Gender diglossia and its maintenance among the Ubang
June 2024
Ubang, a Bendi language spoken in Obudu, Nigeria, has gender-based language varieties whereby different terms are used for certain basic items in female and male speech forms. For instance, “okwakwe” and “abu” are respective female and male words for ‘dog’. There are also gendered nuances in the use of vowels and tone. Apparently, the non-cognate gender-differentiated lexicon derives...
Noam Chomsky’s ‘stimulus-free language’: A pedestal of mantric poetry
November 2023
Noam Chomsky’s vision of ‘stimulus-free language’ is an evolutionary ascent of language. It is for the reason that it reveals the existence of stimulus free mind which is an evolved state of mind, the state which emerges as a result of undertaking the yoga of, what Sri Aurobindo terms, ‘psychicisation’. Chomsky’s vision of stimulus free language as an instrument of thought reveals the...
Analyzing the content of conversation textbook for undergraduate students: A case study of An-Najah National University, Palestine
June 2023
Teaching conversation skills is a difficult task for teachers and requires careful attention when selecting the textbook that best suits learners' needs and interests in addition to their different learning dispositions. This study proposes a system for analyzing the content of the conversation English textbook for second-year undergraduate students in An-Najah National University according to five major rubrics:...
Complex gendered identity in Africa: Postmodern perspectives from Igbo and Yoruba Languages and Cultures
January 2022
This is an attempt to address the complexities and paradoxes surrounding other forms of gender identity beyond the physical. These other forms of identities are considered metaphysical and practised within belief systems, cultures and traditions. A postmodern approach lazed on the theoretical framework of inter-subjectivity is used to examine these women’s metaphysical identities from Igbo and Yoruba...
Study of language planning on English taught programs/English as medium of instruction programs in Taiwan
January 2021
English Taught Programs (ETPs) first appeared in European countries. Research showed a growing trend of ETPs, not only in Europe but also in other continents. However, despite the increasing number of such programs, there is a lack of consistent language policy and language planning in these programs. Without a clear language policy, the problems caused by language diversity cannot be solved properly. EMI researchers...
Friendship: acquisition forms and functions as a web of social relationship in Raya Community of Southern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia
January 2021
This cultural study was conducted in Raya community of Southern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, focusing on the relevance of friendship for social relationships. Specifically, the study aimed at identifying the forms of friendship acquisition, describing friendship application procedures and rituals performed and depicting the social function of friendship as a web to strengthen social networks. The study was limited to the...
Elements in color: A symbolistic approach to analyzing the Haitian flag
January 2021
The literature and artifacts associated with Haiti’s history have puzzled its people for a long time. One historical symbol left open to interpretation is the Haitian flag, although its aesthetic appeal is apparent to many. Ascertaining precise meanings from the flag's design is difficult due to the lack of available information and alteration of the original design by successive political administrations....
Hybridizing Gikuyu in the face of globalization: The case of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel Murogi wa Kagogo
January 2021
African literature in European languages entrenches the marginalization of large communities who cannot use European languages. Therefore, the revolutionary move by the Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, to write in Gikuyu is a bold step towards empowering marginalized groups in Africa. In his literary essays, Ngugi argues that in the era of globalization African languages should enrich themselves by entering into...
Multiple identities of multilingual minorities: Values and practices influencing social, national and personal identity formation
January 2021
This empirical study examined the ways in which multilingualism influences the community identities of individuals and minority groups. The motivations for their specific social behaviors are rarely obvious to the multilingual speakers themselves, which made it necessary to scrutinize their behaviors and attitudes using a mixed-methods analysis (including sociolinguistic interviews, questionnaire surveys, and field...
The role of the ancient Egyptians' beliefs in the afterlife in preserving the ancient Egyptian cultural heritage
April 2020
The ancient Egyptians preserved their tangible cultural heritage through their burial rituals. The scientific study of the material-objects found in the Egyptian tombs helped researchers to excavate, preserve, study and attempt to interpret the Egyptian cultures. Contemporary Africans do not or they rarely bury their dead with many items as the ancient Egyptians did. This research compares the reasons for the Egyptian...
Orality, performance and creativity: A descriptive perspective of the Izon Obobo bi necromancy
April 2020
African traditional literature is fraught with songs, dances, riddles, jokes, proverbs as well as chants, incantations, invocation, rituals and musical performances. Some of these features are found in earlier poet, Christopher Okigbo’s Labyrinths and comparatively recent poet, Christian Otobotekere’s A Sailor’s Son: in the wake of dance and games. Oral poetry in Izá»n tradition is diverse but...
Looking at Chinese parent-teenager conflict talks from the perspective of the rapport management theory
April 2020
As a common but complex linguistic phenomenon, conflict talks (CTs) frequently occur in daily communications. This study aims to carry out analyses of parent-teenager CTs in two Chinese TV series A Love for Separation and Home with Kids to reveal the three steps of CTs. From the perspective of the rapport management theory, this study mainly centers on probing into the causes as well as the influence on harmonious...
Verbal semiotics resources employed in advertising cigarette on TV in Indonesia
April 2019
This work analyzes the verbal semiotics resources used for advertising cigarette in Indonesia. Descriptive qualitative method was used in this study. The data of this study are verbal semiotics resources (oral and written) used for cigarette advertisement. From the result of this work, it is seen that in ideational function, material process was dominantly used in advertising cigarette on TV, and in interpersonal...
Insertion strategies used with lone English verbs in otherwise Igbo utterances
October 2018
Using examples of tape recorded conversational data from fifty educated adult Igbo-English bilinguals resident in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, this paper demonstrates that lone English verbs are typically inserted into otherwise Igbo utterances by means of Igbo verbal inflectional morphology. Other verbs are adjoined to a helping verb from Igbo, specifically involving an adapted form. Yet, a few English verbs are inserted...
Destruction of Abbay Choman Oromo indigenous practice due to Gojjame invasion, north east Wollega South of Abay River, Ethiopia (1870s - 1882)
September 2018
This paper deals with the destruction of Oromo indigenous practices under Gojjame rule: the case of Abbay Choman Oromo, in the south of Abay River 1870s-1882. The year 1870’s was a turning point in the history of the Oromo of Abbay Choman in particular and Horro Guduru in general because it was a period when Gadaa system with indigenous practice starts being destructed. The year 1882 was the period when Horro...
Challenges of students’ discipline in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes: A case of primary schools in Dembi Dollo and Nekemte towns of Oromia Region, Ethiopia
August 2018
In many cultures in the world, discipline is a very important quality of students in schools. Thus, the prime objective of this study was to explore major factors contributing to students’ discipline problems in some primary schools of Dambi Dollo and Nekemte Towns in Ethiopia. To achieve the objective, basic research questions were developed, related literatures were reviewed and different methodologies were...
Standing straight with the title, ‘As this miserable and fungus-like small plant becomes a big and favourite tree’ adapted from the Tcheonzamun poem (753rd to 768th)
February 2018
The purpose of this study is to know the bi-language mask of Tcheonzamun expression; the real meaning. The researchers utilized two methods: interpretation through Korean pronunciation and utilization of Chinese character. The aim of this work is to explain in plain terms the title of this work, ‘As the miserable and fungus-like small plant becomes a big and favourite tree’. The researchers...
Syntactic translation and semantic implications: The case of Fulfulde and English
January 2018
It has been a general consensus that translation is an exercise of transferring a message, initially written or spoken in one language, into another language for the benefit of those who do not understand the initial language. The researchers provided some definitions of language since translation is also a language based exercise. It is also to be noted that translation can be based on variety of areas such as literary...
Tracing the local culture in a reading book
September 2017
There is a strong relationship between language and culture, both carries the DNA samples of one another, which makes it hard to imagine English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in classrooms and textbooks without any reference to target culture(s). Therefore, teaching a language cannot be thought only as teaching grammatical structures of the target language, but also teaching the culture(s) of the target language or...
Inflectional morphology in Mecha Oromo
August 2017
This study provides relatively detailed descriptions of inflectional morphology in the Oromo language. It identifies occurrence patterns of morphemes and draws rules for inflections in the language. Although it focuses basically on inflectional morphology, it in some ways, deals with derivational processes and syntactic structures for comparison and relational analysis. A degree of fusion of morphs and morphological...
Language attrition in bicultural bilinguals: Evidence from Neo-Aramaic animal metaphors
August 2017
Animal-based metaphors are ubiquitous in natural languages with distinct cross-cultural implications. In this study, these conventional or dead metaphors, so to speak, are used as a tool to measure language erosion and cultural integration. We assumed that Neo-Aramaic-English bicultural bilinguals (NA-E) and Canadian-English speakers (CE) have the linguistic and cultural capacity necessary to establish concerted...
“I will pray for you that you may become a man well developed and a woman in full bloom beautifully!â€; from the translation of Tcheonzamun (the book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’) poem (705-720th characters)
July 2017
This study aims to study the meaning of Tcheonzamun (the book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’) poem of 16 letters from 705 to 720th characters. The Chinese translation of this poem shows how to grow a child well. But the Korean version says, “Think positive!”, “Look on the bright side!”, “I am very proud of you!”; these might be the most principal maxims of their...
‘You are magnifique, Maeg’s descendants!’ (769th-784th characters)
July 2017
The researchers studied the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay) poem of 769 to 784th characters. The poem is composed of dialogues between an aged man and a young man, or between a husband and wife of a family. The main theme of the poem is ‘recovering from defeat’. The aged man praises the young man, ‘You are magnifique, Maeg’s descendants!’. In another interpretation, there is a...
Ancient Koreans’ petition to God in Tcheonzamun: The thousand character essay poem (641st to 656th letters)
June 2017
The researchers found that the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay) consists of 63 poems of 16 letters, while the last 63rd poem consists of 8 letters. The researchers looked at the history of ancient Korea through Tcheonzamun poem. This is because the history of Korea before the 1st century has not been known until now. Through the first translation using the Chinese character, the researchers found that the...
Tcheonzamun author’s prayer to God: “Save our lives, Lord!†(737th to 752nd characters)
June 2017
In Korea, it is not known that Korean people wrote the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay). Korean people firmly believe that Chinese people wrote the poem. Recently, the authors of present report discovered that Korean scripts are shown in Tcheonzamun. Therefore, the authors started to think that the ancestor of Korean people, Maeg country’s people, had written this splendid work. Each Tcheonzamun poem...
Participant observation research of a Korean basketball club as a leisure and culture community: With a focus on self-identity
May 2017
This study comprises a participant observation of a Korean basketball club as a leisure culture community. The study developed a theoretical discussion using the symbolic interactions of Mead. The SPADE basketball club was selected for case study. Research methods took advantage of participant observation and in-depth interviews, among different qualitative research methods. The members of the basketball club were...
Teachers’ practices and beliefs regarding peer assessment in L2 writing classrooms at Jimma town, South-Western Ethiopia
May 2017
This study aims at investigating practices and beliefs of teachers regarding the use of peer assessment in EFL writing in Jimma Seto Semro and Jiren preparatory and high schools in South Western Ethiopia. In this study, a descriptive survey based on both qualitative and quantitative data were used. To achieve the objective, all (13) EFL instructors in Seto Semro and Jiren high schools and participated in the study....
Looking at the changing world through a displaced and estranged artist: Kazuo Ishiguro’s, ‘an artist of the floating world’
April 2017
Culture is a shared pattern of behaviour prevailing in a group or a society. It includes all the traditions, customs, beliefs and values that are transmitted from generation to generation and it can shape people. Thus it can be summarized that culture is something commonly shared, transmitted and it has a role in shaping people. When another culture tries to penetrate into the existing culture, some problems arise among...
Exploration of factors impeding teacher education college students’ speaking skills: The case of Jimma teachers college in Ethiopia
April 2017
This research was aimed at investigating factors which affect English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ speaking skills in Jimma teacher Education College. The subjects of the study were second year EFL students and EFL teachers in the college. Among the 200 second year English Language students in the college, the researcher took 50% as the sample of the study using the simple random sampling technique. To...
Personal name and history: Change and continuity of naming practices among Maccaa Oromo
April 2017
This paper addresses the change and continuity of Maccaa Oromo naming practices. Maccaa Oromo is one of Oromo moiety inhabits in western part of Oromia. Mainly data was collected from elder through interview and group discussion. In addition to primary data, various historical books which are related to the topic are surveyed. Thus, in this investigation, both primary and secondary sources were used. The analyzed data...
“Don’t be an idiot! Fight!†with the apparent title of ‘you must write it in your words as historical records by your own hand’: Translation of the poem on Tcheonzamun (the book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’) from 673rd to 688th using Chinese characters and Korean pronunciation
March 2017
It has been found that one poem consists of 16 letters in Tcheonzamun (the book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’). The poem consists of 16 letters from 673rd to 688th characters from the Tcheonzamun. The poem was translated both through Chinese character and Korean pronunciation. The author of Tcheonzamun wrote the poem to remain to their descendants as record for their difficulties. The meaning of the 4...
The son and the daughter of Maeg country, I am very proud of you!’ with a title ‘I will do my best for my children as if I stood in front of God!’: - Translation of the poem on Tcheonzamun (the book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’), from 689th to 704th characters
March 2017
Tcheonzamun, (book of ‘The Thousand Character Essay’), is so famous in China and in Korea that a lot of common phrases utilized in the practical life are have come from the book. The researcher translated the poem of Tcheonzamun. It is a poem composed of 16 letters from 689th to 704th. It was done both by using Chinese characters and through Korean pronunciation. The researcher found that in on this...
Making of the body: Childhood trauma in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child
March 2017
The study probes into the historical and familial inherited trauma of being black in Toni Morrison’s latest novel - God Help the Child. It illustrates how African American children, in Morrison’s novels, learn about white culture, black communities, and their own self-worth through the legacy of racial discrimination. Childhood experience becomes knowledge and remembering in the hands, in the body, and in...
The Tcheonzamun (the thousand character essay)
February 2017
‘To our enemy Yeon’ with an apparent title of ‘If you want to solve this bad relation between somebody and you’ is the theme of this study. The present research is carried out during the translation of a poem (721st to 736th) in Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay). In this article, the researchers showed two sides of Tcheonzamun (the thousand character essay) interpretation: one is through...
Let’s make from now on the land of our mind broader!’ with a hidden meaning of ‘We had better stop here completely!’; from “Translation of a Tcheonzamun(The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) poem(657th - 672nd letters)â€
February 2017
This time, the Tcheonzamun (The Thousand Character Essay; written of 1000 letters in Chinese character) poem consists of 16 letters from 657th to 672nd characters. In the present report, we used two methods for translation; the first method is to use Chinese character meaning for the interpretation, and the second is to utilize Korean pronunciation for our interpretation. The researchers investigated the similarity of...
The nature of lexical collocational errors committed by advanced Iranian learners of English
January 2017
Collocations are among the pervasive features of languages, and English seems to be particularly rich in such multi-word lexemes. Since they have not received due attention pedagogically, this research aimed at identifying problems facing advanced Iranian learners of English in producing collocations. Over 100 pages of materials written by 30 participants were carefully studied and a list of lexical collocations was...
Heidegger's death in symphony of the dead
December 2016
The question of death is perhaps the most daring question through the history of human beings. In the Western philosophical tradition death is mostly depicted as an event, a coming of a final chapter of every human's life with which his course of life concludes its narration. Except Martin Heidegger whose conception of death is the existential constitution of human being, announcing and revealing the Nothing of the...
An investigation of participatory governance embedded in gadaa system: Manbadha general assembly of the Arsii Oromo in focus
November 2016
This study revealed participatory governance rooted in Gadaa system by focusing on manbadha general assembly of the Arsii Oromo. The concept ‘manbadha’ (literally meaning wide house) is used by the Arsii Oromo to mean Gadaa general assembly. To this effect, interview, focus group discussion (FGD) and observation were used to procure data. The finding of this research revealed that Gadaa system is...
Grammaticalization of the Amharic word fit “face†from a body part to grammatical meanings
October 2016
This study focuses on the polysemy of the Amharic fit “face”, its body–part term and grammaticalized meanings. The data has been collected from the wide range of written sources and from the internet due to absence of corpus data. By considering the functional-grammaticalization theoretical model, the grammaticalization of fit “face” is identified to be between the intermediate and advanced...
A comparative syntactic review of null-subject parameter in English and Ịzá»n languages
September 2016
The theory of universal grammar relies predominantly on the biolinguistic concept of natural endowment and innate knowledge of the general principles of language. It postulates that all humans are naturally endowed with the general rules and configurations of language and to this extent, all natural languages have similar structural features. The theory of universal grammar as hypothesized by Chomsky and propagated by...
Indigenous language shift in Siltie: Causes, effects and directions for revitalization
August 2016
The purpose of this study is to investigate the major factors that facilitated indigenous language shift in Siltie (a Semitic language; primarily spoken in south-western Ethiopia), their effects on Siltie’s overall identity and the future directions to reverse the situation (revitalize the language). The subjects used for the current study were 10 elders for an interview selected by purposive sampling and 500...
Error analysis in billboard advertisements written in Afan Oromo in Jimma town
July 2016
The main objective of the study is to analyze the errors in billboard advertisements written in Afan Oromo in Jimma town. There are many writing problems on most of the billboards in the town. However, the data collection for this study focused only on the errors that totally changed the meaning of the words and phrases and affected communication. In order to achieve the main objective, three specific objectives related...
Ibeme as a dialect of Igbo: A lexicostatistic analysis
May 2016
Ibeme is a variety of Igbo spoken in Ibeme clan comprising four vast autonomous communities namely Ibeme, Abala, Oberete-Isiala and Abala-Nkamiri in Obi-Ngwa Local Government Area, Abia State. Previous studies have classified Ibeme as a patois of Ngwa dialect and it is often glossed over with Ngwa. This study attempts to show that Ibeme is a distinct dialect. Lexicostatistics method using Swadesh wordlist comprising 100...
The indigenous Oromo peacemaking ritual: The case of Tajoo among Waayyuu Oromo of Arsii, Ethiopia
April 2016
This paper tries to reveal Tajoo ritual, which is performed annually in Arfaasaa (spring) as a New Year celebration by Waayyuu Oromo of Arsii. The data for this study were collected through participant observation, interview, focus group discussion and secondary sources. As revealed by the study, Tajoo is a ritual celebrated commonly by the whole community of Waayyuu Oromo on Hinikkaa (the first day of Oromo calendar)....
Alchemic transformation of human creation
April 2016
This study aimed to analyze the changes in human being in terms of alchemy. The process of human being goes through three stages. The first stage is the germinal period, the second stage is the embryo period, and the third one is the fetal period. Alchemy creates new things through three alchemical stages: nigredo (black), albedo (white), rubedo (red).This research attempts to figure out whether there is any...
The sociolinguistics and pragmatics of greetings in Sidama
March 2016
The main objective of this study was to provide a descriptive account of the greeting system in Sidama, an Ethiopian Highland East Cushitic (HEC) language speaking people culture. Cross sectional and descriptive none interventional research design were followed. The research methodology used was qualitative. Sociolinguistic data were collected from six purposefully selected key informants who are native speakers of...
Investigating factors that impede proper prescription writing in Jimma University Specialized Hospital
March 2016
The word "prescription", from "pre-" ("before") and "script" ("writing, written"), refers to the fact that the prescription is an order that must be written down before a drug can be dispensed. Prescription is a written order by the prescriber to the dispenser on how the drug should be dispensed. It serves as a means of communication among the prescriber, dispenser and...
A morphological analysis of Joss paper image in Taiwan - A case study of Fu Lu Shou
February 2016
Based on the Fu, Lu and Shou Joss papers, the current study investigated the religious tradition of the Joss paper burning as well as the styling features, purposes, and types of the three-god Joss paper via the examination of previous studies and field work. With the collected Joss papers for different purposes, six samples with the three gods were extracted to decipher the componential principles of the three-god...
An analysis of linguistic landscape of selected towns in Oromia: An ethnolinguistic vitality study
January 2016
This study investigates the strength of the ethnolinguistic vitality of different languages in Adama, Jimma and Sabata towns, mainly based on the objective of ethnolinguistic vitality score. A corpus of 900 signs were collected from the three towns, 300 signs each. The informational contents of the languages on signs were observed. Data were also collected using in depth interview with five linguistic landscape actors...
Autonomous foreign language learning
September 2015
This study investigates foreign language teacher candidates’ views regarding the issue of autonomous learning through a survey given to the students in the Department of German Language Teaching at Marmara University in Istanbul. Participants’ views on their responsibilities, learning styles, strategies, and motivation during the learning processes were elicited through the scale “checklists for...
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