• paratextuality: the relation between a text and its 'paratext' - that which surrounds the main body of the text - such as titles, headings, prefaces, epigraphs, dedications, acknowledgements, footnotes, illustrations, dust jackets, etc.
• architextuality: designation of a text as part of a genre or genres
• metatextuality: explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another text
• hypertextuality: the relation between a text and a preceding text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends (including parody, spoof, sequel, translation)
Methodological algorithm
Why are you doing it?
What questions do you hope to answer?
Identify the specific texts you want to examine
Identify the traces of other texts
Make a list
Look for a pattern
Make observations and interpretations
Reference Literature
1. Stallknecht Newton P., Horst Frenz. Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective. - Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. - 1961.
2. The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature. David Damrosch, Natalie Melas, Mbongiseni Buthelezi. Princeton University Press, 2009. – 442 p.
3. Saussy H. Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization. – JHU Press, 2006. – 280 p.
4. Totosy De Zepetnek S. Comparitive Literature and Comparitive Cultural Studies. – Purdue University Press, 2003. – 356 p.
5. Studies In Comparative Literature. Ed. Mohit K. Ray. Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2002. – 199 p.
Complete IELTS topics
Topic 1. Can you describe your town or city?
Use: Present Simple and Present Continuous + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. What do you like about the area you live?
2. What things in your town or city do you not like?
3. How is the area changing?
4. What do you think visitors to your town or region should see? Why?
Topic 2. The word hobby has become very popular and clear to everybody. Nobody seems to be without a hobby nowadays. Do you have a hobby?
Use: Present Simple and Future Simple + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. What hobbies do you have?
2. What new activity would you like to try?
3. Which hobbies do you think are the most difficult?
4. Can you think of any hobbies, which are popular with children and adults?
Topic 3. What can you tell about your childhood?
Use: Past simple and Past Continuous + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. Do you come from a small family or a large family?
2. As a child, who did you spend more time with: your family or your friends? Why?
3. When you were a child, how did you spend your weekends?
4. What did you enjoy most about school?
5. When you were at school, who did you think was your best teacher? Why?
Topic 4. What types of transport do you use regularly? Why?
Use: different adjectives and adverbs (fast/faster/the fastest, cheap, enjoyable, loudly…) + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. Which for of transport do you think is the most comfortable?
2. What is the most readily available form of public transportation where you live?
3. How important do you think it is to use public transportation?
4. Do you think that governments should encourage public transportation more?
Topic 5. How have inventions changed people’s lives? What do you think?
Use: Present Perfect + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. What are the best and the most useful inventions of the humankind in the 20th and 21st centuries?
2. What famous inventors do you know?
3. What do you think is the worst/best invention of the humankind?
4. What is the use of space exploration?
Topic 6. Which are your favorite animals? Why?
Use: Countable and uncountable nouns + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. Would you ever consider getting a pet?
2. What can people learn from animals?
3. Have you ever been to the zoo? What animals did you see there?
4. What animals do you think are the most dangerous?
Topic 7. Do you worry about the environment?
Use: If-clauses + vocabulary
Use the following prompts:
1. What are the biggest problems facing our environment?
2. What would you do to save our environment?
3. What do you think of environmental groups like Greenpeace?
Topic 8. What images spring to mind when you hear the word “science”?
Use: reported speech and expressions in my opinion, to my mind, in fact…