Papers by IMRAN ALRASHDAN
Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences
This study argues that idiomatic expressions are essentially used as pragmatic messages which are... more This study argues that idiomatic expressions are essentially used as pragmatic messages which are heavily laden with implicatures and/or contextual effects. This implies that idiomatic expressions are not pure propositional elements that necessarily have (non-compositional) semantic content, whereas any pragmatic messages are affiliated with context. In this study, we defend an alternative view that idioms are composed of fixed semantic content, plus a variant speaker-related meaning. In order to show this, the current study draws on data from Jordanian Arabic (JA) and a judgement survey where 30 speakers are asked about the difference with respect to a certain meaning when delivered through the use of an idiomatic expression or through equivalently propositional content
SAGE Open, 2020
The present study examines the use of English lexical insertions to create humor by Jordanian uni... more The present study examines the use of English lexical insertions to create humor by Jordanian university students. The data of the study are collected from spontaneous tape-recorded conversations from 62 participants of both males and females, representing different age groups (from 18–23 years old) and belonging to different specializations (e.g., engineering, pharmacy, mathematics, business, and English). The recorded conversations are qualitatively analyzed applying Auer’s sequential approach to code-switching to attain a local interpretation of lexical insertions for humor effect from English into Jordanian Arabic (JA). The findings of the study reveal that Jordanian university students exploit their bilingual repertoire to create humor by playfully and innovatively switching to English. This is shown to take place by unexpected switching points, a switching that flouts Arabic syntactic constraints, a violation of code-switching constraints, incongruity and incompatibility of tr...
The Connotations of Bird Names in Arabic and English
Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences, Sep 1, 2021
Grammatical devices of stance in written academic English
Heliyon, 2021
Stance is a feature of academic writing that refers to how writers interact and engage with their... more Stance is a feature of academic writing that refers to how writers interact and engage with their readers by means of linguistic devices. This study focuses on the grammatical devices—and semantic distinctions thereof—that are employed by academic writers of English to express stance in research article abstracts in the areas of applied linguistics (AL) and literature (L). To this end, a corpus of 120 research article abstracts (60 in the area of AL and another 60 in that of L) was built and analysed using SPSS and following Biber et al.’s (1999) framework of grammatical devices of stance. The abstracts were extracted from high-quality journals in the respective areas: Applied Linguistics and English: Journal of the English Association. Both are ISI journals and published by Oxford Academic Publishing. A mixed-method approach, applying quantitative and qualitative measures, was adopted to answer the two questions: How is stance grammatically expressed in AL research article abstracts and L research article abstracts, and How is the expression of stance in AL research article abstracts similar to/different from that in L ones? The findings are construed in light of theories of academic discourse and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The results reveal that there are important similarities and differences in the extent to which and the means through which stance is expressed in AL research article abstracts and L research article abstracts. In particular, the findings show that both AL and L abstracts were similar in the most frequently used stance marker which is the stance complement clause. However, they were different in the frequency of use of other devices. The study provides insights into the ways academic writers express stance in various fields which better our ability to write research article abstracts.
Evidence for constraints on probing dynamics: A case study of adjectival concord
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique
Based on facts of adjectival concord in Standard Arabic, this article offers evidence that upward... more Based on facts of adjectival concord in Standard Arabic, this article offers evidence that upward probing (i.e., the goal c-commands the probe) is permitted only if downward probing (i.e., where the probe c-commands the goal) does not result in valuing the probe's uninterpretable feature. Such a constraint on upward probing allows us to account for several intriguing observations in Arabic grammar, including the fact that an adjective can agree in number and gender with one nominal, but in definiteness with another nominal. Hence, on the one hand, this article lends support to Agree proposals according to which absence of a match in the c-command domain of an unvalued feature (uF) is not fatal to the derivation. On the other hand, it speaks against Agree proposals that do not license downward probing or view it as parasitic on upward probing.
Lingua Posnaniensis, 2019
This paper explores the use of bound forms in coordination constructions and ʔijjā and ʔijja in M... more This paper explores the use of bound forms in coordination constructions and ʔijjā and ʔijja in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Jordanian Arabic (JA), respectively. Using the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2005) as a theoretical framework, the paper proposes that the use of bound forms in such constructions is ruled by a Phonetic-Form constraint that prohibits cliticization of a bound form onto another bound form, i.e. the combination of two bound forms does not result in a free form; hence it is blocked. The paper demonstrates that the use of ʔijjā and ʔijja in MSA and JA, respectively, is a direct consequence of this constraint, so that ʔijjā/ʔijja is a Phonetic-Form object used to serve as a lexical host of bound forms (cf. Fassi Fehri 1993). The use of ʔijjā/ʔijja is also shown to be prosodically ruled; it is prosodically dependent so that ʔijjā/ ʔijja should be a member of the prosodic unit which also includes the preceding word.
Lingua Posnaniensis, Jun 1, 2019
This paper explores the use of bound forms in coordination constructions and ʔijjā and ʔijja in M... more This paper explores the use of bound forms in coordination constructions and ʔijjā and ʔijja in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Jordanian Arabic (JA), respectively. Using the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2005) as a theoretical framework, the paper proposes that the use of bound forms in such constructions is ruled by a Phonetic-Form constraint that prohibits cliticization of a bound form onto another bound form, i.e. the combination of two bound forms does not result in a free form; hence it is blocked. The paper demonstrates that the use of ʔijjā and ʔijja in MSA and JA, respectively, is a direct consequence of this constraint, so that ʔijjā/ʔijja is a Phonetic-Form object used to serve as a lexical host of bound forms (cf. Fassi Fehri 1993). The use of ʔijjā/ʔijja is also shown to be prosodically ruled; it is prosodically dependent so that ʔijjā/ ʔijja should be a member of the prosodic unit which also includes the preceding word.
On English translation variation of similar plural nouns in the Holy Quran
Cogent Arts & Humanities, Mar 29, 2023
Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 2021
Although translation is a means of intercultural communication, it represents a challenge when it... more Although translation is a means of intercultural communication, it represents a challenge when it comes to rendering the intended meaning of some propositions, particularly because every language has its distinctive features and structures that may not be accurately rendered into the target language. This challenge is reinforced when translation occurs between two languages that belong to different origins such as English and Arabic. This paper explores the translatability of a grammatical construction (viz. Hypothetical or unrealizable proposition) from English to Arabic, and vice versa. The paper shows-through examples from both languages-that regardless of how carefully translation is conducted, incomplete meanings are usually rendered into the other language. It, moreover, asserts the interlanguage translatability of such propositions and notions. In principle, but by no means exclusively, Arabic is treated as a source language and English as a target language for the purpose of translation. But in many places, this order is reversed. The analysis has implications for translation-related courses, particularly in crucial areas such as legal translation where accurate meanings are carefully searched for.
Heliyon, 2021
Stance is a feature of academic writing that refers to how writers interact and engage with their... more Stance is a feature of academic writing that refers to how writers interact and engage with their readers by means of linguistic devices. This study focuses on the grammatical devices-and semantic distinctions thereof-that are employed by academic writers of English to express stance in research article abstracts in the areas of applied linguistics (AL) and literature (L). To this end, a corpus of 120 research article abstracts (60 in the area of AL and another 60 in that of L) was built and analysed using SPSS and following Biber et al.'s (1999) framework of grammatical devices of stance. The abstracts were extracted from high-quality journals in the respective areas: Applied Linguistics and English: Journal of the English Association. Both are ISI journals and published by Oxford Academic Publishing. A mixed-method approach, applying quantitative and qualitative measures, was adopted to answer the two questions: How is stance grammatically expressed in AL research article abstracts and L research article abstracts, and How is the expression of stance in AL research article abstracts similar to/different from that in L ones? The findings are construed in light of theories of academic discourse and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The results reveal that there are important similarities and differences in the extent to which and the means through which stance is expressed in AL research article abstracts and L research article abstracts. In particular, the findings show that both AL and L abstracts were similar in the most frequently used stance marker which is the stance complement clause. However, they were different in the frequency of use of other devices. The study provides insights into the ways academic writers express stance in various fields which better our ability to write research article abstracts.
A cross-cultural analysis of the speech act of congratulating in Kabyle and Jordanian Arabic
Congratulating others is an essential aspect of human social interaction and a speech act that is... more Congratulating others is an essential aspect of human social interaction and a speech act that is realised differently in languages. This study aims to investigate the pragmalinguistic realisations of the speech act of congratulating in Kabyle and Jordanian Arabic (JA) by comparing the strategies that Kabyle-speaking and JA-speaking students employ when offering congratulations. The data are analysed with reference to social status, gender and cultural background of the participants. A Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which included four situations of different social statuses is used to collect data from 30 JA-speaking students (15 males and 15 females) at the University of Jordan and 30 Kabyle-speaking students (15 males and 15 females) from three different universities in Algeria region of Kabylie. Elwood's (2004) framework is adopted in the classification of strategies. A mixed-method approach is applied in the analysis with the frequency of strategies being quantitatively an...
Stance and engagement in English and Arabic research article abstracts
System
Uploads
Papers by IMRAN ALRASHDAN