International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

Non-Wh Internal and External Topics in Classical Chinese and Their Similarity to Equivalent Constructions in Modern Mandarin

Aiqing Wang — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In this paper I argue that non-wh internal and external topics in Classical Chinese can be analysed in parallel with their counterparts in modern Mandarin. I first scrutinise pronoun fronting in the context of negation in Classical Chinese, and propound that it is on a par with object preposing in modern Mandarin that is argued to be internal topics (Paul 2002). I then discuss non-interrogative elements base-generated and moved to the CP domain and illustrate their topical properties. Base-generated topics in Classical Chinese are Aboutness topics which permit DPs exclusively. In terms of moved external topics, they are constituted of preposed objects and preposed predicates: the former allow DPs and TPs, whereas the latter allow DPs and AdjPs. Moreover, moved topics can be further divided into Hanging Topics and Left Dislocation Topics, similar to those in modern Mandarin.

Supervisory Support Received by EFL Student Teachers during Practicum: The Missing Link

Morshed Al-Jaro, Adelina Asmawi, Abdul-Qader Khleel Abdul-Ghafour — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigates the role of supervisory support for assisting the EFL student teachers to perform better during practicum. It also aims at identifying the barriers of effective supervision during teaching practicum. The study adopts the qualitative research design using a multiple case study. Semi-structured interviews are developed to collect data from four student teachers and their supervisors during their teaching practices at local secondary schools in Yemen. Four emerging themes are developed from the thematic analysis of the data including the supervisory support on lesson planning, teaching strategies, classroom management and the number of observations. The findings reveal that the participating student teachers received insufficient support and guidance from their panel supervisors which limit their pedagogical practices during practicum. The findings also highlight some barriers to effective supervision due to some restrictions. The study provides practical implications for EFL teacher education program administrators and developers to reconsider the supervision plan so as to contribute towards professional teaching practices at schools during practicum in Yemen.

Slavery and power in Behn’s Social Context; A New Historicist Reading of Oroonoko

Younes Poorghorban — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this article is to illustrate how power works within Behn’s Oroonoko in light of New Historicism. Behn’s standpoint concerning slavery is quite unsettling, many arguments have been proposed concerning this issue. It is intended to shed light on how slavery is perceived for Behn and through her outlook, it becomes possible to illustrate how English colonialising power acts in opposition to whatever that aims to subvert it. Discourse is a vehicle of power and in this paper, many discourses are analysed to depict the essence of power. Language through discourses has managed to control and reproduce what is known as the truth. By shaping the truth in alliance to the dominant power it becomes possible to subvert and contain the opposing resistance. This article illuminates how truth is shaped for the subjects of power (mainly Oroonoko and his Wife) by the proposed discourses of the narrator who is also considered as Behn herself.

Socio-Linguistic Study of Meaning Extension in Communication among Male Youths in Northern Nigeria

Bello Ibrahim, Rilwan Yusuf Jibo, Hamisu Hamisu Haruna — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The paper examines meaning extension in communication among male youths in some northern states such as Katsina, Kano, Kaduna and Zamfara. The variables under study comprise of words, phrases and sentences in English and Hausa languages. The paper also examines the expressions’ literal and contextual meanings and how they are used among the educated and uneducated (western education) youths. The data gathered by the researchers through observation are twenty five (25) samples, and were further presented and analysed using descriptive method. The findings revealed that the youths use the expressions in a conversation to make it socially decorated and show fancy in conversation among them.

Level of Attachment of Malaysian TESL Students Towards Their Cultural Identity

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Although it is encouraged for students to explore other cultures and be equipped with world knowledge, the basis of patriotism and love for the country must be embedded to ensure the nation has a sense of pride and belonging. This paper attempts to provide a preliminary investigation for the components of the cultural identity from a Malaysian standpoint, the level of attachment of Malaysian Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) students to their cultural identity as well as factors affecting this relationship. Thus, quantitative method was adopted for this study to identify the level of attachment of Malaysian TESL students to their cultural identity. A questionnaire was distributed online to the participants from all three main races in Malaysia with TESL background and the data was analysed using SPSS. The findings of this study have shown that despite the extensive exposure to and involvement with the English language and culture, the level of attachment of Malaysian TESL students towards their cultural identity is high with regards to all three major components: national language, food and cultural spaces.

An Investigation of the Benefits and Challenges of Graduation Internship Perceived by Students of English Language Studies

Ngoc Tien Tran, Vu Thi Quynh Trang — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Graduation internship has been proved to play a vital role in students’ personal and professional development. It can also be considered a preparatory step for students to gain practical knowledge and supervised experience. However, what students encounter and how students value the internship are still debatable. This study explores how students of English Language Studies at Hoa Sen University, Vietnam, perceive the benefits and challenges of their graduation internship through a mixed-method study on 92 undergraduate students via survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The study employed descriptive data analysis and multiple regression to analyze quantitative data and grounded theory techniques for qualitative information. The findings show that students value graduation internship as an opportunity to enhance their personal skills and employability. The study also finds out that the difficulties students face when performing given professional tasks are insufficient personal skills and lack of professional knowledge. Additionally, results from multiple regression analysis reveal that understanding job values and confirming career aspirations have a positive correlation with perceived internship necessity while building future career plans and expanding working relationships have negative directions. The research findings can be of value for the higher educational institutions in adjusting or redesigning their programs to meet the demand of the workforce?

War on Drugs: The Readability and Comprehensibility of Illegal Drug Awareness Campaign Brochures

Fermina Vergara, Rachelle Lintao — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Information communicated and produced by the government is essentially fundamental as the government is set and deemed as a reliable and a credible source of information. This study assessed the readability, comprehensibility, and document design of two brochures on prohibited drugs awareness, which were produced and distributed by the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), a government agency that is responsible in instituting policies about the use of illegal drugs in the Philippines. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, a total number of 120 participants comprised of students, those employed, the unemployed, and drug patients from a rehabilitation center answered two 10-item multiple choice questionnaires and Likert scales to assess and evaluate the comprehensibility and document design of the two brochures. Using the Coh-Metrix tool to analyze the readability of the two brochures, results showed that the two existing brochures were not that readable with the huge discrepancy of the readability levels of the docments against the 9-10 normative values of the reading tool utilized. The results of the participants’ scores which were categorized as instructional or assisted level exhibited that the two brochures were not that comprehensible. Lastly, it was found that the designs of the documents were poor as some violations like small font size, pixelated pictures, and non-observance of color schemes were present. This paper argues that government agencies should produce information brochures that are patterned to the standards of Plain Language Movement in order to help the lay people grasp important information such as drug awareness.

A Study on Effectiveness of Online Learning System during COVID-19 in Sargodha

Ijaz Hussain Ijaz Hussain, Rana Muhammad Basharat Saeed , Ali Furqan Syed — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is known to be the worst pandemic on the planet which has not only affected humankind very severely but also frozen all areas of life on the sphere. The pandemic caused the largest turmoil in the field of education across the world. The conventional system of education has been disrupted resulting in the closure of all educational institutions around the globe. The exams were postponed which made the students more concerned about their academic achievements. The educationists around the world started thinking about some good alternatives for this problem and subsequently considered online learning as the best substitute for conventional learning at educational institutes. The current study was carried out to accentuate the effectiveness of online learning system during the wave of COVID-19. To achieve the objective of the study, two educational institutes, one government and one private institute, were selected in Sargodha through convenient sampling and the individual perception of the participant teachers was documented using questionnaire as the data collection tool. The descriptive and inferential statistical design was followed for the analysis of the data. The overall findings revealed that the online learning was an effective and efficient system of learning to fulfill the educational needs of learners at distant locations. On the whole, the inferences supported the effectiveness of the online learning system during COVID-19.

Using Project-Based Learning to Develop Social and Political Practices as Life-Long Learning Skills

Abdelaaziz El Bakkali — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recent research shows that teaching learners to maintain positive attitudes and engage in social and political practices is an important educational asset, mainly for schools that adopt project-based learning. To set an efficient background for schools to support students’ understanding of both political and social participation, important preconditions of democratic school culture form effective outcomes to generate ethical behaviors. Today, social and political measures of project-based learning in schools provide important opportunities to engage learners in life-long activities. Thus, the central aim of these measures is to promote the efficiency of decision-making within schools, which shape all classic criteria for both functioning political and social integrity. This paper aims at examining important venues that school leaders wish to implement to foster new ethical participation within and outside school life by adopting project-based learning. It attempts to unravel the timely challenges of such implementation and the different perspectives for the progress of many educational institutions. Hence, the paper adheres to a meta-analysis technique, whereby a special examination of the various already conducted studies came out with conclusions: perspectives and challenges. Owing to its generative, and diagnostic nature, this method allows the researcher to explore some pitfalls which provide potential opportunities for alternative conclusions to be adopted in well-run approaches. The major results and conclusions drawn from this paper are to be deeply and qualitatively discussed and analyzed.

“Let us call it a truthful hyperbole!” A Semantic Perspective on Hyperbole in War Poetry on Iraq (2003)

Huda Halawachy, Nawar Alobaidy — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As has long been known, though prevalent in everyday discourse across cultures, hyperbole is a neglected figurative language in the linguistic and/or literary sphere. In this talk, we propose a semantic taxonomy of hyperbole in American and British modern war poetry showing how this taxonomy helps readers figure out the poet’s meaning on a deeper level via a variety of hyperboles. The main objectives are to (1) identify the elements of such a trope in the corpora, (2) approach a semantic taxonomy of hyperbolic elements, and (3) come up with the true hidden messages and nature of the trope in accordance with the typology of the semantic field under which the trope is embraced. The corpora consist of two impressive poems – ‘Abu Ghraib’ by Curtis D. Bennett (American), and ‘A Message from Tony Blair to the People of Iraq by David Roberts (British). Findings indicate that both the evaluative and the quantitative dimensions are key characteristics that often coincide and should, therefore, be included in every interpretation of the figurative hyperbolic language in war poetry. A strong preference is also observed for negative effects, auxesis, and absolute savage in the corpora, though the trope sounds positive on the surface.

Portrait of Women in Victorian Novels

Shaghayegh Moghari — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the representation of three female characters in three Victorian novels. These three novels are Bleak house, Ruth, and Lady Audley’s Secret. This work is, in fact, a study of how women were viewed in Victorian novels which actually depicted the Victorian society. The society of that time was male-dominated that tried to rule over women unfairly and made them as submissive as possible in order to handle them easily according to their selfish tastes. If women in Victorian society followed the expectations of men thoroughly, they were called angel-in-the-house; if not, they were labeled with negative labels like fallen-woman or mad-woman. This article tries to go through the characters of Esther Summerson, Ruth, and Lady Audley who appeared in the three aforementioned novels respectively in order to prove that the Victorian Society, which was represented in the novels of that period, was a harshly male-dominated society that ruled over women with bitter patriarchy.

Teaching writing through task-based instruction: Exploring English teachers’ experiences

Laxman Prasad Bhandari — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As educationists and policymakers have been concerned much in increasing the English proficiency of their citizens, educational policies on curriculums and syllabuses have moved increasingly towards various versions of learner-centered teaching approaches including task-based language teaching. TBLT is one of the widely discussed learner-centered approaches for the last few decades. It aims at developing students’ communicative skills through their active engagement in various tasks focusing more on meaning than on form. The study aims to explore English teachers’ experiences in teaching writing with respect to the intent of the secondary level English curriculum prescribed by the Curriculum Development Center, Ministry of Education, Nepal. The study is qualitative where five teacher participants were interviewed. The data were analyzed based on the taxonomy of task types by Willis and Wills (2007). The findings showed that the teacher participants are theoretically aware of TBLT, especially in teaching writing, and the intent of the prescribed curriculum; however, they are not able to fully bring their knowledge and skills into practice to meet the objective of the curriculum. Thus, the study purposes a way forward to strengthen teachers’ ability to bring TBLT theory into practice through training, workshops, research, and higher studies.

Colonial vs Colonized Counter-Hegemonies: Two Vistas of Moroccan Educational Models

Driss Bouyahya — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Both France and Spain used schooling as a vehicle in service of colonization during the Protectorate era in Morocco, whereas Moroccans retaliated with counter-hegemonic tools to resist and interrogate imposed educational models in order to implement their oppositional agendas. Thus, the paper is threefold: it attempts to revisit and sketch out both colonial policies in education with their ramifications, while outlining and analyzing their strengths and limitations. The study also seeks to investigate how Moroccans establish resistance movements to react to the newly-imposed colonial hegemonies, such as free schools and reformed traditional Qur’anic schools (Msids), discussing their goals, structures, success and failure. Finally, the paper explores colonial education as a site of interaction or “contact zones” between French and Spanish colonizers and elite Moroccan Muslims and Nationalists who sought to counter the processes of acculturation, marginalization and subalternization. The study covers the Moroccan schooling system from 1912 to 1956. The study dwelled on the congruity of education as an ideological apparatus to shape identity and/or dominate in a battlefield over power between the Protectorate powers and the Moroccan nationalists, who made use of different discourses as an instrument of power. This essay unravels some conclusions that both French and Spanish Protectorates utilized different vistas to establish and sustain their hegemonies through education and instruction, such as Franco-Berber schools and Spanish-Arab/Spanish-Jewish schools respectively. While, Moroccan Muslims and nationalists countered the former hegemonies through creating a free-school system and reforming traditional Qur´anic schools.

Critical Thinking in the EFL Workshop on War: A Case Study

Maja Mandic — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article presents a small case-study of an EFL workshop class on war, organized following the basic principles of critical thinking and content-based teaching. The development of critical thinking skills is one of the priorities of higher education, especially when discussing a sensitive issue, so the workshop was organized around the topics of war and memory. The students were given individual research assignments to prepare in advance, which they presented in the workshop. The teacher was only a moderator as the students were responsible for their presentations and discussion. The outcomes of this process are presented in the article, focusing on the students’ delivery of their assignments. Based on the teacher’s observations and students’ responses to the workshop, it can be concluded that it was possible to combine some of the fundamentals of critical thinking with those of content-based teaching for this class. The article discusses how the students benefited from the class in terms of acquired knowledge, linguistic skills and motivation. It also outlines the challenges of organizing the workshop and dealing with the sensitive topic of war. The article proposes practices which could be used to improve the observed positive aspects and to remedy the negative ones.

Speech Acts and Hegemony in Discourse

Thouraya Zheni — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Language users may use the standardized forms of speech acts as a strategy to achieve their own purposes, like political agendas. This is the objective of the present study, which focuses on the manipulation of speech acts in Donald Trump’s tweets on the US-Iranian crisis. More specifically, the current research paper sheds light on hegemony in political discourse and how it is embedded in assertive, commissive, directive, declarative and expressive speech acts. The tweets of Donald Trump, delivered between January 2017 and December 2019 and related to the US-Iranian crisis, will be analyzed within the framework of Speech Act Theory. The results of the current research show that Trump’s use of speech acts demystifies his hegemonic tone towards Iranian leaders. His power is mediated explicitly via directives and commissives, while it is exerted implicitly via expressives and assertives. His use of direct and indirect speech acts reveals Trump’s ambivalence and willingness to solve the US-Iranian nuclear crisis via both hegemony and diplomacy.

Contrastive error analysis of Turkish EFL learners in writing

Şahin GÖK — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this study is to find out to what extent Turkish EFL students make interlingual (interference) and intralingual (developmental) errors in writing at the university level. The mid-term and final examination papers of 50 Turkish EFL students were taken and their errors were categorized into interference and developmental errors. The results of our research have shown that they made a mean of %14.6 interference errors. Thus, this proportion does not confirm the contrastive analysis hypothesis claiming that all errors are due to the negative transfer from the mother tongue. On the other hand, they made a mean of %85.4 developmental errors which are not related to L1. So the results of T?Test indicate that Turkish EFL students made significantly more (p<.001) developmental errors.

Towards Environmental Justice: An Ecopoetical Reading of Ikiriko and Otto’s Poetry

Ochuko Esamagu — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ecology is a study that transcends disciplinary boundaries. It has roots in the sciences but enjoys a number of representations in the humanities, specifically through literature. Several African writers have in their imaginative works, portrayed the devastating condition of the environment in a 21st century technological-driven world and also proposed solutions to this malady. In fact, environmental degradation has become a global issue, hence, the pressing need for a lasting panacea. Attempts at literary ecocriticism in Nigerian literature have largely focused on prose fictional works and the poetry collections of older and second generation poets like Tanure Ojaide. Consequently, little research has been carried out on the representation of environmental degradation in the poetry of more contemporary poets like Ibiwari Ikiriko and Albert Otto. This paper therefore, is a critical, close reading of Ikiriko and Otto’s poetry engagement with environmental degradation. The paper adopts the notion of ecopoetry from the ecocritical theory, which accounts for poetry foregrounding questions of ethics in relation to the environment. It acts as a reminder to humans of their responsibility towards the earth and challenges the existing status-quo that has the environment and the common people at the mercy of the ruling class. In this paper, Ikiriko’s Oily Tears of the Delta and Otto’s Letter from the Earth are subjected to literary and critical analysis to examine their preoccupation with the destructive onslaught on nature, and the traumatic experiences of the marginalised. Amidst the environmental depredation, the poets express hope and revolutionary fervour towards the rejuvenation of their society.

Symbolism of Water in Classic and Modern Arabic Literature

Mohammad Hamad — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Water in Arabic literature has literal and symbolic meanings. Water is one of the four elements in Greek mythology; life would be impossible without water and it is a synonym for life; life originated in water. Springs, wells, rain, seas, snow, and swamps are all associated with water. Each form of water may take on a different manifestation of the original from which it comes about. Arabic literature employs the element of water in poetry, the short story, and the novel. We find it in titles of poems: Unshudat al-matar (Hymn of the Rain) and Waj’ al-ma’ (The Pain of Water); and novels: Dhakirat al-ma’ (The Memory of Water); Taht al-matar (Under the Rain); Matar huzayran (June Rain); Al-Bahr khalf al-sata’ir (The Seas Behind the Curtains); Rahil al-bahr (Departure of the Sea); and many others. This study aims to answer the following questions: How does the element of water manifest in Arabic literature? What are the semantics and symbolism of the different forms of water in the literary imaginary?

The study refers to six different significations for water in classical and modern Arabic literature: water as synonymous with life, purity and the revelation of truth, separation and death, fertility and sex, land and homeland, and talent and creativity.

Online Collaborative Writing (OCW) in Arabic as a Second Language (ASL) Classrooms: A Mixed-Method Study

Mohammed Alwaleedi — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigated how ASL learners interact during the OCW tasks, how ASL learners perceive the implementation of OCW, and whether or not there is a difference in students’ ASL writing performance before and after the implementation of OCW. This study employed a mixed-method study, a qualitative case study and a one-group experimental with pre-and-posttest design, involving 16 students who participated in the ASL writing class. The collected data included observations, document analysis, in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and tests. Pre- and post-test results were compared to analyze whether or not there is a statistically significant difference in students’ ASL writing skills before and after the implementation of OCW. The findings showed variations in interaction patterns during online collaborative writing activities. The students also had a positive perception of the implementation of OCW. The results also indicated a statistically significant difference in students’ ASL writing skills before and after the implementation of OCW.

Remembering the Lebanese Wars in Abbas El-Zein’s Leave to Remain (2009)

Lahcen AIT IDIR — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Soon after the Civil War’s end in 1990, the state in Lebanon has engaged in a discourse of amnesia, in a bid to proscribe any heed to the question of the war. The purpose is to conceal this dark chapter of the Lebanese history through the repression of memory. Through different practices of remembering, diaspora writers have tried, however, to offer alternative narratives of the Lebanese history. In so doing, they engage in resisting the official dominant ideologies through producing what Micheal Foucault would label as “insurrection of subjugated knowledges” (Foucault, p. 81). In studying Abbas El Zein’s memoir Leave to Remain, this article sets out to explore how and in what ways post-war Lebanese Diaspora literature can be categorized as a form of history writing about war. This article focuses on the Civil War (1975-1990) and the July War in 2006.