Bridging literary cultures: Exploring cultural differences through P4C Analysis of Dubliners in English and Georgian

Abstract

This study employs Philosophy for Children (P4C) methodology to investigate how cultural differences between Irish and Georgian societies manifest through readers' philosophical engagement with James Joyce's Dubliners. The research examines how Georgian university students from different academic backgrounds—English Philology and Georgian Philology—interpret and respond to the text in its original language and Georgian translation, respectively. Through structured P4C sessions, students generate philosophical questions, engage in collaborative dialogue, and develop reasoned arguments based on their textual interpretation. The findings reveal significant variations in how students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds engage with themes such as paralysis, epiphany, and moral ambiguity in Joyce's work. English Philology students, reading in the original language, demonstrate greater attention to Joyce's subtle linguistic nuances and Irish cultural specificities. Conversely, Georgian Philology students, working with the translation, show stronger engagement with universal themes that resonate with Georgian cultural experiences and social structures. This research contributes to the fields of comparative literature, translation studies, philosophical pedagogy, and linguistics by providing insights into how cultural background influences literary interpretation, philosophical inquiry, and language use. The study also demonstrates the potential of P4C as a methodological framework for investigating cultural differences through literary analysis.