Wittgenstein's analytic enterprise represents a major intellectual challenge for the philosophy of science and for a variety of humanistic disciplines. Reconstructing the epistemic fabric of logic and problematizing the nature of reasoning and argumentation, Wittgenstein's intellectual stance compels theorists and critics to revise their methods of argumentation and of making inferences, and forces them to question the validity of the techniques used in textual exegesis. The aim of this paper is to offer a reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations that represent the fulcrum of his thought. The reading focuses on Wittgenstein's reevaluation of logical reasoning, his refutation of Russell's theory of types, and his concepts of logical atomism, the picture theory of language, and language-games. The paper also investigates the impact of Wittgenstein's thought on the process of interpretation of texts, and how his thought sets an example of how interpretive strategies should proceed without a priori assumptions or transcendental hypothesizing. Refusing a whole gamut of idealist, rationalist, and empiricist techniques used to verbalize reality and offer interpretations of a state of affairs, Wittgenstein calls for interpretive strategies – and not a strategic or codified interpretation – that are not enclosed on a set of stable signifieds and that do not emanate from preplanned strategies.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have been forced to cope with high stress, fear, and anxiety, focusing on living in the moment as a way of coping. The current COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences on social, economic and political levels. Applying the narrative analysis methodology, the study here interprets the story in Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague and draws a comparison between today’s global pandemic and that in the novel. It examines the vulnerability of humans, community and civilization. It also emphasizes how both pandemics caused great panic among people destabilizing their normal ways of living and exposing the fragility of life. The Scarlet Plague has been published in 1910 more than one hundred years ago reminding us that another pandemic is likely to appear in the future. Hence, the researcher suggests executing further studies on how pandemics modify human behavior and effects them.
This study investigated a sample of 218 preparatory class university learners' beliefs about language learning and their use of strategies in the School of Language Preparatory School at Beykent University. Beyond the descriptions about beliefs and strategies, notably, the second objective of the study was to find out the relationship between the learners‟ beliefs about language learning and use of language learning strategies. The study obtained data using quantitative research methods. Pearson r correlation and descriptive analyses were used to analyze the data. Participants reported using metacognitive strategies most. Students had strong motivation and they believed in the importance of learning English and less afraid of speaking English with English speakers. Additionally, the results showed that students believed that repetition and practice in English played important role and English is important to get a better job in the future. The result of the Pearson r correlation revealed language learning strategies were significant correlation with language learning beliefs.
As a well-known international gathering, the Shanghai World Expo not only tries to exhibit the economic and technological innovation, but also to convey its profound culture. Publicity text, as a special text type, the purpose is to publicize China to the outside world and let the world know better about China, as well as to draw the target text readers’ attention so as to attain a desired effect and attract more foreigners to visit. Therefore, the publication of Expo becomes extremely important. However, there still remain some translation errors in the English version of Shanghai Expo’s official website. This paper attempts to probe into the current C-E translation problems in publicity texts and to seek a way out in the enlightenment of Skopostheorie. In view of the translation errors appearing in the website, five related translation strategies are put forward, namely, selective translation, amplification, paraphrase, culturally equivalent words and transliteration with hyperlink. Based on the analysis of translation errors, this paper tries to explain that the main cause of mistranslation is such a translator who has not taken the translation purpose of publicity texts and target text readers into consideration in the course of C-E translation. Meanwhile, it also tries to prove that publicity text translation deals with not only language, but also the culture. There are great differences between Chinese and English publicity texts. Therefore, the language and cultural features have to be observed carefully in order to cater to the English readership’s habit and expectation so as to fulfill the translation task.
Corrective feedback (CF) has been the focus of different ESL/EFL educators and researchers. It has been a source of debate among them for about four decades. Many controversies are associated with different variables of corrective feedback. This paper discusses some of these controversial issues in light of what experts and recent research have found. Given the need for more studies in written CF, this paper investigates the effect of direct focused written corrective feedback on EFL students’ writings. Tag questions, conjunctions, quantifiers, and articles were the focus of the direct written CF. The writings of 49 EFL students in pre feedback phase, post feedback phase and delayed test were collected and analyzed. The results revealed a significant difference between the pre and post feedback phases indicating the short-term effect of direct focused written corrective feedback. However, no significant difference was found between the pre feedback phase and the delayed test. The paper, then, concludes with some general guidelines drawn from the present researcher's review of literature, and her reflection on corrective feedback based on her experience as a learner and a teacher.
Wars and conflicts affect everyone; especially the children the most. Civil wars have been not only costly and they have crippled social infrastructures including education and other basic and necessary social services (Waal and Vines 1992; Malecela 1999). The war in 2011 and subsequent conflicts in Libya have affected almost every Libyan. The most affected have been the children. This study attempted to investigate how the war affected Libyan students particularly in the city of Sebha with special reference to their environment, education system, their learning habits, their thinking ability as well English language learning ability. To this end, the relevant research data was collected from the teachers (06), students (19), parents (06) and guardians (05) from Sebha using observation and interview as data collection techniques. The analysis of the data revealed that the Libyan conflict had direct impacts on education. There were school closures due to targeted attacks, collateral damage, military use of school buildings, and use by displaced populations. Death and injury to teachers and students were also noted which affected the education process. On the part of parents, fear of sending children to school, recruitment of teachers and students by armed forces and thus reduced public capacity to deliver education were notable findings of the study.
The Task-Based Approach (TBA) has become more popular in the domain of teaching translation in the last few years of the current century. This study aimed to investigate the effective role played by utilizing the Task-Based Approach in improving sight translation skills among Saudi students of translation at King Khalid University. It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the undergraduate students of sight translation who are taught sight translation utilizing the Task-Based Approach and that the students of sight translation who are taught sight translation utilizing the traditional methods. The study results revealed that the Task-Based Approach (TBA) is effective in improving sight translation skills among Saudi students of translation. Also, undergraduate students of sight translation should be trained to develop their competency in translation by reaping great benefits from the Task-Based Approach (TBA). Instructors of sight translation and experts should supply plenty of drills in sight translation by using the Task-Based Approach (TBA) in teaching. Additionally, instructors of sight translation should be fully aware of the importance of using the Task-Based Approach (TBA) to increase the undergraduate translation students' sight translating rate and comprehension skills.
The current research paper intends to explore some multifarious linguistic, semantic and syntactic challenges in translating Surah Yassin into English, in the translation work of Mohammed, A.S Abdel Haleem, Mohammed, M Pickthall and Mohammed Khan and Mohammed Taj Al-Din Al-Hilali. Also, the study aims to identify the translation strategies employed by the three translators in translating Surah Yassin into English. The findings of the study revealed there are some multifarious linguistic, semantic and syntactic challenges that lead to semantic losses in the English renditions of Surah Yassin which take place either wholly or in part. Markedly, this study shows that morphosyntactic losses arise mostly because of cultural diversity, and lexical complexity of Quranic Arabic items. Moreover, in the Quranic renditions, most of the linguistic problems are culture-bound.
This study examined the effect of negative evidence on young learners’ performance on grammar test. Gass (1997) asserted that negative evidence, also known as “negative feedback”, offers the learner with information about the inaccuracy of a second language (L2) form and is often understood with the employment of corrective feedback (CF) in response to the learner’s non-target like L2 utterances. Using a pretest-posttest and control group experimental design, the researcher examined the effect of negative evidence on young learners’ performance on grammar test. The participants of the study were 40 Iranian elementary EFL learners randomly divided into two experimental and control groups and each group consisted of 20 learners. The experiment lasted 16 sessions, two sessions in a week. In both experimental group and control group grammatical points were explained in the same way. Both groups participated in three grammar quizzes after the completion of grammar teaching. The participants in experimental group received feedback about the errors they made in the quizzes. These feedbacks were both implicit and explicit. Those in the control group received no feedback. Finally, a test of grammar was conducted as the post test of study. The participants score on the pre-test and post-test was compared. Finally, the result of the analysis indicated that students’ level of Grammar increased in experimental group who received negative evidence. Therefore, providing students with negative evidence is helpful in improving their grammar proficiency.
Collaboration or co-operation have been active areas of research and inquiry in TEFL. However, most writings have focused on the different collaborative methods and techniques used in classrooms. Researching the process of co-planning and co-teaching and the way collaboration between language and content teachers can be implemented has been give much less attention. In the Algerian context, collaboration represents a newly advocated teaching strategy which would enable ESP practitioners overcome some of the difficulties they face as well as assist them to improve self-efficacy, teaching effectiveness and expertise. Therefore, this study is set out to investigate ESP teachers’ views and readiness for collaboration with teachers of content in addition to the way they engage in collaborative practices in the ESP tertiary context in Algeria. A group of five ESP teachers and seven content teachers in the department of Commercial Sciences, Algiers university3, participated in the study. Data collection and analysis of teachers’ pre-survey questionnaire, observations and focus group interviews showed that the vast majority of ESP teachers are in favour of working collaboratively with their peers as well as with content teachers. The study also revealed that ESP teachers need to know better the process of collaboration not only for designing courses and preparing teaching materials, but also for their satisfaction, performance and professional development. The study also concluded that collaboration has to be encouraged to promote the ESP teaching situation at the department of Commercial Sciences despite the factors which may hinder a successful collaborative teaching.
Spa and wellness are among the major tourism industries in Thailand. Each year, millions of foreign customers visit Thailand and visit its spa and wellness centers. However, little research has been done on the characteristics of the language used by those foreign visitors. Our aim was to analyze the verbal expressions used by foreign customers visiting spa and wellness centers in Thailand. The data were collected in June 2019 from eighty seven spa and wellness administrators using Mentimeter. The phrases were assessed by three experienced English language teachers determining the themes and functions of the language. Our content analysis found 28 themes and 16 functions. The top three themes were found to be the following: (1) Complimenting (19.20%), (2) Massage types (13.50%), and (3) Price (11.8%). The top three functions were found to be: (1) To make an inquiry (31.0%), (2) To pay a compliment (19.7%), (3) To make a request (16.4%). We noted that the themes considered critical elements in the spa and wellness businesses, namely, health and safety, were not explicitly mentioned. Another salient characteristic was the lack of critical comments. Recommendations for business operators and further research are also given.
This research provides a psychological review of Stephen King's Misery and The Dark Half based on Slavoj Zizek's ideas of violence and its veiled dimensions. In this investigation, the issue of encountering violence promptly and abominating all kinds of violence in the actions of human beings as well as commiserating with victims have been scrutinized. There are diversified critical assumptions to the statement of what psychology is considerably worth applying to the works of Stephen King who has gained achievements as a gothic author and who has paid attention to unconscious gothic components and psychotic characters. It can be argued that these two novels reveal the doctrine of violence which is the result of dualism and failure in attaining interior desires as explained in Slavoj Zizek's conceptions: subjective and objective violence (symbolic and systematic violence). For the reason that Stephen King is referred to as a gothic novelist, this research will concentrate on the leading characters' psyches in two of his most thrilling novels to determine if the author's ideas keep in line with the definition of psyche and unconscious are effective in the representation of violence, trepidation, affliction, torment and madness and of the protagonists in Stephen King's Misery and The Dark Half. As a theorist and a philosopher, Zizek emphasizes on the doctrine of violence and its effects on changing the mood and on carrying out frenetic activities. Consequently, it is being explored that unfulfilled intrinsic and intellectual desires in the real world and truly the potential uncertainties of mental demands and the unfulfillment of these desires in the real world, novel's characters as well as individuals can cause violence in the society.
The purpose of this study is to concisely review the concept of explicitation as a translation universal in terms of both principles and procedures. In three main sections, it presents the related theories from Nida (1964) to Becher (2010) along with a number of previous studies and discusses how explicitation occurs in the form of textual additions in parentheses (TAiPs) in translating a Quranic text (cf. Hawamdeh, 2017). Explicitation is said to be a translation strategy used to achieve the intended SL meanings and secure their appropriate interpretations in the TL as translation is not merely to substitute original codes with other equivalent ones. Many implicit, connotative, pragmatic, cultural, stylistic and associative meanings require a variety of techniques if the translator really seeks natural or appropriate equivalents. Explicitation can best appear as an addition on both levels of cohesion and coherence; it simply means making a text to be rendered clearer and more intelligible for its potential receptors. For the purpose of taming the SL text, Nida rationalizes nine explicitation norms, Toury (1995) mentions two types of translational shifts and Newmark (1988) argues that adding new information depends on the text-type and needs of the TL audience. Explicitation can be concluded to be the translating process itself or at least a technique for improving or adapting the TL text. The implicatures encountered in the language of religion, for instance, are almost explicitated into such a completely different language as English by means of various types of TAiPs.
The perpetuity and popularity of Saadi is a clear point that most scholars acknowledge, but the philosophy and mystery behind these features have received little attention. The present study, investigated the factors involved in Saadi and his Golestan’s perpetuity and popularity using a descriptive-analytical method and a critical and comparative point of view. To do so, first, by referring to Saadi's Collections and using critics views the causes and factors behind Sadi's works presented in three linguistic, literary, and intellectual areas. Then, a linguistic feature of Saadi’s Golestan, that is, his accuracy in employing pluralization signs has been critically analyzed as one of the factors for the perpetuity and popularity of this work by extracting examples from the preface and first chapter of this book. The present study shows that using Persian pluralization signs for all Persian words and some Arabic words, choosing Persian words instead of Arabic words which eliminates the use of Arabic rules of pluralization, using irregular and feminine Arabic pluralization signs which are embedded in Persian texts and are not difficult for Persian-speaking audiences, using Persian signs to pluralize Arabic nouns and localizing foreign words, considering the fluency of pronunciation and rhythm of the words in the selection of pluralization signs, and finally, the induction of Saadi's global thought and philanthropy in the form of plural names, are some of the delicacies that appear in the plural words used in Saadi's work. This feature distinguishes Saadi from the writers who use Arabic pluralization signs in order to show their interest in Arabism and consider these characteristics as reasons for the perpetuity and popularity of Saadi's works.
The researchers used an intact class of convenience at the English Language Institute (ELI) in Jubail, Saudi Arabia to conduct their study to find out about the students’ perspectives about the use of blogs as an additional out-of-class ESL writing activity. These perspectives were important as mixed results about benefits and limitations of the use of blogs in ESL writing were reported in the literature. Twenty Saudi male students participated in the questionnaire and interview. The researchers aimed to gain in-depth information from the participants to try to answer the research question (i.e., what are the ELI Saudi students’ perceptions of the use of blogs in ESL writing?). As such, these twenty students who agreed to participate in the study were enough since the aim was to gain rich information to answer the research question not to generalize the findings to any intended larger population. The study found advantages for using blogs in ESL writing. These were: (1) motivation, (2) collaboration among students. (3) helping students express their views freely and (4) being user-friendly. One drawback was reported by the participants, namely, the use of impolite language by some bloggers. These positive results of using blogs were in line with the results of other primary studies reported in the literature such as Kitchakarn (2012), Vurdien (2012) and Wang et al (2011). The one reported limitation was also reported in Nepomuceno (2011). One tip was presented by the researchers to overcome this limitation. Finally, they offered suggestions for further research.
This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning) in motivating as well as developing Iranian middle school students' English grammar. To achieve this aim, the researcher adopted the experimental approach and employed a sample consisting of (70) EFL male learners studying at Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Secondary School for Boys in Varamin. The researcher randomly chose two eleventh grade classes out of the six classes in the school and randomly assigned one class consisting of (35) students as an experimental group and the other consisting of (35) students as a control group. The traditional method was used in teaching the control group; while the Mobile Assisted Language Learning was used with the experimental one in the first term of the school year (2019-2020). The collected data were analyzed and treated statistically using a T-test to identify the direction of the effectiveness. The findings of the study revealed that there were statistically significant differences in learning English grammar between both groups in favor of the experimental group. This could be attributed to using MALL in teaching the experimental group. Furthermore, there were statistically significant differences in favor of the experimental group in the post-application of the motivation scale. Based on the findings, the study recommends the necessity of implementing Mobile Assisted Language Learning in teaching and learning English grammar to bring about better outcomes in the Iranian students’ achievements.
In this modern era where the teaching-learning process is rapidly changing various new methods and techniques have entered in the field of education. One of these methods is the use of audiovisual aids. Audiovisual education has enabled teachers to convert monotonous learning environment of the classroom into an interesting and effective phenomenon. By stimulating multiple senses these audiovisual aids enhance students’ analytical and critical thinking thereby improve their comprehension skills and make learning permanent. The current study is a quasi-experiment with ‘One Group Pretest–Posttest Design’ which investigates the effectiveness of audiovisual aids on secondary school students’ ability to elicit meaning from the text. Study population was consisted of 40 secondary school students. Students were subjected to a ‘theme-based comprehension’ test twice, before and after exposure to an audiovisual clip. An evaluation of both answers of each participant was held by comparing them with the four predefined possible themes. Likert Scale based rating of both answers of every participant was then performed and each of these two answers was assigned a score (i.e., level of comprehension 1, 2, 3, and 4). The pre and post intervention results were analyzed using paired samples t test. The results suggest that audio-visual aids are effective in increasing the students’ ability to comprehend meaning from the text as indicated in the significantly improved meaning-extractionability scores for post-intervention assessment. But the underlying cause of improvement is still unclear i.e., to what extent the individual comprehension skills namely, prediction-ability; visualizing-power; questioning-ability; connecting-skill; identification-power; inference-power and evaluation-capacity were improved.
The 9/11 events have marked a new shift in border studies. Pakistani writers have engaged with (mis)representations of Muslims, giving voice to silenced immigrants who narrate their experience in the U.S before and after the attacks. This paper investigates the representations of abstract and concrete borders in post 9/11 Muslim Pakistani fiction, with particular focus on Bapsi Sidhawa’s An American Brat (1993), Mohsin Hamid’s the Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) and H. M Naqvi’s Home Boy (2009). While based on postcolonial theoretical framing, the study draws on K. Alrasheed’s (2015) recent conceptualization of neo-Orientalism and D. Newman’s (2006, 2015, 2017) theorization of borders in the wake of the 9/11 events. The study engages with how the 9/11 events have redefined borders, and invigorated a securitzation discourse that embraces the separation and exclusion of ethnic minorities. The selected novels, while presenting the unheard and counter narratives of the Muslim subaltern, have shown how the tightening of borders, both concrete and cultural, has limited the mobility of Muslim immigrants in the US and relegated them to marginalized enclaves.
This work seeks to prove that one instance of text disconnect in English-Arabic translation is the outcome of the intervening gap between the translated text opening and its remaining parts. This, in turn, is attributed to the work of four interrelated factors: text structure, connectivity, word choice and sentential reordering. Accordingly, a linguistically inclusive and balanced approach has been designed to deal with this problem. In addition, it is undeniable that other components of the text jointly could help solve the problem in question. After having analyzed the data, the work discovered that Arabic translators pay no or less attention to the above quadrilateral combination.
Nowadays, media plays an important role in the age of globalization. Watching movies especially those produced in foreign countries can broaden the audiences' horizons because they can learn about other countries' ways of life and culture. That is why audiovisual translators have an important role to play in and should strive to preserve the source culture of the movie to some extent while translating and making cultural words more understandable for target audiences. Another equally important aim of the subtitlers have always been to produce the same effect as the source text. This study tried to find the most frequent strategy adopted by the subtitler of the movie The Salesman produced by Asghar Farhadi in 2016 from Persian into English as well as investigating whether English subtitle of the movie has produced the same effect as Persian version of the movie. The categorization of culture-specific items presented by Pavlovic and Poslek (2003) was used in order to extract culture-specific words from the Persian dialogues of the movie. Then, they were compared with their English equivalents in its subtitle to find the strategy employed based on the Aixela's model (1996).
