development of their language competence in English

to be limited (M=4.05). As one of the informants commented,

…having other subjects in English serves to learn specific vocabulary rather than to

develop skills, in my opinion and personal experience. (QtSt282)

The analysis of the variables confirmed this general belief pattern, while certain

contrasts also became evident.

4.1.1.1. Variable 1: Learners’ Area of Study

Regarding the areas of study in which learners were enrolled, a comparison of

responses across three main discipline areas yielded significant statistical

differences. As expected, responses to ST37 by Humanities and Social Sciences

students contrasted with those of the other groups in all three items related to

EMI (Table 2).

GROUPS: G1 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (n=126)

G2 NATURAL SCIENCES (n=103)

G3 APPLIED SCIENCES (n=109)

Questionnaire statement (ST) Mean value Significant differences

ST37. My level of satisfaction with learning

English through another subject is…

G1 (M=4.03)

G1-G2 (p<.001)G2 (M=3.28)

G3 (M=3.74)

ST38. When I learn other subjects in English,

my English skills develop…

G1(M=4.48) G1-G2 (p<.001)

G2 (M=3.63)

G3 (M=3.94) G1-G3 (p<.001)

ST39. When I learn a subject in English, I learn

the content of this subject…

G1(M=4.47) G1-G2 (p=.01)

G2(M=4.13)

G3(M=3.99) G1-G3 (p< .001)

Table 2. Statistically significant differences in responses across the three main disciplinary areas

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To obtain a more detailed account of students’ beliefs across specific academic

fields, the questionnaire responses were also organised into 11 different academic

subgroups containing one or two related degrees. The statistically significant

differences found are shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Statistical differences in responses across the 11 academic areas (n=338)

As can be observed, the responses to ST37 varied across the different disciplinary

fields. The learners who reported the strongest dissatisfaction with the EMI

experience were those enrolled in chemistry (M=3.21) and educational sciences

(M=3.08). However, fewer significant differences were found for statements 38

and 39, and the pattern described in Table 2 above was confirmed, with students

in English studies acknowledging greater development of their language skills

(M=4.56) and more effective learning of the course content (M=4.53). All in all,

the informants reported that they learned the content of their respective academic

subjects relatively well, while they perceived their language learning was limited.

These results mirror the unbalanced EMI learning scenario in terms of content

and language-learning outcomes in higher education (HE) that Airey describes

(2016: 73). He explains that, when enrolling in EMI courses, students are

expected to have already acquired sufficient linguistic competence in pre-

university education. Yet, as we shall see throughout this section, not only are the

student informants affected by this imbalance in EMI programmes, but also by

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insufficient linguistic preparation before starting them. Other research has also

pinpointed the different issues that this imbalance may cause for students’

learning (Arnó-Macià and Aguilar-Pérez 2021; Pun and Jin 2021; Zhang and

Pladevall-Ballester 2021).

4.1.1.2. Variable 2: Language-Learning Experience (LLE)

This variable comprised three sub-variables: the number of languages that

students knew other than their L1 —here called extra languages (ExL)—, the

number of foreign languages they had learnt through formal instruction (LFI),

and their SA experiences. The results for this variable, as shown in Table 3,

confirm that those students who have learnt more languages and those with some

SA experience hold different beliefs about EMI learning.

Sub-variable 1: Extra

Languages (ExL)

ST37 My level of

satisfaction...is…

ST38…my English skills

develop…

1ExL (n=106) (M=3.37) (M=3.72)

2ExL (n=151) (M=3.79) (M=4.04)

3ExL (n=59) (M=4.08) (M=4.61)

Significant differences 3ExL and 1ExL (p=.01) 3ExL and 1ExL (p<.001)

3ExL and 2ExL (p=.02)

Significant correlations - -

Sub-variable 2: Languages

learnt by FI (LFI)

1LFI (n=171) (M=3.50) (M=3.91)

2LFI (n=150) (M=3.89) (M=4.15)

3LFI (n=14) (M=4.36) (M=4.64)

Significant differences 3LFI and 1LFI (p=.02) -

Significant correlations - Positive [r (338) = .13, p=.015]

Sub variable 3: SA

experience

SA (n=93) (M=3.89) (M=4.30)

No SA (n=245) (M=3.64) (M=3.96)

Significant differences - t(336) =-2.28,p=.02

Significant correlations - Positive [r (338) = .12, p=.023]

Table 3. Significant differences and correlations for ST37 and ST38 based on LLE (n=338)

These results mirror past investigations that clarify the cognitive benefits of

increasing the linguistic repertoire and spending time in environments where

English is the native language (Kristiansen et al. 2008; Fox et al. 2019). In

addition, SA experiences in combination with formal instruction increase

students’ instrumental and integrative motivation and trigger belief changes as

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regards learning strategies and autonomous learning (Serrano et al. 2016;

McManus 2023).

4.1.1.3. Variable 3: Sex

Female students reported more English linguistic growth (M=4.16) through

EMI lessons than males (M=3.79, p=.01), and they also reported more effective

learning of course content (M=4.29) than their male counterparts (M=4.02,

p=.01). Possible explanations for these findings include higher motivation and a

more effective use of learning strategies by females as identified in previous

research. They have been found to use, for example, more strategies for general

study, for practicing formal rules and for conversation than their male counterparts

(Dörnyei and Ryan 2015; Montero-Saiz Aja 2021).

4.1.2. Quantitative Data from Instructors’ Questionnaire Responses

Data related to the opinions of instructors about learning academic content in

English was elicited through questionnaire statements 29 and 32 and explored

in greater depth through the interviews. The wording for these items was as

follows:

ST29. In Galicia students who start their university degree have a good level of

English (a B1 at least). (Strongly disagree…Strongly agree)

ST32. I think they should include more subjects in English as part of the

university curriculum/programmes. [Yes, but only if they are optional

subjects / Yes, either as optional, compulsory or core subjects / No (…

please…comment…on the reasons.)]

Concerning student English proficiency on enrolment in university studies, 80%

of the teaching staff (n=28) concurred that this level is below the required

standard for HE (M=2.57). As for ST32, more than half of the instructors (57%,

n=20) supported the introduction of more EMI courses in the curriculum only if

these were offered as elective courses. Based on the variables of sex and years of

experience, no significant statistical differences were found. However, regarding

the type of instruction (i.e. GE or EMI), it seems that the EMI instructors are

more enthusiastic about the further implementation of EMI courses (M=2.75)

than the GE instructors (M=2.26; p=.02). As language specialists, it seems more

natural for the latter to identify implicit or secondary aspects, whether linguistic

and/or pedagogical, that may impinge on students’ learning and development. In

contrast, EMI instructors seem to be more positive based on the utilitarian value

of the language and the gratifying experience of teaching in a FL, as they attested

in the interviews.

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4.1.3. Qualitative Data from the Interviews

In terms of motivation and attitudes towards EMI programmes, about 89% of the

students (n=50) welcomed further implementation of these courses due to the

instrumentality of English, in that it guarantees preparedness for future

employment (8 ref),1 a variety of social opportunities (6 ref), better access to post-

graduate studies and research materials (7 ref) and enriched disciplinary and

language learning (2 ref). For their part, the instructors acknowledged the

usefulness of the language as a professional tool, not only for their students, but

also for themselves (4 ref). In addition, EMI instructors acknowledged that their

role grants them advantages regarding their teaching timetable and provides a

good opportunity to practice the language (4 ref).

Some lecturers and professors considered the students’ insufficient level of

English a hindrance to the learning of specific academic subjects (4 ref), and that

content learning is easier in a student’s mother tongue (2 ref). In addition, some

argued that EMI should not be imposed since there are other foreign languages

to learn as well (2 ref). Other instructors expressed their disapproval of EMI,

indicating that the challenge it poses for learners might lead to negative attitudes

towards the language. Indeed, some comments by EMI students also show

evidence of this issue:

In any case, to have to study a subject in a language that you cannot use proficiently

is always a challenge. (QtSt252)2

I don’t think I have upgraded my…language skills…in English at the USC. I think

my skills have improved very little compared to the level I had when I finished high

school, which is disappointing. (QtSt420)

The informants broadly agreed that learning English is different from learning

other subjects. Based on this belief, it is understandable that acquiring and teaching

content through EMI is very challenging, in that students and educators must

learn and teach, respectively, while engaged in course content that requires different

processes of learning. This issue has also been noted in previous studies (Cots

2013; Doiz et al. 2013b; Dafouz 2014; Pérez Vidal 2015; An and Thomas 2021).

4.2. Evaluation of EMI Programmes

In relation to the second research question regarding the implementation of these

programmes, the interviews revealed diverse sets of concerns.

4.2.1. Student and Instructor Proficiency

The comments of some instructors made clear that low levels of English

proficiency of beginning students at the USC were an issue:

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Another problem is the uneven level of the students; for instance, some of them

want an exam in English but some others don’t. (EMI-IntT13)3

According to the official regulations, students are expected to have a B2 level… but it

is unrealistic. So… this means I’m forced to build basic language skills while trying to

force the programme as much as I can… The official regulations describe multilingual

students, and they say their level is high when it is really low. (GE-IntT16)

For their part, the students also acknowledged that their levels of proficiency, as

well as those of professors and lecturers, were not good enough for effective EMI

learning (5 ref). Pre-service instructors noted having received very little training

in English as future primary school teachers (2 ref), which echoes findings

reported by Loredo Gutiérrez et al. (2007) about a group of teachers in training

of whom less than 50% perceived their competence in English to be high. Apart

from their previous language-learning experiences in secondary education, this

also reflects the different levels of exposure to learning in English because of the

uneven distribution of courses across USC faculties and schools. For example, at

the beginning of the present study, only four subjects were taught in English in

the Faculty of Education, whereas 13 subjects were taught in the language in the

Faculty of Chemistry. An additional issue that underlies the negative opinions of

pre-service teaching staff seems to be the quality of the teaching they experience.

When asked if more courses in English should be included in the curriculum,

they stated:

What should be established is that if we have a good foundation at the secondary and

high school levels, we can have courses taught in English at the university. (IntSt18)

Yes, they [courses in English] should be included. We only had one subject over

three months taught by three teachers, none of whom spoke in English. And they

just focused on the basic grammar as usual. (IntSt21)

Furthermore, most of the participating instructors (95%, n=21) commented on

the preparation and attitudes of students and staff on EMI programmes. As the

following comments illustrate, the instructors themselves pointed out the need

for better training:

As to the teacher… they should allow us to take some lessons in English, for example,

for a better preparation. (EMI-IntT12)

I have a C1 level and would like to continue learning… I think all EMI teachers have

language limitations… Some students are way better than me in English because

they have lived abroad, or they are Erasmus students. (EMI-IntT13)

In the case of the other faculties, I see the advantages of EMI only if the teachers are

well prepared to deliver the lessons in English. As to the students…the level is so

unequal that perhaps it would be best to teach them English as a separate subject and

not… through the degree subjects. So, I think there’s more will to internationalize

the degrees than to have the students learn. (GE-IntT22)

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They [instructors] need to prepare themselves to teach specific language, for

instance, in a subject like English for law, the new ESP teacher needs to become

familiar with areas such as civil law and criminal law…general English teachers do

not normally learn terms related to law, business or science… thus, it’s necessary to

spend extra-time preparing lessons. (GE-IntT2)

These findings suggest a positive predisposition of EMI instructors to improve

their language competence in English, which aligns with the results reported by

Cal Varela and Fernández Polo (2007) about the motivations and beliefs of the

USC staff. In addition, an imbalance was found in the skill levels of the teaching

staff. On the one hand, while GE instructors have high linguistic proficiency,

they lack solid preparation to teach in ESP areas. On the other hand, pre-service

teaching staff are given good pedagogical training, but linguistic training in their

degree programmes is lacking. As regards the EMI instructors, although they are

specialists in their respective content areas, they also seem to require more solid

professional development, both pedagogically and linguistically. In this regard,

different initiatives have been set in motion in Spain and beyond, such as EMI

professional development and training programmes (Arnó-Macià and Aguilar-

Pérez 2021; Dafouz 2021; Webster and Herington 2021; Morell et al. 2022; Gil

and Mur-Dueñas 2023) which could serve as a blueprint to design solutions

customised to the needs of students and faculty at the USC.

4.2.2. Instructors’ Attitudes and Pedagogical Practice

Some comments by the EMI teaching staff illustrated that their teaching practice

was rather intuitive and based on their beliefs about teaching in English, thus

revealing a lack of pedagogical cohesion across the faculties and schools:

In terms of materials, I give my master students everything in English just as it is

stipulated in the programme. We are not allowed to give them any materials in

Spanish or Galician… It is also true that sometimes if they come across a word they

don’t know, I translate it for them. (EMI-IntT12)

So, I make clear from day one that I don’t teach English, but I won’t assess their

English either… In the case of the materials I give them out in English. (EMI-IntT15)

We should always be clear about the content, for instance, in the use of PowerPoint

slides I include illustrations to accompany the meaning of new words, we use a

combination of materials in English and Spanish… I don’t assess their language skills

but... What I don’t do is to give them the translated word or to accept questions in

Spanish or Galician. I [try] to force them to repeat [the question] in English. So, it’s

a mutual understanding that it is not an English class, but we try to understand each

other in English. (EMI-IntT18)

In terms of methodological approaches when teaching classes through EMI, the

instructors also attempt to use translanguaging,4 albeit inconsistently, as can be

gathered by some of their comments:

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In chemical engineering… students can take the same subject in Spanish/Galician

or in English… In the case of the materials, I give them out in English… but via

the forums they have access to the materials in Spanish… They could do without the

English materials and use the Spanish ones, but I don’t think they do because

reading is one of their best skills. (EMI-IntT15)

Because the level of my students is not homogenous, I would usually use my

presentation slides in Spanish for those low-level students so that they may have a

better chance to follow the content but in fact there are more materials and

bibliography in English… so I give them terminology translated into Spanish

(practically a literal translation). In a one-to-one interaction, I usually use Spanish if

I see they don’t understand the explanation in English or if they can’t formulate

questions clearly. But to address the whole class I usually use English. (EMI-IntT19)

These inconsistent pedagogical practices and assessment criteria are detrimental to

the effectiveness of EMI programmes. The fact that students receive little or no

feedback about their linguistic performance runs contrary to the aims of EMI to

develop or reinforce their language skills. This means that some learners must

assimilate course content in English despite poor linguistic competence attained in

pre-university years. Along these same lines, the issue of the development of

academic English skills for their future professions should also be addressed. As

regards pedagogy, the compartmentalisation of languages, i.e. the use of English or

Spanish rather than the full available language repertoire, creates what Doiz et al.

refer to as “the hegemony of the monolingual mindset” (2013b: 215). In the case

of the current study, based in the region of Galicia, such a monolingual approach is

also detrimental to the use of the Galician language since it serves to foster the use

of the more dominant L1 (Spanish) as a counterpart to English. Moreover, whereas

team-teaching might not be feasible at the present time at the USC due to a shortage

of teaching staff, it is an alternative worth exploring in the future.

4.2.3. Curricular Organisation of EMI Programmes

Other EMI implementation-related issues voiced by the faculty members involved

the placing of EMI subjects in the most appropriate academic years or levels

throughout the curriculum, which increases the difficulty of teaching these

programmes (4 ref), as stated by one interviewee.

They [students] may find these subjects difficult because they are normally placed in

the last years of their degrees and some years have gone past since students last

studied English. Hence, on the one hand, it would seem feasible for this type of

English subject to be present at the beginning of their degree; however, on the other

hand, at the beginning stages of a degree students are not familiar with some

important concepts for their degrees and thus, it may seem useless to teach them

some terms in English before they even know what they are in their native language(s)

(GE-IntT2).

Yonay Rodríguez Rodríguez

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

Additional suggestions regarding the implementation of this methodology

included consistent need analysis and monitoring (1 ref), effective decision-

making and support by stakeholders and local authorities, and sufficient academic,

human and economic resources (7 ref). All these aspects impinge on the quality

of EMI programmes, that is, on “the level of excellence at which the institutional

EMI policy is reflected in instructional practices…, learning outcomes and

alumni performance” (Akincioğlu 2024: 146).

4.2.4 Linguistic Friction of EFL and L1s

Finally, the data also showed the linguistic friction that can arise from the process

of internationalisation in multilingual contexts (Doiz et al. 2011, 2014; Cots

2013). This is reflected in the ideological approach of two interviewees, the first

of whom wondered, “Why do we have to give up Spanish as a LF and surrender

to English?” (GE-IntT3). In a similar vein, a second instructor explained that

EMI subjects widen the gap between those students with high and lower levels of

proficiency. “It harms, consequently, those students whose skills are not

linguistic” (GE-IntT5). Other participants also consider English as a form of

imperialism, as these comments show:

Although foreign languages are very important, I think it is more important to know

your mother tongue very well. In the case of Galician people, it is sad when I hear

them speak proficiently in English, Spanish, or other foreign languages but they

can’t produce a full correct sentence in Galician, the language of our land. (QtSt238)

Forced linguistic colonialism has a negative impact on the recipient cultures. The

educational, personal, and developmental benefits deriving from the learning of a

foreign language are present regardless of the language learned. The impossibility of

choosing beyond the English language is inadequate, and it leads students to think

they are not good at languages since they cannot achieve a high level of competence

in English in particular. (GE-QtT4)

This linguistic tension cannot be overlooked when implementing EMI programmes

in multilingual regions since monolingual practices in English undermine the

multilingual identities of the learners and teachers. Thus, EMI pedagogies should

favor more inclusive, multilingual practices (Doiz et al. 2019; Akincioğlu 2024).

5. Concluding Remarks

In this study I have addressed two main research questions about EMI programs

at the USC. The first one aimed to identify the beliefs of the participants about

content learning in English in the different academic areas. The data reported

here indicate that they share positive views about the implementation of EMI

A Study of Beliefs about EMI Programmes

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

courses, mostly due to the utilitarian use of English. A key finding in this study,

however, is that the academic field of the students, as well as their linguistic

experience, had a bearing on responses, as did the type of English instruction the

teachers delivered. The primary implication of these findings is the need for

customised pedagogies in EMI programmes at the USC.

As regards the second question, the perceptions of students and teaching staff

about the EMI experience revealed various issues regarding the implementation

of this methodology, such as inadequate linguistic preparation, inconsistent

pedagogical practices and organisational difficulties. These data mirror the

results of previous studies conducted both in Spain and abroad (Dafouz et al.

2016; Kirkgöz and Dikilitaş 2018; Pérez-Llantada 2018; Doiz et al. 2019; Arnó-

Macià and Aguilar-Pérez 2021; Akincioğlu 2024). Thus, further evaluation and

adjustment of the implementation policies of these programmes at the USC is

required to tackle these issues.

The findings of this study not only contribute to the existing body of knowledge

about learning through EMI but also carry significant implications since they

could inform the process of curricular adaptation or design of EMI programmes

to better align them with the learners’ and educators’ needs. In addition, these

results could also provide insights for teacher-training initiatives and for more

effective policy implementation including, for example, more resource allocation

and better instruction and assessment practices. Within the classroom context,

these findings could also be used by instructors to implement interventions to

foster motivation, to use more effective pedagogies and to design materials that

are better adapted to the students’ learning needs.

While this project provides valuable insights regarding EMI programmes at the

USC, it also has some limitations such as its exploratory character and the lack of

participation of actors other than students and teachers. To overcome these

limitations, future research should comprise a more in-depth analysis of the

impact this methodology has on students’ learning, and further examination of

the implementation policies involving other stakeholders such as administrators

and university councils. Finally, this study could be replicated in other institutions,

thereby permitting the emergence of evolving solutions and fostering increased

cohesion and functionality in EMI programmes across the Galician region and

more broadly in Spain.

Acknowledgements

Funding from the following institutions is highly appreciated: Regional

Government of Galicia (grants GPC2015/004, ED431D 2017/09, ED431B

Yonay Rodríguez Rodríguez

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

2018/05, ED431B 2021/02), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and

Competitiveness (grant FFI2015-64057-P) and the Spanish State Research

Agency (grants PGC2018-093622-B-I00 and PID2021-122267NB-I00).

Notes

1. In NVivo, a reference (ref) is the

number of times an answer or argument was

repeated.

2. Questionnaire-Student # (QtSt252).

3. GE or EMI Interview-Instructor #

(GEIntT12 or EMI-IntT12).

4. Translanguaging: the use of the

full linguistic repertoire of communicative

strategies that speakers possess from the

various languages that they know (Taken and

adapted from www.dicenlen.eu).

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ZHANG, Mengjia and Elisabet PLADEVALL-BALLESTER. 2021. “Discipline-Specific Language Learning

Outcomes in EMI Programs in the People’s Republic of China”. Language and Education 35 (4):

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Received: 22/03/2024

Accepted: 29/10/2024

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 91-112 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834

INMACULADA FORTANET-GÓMEZ

Universitat Jaume I

fortanet@uji.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8981-565X>

VIKTORIIA DROBOTUN

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine

v.drobotun@knu.ua

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5628-6381>

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL

LEARNING (COIL) BETWEEN SPANISH

AND UKRAINIAN STUDENTS: NEW TASKS

AND NEW RELATIONSHIPS

APRENDIZAJE INTERNACIONAL COLABORATIVO

EN LÍNEA (COIL) ENTRE ESTUDIANTADO ESPAÑOL

Y UCRANIANO: NUEVAS TAREAS

Y NUEVAS RELACIONES

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202511126

Abstract

Nowadays, our professional lives face challenges that inevitably require a quick

reaction and a shift in the field of education. Moreover, globalisation and the

ongoing war in Ukraine motivate teachers to look for new opportunities to

communicate across cultures. This research aims to analyse students’ perceptions

of the effects of collaborative online international learning (COIL). The study

participants were 12 fourth-year Ukrainian students from Taras Shevchenko

National University of Kyiv who were taking the course on Academic English

within the Languages, Literature and Translation program and a group of 20

Spanish fifth-year students from Universitat Jaume I who were enrolled in the

Business English course as part of the dual degree in Business Administration

and Law. The methodology consisted of three stages. Firstly, participants used

online communication tools to establish contacts with partners. Secondly,

students discussed the topic of corporate sustainability on Zoom. Thirdly, each

group used online collaborative teaching (OCT) to write an opinion essay.

Results from the final questionnaire after the COIL experience confirmed that,

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despite the difficulties due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, students’ perceptions

of their experience of COIL were positive. They were more motivated and

believed the activity had helped them to improve their writing and speaking skills

as well as their intercultural competence.

Keywords: collaborative online international learning, online collaborative

teaching, IT tools, intercultural competence, students’ learning self-perception.

Resumen

Actualmente, nuestra vida profesional se enfrenta a retos que inevitablemente

requieren una rápida reacción y un cambio en la educación. Además, la

globalización, y la guerra en curso en Ucrania, motivan al profesorado a buscar

nuevas oportunidades para la comunicación intercultural. Esta investigación

pretende analizar los efectos que produce en el estudiantado una experiencia de

aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en línea (COIL por sus siglas en inglés).

Los participantes en el estudio fueron 12 estudiantes ucranianos de la Taras

Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ucrania) de una asignatura de Inglés

Académico en el cuarto curso del programa de Lenguas, Literatura y Traducción,

y 20 estudiantes españoles de la Universitat Jaume I matriculados en Inglés para

los Negocios en el quinto curso del doble grado de Administración de Empresas

y Derecho. La metodología constó de tres fases. En primer lugar, los participantes

se comunicaron en línea para establecer un primer contacto. En segundo lugar,

debatieron sobre sostenibilidad corporativa en Zoom. En tercer lugar, cada grupo

redactó un ensayo de opinión en colaboración. Los resultados del cuestionario

final confirmaron que, a pesar de las dificultades debidas a la guerra en Ucrania,

la percepción del estudiantado sobre su experiencia con COIL fue positiva.

Estuvieron más motivados e indicaron que esta actividad les había ayudado a

mejorar sus destrezas orales y escritas, y su competencia intercultural.

Palabras clave: aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en línea, enseñanza

colaborativa en línea, herramientas informáticas, competencia intercultural,

percepción del aprendizaje por los estudiantes.

1. Introduction

COIL (collaborative online international learning) is considered to be “a new

teaching and learning paradigm that promotes the development of intercultural

competence across shared multicultural learning environments” (Rubin and

Wilson n.d.). COIL requires the engagement of a global network to provide a

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context for virtual communication and collaboration among participants. This

type of online learning gathers at least two groups of representatives from

different cultural backgrounds and educational programs located in another city,

country, continent and even time zone. Furthermore, participants in COIL

initiatives may study different subjects, which means that an interdisciplinary

approach is also one of the components of COIL. This type of collaborative

learning can be synchronous or asynchronous, and language is the aspect that

unites the participants. The beneficial outcomes of participation in COIL appear

to be intercultural information exchange and practice with both previously and

newly gained skills (Hackett et al. 2023).

Another valuable point is the opportunity to receive information about the world

through eyes, senses, emotions and understanding directly from those who

experience them. In such a way, we can form images and perceptions of the world.

That is why COIL can promote students’ intercultural awareness and foster their

curiosity and motivation to learn more.

After gaining the experience of working outside the classroom during the two

years of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and students have become more

acquainted with a wide range of educational IT platforms and tools. COVID-19

forced teachers to understand that the world, which was previously perceived as a

‘small global village’ where people had a great number of opportunities to travel,

work, study and actually explore, may at a certain times force us into isolation,

causing us to become unreachable.In this setting, teachers, now equipped with

the skills to work online, feel more confident and ready to gain new experience in

implementing the COIL methodology in their classrooms.

COIL fosters communication and collaboration across cultures without requiring

physical border-crossing and can broaden students’ awareness of cross-cultural

communication and foster multicultural literacy. Students may participate in

activities abroad, not only by acquiring new knowledge and improving skills

developed previously, but also by sharing ideas, knowledge and experiences while

staying at home and attending classes at their university. Moreover, this kind of

activity requires the involvement of modern means of communication that are

tightly connected with IT programs, platforms and applications, thereby enhancing

students’ digital literacy. In other words, COIL may help to raise a generation of

technologically savvy global citizens with profound knowledge of others.

2. Literature Review

In the search for new angles and approaches for teaching and learning foreign

languages, growing attention is being given to COIL (O’Dowd 2016; Marull and

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Kumar 2020). Virtual exchange is considered to be an umbrella term for COIL

(O’Dowd 2018), which is broader. There is a wide range of terminology used to

denote technology-based learning and collaboration: online intercultural

exchange (O’Dowd 2016), telecollaboration (Sonnenwald et al. 1999; Lee and

Markey 2014; O’Dowd 2016), globally networked learning (Crabtree et al. 2008;

McNair and Paretti 2010), internet-mediated intercultural foreign language

education (Belz and Thorne 2006) and e-tandem (O’Rourke 2007) or teletandem

(Telles and Leone 2016). The authors of this research agreed to use the term

COIL, as for us, such notions as internationalisation and online learning are of

central importance.

As great attention is paid nowadays to global citizenship education around the

world, COIL approaches can be employed to foster “a flexible body of issues,

skills, attitudes, and sensitivities that enable individuals to be thoughtful,

responsible, participatory citizens of their local community, state, nation, and

world” (Cruz 1998: 28). This means that by applying COIL, instructors may

engage participants in meaningful interactions, such as dialogues between

students from different cultures. This approach fosters cross-cultural awareness

and helps students discover common ground while also encouraging an

appreciation of the uniqueness of their own and others’ perspectives. To reach

this goal, classroom discussions about messages or problems depicted in videos or

articles are beneficial, as they encourage students to draw on their knowledge and

share experiences. Furthermore, the received knowledge, which is the product of

collaboration with peers, could be a valuable source for further assignments, both

oral and written (O’Dowd 2016). Thus, this type of online collaboration and

communication has become vital for researchers and language learners as,

through partnerships and networks, students perform various tasks and improve

both their language skills and background knowledge of the topic.

O’Dowd (2016) delves into the tendency to involve university students in

collaboration exchanges in many ways. For instance, the use of English, French,

Spanish or other languages as a lingua franca can successfully build and develop

students’ intercultural and sociocultural competence and awareness of the role of

a language in intercultural communication. Such activities enable the development

of critical reflective skills of primary importance in our modern world, as they may

help sustain peace and the principles of democracy or build cultural and economic

contacts. Recognising COIL approaches helps improve soft skills and professional

knowledge in the younger generation, which in turn might contribute to mitigating

or preventing future economic crises and armed conflicts.

Moreover, King de Ramirez (2019) provides COIL project results among students

enrolled in universities located in the Arizona-Sonora Megaregion. Using various

platforms such as Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Gaming, Snapchat and Instagram,

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participants collaborated in communication to discuss the political debates held

due to the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The aim of the project was to understand whether international online

communication could increase students’ awareness of intersections between local

and global communities. In this research, COIL was intended to remedy a general

lack of knowledge and communication between students who live in the Arizona-

Sonora Megaregion within 70 miles of the United States-Mexico Border in either

one or the other country. This can be considered an example of how collaborative

initiatives can foster the development of essential global competences, including

the ability to analyse international relations, critically appraise media and

recognise the intricate connections that shape global interdependence. All of the

aforementioned experiences demonstrate that COIL enhances global citizenship

and language skills (Marginson and Sawir 2011).

The successful implementation of COIL encourages educators to conduct

research and analyse the merits of COIL in different fields of science, as shown in

the research conducted by Rubin (Center for Innovation in Teaching and

Learning 2017), who implemented a four-credit COIL course on video

production for university students from Belarus and the US. The purpose of the

course was to identify and improve cross-cultural and professional competence.

As part of the research, each team of students produced a 4-minute film on the

theme chosen and later emailed the final video to the members of the second

team. The outcomes reflected an improvement in professional skills and

meaningful international experiences that enhanced cross-cultural sensitivity,

comprehension and perception of the different images of the world (Center for

Innovation in Teaching and Learning 2017).

Similarly, another group of educators implemented technology-based learning in

a virtual exchange project between the Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Hryhorii

Skovoroda State Pedagogical, Ukraine, and Trakia University, Bulgaria

(Rzhevskaya et al. 2020). The researchers found that students enrolled in non-

engineering fields of study used well-known tools for their collaboration, resulting

in a positive impact on their outcomes and gained further appreciation for

learning new IT skills for successful cooperation and communication. Therefore,

alongside improving language skills and communicating across cultures, students

acquired new knowledge in the field of digital literacy.

The study carried out by Orsini-Jones and Lee (2018) provides an account of a

COIL project dealing with the integration of global citizenship education into

the curriculum and assessment of language courses provided at Coventry

University, in the United Kingdom, and the Université de Haute-Alsace, in

France. Students from both institutions used a common learning management

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system, where they participated in activities related to developing strategies for

intercultural pragmatics and netiquette.

Previous research has highlighted that students perceive COIL as an excellent tool

to boost language skills, raise cross-cultural awareness, enhance professional

knowledge and skills and develop critical thinking and IT literacy (Nguyen et al.

2024). It allows educators to engage at least two groups of students from

universities in different counties or even continents to participate in discussions on

socially relevant topics and to work collaboratively through an online platform

using a lingua franca. Nguyen et al. (2024) found different ways in which students

perceived an improvement of English as a lingua franca. On the one hand, they

made an effort to make themselves understood and to understand their interlocutors

by means of the resources available in online communication. As other authors

(Çiftçi and Savaş, 2018) point out, in telecollaboration, learners’ abilities to

communicate and adapt interculturally can be boosted through problem-solving.

Furthermore, Nguyen et al. (2024) showed that students believed COIL had

helped them develop not only their English skills but also their attitudes, awareness,

knowledge and intercultural skills, making them more confident to use English.

3. Objectives and Research Questions

Though previous studies have explored the use of COIL, to our knowledge none

has dealt with COIL between Spanish and Ukrainian students, especially in

wartime. This research aims to determine whether students perceive that COIL

can create advantages for learning the English language and make them aware of

cross-cultural communication, while they learn new content and cultural aspects.

In order to reach this objective, the following research questions will be answered:

RQ 1. What is the students’ perception on how COIL affects English language

learning in interdisciplinary settings?

RQ 2. What additional benefits for global education do students report after

the implementation of COIL?

4. The Study

4.1. Participants and Context

The study participants comprised 32 students from two groups: one consisting of

fourth- and fifth-year students enrolled at Universitat Jaume I (UJI), Spain, and

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another from the Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology, Taras

Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine (KNU). The students in the

first group belonged to the dual degree in Business and Law who took the English

for Specific Purposes (ESP) course titled Business English at UJI. The second

group consisted of 12 students enrolled in a degree in Turkish, Persian, Chinese

and English language and literature, and took a course in academic English at

KNU. Although the special circumstances of Ukrainian students (most located in

a country at war) were not taken into account for the development of the COIL

activity and the research study, they inevitably affected participants’ performance

in several ways.

In November 2022, the second author of this article was a visiting professor at

the UJI, teaching online at KNU, and together with the first author organised a

series of COIL activities between students of the two institutions. Firstly, the

students communicated online to establish contacts and find out information

about the other country’s customs and traditions as well as the university itself.

For this purpose, students at both universities were divided into 12 groups and

provided with the email addresses of their interlocutors to conduct the first online

meeting outside the classroom. Then, all students had an online class (Google

Meet) as part of their coursework. In the case of the KNU students, it was based

on the course book Global: Level Advanced, 2nd edition by Lindsay Clandfield and

Amanda Jeffries, Macmillan, 2016, and Academic Writing, A Handbook for

International Students, 3rd edition by Stephen Bailey, Routledge, 2011. Regarding

the students at the UJI, the class was about the specific disciplinary discourse of

business in English. In both groups, the goal was to introduce the characteristics

of academic discourse and to learn the strategies of source-based writing, the

ways scientists integrate their ideas into their written texts, using paraphrasing,

citations and stylistic devices to express different points of view; and rules for

organising a list of references according to the APA, 7th edition.

4.2. The Task: Instruments and Procedure

The task was divided into 3 parts. First, the students in each group were assigned

a partner from the other institution. As the number of students was not the same

in both institutions, some Ukrainian students were assigned 2 Spanish students.

The first part of the task consisted of establishing contact.

To facilitate this, all students were provided with a guide for the first virtual

40-minute interview, which included a list of 13 open-ended questions (see

Appendix 1). The file was published on Google Classroom (for Ukrainian

students) and Moodle (for Spanish students). This questionnaire was designed so

that students could collect information about their counterparts’ academic

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background, personal interests and perspectives on their studies. Students’

responses provided their partners with insights on the country and its culture and

traditions. Additionally, in order to foster successful academic collaboration, it was

essential for them to know more about their partners’ study habits and learning

preferences as well as their attitude toward time management and responsibility.

The aim of the second and third parts of the task was to learn about the discussion

topic of corporate sustainability and the norms of written and spoken academic

English. As preparation, students were provided with some instructions on the

conventions of academic English and two scientific articles on corporate

sustainability (Montiel and Delgado-Ceballos 2014; Michie 2018) which they

had to read during the following week. Then, as a second part of the task, they

were asked to participate in a live discussion on the topic, for which UJI students

were in the classroom and connected online through Google Meet with KNU

students, who were online and outside the classroom setting. To stimulate this

discussion, they were provided with some questions to answer:

1. What do you think “corporate sustainability” is?

2. Are many companies committed to it?

3. Why? Why not?

4. Which aspects of corporate sustainability do companies mainly pay attention

to: governance, product, economic and social impact, environment, energy

saving?

5. Do big and small companies implement corporate sustainability measures in

the same way?

6. How do you see the future of corporate sustainability?

After the discussion, students were given two more weeks to asynchronously

prepare a collaborative academic research-informed opinion essay on corporate

sustainability and then submit it as a Google Doc, as the third part of the task. In

order to fulfill this task, they were provided with the instructions appearing in

Appendix 2. Although an assessment of the quality of the essays is out of the

scope of this research, it should be pointed out that they were assessed according

to a rubric made known to the students and shared by both instructors, and the

mark received for this thask counted for 15% of the final grade.

Before concluding the collaborative writing task, the students were asked to

voluntarily fill in an anonymous questionnaire in a Google Form to analyse the

outcomes of their collaboration (see Appendix 3). All the respondents gave their

express consent to the processing of their data, and all personal and private

information was anonymised and treated confidentially. The questionnaire

consisted of 13 multiple-choice, open-ended and linear-scale questions, which

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were designed to evaluate students’ experience and perception of their collaborative

online learning.

In order to achieve the study aims and answer the research questions, we analysed

the anonymous answers provided voluntarily by students in the final questionnaire:

their perception on the contribution of COIL to their English language learning

and what it had meant as an intercultural and personal experience. Although 32

students participated in the COIL activities, the number of respondents to the

second questionnaire was 27 (18 Spanish students and 9 Ukrainians). The

answers were coded as Sp and Uk and assigned a number indicating the order in

which the response was received. In the next section, the responses to this

questionnaire will be analysed in order to answer the research questions.

5. Results and Discussion

Before answering the research questions, there are some data about the participating

students that need to be highlighted. It was essential to know whether the students

had any experience in participating in COIL activities; the answers to questions 1

and 2 would help predict obstacles and barriers to participating successfully. In the

case of UJI students, 90% acknowledged it was their first COIL experience, and for

56% of them, this was the first time they communicated with someone for whom

English was not their native language. In the case of KNU students, it was

surprising that for all of them it was the first time they had contacted foreigners

with whom they could only speak in English, even though for only 60% of the

students it was their first COIL experience. The explanation is that some students

had participated in previously organised virtual telecollaborations between Turkish

and Ukrainian students who majored in Turkish linguistics. That is why the

language of their communication was mainly Turkish; however, if

miscommunications happened, they applied their knowledge of English.

It was revealing to learn the participants’ preferences for communicating with each

other: they communicated using online video meetings, email or texting on social

networks. Unfortunately, the time chosen for the COIL activities in 2022

coincided with electricity outages throughout the territory of Ukraine, thus raising

the researchers’ concern about the impact of technical obstacles, which could cause

frustration and disappointment with the COIL experience for students. As a

result, the researchers did not insist on synchronous spoken communication.

However, students overcame these difficulties, communicating mainly by email or

texting, with about 50% successfully holding video communication on Zoom,

Meet or WhatsApp (questions 3-6). To meet the requirements of the thask, the

Ukrainian students tried to find cafes, restaurants or offices which had generators

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100

to produce electricity and cope with power cuts. That is why 90% of all participants

had a fluent exchange of messages, in which they shared information and organised

their work, especially the collaborative writing task.

The analysis of the questionnaire data (question 7) revealed similarities and

differences in the topics discussed. For instance, 100% of the Ukrainian students

concentrated their attention on exchanging information and organising

collaborative writing, followed by 89.9% who discussed the task performance and

77% who addressed personal matters (Figure 1). Similarly, 100% of the Spanish

students prioritised the topics on organising collaborative writing, while 88.9%

concentrated on exchanging information and 83.3% addressed attention to task

performance issues, whereas only 66.7% of Spanish students showed interest in

discussing personal matters (Figure 2).

7. What were the messages about?

9 answers

7. What were the messages about?

18 answers

Figure 1. Topics of messages by Ukrainian students

Figure 2. Topics of messages by Spanish students

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101

These findings indicate that participants from both universities recalled having

placed equal importance on the task-related discussion and collaborative writing,

in particular. However, the Ukrainian students reported placing greater emphasis

on information exchange and personal issues than their Spanish counterparts.

This highlights the importance of addressing both professional and interpersonal

aspects to foster collaboration in cultural contexts.

5.1. Students’ Reported Effect of COIL on Language Learning in

Interdisciplinary Settings

Based on the responses to the second questionnaire (Appendix 3), we found that

students evaluated the COIL activities very highly: 78% of students gave the

initiative a score of 5 out of 5 points, and 22% gave it 4 points (questions 8 and 10).

Students claimed that the COIL activities carried out were successful and fruitful,

prompting them to employ previously received knowledge and experience and to

focus on new knowledge gained from reading and listening tasks. The Ukrainian

students learned about the topic of corporate sustainability, which Spanish students

were familiar with, but they were not. On the other hand, Spanish students learned

about academic writing, a skill which was not new for the Ukrainian students.

Therefore, interdisciplinary settings, in our case Business English and Academic

English courses, created a fruitful environment where participants delved into

business approaches and modern concerns to save the planet. The process of

broadening their subject knowledge was not only undertaken through reading

articles, but also through oral communication. The topic of corporate sustainability

provided a context in which to receive and convey ideas in English (questions 9 and

11), according to the views of some Ukrainian students:

I deepened my knowledge in this field, listened to different points of view and

learned something new. [Uk_2]

It was interesting to hear foreign students’ opinions on corporate sustainability.

[Uk_4]

The live classroom discussion motivated students to practise their speaking skills.

Spanish students appreciated their partners’ active participation during the

discussion and valued the wish to sincerely express themselves on the topic, thus

finding whether the points of view coincided, as some of their opinions reflect:

It was interesting to hear the Ukrainian students and their opinions. Thanks to this

discussion, I could learn about their opinion. [Sp_7]+

I saw that many people think like me about corporate sustainability. Also, I saw that

Ukrainian students participated every time, unlike us, and I liked that. [Sp_3]

It was also at this time when participants of COIL could check and practise their

comprehension skills and learn that a different accent is not a barrier to understand

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a speaker if the participants in the conversation can negotiate meaning by asking

questions to check they have understood the message.

While performing COIL activities, participants completed exercises to learn new

vocabulary and discourse and practised its usage by asking and answering

questions in the discussion, which demonstrated the ability to use new vocabulary

and discourse, along with the subject knowledge of the topic of corporate

sustainability. More specifically, students explained in English the meaning of the

term “sustainability” and its growing importance in the modern world. In the

words of a Ukrainian student, the COIL classes equipped them with the

background knowledge on the topic, gave them information about the researchers

who carried out studies, and also further details about the main components of

corporate sustainability:

I have learned that corporate sustainability consists of 3 parts and that Adam Smith’s

economic theory does not require entrepreneurs to make positive social and

environmental impact on the world. [Uk 7]

Students reported that reading the articles, watching the video, and later

participating in the online discussion helped them to develop different language

and cognitive skills (Appendix 3 - question 13). One of the main learning

objectives of COIL was to encourage students to analyse and synthesise the

information from texts and use the knowledge gained in their essays. Thus,

students signified and conveyed in their essays the idea that entrepreneurs are

concerned about corporate responsibility and the implementation of its main

principles to make our world better.

According to the results of the questionnaire (Appendix 3 - questions 11 and 13),

both Spanish and Ukrainian students indicated that they had opportunities to

improve their academic writing skills by practising and using formal vocabulary

easily, as they expressed:

On an academic level, I think it has prepared us for future, because nowadays in

most companies you have to be fluent, and you are going to have to interact with

people from all over the world. [Sp 10]

It has helped me to learn English and have new experiences communicating with

new persons. [Sp_5]

I have applied the essay writing requirements that we received during our English

class. [Uk_3]

The whole topic of corporate sustainability was new to me, so I learned quite a lot

about it and at the same time practiced my academic English. [Uk_6]

Since English was the only language of their communication, students were

provided with a rich opportunity to share their knowledge and develop fact-based

arguments in English:

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103

I have learned to work with people who don’t speak the same language as me. To do

an opinion essay with another person only speaking English. [Sp_8]

As explained by the students, during their online conversations, cross-cultural

pronunciation differences sometimes required some clarifications and at the same

time forced them to rephrase and explain their ideas to avoid misunderstanding.

That is why the communication was natural and effective. What is more, in both

groups there were students who considered themselves introverts and for whom

speaking up in the classroom setting was a common source of tension. For these

subjects participating in COIL was a way of facing these challenges, and they

overcame communicative difficulties (question 13).

It helps us to get loose and it helps us to lose the embarrassment of talking to people

who don’t speak our language. [Sp_12]

Any communications with English speakers give you lots of skills. It is a great

opportunity to get out of comfort zone. [Uk_8]

All in all, students reported having learned about both the language and a relevant

topic for society such as corporate sustainability. They acknowledged the benefits

of collaborative writing and also those of speaking in English as a lingua franca

with other students.

5.2. Additional Student-Reported Benefits of COIL

Students acknowledged that by performing language-learning tasks, their soft

skills, which are of great importance in the modern workplace, had been boosted

(questions 11 and 13 in Appendix 3). In their answers to these questions, both

Spanish and Ukrainian students highlighted an important benefit of COIL: the

opportunity to work as a team, as the task required them to collaborate and

produce an outcome from their joint work — an informed opinion essay. Similarly,

students acknowledged the difficulties they had faced and how they had learned

time management skills, while arranging online meetings with a partner, making

plans and setting deadlines.

Then, some more soft skills they seem to have acquired are adaptability and

problem-solving, as can be gathered from their answers to question 13. Being in

different countries, having time differences and facing problems related to

internet connectivity and electricity, the students quickly adapted their timetables

and coped with the challenges they were faced with:

I learned that even tasks which seem impossible can be completed in time. [Uk_9]

The necessity to activate communication skills helped them to broaden their

knowledge about cultural aspects of both countries, Ukraine and Spain, everyday

lifestyle and the current state of life and business, as they acknowledged in their

answers to question 12.

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Analysing the feedback, we can state that, after finishing COIL activities,

participants of both universities seem to have become more cross-culturally

competent inasmuch as they have learned the characteristics of people in the other

country. Spanish students considered Ukrainian students brave, strong, very

intelligent and hard-working. Spanish students also mentioned that Ukrainians

put much effort to continue their studies in spite of the war in their country, with

the circumstances they must overcome every day and the suffering involved:

I didn’t have any specific ideas about how Ukrainian people were, but now I think

that they are very motivated and hard-working. Feeling this through the experience

was really motivating for me also. [Sp 15]

I think they are having a very bad time, and it is a situation, I would not wish to

anyone. Despite this, they are very predisposed and kind people. In addition, they

are very friendly for the situation in which they find themselves. I don’t think I

would take it so well. [Sp 12]

Then, they noticed that, though Ukrainian students majored in languages, they

could also show some competence to discuss business issues. Likewise, Ukrainian

students defined their Spanish peers as kind, friendly, sociable, open-minded,

easy to work with and they made a positive impression for being punctual and

respectful of deadlines:

Spanish students turned to be very open-minded, sociable, and easy to work with.

After this project I was left with a nice impression of Spanish culture and people. [Uk 5]

As for me, it was very interesting to communicate with Spanish students. During the

online meeting, it was interesting to observe how they communicate, how they

behave, what emotional state they have. [Uk1]

In addition, COIL aroused self-awareness. Students seem to have understood the

importance of appreciating and valuing their everyday life, and that the best way

to receive true information is by engaging with witnesses:

After this experience I realised that they are struggling much more with the Ukrainian

war than of what it is shown on TV. Despite of this, I think that all of them wanted

to work with us and were motivated, so for me it is very appreciated. [Sp 2]

The students’ answers reveal how they have developed intercultural competence

by learning about how their counterparts in the other country behave. All

participants reported in the anonymous questionnaire that they had a positive

and invaluable experience of collaboration with students from another country.

6. Conclusion

This paper studies COIL, an educational approach that connected university

students from two countries to collaborate in asynchronous and synchronous

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formats during four weeks. A final product of the initiative was a collaborative

academic opinion essay conducted by students of the UJI in Spain and KNU in

Ukraine.

The objective of this research was to find out if students perceived that COIL

could make them aware of cross-cultural communication and its advantages for

learning language, content and culture. In order to reach this objective, the study

tried to unveil, on the one hand, students’ attitudes regarding the way COIL can

affect English language learning, especially in interdisciplinary settings, as the

Spanish students belonged to an ESP course, while the Ukrainian students were

studying Linguistics. On the other hand, the research study sought to depict

additional benefits of COIL for global education recognised by students.

The implementation of COIL in these two universities proved that it can be an

extension of classroom learning and teaching in a virtual setting where

collaborative learning and peer guidance prevail. This study enabled active

learning and a constructive process in which the instructors’ influence on task

performance was limited to setting the goals, forming groups and choosing

learning materials, while participants sought ways to perform the task successfully.

Answering the first research question, students reported that the COIL approach

helped them to create multicultural learning environments and to apply English

to support communication in the virtual classroom. Live discussions and having

English as the only language to interact with their partners seem to have

compensated for artificial language learning and created the environment to

build content knowledge and individual accountability in students.

The English language became the bridge to connect students from the two

participating universities, countries and cultures. The relevant COIL activities

seem to confirm their efficacy in times of uncertainty, as in some cases participants

successfully maintained their collaboration asynchronously through texting

despite power outages in Ukraine. Students perceived that performing the tasks

had allowed them to improve their academic oral skills in the discussion sessions

and meetings, their reading skills by reading two scientific articles, and their

writing skills through the collaborative writing of an opinion essay which involved

text structuring, citation and referencing. As noted by the participants through

an anonymous questionnaire, COIL activities seem to have upgraded both their

oral and written English language skills. In addition, these activities were effective

in making them aware of their different English language levels, accents and use

of English, and made them realise the importance of learning in authentic

situations in which English is the only lingua franca for communication. In

addition, for most students, the COIL experience was the first occasion they had

to establish a relationship exclusively through the English language, and they

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gained self-confidence in its use, as previously noted by other researchers (Çiftçi

and Savaş 2018; Nguyen et al. 2024). Moreover, this activity seemed to motivate

students to learn new vocabulary and discourse to be active participants in

discussions and in studying the interdisciplinary content, in this case, corporate

sustainability.

As for the answer to the second research question, the results show that

participants felt they had developed soft skills such as the ability to collaborate.

Collaborative writing made them organise themselves to complete pairwork with

students from a geographically remote setting in order to create a single document,

a very useful skill nowadays. In the business world, organisation and negotiation

are essential and the perceptions gathered from students by means of a post-task

questionnaire showed that COIL could develop these skills. Majoring in different

disciplines (Linguistics and Business), the participants had different types of

subject knowledge and they were required to help and complement each other,

which developed tolerance and respect.

Another valuable outcome of the COIL activities was that they contributed to

developing cross-cultural competence. Students learned about another culture by

meeting students who were almost their same age. They appreciated the

opportunity to meet each other and eventually some of them might continue

their relationship.

Finally, using online tools in a creative way can be motivating for students. Most

of them appreciated the activity of writing an academic essay collaboratively, in

spite of the fact that, especially for the Ukrainian students, due to the war

situation it was not an easy task to keep in contact with the Spanish students and

carry out the activity.

Although sharing war experiences was not one of the aims of the activity, some

students held conversations about it. For Spanish students, it was a way to learn

first-hand from their fellow students what it means to live in the middle of a war

and maybe to avoid conflicts in the future, if ever they are in a position to do so.

For the Ukrainian students, it was a way to share their situation and to raise

awareness of the problems they have. In the case of the Ukrainian students, COIL

acted as a substitute for physical mobility, something that is not possible at the

moment due to ongoing war in the country and economic downturn.

This study shows some limitations. It involved the attitudes and perceptions of

students regarding one COIL activity held in a single subject. In the future, it

would be very interesting to conduct further research in order to compare

students’ perceptions with their actual improvement in English language

competence and in intercultural communication skills. In addition, it would also

be relevant to analyse the effect of a continuous plan of COIL in these courses,

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how effective it could be for language, content and the development of

intercultural communication.

To conclude, as other researchers have done before (Çiftçi and Savaş 2018;

Nguyen et al. 2024), we want to invite other English as a Foreign Language and

English for Specific Purposes instructors to introduce COIL activities in their

courses to allow their students to enjoy an international intercultural experience

using English as a lingua franca. It may be especially relevant and motivating for

those who cannot travel due to their personal circumstances, or restrictions

imposed in times war, as was the case in this research.

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Appendix 1.

Initial Questionnaire: Building Rapport with your Partner

1. Student’s name.

2. What is the name of your university?

3. When was your university founded?

4. What does its name mean?

5. How many students / departments are there at your university?

6. What do you study?

7. Why did you decide to major in Business Administration and Law/Linguistics? What

are the benefits and drawbacks of your specialization?

8. Tell me about some of the courses you are taking. Which is your favorite?

9. How long have you been studying English?

10. Do you prefer to work independently or as part of a team?

11. Have you ever missed a deadline? Why, and what was the outcome?

12. What are your interests and hobbies?

13. Where do you see yourself in 3 years?

14. What are your favorite national holidays?

15. What is your favorite national dish?

16. Any other questions

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Appendix 2.

Guidelines for the Collaborative Writing Task

COLLABORATIVE WRITING TASK: CORPORATE

SUSTAINABILITY

Directions

The following assignment requires you to use information from two sources (see

a list of references below) to discuss concerns that relate to a specific issue. When

paraphrasing or quoting from the sources, cite each source used by referring to

the author’s last name and the year of publication, and page, if you quote. Try to

paraphrase, summarise, or synthesise the ideas of other authors.

Assignment:

Read the selected articles carefully and then write an essay in which you identify

the most important concerns regarding the issue and explain why they are vital.

Your text must draw on information from several sources. In addition, you may

draw on your own experiences, observations, or readings. Be sure to CITE

sources whether you are paraphrasing or directly quoting.

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Appendix 3.

Final Questionnaire. Assessment of Collaborative Work

The anonymous answers to these questions will be used for research purposes and to

improve the international collaborative task you have carried out. Please tick if you agree

that these data are used for research.

I agree

1. Has this been your first communication experience with somebody with whom you

can only speak in English?*

Yes

2. Is this your first academic international telecollaboration experience?*

Yes

3. How did you communicate with your partner?*

Online video meetings

Texting

Other:

4. How many online meetings did you have with your Ukrainian/Spanish partner?*

One

Two

Three

Other:

5. How many email exchanges did you have?*

One

Two

Three

Other:

6. How many texting exchanges?*

One

Two

Three

Other:

7. What were the messages about?*

Exchange of information

Personal matters

Organisation of collaborative writing

Task performance of collaborative writing

Other:

8. How much did you like the discussion held on Corporate Sustainability on the 14th of

November?*

Very little 1 2 3 4 5 Very much

9. Did you learn something new from this Discussion? What?*

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10. How did you like the collaborative writing task on Corporate Sustainability?*

Very little 1 2 3 4 5 Very much

11. What did you learn from this task?*

12. How has your idea about Ukraine and the people who live there changed after this

experience? *

13. Reflect on the whole telecollaboration experience: personally, methodologically,

content knowledge, etc.*

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ANSWERS

Received: 15/10/2024

Accepted: 4/03/2025

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SHADIA ABDEL-RAHMAN TÉLLEZ

Universidad de Oviedo

abdelshadia@uniovi.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9546-9965>

THE MEDARCHY: MEDICAL DISCIPLINE

AND THE PANOPTICON IN CADUCEUS WILD

LA MEDARQUÍA: DISCIPLINA MÉDICA

Y EL PANÓPTICO EN CADUCEUS WILD

https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510413

Abstract

This article explores the paradoxical nature of biopower when social, political and

economic interests clash with individuality and autonomy. Special emphasis is placed

on the Foucauldian concept of the panopticon to examine the mechanisms of (self-)

surveillance as the most effective instruments of social control. Taking the recent

pandemic as the starting point for critical reflection, this article raises questions about

the purview of biopower through the analysis of the speculative novel Caduceus Wild,

published in 1959 by Ward Moore with Robert Bradford. This analysis first focuses

on the panopticon as the main instrument of discipline to contain the global health

crisis provoked by the coronavirus. Secondly, it examines the particularities of

healthcare dystopias. Finally, it explores the potential of the discourses of biopower to

transform the institutional authority of medicine acting in the name of public health

into an oppressive system of social control by adopting the form of a totalitarian

medical regime, as described in the fictional world imagined by Moore and Bradford.

Keywords: medicine, Panopticon, power, speculative fiction, discipline.

Resumen

El presente artículo explora la naturaleza paradójica del biopoder cuando los

intereses sociales, políticos y económicos entran en conflicto con la individualidad

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y la autonomía. Se presta especial atención al concepto foucaultiano del panóptico

para contemplar los mecanismos de (auto)supervisión como los instrumentos más

efectivos de control social. Tomando la reciente pandemia como punto de partida

para una reflexión crítica, este estudio plantea cuestiones sobre los límites y

jurisdicción del biopoder mediante el análisis de la novela especulativa Caduceus

Wild, publicada en 1959 por Ward Moore junto con Robert Bradford. El presente

análisis se centra, en primer lugar, en el panóptico como el instrumento disciplinario

más importante para atajar la crisis de salud global provocada por el coronavirus.

En segundo lugar, se examinan las particularidades del género de distopía sanitaria.

Finalmente, se explora el potencial de los discursos del biopoder para transformar

la autoridad institucional de la medicina para actuar en nombre de la salud pública

en un sistema opresivo de control social que adopta la forma de un régimen médico

totalitario, como el descrito en el mundo ficticio imaginado por Moore y Bradford.

Palabras clave: medicina, panóptico, poder, ficción especulativa, disciplina.

1. Introduction: Discipline and Illness

Amidst the unprecedented global crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,

governments worldwide took urgent action to protect their citizens and responded

with homogenous security policies, ranging from lockdowns and travel restrictions

to vaccination and testing campaigns (Holst and van de Pas 2023). Yet this

consensus reaction was not purely political, but rather guided by a single voice,

that is, the voice of the “biomedical empire”, as Barbara Katz Rothman puts it

(2021: 2). During this public health catastrophe, medicine reinforced its status as

an institution of power, influencing societal norms and behaviours. The new health

policies, albeit urgent and necessary, cannot be considered neutral or exceptional

protocols. This conflation of medicine and control seems to invoke the Foucauldian

concept of biopower, which extends beyond hospitals to target individual bodies

and the general population (Foucault 1978: 139). As this public health catastrophe

proved, the implementation of biopower is intimately linked to the principle of

panopticism, which sees constant surveillance as a characteristic of modern societies

aiming to incite individual or collective self-discipline. The concept of the

panopticon is not new. Yet in the face of modern health crises, of which COVID-19

is one in a series of such catastrophic diseases that include malaria, Ebola or mpox,

it is necessary to explore the implications of the control and regulation of everyday

life by biopower. This authority exerts control over fundamental aspects of human

life —including birth, fertility and death— and is manifested in various policies and

regulations, like the legalisation of abortion and euthanasia or the implementation

of one-child policies.

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Oscillating between the enforcement of authority and the intention to protect the

citizenry, the ambivalence of biopower has inspired the creation of fictional worlds

where medicine becomes systematic to the point in which it adopts a dystopic

tenor. The nature of the control performed by biopower becomes even more

complicated when we consider literary expressions that provide a critical perspective

to explore the power relationships and factors that regulate societies and individuals.

Representations of biopolitics and the panopticon in speculative and science fiction

include works like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1998) and The Heart

Goes Last (2015), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), or Ninni Holmqvist’s

The Unit (2008), among others. However, a lesser known novel that imagines a

world under an explicit medical totalitarianism needs to be considered for critical

examination to understand the relationship between biopower, the panopticon

and health. Although lacking the literary quality of mainstream speculative

literature, Caduceus Wild, first published in 1959, offers a space to investigate the

discipline and normalisation exercised by medicine as an institution of power. This

article therefore aims to establish a correlation between the meaning of medicine in

both our (post-)pandemic reality and the fictional world of Caduceus Wild,

addressing the mechanisms and discourses used by biomedical power to enact

panoptic measures that restrict individuality and freedom. Considering the recent

pandemic as the starting point for critical reflection, this analysis focuses firstly on

the history of the panopticon as the main instrument of biopower; secondly, on the

particularities of the speculative genre of healthcare dystopias and stories about

medical totalitarianism; and finally, on the potential of the discourses of biopower

to transform the institutional authority of medicine acting in the name of public

health into an oppressive form of social control as Moore and Bradford depict in

their novel. This critical analysis of Caduceus Wild aims to explore the onset of

this fictional dystopic world controlled by medical power, paying special attention

to the forces that constitute the panoptic system of control of the public body, as

well as the counterforces that struggle to reclaim the individuality and autonomy

of citizens.

2. Panopticism and Medicine

In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault abstracted the substance of the

panopticon devised by Jeremy Bentham and used it as a metaphor of “a mechanism

of power reduced to its ideal form” (1995: 205), that is, the disciplinary authority

that governs modern societies. This utilitarian model was originally designed to

instil a feeling of being under constant surveillance, even if such surveillance does

not actually occur, encouraging self-discipline and self-regulation as a result of the

Shadia Abdel-Rahman Téllez

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internalisation of the mechanisms of external control. Inspired by Bentham’s

work, Foucault adopted the principle of panopticism, which was especially

relevant in the clinical context, explaining that the medical eye inherently has a

ubiquitous power to control individuals: “The medical gaze is a controlling,

dissecting gaze and it is made possible by an institution — the clinic” (Svenaeus

2000: 26-27). The birth of the clinic, in Foucault’s historical archaeology, is

intimately related to the transformation of the medical knowledge and the

prioritisation of the gaze in clinical practice, allowing a new level of control of

individuals and populations favoured by biopower, defined as the “power over

life”, which is articulated around “the anatomo-politics of the human body” and the

“biopolitics of the population” (1978: 139, emphasis in the original). In other

words, biopower demands the “precise control and comprehensive regulations”

of both the individual body and the population (1978: 137). Historically, the

emergence of biopower coincided with “the multiplication —and expansion— of

the human sciences, which are made to serve as the legitimating discourses of this

new form of power” (Cisney and Morar 2015: 4). Biomedical sciences have been

particularly pivotal in the articulation of biopower in the individual and collective

regulations and normalisations.

Irving Kenneth Zola noted the increasing consolidation of modern medicine as an

institution of social control achieved by “‘medicalizing’ much of daily living, by

making medicine and the labels ‘healthy’ and ‘ill’ relevant to an ever increasing

part of human existence” (1976: 210). In this context, Marshall Marinker’s article

“Why Make People Patients?” is relevant to the discussion about medical authority,

revealing the opposition between personhood and patienthood and the implication

that “patients are created by doctors” (1975: 81). The doctor’s ability to create

patients also indicates that diseases are creations of the medical practice, or, as

Foucault states, “fabricated” by medical discourse: “The sign [symptom] […]

assumes shape and value only within the questions posed by medical investigation.

There is nothing, therefore, to prevent it being solicited and almost fabricated by

medical investigation” (2003: 162). In a way, medicine has become a producer of

healthy bodies, enabling individuals to adhere to the social and moral standards of

well-being. As Zola also claims, the institutionalisation of medicine has become an

instrument of transformation of social practices and attitudes: “Medicine has

become an institution of social control and has led to increasing application of the

labels ‘health’ and ‘illness’ to social problems, as well as to widening areas of

everyday life” (1986: 213). The institution of medicine in fact imposes a disciplinary

power over the body:

Sickness is a threat to rationality, for it threatens social life and erodes self-control

[…]. Western medicine is thus directed towards controlling the body, keeping it

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from subsiding into the chaos and disorder threatened by illness and disease.

(Lupton 2012: 24)

In the medical paradigm, the transformation of the ill subject into a patient involves

the creation of the medicalised body, understanding medicalisation as any treatment

or remedy, invasive or not, that entails prescriptive instruction by a health

professional. However, medicalisation has been extended to several practices, even

those that are not even pathological nor a threat to the social order.

By presenting itself as objective, rational and beneficial to the well-being of the

population, the biopower embodied by the institution of medicine reinforces its

own legitimacy. Biopower, in this sense, reflects the Foucauldian concept of

power/knowledge, that is, the dynamic process of mutual legitimation, where

knowledge is not simply used by power but is also the means through which power

is exercised and maintained. According to Cisney and Morar, “No longer does

power emphasize the law as the product of an arbitrary dictate of the sovereign”,

but rather “functions under a different type of rule, one located in the natural

realm, a norm, legitimated by the sciences” (2015: 4, emphasis in the original).

Medicine, in this sense, is regarded as a “repository of truth” (Zola 1976: 210),

for it creates its own body of knowledge in order to justify its intervention in the

way individuals approach their bodies, health and habits. Biopower is normally

implicit and unobtrusive in everyday life, as it operates through norms, practices

and institutions without overtly appearing as a form of control. Yet, during the

COVID-19 health crisis, the biopower enacted by the medical institution

implemented an explicit system of control over individual bodies through

exceptional public health measures based on the surveillance of the general

population.

As Danielle L. Couch, Priscilla Robinson and Paul A. Komesarof argue, the

COVID-19 crisis precipitated the establishment of a disciplinary regime to ensure

compliance with the restrictions by the implementation of new surveillance

methods —namely smartphone apps— to improve “symptom tracking and contact

tracing” (2020: 810), which, together with the law enforcement, aimed to protect

the public order for the sake of public health. These surveillance measures were

quickly internalised by the population, who started to show “self-disciplinary

practices” like “handwashing, the maintenance of physical distance, new ways of

in-person greeting, a sense of revulsion or danger associated with personal contact,

mask-wearing and the protocols and good manners associated with Zoom

meetings, virtual parties, and on-line professional conference”, among many

others (Couch et al. 2020: 812). This power to dictate the response to the global

crisis was reinforced by the new knowledge continually produced by the biomedical

sciences since the outbreak of the pandemic, as the main awareness-raising measure

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among the general population was persistently spreading information about the

particularities of the coronavirus, routes of infection, symptoms, recovery and self-

isolation periods or the sequelae of the disease. The influence of biopower on

individual and public behaviour proved the ubiquity of the gaze and control of

institutions of power, including medicine. For that reason, this situation raises

questions about the limits and extent of biopower not only in the scenario of a

pandemic, but in everyday individual and collective life. Is it possible to imagine a

world where biopower is the main form of power and medicine is the only

institution of social control?

3. The Healthcare Dystopia

No pandemic or global health crisis, regardless of its severity, could ever precipitate

a world governed exclusively by biopower. However, despite the improbability of

this scenario, it is worth exploring the implementation of a disciplinary regime of

social control based on this form of power, where the authority of the medical

institution to act for the common good is regarded as unquestionable and supreme.

In speculative and science fiction, the subgenre of healthcare dystopias opens a

space to question the limits of individual freedom, rights and privacy as the price

for health. As in other dystopic stories, authors pessimistically imagine “the very

worst of social alternatives” as a reflection of the current situation in the

contemporary world (Baccolini and Moylan 2003: 6). Additionally, from a

rhetorical perspective, as Rob McAlear explains, new critical dystopias rely on a

“‘fear appeal’ in an attempt to persuade their readers of the necessity of intervention

in the present to avoid the possible horrors of the future” (2010: 24). Most

dystopias describe a disciplinary society where the body is under constant control

and regulation, like Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New

World (1932), which reflect “pronatalist and eugenic” concerns related to the

mechanisms of biopower to exert such control in a more explicit or oblique way

(Falcus 2020: 68). Health has been a major theme in dystopian literature, especially

in those stories where health has been used as a means of societal control. Health

dystopias, especially those that describe health dictatorships, provide new

perspectives on the balance between public health and personal freedom. In this

context, the concept of “healthism” —coined by Robert Crawford— gains

importance, as it works “as dominant ideology, contributing to the protection of

the social order from the examination, critique, and restructuring which would

threaten those who benefit from the malaise, misery, and deaths of others” (1980:

369). This healthist scheme has a strong social component, since “like racism or

sexism”, it is based on “the idea that one’s health is a measure of one’s value”

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(Welsh 2022: 12). Although the concept of healthism emphasises individual

responsibility for one’s health, it also encourages blaming individuals whose

choices go against what is considered acceptable healthy behaviours according to

medical and social expectations. From this viewpoint, the idea that subjects are

empowered to decide over their own health is illusory.

Either by blaming individuals for their health-related “choices” or imposing

prescriptive models of health, healthism shows that health can be used as a tool for

social control. Healthism can lose its individualistic nature in situations like the

COVID-19 pandemic, which illustrates how collective health can override individual

choice. This is precisely the premise of Corpus Delicti (2009) by the German writer

Juli Zeh —translated into English as The Method— the story of a totalitarian health

dictatorship called “Methode” established in Germany in an unspecified future. In

this fictional world, every aspect of citizens’ bodily and private life is controlled,

“from the regulation of fitness to the criminalisation of alcohol, caffeine, or tobacco

consumption to the administration of a compulsory dating service based on

immunological compatibility” (Smith-Prei 2012: 110). This novel portrays the

interrelationship between the panopticon, medical authority, healthism and social

control, that is, concepts that have been the object of critical inquiry in the last five

decades. Healthcare dictatorship, albeit uncommon, is not a new topic in dystopian

literature. Even before Foucault’s panopticism, Zola’s medicalisation or Crawford’s

healthism, a speculative novel written in the late 1950s questioned the social control

exerted by medical power over individual bodies.

Written by Ward Moore with Robert Bradford and originally published in four

instalments in The Original Science Fiction Stories magazine in 1959, Caduceus

Wild redefined the concept of “Big Brother” conceived by George Orwell in

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by describing a totalitarian medical regime. Following

the tradition of dystopic fiction that “opens in media res within the nightmarish

society” (Baccolini and Moylan 2003: 5), Caduceus Wild is set in an alienating

world governed by the “medarchy”, described as the ruling of the “sane and

healthful society where the doctor’s prescription was the law” (Moore and Bradford

1959a: 6). The novel follows the story of three rebels, Cyrus (a fifty-year-old

man), Victoria (a twenty-four-year-old woman) and Henry (Victoria’s younger

brother), who consider the medarchy an oppressive system and struggle to escape

the U.S. for England, where falling ill or not conforming to the normative model

of well-being is not a crime. Along their journey these characters face several

obstacles imposed by the medical dictatorship that enforces constant control on

citizens, who must carry their medical records with them at all times to prove their

compliance with health edicts. The novel juxtaposes the law of the caduceus

dictated by the medarchy and this group of “mallies”, or maladjusted, a minority

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committed to overturning this “cradle-to-grave regulation of a person’s life, in the

name of ‘health’” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 6). Thus, instead of a welfare state,

the world described in Caduceus Wild is a “healthfare” state that prioritises health

and well-being as a central aspect of governance. It is important to note, however,

that the medarchy was not actually a political system:

It [the medarchy] governed, but it was not government. The 86 States of the Pan-

American Union were still sovereign. Legislators still enacted laws; policemen

arrested, courts tried, jailers executed sentences. Only now there was something

above the law, above the government, and aside from it. Laws were laws but medical

regulations were paramount. (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 83)

The medarchy is institutionalised in “the Ama” (a term that goes unexplained in

the novel, but which may stand for the American Medical Association (AMA), an

institution founded in 1847), whose rulings govern not only life and death, but

also more mundane affairs, such as approving marriage licenses or procreation.

It is important to note that Caduceus Wild was revised and re-published as a book

by Moore in 1978. The original story and the novel should be considered two

different texts. As Moore explains in the foreword to the book, given the new

expectations about the future arising in the almost two decades since the publication

of the initial story, “an effort has been made to build the new novel upon the

ideological armature of the original, and to use, wherever possible, material

conceived for the original work” (1978, Author’s Note). Re-written after the

publication of Foucault’s The Birth of the Clinic in 1963, the novel may be

interpreted as a response to the growing interest in exploring the societal concerns

of its era regarding authority, power and the loss of autonomy, which historically

coincided with the proliferation of the civil rights movements in the U.S. In

medical and sociological contexts, Foucault’s archaeological work also opened up

a critical space for new discourses regarding medical knowledge and practice.

Published in 1975, Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis examines the limitations and

legitimacy of medical practice, exploring “what happened socially and culturally to

communities when their previous independence in matters of suffering and healing

is transformed to dependence on the medical system” (Downing 2011: 53). The

anti-psychiatry movement also gained prominence during the heyday of American

counterculture in the 1960s for denouncing paternalistic medicine as a

manifestation of patriarchal control, expressed through the medicalisation of non-

medical aspects of life that have social origins or the imposition of psychiatric

treatments against the patient’s will (Gere 2017: 197). It seems that in Moore’s

second novel these fears and anxieties were decisive in recreating his nightmarish

vision of a future ruled by an oppressive medical authority. In terms of the quality

of its social critique, therefore, the novel may be considered more mature than the

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original stories. Yet, although the differences between both texts call for a

comparative study, the purpose of this analysis is to explore the genesis of the

world initially imagined by this author, paying close attention to the agents and

institutions that make up the panoptic system of this healthcare dystopia.

Since the original stories of Caduceus Wild predate the formulation of the concepts

discussed in the first sections of this essay, an asynchronous interpretation will be

presented in order to engage critically with this text, for it can be considered a

fictional precursor to the critical discourses that emerged in the subsequent decades,

proving the prescience of speculative fiction. Therefore, instead of focusing on the

critical and theoretical discourses that may have influenced Caduceus Wild, it is

pertinent to contextualise the interpretation of this novel within the specific

sociopolitical situation in which it was written. The implicit reference to the

American Medical Association reflects the power wielded by the institution during

the 1940s and 1950s to suppress “those who questioned American medicine’s

status quo”, as these decades saw the rise of activism among medical students

defending a nationwide system of government-funded health insurance as well as

demands for training on the socioeconomic dimensions of medical care

(Chowkwanyun 2019: 127). During the period, the AMA was the most influential

institution in national health politics, a situation that is mirrored in the world of

Caduceus Wild. This health dystopia exemplifies the dangers of weaponising health

by paradoxically creating a universal healthcare system in which all citizens become

patients with no power, but the obligation to comply with the prescriptions of the

State, represented in the centralised control of the Ama. This universalisation

involves the homogenisation of the population and the creation of a discriminatory

system that punishes those who do not fit the normative (physical and ideological)

model of health. The dystopian tone of the novel establishes a correlation between

reality and a hypothetical dictatorial future, using fear to warn about the importance

of resistance and change. Unlike Corpus Delicti, which initially presents the

“Methode” in a utopic light as a benevolent dictatorship but is later contested by

the main character driven by an opposing utopian “impulse for corporeal freedom”

(Smith-Prei 2012: 114), the “ideal” society created by the medarchy in Caduceus

Wild is seen as unequivocally oppressive by the main characters. Nonetheless, it is

necessary to emphasise that both dystopic and utopic stories work under the same

principle, as both imagine “a future space within the text in an attempt to negate

the status quo and open critique” (McAlear 2010: 32). The three protagonists of

Caduceus Wild offer a counter-narrative that challenges the status quo of the

contemporary reality of the text, representing the struggle to resist authoritarianism

and reclaim freedom and autonomy. However, as will be seen in the following

section, this confrontation is only discursive, for the main characters do not bring

about change in the society they want to escape.

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4. The Rule of the Caduceus

The medarchy, as the expression of biopower, emerged out of the consolidation of

the sciences, which favoured the transformation of medicine from a “healing art”

into a discipline with unlimited potential:

‘Science’ in upper case, ‘The Age Of’, pulling medicine to its pinnacle. If science

could invent a breechloading rifle to kill a man a mile away, the Science could save

his life. If Science could wipe out whole cities, it established a right to rule those

spared. The doctor could perform a caesarean section and rip MacDuff untimely

from his mother’s womb; didn’t this give him authority to prescribe which wombs

should bear, and whose seed was unfit for procreation? (Moore and Bradford

1959a: 15-16)

Knowledge is the basis of the medarchy, as it served to legitimise the ubiquitous

medical authority. This system thus points to a change in the paradigm of power,

as Cyrus ponders: “A few hundred years ago, all you needed was numbers or muskets.

Now you needed knowledge. Lack of it keeps us under their [the health professionals’]

thumbs. More than that, it makes it ever harder to convince Patients that the Ama

could ever be wrong about anything” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 13, emphasis in

the original). Under the rule of medicine, knowledge, rather than military force,

becomes critical in shaping power. The control of knowledge therefore conveys

the power to control everything else, for only medicine can determine what is

accepted as truth. A branch of science based on the assumption that valid

knowledge can only be acquired by means of empirical methods, medicine

constructs the reality of disease, which is accepted as the only valid way to regard

human experience, as Michael Bury argues: “Modern medicine’s ‘positive

knowledge’ about disease is merely the product of the power which the medical

profession has to determine what is, and what is not, ‘true’ about disease” (2005:

20). This power/knowledge binomial sustains the myth of the infallibility of

medicine that characterises modern medical culture, as the systems of knowledge

of medicine and its operations of power are co-constructed and mutually

legitimised. Additionally, the monopolisation of knowledge by the medical

establishment reinforces the hierarchical nature of the doctor-patient relationship,

as it is based on the intellectual superiority of the healthcare professional, as Cyrus

suggests: “The philosophy of the Ama has only one: its subjects must be made and

kept physically healthy, intellectually quiet […] and socially adjusted. We are here

now because we’ve rejected those concepts” (Moore and Bradford 1959d: 93).

Paternalism in clinical practice is expressed in the dominance of the doctor

imposing therapeutic intervention over the patient, who is expected to be silent,

passive and compliant, showing blind trust in the doctor’s expertise. This fictional

account manifests the essence of the culture of modern medicine, which circulates

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not only in the hospital, but also in the social discourses of sickness, reinforcing the

superiority of the doctor’s knowledge over the patient’s voice. Yet this dominance

is enacted in acknowledgment of the good intentions of medicine: to cure the

patient and restore health.

The nature of modern medicine reflects the foundation of the medarchy in

Caduceus Wild, where the supremacy of this disciplinary regime was based “on the

acquiescence of the Patients, on acquiescence based on the assumption that the

Ama was purely benevolent — that those who opposed it were hurting themselves”

(Moore and Bradford 1959a: 27). This statement reflects the essence of Marinker’s

intention when investigating why doctors make people patients since, as the author

concluded, ill subjects transform themselves into patients to “establish a healing

relationship with another [the doctor] who articulates society’s willingness and

capability to help” (1975: 84). Yet, a clarification is required here, for, although ill

subjects voluntarily enter the medical paradigm and become patients, they do not

always consent to becoming a passive and depersonalised object of the medical

gaze and surveillance. In this sense, it is important to note that being ill is a mode

of experience, while being a patient is the role assigned in a specific context. In this

sense, the answer to Marinker’s question about “why make people patients?” relies

on the fact that the doctor’s authority and knowledge are elicited by the patient’s

need for help to restore health. In fact, when describing the origins of the

medarchy, Moore and Bradford picture a setting where only medicine could save

humanity in the aftermath of a global disaster:

Most people like to be doctored, to be told what to do and what not to do. Saves

thinking. Like the army used to be. Remember, that’s how the Medarchy happened

in the first place: we begged them to take over when responsibility got too much for

us, with all the radiation sickness and bacteriological warfare. (1959a: 41)

The passivity inherent to patienthood indicates that patients, in some way, are

“expected to give up his or her jurisdiction of the body over to the doctor”, who by

means of their knowledge about diseases make decisions to cure and fix the diseased

body, imposing diets, medication or new habits (Lupton 2012: 24). The priority of

medicine, thus, is to restore health and well-being, two notions that are regarded

strictly in biopsychosocial terms, as “something which could be produced by a fully

developed technology in a perfect society” (Mordacci 1998: 28, emphasis in the

original). In Caduceus Wild medicine is the enabler of that utopian society, as it acts

as a technology aimed at improving health and producing healthy bodies. However,

as the novel reflects, there is ambiguity regarding what constitutes the “good”

pursued by medicine:

only for the good of mankind, of course — only to make people healthier, happier,

longer-lived. If in the process the doctor became an object of veneration […], no

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harm was done; patients recovered more quickly when they had perfect faith in the

physician. So who took fright or even noticed when the kindly, overworked healer

became priest and despot? (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 16)

In the disciplinary regime imposed by the medarchy, personal freedom and the

role of the individual in facing illness is suppressed, proving the risks of reducing

the experience of illness to a purely clinical event. The power of medicine to

control the body is oriented to the production of medicalised bodies that are no

longer perceived as a threat to social stability. Preventive and protective health

behaviours, thus, are promoted by both medicine and society to encourage bodily

control and surveillance. In Caduceus Wild these measures reflect not only the role

of medicine in the conservation of health, but also the social and cultural models

of corporeality, such as the prohibition of “all hair below the eyelashes as

unsanitary”, enforcing “the use of depilatories on the entire body” (Moore and

Bradford 1959a: 30). The duty of the medarchy is to both force and help citizens

accommodate to the norms of this utopian society also by using medicine to

impose social control:

Performing ‘indicated’ hysterectomies, sterilizations, abortions. Adjusting Patients

to a society that may not be to their taste, conditions they might improve, handicaps

they could overcome. Quieting the indignant with psycho-pharmacology and the

outraged with electro-tranquilization. Forcing the dissident to testify against

themselves with parapentathol. Killing those who have ‘outlived their social

usefulness’, or suffer prolonged pain — or perhaps have maladies they are

incompetent to diagnose. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 37)

It is necessary to note that in this medical regime medical knowledge and power is

restricted, despite the social expectations regarding the biomedical sciences as

infallible and unambiguous. Yet, regardless of the extent of the social control

medicine can exert, even in fiction, this form of power presents structural limits,

for, despite modern medicine’s pursuit of “technical-scientific approach to illness”,

the belief of unending progress and the promise of perfection is only a myth

(Mordacci 1998: 28).

In Caduceus Wild, medicine promises health, but in exchange patients must accept

control by medical rule. However, it is important to note that despite the

dominance of the medical sciences over society, in the medarchy the medical

profession seems to be decentralised, for the actual control of the population is

exercised by different disciplinary agents:

When the doctors took over, it was just because they were needed. But you can’t run

a society with just doctors and nurses and laboratories. You have to have discipline,

if only to keep the Patients in line. Hence the orderlies. But the orderlies were no

good for checking charts, spotting non-cooperative individuals, cranks. So we got

the trained Medical Police. But what could MPs do about mallies who conspired,

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propagandized, actively resisted? Answer: the subcutes. (Moore and Bradford

1959a: 39)

The healthfare state depicted in the novel certainly retains the original connotations

of the panopticon described by Bentham in the context of the penal institution,

where disciplinary officers were responsible for the surveillance and control of

prisoners. Thus, “those who become orderlies, MPs or subcutes — they’d have

been cops or prison guards” (1959a: 38). The “orderlies” were the forces in

charge of maintaining the social order by inspecting and identifying those suspected

of non-compliance with medical laws. The Medical Police were agents identified

by wearing a black pin with a caduceus. The term “subcute” is an acronym of

“Surgical - Bactericidal - Custodial Technicians”, described as “more dangerous

than orderlies”, for they act undercover agents of sorts, as they do not wear

uniforms or pins, as their name suggests —probably referring to the medical term

“subcutaneous”— meaning that they are beneath the surface of the medarchical

system. With these representatives of the medarchy, the panopticon becomes

tangible for the Citizen-Patient. As Cyrus notes, “[n]ot caduceus, but the

ophthalmoscope ought to be the ubiquitous symbol of the medarchy. Sees all, knows

everything, peers into insides. Big Brother, MD” (1959a: 8, emphasis in the original).

The ophthalmoscope, however, does not solely represent the everywhereness of

the clinical gaze, but also knowledge, control and the ability to see hidden truths.

Despite the parallelism with the penal panopticon mentioned above, the medical

panopticon in Caduceus Wild has its own particularities. Unlike the penitentiary

system, the medarchy is depicted as a form of dictatorship where the rights of

patients were restricted, as their only obligation was to get well and remain healthy:

Laws were laws, but the lawbreaker was no longer a criminal, able to hold some

remnant of pride, to pay a debt to society by serving a sentence. Now he was just

another maladjusted individual, protected by no legal presumption of innocence,

but having testimony wrenched from him by a medical examiner whose opinion

carried the ultimate weight with judges and juries, even in the face of old-fashioned

evidence. (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 83)

The aim of the medarchy, thus, is to produce socially useful subjects. This approach

echoes Talcott Parsons’ structural-functionalist model of health developed in the

1950s. According to this model, illness is conceived as a social deviance in which

subjects temporarily adopt the “sick role”, a status that exempts them from social

obligations and expectations regarding normal roles (Williams 2005: 124). The

normative expectations related to the sick role are a form of social control, since

ill subjects are forced to abandon their other roles in order to focus on the goal

of re-establishing health. Following Varul’s ideas, “substituting the multiplicity of

everyday roles, the sick role bridges periods of incapability by establishing a single

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role that enabled conformity within the deviance of illness” (2010: 76). In the

medarchy, the adoption of the patient role, not as negotiated between the

individual and society but as imposed by the medical establishment, ensures that

subjects accommodate to the social expectations and behaviours as a preventive

mechanism to maintain social stability. This necessarily involves the loss of

individuality and autonomy of patients, tipping the scales in favour of public health

over personal freedom. Additionally, in contrast to the sick role, which is only a

transitory status before the restitution of normality, the patient role in Caduceus

Wild is actually the representation of the Parsonian “health role”, which is ongoing,

for the healthy person is expected to be “adhering to a regime and deferring to

competent authority for the definition of that regime” (Frank 1991: 208). From a

contextual perspective, it is also important to remark that Parsons constructed the

notion of the sick role upon the coalescence of the Calvinist and capitalist North

American scheme of thought that emerged at the turn of the 21st century, which

is also tangible in Moore and Bradford’s novel. The characters live in a society

where “youthfulness, activism, and independence” are the most valued attributes

of citizenship (Turner 2001: 261). This model thus conjures an archetype of

normality and health as the foundation of “the world of strength, the positive

(valued) body, performance and production, the non-disabled, and young adults”

(Wendell 1996: 40). Since the world is made bearing in mind an able-bodied,

male, young subject, it can be said that deviations from health are certainly social

constructions. In other words, it is society which produces maladjusted individuals.

In the medarchy this is expressed in the pathologisation of behaviours considered

as deviant. As Dr Tree, defender of the medarchy, explains to Cyrus, the Ama has

the moral obligation to protect collective well-being by controlling and guiding

every aspect of the individual’s life:

You can’t afford to let the sentimentalist keep his deformed child, or grieve

excessively over his poor old mother who ought to have been euthanized years ago,

or worry himself into a breakdown over the possibility of being cuckolded — because

every one of these ‘private’ concerns touches the general welfare somewhere.

Suffering, discontent, maladjustment, can be spread as surely as typhoid or smallpox.

And carriers must be isolated and cured. Or at least have his malady arrested. It’s the

only ultimately humane course. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 69)

Patients are in a constant state of control, as the main task of the orderlies, subcutes

and MPs is to identify, capture and cure the maladjusted, that is, “those who

refused to adjust themselves to the sane and sanitary regimen of the medarchy”

(Moore and Bradford 1959b: 62). The three main characters, Cyrus, Victoria and

Henry, were part of the subgroup of mallies, who “could do little more than rebel,

and try to convince the majority that the rule of caduceus wild robbed man of all

dignity” (Moore and Bradford 1959b: 62). Yet, apart from the mallies, another

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group named “mercifuls” are also targeted by the medarchy. The mercifuls were

always “on the lookout for suffering people they could ‘help’”, as they believed

that euthanasia was the only way to relieve some patients of their misery, a stance

that they regarded as a way to oppose the Ama, but which in reality only reflected

the acceptance of the actions of the medarchy by only “palliating it, instead of

removing the cause” (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 102). The mercifuls, in a

certain sense, consider that subjects can recover their dignity through death, seen

as a way of escaping the disciplinary medical system. The mallies, in contrast,

aimed to destroy the medarchy by not complying with its rules and prescriptions.

Despite their ideological differences, however, if captured by the forces of order,

both mercifuls and mallies were not jailed but “cured, robbed of their memories

and individualities” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 6). In this sense, like other forms

of dictatorial regimes, the medarchy, by imposing a normative model of behaviour

and health, has the power to depersonalise citizens:

Angers, passions, ideals, hopes, determinations, fears. All urgency, all the inner

burning, all caring wiped out by an impersonal current carried in an impersonal

electrode manipulated by an impersonal technician employed by a benevolent and

compassionate society. Because you were part of that society, and if you were diseased

the entire body was afflicted. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 26)

In this dystopic world, to be cured, necessarily involves being stripped of one’s

individuality, something not different from the situation undergone by patients in

modern medical practices. The hierarchical relationship in the clinical setting

provokes the anonymisation, or even the dehumanisation, of the patient, regarded

not as a subject, but rather as a body needing treatment. As authors of the positivist

medical discourse, doctors are able to establish a relationship of power with

patients, which is clearly reflected in the symbolism in the clinical context noted by

Erving Goffman in his essays on the medical practice in mental institutions: “First,

you can certainly tell the players by the uniforms they wear, with varying insignia

(some subtle, like in certain institutions the not wearing of a uniform) distinguishing

the ranks. Patients, on the other hand, are, in all senses of the word, often stripped

of their identity”, which is hidden under a hospital gown (Zola 1986: 214). This

dichotomy between the identifiable roles of the staff and the anonymised status of

patients is mirrored in Caduceus Wild, where the agents of the Ama are recognised

by their uniforms or their pinned caduceus, whose colours indicate their rank. Like

in the reality of modern medical practice, this visual differentiation helps to identify

the agents within the system, fostering a sense of order and hierarchy and

reinforcing the subordination of the patient to medical power.

The medical panopticon in Caduceus Wild also reproduces the religious

connotations of the original panopticon penitentiary. Bentham’s surveillance

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system was based on a “hierarchy of three stages” with “a secular simile of God,

angels and man” (Evans 1971: 22). In the medarchy, the same hierarchical system

is tangible, with medical professionals being considered demigods; the MPs,

subcutes and orderlies as guardians (a title the mercifuls aimed to supplant by

being “compassionate” to patients in suffering); and the patients as mortals

needing guidance and salvation after a global catastrophe. In fact, the medarchy is

grounded in the same principle of Bentham’s ideation of the panopticon, defined

as a “system that provides the basis for a rational order of things in a situation that,

without such careful circumscriptions, was often rendered into a diabolical chaos

by the irrationally disposed passions of men” (Evans 1971: 22). The mallies and

their rebelliousness against the medical establishment, thus, were not considered

“merely subversive — they were virtually blasphemous” (Moore and Bradford

1959a: 14). In the fictional world ruled by the Ama, the medarchy transcends the

system of power to become the object of religious devotion with the foundation of

the “Church of the Caduceus”, a consequence of the idolisation of the medical

profession by patients who “had been enamored of medicine as an ultimate end

and implemented their worship by annoying doctors beyond normal expectation”

(Moore and Bradford 1959a: 25). The transformation of this hierarchical social

and political system into a theological system reflects the internalisation of the

discipline or dogmas of the Ama in a fraction of the population, the self-proclaimed

“Caduceans”. Thus, “[w]ith spiritual strength added to the medarchy’s material

appeals, the healthfare state would be just about invincible” (Moore and Bradford

1959a: 25). The supreme object of worship for this congregation was the spiritual,

immortal and unchanging figure of the “Great Physician”, to whom Caduceans

prayed. This veneration of the medical profession is clearly a projection of the

imprint that religion has left on modern medical culture, for “Great Physician” is,

in fact, a title popularly attributed to Jesus by Christians to praise his role as a

healer of both physical and spiritual sickness. More recently, fictional religious

discourses have been articulated around doctors, who are seen as the only providers

of health and well-being. This sense of devotion is the subject of religious hymns

about the myth of infallibility and unlimited knowledge of the medical practice:

“There is only one way,/ There is only one way/ To be healthy and happy:/ ‘See the

doctor’, we say” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 48, emphasis in the original); “Rock

the surg’ry prescribed for me/ Heal me like the Great MD;/ Heal my bone and

insides;/ All health in Medicine resides” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 49, emphasis

in the original). These hymns also served to reinforce the indisputability of the

power of the medarchy: “When the charts are read up yonder, I’ll be there;/ Vaccines,

antitoxins, x-rays everywhere./ When my chart is read up yonder, let the Great

Physician ponder./ I’ll be healthy, I’ll be happy” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 52,

emphasis in the original). Additionally, these chants aimed to reflect the very

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nature of the disciplinary power of the medical profession, whose actions were

justified by their authority to act in the name of health: “Shots will help me, this I

know,/ Because the doctor tells me so;/ He is wise and kind and strong;/ He will cure

me all life long.// Shots will help me,/ Checks will guard me,/ Pills will cure me —/

Doctor tells me so” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 65, emphasis in the original).

Caduceus Wild highlights the connection between medicine and religion; even

today the medical profession is believed to be a response to a “calling” like

clergymen’s vocation — or nuns’ vocation in the case of nurses. Considering

doctors as objects of worship, in this sense, may point to a change in the perception

of medical practice, confronting the pragmatic vision of medicine as a purely

mechanical or technical science and the belief that “medical treatment should

entail a nearly mystical bond of healing accompanied by exalted human sentiments”

(Osmond 1980: 555). Yet, in Caduceus Wild, the deification of doctors, the

devotion for their workings and the reverence paid to their tools to heal are not

contradictory or incompatible, as the hymns quoted above express. The idealisation

and idolisation of the medical profession fuelled by the myth of infallibility seems

to be based on the patient’s blind trust or, as this novel suggests, faith in healers.

Contemplating these forms of social control and (self-)discipline that transcend

the clinical space, the three main characters struggle to elude the rule of the

caduceus in a world where the line between healing and control becomes

ambiguous. The ending of the story, however, fails to encourage real social change

in the real world, as the three main characters reclaim their freedom by fleeing the

medarchical system rather than dismantling it. Yet, despite its straightforward plot,

Caduceus Wild encourages readers to question the extent of surveillance necessary

for societal well-being or the cost of enforcing biopower. This story invites readers

to reflect on the balance between authority and individual agency, echoing

Foucault’s timeless theorisations about power dynamics. More importantly, this

work of fiction questions the meaning of the role of the patient, traditionally

regarded as a passive recipient of medical decisions. The determination of the main

characters to reject this system by not trusting medicine blindly points to the

importance of the re-humanisation of medical practice, which should regard

patients as individuals rather than as sites of (social) control.

5. Conclusions: Speculative Realities

Caduceus Wild encourages readers to question the nature of biomedical authority

by imagining a world where medical prescriptions are law. The counter-narrative

presented by the main characters, particularly Cyrus, challenges the

conceptualisation of medicine as a supreme science and the idealisation of the

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medical profession, pointing to the potential dangers of a system governed by an

unruly or wild —as the title of the novel suggests— medical power. As part of the

dystopic genre, this speculative novel relies on the power of fear to encourage

resistance to the status quo. Yet, although this fictional story portrays Moore’s

interpretation of the anxieties that dominated North American society in the late

1950s, the reading of this text in the post-pandemic era reveals that the essence of

those tensions rooted in biopower are ever-present.

In this context, the genre of speculative fiction serves as an instrument to explore

alternative realities where societal norms are subverted by characters who reveal

the injustice and oppression exerted by power structures presented as normalised

and beneficial. As seen in this critical analysis, Moore captures this collision

between utopianism and dystopian resistance, two stances embodied, respectively,

by the defenders of the medarchy as the ideal form of government, and the main

characters who rebel against this system. Readers navigate the world of the

medarchy through the eyes of three mallies who represent the disruption of order

and stability in a society that fears individuality. This novel, in this regard, confirms

the value of the dystopian genre, as the view of the rebellious main characters

counterbalances the utopian reality presented as benign and inoffensive. Dystopia,

as McAlear notes, “prevents Utopia from becoming totalitarian spatially”, for it

creates “the possibility of redescribing any system as fearful” (2010: 37). Caduceus

Wild certainly accomplishes its dystopian purpose, situating a fictional utopian

system in America, where dystopian resistances emerge within a totalitarian regime

that transforms the mallies into marginalised insiders that threaten the dominant

ideology. Despite its lack of popularity and influence in the literary and academic

world, Caduceus Wild ignites a debate about the impact and limits of biopower,

proving that dystopian fictions function as political allegories that forewarn of

darker futures and call for action and agency.

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the post-doctoral fellowship programme

“Margarita Salas” for the training of young PhD holders within the framework of

grants for the requalification of the Spanish university system, awarded by the

Ministry of Universities of Spain and financed by the European Union

(NextGenerationEU) to conduct a research stay at the University of Málaga. The

author of this essay also wants to acknowledge her participation in the funded

research project Illness in the Age of Extinction: Anglophone Narratives of Personal

and Planetary Degradation (2000-2020) (Ref. PID2019-109565RB-I00/

AEI/10.13039/501100011033).

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Received: 02/04/2024

Accepted: 20/11/2024

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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JUAN VARO ZAFRA

Universidad de Granada

juanvaro@ugr.es

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6966-2158>

THE MISE EN ABYME IN THE DROWNED WORLD

BY JAMES G. BALLARD

LA MISE EN ABYME EN THE DROWNED WORLD

DE JAMES G. BALLARD

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510824

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1960s, the New Wave of British science fiction sought to

revitalise the genre by incorporating more contemporary themes (drugs, sex,

criticism of consumerist society and the media) as well as new narrative and

expressive formulas, with the aim of entering the mainstream. James G. Ballard

was a forerunner of this trend thanks to a series of stories and experimental novels

that embraced the worldviews of surrealism, situationism and nouveau roman.

The mise en abyme, a recurring technique in this new body of work, was

incorporated into the early novels by Ballard, a process which culminated with

The Drowned World, in which the technique became highly complex. This article

examines the three cases of mise en abyme in the novel, beginning with a

theoretical discussion of this literary device, adding a certain Heideggerian

approach related to the image of the world in art. The article then goes on to

analyze in detail the paintings that operate as mises en abyme in the novel,

classifying them and reflecting on their relationship with the work as a whole and

the reader, as well as the significance in the renewing context of science fiction of

the decade.

Keywords: Ballard, mise en abyme, The Drowned World, science fiction.

Juan Varo Zafra

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Resumen

A comienzos de los años sesenta, la New Wave de la ciencia ficción británica

pretendió renovar el género incorporando nuevos temas acordes con la época

(drogas, sexo, crítica a la sociedad de consumo y a los medios de comunicación) y

nuevas fórmulas narrativas y expresivas con el objetivo de incorporarse a la

literatura mainstream. James G. Ballard se situó a la cabeza de este movimiento

con una serie de relatos y novelas experimentales que hacían suyos los postulados

del surrealismo, el situacionismo y el nouveau roman. La mise en abyme, técnica

recurrente en las nuevas narrativas, se incorporó a las primeras novelas ballardianas

y especialmente a The Drowned World, en la que adquirió un alto grado de

complejidad. Este artículo examina los tres casos de mise en abyme de esta novela,

a partir de la discusión teórica sobre esta figura a la que se ha añadido un cierto

enfoque heideggeriano relativo a la imagen del mundo en la obra artística. El

artículo analiza pormenorizadamente las pinturas que operan como mises en

abyme en la novela, las clasifica y reflexiona sobre su relación con el conjunto de la

obra y frente al lector, así como su significación en el contexto renovador de la

ciencia ficción de la década.

Palabras clave: Ballard, mise en abyme, The Drowned World, ciencia ficción.

1. Introduction

In the 1960s, the work of author James G. Ballard not only consolidated him as

a writer of science fiction, but also, along with Michael Moorcock, a leading

figure of the New Wave movement. New Wave writers such as these were

committed to revitalising the genre, mainly through the magazine New Worlds.

Moorcock and Ballard, accompanied by authors such as Brian Aldiss, John

Brunner, Thomas M. Dish, Judith Merril and John Sladek, brought science

fiction into the hedonistic and troubled atmosphere of the sixties, in which

anxieties surrounding the Cold War, the Space Race, consumerism, psychedelic

drugs, pop culture and sexual liberation were recurring themes. They regarded

the era as acutely science-fictional, in which the future had become present,

exciting and terrifying at the same time (Greenland 2012: 180-195).New Wave

writers opted for an experimental style akin to postmodern fiction (McHale

2004: 59-72; Peregrina 2015) in reprising the avant-garde (Huyssen 2011: 10)

and a desire to conflate elite and popular art, formalism and kitsch (Compagnon

1990: 112). In short, the movement espoused some of the hallmarks of the so-

called second postmodernism: i) The affirmation, as values, of catastrophe, as

non-programmed difference and nomadism, as an uncompromising voyage

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135

through all territories, including the past, with no sense of the future; ii) A break

with technological optimism; iii) The critique of the media; and iv) The blending

of popular art with the modern tradition, without temporal, historical or

hierarchical categories (Compagnon 1990: 163-166).

Between 1962 and 1966, Ballard published four novels1 which, on the one hand,

echoed post-war British dystopian and catastrophist sensibilities and, on the

other, laid the foundations of a disturbing and Dionysian literary world of his

own, which would reach its pinnacle in the following decade. First, these novels

acted as an extension and counterpoint to the works of John Wyndham (Oramus

2016) in the context of Cold War paranoia —the natural or cosmic catastrophe as

a transcript of the consequences of a nuclear conflict— and the crumbling of the

British Empire (Hammond 2017: 50, 65, 116; and concerning Western civilisation

in general, Oramus 2015). Second, Ballard’s novels and short fiction of the 1960s

are metaliterary exercises that critically update the genre from the aforementioned

postmodern consciousness (Broderick 1995) that questions the being of the

world, and in which disaster is a rhetorical resource that enables a vision of human

nature with a characteristic ferocity that remains unsettling even today. In this

way, catastrophe allows Ballard’s passive and disoriented characters2 to emerge

from the inauthenticity, in the Heideggerian sense, of everyday life and embrace

an existence marked by solitude, inner exploration and universal entropy as the

axes of the recreation of the world3. Ballard forms what Fredric Jameson has

called “an ideological myth of entropy, in which the historical collapse of the

British empire is projected outwards, in an immense cosmic deceleration of the

universe itself as well as its molecular components” (Jameson 2005: 321).

Strangely, Jameson makes no reference in this analysis to inner space, an essential

concept in Ballard’s work of the time. For what is decisive in the Ballardian

panorama brought about by disaster is not so much the allegorisation of the

frustration of loss of empire as the savage liberation of inner space now fused with

outer reality, opened up by catastrophe, in what amounts to a return to an Adamic

world in which paradise and hell have lost their exclusive meaning. In this very

personal way, Ballard enters the realm of thought which, in the second half of the

twentieth century, makes disaster a dark, anti-Enlightenment epitome of

modernity, where authenticity emerges in the post-catastrophic world, after the

abolition of the past (Huyssen 2011: 53):

Each one of those fantasies represents an arraignment of the finite, an attempt to

dismantle the formal structure of time and space which the universe wraps around us

at the moment we first achieve consciousness […] in the cataclysm story the science

fiction writer joins Company with them [infant and madman], using his imagination

to describe the infinite alternatives to reality which nature itself has proved incapable

of inventing. The celebration of the possibilities of life is at the heart of science

fiction. (Ballard 1997: 209)4

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These differences from the preceding disaster novels were accompanied by a

formal revolution that associated the New Wave with the historical avant-garde

and the narrative techniques of the nouveau roman. According to Brian Aldiss,

the connection between 1960s science fiction and the avant-garde was first forged

when Penguin Books, following the idea of art editor Germano Facetti, launched

a new collection of novels in the genre, using works by Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso,

Roy Lewis, Yves Tanguy and Paul Klee, among others, to illustrate the covers

(Aldiss 1973: 245-246).

Bearing these ideas in mind, in this paper I aim to address one of the most

fruitful aspects of this convergence of sources in James G. Ballard’s disaster

novels: the mise en abyme. In adopting this technique, Ballard seemed to pursue

the following objectives: i) To delve into the previously mentioned assumptions

concerning the projection of the interior space onto fictional reality with surrealist

painting; ii) To provide the story with a metafictional dimension that makes The

Drowned World an acerbic commentary on the genre; and iii) To highlight the

artificial and performative nature of catastrophe as a celebration of vital liberation

that Ballard associates with science fiction. I hope to demonstrate that Ballard

finds in the mise en abyme a subtle way of communicating with the reader by

creating a metalepsis of discourse (Cohn 2012: 105-106) that allows the narrator

to enter the diegetic world and break the illusion of reality (Genette 2004: 27).

However, he does so tacitly by using surrealist paintings and without addressing

the reader directly. Exposing the artificiality of diegesis, the Ballardian mise en

abyme reveals the carnivalesque and liberating nature of catastrophe. In this way,

the author breaks with both the pessimistic inclination of the genre and the

conservative conception of the “cosy catastrophe”, just as Aldiss describes John

Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids (Aldiss 1973: 335).

2. Abyss in the Inner Space: A Theoretical Overview

The extensive body of theory around the mise en abyme reveals the complexity of

the figure and the difficulty of establishing its meaning in a way that clarifies all

the ambiguities attached to the term since Gide’s intuitive description at the end

of the nineteenth century. Gide pointed to a figure by which the subject of the

play was transposed on the scale of the characters, and served as its frame (Snow

2016: 18). Its relation to heraldry allows us to consider the mise en abyme as a kind

of emblem, in the sense that it exposes the deeper meaning and purpose of the

work in iconic form.5 In this way, the mise en abyme creates an instantaneous

symbolic alliance between a passage inserted in the text frame —in the case of

literature, the one which concerns us here— and the whole, in which the passage

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provides the image that allows the reader to reflect on the work. At the same

time, it interrogates the characters as to the reality and circumstances in which

they are located, hence, perhaps, its value in the field of postmodern writing and

its ontological dimension, establishing a link between two universes belonging to

different levels of reality: “Mise-en-abyme, wherever it occurs, disturbs the orderly

hierarchy of ontological levels —worlds within worlds— in effect short-circuiting

the ontological structure, and thus foregrounding it” (McHale 2004: 14).

Contrasting with the heraldic metaphor, in 1977 Lucien Dällenbach proposed

the metaphor of the mirror, defining mise en abyme as “any internal mirror in

which the whole of the story is reflected by simple, repeated or specious

reduplication” (Dällenbach 1991: 49). The mise en abyme, as a reflection, brings

together in condensed form the whole or part of the work, according to a broad

criterion of similarity, with the resulting ontological effects. However, it also

becomes an authorial commentary or note that reveals the work’s theme or some

significant aspect. In this sense, the mise en abyme is, in my opinion, a figure of

thought that forms a hyponoia, or a re-reading of the main text or framework by

the author. Since he is an instance that guarantees the anomalous nature of mise

en abyme concerning the work as a whole. This intentional dimension makes it a

peculiar kind of narrative metalepsis (Genette 1989: 288-289) in that it can be

considered an interference in the diegetic world by the author in the form of an

allegorical commentary addressed to the reader. Thus, if for the characters it can

be an exemplum of their fictional reality (Bal 1978: 120), for author and reader it

is an allegory that, given its specular nature, turns the frame text into another;

because if the mise en abyme is an icon that reveals the immediate meaning of the

work, this, conversely, becomes an allegory that encloses or unfolds the hidden

meaning revealed by the mise en abyme. Jean Ricardou rightly wonders the

following: if mise en abyme reveals certain major aspects of fiction of which it is

part, would not it be so because the plot has been constituted at the referential

level according to its demands? In this case, the mise en abyme would be the matrix,

and the macro-history the mise en périphérie of a micro-discourse (Ricardou 1990:

65). In some cases, the unfolding may offer a counterpoint or contradict the

framing narrative, to the point of establishing an ironic or paradoxical relationship

with it (Ricardou 1990: 83-85) as a form of the specious mise en abyme suggested

by Dällenbach. Snow relates the mise en abyme antithétique to the antimimetic

tendencies of the nouveau roman, a movement to which Ricardou mostly refers in

his examination of the figure (Snow 2016: 49-50).

A particularly fitting case of mise en abyme is produced through an artistic work,

which exists in the empirical world and is inserted into the fictional text. This is

the case of The Drowned World and its metaphorical use of surrealist paintings.

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This is an intermedial phenomenon in which the figure is broken down into a

symbolic ekphrasis that juxtaposes the world of the artwork and the framing

literary work, and the real world of the author and reader. But this symbolic link

elaborates on an anomalous circumstance: an object from the real world also

exists in the fictional world and has in this world, in addition to its own aesthetic

value, the function of reflecting the world of the work and commenting on it in

the empirical world of the author and reader, which brings them back to t