The significance of English antinomianism for Anna Trapnel

Abstract

This article intends to show the significance of English antinomianism for the initial transition of Anna Trapnel (d.1660) to radical religion. Tormented by her lack of assurance of salvation and her fearfulness about rightly keeping the moral law, Trapnel was drawn to antinomianism through the preaching of John Simpson. His stress on ‘free grace’ was the only thing able to lift her from suicidal depression. Most studies on Trapnel tend to downplay or ignore entirely the significance of antinomian theology in her formative years. The study intends to fill the gap in research by analysing the theological underpinnings of antinomianism, outlining Trapnel's own religious struggle, and her eventual ‘freedom from bondage’ through Simpson's influence. Highlighting the significance of antinomian thought for Trapnel's early years, as well as its status as the catalyst for her initiation into radical religion, the article provides fresh background material from which to understand her later role as a famous visionary.     

Singaporean kindergartners' phonological awareness and English writing skills

This article describes the phonological awareness and English writing skills among a sample of 297 Singaporean kindergarten children, stratified by ethnicity (Chinese, Malay, and Indian), and examines the relationship between oral language and writing skills in this multilingual population. Overall, Singaporean kindergartners, nearly all of whom were bilingual, scored higher on English writing but lower on English oral language skills than U.S. norms. Despite literacy instruction that emphasized whole-word memorization, phonological awareness statistically significantly predicted English writing scores, controlling for English vocabulary, ethnicity, sex, and an interaction between English vocabulary and sex. The current study's findings highlight the possibility of developing high literacy skills among bilingual learners with low oral language skills. In addition, the study demonstrates children's development of phonological awareness in the absence of phonological awareness or phonics instruction and supports the theory that both alphabetic (phonological) processes and logographic (whole-word) processes contribute to successful English literacy achievement.     

Graded representations in the acquisition of English and German transitive constructions

English and German children aged 2 years 4 months and 4 years heard both novel and familiar verbs in sentences whose form was grammatical, but which mismatched the event they were watching (e.g., ‘The frog is pushing the lion’, when the lion was actually the ‘agent’ or ‘doer’ of the pushing). These verbs were then elicited in new sentences. All children mostly corrected the familiar verb (i.e., they used the agent as the grammatical subject), but there were cross-linguistic differences among the two-year-olds concerning the novel verb. When English 2-year-olds used the novel verb they mostly corrected. However, their most frequent response was to avoid using the novel verb altogether. German 2-year-olds corrected the novel verb significantly more often than their English counterparts, demonstrating more robust verb-general representations of agent- and patient-marking. These findings provide support for a ‘graded representations’ view of development, which proposes that grammatical representations may be simultaneously abstract but ‘weak’.     

Discrimination of coronal stops by bilingual adults: the timing and nature of language interaction

The current study was designed to investigate the timing and nature of interaction between the two languages of bilinguals. For this purpose, we compared discrimination of Canadian French and Canadian English coronal stops by simultaneous bilingual, monolingual and advanced early L2 learners of French and English. French /d/ is phonetically described as dental whereas English /d/ is described as alveolar. Using a categorial AXB task, the performance of all four groups was compared to chance and to the performance of native Hindi listeners. Hindi listeners performed well above chance in discriminating French and English /d/-initial syllables. The discrimination performance of advanced early L2 learners, but not simultaneous bilinguals, was consistent with one merged category for coronal stops in the two languages. The data provide evidence for interaction in L2 learners as well as simultaneous bilinguals; however, the nature of the interaction is different in the two groups.     

Using mnemonic images and explicit sound contrasting to help Japanese children learn English alphabet sounds

Although mnemonics have been shown to be effective in remembering letter-sound associations, the use of foreign words as cues for English phonemes had not been investigated. Learning phonemes in Japan is challenging because the Japanese language is based on a different sound unit called mora (mostly consonant-vowel combinations). This study investigated the effectiveness of using mnemonic images utilizing Japanese words as cues for the phonemes, and explicit sound contrasting of phonemic sounds with morae they could be confused with, in facilitating children's acquisition of knowledge about alphabet letter-sound correspondence. The participants were 140 6th-grade Japanese students who were taught phoneme-consonant correspondence, with or without the use of mnemonics or explicit sound contrasting. Analysis of the students’ pre- and post-instruction assessments revealed significant interaction effects between types of instruction provided and instruction phase, indicating better performance in letter-sound association as a consequence of the inclusion of both mnemonics and explicit sound contrasting.     

Subjection and Companionship: The French Reformed Marriage

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between Reformation ideals of gender and sexuality with the reality of Reformed life in France in the late sixteenth century. Centring on the theory and practice of marriage, the paper examines Jean Calvin's discourse on marriage, noting his significant departure from pre-Reformation concepts of sexuality and his affirmation of companionship in the conjugal bond. Yet, the author also highlights the significant complications with, or even detractions from, this model inherent in Calvin's theology of the Fall, and his understanding of ‘subjection'. These strands of Reformed theory are then compared with two cases drawn from the registers of the consistories, or church courts, of two Protestant towns in southern France, in 1578 and 1595. The findings suggest that ideas of subjection and companionship, though helpful perhaps in the theory of marriage, rarely began to encompass the colourful and messy realities of daily life among the Huguenots.     

An Annotated Catalogue of Protestant Editions in English of Works by and Relating to Saint Augustine of Hippo, 1529-1700

Abstract

Adducing works attributed to Augustine in support of reformist doctrine dates back to Reformation beginnings, and in England early writers like Tyndale (Christian Obedience) and E. Fox (Determinations) appealed to him. In both cases, ancient authority is brought to bear on current issues. Such use of Augustine then and later is closely tied to contemporary events, making a clear understanding of the role of Augustine essential to interpretation of the period. Due to confusable names and variant spellings, an exact figure of editions of works connected with Augustine in English in the early modern era is not quite possible yet, but Early English Books Online (TCP) suggests up to 1000. The catalogue here is an annotated list of forty-four separate works in ninety-six editions which can fairly be described as ‘Protestant Augustinian'. These are either translations of his works, or texts substantially based on his works. Included is an appendix of a further ninety-four Protestant works in 209 editions in which a significant Augustinian element can be detected, a summary table of the pattern of publication of the items listed, and a brief survey of Augustine's English Protestant readership.