Analysis of the prospects and challenges of subtitling as a mode of audiovisual translation in Cameroon
August 2015
This article aims to evaluate the prospects and challenges of subtitling in Cameroon and its positive impacts based on the perceptions of a cross-section of respondents (students) of the University of Buea. The purpose is to assess the effectiveness and the relevance of this mode of audiovisual translation in improving the rate of literacy, its contribution to social development and the level of its use by the most...
Effective teaching from An-Najah National University M.A. Students’ perspectives
July 2015
This study aimed at exploring effective teaching from An-Najah National University M.A. students’ perspectives. It also aimed at determining the role of the study variables (gender, accumulative average in BA and the school stage where they teach) in effective teaching from the same perspectives. To achieve these aims, the researchers used structured questionnaire of 21 items which were distributed among 30...
The ignored Dardic culture of Swat
June 2015
The Greek historian Herodotus of the fifth century BC used the term “Dadikai” for people now known as Dards or Dardic. He placed the land between Kashmir and Afghanistan as Darada. “Darada” is the Sanskrit term used for the inhabitants of the region. In Pakistan the region is rarely called Dardistan or the people Dard, a Persian word derived from the Sanskrit “darada.” A linguistic...
How Green are our Stories? Explorations of ecological subjectivities in Ethiopian children’s literature
June 2015
This study explores the place given to ecological crises in Ethiopian children’s literature. Through examining ecological subject positions in the works, it attempts to investigate values ascribed to nature. More than fifty narratives in fifteen children’s literature books published in Amharic have been considered for the investigation. An Ecocritical approach has been used as a framework to analyze the...
The effects of cultural knowledge on Iranian EFL students’ reading comprehension across male and female learners
May 2015
Reading comprehension is the most important skill in the absence of oral communication opportunities in foreign language teaching situation. So, the effect of different factors on reading comprehension has been studied. One of these factors is "cultural familiarity" of a text. Is readers' comprehension influenced by "cultural familiarity" of a text? What is the difference between different gender...
Back in the U.S.S.R: A Case Study of English/Russian bilingualism using the model of a flexible bilingual spectrum
April 2015
The fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and bilingualism are combined in this study to describe language experience using a flexible bilingual spectrum model in which political, economic and social factors are used to analyze levels of bilingualism. A native Russian speaker who learned English in the U.S.S.R. is interviewed and the results are analyzed in a case study, showing the language experience analysis...
Ethiopian sign language and educational accessibility for the deaf community: A case study on Jimma, Nekemte, Addis Ababa and Hawasa towns
March 2015
In comparison with the large number of population they have, the deaf community have not been given due attention in terms of education in Ethiopia. This was the main problem that initiated the researcher to conduct research on this area. The general objective of this study is to assess the educational accessibility of Ethiopian Sign Language for the deaf community. The research is a qualitative one and it was based on...
Perception and practice of self-assessment in EFL writing classrooms
January 2015
This study investigates the perception and practice of EFL learners and students towards self-assessment. The study was conducted taking 50 second year English major students, who were selected by simple random method, as a representative sample. The study also included 10 EFL writing teachers who were selected by comprehensive sampling method. From the study, it was found that both teachers and students had positive...
Shawl industry in Kashmir under the Mughals (1586-1752 A.D)-A critical note
November 2014
Kashmir is known throughout the world for its crafts, above all for shawls. The art of weaving was known to the people of Kashmir even during the ancient times. However, it emerged as a flourishing industry under Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, though he cannot be credited as its founding father as is believed in popular Kashmiri tradition. The industry received a great impetus during the rule of Mughals. It became a royal...
Surname change among some Yorùbá Christians
November 2014
In this paper, we react to the claim that surname modification or change by some Yorùbá Christians is a violation of God’s law or a recent development among the Yorùbá people and that it encourages semantic ambiguity in language use or word formation. The data collected include data drawn from previous studies on Yorùbá personal names, the lists of staff of three Nigerian...
Concept of family among Kyrgyz and Native American tribes
September 2014
The growth of technology in the world is the highest achievement of present-day civilization, but it is bringing us into a type of life and unifying our style of living, clothes, behavior and even language. Technology has replaced live communication, and this seems to be marring the borderline between diverse cultures as people become more and more technologically dependent. Smaller nations in this globalized world are...
Writing both difference and similarity: towards a more unifying and adequate orthography for the newly written languages of Ethiopia: the case of Wolaitta, Gamo, Gofa and Dawuro
September 2014
Among the most important linguistic developments in Ethiopia since 1991, the development of written forms for many languages that did not have orthographies before has been one. By far the most diverse region in terms of the number of languages spoken is the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS). This paper deals with the pan-dialectal orthography designed for Wolaitta, Gamo, Gofa and...
Sociolinguistic challenges of the post-1991 Ethiopian Language Policy
June 2014
Ethiopia has witnessed a history of language policies ranging from pre-1991 linguistic assimilation to the post-1991 official multilingualism. Though many articles have been written on Ethiopia’s current language policy, little attention has been given to the current policy’s challenges and future consequences. Hence, the intention of this article is to reflect upon challenges and future consequences of the...
Exploring Environmental Discourses in oral literature: Ecocritical analysis of Oromo proverbs
June 2014
This study explored environmental discourses inscribed in Oromo proverbial lore. Its specific concern was with the analysis of place accorded to nature and the role of human’s relation with the physical environment. Oral literature carries values long held in the society, and divulging into folk-ideas reveals the people’s definition of self in relation to nature and their accountability towards it. To this...
Linguistic sexism as religious offense among the Oromo
April 2014
Linguistic sexism is an act of patronizing one sex in a discourteous way, usually female. Studies show that human languages exhibit some form of linguistic sexism. However, the current discourses about its source and its sociopolitical purposes lack universality. To indicate this gap, as a case in point, this paper tried to unravel the cultural experiences of the Oromo regarding the matter which contradicted with the...
The language of instruction issue in Tanzania: Pertinent determining factors and perceptions of education stakeholders
April 2014
The purpose of this study was to explore how education stakeholders in Tanzania express their perceptions and concerns regarding the use of English or Kiswahili as language of instruction in Tanzanian schools. The qualitative study was conducted in Tanzania between November 2011 and March 2012. 27 education stakeholders (13 females and 14 males) in five districts across Tanzania were interviewed. It was found out in the...
Narrative prose and its different types
October 2013
In general, prose is a written word which is near to an ordinary, colloquial and oral speech and lack of a literary explanation; for example, the prose of several inscriptions which is in a form of Dari language and literary expla-nation in them that indicates the aim of creating a work in the form of Persian Prose is not clear (Zarin Koob, 1986). In particular, prose is a word, although it is not a usual thing in...
Intertextuality of Deor
October 2013
The Deor is a poem found in the Exeter Book and included in the Old English elegies. The main purpose of this contribution is to highlight the possible intertextual links of the poem. After an outline of the old English elegies and a brief review of the most significant passages from the elegies, this short poem will be analyzed stanza by stanza. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that the...
A correlated analysis of students’ SSCE grade and performance in first year Use-of-English: A case study of Fountain University, Osogbo
October 2013
As a result of globalization, there has been need for people of varying backgrounds to interact at both the official and unofficial levels and certain languages such as English, French, German and Arabic have become second languages in many communities of the world, where they serve as languages of communication, interaction and relationships. Nigeria, being a British colony, adopted the English Language as its...
The effects of the verbal language on the performance of children with hearing impairments in mathematics in Zimbabwe
October 2013
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the verbal language (English) on children with Hearing impairments in their performance in mathematics. The study emerged from observation of practice, personal experiences and discussion with fellow teachers. Children under study were drawn from Bulawayo the second largest city and Gweru the third biggest city of Zimbabwe. Questionnaires were completed by a sample...
Survey of research terms used in Afan Oromo: With special reference to three universities in Ethiopia
September 2013
This study intends to investigate the status of research terms used in Afan Oromo in terms of their standardized level. From the researchers’ observation, it was found that students were using different terms when they write a proposal or the report of their thesis. Having this, the major objective of this research is to survey the research terms used in doing both action and basic research in Afan...
Perception of Night- A psychodynamically oriented study on Datta and Tagore
September 2013
Poetry and psychoanalysis often intersect; great writers intuitively know things that psychoanalysis can clinically prove. A study of these two domains would likely foster their unity. Keeping this in mind, two poems, Michael Madhusudan Datta’s Night and Tagore’s Night, were psychodynamically analysed. Freud and Jung’s psychoanalytical approach and Kris and Bellak’s theoretical assumptions of ego...
Verb Inflection in Xїmt’äŋa (Awwi)
August 2013
This study was conducted to assess the inflectional forms of verbs in [XÑ—mt’äÅ‹a][i]. It was a descriptive analysis which focused on the specific parts of the structure of verb inflections. The study used theoretical frameworks on verb inflections and qualitative method which were used to gather data from the informants. The central theme of the study was description and discussion of the...
Students’ first language writing skills and their English language proficiency as predictors of their English language writing performance
August 2013
This study endeavored to find out whether or not grade 11 students’ L1 (Amharic, in this case) writing and their L2 (English) proficiency could significantly predict their L2 writing. It also investigated whether or not the students’ L2 reading, grammar and vocabulary knowledge could significantly determine their L2 writing. To this end, students’ first semester final English...
The role of localized materials in learning of FFL students
July 2013
Investigating the role of localized materials in foreign language learning contexts is far from comprehension. This research was an attempt to investigate the effects of localized materials on students’ comprehension in a French foreign language context. 30 male and female Iranian learners of French were asked to read stories written by a native French author, Anna Gavalda and an originally Iranian story by...
The meaning of the Chinese cultural keyword xin
July 2013
In China, the word, xin 心 (often translated as ‘heart’) is frequently used and its concept is central to Chinese culture. However, its meaning is not exactly the same as ‘heart’ in English. Using qigong as the context, this article aims to explore the meaning of xin as a cultural keyword in order to gain an in-depth understanding of Chinese culture and knowledge within that cultural system....
In defense of Nigerian pidgin
July 2013
This paper attempts to argue that Nigerian Pidgin is a fully developed language with its own rich lexico-semantics and syntax, which have evolved like any other language through contact and modification. It argues that the semantic and lexical veracity of Nigerian Pidgin cannot be vitiated in spite of its serious marginalization.This position is established based on the outcome of an empirical study carried out on the...
Cross-cultural communication barriers between staff in overseas-funded enterprises and management strategies for overcoming them
June 2013
The issue of staff management in overseas-funded enterprises is a serious challenge faced by every manager. Because of different personnel management system, different organizational system and different supervision system, lots of troubles have emerged in these enterprises. In view of this, a sound overseas-funded enterprise should build up an effective system to promote healthy development, such as language...
Culture knowledge and its availability in language teaching and learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts
June 2013
It is a platitude that language teaching is nothing but teaching culture. This study is also another evidence for this saying. In other words, the aim of this study is, in fact, to highlight the role of teaching foreign language culture in language learning and teaching. To achieve this aim, two questionnaires were distributed among the students and teachers who participated in the study in Shiraz, Iran. The...
A cross-linguistic investigation of language apology speech act: A case of Persian and Kurdish Children
May 2013
This study aims at exploring the similarities and differences among strategies used in performing speech act of apologizing in Southern Kurdish (Kermanshahi Kurdish) and Persian children. The first goal is to find out whether Kurdish and Persian apologies are formulaic in pragmatic structure as in English apologies or not. The second goal of this study is to investigate the effect of the values assigned to the two...
Input enhancement and connected discourse: A case of EFL academic context
May 2013
This study was an attempt to explore the effect of input enhancement (through interaction and explanation) on EFL (English and Foreign Languages) university language learners’ connected discourse. Participants consisted of 54 EFL junior university language learners randomly divided into two experimental and one control group. Two input enhancement instructions, namely, input enhancement through...
Arranged marriage practices of the Vhavenda community of the Vhembe district, Limpopo province, South Africa
April 2013
The Vhavenḓa groups in the Vhembe district are related to each other. What is not known is how they come to be related. The reason is that they get married to their relatives. The other question is how family are involved in such marriages? Does any person arrange for someone to marry someone else? This paper seeks to investigate arranged marriage practices within the Vhavenḓa community. In particular, it...
On idiomaticity in English and Arabic: A cross - linguistic study
April 2013
The phenomenon of idiomaticity constitutes a common factor in all living languages and its appreciation is considered the cornerstone of learning and mastering any given language. The semantic, syntactic and pragmatic complexity of idiomatic expressions, in any language, poses a great deal of challenges to learners of that language, and also to translators translating from and/or into it. The main purpose of this paper...
Analysis of creativity and creative context in oral poetry
March 2013
This study aims to analyse creativity in oral poetry. The focal points are mainly three: the way oral created and /or poetry is produced, the purpose it serves and the research methods employed to diagnose these. It begins with brief introductory analysis of the study of oral poetry in general and proceeds to a descriptive analysis of a sub-genre of Oromoo Oral Poetry. The analysis is...
Exploration and evaluation of the mathematical values inculcation instrument
March 2013
The concept of a values system in education including mathematics education cannot be over emphasized. This is because value based education stands to be the rudiment of classical successes in the attainment of beneficial knowledge, that is the knowledge which is cognizant of the material and spiritual needs of the individual and the society. This study aims at investigating and understanding the underlying factors of...
‘Can I get an amen?’ The Black gospel church as discourse community and pedagogical model
December 2012
Too often times, educators assume that Standard English is static, that it is prone to infection from non-school discursive practices, and subsequently take on the role of "language police" by banning non-standard English from the classroom. This narrow view of 'what counts' as academic discourse ignores the organic nature of language, alienates increasing numbers of linguistically diverse...
The use of first language in developing ideas in second language writing according to Siti Hamin Stapa and Abdul Hameed Abdul Majid
December 2012
The role of the student’s native language (L1) in second language (L2) instruction has changed over time in significance and scope. It has also been a matter of contention among teachers. While some teachers believe that L1 plays a facilitative role in L2 learning and confidently translate their belief into classroom action, others stand contrary to this view and practice. And, a third group of teachers...
Phonology of Yem: Phonological processes
December 2012
This study attempted to analyze phonological processes in Yem, the language under Western Proto-Omotic. It was a descriptive analysis which focused on the specific points of the phonological processes including some descriptions of the segmental phonemes. Hence, the central theme of the study was to provide a descriptive explanation of properties of the phonemes in the target language. The data used in the...
Colonialism and the recreation of identity: The Irish Theatre as case study
November 2012
This study aims at highlighting the role of the Irish theatre in reviving Irish culture and establishing a dependent Irish identity. It also seeks to prove that theatre is used as means of resistance to English colonialism; it presents W. B. Yeats as an example of the Irish dramatists who played a significant role in the recreation of Irish national identity as an independent distinct identity. Actually,...
The teaching of English in Iran: The place of culture
November 2012
The present study is an attempt to reveal the attitudes of the Iranian high school and university learners towards the way culture is addressed in ELT (English language teaching) in Iran. Although, research of a similar nature has been done in other countries, the present study complements others by following 300 university and high school learners and it provides another avenue for examining the...
Between tradition and the requirements of modern life: Hlonipha in Southern Bantu societies, with special reference to Lesotho
October 2012
Linguistic taboos are still quite widespread in Southern Africa, confronting women with the dilemma of either contravening tradition or agreeing to a radical self-censorship in their communication. This paper, which is exploratory in nature, examines possible rationales for hlonipha and discusses the linguistic, social and ethical implications of hlonipha. It sketches the dilemma young...
Cases of domestication and foreignization in the translation of Indonesian poetry into English: A preliminary inquiry
October 2012
When translators are faced with a text that contains culturally sensitive elements, there are different strategies that they can use in translating the text. The strategy being chosen depends on a host of factors that include, among others, the purpose of the translation, the publisher’s power to dictate the translation, the translator’s own ‘power’ and mandate endowed to him/her, as...
Using blogs to promote reflective language learning
July 2012
Education is meant to bring about durable behavioral changes in the learner in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. In addition to learning specific contents and acquiring skills that are pertinent to certain fields of study, students need to be able to get, from their school experiences, the methods and techniques that help them become life-long learners. Learning how to learn is a vital skill in the...
Intervention through metacognitive development: A case study of a student with dyslexia and comorbid attention deficit disorder (ADD)
July 2012
Metacognition can be defined as taking control of and directing one's own thinking processes, and being aware of one's own cognitive strengths and limitations. It is the ability to understand, monitor and self-regulate cognition and is inseparable from intellectual functioning and learning. An important aspect of metacognition is the ability to show reflective awareness about the self, and knowledge...
Homonymy as a barrier to mutual intelligibility among speakers of various dialects of Afan Oromo
February 2012
This study intended to scrutinize how homonymous lexical items in Afan Oromo result in misunderstandings and confusions among speakers from differing dialect areas. The data for this study were collected from two groups of informants. The first category of informants consisted of twenty high school Afan Oromo teachers who have acquaintance with the media and people...
Learners of medical English as problem posers/solvers tackling real-life concerns
February 2012
To come to a critical understanding of personal experiences and existing knowledge, and to actively engage in knowledge production, an education based on problem posing and problem solving activities can open up the space to focus on people’s real life concerns and come to local solutions for personal problems. The present study is an account of how centralizing themes and concerns from learners’...
Strategies used in the translation of allusions in Hafiz Shirazi's poetry
January 2012
A translator who examines a text with a view to translate it will have a number of concerns. Among them, allusions are likely to become puzzles when they cross a cultural divide. Translating allusions can be a demanding task due to the fact that they simultaneously activate two texts and have specific meanings in the culture and language in which they arise but not _ necessarily in others. However, the use of...
Language use in the Islamic faith in Cameroon: The case of a Mosque in the city of Maroua
January 2012
This paper examines language use and religion, paying special attention to the languages of religious practices and the factors that determine the choice of these languages in a given polity. The data are drawn from a series of Friday congregational prayers in the main Mosque of the city of Maroua, the headquarters of the Far North region of Cameroon, an area where the Islamic faith has a high concentration...
Malaysian educational policy for national integration: Contested terrain of multiple aspirations in a multicultural nation
January 2012
This article discusses multiple perceptions and views about policy in Malaysian education policy which aims for achieving national integration in a multicultural setting. The discussion in this article is based on the policy research about Malaysian education policy and ethnicity issues that continue to be an important aspect in Malaysian education policy process aimed at achieving integration through the...
The bridegroom’s companion in Odia: A study in socio-cultural semantics
December 2011
A few Odia (earlier Oriya) lexicographers have accepted /ma:rkuNDi/ as a native word with the following meaning: ‘a boy accompanying the bridegroom to the bride’s house for marriage.’ But interestingly this boy cannot be just any boy; but either the bridegroom’s brother or cousin. Thus, /ma:rkuNDi/ represents a special role in the Odia society. I intend to discuss the socio-semantic aspects of...
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