International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

Measuring Master Students’ Online Learning Perceptions and Satisfaction during Covid-19 Crisis in Morocco

Abdelmajid JAMIAI — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The implementation of technology in higher education is highly considered in research conducting during Covid-19 crisis in Morocco. This article examines students’ perceptions and the degree of satisfaction in online classes for one semester during the emergency of Covid-19 pandemic. The research design for this study is quantitative in which a questionnaire was used to collect data from thirty-two (32) respondents who are enrolled in two Master Programs of ‘Applied Language Studies and Research in Higher Education’ and ‘Language, Communication, and Society’ at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Dhar Mehraz of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Morocco as a convenient sampling. The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) was used to analyze the retrieved data via e-mails. The findings of this study demonstrate that the majority of Master students would like to resort to hybrid education instead of online classes per se. They also show that online learning satisfaction does not receive high levels of agreement among the respondents. The paper ends up with some recommendations for the implementation of online education in higher education.

Wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation

Aiqing Wang — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Following the Government and Binding theory mainly developed by Chomsky (1981, 1982, 1986), I explore wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation in Late Archaic Chinese (LAC). I propose that the inverted order of wh-P in LAC is generated via PP inversion followed by the separate preposing of wh and P. The wh-complement raises to [Spec, PP] and further moves to the specifier position of a functional projection. If the wh-PP is base-generated preverbally, the preposition moves to the head position of the functional projection directly; if the wh-PP is base-generated postverbally, the preposition must first incorporate to a V0 and then move to the head position of the functional projection through excorporation. In terms of the Intervention Effect, wh-arguments and adverbials that usually move to the Low focus position below negation are subject to a blocking effect caused by negation, so these wh-phrases have to land in the High focus position above negation which is expected to accommodate ‘high’ adverbials exclusively. I argue that the Intervention Effect in LAC is a consequence of Q-binding as feature movement of [wh], interacting with fronting into the hierarchy of clause-internal positions driven by [Focus] feature.

Analysing Appreciating and Criticizing in Standard Arabic: When Morphology Supports Syntax

Murdhy Alshamari, Abdulaziz Albalwi — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This paper provides a minimalist (Chomsky 2000, 2001) investigation to a syntactic phenomenon slightly analysed in syntactic research on Standard Arabic (SA) literature of poetry (TaqiAldin 1987). This syntactic phenomenon is derived by a construction of a wh-in situ phrase embedded in a construct state phrase (WICS, henceforth). The novelty about this SA WICS phenomenon is that the entity expressed by the wh-phrase is ambiguously assigned two pragmatic values: med? (appreciating) and hid?a? (criticizing). Holding in abeyance with the idea that SA is frozen, having not developed for decades, this research sets a comparative exploration between SA and Saudi variety of Arabic (SDA). It is shown that SDA syntax-pragmatics interface is straightforward. SDA displays WICS, which derives hid?a?, in addition to displaying wh-ex situ phenomenon, which derives med?. In comparison, SA syntax is restricted to WICS phenomenon, which predicts that in construct state context, SA only derives hid?a?, hence, the ambiguity. With minimalist investigation to further articulated structure in the SA data under analysis, the research concludes that the instance of SA WICS is an occurrence of med?, rather than hid?a?. Evidence for this conclusion is based on the observation that, though the occurrence of SA WICS is associated with lack of movement of the wh-phrase, it is simultaneously associated with a wide-scope of the discourse marker wa, which functions as a pragmatic device assigning speaker positive attitude pragmatic value to the proposition. That is to say, SA grammar requires morphology to support syntax with a morphological device when the latter falls short to activate syntactic operations like movement for med? interpretation.

A PRAGMATICS OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AN ANALYSIS OF OBASANJO’S LETTERS

Tolulope Iredele — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The study investigates the role of language in civic engagement and demonstrates how language is used as a viable tool to propel civic actions. Hence, it focused on the locution and illocutionary acts of Obasanjo's letters to two presidents in Nigeria. Sixty sentences were selected from three open letters. The findings showed that the overall relative frequency percentages are: commissive 15%, assertive 20%, directive 48.3%, declarative 6.7%, and expressive 10%. Results show that Obasanjo, in his letters relied more on sentences that performed directive acts more than other speech acts. However, in his letters to Buhari, he used sentences with assertive acts more than he used in his letter to Jonathan. Hence, the data is characterized by a preponderance of directive, assertive and commissive acts as rhetoric strategies. The study confirms that language use in political discourse is rarely neutral. It further demonstrates that civic engagement drivers manipulate language to influence political decisions and reconstruct public opinion by propelling certain actions or inactions.

Evaluation of Preparatory Classes (CPGE) Final Written Examinations According to Bloom’s Taxonomy

Si Mohamed Chana, Yamina EL Kirat El Allame, Karima Belghiti — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Moroccan students at all levels are required to sit for standardized exams every academic year. Being summative rather than formative, these exams serve certain educational purposes: evaluate students’ linguistic and/ or cognitive competencies. Students in preparatory classes (henceforth CPGE) are no exception; they are required to sit for a national exam every year before they can join any school of engineering or business. Because developing students’ critical thinking abilities is a prerequisite in the CPGE guidelines, the written national exams are supposedly designed to assess students’ critical thinking skills. The present study aims to evaluate CPGE national exams; that is, to examine the extent to which these exams assess students’ critical thinking according to Bloom’s taxonomy. Accordingly, this paper adopts a mixed-method approach to analyze and evaluate all CPGE exams since 2012. The study revealed that teachers have controversial views about the objective of national exams; it also showed that all the exams’ questions do not equally assess students’ different levels of critical thinking skills. This pushed teachers to suggest some measures to improve CPGE national exams.

Language Policy, Medium of Instruction and Economic Development of Countries in Kachru’s Concentric Circles of Asian Englishes

Joel Torres, Myla Santos — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Language and culture are indispensable elements to the economic growth of the individual and society. They represent an important indicator of the individual’s satisfaction and quality of life. This paper is an attempt to answer Grin and Arcand’s (2013) observation that the part that language might play in economic development has long intrigued scholars from various disciplines, and up to the present decade no clear story has emerged from the investigations published and the empirical evidence remains inconclusive. Thus, in an attempt to come up with empirical evidence to establish the link between language policy and language in education to economic growth, this paper reviews the language policies and medium of instruction (MOI)in six countries, two countries each from each circle in Kachru’s concentric circles of Asian Englishes. Each circle was represented by a country with high and low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. To determine the effect of language policy and MOI to countries’ GDP per capita, analysis of the similarities on the language policy and MOI of countries with higher GDP and those with lower GDP was done.

Evolutionary Love and Companionate Marriage in Jane Austen's Novel Pride and Prejudice

Khalil Alquraidhy — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen has selected the basic unit of human relationship, the family. In the family we have several forms of relationships. The most fundamental relationship is there in terms of love and marriage which form the basic theme of the novel Pride and Prejudice. In the research paper, love has been analyzed as an evolutionary process. It is the logic of love that unfolds the characteristics of its main characters. Their love has been brought out from the usual shadow of emotionalism and sentimentality. It has been put under the direct control of their ratiocination. And that is the peculiarity of Austen's treatment of love. The characters have passed through various stages of love so that, ultimately, they reach the final stage of passionate love, shorn of their pride and prejudice. From there they move to marriage which I have called the companionate marriage. When they enter matrimony, they enter it as pure companions moving together, hand in hand, in their life. It is not the marriage as established and defined by the early nineteenth century society. Austen's lovers do not abjure the society, yet they do not accept this society's concept of marriage completely. As they have shaped their love, so they will shape their marriage.

Women Empowerment in Amish’s The Ramchandra Series: A Dharmic Narrative

Jayavelu D, Mamta Pillai — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The portrayal of women in literary texts over the centuries has been stuck in the conviction that women are enormously subjugated, but now repetition of the same is considered unjustified. The canon of reformers in the literary world has started to interpret feminism from various perspectives. Women characters are reformulated and rethought by the new emerging authors and those authors reinforce a new dimension to the status and moral experience of women which was largely criticized in the domain of traditional literature. The present research, therefore, intends to elicit the narrative technique of Amish’s writings and his treatment of women characters in his novels. Amish’s women characters falsify the claims of traditional portrayal. The female protagonists of his novels highlight the punctuated identities of Indian women. They are strong, challenge traditional norms. In this regard Amish’s the Ram Chandra Series is a mythical fiction based on mythology of Ramayana with a multilinear narrative. This paper is intended to provide a brief and authentic exposition of status of women in India during the Vedic times with reference to the women characters in Amish’s the Ram Chandra Series in every aspect of social order like education, philosophy, religion, administration and warfare.

Breaking-Away from the Comfort Zones: Postmodernism in Selected Philippine Contemporary Novels in English

Diana Joy L. Basada, Mark Anthony G. Moyano — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The paper tries to prove the existence of postmodernism in selected Philippine contemporary novels, namely: Salamanca (2017), Leche (2011), and Naermyth (2010), by identifying the postmodern characteristics embedded in them. It also discusses the association of the identified characteristics of postmodernism with the overall meaning of the novels. After the analysis, this study yields the following major findings: the characteristics of postmodernism are identified in the selected Philippine contemporary novels in English; these include pastiche, intertextuality, the celebration of little narratives, the technique of using nonlinear narratives, parody, irony, the question of identity, the issue of subjectivity, and magic realism. Furthermore, it is proven that the postmodern characteristics help each of the novels to achieve their overall meanings through contributing to the development of their themes.

A Systematic Review of Studies on Language Learning Strategies from 1977 to 2018

Ülkü Kölemen — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This study aims to reveal the extent to which language learning strategies (LLS) are studied, including the changing research trends, the most prominen t scholars working on LLS and the countries in which the articles are based on, citation analysis, global academic collaboration and emerging top research topics. The analysis of the related literature was carried out by employing a bibliometric analysis of the research and review papers indexed in the Web of Science databases: Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Sciences and Humanities and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) between 1977 and 2018. In this research, no separation was set from the research of language learning strategy (LLS) use as a native or non-native language. The results showed that there has been a booming interest in language learning strategy research over time. While the first study appeared in 1977, there were 383 LLS publications, most of which were in the field of education (%68.41) in the Web of Science (WoS) till 2018. The publications included articles, proceedings, book reviews, editorial material, review and meeting abstract. It was found that language learning strategy research focused mostly on individual learner variables such as motivation, gender, proficiency in English as a foreign language while most of those studies were carried out through Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (Oxford, 1990) by quantitative methodology. This is the first study reporting the landscape of global research tendencies and trends in LLS. This study contributes to the understanding of the overall LLS academic research and gives an insight into the past, today and future of the language studies.

Robert Browning’s Poem Porphyria’s Lover: Viewed from the Perspective of a Short Story

Faisal Arafat — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Robert Browning quite as an exception to his contemporary Victorian poets opted for the psychoanalysis of his characters in his poems. His obsession of delving deeper into the psyche of his characters most often lent his poems with the essence and atmosphere of a story, to be more accurate – a short story. Browning’s readers still today hovers in the labyrinth created in his poetic world. He leaves his readers in such a juncture from where the readers time and again look back into the plot of his poems to find answers of the mysteries invested by the poet. Stylistically being much ahead of the contemporary trend of poetry, Browning’s poems could be labeled as futuristic. His artistic faculty in his poems can only be somewhat explained and understood if analyzed from the perspectives of a short story. Only then the crossroads where Browning leaves his readers in his poems can find a destination and provide a literary solution. One of the most extraordinary poems of Robert Browning is ‘Porphyria’s Lover’. This paper is an analysis of the poem from the perspective of the features of a short story. The plot and theme of the poem is quite obscure especially the ending of the poem leaves the readers with a feeling of puzzle and incompleteness. In order to explain this puzzle and incompleteness this study presents an elaborate discussion of the characteristics of short story. Then it discusses the storytelling ability of Browning in his poems and finally based on the findings presents an analysis of the poem to determine the matching characteristics of a short story in the poem. The study is completely based on a qualitative analysis.

Chinese Translation of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry: Translation Features of Shi Li’s Lilacs in the Sky

Jianxin Zhou — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Using program written in python language to conduct a statistical and comparative analysis of poetic form and vocabulary use of Emily Dickinson's poems and its Chinese translation in the poetry collection, Lilacs in the Sky, translated by Shi Li, to reveal features of the translation. It is found that in translation, there is a large number of increases in stanzas and a relatively small adjustment in verse lines; a large number of dashes are omitted or translated into commas, and many commas are added, exclamation marks are basically deleted. Prepositions and conjunctions are used less frequently, making language structure less complete, and lyrical intensity is slightly inferior to the original. The less number of adjectives results in less delicate and less rich description in translation, but large increase in verbs and four-character words make translation more concrete, vivid and cordial. In short, the translation version deviates significantly from the original in terms of poetic form and vocabulary use, and the translation expression tends to be closer to the standard of Chinese poetry expression rather than to the source language.

The Effect of Using Smart Board on Improving Ninth Grade Female Students’ English Writing Skills In Southern Al-Mazar Directorate Education

Rafah Tarawneh — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This research aimed at investigating the Effect of Using Smart Boards on Improving Ninth Grade Female Students English Writing Skills in Southern Al-Mazar Directorate of Education during the first semester 2017-2018.The researcher designed a written pre-test and a post-test to test the students’ skills in writing. The sample of the study comprised (67) female students who were selected purposefully. The 1st group of (31) students was taught by using the Smart Boards from Mu’tah basic school for girls. The 2nd section of (36) students was taught by using the conventional method from Al-Mazar basic school. The two groups were similar in their age, their previous learning, their achievement in general and achievement in English language. To answer the questions of the research, a pre and post-test were designed to examine students` skills in writing where the validity and reliability of the study instrument (pre-post test) were verified.The findings of the study indicated that there were statistically significant differences at (??0.05) after applying Smart board learning method and conventional learning method in favor of Smartboard. Based on the results of the research , several recommendations were suggested. First, there is a need to apply Smartboard learning method in the educational process in the Jordanian schools. Secondly, there is a need to train teachers in how to use Smart boards and facilitate their application in the educational process.

The Integration of Games in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Classroom: Moulay Ismail University as a Case Study

Mossaab BEN EL MOUDDEN — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This paper puts emphasis on the integration of games in the teaching of English as a foreign language, with the aim of investigating the impacts of using games in the classroom on the process of learning English as a foreign language, the students'perception towards the use of games, the students’ skills, their participation in games, and their attitudes. The research approach adopted is the quantitative approach. The tool used to collect quantitative data is a questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to one group of foreign language students, who study at the university of Letters and Human Sciences in Moulay Ismail University in Meknes, Morocco. The sample includes fifty male and female participants. The findings show that the integration of games in the classroom helps the foreign language students to improve their four language learning skills, vocabulary repertoire, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, team work skills and encourages them to participate in the classroom. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the use of games in the classroom has many positive impacts on the perceptions of students towards the technique of game-based teaching, their attitudes towards the language, the teacher, and themselves. The significance of the study lies in raising the teachers’ awareness of the importance of the integration of games in teaching English as a foreign language.

Poetic Language and the Computer: A Corpus Stylistic Study of The Waste Land

Eman Adil Jaafar — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This study aims at proposing a methodology in analyzing one of the significant poems of the twentieth century, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. By means of applying the tools of the computer, namely; Wmatrix (Rayson 2003, 2008) and WebCorp Live (Birmingham City University). This paper seeks to examine whether corpus stylistics can be helpful in analyzing a single poem 2. Verifying the importance of corpus tools in interpreting poetic language. Moreover, this study attempts to examine key semantic domains, keywords, and concordances in the poem. This study proves that corpus tools are crucial in matters of saving time, reaching to accurate results and achieving much more objectivity than applying only the qualitative method in analyzing the data. Thus, it is recommended to integrate both methodologies (qualitative and quantitative) in the study of poetic language.

Creating Covid-19 Health Protocol Communication Materials in Filipino: A Translation Study

Claudine Alhambra, Eva Navarro — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Amidst Covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an online course in multiple languages during the first quarter of 2020, as part of their global response to the emergency (Utunen, et al., 2020). Although English is one of the official languages in the Philippines, the country is multilingual, and Filipino is mostly spoken and more widely understood. This translation study aimed to create Covid-19 health protocol communication materials in Filipino to cater to a general audience. Adopting the Interpretive Theory of Translation (ITT) by Danica Seleskovitch and the sixth element (understandable) of the WHO Strategic Communications Framework for Effective Communication (2017), the study developed the Translating and Creating Communications Material Framework to guide the research process. With this, the study was involved in synthesizing gathered information on Covid-19 health protocols which are in the source language, English. The translation itself involved deverbalizing and transcoding, where making sense of the information was done before they were completely translated to the target language, Filipino. Since the main aim is to communicate understandable information, the communication materials are in infographics form. Some English terms were also retained as they are easier to comprehend by the general audience who are households in selected communities.

Imagery in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh

Mourad Romdhani — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The characters, in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, are remarkably motionless, drinking and day dreaming. However, their portrayal as characters is based upon motion and continuous shift from one image to another. These images are meant to reflect the (post)modern psychological and sociopolitical conditions in which the derelicts are trapped, and probe issues related to human existence and human identity. This paper attempts to read the device of imagery as a dramatic and textual device and decipher its different meanings in O’Neill’s text, as far as the question of human identity is concerned. In the second part, more focus is addressed to animal imagery and its function in determining Man’s definition from a postmodern perspective, referring to notions suggested by postmodernist and post-structuralist thinkers like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Jean François Lyotard.

Use of Core Modal Verbs in Academic Writing of Thai EFL Students

Saowadee Kongpetch, Atikhom Thienthong — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Modal verbs, as one of modality devices, play an important role in academic writing and argument. To gain insights into the use of modal verbs in academic writing of Thai EFL students, the in-depth analysis of 15 discussion essays written by the third-year English majors at one public university in Thailand was carried out. It focused specifically on the nine core modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should and must) and examined their frequencies and semantic functions. The data analysis employed Sketch Engine, a corpus concordance, and drew on categories of semantic functions. The analysis revealed that can, will, may and should were the top four frequently favored items, respectively while must, could, would and might were found to be exceptionally underused. As for semantic functions, the most dominant meaning was “possibility” expressed by can. The results indicate that Thai students’ academic writing skills need to be significantly improved, particularly their ability to use modal verbs strategically in their essays. The curriculum design for academic writing needs to emphasize both syntactic structure and semantic functions of modal verbs and encompass activities urging students to practice using these modals systematically and purposefully.

The Development of the Intercultural Competence in Young Learners in an Elementary School in Miami

Damary Ordones — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In 1951, Jean Piaget and Anne Marie Weil analyzed the way in which children perceived foreigners in their article, “The Development in Children of the Idea of Homeland and of Relations with other Countries”. They concluded that only at the age of 11 or 12, did they reach the affective and cognitive development to understand and relate to people from other countries. The results of my work go beyond these studies, unlike what happens in a multilingual society, such as Switzerland where Piaget and Weil’ research is contextualized. Children in a multicultural society like Miami, Florida, develop the cognitive and affective aspects to relate to others at an earlier age. I applied two methodologies to this study. The first method is a questionnaire divided into three parts: 1) the development of the concept of homeland in children, 2) their reaction towards countries other than their own, and 3) the cognitive and affective understanding of others. The second method consisted of didactic lessons designed to fosterand enhance students’s intercultural competence and their acquisition of a foreign language.