Papers by Eman Adil Jaafar
Nasaq Journal, 2024
Climate change (Henceforth, CC) is a universal issue that demands people’s attention and immediat... more Climate change (Henceforth, CC) is a universal issue that demands people’s attention and immediate action. In this respect, social media language provides essential data for linguists to further examine this issue linguistically. This paper aims firstly to identify roles (actors) on climate change as a global crisis through YouTube interactions. Examining roles helps to check who is responsible for such crises according to the interlocutors‖ views. Secondly, the study aims to examine how interlocutors view the climate change issue. This gives insights into how audience from different parts of the world interacts with emergent crises. The corpus is collected from the digital interactions on videos posted by BBC News and The Economist Channels on YouTube. This study focuses on the comments on six YouTube videos related to climate change and posted during (2020-2022). These videos are explanatory in nature. They present the problem and highlight major concerns. Therefore, the audience find this topic engaging, thus, they reflect their views and beliefs by leaving comments. This is achieved by both quantitative and qualitative methodology. Integrating both corpus- based study and systemic functional linguistic study aided in answering the questions of this research objectively and systematically. In sum, studying the comments of communicators on YouTube plays a vital role in understanding the views, reasons, and solutions for this crisis according to interlocutors around the globe.
This article presents an ecostylistic analysis of selected extracts from Michael Punke'snovel The... more This article presents an ecostylistic analysis of selected extracts from Michael Punke'snovel The Revenant (2002). The aims of the study are achieved in termsof an eclectic methodological framework. The study aims at revealing the powerhierarchy created in the selected texts between human and non-human participants.Also, it aims to show how the elements of nature affect the survival of humansin the fictional context by identifying the ecostylistic features in the literarytext. A close ecostylistic reading of sixselected extracts from the novel using Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) tools (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014[1985])and Zurru's (2017) approach is followed. Moreover, the study presents a qualitativeinvestigation of stylistic elements such as foregrounded features and deviatedlanguage patterns. Thus, conducting an ecostylistic analysis of the chosenpassages, and, demonstrating how the author portrays the environment with allits elements as an effective participant helps to appreciate nature. Thefindings show that nature acts as the main character's savior and a threat tohis life; it also demonstrates how nature works as a powerful active participantin portraying the events of the novel.
The study of language and ecology is a recent topic in linguistic studies. The current study inve... more The study of language and ecology is a recent topic in linguistic studies. The current study investigates language patterns that are employed to describe the powerful role of nature. The main aims of this study are: to conduct an ecostylistic analysis of some selected extracts from Amitav Ghosh's novel, The Hungry Tide, by using a functional technique to examine the type of agency and transitivity processes that are presented in these extracts. Furthermore, it aims at highlighting the ecological linguistic traits in the data. The eclectic method is based on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and Zurru (2017). Stylistic tools aid to reveal the connection between human and non-human participants. The chosen extracts are ecostylistically examined to show the relationship that may be built between environmental studies and stylistics. The main contribution of this study is to link the importance of the environment and its issues to human existence in literary language. Moreover, ecological stylistic features and the author's word choices that portray the role of nature are identified in the literary text.
The Journal of Stylistics and English Language Studies
This study aims at shedding light on the linguistic significance of collocation networks in the a... more This study aims at shedding light on the linguistic significance of collocation networks in the academic writing context. Following Firth's principle "You shall know a word by the company it keeps." The study intends to examine three selected nodes (i.e. research, study, and paper) shared collocations in an academic context. This is achieved by using the corpus linguistic tool; GraphColl in #LancsBox software version 5 which was announced in June 2020 in analyzing selected nodes. The study focuses on academic writing of two corpora which were designed and collected especially to serve the purpose of the study. The corpora consist of a collection of abstracts extracted from two different academic journals that publish for writers from different countries around the world. This corpus-based study aims at examining the significance of chunks of language in texts. The concept of collocations is crucial in corpus linguistics to identify semantic relations. This can help in the teaching and learning processes. Furthermore, this study is conducted to answer the following research questions; first, whether the three words study, paper, and research are used interchangeably in the corpora or not? Second, what are the shared collocational associations surrounding the selected nodes? Finally, it is worth noting that the study of collocations highlights the linguistic features of texts through computational analytical tools that can save time and help to gain objective results systematically. The findings show that 'research' and 'study' are used rather interchangeably in the writing of the abstracts; however, 'paper' has fewer shared collocations in the same academic context.
This study examines the stylistic linguistic features of a collection of suicide notes retrieved ... more This study examines the stylistic linguistic features of a collection of suicide notes retrieved from the online platform Reddit from the period (2012-2020). It aims to conduct a detailed corpus-based stylistic analysis. Furthermore, it it aims at checking specific selected stylistic categories.. The quantitative analysis was performed using WordSmith 8.0 software which helps to identify keywords in context. Keywords are indicators of the style of the language of the selected corpus. The analysis result indicated that the redditors in the online suicide corpus usually included simple words with fairly short sentences. Their writings tend to be less lexically diverse, concentrating on one or two themes with a lower TTR (type-token ratio), which indicated that their words were relatively repetitive. Online suicide notes show high frequency in using first-person singular pronouns, and concerning the distribution of content words, the verbs were the most frequently used part of speech, followed by nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Furthermore, the keywords list helps to reveal stylistic and linguistic elements.
Cognitive stylistics also well-known as cognitive poetics is a cognitive approach to language. Th... more Cognitive stylistics also well-known as cognitive poetics is a cognitive approach to language. This study aims at examining literary language by showing how Schema Theory and Text World Theory can be useful in the interpretation of literary texts. Further, the study attempts to uncover how readers can connect between the text world and the real world. Putting it differently, the study aims at showing how the interaction between ‗discourse world' and ‗text world'. How readers can bring their own experience as well as their background knowledge to interact with the text and make interpretive connections. Schema and text world theories are useful tools in cognitive stylistic studies. The reader's perception of a particular text world depends on her/his existing schema during the process of interpretation. The selected texts for the study are "Strange Meeting" by Wilfred Owen, "In Winter" by Corbett Harrison and the opening passage of David Lodge's novel Changing Places which are intended to show how the two theories can be integrated to account for the way in which text worlds are perceived. So as a result, readers start establishing meaning based on their schemata and these meanings change through adding a new one. The cognitive ability to understand literary texts and how readers build mind worlds is a crucial aim in cognitive poetics. An in-depth cognitive stylistic analysis reveals significant points about reading and interpreting the selected literary texts by providing a way of thinking about background knowledge and how the individual's experience would influence their interpretation and viewing of the text world.
Melvin's Mind Style: A Corpus Stylistic Analysis of As Good as It Gets, 2019
This study primarily attempts at examining the mind style of the leading character in the 1997 fi... more This study primarily attempts at examining the mind style of the leading character in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets performed by Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall, a novelist who is characterized as a misanthrope, and suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The main aim of this paper is to examine the mind-modeling of the character's mind for his unique odd mind style. This can be achieved by applying both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The adopted methodology is based basically on McIntyre and Archer (2010) and McIntyre (2015); it shares some of the perspectives that require using Wmatrix (Rayson, 2008) to perform the quantitative analysis in order to validate the qualitative data. However, this study, does not aim to measure consistency. This paper aims at: first, verifying the usefulness of one of the corpus tools in understanding the deviant mind of the character. Second, analyzing key semantic domains of the speech of the main character as well as the keywords used by him. In addition to that, the researcher tries to benefit from cognitive linguistics schema theory in understanding the odd mind style of the character.
This research paper draws on applying the tools of pedagogical stylistics in teaching literature ... more This research paper draws on applying the tools of pedagogical stylistics in teaching literature in particular poetry to English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduate Iraqi students. The language of literature is rich with social context, exquisite deviant forms, and vocabulary. This paper aims at examining to what extent pedagogical stylistics can be helpful in increasing students' literary awareness. In addition, to examine how it can help them to interpret and analyze selected poems that have been chosen for them to achieve this goal. For the purpose of gathering the required data a pre-test and a post-test are conducted. Verdonk's (2013) approach is adopted in teaching stylistic tools to the students. The participants were (40) second-year students of the academic year 2018-2017 from University of Baghdad, Iraq. Moreover, a questionnaire is distributed to know students' opinions about studying stylistics. The final results proved that (1-) pedagogical stylistics tools are of great significance to pay heed to the language of poetry or literary language in general, (2-)the questionnaire shows that most agreed on studying stylistics in the classroom. Thus, this study highly recommends that teachers of literary subjects should focus on stylistic tools in teaching literary texts.
Abstract
This paper presents a stylistic analysis of two poems of well-known poets of the Englis... more Abstract
This paper presents a stylistic analysis of two poems of well-known poets of the English literature, namely; E.E. Cummings and the Irish noble laureate Seamus Heaney. The researcher's attempt here is to approach Cummings‘s poem ―maggie and milly and molly and may‖ and Heaney‘s ―A Kite for Aibhín‖ from the stylistics‘ point of view. The paper also analyzes the poems using the tools of linguistics with a view to make their meaning explicit.
It is worth noting that stylistics as a scientific discipline is really beneficial to those who are teaching and studying English language and literature. No matter whether English is the native, second or the foreign language. Not only foreign students but also the speakers of the English language can benefit from stylistics. They can get linguistic beside literary competence. Nowadays, stylistics with its tools and methods of linguistics can help to a logical and scientific understanding of the literary texts based on linguistic evidence.
This study aims at analyzing a selected poem "A Herbal" written by one of the greatest poets of t... more This study aims at analyzing a selected poem "A Herbal" written by one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century; Seamus Heaney. The methodology is a corpus-based one. Using the tools of the computer to analyze and interpret poetry allows readers/ researchers to examine to what extent technology can bring the attention to crucial details that might be missed by human manual analysis. This does not imply that the later analysis should be neglected, but to emphasize employing both of the analyses to reach much more reliable results. In short, this study is qualitative and quantitative in nature. This study has a great importance. There is an attempt to fill a gap in the area of analyzing poetry using corpus stylistics. As a matter of fact, few works are conducted by using corpus stylistics to examine poetry. The findings show how important to apply both quantitative and qualitative analyses to interpret and study literary texts. Relevantly, it can provide researchers with a better understanding of the themes, keywords, and the style of language. The obtained results have an objective trait. To put it differently, the data is examined by computational tools, here, WebCorp Live and Wmatrix, then the data is scrutinized in terms of manual study. In fact, this work demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary work, here humanities (linguistics) and computer studies. The results reflect the importance of using technology to study literary texts.
Using Transitivity and Functionalist Stylistics as a Framework in Studying Hassan Balasim's Short Story "The Green Zone Rabbit", 2019
This paper shows how transitivity can be used to classify verbs and clauses through many types of... more This paper shows how transitivity can be used to classify verbs and clauses through many types of processes, and it aims to clarify the meaning that is beyond a literary work such as short stories and here the researchers aim to analyze "The Green Zone Rabbit" Written by the Iraqi writer Hassan Balasim and translated into English by Jonathan Wright in 2013 ، by using Transitivity system and Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL) that is devised by Michael Halliday (Halliday, 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014).) to show how language is considered as a social semiotic system and as a resource for making meaning and choices, in addition, this paper illustrates the different points concerning stylistic applications of Halliday's model of Transitivity, finally it shows the connection between linguistics and literature as a language through the use of functional stylistics.
This paper aims at analyzing Terry Bisson's short story Bears Discover Fire stylistically by foll... more This paper aims at analyzing Terry Bisson's short story Bears Discover Fire stylistically by following both Gerard Genette's theory of narratology (1980) and Short and Leech (1981) strategy for analyzing fictional works. Also trying to examine to what extent these models are applicable in analyzing the selected story. Stylistic analysis procedures help the readers/researchers to identify specific linguistic features in order to support literary interpretation and appreciation of literary texts. Style in fiction concentrates not on what is written, but on how a text is written. Each writer has his own style and techniques which distinguish him from other writers.
Examining the Language of Drama Texts with a Reference to Two Plays: A Stylistic Study, 2016
Analyzing the language of drama texts stylistically can be somehow challenging, due to the fact, ... more Analyzing the language of drama texts stylistically can be somehow challenging, due to the fact, dialogues need certain tools and techniques to be used. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of conducting this work is to show how to analyze plays stylistically. This paper focuses on two plays, namely, Major Barbra by G.B. Shaw, specifically, act (1) and knuckle by David Hare. In addition, showing a kind of comparison between the two playwrights' writing style, their choices and the linguistic variations, which the two texts have. Mainly, the analysis is based on Thornborrow and Wareing's (1998) model. This model applies methods of stylistics to analyze the aesthetic side of the language of the selected texts. This model also allows researchers to refer to certain tools related to pragmatics and discourse analysis to investigate the dialogues in order to reach to rightful interpretation. Since the language of drama texts shows diversity in its form, this methodology looks at a drama text as a combination of different genres which they need different tools from linguistics. In this way, readers can gain an understanding of the texts by following rational and tangible evidences from the language of the texts.
This research paper draws on applying the tools of pedagogical stylistics in teaching literature ... more This research paper draws on applying the tools of pedagogical stylistics in teaching literature in particular poetry to English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduate Iraqi students. The language of literature is rich with social context, exquisite deviant forms, and vocabulary. This paper aims at examining to what extent pedagogical stylistics can be helpful in increasing students' literary awareness. In addition, to examine how it can help them to interpret and analyze selected poems that have been chosen for them to achieve this goal. For the purpose of gathering the required data a pre-test and a post-test are conducted. Verdonk's (2013) approach is adopted in teaching stylistic tools to the students. The participants were (40) second-year students of the academic year 2018-2017 from University of Baghdad, Iraq. Moreover, a questionnaire is distributed to know students' opinions about studying stylistics. The final results proved that (1-) pedagogical stylistics tools are of great significance to pay heed to the language of poetry or literary language in general, (2-)the questionnaire shows that most agreed on studying stylistics in the classroom. Thus, this study highly recommends that teachers of literary subjects should focus on stylistic tools in teaching literary texts.
Book Reviews by Eman Adil Jaafar
Contemporary Media Stylistics permits readers to explore a variety of methodological applications... more Contemporary Media Stylistics permits readers to explore a variety of methodological applications to data analysis. Recent developments in technology and media communication provide linguists and stylisticians with authentic data for analysis based on real-life communication.
As its title suggests, Difficulty in Poetry: A Stylistic Model tackles poetic difficulty. The que... more As its title suggests, Difficulty in Poetry: A Stylistic Model tackles poetic difficulty. The question here is, why would one consider a poem difficult? Is it a semantic issue, facing unfamiliar meanings of words? Alternatively, it can be a pragmatic issue, the unfamiliar context to readers. Or is it a cultural issue? Or can it be a combination of all the factors mentioned above? The author endeavors to define difficulty based on previous relevant work that dealt with the same vein. In previous work, Castiglione (2017) defined difficulty "as a text-driven response phenomenon associated with resistance to reading fluency"(p.99). In general, this book in review addresses difficulty in poetry with the aim of finding understanding and analyzing difficulty. Readers need to know what poetic difficulty means and why some poems are considered complex and difficult to understand. Castiglione (2018) used an interesting metaphor to make the idea of his book more reachable to the readers. He describes difficulty as a metropolis. The ways of understanding it are described as vehicles. Issues might be faced during the journey to the center of this city. Moreover,
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Papers by Eman Adil Jaafar
This paper presents a stylistic analysis of two poems of well-known poets of the English literature, namely; E.E. Cummings and the Irish noble laureate Seamus Heaney. The researcher's attempt here is to approach Cummings‘s poem ―maggie and milly and molly and may‖ and Heaney‘s ―A Kite for Aibhín‖ from the stylistics‘ point of view. The paper also analyzes the poems using the tools of linguistics with a view to make their meaning explicit.
It is worth noting that stylistics as a scientific discipline is really beneficial to those who are teaching and studying English language and literature. No matter whether English is the native, second or the foreign language. Not only foreign students but also the speakers of the English language can benefit from stylistics. They can get linguistic beside literary competence. Nowadays, stylistics with its tools and methods of linguistics can help to a logical and scientific understanding of the literary texts based on linguistic evidence.
Book Reviews by Eman Adil Jaafar