International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

Literature Review Related to Cultural Identity Challenges of ESL Learners in African Rural Contexts

Maudy Precious Chikwaka-Mpezeni, Yuleth Chigwedere — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This systematic review examines the complex relationship between cultural identity and English as a Second Language (ESL) acquisition in African rural contexts. A comprehensive literature search strategy was conducted across multiple academic databases, from which 127 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2024 were identified. Through an analysis of relevant theoretical frameworks and a purposively selected sample of 49 empirical studies, this examination synthesizes current understanding of how rural African learners navigate cultural identity challenges while acquiring English proficiency. The review integrates psychosocial theories, sociocultural learning theory, social learning theory, and postcolonial perspectives to provide a multidimensional understanding of the intersections between identity and language. The findings reveal that rural African ESL learners face unique challenges, including cultural identity conflicts, community resistance, intergenerational tensions, and limited culturally responsive pedagogical resources. They suggest that successful ESL acquisition in rural African contexts necessitates culturally responsive approaches that validate local identities while promoting English proficiency development. This review contributes to the growing body of literature on culturally sustaining pedagogy and provides recommendations for educators, policymakers, and researchers working in African rural educational contexts. The implications extend beyond language learning to encompass broader questions of cultural preservation, educational equity, and sustainable development in rural African communities.

Memory Through Sahrawi Oral Poetry: The Path to Cultural Emancipation in Morocco

Abdesallam koumani — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines Sahrawi Hassani oral poetry as a vital site for negotiating cultural memory, identity, and resistance in Morocco’s Saharan regions. Drawing on memory studies and border-poetics theory, it argues that Hassani's verse operates as a living cultural archive that challenges colonial narratives portraying the Sahara as separate from Morocco. The study situates Hassani poetry within its nomadic origins—performances under the khaima (tent) that transmitted genealogies, moral codes, and heroic histories—and shows how these verses historically resisted Spanish colonial strategies that exploited local customs to legitimize territorial separation in Rio de Oro and Sidi-Ifni.

The paper reviews existing scholarship (Deubel, Lopez Martin, Bubrik, among others) and highlights its own contribution by foregrounding the shared cultural heritage and political bordering processes that shape Sahrawi identity. It further analyzes the digital transformation of this oral tradition, demonstrating how YouTube festivals, such as Khaymat al-Shi?r and Layali Azawan al-Sahra, reterritorialize memory in virtual space and expand their audience to diasporic and global communities.

MTB-MLE Classroom Interactions: A Pedagogical Analysis of Language Functions Among Meranaw Grade 1

Sittie Hafsah Lomangco — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This naturalistic research was undertaken with the intention of analyzing the pedagogical linguistic functions of actual classroom interaction settings among Grade 1 students. It aimed to observe how MTB-MLE is actually used in classroom interactions, specifically among the multilingual Grade 1 Maranao students in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur. Employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, classroom interactions were recorded and analyzed using the UAM Corpus Tool and Flanders' Interaction Analysis Categories. These are broadly classified into two groups in this study: 1) Teacher-related categories — teacher asks questions, the teacher gives direction, the teacher criticizes, the teacher gives a lecture, and the teacher repeats the pupil's answer verbatim, and 2) Pupil-related categories — pupil-talk response and pupil-talk initiation. Quantitative analysis revealed a prevalent teacher-dominated discourse, characterized by frequent questioning and directives, across both public and private schools. However, qualitative analysis revealed a stark contrast in MTB-MLE implementation: public schools predominantly used Meranaw, which fostered more student-initiated talk, while private schools heavily favored English. As these are both forms of positive reinforcement, which is the only popularly endorsed type of extrinsic motivation, the adequate attention or low valuation accorded them is deemed a loss for teachers who probably do not realize well enough the importance of motivation and the advantages accruing from the optimal use of this as a critical factor in the teaching-learning environment. These findings suggest that while teacher questioning remains a key pedagogical strategy, its dominance may limit student-initiated discourse. Furthermore, the variable implementation of MTB-MLE highlights challenges to policy uniformity, which may impact students' linguistic development. The study underscores the potential of the mother tongue to foster engaging learning environments in public schools. Recommendations include a stronger mandate and support for the equitable implementation of MTB-MLE across all school types, comprehensive teacher training in multilingual pedagogy, the development of high-quality Meranaw-based resources, and the alignment of assessment practices with MTB-MLE principles. Further research is needed to explore the long-term impact on academic achievement and to investigate teacher language use patterns in more detail. This study contributes valuable insights into the micro-level dynamics of MTB-MLE implementation in a specific multilingual context, informing policy and practice for enhanced language education.

Adinkra Symbols and Political Communication: Analysing President John Mahama’s Inaugural Apparel on 7th January, 2025.

Isaac Horsu, De-Love Anobah Opare, Adwoa Sikayena Amankwah , Emmanuel Kyei — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Adinkra Symbols and Political Communication: Analysing President John Mahama’s Inaugural Apparel on 7th January, 2025.

Isaac Horsu, PhD¹, De-Love Anobah Opare², Adwoa Sikayena Amankwah, PhD³, Emmanuel Kyei, PhD⁴

¹,^2&3Department of Communication Studies, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana

⁴Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, Mampong, Ghana

^???? email: ekyei@aamusted.edu.gh

ABSTRACT

The Akan people view Adinkra symbols as metaphoric expressions of their experiences, embodying their cultural identity. The study focused on how Akan Adinkra symbols serve as a means of communication in the socio-political context of Ghana. The study explored the meaning of the adinkra symbols printed in President John Dramani Mahama's apparel during his inaugural ceremony on the 7^th of January, 2025 as the President of Ghana. The study qualitatively analysed the symbols, highlighting their socio-political implications to show how they communicate in the political atmosphere. Framed as a visual rhetorical analysis, the research highlights the representation of Ghanaian culture and identity through Adinkra symbols, demonstrating their relevance beyond traditional contexts and into socio-political discourse. The study concludes that President John Dramani Mahama's selection of Adinkra symbols for his inaugural apparel was a persuasive act of visual rhetoric, symbolising unity, resilience, and divine guidance for Ghana's future. The study enhances critical thinking and raises awareness of the importance of visual rhetoric in socio-political engagement and advocacy.

Rasa Across Cultures: Applying Rasa Theory to Shakespearean Drama

Dibpriya Bodo — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The present article explores the applicability of Bharata Muni’s rasa theory, as articulated in the Natyashastra, to the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, particularly his tragedies Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth, and his late romances Cymbeline and The Tempest. While Western criticism, rooted in Aristotelian poetics, has traditionally emphasized structure, causality, and catharsis, later approaches, such as Marxist critique, foreground psychology or socio-political conflict. In contrast, rasa theory offers a distinct interpretive framework that privileges aesthetic experience and emotional universality. By closely analyzing Shakespeare’s plays through specific rasas, such as karuna (pathos), raudra (anger), srngara (love), soka (sorrow), and shanta (tranquility), among others, the study reveals how Shakespeare orchestrates not only narrative conflict but also deeply affects experiences that transcend historical and cultural contexts. Unlike Aristotelian catharsis, which purges emotions, rasa theory transforms them into shared aesthetic enjoyment, allowing audiences to savour universal sentiments beyond individual psychology or ideology. This comparative method demonstrates that Shakespeare’s art, when viewed through rasa, participates in a global aesthetics of emotion, situating his works within a broader intercultural dialogue that affirms the enduring power of drama to evoke beauty, wonder and transcendence.

Essay Writing Challenges among First-Year Early Grade Education Students: A Case Study at Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development

Daniel Afrifa-Yamoah — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Essay writing is a key component of language learning and development. Over time, writing has enhanced students’ linguistic proficiency and communication skills. However, students often encounter difficulties that hinder their ability to produce effective essays. This study aims to identify and assess the essay-writing challenges faced by first-year Bachelor of Early Grade Education students at the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development. A closed-ended questionnaire comprising 37 items was administered to 21 participants. The study examined five major challenges: plagiarism, grammatical errors, lexical difficulties, inadequate planning, and a lack of confidence. Findings revealed that lexical challenges were the most prevalent (M = 2.92), whereas grammatical errors were the least common (M = 2.3 on a 4-point Likert scale). The study concludes that the major obstacle to students’ writing performance is their limited vocabulary and difficulty using contextually appropriate diction. Recommendations are provided to improve students’ writing competence through targeted pedagogical interventions.

Exploring Moroccan Teachers’ Perspectives on Integrating ChatGPT into Higher Education Curriculum

Fatima Chahboune, Hicham Zyad — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores Moroccan teachers’ perspectives on ChatGPT-Assisted Language Teaching in higher education. It examines the various factors and barriers influencing the integration of ChatGPT into teaching practices. This study is framed within Technology Acceptance Model (Davis,1989). TAM encompasses the constructs that this study aims at exploring: Perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived risk (PR), attitude and actual use (ChatGPT practices). An online questionnaire was administered to 50 professors in different Moroccan universities. Descriptive statistics show that most professors hold favorable perceptions of integrating ChatGPT in teaching practices. Notably, key barriers to ChatGPT adoption include ethical concerns, lack of training, and insufficient AI knowledge. Correlational analysis shows that PU and PEU significantly influence the actual use of ChatGPT. In contrast, there is no significant correlation between perceived risk and use. This study suggests that offering AI-training programs could enhance the integration of ChatGPT in Moroccan academia.

Word Order Variation in Spoken Saudi Arabic: A Pragmatic Approach

Nasiba Abdulrahman Alyami — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One aspect in which languages vary is their differing patterns of word ordering in sentences. Some languages follow a restrictive word order, whereas others allow a flexible word order that does not affect the semantics of the text. In the literature, the Arabic language is deemed one of the flexible or “free word order” languages, which allow both VSO and SVO word orders without changing a clause’s meaning. The present study aims to identify the pragmatic (morpholexical and discourse) factors that play a significant role in determining the variable subject-verb word order in spoken Saudi Arabic. A corpus-based approach was taken by collecting a sufficient amount of natural spoken Saudi utterances for analysis. The corpus contains data collected from six recorded Saudi Arabic TV interviews with Saudi personalities in which the guests related personal stories about their social and practical lives. A classification system proposed by Owens et al. (2009) was adopted as a study tool to distinguish between the diverse factors that may predict the variant word order in spoken Saudi Arabic and to determine whether any relationship exists between such factors. The study found that the distributions of SV and VS word orders in spoken Saudi Arabic are similar, with a slightly higher percentage in SV word order (58% SV vs. 42% VS), and that the morpholexical class of subjects significantly predicts word order. The findings also indicate that discourse-pragmatic functions play an important role in predicting word order.

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Code-switching and Code-mixing in Radio and Online Advertisement Jingles in Nigeria

Mary Oso, Prof. Emmanuel Taiwo Babalola — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The study of the linguistic phenomena of code-switching and code-mixing has been extended from conversations and music to advertisement jingles because multilingual codes are needed in advertisement jingles to reach or meet the intensely multilingual and multicultural nature of the Nigerian society without which, effective transferring of information about products and services to the diverse categories of people in the Nigerian society would be futile and just a waste of time. The objectives of this study are to identify the types of code-switching used in the selected Southwestern Nigerian Radio advertisement jingles and Online advertisement jingles and to find out the most dominant type of code-switching used in the advertisement. The primary source of data was drawn from 60 code-switched advertisement jingles collected from 30 radio commercials and 30 online advertisements on YouTube through purposive random sampling technique. The 30 radio jingles were collected from 12 radio stations in the Southwestern states in Nigeria which are Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Ekiti and Lagos. In each of the states, a private radio station and a public radio station were selected. The design of the study is both quantitative and qualitative. It is quantitative because it showed the frequency of occurrence of the types of code-switching which is determined through simple percentile and quantitative because it discussed the reasons why the advertisers used the types of code-switching. The results showed that the three types of code-switching were present in the advertisement jingles with 129 (43%) instances of inter-sentential code-switching, 162 (54%) instances of intra-sentential code-switching and 8 (3%) instances of tag switching. Intra-sentential code-switching was prominently used by the advertisers which reflect their high level of bilingual proficiency and their linguistic skills of unifying codes in ensuring an effective dissemination of information to the listeners. The study recommended that these linguistic practices of code-switching and code-mixing should be used by advertisers when marketing their products and services so as to solve the challenge of multilingualism in the context of advertising.

Morphosemantic Analysis of the Pseudonyms of Disc Jockeys (D.J.) in the City of Ouagadougou: The DJ's Pseudonym Between Ostentation and the Quest for Celebrity

Malpoa Laetitia OUALI,, Béli Mathieu DAÏLA, Michel NANEMA — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article focuses on the pseudonyms used by a category of artists called disc jockeys (D.J.). It aims to analyze the sociolinguistic characteristics of these pseudonyms and the linguistic dynamics that emerge from them. The analysis from a morphological and semantic perspective revealed the nature, form, and linguistic origin of these designations. The pseudonyms of disc jockeys are intended both to distinguish the bearers and to increase their popularity. The pseudonyms refer to the names of film actors, music artists, and political figures. The writing of this article uses the tools of sociolinguistics through a qualitative method. Cultural actors, nightclub owners, and disc jockeys were interviewed about pseudonyms and their ostentatious characteristics through an interview guide.

The Mask and the Play as Conceptual Components of M. Frisch’s Prose

Syuzanna Navasardyan — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The article explores the existentialist problem of duality and the search for one’s own identity in the prose of the Swiss writer Max Frisch. According to M. Frisch, a man should “define himself” in such a way that he can accept his ego, should find his role and his place in society according to his subjective view, even if it goes against the generally accepted norms and principles. “Mask” and artistic “role-playing”, as the main concepts of the writer’s prose, are “tools” and conductors of the author’s ideas. The author emphasizes the possibility and even the necessity of freedom of choice, which is achieved through “changing roles” and “changing masks”. Diary entries, which are of exceptional importance in the writer’s work, in the analyzed novels depart from the genre specificity, characteristic of both personal and literary diaries, and become part of the general “game” of the narrative. It is the diary “memories” that gives the author the opportunity for a sharp and unexpected change of different angles and perspectives. Reality in M. Frisch’s novels is so skillfully intertwined with virtuality that it is difficult to find the line where the author’s sincere monologue with himself ends and the author’s play of imagination begins.

Conscience and Conformity: Societal Roles and Individual Actions in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”

Rabby Imam — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Through a comparative analysis of Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” (1922) and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” (1936), this paper argues that both authors uncover how social conformity—rooted in class and empire—systematically suppresses moral autonomy and distorts human conscience. While Mansfield situates her critique within postwar English social hierarchies and Orwell within the structures of British colonial power, both reveal how societal expectations dictate behavior and distort moral agency. Through qualitative, interpretive, and comparative analysis grounded in modernist ethics and postcolonial criticism, the study argues that both authors expose the performative mechanisms by which social order sustains itself—through the silencing of conscience and the valorization of conformity. By juxtaposing Mansfield’s domestic modernism with Orwell’s colonial narrative, this research contributes to the broader literary discourse on morality and power by identifying a shared ethical trajectory between two seemingly disparate traditions. It reveals that class and empire operate as parallel systems of coercion that compel individuals toward moral compromise. The paper thus advances the understanding of early twentieth-century literature as a site where aesthetic form becomes an instrument of ethical inquiry, bridging modernist and postcolonial studies through the theme of conscience under constraint.