Language Linguistics and literary studies

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, therefor...

The realization of speech anxiety among ESL/EFL learners is important. Once understood, these feelings of fear or nervousness may be relieved and the desired objectives of learning the target language may be achieved. The study has attempted to measure the level of anxiety among ESL/EFL learners at HITEC University, Taxila, Pakistan. The current research has arrived at the conclusion that the target population is highly anxious in situation where they are required to speak English. The findings show that sources such as pedagogical, psychological, socioeconomic , linguistic and cultural generate anxiety among the EFL learners. The study has suggested variety of strategies to treat anxiety in the academic context. It was found that communicative approach in classroom may be helpful in minimizing the negative impact of anxiety among language learners.

Twitter, synonymous with social networking, has become a successful social platform for the exchange of ideas, news, and information. It has also emerged as an experimental platform through which users explore creative realms of poetic and narrative content, albeit in 140 characters. The real-time tweets are fundamentally unique and increasingly sophisticated. The attention deficit generation of the fast-paced contemporary world has little time on its hands for extended discourse. Brief stories have been told throughout human history, however, the popularity of short stories skyrocketed with the advent of digital story telling. Twitter has now become a frontier medium that allows a unique mode of digital storytelling that facilitates creative literary experimentation. Twitter offers a unique freedom to writers insofar as a tweet can be an entire bite-sized story or even a snapshot of a story that requires readers' active imagination to complete. Twitter fiction signifies stylistic word economy, compactness, symbolic structure, and implied narrative. Fragmentariness of the story is a marker of Twitter fiction. The proponents of Twitter fiction enjoy the originality, freedom, and diversity of perspectives offered by the Twitter fiction. Critics, however, argue that the mandated 140 character limitation stunts story development and strangulates creativity. This paper examines Twitter fiction and proposes that limited characters stories are the evolutionary answer to the reduced attention span of the tech-savvy generation.

Popular science sphere of communication is acquiring new features of virtuality, globality, mosaic structure and social orientation, which are essential in fulfilling its functions in modern society. Based on the examination of 92 podcasts, the study deals with podcasting research identifying typical characteristics of the podcast and factors contributing to the spread of podcasting in the popular scientific hypermedia communication. The survey showed that increasing popularity of the podcast in the popular scientific sphere is explained by several factors. First, informing the user becomes more accessible, quicker and easier. Secondly, the listener takes part in interpersonal communication not with a virtual author, but with a real person, gets the opportunity to make his own conclusions based on sounding speech, which is more expressive, emotional, and has a strong impact on the addressee. Thirdly, most podcasts are interviews and discussions, which facilitates the perception and ...

This present study attempted to investigate the status of language anxiety and motivation orientation of the young Filipino learners of English and how these constructs are related to one another.  To address these research goals, a quantitative approach was employed using Liu and Cheng’s (2014) Factor Loadings for three-Component Solution for the Anxiety and Jin, Jiang, Juan, Zhang, Liang and Xie’s (2013) motivation in language.  Participated by 39 Grade 3 pupils from a premier basic education school in the province of Cavite, these instruments were simplified and translated to their first language (L1) to suit the understanding of the young learners of English.  Results showed that the respondents are highly motivated in learning the second language, but the ‘general anxiety in English class’ is evident on one hand.  These two significant factors showed strong correlation between anxiety and ‘negative evaluation’ and motivation.  On the other hand, there is a significant negative ...

The ability to cite reasons, to justify claims and give support to arguments is seen as primary characteristics of a critical thinker. This paper discusses how the ‘Elements of Reasoning ’ is employed with Socratic Questioning to develop critical thinking in the language classroom. The principles that guide the questioning are laid out clearly, just as is the response which must be backed by valid reasons, examples, and illustrations, pushing students beyond mere recall and into abstract thinking. It is based on the notion that through questioning, the process that occurs in the student’s mind creates thinking and learning.

This study investigated the performance of 150 Tagalog and 131 Sinugbuanong Bisaya grade three pupils with regard to solving mathematical word problems written in their mother-tongue (L1) and in English as their second language (L2). The respondents were subjected to a validated teacher-made parallel tests based on the competencies stipulated in the first and second quarter mathematics curriculum guide of the Philippines. Results of which were compared and analyzed using two-tailed t-test. Findings show that the Tagalog pupils performed better in their mother-tongue over English as their second language. On the other hand, Sinugbuanong Bisaya pupils performed better in English as their second language over their mother-tongue. While results appear contradictory, contextual discussions offer valuable insights into the situation, allowing avenues for more exploration and investigations. As implication to language policy development, this study offers the use of translanguaging in cont...

The article proposes a model for integrating TED Talks (TTs) in EFL college listening practice. It shows instructors where TTs can be located, gives reasons for using TTs, criteria for selecting TTs, the listening skills that can be developed, and an instructional strategy. TTs provide a variety of real-life themes, speakers, motivation, and inspiration. They save instructors’ time and effort as they are available on You Tube, mobile apps or in the TED website. In selecting TTs, the instructor should take into consideration the students' interests, difficulty level of the TT language and content, its length in minutes, and speed and accent of the speaker. Before watching a TT, she posts the title of the TT on an LMS or social media platform. She sets goals for listening and gives pre-questions to help the students comprehend the TT content. The students view the TTs on their smart phones in the classroom or at home; individually, in pair, or small groups; synchronously or asynch...

This paper aims to explore Helen Cixous’ postmodernist trends in her formulations of a new form of writing known as ecriture feminine. The paper attempts to validate the view that Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” is regarded as the manifesto of postmodern feminism. This is done by attempting a critical discourse analysis of Cixous' narrative of ecriture feminine. Deploying a multifaceted-framework, ranging from postmodernism to psychoanalysis through poststructuralist theory and semiotics, the study reveals Cixous' metamorphosing and diversified trend of feminist writing that transposes the subversion of patriarchy into a rather bio-textual feminism, known as bisexuality. The paper highlights the significance of Cixous’ essay as a benchmark of postmodern feminism.

http://ijlls.org/index.php/ijlls/article/view/115/52 Thomas Hardy is mostly acclaimed as a pessimist novelist whose plots are full of tearful tragic tales. In all his novels, the adverse situations come from the uncertain conditions of the role of the chance that emerges based on the characters’ psycho-analytic states and eccentric impulses, financial variations and barriers, irregularities of social status and standards, communal, cultural and ethnic misunderstanding, lack of trust in the marital relationship, thrust and lust of sexual pleasure, historical attitudes and backgrounds, highness of royal families, and religion egoism on the unmatched unities of action, place, and time in the Victorian modernity that forces all the characters to survive a life full of sufferings and misfortunes throughout the plots. But this paper has a fresh approach to exploring the philosophy of optimism in Hardy’s novels that how the male and female characters, despite facing the irony of fate and c...

This article tries to compare between two well-known American short stories, “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, from a comparative perspective. The author of the first of these stories is an African-American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. Alice Walker and the other story is written by an American short story writer, novelist and photographer, who wrote about the American South, Audra Welty. The specific reasons behind choosing these two short stories because they are written by women writers from different cultures, both deal with racial issues, but more importantly is that both include children characters that can add an attribution to be representations of the new African- American generation. Walker’s story includes the characters of two African- American daughters; Maggi and Dee, each of these characters behave in a different way, a behavior which consequently represents a special attitude towards the new generation of Afr...

This paper takes on a critical literary approach to Hanif Kureishi's short story "My Son the Fanatic." Through close analysis, the text reveals the intricate concept of hybridity and identity in a neocolonial setting. Identities are shaped and founded on a false notion of "purity." The text presents the tensions facing immigrants and their attempt to formulate and maintain an identity that falls between complete assimilation and the rejection of one's own culture. To find and maintain that balance is the complex burden of hybridity. The characters must find a sense of belonging, and it is increasingly difficult to do so in a society infested with racial ideologies. The findings of this paper reflect how problems arise when the West is placed above the East, and this ideology is indoctrinated and internalized by the postcolonial self.

For non-native English learners to successfully manage authentic intercultural and international communication, their pragmatic competence should be considered as fundamental as their linguistic capacity (Bachman, 1990). As the foundation for developing language skills, English textbooks provide EFL learners with preliminary exposure to real-life situated pragmatic interactions. However, there is limited empirical research on the authenticity and appropriateness of the pragmatic representations in Vietnamese EFL textbooks at present. To fill in the gap, this paper provides a content analysis designed to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate a cross-culturally written textbook used for secondary EFL learners in Vietnamese context. It aimed to examine (1) types and distribution of speech acts the textbook covered, (2) meta-pragmatic information accompanying the linguistic realizations of those speech acts, and (3) appropriateness and authenticity of such pragmatic representatio...

With a growing emphasis on students' ability to assess their own written works in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) writing courses, self-assessment checklists are today regarded as useful tools. These checklists can help learners diagnose their own weaknesses and improve their writing performance. This necessitates development of checklists that guide the learners in assessing their own writing. In this study, a self-assessment checklist was developed for undergraduate students in an ESL context to help them with their argumentative essays. This paper presents the related literature and theories, based on which the checklist was developed. The checklist is described and its potential theoretical and practical implications in ESL writing classes are discussed. Further research is necessary to refine the checklist through focus group studies with lecturers and students.

The stylistic analysis of Robert Browning's poem 'Patriot into Traitor' is done by using graphological, phonological, morphological and lexico-syntactic patterns. This analysis is helpful in decoding the underlying meanings of the poem. It clearly brings to surface what the poet really wants to impart.

This paper investigates grammatical difficulty from the perspective of Saudi university students, of EFL as well as from the perspective of university teachers. It aims to find out which English grammar features are more difficult/less difficult than others. Furthermore, it attempts to determine the reasons and causes that account for such grammar difficulty. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were the two research instruments used in this study. A total number of 103 students and 85 university teachers took part in the questionnaire, while only 20 teachers and 25 students responded in the interview. All the participants were from Aljouf University (males and females). The results showed that some English grammar features were more difficult and some were less difficult than others. The obtained difficulty order determined by EFL learners and the one obtained by the teachers’ perceptions were compared. Some similarities and differences were found to exist in the rank orde...

The study  Ţiganiada, a  Language "poematicon"  constitutes an application on the literature field. The thesis in which direction is argued is the following: This paper aims to highlight the literary Romanian language evolution in the period 1700-1820.The text used is paradigmatic for the limit in 1800. Being published posthumously in about half a century after the passing of the author's work Budai -Deleanu not influence the direction of development of Romanian literature, but it is important for innovative sense of  language. For the study used meta-analytic method and the met
Conclusion: The text abound - a language that traces the evolution of literary language in shaking Slavic words and fluidity of language in relation to the literary Romanian language in a clearer picture of the meaning of words.hod of direct observation of the text.

In the Malaysian education system, English has always played an important role. In acknowledging its importance, Malaysian University English Test (MUET) has been introduced to enable continued emphasis on this role.  MUET has been made compulsory for those who wish to pursue a first degree programme in local universities. This study aims to examine the relationship between English language proficiency test (as measured by MUET bands) to predict the undergraduates academic achievement (as measured by Cumulative Grade Point Average score). It also aims to determine the recommended MUET band as an entry requirement for prospective technical programme undergraduates in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The study was carried out among 225 final year undergraduates of five different faculties in UPM, namely Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.  The data used were obtained by administering a brief questionnaire and were quantitatively analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 19.  The study revealed that there is a medium positive correlation between English language proficiency and academic achievement where students who have scored higher bands for MUET are the ones who obtained higher CGPA in their study. Based on the findings, it is recommended that UPM and other local universities make changes towards the minimum MUET entry requirement to help prospective undergraduates excel in their academic study. Keywords: English language proficiency, academic achievement, technical programme, MUET, CGPA

This study attempts to identify the extent of using authentic materials in the new series of secondary English textbooks (Flying High for Saudi Arabia) used currently in Saudi schools. Therefore, a content analysis instrument has been designed to analyze the first secondary English textbook. The instrument has been distributed on 112 EFL female teachers who work in public Secondary schools in Riyadh city. The findings show that the selected textbook focuses to a moderate extent on using material authenticity. The provided materials promote genuine communication among EFL learners, prepare learners for the future uses of the target language and present authentic language in its actual contexts. However, the findings reveal that the used materials are beyond the learners' level and the reading comprehension activities present real life texts at a poor range. These findings suggest to adjust the given materials to fulfill the learners' needs and match their proficiency level.

The demand to make education inclusive requires assurance that the future teachers of indigenous students are fully equipped to handle multicultural classes. Hence, with an end goal of identifying inputs that could enhance pre-service teacher education, this study was conducted to determine the profile, experiences, knowledge, attitudes, and skills of the randomly selected teachers of indigenous students in the province of Occidental Mindoro. The data were gathered online through a questionnaire that underwent validity and reliability tests. Findings reveal that the teachers are graduates of bachelor of Elementary Education and have been teaching in the IP schools for not more than three years. The teachers frequently experience implementing the curriculum, monitoring student’s progress, and living with the IP community, and occasionally experience travelling to and from the IP community as they embark on the day-to-day activities of teaching their IP students. The knowledge, attitu...

Abstract
Early childhood education is a key foundation of the Nigerian educational system. Early quality care and education given to a child is a determinant to the level of the child’s physical and cognitive development right into the future. The effective execution of the stated curriculum for the early childhood education as it is clearly stated in the National Policy on Education is questionable. Undoubtedly, quality educators do have a huge part in the operative execution and implementation of the early childhood education curriculum in Nigeria, Teachers are the central code to any curriculum enhancement exertion, and they areas well accountable for presenting the curriculum within the confine of the classroom as well as outside the classroom. The crux of this study therefore, is to critically undersee the teachers as the protagonists in the effective enactment of the early childhood education curriculum in Nigeria. Attaining this main objective of this paper, the summary of early childhood education, as well as the challenges of the implementation of early childhood education curriculum and the roles of teachers in the effective implementation of the early childhood education curriculum were discussed extensively.

This research paper is intended to shed light on the use of e-learning in learning and more particularly in foreign language learning by EFL students in higher education either to support the process of their traditional learning or for any other independent learning purposes. The aim is to identify how e-learning is used, the various existing e-learning strategies that students prefer to learn with and the extent to which EFL students are satisfied with the support offered by e-learning to assist the process of EFL learning. To answer these queries, a quantitative method is adopted for the collection of data using online tools in the creation and the administration of the questionnaire to the respondents. The findings of the study demonstrate that students usually use e-learning as it helps them to develop many language skills including communication skills, problem solving skills besides the four language skills. It has been shown also that students are highly satisfied with the u...

A “giuntina” edition of «Perì hermenèias» (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Stamp. 15826), belonging to Benedetto Varchi (1503-1565) and by him richly annotated, testifies on his study on Logica. During his stay in Padua (1537-1541), while giving lectures on Philosophy at the «Studium» and taking part to the Accademia degli Infiammati, the Florentine scholar prepared the ground for building a vernacular philosophic prose by translating and commenting Aristotle's work. When he was called back to Florence in 1543 with the assignment of writing the «Storia fiorentina», Varchi persevered in his efforts to realize the project of putting the philosophic and scientific doctrine into vernacular, by giving lectures on Dante and Petrarch at the Accademia Fiorentina. Such project, moreover, matched with the aim of Duke Cosimo I to make Florentine language an efficient tool of his cultural policy. ***************************************************************************************
L’edizione giuntina del «Perì hermenèias» (Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Stamp. 15826), appartenuta a Benedetto Varchi e da lui fittamente postillata, è il testimone dei suoi studi sulla logica. Durante il soggiorno a Padova (1537-1541), fra le lezioni di filosofia nello Studio e l’attività all’Accademia degli Infiammati, il letterato fiorentino, traducendo e commentando l’opera di Aristotele, pose le basi alla costruzione di una prosa filosofica in volgare. Richiamato a Firenze nel 1543 per scrivere la Storia fiorentina, Varchi s’impegnò anche, con le letture dantesche e petrarchesche all’Accademia Fiorentina, a mettere in pratica il progetto di trasferire in volgare la dottrina filosofica e scientifica, un progetto che nei principi s’incontrava con l’aspirazione del duca Cosimo I a fare del fiorentino un mezzo efficace della sua politica culturale.

reputation rests among the most wellknown novelists, poets, and short storywriters of the Victorian era, but firstly, he is a pioneer and prominent British regional novelist of Wessex that is a southwestern located England region where he himself grew up in the county of Dorset. The literary realism of Wessex represents reality and naturalistic aspects of the portraying mundane, everyday experiences, as his characters are nipped into the local real life. It depicts familiar people, places, stories, and primarily actions and times about the middle and lower classes of the society. Local community, color, creed, culture and ethnic attitudes are focused on the characters, dialects,

Learner autonomy has been the concern of a number of researchers in English language teaching. The concept has begun life since the 1980s. It has been considered in the Moroccan EFL context among the priorities of education, which English language teachers try to implement in their classes. Studies revealed that there are correlations between learner autonomy and other variables related to learners, which makes autonomy a subject of interest and thus an ability that should be fostered. As such, the present study aims at investigating the extent to which secondary EFL teachers promote autonomy in their learners. To achieve this purpose, a quantitative research design was employed in the study, generating and analyzing quantitative data. Therefore, a sample of 96 (57 males and 39 females) EFL teachers completed the questionnaire. Drawing on the findings, it was found that EFL teachers promote learner autonomy to a great extent and that the results were conclusive among the teachers’ r...

This study is an attempt to analyse the postmodern aesthetics of the poetry collection of Clifton Gachagua. This analysis was informed by the need to critically identify the structure of postmodern writing and the tenets of postmodernism which informs the creative imagination of Clifton Gachagua in Madman at Kilifi.  This study critically appraised the manifestation of intertextuality, meaninglessness of meaning (populism), scatological imaging and formlessness in the poetry collection. The study revealed that the poetry collection is a reflection of Clifton Gachagua’s postmodernist inclination and masses oriented ideologies. The poet amplifies the need to advocate the dominance of consumerism and the urgent need to denounce globalization.    

This study explores the way in which the two sexes are presented in education and particularly in the illustration of the language textbook used in the 6th Grade of Greek elementary school. In a society where gender equality is constitutionally enshrined and displayed as an educational policy objective, it attempts to examine if school textbook images respond to the demands of social reality, or perpetuate outdated gender stereotyped educational practices. The visual communication system that school textbooks use has the same rhetoric in of the conveyance of ideological and cultural messages as the linguistic system. Therefore, students receive plenty of information from both communication systems about the roles and stereotypes that are considered appropriate for each sex. In the past, several studies have analyzed the linguistic system, while this is the first attempt at an organized and systematic analysis of the visual system in language textbooks, and specifically the one in 6th Grade. Both content analysis, as a measurement technique, and semiotics, as a visual analysis method, were used as a research method. The analysis of data showed that (a) the presentation of the two sexes in the illustration of this language textbook is not objectively compared with social changes, (b) apart from the quantitative inequality that exists in the presentation of the two sexes, there also appears to be a big difference in qualities such as behavioral characteristics, occupations, and activities, and (c) there is a reduction in the representation of outdated gender stereotypes, which is not necessarily positive, as the diversity of roles they undertake in the modern social sphere is not emphasized.

Chinua Achebe in his novel Things Fall Apart gives us a unique picture of life in Africa before the arrival of Christianity and colonization and the era afterwards. He shows how African people lost their traditional culture and values, replacing them with foreign beliefs. In this article, the way black people lived before the arrival of white people, how they encountered and reacted to white colonizers, in addition to how they converted to Christianity and subsequently to White culture, as portrayed in this novel, will be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to trace the roots of this rapid pace of colonialism back to when colonial subjects lost their original culture to the new-coming people and to what extent those colonized people were affectively actualizing their inferiority and subordination to the white society. Frantz Fanon's theories on the relation between language and culture or language and civilization, as well as his discussion of White notion of Blacks and Blacks' conception of themselves are discussed and analyzed in Achebe's masterpiece Things Fall Apart to prove that black people attempted to make up for their deep feeling of incompleteness by imitating white people and forming a white personality in a black statue as a result of their own conscious volition.

The aim of this research is to investigate the factors of demotivation in L2 learning of Pakistani undergraduates at the University of Balochistan, Quetta. A mixed-methods research design was employed in this study to explore the factors of demotivation. Quantitative data was obtained from the responses of a population of 116 first semester undergraduates in a questionnaire adopted from Sakai and Kikuchi (2009). The questionnaire comprised 35 close-ended items on a 5-point Likert scale on six factors of demotivation: grammar-based teaching, teacher's behaviour, course contents and teaching materials, effects of low test scores, classroom environment, and lack of self-confidence and interest. Qualitative data was obtained from an open-ended question on students' demotivating experiences in learning English in the same questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the quantitative data while the qualitative data was analyzed by using content analysis to extract the themes or factors of demotivation and their categories based on Sakai and Kikuchi's framework. The findings reveal that all six factors were cited by students as demotivational factors with teaching method, lack of facilities and course content being the most cited factors, hence supporting Sakai and Kikuchi's (2009) framework. In addition, the qualitative data suggests that a new factor emerged-negative attitude of society towards English language-hence a contribution to the body of literature. The findings of the study have implications on the teaching and learning of English in Pakistan.

The present study seeks to find the students’ performance towards the assigned tasks related to cartoons and their perceptions towards the use of it as an authentic, supplementary teaching tool to facilitate the process of speaking. A sample of thirty-five students was selected to involve in different tasks related to selected number of cartoons. The researcher conducted an empirical investigation by employing quantitative and qualitative research methods. Audio recordings and classroom observations were used to investigate the students’ active involvement towards the assigned tasks related to cartoons and a well-structured questionnaire was employed to evaluate their perceptions towards the use of it as an authentic supplementary tool in teaching the speaking skills of ESL learners. The results of the study revealed that a majority of students actively involved in the assigned task related to cartoons. The students gave a comprehensive and controversial account of the assigned cart...

It is natural, and well known, that the study of ancient literatures goes hand in hand with that of the languages they are written in. This is most obvious for issues such as clarifying the meaning of words, or explaining the use of tenses. But the study of literature and the study of language can also interact in other, subtler ways. One such domain is the elucidation of the resonances mobilised by phrasing, i.e. determining what effects a particular choice of phrasing would have had on audiences, and how that choice was informed by conventions and habits in the various registers of the language. 1 We are here in the realm of idiom rather than grammar. A method with great potential in pursuing such issues is to search for patterns and tendencies in usage. If a pattern or tendency can be found in the way things are phrased, this encourages us to look closely at departures from it ('defamiliarised elements'), and to ask what effects these unusual formulations aimed to achieve. It is such a pattern, or tendency, which will form the subject of this paper: we will study the ways in which Babylonian literature expresses the notion of 'no-one'. More specifically, we will study how Babylonian deals with cases where, if one were to express the relevant meaning directly and prosaically, 2 'no-one' would be the subject of an assertive (i.e. non-precative, non-imperative) main 124 Martin Worthington clause. 3 (See numbers [1]-[6] below for examples of what we mean by this). 4 We will restrict our analysis to unilingual compositions, as bilingual ones could be influenced by Sumerian idiom and should therefore be studied separately. The reasons why the present analysis is confined to literature will become clear later. 1.1 mamma(n) ... ul and its 'alternatives' Babylonian's closest match to English 'no-one' as subject of an assertive main clause is the construction mamma(n) 5 ... ul (which translates super-literally as 'anyone ... not ...'). 6 For example: [1] mamman ul uwaššarakkiš super-literally: 'Anyone will not release her to you' i.e. 'No-one will release her to you' (ARM X (=Dossin-Finet 1978) 100: 24) The mamma(n) ... ul construction was not, however, the only way in which one could convey the idea of 'no-one' as subject of an assertive main clause. The other main ways of doing this were: a) A rhetorical question with 'who?' (mannu), e.g. 'Who can do X?' as a way of conveying the idea that 'No-one can do X'. 7 [2] mannu pâ iptil u\\ata uka##ir 'Who has (ever) twisted chaff (into a rope), tied barley together?' 3. Thus, for example, the rhetorical question 'Who is a great as you?' has the underlying prosaic sense 'Noone is as great as you', and accordingly it falls within the purview of our investigation, even though the question itself neither is, nor contains, an assertive main clause. 4. The reason for restricting ourselves to cases of this type is that it is only cases of this type which enable the full range of alternative ways of conveying the idea of 'no-one' as subject of an assertive main clause. For example, as seen in the previous footnote, an assertion such as 'No-one is as great as you' can be turned into a rhetorical question, but this is impossible with subordinate clauses, and (at least in Babylonian) unidiomatic with commands. 5. Our 'mamma(n)' subsumes what are historically two different words rather than variant forms of a single word: mamma (= man+ma) and mamman (= man+man). Nonetheless, at least in the contexts we shall study, literary Babylonian seems to have used them interchangeably, so it is practical to conflate them. The difference(s) between them will play no role in our analysis. 6. We will not consider cases in which mamma(n) is used attributively (super-literally meaning 'any'), e.g. ina sab sišu uzzašu ul ima~~aršu ilu mamman 'When he is angry, no god shall (super-literally: 'any god shall not') match his fury' (VII 154). 7. This is also common in personal names expressing the incomparability of a deity, e.g. mannum k ma iliya 'Who is like my god?' (i.e. 'No-one is like my god'). See Stamm 1939, § 33. If proof were needed of the functional equivalence of assertions with mamma(n) ... ul and questions with mannu, one could find it in Enuma eliš II 88, where the two expressions occur as variants of each other on different manuscripts of the same line. See below § 3.6, below. mamma(n) ... ul and its Alternatives in Babylonian Literature 125

The main goal of this paper is to depict the struggle for cultural existence in Rabbit Proof Fence. It also reflects the cultural conflict represented in the three aboriginal girls' characters which is due to their rejection and resistance for the colonialists' culture. Besides, the paper presents the cognitive analysis of the cultural struggle and resistance in Molly's character, and it tackles the cultural resistance in Rabbit Proof Fence from a postcolonial point of view. Additionally, the semiotic dimension, which is based on a socio-cultural basis, is introduced in this paper.

Motivation is essential because it highly contributes to achievement. Teachers need to motivate their students in order to develop a positive outcome. Research on motivation for foreign language learning has shown that teachers should be aware of their actions and behaviors in classroom because it is very likely that they can demotivate learners. This study explores how motivational strategies used by English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers could increase the motivation of students to learn English as a foreign language. Participants included five EFL teachers along with one hundred first-year female students. The students completed a survey while the teachers took part in an interview. Both measures aimed to explore the attitudes of both teachers and students towards motivation in the foreign language classroom. Results showed that the most used motivational strategies were: resources that satisfy the students’ needs and interests, group work, active participation in class, an...

Exploring perceptual learning style preferences and their relationships with academic achievement is important to success in teaching and learning language. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the perceptual learning style preferences of Libyan EFL University students majoring in English at Omar Almukhtar University and to check whether there is a significant relationship between students’ perceptual learning style preferences and their academic achievement. A total of 75 fourth year English major students were participated in this study. A self-reporting learning style questionnaire developed by Kinsella (1994) was used to collect data and final semester examination scores were used to determine the average academic achievement for each participant. The findings showed that tactile style was the most dominant learning style among the students followed by auditory style while kinesthetic style was the least favoured learning style. The findings also revealed that th...

This study examines the apology strategies used by 30 Saudi EFL teachers in Najran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), paying special attention to variables such as social distance and power and offence severity. The study also delineates gender differences in the respondents' speech as opposed to studies that only examined speech act output by native and non-native speakers of English. To this end, the study employs a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) that consists of 10 situations designed to test how the respondents would react if they imagine that they belong to different types of social status whether higher, lower or equal. In addition, social distance and power have been taken into consideration in designing the ten situations included in the test used in this study. The results reveal that Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) is the most used apology strategy by the Saudi respondents followed by downgrading responsibility (DR), upgrader, offer of repair, taking on responsibility and then verbal redress. The results also reveal that gender has a great impact on the use of apology strategies in various ways. For instance, the IFID strategy and the upgrader strategy are used by males more than their female counterparts, whereas females use the DR strategy more than their male counterparts. It has been argued that some of the respondents' answers to the test were influenced by their mother tongue, as reported in previous studies conducted on apology strategies. The study discusses the results elicited via the DCT and compares them with those of previous studies on apology strategies and other speech acts. Finally, the study concludes with recommendations for further research.

This study investigates the factors that are responsible for the levelling of Ìkàr??-Àkókó dialect. Specifically, the paper examines the impacts of Nigerian indigenous languages, especially Yorùbá, on the dialect. The study aims at identifying the patterns of changes in the dialect and their impacts on the ethnic identities of the people. The work is based on the variationist approach pioneered by William Labov in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The tools used for data collection include questionnaire, oral interview and observation. The findings of the study reveal that the dialect manifests different stages of changes, vital domains like home, school and work place, which are supposed to be the strongholds of this dialect are being encroached upon by languages other than the mother tongue in the study area. It was found that the changes in the dialect are not due to the influence of English language only, but to indigenous Nigerian languages, mostly Yorùbá. It was concluded that t...

The purpose of the current study is to determine main demotivating factors affecting Turkish EFL university students' English language learning process and to identify the ways they apply to cope with these negative experiences from their own perspectives. The participants were 469 first and second year Turkish EFL university students. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect data in the study. First, a demotivation questionnaire (Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009) was administered to the participants, and then interviews were conducted, face-to-face, with some of the students. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed on the quantitative data, while coding and classifying approach was used to analyze the qualitative data. Quantitative results revealed that are significant differences between female and male students in terms of the factors related to characteristics of classes and experiences of failure. Qualitative findings indicated that major factors that demotivate students are negative attitudes of the classmates, teacher-related factors, personal issues, class characteristics, test anxiety, failure experiences, and education system. Also, strategies for overcoming demotivation were determined as selfstudying, asking for assistance, changing perspective, thinking positively, ignoring what others think, and being goal oriented. It is implied that the results obtained from this study might be helpful for both language learners and teachers in developing effective coping strategies to overcome demotivation.

Adopting a direct approach to contrive sufficient focus on form (accuracy) would facilitate interlanguage development without decreasing the naturalness of communication that communicative tasks can generate. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a proposed task-based instruction programme within a cognitive approach in fostering overall speaking proficiency of undergraduate students. 72 students from several public universities participated in the study, which employed an experimental design. The students of the experimental group received training through the proposed task-based instruction programme for three months while those in the control group received regular instruction. The preliminary English Test (PET) was administered as a pre-and post-test measure of speaking proficiency. Findings of the study showed a significant improvement in the overall speaking proficiency of the students who were exposed to the proposed programme. The findings suggest the potential of the task-based programme in enhancing undergraduate students' overall speaking proficiency.

Applying a stylistic analysis on certain texts refers to the identification of patterns of usage in writing. However, such an analysis is not restricted just to the description of the formal characteristics of texts, but it also tries to elucidate their functional importance for the interpretation of the text. This paper highlights complexity as a hallmark of a stylistic analysis in A Rose for Emily, a short story by William Faulkner (1897-1962). The analysis is done by adopting Halliday's (1985) approach to analyzing complexity in sentence structure; and Lauer, et al's (2008) approach to analyzing narrative from a macro perspective in relation to the story acts. The analysis rests upon the assumption that since form conveys meaning, Faulkner's multilayer usage of complexity is extremely functional. This paper tries also to detect and prove that stylistic complexity is manipulated to convey the main themes, events, and successfully leads to identify the distinctive structure of this story.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is one of the widely discussed teaching approaches at present. Teaching a lesson using tasks needs careful consideration of the age and interests of the learners. This paper provides an overview, characteristics and advantages of TBLT; highlights teacher and student roles; and explores teachers’ perceptions of task-based language teaching. For this, I purposively selected two English language teachers teaching at secondary levels as the participants of my study. This study applies ethnographic research method and explores the participants’ perceptions of using language tasks in their classrooms. The findings suggest that though English language teachers hold positive attitudes on task-based language teaching as a current EFL approach, they are not well aware of the methods of using this approach in their classrooms.

Since titles are gateways to the heart of research articles (RAs), their organisational structure should be regarded very crucial in appealing to the potential reader. This study aimed to investigate how titles of RAs are presented in three disciplines (Gynaecology/Obstetrics, Business, and Law). After a thorough study of 574 titles, the study revealed that Business titles were averagely longer than those in the other two disciplines. In terms of title style, it was revealed that the Single Unit Title was extensively used in Gynaecology/Obstetrics and Law, while the Compound Unit Title dominated the Business titles. Syntactically, Noun Phrases extremely dominated the Single Unit Titles across the three domains. Detailed examination of the NP modifications showed that nominal titles which were both Pre and Post-modified were highly frequent in all the disciplines, which contrasts what is in the literature. The study also identified the Prepositional Phrase as the commonest structure ...

This present study attempted to investigate the status of language anxiety and motivation orientation of the young Filipino learners of English and how these constructs are related to one another.  To address these research goals, a quantitative approach was employed using Liu and Cheng’s (2014) Factor Loadings for three-Component Solution for the Anxiety and Jin, Jiang, Juan, Zhang, Liang and Xie’s (2013) motivation in language.  Participated by 39 Grade 3 pupils from a premier basic education school in the province of Cavite, these instruments were simplified and translated to their first language (L1) to suit the understanding of the young learners of English.  Results showed that the respondents are highly motivated in learning the second language, but the ‘general anxiety in English class’ is evident on one hand.  These two significant factors showed strong correlation between anxiety and ‘negative evaluation’ and motivation.  On the other hand, there is a significant negative ...

The significance of gaining a better understanding of how test-taking strategies are used has been recognized by researchers. Considering this fact, this study aimed at investigating the test-taking strategies which were employed by IELTS candidates in reading comprehension test. Besides, it tried to take into account the differences among strategies used for different tasks. In order to gather data, two instruments were employed: the think-aloud protocol, and an IELTS reading test. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted qualitatively by the researcher. The findings indicated that candidates employed 15 different strategies which were categorized in 3 stages, pre-reading, reading, and post-reading stages. Furthermore, it was revealed that test-takers used certain strategies differently, depending on the type of the task. The findings provide a better understanding of strategy use among IELTS candidates and help teachers to improve their approaches toward teaching and learning goals.

The significance of gaining a better understanding of how test-taking strategies are used has been recognized by researchers. Considering this fact, this study aimed at investigating the test-taking strategies which were employed by IELTS candidates in reading comprehension test. Besides, it tried to take into account the differences among strategies used for different tasks. In order to gather data, two instruments were employed: the think-aloud protocol, and an IELTS reading test. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted qualitatively by the researcher. The findings indicated that candidates employed 15 different strategies which were categorized in 3 stages, pre-reading, reading, and post-reading stages. Furthermore, it was revealed that test-takers used certain strategies differently, depending on the type of the task. The findings provide a better understanding of strategy use among IELTS candidates and help teachers to improve their approaches toward teaching and learning goals.

Obviously, in the era of digital literacy, human relationships in virtual learning communities are governed by much social behaviour that many students in higher education respect in some time, while others are rebellious against them. The aim of this article is to investigate if there is a correlation between ‘netiquettes’, which are the guidelines that should be developed by Internet users for an acceptable online behavior, and to build human relationships in learning. It is a case study of one group in the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences in Moulay Ismail University in Meknes, Morocco. A questionnaire is used to measure the predicted relationship between netiquettes and relationship building. The sample includes fifty male and female respondents. The findings of the study indicate that there is a significant relationship between respecting netiquettes and building online relationships, set as a hypothesis for this study.

More than the recognition, perception, and interpretation of written materials, reading has been dubbed as our bridge to other skills that are necessary for academic success. Subsequently, one way for teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of output of the students is through Classroom discourse analysis, which is an aspect of classroom process research (Jiang, 2012). This paper, therefore, aimed to determine teacher’s questioning vis-à-vis students’ reading strategies in the case of an ESL reading class in one of the private schools in Zamboanga City, Philipenese through classroom discourse analysis. As a qualitative endeavor, it made use of classroom observations with the aid of an audio recorder to enable the analysis. A total of 131 exchanges were generated in a 45-minute discussion, with roughly 25 minutes allotted to the said discourse, and the rest for other activities. Teacher-Pupil-Teacher (TPT) captured as Teacher-Student-Teacher (TST) in the case of this paper,...

This article examines the sociopolitical vision of some of Elizabeth Bishop's poems from an ecofeminist critical perspective. Bishop, a twentieth-century American poet, uses animals and natural elements to manifest her attachment to nature (and women by implication), thus reflecting an oppressed feminist voice through the theme of abused, weak nature. By relating Bishop's poems to W. B. Yeats's poem Leda and the Swan, we foreground an ecofeminist relation between the Greek myth Yeats employed and Bishop's poems. Our contribution lies in the multilayered pattern of ecofeminist defense this article traces in poems like Giant Snail, Giant Toad, Strayed Crab, The Armadillo, Sandpiper, The Moose and Trouvée. The conclusion emphasizes the attempts Bishop shoulders through her animal poetry to renew the old man-nature relation of balance and justice and simultaneously to elevate woman/nature. Bishop's poetry, it is argued, exceeds the personal or subjective and thus contains socio-political, anti-patriarchal thrusts explored in this article through an ecofeminist lens.

It is common knowledge that hedging devices as a rhetorical technique common in all persuasive writing are considerably important in scientific discourse, for they are tools which facilitate presenting claims or arguments in a polite, acceptable and respectful manner. In addition, they are discoursal resources available to a scientific writer’s propositions to express uncertainty, skepticism, and open-mindedness. Research articles are an important means of communication between different members of a discourse community, and will be convincing to a certain extent only when authors are able to employ rhetorical conventions, such as hedging devices, persuasively. However, hedging is a problematic aspect in EAP learning since rarely are the learners able to hedge their statements appropriately, engineering students not being an exception. Therefore, this article tends to linguistically analyze the function of rhetorical impact of using hedging devices in the results and discussion part...

Communication is important for people around the world. People try to communicate to other people around the globe using language. In understanding the differences of some languages around the world, people need to learn the language of other people they try to communicate with, for example Indonesian people learn to acquire English. In the context that English in Indonesia is considered as a foreign language, it causes the learners of English in Indonesia understand not only the language but also the culture. Foreign language learners may encounter various communication problems when their interlanguage is limited. In order to convey their messages and remain in a conversation until their communication goal is achieved, ESL (English as a Second Language) learners need to employ communication strategies, which have been defined generally as devices used by second language learners to overcome perceived barriers to achieving specific communication goals (Faerch & Kasper, 1983). In order to avoid certain miscommunication, the teacher of English in Indonesia should also give their learners the understanding of communication strategies.

This paper examines the political writings of the Moroccan nationalist Allal Al-Fassi (1910-1974). It argues that there exists a considerable political tendency in these writings with excessive utilisation of jargon related to liberalism and political theory. In his intellectual and political project, Al-Fassi theorises about the possibility of creating a modern state on solid democratic and liberal foundations. Yet, however legitimate and seemingly liberal his theorisation might seem, the paper argues that the formation of a liberal state and a democratic society appears to be a mere dream given the fact that Al-Fassi grounds his conceptions within the Salafist and revivalist intellectual systems. Reading between the lines of his political works, nevertheless, reveals the dominance of Salafist intellections which deem the past and Islam as restorative in attaining a modern renaissance, at the political, economic, and cultural levels.  This work, thus, problematizes three central po...