Asian Identities

This research explores the world of accent coaching, aiming to unearth culturally sensitive strategies while coaching Asian actors an Asian accent. Historically, Asian characters have been depicted inaccurately in theatre as early as the eighteenth century. The Asian accent has been a major defining feature of Asian people, particularly in media and stage portrayals of Asian characters. Owing to the fact that many characters on stage and film have been misrepresented through stereotype and exaggeration, Asian actors have had to adhere to these ideologies in their professional careers. As a reflexive voice practitioner, I engage with this topic through the grounded theory methodology and seek approaches that might mediate the overarching challenges that are faced by the majority of Asian actors. Through the grounded theory methodology, I venture to learn more about the Asian experience to help find approaches that might suit their needs. With this research, I set to create a framework of cultural perspectives and cultural sensitivity within coaching environments. The importance of this research elevates the voice field by focusing on a marginalized demographic.

, where she teaches children's literature, young adult literature, and Native American literature. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First Century Young Adult Literature: Imaginary Activism.

Over the last twenty-five years, philosophers have offered increasingly more sophisticated accounts of the nature and wrongness of racism. But very little in this literature discusses what is distinctive to anti-Asian racism. This gap exists partly because philosophy, like much of U.S. culture, has been influenced by civic narratives that center anti-Black racism in ways that leave vague anti-Asian racism. We discuss this conceptual gap and its effects on understanding      anti-Asian racism. In response to this problem, we offer an account of anti-Asian racism not beholden to the black-white binary. In our view, xenophobia, as a form of civic ostracism, plays a distinctive role in anti-Asian racism and admits of a complexity that is worth philosophical study. We also begin an exploration of a correlated phenomenon, namely xenophilia. It has a peculiar, often pernicious, presence in anti-Asian racism and sexism, but it is morally more complex than xenophobia.

The short story as a literary work has been ubiquitously used to teach language and literature. However, not all short stories are appropriate and suitable to be used in the language-learning classroom. One of the aspects that should be considered in choosing short stories to teach language and literature is the readability level. The matching of appropriate text difficulty level to the readers' reading ability is crucial to inculcate an interest in reading and elicit comprehension. Derived from this rationale, this study aimed to investigate the readability level of short stories used in the Introduction to Educational English Literature Course (IEEL). Moreover, this study also attempted to analyse the students' perceptions of the short stories assigned to them to read in the IEEL course. In measuring the readability level, document analysis utilizing the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Formula was employed. To strengthen the data and ensure triangulation, 5 participants were purposely selected to be interviewed to explore their perspectives after reading those short stories. The results showed that 3 short stories namely The Birthday Party, The Dead Men's Path, and Turning Thirty were categorized as standard (63.1), fairly easy (74.4), and easy level (83.7) respectively. Lastly, further inquiries through semi-structured interviews found that the 5 participants were reported to have positive viewpoints after reading those short stories.

The short story as a literary work has been ubiquitously used to teach language and literature. However, not all short stories are appropriate and suitable to be used in the language-learning classroom. One of the aspects that should be considered in choosing short stories to teach language and literature is the readability level. The matching of appropriate text difficulty level to the readers’ reading ability is crucial to inculcate an interest in reading and elicit comprehension. Derived from this rationale, this study aimed to investigate the readability level of short stories used in the Introduction to Educational English Literature Course (IEEL). Moreover, this study also attempted to analyse the students’ perceptions of the short stories assigned to them to read in the IEEL course. In measuring the readability level, document analysis utilizing the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Formula was employed. To strengthen the data and ensure triangulation, 5 participants were purposely ...

Globalization has brought about an unprecedented interconnectedness between people, made possible a neoliberal economy, and has challenged the citizens of the world with a clash between multiple cultures across the continents. The ecumene of the planet is home to myriad peoples with maverick cultures, languages, etc., scattered throughout on its plane. Scientific or technological achievements have helped us as the citizens of this globalized world, to come closer physically but not without some effet de bord. Xenophobia, racial violence, the clash between different civilizations, etc., are the challenges that accompany globalization. The arguments here exude the colossal responsibility that lies presently on the shoulder of a writer to connect peoples internally or psychologically by exposing them to different cultures, peoples, etc., and facilitate a global negotiation between diverse people. In this time of globalization, we can't be truly globalized unless we lend our ears patiently to the writers across the globe. With such standpoints, the paper argues how Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan-American writer, has enlightened the global audience about Afghanistan through his novels. The paper examines two novels of Hosseini and tries to evaluate their contribution towards familiarizing the Afghan ways of life by suggesting Hosseini as a communication bridge between the people of Afghanistan and beyond.

This research explores the world of accent coaching, aiming to unearth culturally sensitive strategies while coaching Asian actors an Asian accent. Historically, Asian characters have been depicted inaccurately in theatre as early as the eighteenth century. The Asian accent has been a major defining feature of Asian people, particularly in media and stage portrayals of Asian characters. Owing to the fact that many characters on stage and film have been misrepresented through stereotype and exaggeration, Asian actors have had to adhere to these ideologies in their professional careers. As a reflexive voice practitioner, I engage with this topic through the grounded theory methodology and seek approaches that might mediate the overarching challenges that are faced by the majority of Asian actors. Through the grounded theory methodology, I venture to learn more about the Asian experience to help find approaches that might suit their needs. With this research, I set to create a framework of cultural perspectives and cultural sensitivity within coaching environments. The importance of this research elevates the voice field by focusing on a marginalized demographic.

This paper is an exploratory research which sought to discover ideological constructions in column titles by contributors of Philippine Daily Inquirer's (PDI) Youngblood and Highblood columns. By unveiling ideological constructs in the title, certain pedagogical implications were reviewed on the premise that samples of these columns may have found their way in the education system as models of quality personal essay. Analysis was done through the examination of process types and lexicalization. Fairclaugh's Critical Discourse Analysis and Halliday's Process Types and lexicalization served as the theoretical foundations of the study. Data used in the analysis were those published in PDI's website from October, 2011-October 2012. It was found that young and old contributors write about experiences pertaining to concrete actions, contradicting earlier studies on Filipino youth and the elderly. Moreover, lexical choices of young contributors point to themselves as being goal-oriented, adventure-driven, and assertive, yet weak, frustrated and dependent. Consequently, the elderly contributors portray themselves as energetic, politically-and socially-aware, wise, yet nostalgic, sickly, and age-conscious. Out of these results, implications to language teaching and learning are underscored.

This paper aims to analyse the cohesive devices in the essays written by second-year major students in the Université de Zinder (henceforth, UZ), Republic of Niger. Eighty students enrolled for the second year in 2020-2021. And they were all taught essay writing by means of the process approach to writing for a period of 10 weeks or so. To collect data for the analysis, the students were assessed at the end of the course; i.e., they were asked to write an argumentative essay on one of the following topics: a) Should students be allowed to use their smart phone in class? b) Modern technology has made the world a better place to live in today. Drawing on the descriptive mixed method research design, this study randomly selected and examined ten of the students' essays: 5 on the first topic and 5 on the second one. The cohesive devices in these essays were first described, identified and classified. Next, the findings were contrastively presented with a view to unravelling and foregrounding the similarities and differences in the students' essays. The findings revealed that the students' texts contain, in varying proportions, such cohesive devices as conjunction, reference and lexical cohesion. Further, they indicated that most of the texts have little explicit conjunctive structure, suggesting a spoken mode. Likewise, they showed that the retrieval of the identity of reference in most of the texts is essentially text-internal. However, there is a lack of consistence and referential harmony in most of the texts, showing either negligence on the writer's side or the writer's lack of knowledge of how to use reference. Again, the findings revealed that all the texts are mainly constructed by means of superodination. But it is noted that there is a loose focus on topic in most of the texts, indicating thus a careless selection of lexical items. Based on the foregoing findings, the study formulates some pedagogical implications of an overt teaching of cohesive devices in an EFL writing class.

While the organization of most academic writing courses around the introduction and practice of discrete linguistic elements might suit those learners who adopt a more atomistic approach to language learning, this approach might not be so appropriate for those learners searching for a more holistic understanding. For the latter group, a course centered on a pragmatic view of discourse, and drawing on Gricean maxims, which can provide a framework within which features of genre-specific academic writing can be explored, might be appropriate. Such courses remain rare. Where they are provided, they might be evaluated with the help of students’ reflections on their learning, which can provide insights that facilitate subsequent course development. Set in a largely curriculum-free Middle Eastern university context in which Gricean maxims had been previously employed in the teaching of academic writing, this study reports on one such course developed through negotiation with students. It a...

York: Academic Press). Moreover, the relationship of cohesion to coherence is investigated. The analysis of cohesion showed that the Arab students overused reiteration of the same lexical item as a cohesive device, but underused other lexical and grammatical cohesive devices. The evaluation of coherence, on the other hand, showed that the students failed to supply sufficient information about the assigned topic. The correlation of coherence score with number of cohesive ties was quite low (0.18). The implications of these findings for writing instruction are discussed.

This research explores the world of accent coaching, aiming to
unearth culturally sensitive strategies while coaching Asian actors
an Asian accent. Historically, Asian characters have been depicted
inaccurately in theatre as early as the eighteenth century. The Asian
accent has been a major defining feature of Asian people, particularly
in media and stage portrayals of Asian characters. Owing to the fact
that many characters on stage and film have been misrepresented
through stereotype and exaggeration, Asian actors have had to
adhere to these ideologies in their professional careers. As a reflexive
voice practitioner, I engage with this topic through the grounded
theory methodology and seek approaches that might mediate the
overarching challenges that are faced by the majority of Asian actors.
Through the grounded theory methodology, I venture to learn more
about the Asian experience to help find approaches that might suit
their needs. With this research, I set to create a framework of cultural
perspectives and cultural sensitivity within coaching environments.
The importance of this research elevates the voice field by focusing
on a marginalized demographic.

This research explores the world of accent coaching, aiming to
unearth culturally sensitive strategies while coaching Asian actors
an Asian accent. Historically, Asian characters have been depicted
inaccurately in theatre as early as the eighteenth century. The Asian
accent has been a major defining feature of Asian people, particularly
in media and stage portrayals of Asian characters. Owing to the fact
that many characters on stage and film have been misrepresented
through stereotype and exaggeration, Asian actors have had to
adhere to these ideologies in their professional careers. As a reflexive
voice practitioner, I engage with this topic through the grounded
theory methodology and seek approaches that might mediate the
overarching challenges that are faced by the majority of Asian actors.
Through the grounded theory methodology, I venture to learn more
about the Asian experience to help find approaches that might suit
their needs. With this research, I set to create a framework of cultural
perspectives and cultural sensitivity within coaching environments.
The importance of this research elevates the voice field by focusing
on a marginalized demographic.

While the organization of most academic writing courses around the introduction and practice of discrete linguistic elements might suit those learners who adopt a more atomistic approach to language learning, this approach might not be so appropriate for those learners searching for a more holistic understanding. For the latter group, a course centered on a pragmatic view of discourse, and drawing on Gricean maxims, which can provide a framework within which features of genre-specific academic writing can be explored, might be appropriate. Such courses remain rare. Where they are provided, they might be evaluated with the help of students' reflections on their learning, which can provide insights that facilitate subsequent course development. Set in a largely curriculum-free Middle Eastern university context in which Gricean maxims had been previously employed in the teaching of academic writing, this study reports on one such course developed through negotiation with students. It analyses students' reflections on which aspects of the input they had found most salient and why. Benefits of the course, in terms of students' awareness of how their conceptions of academic writing had developed through critically evaluating a chosen text using Gricean maxims as a framework, are highlighted.

Newspaper editorials comprise a portion of media discourse deemed to be important in the field of research in both intercultural rhetoric analysis and English as a Second Language or Foreign Language studies. Thus, this study aims to explore the different kinds of textual features and rhetorical strategies employed in the editorial headlines of the American newspaper, The New York Times (NYT), and the Philippine newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI). The study analyzed 50 headlines culled from the electronic versions of both the NYT and the PDI. Based on Alireza and Samuel's (2012) framework, the study applied a systematic contrastive textual analysis in investigating the said headlines. The results point to the fact that differences between the two sets of headlines exist, specifically in terms of the use of presuppositions and rhetorical devices.

This exploratory study aimed to analyze the effects of word processing on students' writing performance in terms of quality and quantity. The subjects in this study were twenty-five first year Bachelor students. Two writing sessions were carried out in this study. For each session, the students were divided into two groups, with one group wrote an essay in class while the other group used the computer to type their essay. They switched the writing medium in the second session. Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level were used to measure the quality of the essays; while the number of words, number of sentence, and words per sentence were used to determine if there was any improvement in the quantity of writing. Statistical analysis was conducted to determine any significant differences between the two media.

Being the first Afghan-American writer who writes in English, Khaled Hosseini is a relatively new novelist whose literary reputation was established since his debut novel, The kite Runner (2003). His successive two novels; A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and And the Mountains Echoed (2013) have achieved the same worldwide recognition and success. The common thread that links Hosseini's novels – apart from them being set in and representative of Afghanistan's multilayered society and complex history – is the fact that each character in these fictional works sets out on a journey that is determined and, to a large extent, linked to the country's turbulent historical and social background. The itineraries that the characters follow intersect with and reveal a lot about the country's social, political and historical complex matrices. Though he hopes that his novels evince an authentic and truthful portrait of his homeland, Hosseini doesn't claim to take on the mantle of " a teacher, a sociologist or an anthropologist " who can fully and adequately teach about Afghanistan, as he states in his interview with Fanney Kiefer. Nonetheless, his novels feature characters and stories that have a worldwide resonance thanks to their representational function of a long-overlooked and relegated country – Afghanistan. My contention is that Hosseini's fiction penetrates the cultural boundaries that set a chasm between the East and the West. In other words, his novels are packed with elements of a culture so much foreign, yet nonetheless very familiar with its themes and characters. That's what makes Hosseini's works stand out in the so-called ethnic literature; his rendering of Afghanistan's culture and history accessible to foreigners.

'And The Mountains Echoed' is the third novel of the much acclaimed author, Khaled Hosseini. Published by Riverhead Books in May 2013, it didn't quite live up to its expectation. His first two novels, 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' being bestsellers there was obvious enthusiasm among the book lovers. Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan, though he moved to US at the age of 11 but his homeland has huge influence on him which is why all three of his novels are based in Afghanistan. In this novel he has deviated from his usual style of story-telling unlike his first two novels where his story revolved around the main protagonists but in And The Mountains Echoed he created many a character and all of them were connected to each other in some strange way. At some point you feel you are reading too many stories and it leads to a clutter but we are saved by the art of beautiful story-telling of Hosseini who despite the flaws holds the attention of the reader. Hosseini is undeniably one of the finest storyteller and author of the modern times and weaves magic with words but this novel didn't receive the love and warmth that his earlier novels got but nonetheless this one was loved in its own way. The main reason that weighed down this novel was the high expectation and the kind of stories we got in the first two novels, this novel had to be taken as a separate entity and altogether different composition. If we look at it that way, it was beautiful, heartbreaking and held the reader's attention till the end. Among all the little stories that this novel had to offer, it also revolved around the siblings and their despair and separation. Hosseini has a good grasp on human emotions and creates stories that are rich with humanity. In his first two novels he has depicted the political turmoil in Afghanistan and the chaos because of it but in this novel he has deviated and concentrated on the effects of the political turmoil on people and he has avoided that angle completely. He tries to picture his homeland free from wars and this was a faint attempt to depict it reaching a peaceful stage. At the heart of all the stories, it is the story of Siblings Abdullah and Pari who are separated in childhood and Abdullah longs for his sister whom he raised like his own child after his mother's death and Pari comes to know about her reality in her 40s sets out to search her brother. they finally meet in California but by then Abdullah was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and did not remember Pari at all. While 'The Kite Runner' focused on the bond of 'fathers and sons' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' focused on the relationship between mothers and daughters', this novel focused on the siblings relationship. Khaled Hosseini tries to depict family bonds, love and separation in this novel and his execution is impeccable.

In this study cohesion in 20 compositions is analysed in terms of Halliday and Hasan's model (1976, Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R., Cohesion in English, London: Longman). Coherence is evaluated by native speakers of English on the basis of Grice's maxims of relevance, quantity, and manner (1975, Grice, P., Syntax and Semantics III: Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press). Moreover, the relationship of cohesion to coherence is investigated. The analysis of cohesion showed that the Arab students overused reiteration of the same lexical item as a cohesive device, but underused other lexical and grammatical cohesive devices. The evaluation of coherence, on the other hand, showed that the students failed to supply sufficient information about the assigned topic. The correlation of coherence score with number of cohesive ties was quite low (0.18). The implications of these findings for writing instruction are discussed.

Being the first Afghan-American writer who writes in English, Khaled Hosseini is a relatively new novelist whose literary reputation was established since his debut novel, The kite Runner (2003). His successive two novels; A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and And the Mountains Echoed (2013) have achieved the same worldwide recognition and success.
The common thread that links Hosseini’s novels – apart from them being set in and representative of Afghanistan’s multilayered society and complex history – is the fact that each character in these fictional works sets out on a journey that is determined and, to a large extent, linked to the country’s turbulent historical and social background. The itineraries that the characters follow intersect with and reveal a lot about the country’s social, political and historical complex matrices. Though he hopes that his novels evince an authentic and truthful portrait of his homeland, Hosseini doesn’t claim to take on the mantle of “a teacher, a sociologist or an anthropologist” who can fully and adequately teach about Afghanistan, as he states in his interview with Fanney Kiefer. Nonetheless, his novels feature characters and stories that have a worldwide resonance thanks to their representational function of a long-overlooked and relegated country – Afghanistan. My contention is that Hosseini’s fiction penetrates the cultural boundaries that set a chasm between the East and the West. In other words, his novels are packed with elements of a culture so much foreign, yet nonetheless very familiar with its themes and characters. That’s what makes Hosseini’s works stand out in the so-called ethnic literature; his rendering of Afghanistan’s culture and history accessible to foreigners. 

Keywords: Afghanistan, History, Culture, Ethnicity, Homeland, Individual journey, Identity

This paper is an exploratory research which sought to discover ideological constructions in column titles by contributors of Philippine Daily Inquirer’s (PDI) Youngblood and Highblood columns. By unveiling ideological constructs in the title, certain pedagogical implications were reviewed on the premise that samples of these columns may have found their way in the education system as models of quality personal essay. Analysis was done through the examination of process types and lexicalization. Fairclaugh’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Halliday’s Process Types and lexicalization served as the theoretical foundations of the study.Data used in the analysis were those published in PDI’s website from October, 2011- October2012. It was found that young and old contributors write about experiences pertaining to concrete actions, contradicting earlier studies on Filipino youth and the elderly. Moreover,lexical choices of young contributors point to themselves as being goal-oriented,adventure-driven, and assertive, yet weak, frustrated and dependent. Consequently, the elderly contributors portray themselves as energetic, politically- and socially-aware, wise, yet nostalgic, sickly, and age-conscious. Out of these results, implications to language teaching and learning are underscored.

"Inspired by youth empowerment posed by present social movements in the Philippines, this study attempted to discover the discourse practice of young column writers in the country. It specifically sought to describe the prevailing convention on Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Youngblood column with particular attention to target audience, title, word count, and discourse development, with an end view of determining the role that language plays in empowering the voice of the youth in the present domestic space.

The Reflective Inquiry and Practice-focused methods in media discourse analysis were used in the study. Seven columns, published both in print and online, for 15 consecutive days (October 1-15, 2011), were identified and analyzed. The titles, target audience and word count of the columns were analyzed through Gricean Maxims, Flesch-Kincaid Formula, and traditional counting respectively. Discourse development was determined through the analysis of Cohesion (conjunctive and reiteration lexical cohesion), and Halliday’s systems of transitivity.

After examining the texts, it was concluded that the target audience of young writers, whose column compose of more or less 1000 words, starts from high school students but are not necessarily limited to the age group. Narratives that deal with what the writers themselves are doing are preferred over other forms of writing as evidenced by the density of personal pronouns and verbs expressing material processes. This means that the younger generation in the Philippines use language as a means of expressing the fact that they are actually “doing something” worth noticing contrary to local elderly beliefs."