World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology

Authors: Pushpinder Syal

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Literary writing carries the stamp of the current language of its time. In translating such texts, it becomes a challenge to capture such reflections which may be evident at several levels: the level of dialectal use of language by characters in stories, the alterations in syntax as tools of writers’ individual stylistic choices, the insertion of quasi-proverbial and gnomic utterances, and even the level of the pragmatics of narrative discourse. Discourse strategies may differ between earlier and later texts, reflecting changing relationships between narrators and readers in changed cultural and social contexts. This paper is a consideration of these features by an approach that combines historicity with a description, contextualizing language change within a discourse framework. The process of translating a collection of writings of Punjabi literature spanning 100 years was undertaken for this study and it was observed that the factor of the historicity of language was seen to play a role. While intended for contemporary readers, the translation of literature over the span of a century poses the dual challenge of needing to possess both accessibility and immediacy as well as adherence to the 'old world' styles of communicating and narrating. The linguistic changes may be observed in a more obvious sense in the difference of diction and word formation – with evidence of more hybridized and borrowed forms in modern and contemporary writings, as compared to the older writings. The latter not only contain vestiges of proverbs and folk sayings, but are also closer to oral speech styles. These will be presented and analysed in the form of chronological listing and by these means, the social process of translation from orality to written text can be seen as traceable in the above-mentioned works. More subtle and underlying shifts can be seen through the analysis of speech acts and implicatures in the same literature, in which the social relationships underlying language use are evident as discourse systems of belief and understanding. They present distinct shifts in worldview as seen at different points in time. However, some continuities of language and style are also clearly visible, and these aid the translator in putting together a set of thematic links which identify the literature of a region and community, and constitute essential outcomes in the effort to preserve its distinctive nature.

Keywords: cultural change, dialect, historicity, stylistic variation

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Authors: Yenie Norambuena

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Analogical reasoning is a cognitive process that consists of structured comparisons of mental representations and scheme construction. Because of its heuristic function, it is ubiquitous in cognition and could play an important role in language development. The use of analogies is expressed early in children and this behavior is also reflected in language, suggesting a possible way to understand the complex links between thought and language. The current research examines factors of verbal and non-verbal reasoning that should be taken into consideration in the study of language development for their relations and predictive value. The study was conducted with 48 Chilean preschoolers (Spanish speakers) from 4 to 6-year-old. We assessed children’s verbal analogical reasoning, non-verbal analogical reasoning and linguistics skills (Listening Comprehension, Phonemic awareness, Alphabetic principle, Syllabification, Lexical repetition and Lexical decision). The results evidenced significant correlations between analogical reasoning factors and linguistic skills and they can predict linguistic performance mainly on oral comprehension, lexical decision and phonological skills. These findings suggest a fundamental interrelationship between analogical reasoning and linguistic performance on children’s and points to the need to consider this cognitive process in comprehensive theories of children's language development.

Keywords: verbal analogical reasoning, non-verbal analogical reasoning, linguistic skills, language development

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Authors: Beata Grymska

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The research studies on academic discourse focus in general on lexical bundles, epistemic modality markers, or interactions between writers and readers. Following the research into the written forms of the academic community, this study concentrates on adjectives in research articles. The study investigates the distribution of adjectives in research articles in two academic disciplines: linguistics and medicine. It is corpus-based in design and consists of 100 linguistic and 100 medical research articles all written in English. The aim of the study is to compare the distribution of adjectives between the two corpora and four main parts of articles: IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). The second aim is to see if the two corpora share common core adjectives, e.g., different, important, specific, and if there are discipline-specific adjectives. The further part of the paper elaborates on adjectives use in the corpora together with examples. The results indicate that the two corpora do not differ in the distribution of adjectives to a great extent. The occurrences of the most frequently used adjectives depend on the academic discipline of the research articles. The concluding part reflects upon the role of adjectives in academic discourse and also presents how corpora can be helpful in composing academic texts.

Keywords: academic discourse, academic texts, adjectives, corpus analysis, research articles

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Authors: Eleanor Sweeney, Chunyuan Di

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The metaphors people use in everyday discourse do not arise randomly; rather, they develop from our physical experiences in our social and cultural environments. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) explains that through metaphor, we apply our embodied understanding of the physical world to non-material concepts to understand and express abstract concepts. Our most productive source domains derive from our embodied understanding and allow us to develop primary metaphors, and from primary metaphors, an elaborate, creative world of culturally constructed complex metaphors. Cognitive Linguistics researchers draw upon individual embodied experience for primary metaphors. Socioculturally embodied experience through music has long furnished linguistic expressions in diverse languages, as conceptual metaphors or everyday expressions.  Can a socially embodied experience function in the same way as an individually embodied experience in the creation of conceptual metaphors? The authors argue that since music is inherently social and embodied, musical experiences function as a richly motivated source domain. The focus of this study is socially embodied musical experience which is then reflected and expressed through metaphors. This cross-linguistic study explores music as a source domain for metaphors of social alignment in English, French, and Chinese. The authors explored two public discourse sites, Facebook and Linguée, in order to collect linguistic metaphors from three different languages. By conducting this cross-linguistic study, cross-cultural similarities and differences in metaphors for which music is the source domain can be examined. Different musical elements, such as melody, speed, rhythm and harmony, are analyzed for their possible metaphoric meanings of social alignment. Our findings suggest that the general metaphor cooperation is music is a productive metaphor with some subcases, and that correlated social behaviors can be metaphorically expressed with certain elements in music. For example, since performance is a subset of the category behavior, there is a natural mapping from performance in music to behavior in social settings: social alignment is musical performance. Musical performance entails a collective social expectation that exerts control over individual behavior.  When individual behavior does not align with the collective social expectation, music-related expressions are often used to express how the individual is violating social norms. Moreover, when individuals do align their behavior with social norms, similar musical expressions are used. Cooperation is a crucial social value in all cultures, indeed it is a key element of survival, and music provides a coherent, consistent, and rich source domain—one based upon a universal and definitive cultural practice.

Keywords: Chinese, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, cross-linguistic, culturally embodied experience, English, French, metaphor, music

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Authors: Akhila Sara Varughese

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In the postmodern society, visual narratives became an emerging genre in the field of literature. Graphic literature focuses on the literal and symbolic layer of interpretation. The most salient feature of graphic literature is its exploration of the public history of events and life narratives. The Indian graphic literature re-interprets the canon, style and the form of texts in Indian Writing in English and it demands a new literacy and the structure of the English literature. With the help of visual-verbal language, the graphic narratives discuss various facets of contemporary India. Graphic novels have firmly identified itself with the art of storytelling because of its capability of expressing human experiences to the most. In the textual novels, the author usually deserts the imagination of the readers, but in the case of graphic narratives, due to the presence of visual elements, the interpretation becomes simpler. India is the second most populous country in the world with a long tradition of history and culture. Indian literature always tries to reconstruct Indian history in various modes of representation. The present paper focuses on the fictional articulation of Indian history through the graphic narratives and analyses how some historical events in India portrays. The paper also traces the differences in rendering the history in graphic novels with that of textual novels. The paper discusses how much the blending of words and images helps in represent the Indian history by analyzing the graphic novels like Kashmir Pending by Naseer Ahmed, Delhi Calm by Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Munnu by Malik Sajad.

Keywords: graphic novels, Indian history, representation, visual-verbal literacy

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Authors: Jessica Terese Mueller, Christoph Breitsprecher, Mike Oliver Mosko

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Due to an unusually high number of asylum seekers entering Germany over the course of the past few years, the need for community interpreters has increased dramatically, in order to make the communication between asylum seekers and various actors in social and governmental agencies possible. In the field of social work in particular, there are community interpreters who possess a wide spectrum of qualifications spanning from state-certified professional interpreters with graduate degrees to lay or ad-hoc interpreters with little to no formal training. To the best of our knowledge, Germany has no official national quality standards for the training of community interpreters at present, which would serve to professionalise this field as well as to assure a certain degree of quality in the training programmes offered. Given the current demand for trained community interpreters, there is a growing number of training programmes geared toward qualifying community interpreters who work with asylum seekers in Germany. These training programmes range from short one-day workshops to graduate programmes with specialisations in Community Interpreting. As part of a larger project to develop quality standards for the qualification of community interpreters working with asylum seekers in the field of social work, a needs assessment was performed in the city-state of Hamburg and the state of North Rhine Westphalia in the form of focus groups and individual interviews with relevant actors in the field in order to determine the content and practical knowledge needed for community interpreters from the perspectives of those who work in and rely on this field. More specifically, social workers, volunteers, certified language and cultural mediators, paid and volunteer community interpreters and asylum seekers were invited to take part in focus groups in both locations, and asylum seekers, training providers, researchers, linguists and other national and international experts were individually interviewed. The responses collected in these focus groups and interviews have been analysed using Mayring’s concept of content analysis. In general, the responses indicate a high degree of overlap related to certain categories as well as some categories which seemed to be of particular importance to certain groups individually, while showing little to no relevance for other groups. For example, the topics of accuracy and transparency of the interpretations, as well as professionalism and ethical concerns were touched on in some form in most groups. Some group-specific topics which are the focus of experts were topics related to interpreting techniques and more concretely described theoretical and practical knowledge which should be covered in training programmes. Social workers and volunteers generally concentrated on issues regarding the role of the community interpreters and the importance of setting and clarifying professional boundaries. From the perspective of service receivers, asylum seekers tended to focus on the importance of having access to interpreters who are from their home region or country and who speak the same regiolect, dialect or variety as they do in order to prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations which might negatively affect their asylum status. These results indicate a certain degree of consensus with trainings offered internationally for community interpreters.

Keywords: asylum seekers, community interpreting, needs assessment, quality standards, training

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Authors: Elaine Y. L. Ng

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Elizabeth Gilbert’s (2006) biography Eat, Pray, Love describes her travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia after a painful divorce. The author’s experiences with love, loss, search for happiness, and meaning have resonated with a huge readership. As regards the translation of Gilbert’s (2006) Eat, Pray, Love into Chinese, it was first translated by a Taiwanese translator He Pei-Hua and published in Taiwan in 2007 by Make Boluo Wenhua Chubanshe with the fairly catching title “Enjoy! Traveling Alone.” The same translation was translocated to China, republished in simplified Chinese characters by Shanxi Shifan Daxue Chubanshe in 2008 and renamed in China, entitled “To Be a Girl for the Whole Life.” Later on, the same translation in simplified Chinese characters was reprinted by Hunan Wenyi Chubanshe in 2013. This study employs Munday’s (2002) systemic model for descriptive translation studies to investigate the translation of Gilbert’s (2006) Eat, Pray, Love into Chinese by the Taiwanese translator Hu Pei-Hua. It employs an interdisciplinary approach, combining systemic functional linguistics and corpus stylistics with sociohistorical research within a descriptive framework to study the translator’s discursive presence in the text. The research consists of three phases. The first phase is to locate the target text within its socio-cultural context. The target-text context concerning the para-texts, readers’ responses, and the publishers’ orientation will be explored. The second phase is to compare the source text and the target text for the categorization of translation shifts by using the methodological tools of systemic functional linguistics and corpus stylistics. The investigation concerns the rendering of mental clauses and speech and thought presentation. The final phase is an explanation of the causes of translation shifts. The linguistic findings are related to the extra-textual information collected in an effort to ascertain the motivations behind the translator’s choices. There exist sets of possible factors that may have contributed to shaping the textual features of the given translation within a specific socio-cultural context. The study finds that the translator generally reproduces the mental clauses and speech and thought presentation closely according to the original. Nevertheless, the language of the translation has been widely criticized to be unidiomatic and stiff, losing the elegance of the original. In addition, the several Chinese translations of the given text produced by one Taiwanese and two Chinese publishers are basically the same. They are repackaged slightly differently, mainly with the change of the book cover and its captions for each version. By relating the textual findings to the extra-textual data of the study, it is argued that the popularity of the Chinese translation of Gilbert’s (2006) Eat, Pray, Love may not be attributed to the quality of the translation. Instead, it may have to do with the way the work is promoted strategically by the social media manipulated by the four e-bookstores promoting and selling the book online in China.

Keywords: chinese translation of eat pray love, corpus stylistics, motivations for translation shifts, systemic approach to translation studies

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Authors: Sheena Christabel Pravin, M. Palanivelan

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Speech disfluencies are common in spontaneous speech. The primary purpose of this study was to distinguish linguistic disfluencies from stuttering disfluencies in bilingual Tamil–English (TE) speaking children. The secondary purpose was to determine whether their disfluencies are mediated by native language dominance and/or on an early onset of developmental stuttering at childhood. A detailed study was carried out to identify the prosodic and acoustic features that uniquely represent the disfluent regions of speech. This paper focuses on statistical modeling of repetitions, prolongations, pauses and interjections in the speech corpus encompassing bilingual spontaneous utterances from school going children – English and Tamil. Two classifiers including Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), which is a class of feed-forward artificial neural network, were compared in the classification of disfluencies. The results of the classifiers document the patterns of disfluency in spontaneous speech samples of school-aged children to distinguish between Children Who Stutter (CWS) and Children with Language Impairment CLI). The ability of the models in classifying the disfluencies was measured in terms of F-measure, Recall, and Precision.

Keywords: bi-lingual, children who stutter, children with language impairment, hidden markov models, multi-layer perceptron, linguistic disfluencies, stuttering disfluencies

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Authors: Zihan Geng, L. Quentin Dixon

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It has been proposed that early bilingual experience confers a number of advantages in the development of executive control mechanisms. Although the literature provides empirical evidence for bilingual benefits, some studies also reported null or mixed results. To make sense of these contradictory findings, the current review synthesize recent empirical studies investigating bilingual effects on children’s executive function and attention control. The publication time of the studies included in the review ranges from 2010 to 2017. The key searching terms are bilingual, bilingualism, children, executive control, executive function, and attention. The key terms were combined within each of the following databases: ERIC (EBSCO), Education Source, PsycINFO, and Social Science Citation Index. Studies involving both children and adults were also included but the analysis was based on the data generated only by the children group. The initial search yielded 137 distinct articles. Twenty-eight studies from 27 articles with a total of 3367 participants were finally included based on the selection criteria. The selective studies were then coded in terms of (a) the setting (i.e., the country where the data was collected), (b) the participants (i.e., age and languages), (c) sample size (i.e., the number of children in each group), (d) cognitive outcomes measured, (e) data collection instruments (i.e., cognitive tasks and tests), and (f) statistic analysis models (e.g., t-test, ANOVA). The results show that the majority of the studies were undertaken in western countries, mainly in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. A variety of languages such as Arabic, French, Dutch, Welsh, German, Spanish, Korean, and Cantonese were involved. In relation to cognitive outcomes, the studies examined children’s overall planning and problem-solving abilities, inhibition, cognitive complexity, working memory (WM), and sustained and selective attention. The results indicate that though bilingualism is associated with several cognitive benefits, the advantages seem to be weak, at least, for children. Additionally, the nature of the cognitive measures was found to greatly moderate the results. No significant differences are observed between bilinguals and monolinguals in overall planning and problem-solving ability, indicating that there is no bilingual benefit in the cooperation of executive function components at an early age. In terms of inhibition, the mixed results suggest that bilingual children, especially young children, may have better conceptual inhibition measured in conflict tasks, but not better response inhibition measured by delay tasks. Further, bilingual children showed better inhibitory control to bivalent displays, which resembles the process of maintaining two language systems. The null results were obtained for both cognitive complexity and WM, suggesting no bilingual advantage in these two cognitive components. Finally, findings on children’s attention system associate bilingualism with heightened attention control. Together, these findings support the hypothesis of cognitive benefits for bilingual children. Nevertheless, whether these advantages are observable appears to highly depend on the cognitive assessments. Therefore, future research should be more specific about the cognitive outcomes (e.g., the type of inhibition) and should report the validity of the cognitive measures consistently.

Keywords: attention, bilingual advantage, children, executive function

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Authors: Yating Mu

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Young children acquire native language with amazing rapidity. After noticing this interesting phenomenon, lots of linguistics, as well as psychologists, devote themselves to exploring the best explanations. Thus researches on first language acquisition emerged. Early lexical development is an important branch of children’s FLA (first language acquisition). Verb, the most significant class of lexicon, the most grammatically complex syntactic category or word type, is not only the core of exploring syntactic structures of language but also plays a key role in analyzing semantic features. Obviously, early verb development must have great impacts on children’s early lexical acquisition. Most scholars conclude that verbs, in general, are very difficult to learn because the problem in verb learning might be more about mapping a specific verb onto an action or event than about learning the underlying relational concepts that the verb or relational term encodes. However, the previous researches on early verb development mainly focus on the argument about whether there is a noun-bias or verb-bias in children’s early productive vocabulary. There are few researches on general characteristics of children’s early verbs concerning both semantic and syntactic aspects, not mentioning a general survey on Chinese-speaking children’s verb acquisition. Therefore, the author attempts to examine the general conditions and characteristics of Chinese-speaking children’s early productive verbs, based on data from a longitudinal study on three Chinese-speaking children. In order to present an overall picture of Chinese verb development, both semantic and syntactic aspects will be focused in the present study. As for semantic analysis, a classification method is adopted first. Verb category is a sophisticated class in Mandarin, so it is quite necessary to divide it into small sub-types, thus making the research much easier. By making a reasonable classification of eight verb classes on basis of semantic features, the research aims at finding out whether there exist any universal rules in Chinese-speaking children’s verb development. With regard to the syntactic aspect of verb category, a debate between nativist account and usage-based approach has lasted for quite a long time. By analyzing the longitudinal Mandarin data, the author attempts to find out whether the usage-based theory can fully explain characteristics in Chinese verb development. To sum up, this thesis attempts to apply the descriptive research method to investigate the acquisition and the usage of Chinese-speaking children’s early verbs, on purpose of providing a new perspective in investigating semantic and syntactic features of early verb acquisition.

Keywords: Chinese-speaking children, early verb acquisition, verb classes, verb grammatical structures

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Authors: Sugene Kim

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The English articles are taught as a binary system based on nominal countability and definiteness. Despite the detailed rules of prescriptive grammar, it has been consistently reported in the literature that their correct usage is extremely difficult to master even for advanced learners of English as a second language (ESL) or a foreign language (EFL). Given that an English sentence (except for an imperative) cannot be constructed without a noun, which is always paired with one of the indefinite, definite, and zero articles; it is essential to understand specifically what causes ESL/EFL learners to misuse them. To that end, this study examined EFL learners’ article use employing a one-group pre–post-test design. Forty-three Korean college students received instruction on correct English article usage for two 75-minute classes employing the binary schema set up for the study. They also practiced in class how to apply the rules as instructed. Then, the participants were assigned a forced-choice elicitation task, which was also used as a pre-test administered three months prior to the instruction. Unlike the pre-test on which they only chose the correct article for each of the 40 items, the post-instruction task additionally asked them to give written accounts of their decision-making procedure to choose the article as they did. The participants’ performance was scored manually by checking whether the answer given is correct or incorrect, and their written comments were first categorized using thematic analysis and then ranked by frequency. The analyses of the performance on the two tasks and the written think-aloud data suggested that EFL learners exhibit fluctuation between specificity and definiteness, overgeneralizing the use of the definite article for almost all cataphoric references. It was apparent that they have trouble distinguishing from the two concepts possibly because the former is almost never introduced in the grammar books or classes designed for ESL/EFL learners. Particularly, most participants were found to be ignorant of the possibility of using nouns as [+specific, –definite]. Not surprisingly, the correct answer rates for such nouns averaged out at 33% and 46% on the pre- and post-tests, respectively, which narrowly reach half the overall mean correct answer rates of 65% on the pre-test and 81% on the post-test. In addition, correct article use for specific indefinites was most impermeable to instruction when compared with nouns used as [–specific, –definite] or [± specific, +definite]. Such findings underline the necessity for expanding the binary schema to a ternary form that incorporates the specificity feature, albeit not morphologically marked in the English language.

Keywords: countability, definiteness, English articles, specificity, ternary system

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Authors: Swatantra

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Hinglish, a blended version of Hindi and English, emerged due to the lack of the competence and command of the speakers over the foreign language, i., e., English. But, amazingly, the trend has gained wide acceptance. In India, this acceptance has gone up to the extent that popular news anchors at the prime time shows are frequently using it. At the moment, instead of being considered a flaw of their presentation Hinglish is emerging as a trendy genre. Its pervasive usage and extensive acceptance is motivating youngsters to opt for the similar kind of patterns. The current study is an endeavour to assess the impact of this trend on the new language learners. With the help of semi-structured interviews, the researcher has tried to gauge the level of comfort and desire to be at par with the other fluent English speakers. The results clearly depict a substantiated boost in the confidence level of learners because they are able to use the vocabulary and sentence patterns of their own choice and convenience. The prevalence and acceptance of the trend in the main stream media have really served as a catalyst and the desire to be at par with the other fluent speakers is also fading away. The users of Hinglish find this trend to be closer to their heart as in the earlier times in the absence of exact translation they had to compromise with the meaning or spirit of the word/phrase / sentence. But now enhanced flexibility is leaving them more comfortable and confident.

Keywords: Hinglish, language learners, linguistic trends, media

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Authors: Samuel Alaba Akinwotu

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Over the years, Nigeria’s educational system has greatly suffered from the menace of industrial conflict. The smooth running of the nation’s public educational institutions has been hampered by incessant strikes embarked upon by workers of these institutions. Even though industrial conflicts in Nigeria have enjoyed wide reportage in the media, there has been a dearth of critical examination of the language use that index the conflict’s discourse in the media. This study which is driven by a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conceptual Metaphor (CM) examines the discursive and ideological features of language indexing the industrial conflict between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in 2013. It aims to identify and assess the conceptual and cognitive motivations of the stances expressed by the parties and the public and the role of the media in the management and resolution of the conflict. For data, media reports and readers’ comments were purposively sampled from six print and online news sources (The Punch, This Day, Vanguard, The Nation, Osun Defender and AITonline) published between July and December 2013. The study provides further insight into industrial conflict and proves to be useful for the management and resolution of industrial conflicts especially in our public educational institutions.

Keywords: industrial conflict, critical discourse analysis, conceptual metaphor, federal government of Nigeria, academic staff union of universities

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Authors: Samuel Alaba Akinwotu

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Effectiveness in communication requires the deployment of pragmatic and rhetorical strategies in religious sermons. In spite of high volume of works in religious discourse, scholars have not adequately accounted for the persuasive and argumentation strategies employed in Christian religious Pentecostal sermons. This study examines communicative intentions and the pragma-rhetorical strategies deployed to maintain balance and effectiveness in selected sermons of Pastor E. A. Adeboye, Bishop D. Oyedepo and Pastor W. F. Kumuyi. Fifteen sermons, delivered orally and transcribed into the written mode, were selected and analysed using Jacob Mey’s theory of pragmeme, Aristotle’s rhetoric and the theory of argumentation by van Eemeren and Grootendorst. Speakers pract stating, encouraging, assuring, warning, condemning, directing, praising, thanking, etc. through rhetorical question, repetition, direct address, direct command and structural parallelism. They assume divine role by speaking authoritatively and they tactically and logically select words to legitimise their ideology. They also categorise and portray individuals and/or issues either as good or bad, sinner/sin or righteous/righteousness, etc. The study provides clearer insight into the pragmatic import and the communicative effectiveness of Christian Pentecostal sermons. Further research can juxtapose the pragma-rhetorical and argumentation strategies of preachers of two clearly differentiated movements within the Christian religion.

Keywords: argumentation, communicative intentions, pentecostal sermons, pragmeme, rhetoric

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Authors: Marina Petrova

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Language policy issues related to the preservation and development of the native languages of the Russian peoples and the state languages of the national republics are increasingly becoming the focus of recent attention of educators and parents, public and national figures. Is it legal to teach the national language or the mother tongue as the state language? Due to that dispute language phobia moods easily evolve into xenophobia among the population. However, a civilized, intelligent multicultural personality can only be formed if the country develops bilingualism and multilingualism, and languages as a political tool help to find ‘keys’ to sufficiently closed national communities both within a poly-ethnic state and in internal relations of multilingual countries. The purpose of this study is to design and theoretically substantiate an efficient model of language education in the innovatively developing Republic of Sakha. 800 participants from different educational institutions of Yakutia worked at developing a multilingual model of education. This investigation is of considerable practical importance because researchers could build a methodical system designed to create conditions for the formation of a cultural language personality and the development of the multilingual communicative competence of Yakut youth, necessary for communication in native, Russian and foreign languages. The selected methodology of humane-personal and competence approaches is reliable and valid. Researchers used a variety of sources of information, including access to related scientific fields (philosophy of education, sociology, humane and social pedagogy, psychology, effective psychotherapy, methods of teaching Russian, psycholinguistics, socio-cultural education, ethnoculturology, ethnopsychology). Of special note is the application of theoretical and empirical research methods, a combination of academic analysis of the problem and experienced training, positive results of experimental work, representative series, correct processing and statistical reliability of the obtained data. It ensures the validity of the investigation’s findings as well as their broad introduction into practice of life-long language education.

Keywords: intercultural communication, language policy, multilingual and multicultural education, the Sakha Republic of Yakutia

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Authors: Warsa Melles

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This study examines the way second-generation Eritrean immigrants living in the French-speaking part of Switzerland behave linguistically and culturally. The aim of this research is to demonstrate how the participants deal with their bilingualism (Tigrinya and French). More precisely, how does their language use correlates with their socio-cultural attitudes and how do these aspects (re)construct their identity? Data for this research was collected via, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked to answer questions regarding their linguistic habits, their perception on being bilingual and their cultural identity. The major findings demonstrate that generation 2 relates more with the host country’s language since French is used as the main language in their daily interactions. On the other hand, due to the fact that they have never lived in Eritrea yet were raised by Eritrean born parents in a foreign country, it is more difficult for them to unanimously identify with just one culture. In that sense, intergenerational transmission plays a major role in the perception of identity. All the participants have at least a basic knowledge of Tigrinya, but the use of languages varies according to the purpose. Proficiency in the native language and sense of belonging can be correlated with the frequency of visits to Eritrea. In conclusion, the question of identity in the second-generation Eritrean community cannot be given a categorical and clear-cut answer instead, the new-self image that this social group aims to build is shaped by different factors that are essential to take into consideration.

Keywords: biculturalism, identity, language, migration

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Authors: Rufus Olufemi Adebayo, Sylvia Phiwani Zulu

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Interpreting in the setting of diverse language and multicultural congregants, is often understood as integrating the content of the message. Preaching, similar to any communication, takes seriously people’s multiple contexts. The one who provides the best insight into understanding “the other”, traditionally speaking could be an interpreter in a multilingual context. Nonetheless, there are reflections in the loss of spiritual communication, translation and interpretive dialogue. No matter how eloquent the preacher is, an interpreter can make or mere the sermon (speech). The sermon that the preacher preaches is not always the one the congregation hears from the interpreter. In other occurrences, however, interpreting can lead not only to distort messages but also to dissatisfied audiences and preacher being overshadowed by the pranks of the interpreter. Using qualitative methodology, this paper explores the challenges and the conventional assumptions about preachers’ interpreter as influenced by spirituality, culture, and language in empirical and theoretical perspectives. An emphasis on the bias translation and the basis of reality that suppresses or devalues the spiritual communication is examined. The result indicates that interpretation of the declaration of guilt, history of congregation, spirituality, attitudes, morals, customs, specific practices of a preacher, education, and the environment form an entangled and misinterpretation. The article concludes by re-examining these qualities and rearticulating them into a preliminary theory for practice, as distinguished from theory, which could possibly enhance the development of more sustainable multilingual interpretation in the South African Pentecostal churches.

Keywords: congregants, divergences, interpreting/translation, language & communication, sermon/preaching

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Authors: Muhammad Fajar Suardi, Fathimatufzzahra, Dela Isnaini Sendra

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Learning is an activity that has been used to do, especially for a student or academics. But a handful of people have not been using and maximizing their brains work and some also do not know a good brain work time in capturing the lessons, so that knowledge is absorbed is also less than the maximum. Indonesia Memory Sports Council (IMSC) is an institution which is engaged in the performance of the brain and the development of effective learning methods by using several techniques that can be used in considering the lessons and knowledge to grasp well, including: loci method, substitution method, and chain method. This study aims to determine the techniques and benefits of using the method given in learning and memorization by applying memory techniques taught by Indonesia Memory Sports Council (IMSC) to students and the difference if not using this method. This research uses quantitative research with survey method addressed to students of Indonesian Memory Sports Council (IMSC). The results of this study indicate that learn, understand and remember the lesson using the techniques of memory which is taught in Indonesia Memory Sport Council is very effective and faster to absorb the lesson than learning without using the techniques of memory, and this affects the academic achievement of students in each educational institution.

Keywords: chain method, Indonesia memory sports council, loci method, substitution method

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Authors: Carlos A. Martins de Jesus

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The Greek anthology, first put together in the tenth century AD, gathers in two separate books a large number of epigrams devoted to love and its consequences, both of hetero (book V) and homosexual (book XII) nature. While some poets wrote epigrams of only one genre –that is the case of Strato (II cent. BC), the organizer of a wide-spread garland of homosexual epigrams –, several others composed within both categories, often using the same topics of love and suffering. Using Plato’s theorization of two different kinds of Eros (Symp. 180d-182a), the popular (pandemos) and the celestial (ouranios), homoerotic epigrammatic love is more often associated with the first one, while heterosexual poetry tends to be connected to a higher form of love. This paper focuses on the epigrammatic production of a single first-century BC poet, Meleager, aiming to look for the similarities and differences on singing both kinds of love. From Meleager, the Greek Anthology –a garland whose origins have been traced back to the poet’s garland itself– preserves more than sixty heterosexual and 48 homosexual epigrams, an important and unprecedented amount of poems that are able to trace a complete profile of his way of singing love. Meleager’s poetry deals with personal experience and emotions, frequently with love and the unhappiness that usually comes from it. Most times he describes himself not as an active and engaged lover, but as one struck by the beauty of a woman or boy, i.e., in a stage prior to erotic consummation. His epigrams represent the unreal and fantastic (literally speaking) world of the lover, in which the imagery and wordplays are used to convey emotion in the epigrams of both genres. Elsewhere Meleager surprises the reader by offering a surrealist or dreamlike landscape where everyday adventures are transcribed into elaborate metaphors for erotic feeling. For instance, in 12.81, the lovers are shipwrecked, and as soon as they have disembarked, they are promptly kidnapped by a figure who is both Eros and a beautiful boy. Particularly –and worth-to-know why significant – in the homosexual poems collected in Book XII, mythology also plays an important role, namely in the figure and the scene of Ganimedes’ kidnap by Zeus for his royal court (12. 70, 94). While mostly refusing the Hellenistic model of dramatic love epigram, in which a small everyday scene is portrayed –and 5. 182 is a clear exception to this almost rule –, Meleager actually focuses on the tumultuous inside of his (poetic) lovers, in the realm of a subject that feels love and pain far beyond his/her erotic preferences. In relation to loving and suffering –mostly suffering, it has to be said –, Meleager’s love is therefore completely democratic. There is no real place in his epigrams for the traditional association mentioned before between homoeroticism and a carnal-erotic-pornographic love, while the heterosexual one being more evenly and pure, so to speak.

Keywords: epigram, erotic epigram, Greek Anthology, Meleager

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Authors: Wanessa G. Oliveira, Fernando C. Capovilla

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Capovilla and Raphael’s Libras Dictionary documents a corpus of 4,200 Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) signs. Duduchi and Capovilla’s software SignTracking permits users to retrieve signs even when ignoring the gloss corresponding to it and to discover the meaning of all 4,200 signs sign simply by clicking on graphic menus of the sign characteristics (phonemes). Duduchi and Capovilla have discovered that the ease with which any given sign can be retrieved is an inverse function of the average popularity of its component phonemes. Thus, signs composed of rare (distinct) phonemes are easier to retrieve than are those composed of common phonemes. SignTracking offers a means of computing the average popularity of the phonemes that make up each one of 4,200 signs. It provides a precise measure of the degree of ease with which signs can be retrieved, and sign meanings can be discovered. Duduchi and Capovilla’s logarithmic model proved valid: The degree with which any given sign can be retrieved is an inverse function of the arithmetic mean of the logarithm of the popularity of each component phoneme. Capovilla, Raphael and Mauricio’s New Libras Dictionary documents a corpus of 10,400 Libras signs. The present analysis revealed Libras DNA structure by mapping the incidence of 501 sign phonemes resulting from the layered distribution of five parameters: 163 handshape phonemes (CherEmes-ManusIculi); 34 finger shape phonemes (DactilEmes-DigitumIculi); 55 hand placement phonemes (ArtrotoToposEmes-ArticulatiLocusIculi); 173 movement dimension phonemes (CinesEmes-MotusIculi) pertaining to direction, frequency, and type; and 76 Facial Expression phonemes (MascarEmes-PersonalIculi).

Keywords: Brazilian sign language, lexical retrieval, libras sign, sign phonology

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Authors: Rafat Alwazna

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Technical lexicon is witnessing a large upsurge in the use of new terminologies whose emergence is an inevitable result of the spread of high-quality technology, the existence of scientific paradigms and the fast growth of research in different disciplines. One important subfield of terminology is legal terminology, which forms a crucial part of legal studies, and whose translation from one legal system into another is deemed a formidable and arduous task that needs to be properly performed by legal translators. Indeed, the issue of untranslatability of legal terms, particularly between originally unrelated languages, like legal Arabic and legal English, has long been a real challenge in legal translation. It stems from the conceptual incongruency between legal terms of different legal languages, which are derived from different legal cultures and legal systems. Such conceptual asymmetry is owing to the fact that law has no universal reference and that legal language is what determines the degree of difference in conceptual correspondence. The present paper argues that although conceptual asymmetry, which is the main reason for the issue of untranslatability of legal terms, cannot be denied in legal translation, there exist certain translation techniques which, if properly adopted, would resolve the issue of untranslatability of legal terms and therefore achieve acceptable legal translation. Hence, the question of untranslatability of legal terms should no longer exist within the context of legal translation.

Keywords: conceptual incongruency, Legal terms, translation techniques, untranslatability

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Authors: Marziyeh Yousefi, Hossein Nassaji

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This paper reports the results of a meta-analysis of studies on the effects of instruction mode on learning second language pragmatics during the last decade (from 2006 to 2016). After establishing related inclusion/ exclusion criteria, 39 published studies were retrieved and included in the present meta-analysis. Studies were later coded for face-to-face and computer-assisted mode of instruction. Statistical procedures were applied to obtain effect sizes. It was found that Computer-Assisted-Language-Learning studies generated larger effects than Face-to-Face instruction.

Keywords: meta-analysis, effect size, L2 pragmatics, comprehensive meta-analysis, face-to-face, computer-assisted language learning

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Authors: Ekaterina G. Lipatova

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The developing potential of a video task in teaching foreign languages involves the opportunities to improve four aspects of speech production process: listening, reading, speaking and writing. A video represents the sequence of actions, realized in the pictures logically connected and verbalized speech flow that simplifies and stimulates the process of perception. In this connection listening skills of students are developed effectively as well as their intellectual properties such as synthesizing, analyzing and generalizing the information. In terms of teaching capacity, a video task, in our opinion, is more stimulating than a traditional listening, since it involves the student into the plot of the communicative situation, emotional background and potentially makes them react to the gist in the cognitive and communicative ways. To be an effective method of teaching the video task should be structured in the way of psycho-linguistic characteristics of speech production process, in other words, should include three phases: before-watching, while-watching and after-watching. The system of tasks provided to each phase might involve the situations on reflecting to the video content in the forms of filling-the-gap tasks, multiple choice, True-or-False tasks (reading skills), exercises on expressing the opinion, project fulfilling (writing and speaking skills). In the before-watching phase we offer the students to adjust their perception mechanism to the topic and the problem of the chosen video by such task as “what do you know about such a problem?”, “is it new for you?”, “have you ever faced the situation of…?”. Then we proceed with the lexical and grammatical analysis of language units that form the body of a speech sample to lessen the perception and develop the student’s lexicon. The goal of while-watching phase is to build the student’s awareness about the problem presented in the video and challenge their inner attitude towards what they have seen by identifying the mistakes in the statements about the video content or making the summary, justifying their understanding. Finally, we move on to development of their speech skills within the communicative situation they observed and learnt by stimulating them to search the similar ideas in their backgrounds and represent them orally or in the written form or express their own opinion on the problem. It is compulsory to highlight, that a video task should contain the urgent, valid and interesting event related to the future profession of the student, since it will help to activate cognitive, emotional, verbal and ethic capacity of students. Also, logically structured video tasks are easily integrated into the system of e-learning and can provide the opportunity for the students to work with the foreign language on their own.

Keywords: communicative situation, perception mechanism, speech production process, speech skills

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Authors: Nataliya G. Olkhovik

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Nowadays in the system of Russian higher medical education there have been undertaken initiatives that resulted in focusing on the resources of e-learning in teaching foreign languages. Obviously, the face-to-face communication in foreign languages bears much more advantages in terms of effectiveness in comparison with the potential of e-learning. Thus, we’ve faced the necessity of strengthening the capacity of e-learning via integration of active methods into the process of teaching foreign languages, such as project activity of students. Successful project activity of students should involve the following components: monitoring, control, methods of organizing the student’s activity in foreign languages, stimulating their interest in the chosen project, approaches to self-assessment and methods of raising their self-esteem. The contemporary methodology assumes the project as a specific method, which activates potential of a student’s cognitive function, emotional reaction, ability to work in the team, commitment, skills of cooperation and, consequently, their readiness to verbalize ideas, thoughts and attitudes. Verbal activity in the foreign language is a complex conception that consolidates both cognitive (involving speech) capacity and individual traits and attitudes such as initiative, empathy, devotion, responsibility etc. Once we organize the project activity by the means of e-learning within the ‘Foreign language’ discipline we have to take into consideration all mentioned above characteristics and work out an effective way to implement it into the teaching practice to boost its educational potential. We have integrated into the e-platform Moodle the module of project activity consisting of the following blocks of tasks that lead students to research, cooperate, strive to leadership, chase the goal and finally verbalize their intentions. Firstly, we introduce the project through activating self-activity of students by the tasks of the phase ‘Preparation of the project’: choose the topic and justify it; find out the problematic situation and its components; set the goals; create your team, choose the leader, distribute the roles in your team; make a written report on grounding the validity of your choices. Secondly, in the ‘Planning the project’ phase we ask students to represent the analysis of the problem in terms of reasons, ways and methods of solution and define the structure of their project (here students may choose oral or written presentation by drawing up the claim in the e-platform about their wish, whereas the teacher decides what form of presentation to prefer). Thirdly, the students have to design the visual aids, speech samples (functional phrases, introductory words, keywords, synonyms, opposites, attributive constructions) and then after checking, discussing and correcting with a teacher via the means of Moodle present it in front of the audience. And finally, we introduce the phase of self-reflection that aims to awake the inner desire of students to improve their verbal activity in a foreign language. As a result, by implementing the project activity into the e-platform and project activity, we try to widen the frameworks of a traditional lesson of foreign languages through tapping the potential of personal traits and attitudes of students.

Keywords: active methods, e-learning, improving verbal activity in foreign languages, personal traits and attitudes

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Authors: Sawsan Al-Saaidi, Ghayth K. Shaker Al-Shaibani

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This paper investigates certain linguistics properties of four selected speeches by Al-Qaeda’s former leader Osama bin Laden who legitimated the use of jihad by Muslims in various countries when he was alive. The researchers adopt van Dijk’s (2009; 1998) Socio-Cognitive approach and Ideological Square theory respectively. Socio-Cognitive approach revolves around various cognitive, socio-political, and discursive aspects that can be found in political discourse as in Osama bin Laden’s one. The political discourse can be defined in terms of textual properties and contextual models. Pertaining to the ideological square, it refers to positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation which help to enhance the textual and contextual analyses. Therefore, among the most significant properties in Osama bin Laden’s discourse are the use of presuppositions and implicatures which are based on background knowledge and contextual models as well. Thus, the paper concludes that Osama bin Laden used a number of manipulative strategies which augmented and embellished the use of ‘jihad’ in order to develop a more effective discourse for his audience. In addition, the findings have revealed that bin Laden used different implicit and embedded interpretations of different topics which have been accepted as taken-for-granted truths for him to legitimate Jihad against his enemies. There are many presuppositions in the speeches analysed that result in particular common-sense assumptions and a world-view about the selected speeches. More importantly, the assumptions in the analysed speeches help consolidate the ideological analysis in terms of in-group and out-group members.

Keywords: Al-Qaeda, cognition, critical discourse analysis, Osama Bin Laden, jihad, implicature, legitimisation, presupposition, political discourse

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Authors: Yogesh Kumar Tiwari

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Chhattisgarh has realized the fundamental role of information and communication technology in the globalized world where knowledge is at the top for the growth and intellectual development. They are spreading so widely that one feels lagging behind if not using them. The influence of these radiating and technological tools has encompassed all aspects of the educational, business, and economic sectors of our world. Undeniably the computer has not only established itself globally in all walks of life but has acquired a fundamental role of paramount importance in the educational process also. This role is getting all pervading and more powerful as computers are being manufactured to be cheaper, smaller in size, adaptable and easy to handle. Computers are becoming indispensable to teachers because of their enormous capabilities and extensive competence. This study aims at observing the effect of using computer based software program of English language on the achievement of undergraduate level students studying in tribal area like Sarguja Division, Chhattisgarh, India. To testify the effect of an innovative teaching in the graduate classroom in tribal area 50 students were randomly selected and separated into two groups. The first group of 25 students were taught English grammar i.e., passive voice/narration, through traditional method using chalk and blackboard asking some formal questions. The second group, the experimental one, was taught English grammar i.e., passive voice/narration, using computer, projector with power point presentation of grammatical items. The statistical analysis was done on the students’ learning capacities and achievement. The result was extremely mesmerizing not only for the teacher but for taught also. The process of the recapitulation demonstrated that the students of experimental group responded the answers of the questions enthusiastically with innovative sense of learning. In light of the findings of the study, it was recommended that teachers and professors of English ought to use self-made instructional program in their teaching process particularly in tribal areas.

Keywords: achievement computer assisted language learning, use of instructional program

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Authors: Bahia Braktia, Ahlem Ghamri

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Years ago, faculties and administrators realized that students entering college were not prepared for the academic sphere; however, as a type of collaborative learning, peer-review gave students a social context in which they could learn more efficiently. Peer-review has proven its effectiveness in higher education. Numerous studies have been conducted on peer review and its effects on the quality of students’ writing, and several publications recommended peer-review as part of the feedback process. Student writers showed a tendency towards making significant meaning-level revisions and surface-level revisions. Last but not least, studies reported that peer-review helps students develop their self-assessment skills as well as critical thinking. The use of peer-review has become well known and widely adopted to the L2 classroom environment. However, little is known about peer review on translation students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the students' perspective on peer-review, and whether this method affected the quality of their translation. A mixed method design was adopted. Students were requested to translate two texts from Arabic into English, and they gave and received structured feedback to their classmates' translations. A survey was administered, followed by semi-structured interviews, to examine the students' attitudes toward peer-review. The results of the study showed that peer-review was considered a good proofreading method for most students. The students also showed a positive attitude toward it, and they reported that they benefited from the interaction with their peers. The findings implied that the inclusion of peer-review can be an effective pedagogical practice for teaching translation and writing to foreign language learners.

Keywords: language teaching, feedback, peer-review, translation

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Authors: Hooriya Sadr Dadras, Shiva Seyed Erfani

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Speaking skills merit meticulous attention both on the side of the learners and the teachers. In particular, accuracy is a critical component to guarantee the messages to be conveyed through conversation because a wrongful change may adversely alter the content and purpose of the talk. Different types of tasks have served teachers to meet numerous educational objectives. Besides, negotiation of meaning and the use of different strategies have been areas of concern in socio-cultural theories of SLA. Negotiation of meaning is among the conversational processes which have a crucial role in facilitating the understanding and expression of meaning in a given second language. Conversational strategies are used during interaction when there is a breakdown in communication that leads to the interlocutor attempting to remedy the gap through talk. Therefore, this study was an attempt to investigate if there was any significant difference between the effect of reasoning gap tasks and information gap tasks on the frequency of conversational strategies used in negotiation of meaning in classrooms on one hand, and on the accuracy in speaking of Iranian intermediate EFL learners on the other. After a pilot study to check the practicality of the treatments, at the outset of the main study, the Preliminary English Test was administered to ensure the homogeneity of 87 out of 107 participants who attended the intact classes of a 15 session term in one control and two experimental groups. Also, speaking sections of PET were used as pretest and posttest to examine their speaking accuracy. The tests were recorded and transcribed to estimate the percentage of the number of the clauses with no grammatical errors in the total produced clauses to measure the speaking accuracy. In all groups, the grammatical points of accuracy were instructed and the use of conversational strategies was practiced. Then, different kinds of reasoning gap tasks (matchmaking, deciding on the course of action, and working out a time table) and information gap tasks (restoring an incomplete chart, spot the differences, arranging sentences into stories, and guessing game) were manipulated in experimental groups during treatment sessions, and the students were required to practice conversational strategies when doing speaking tasks. The conversations throughout the terms were recorded and transcribed to count the frequency of the conversational strategies used in all groups. The results of statistical analysis demonstrated that applying both the reasoning gap tasks and information gap tasks significantly affected the frequency of conversational strategies through negotiation. In the face of the improvements, the reasoning gap tasks had a more significant impact on encouraging the negotiation of meaning and increasing the number of conversational frequencies every session. The findings also indicated both task types could help learners significantly improve their speaking accuracy. Here, applying the reasoning gap tasks was more effective than the information gap tasks in improving the level of learners’ speaking accuracy.

Keywords: accuracy in speaking, conversational strategies, information gap tasks, reasoning gap tasks

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Authors: Nurah Saleh Alfares

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An aim of TS in EFL is to help learners to understand how they learn, which could help them in using the target language with other learners in language classrooms, and in their social life. The early researchers have criticised the system of teaching methods in EFL applied in Saudi schools, as they claim that it does not produce students who are highly proficient in English. Some of them suggested that enhancing learners’ TS would help to improve the learners’ proficiency of using the EFL. The textbook in Saudi schools is the central material for teachers to follow in the EFL classroom. Thus, this study is investigating the main issues that could promote TS in Saudi EFL: the textbook and the teachers. The purposes of the study are: to find out the extent to which the tasks in the textbook have the potential to support teachers in promoting TS; to discover insights into the nature of classroom activities that teachers use to encourage TS from the textbook and to explore the teachers’ views on the role of the textbook in promoting TS in the English language. These aims will improve understanding of the connection between the potential of the textbook content and the participants’ theoretical knowledge and their teaching practice. The investigation employed research techniques including the following: (1) analysis of the textbook; (2) questionnaire for EFL teachers; (3) observation for EFL classroom; (4) interviews with EFL teachers. Analysis of the third intermediate grade textbook has been undertaken, and six EFL teachers from five intermediate schools were involved in the study. Data analysis revealed that 36.71 % of the tasks in the textbook could have the potential to promote TS, and 63.29 % of the tasks in the textbook could not have the potential to promote TS. Therefore, the result of the textbook analysis showed that the majority of the tasks do not have the potential to help teachers to promote TS. Although not all teachers of the observed lessons displayed behaviour helpful to promote TS, teachers, who presented potential TS tasks in their lesson encouraged learners’ interaction and students’ engagement more than teachers who presented tasks that did not have the potential to promote TS. Therefore, the result of the teachers’ data showed that having a textbook that has the potential to promote TS is not enough to develop teaching TS in Saudi EFL since teachers’ behaviour could make the task more or less productive.

Keywords: English as a Foreign Language, metacognitive skills, textbook, thinking skills

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Authors: Maria Torres

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After the acknowledgment of contrastive analysis, Pit Coder’s establishment of error analysis revolutionized the way instructors analyze and examine students’ writing errors. One question that relates to error analysis with speakers of a first language, in this case, Spanish, who are learning a second language (English), is the type of errors that these learners make along with the causes of these errors. Many studies have looked at the way the native tongue influences second language acquisition, but this method does not take into account other possible sources of students’ errors. This paper examines writing samples from an advanced ESL class whose first language is Spanish at non-profit organization, Learning Quest Stanislaus Literacy Center. Through error analysis, errors in the students’ writing were identified, described, and classified. The purpose of this paper was to discover the type and origin of their errors which generated appropriate treatments. The results in this paper show that the most frequent errors in the advanced ESL students’ writing pertain to interlanguage and a small percentage from an intralanguage source. Lastly, the least type of errors were ones that originate from negative transfer. The results further solidify the idea that there are other errors and sources of errors to account for rather than solely focusing on the difference between the students’ mother and target language. This presentation will bring to light some strategies and techniques that address the issues found in this research. Taking into account the amount of error pertaining to interlanguage, an ESL teacher should provide metalinguistic awareness of the students’ errors.

Keywords: error analysis, ESL, interlanguage, intralangauge

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