Examining the Use of Personal Pronouns in Political Speeches by Tun Dr. Mahathir and President Trump

Personal pronouns are often used to the point they often get overlooked. Unlike content words, they do not convey meaning but portray the perception of the speaker (Nakaggwe, 2012). Looking deeper into this, personal pronouns have the power to include or exclude a person or people of the subject (Khafaga, 2021), and it is crucial to master them especially in the political context. However, cultural differences exist in the use of personal pronouns since culture affects the way a person communicates and interprets information (Gocheco, 2012). For this reason, this qualitative research attempts to identify the use of personal pronouns, specifically those that demonstrate inclusiveness and exclusiveness, in the collectivistic Malaysian and individualistic American cultures, and compare the similarities and differences in the use of personal pronouns in speeches given by Tun Dr. Mahathir who represents the collectivistic Malaysian culture and Mr. Trump who represents the individualistic American culture. The AntConc software was used to determine the speech profiles and identify the personal pronouns based on the coding schemes and guidelines. It was found that the most popular personal pronoun used in their speeches is we, while the least popular are me and the subject singular you. They was used more frequently by Tun Dr. Mahathir to indirectly address the audience, while Mr. Trump opted to directly convey his message by using the plural you. The results have practical implications for speech writing and political persuasion and negotiation skills.

An Analysis on Newly Introduced English Verb in Oxford English Dictionary in 2016-2018: Levin’s Taxonomy of Verb Classification and Verbnet

Levin (1993) argues that the behaviour of verbs is determined by word meaning which is directly linked to the expression and interpretation of its argument. Based on this statement, Levin classified verbs into 48 classes and VerbNet, an English verb lexicon was created based on the extension of Levin’s taxonomy of verb classification (VC). Therefore, this study presents the classification of the updated English verbs of 2016 to 2018 in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to examine the relevance of Levin’s VC and VerbNet in the recently added repertoire of verbs. In Addition, the study seeks to find out the new verb classes introduced in this study. This study uses a mixed-method to identify and classify the verbs. To conclude, this study found that both classifications were applicable and relevant in 14 new main verb classes introduced to classify the verbs that did not belong to Levin’s VC and VerbNet. Hence, this contributes to the body of knowledge as the newly introduced verb classes could be used based on the given semantic and syntactic conditions.

A Study of Cultural Elements in High Level Chinese Language Textbooks for Primary National School

This study examines the cultural elements in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) based on six high-level of National Primary School’s Chinese Language (BCSK) textbooks, which are textbooks of BCSK KBSR (Primary School Integrated Curriculum) Standard four to Standard six and textbooks of BCSK KSSR (Primary School Standard Curriculum) Standard four to Standard six in order to investigate the changes of cultural elements content and describe the features of cultural elements in this two sets of high-level BCSK textbooks. Researcher has used library research methods and information technology methods to collect data and then use quantitative and qualitative analysis methods to calculate cultural elements in high-level BCSK textbooks by referenced to the criteria of classification of cultural elements which designed by researcher based on previous studies as well as the references of TCSL experts. The results showed that (1) high level BCSK KSSR textbooks are found that had more cultural elements for the total number of 622 compared to 522 in high-level BCSK KBSR textbook with the increasing of 19.16% and (2) high-level BCSK KSSR textbooks can be said to be more ideal to fostering communicative competence as the cultural elements in this set of BCSK textbooks are more geared towards communicative cultural elements with a record rate of 46.30% compared to 39.27% only in high-level BCSK KBSR textbooks.

Japanese Language Students' Perceptions on Online Nihongo Partner Program

The pandemic that hit in early 2020 has caused face-to-face Nihongo Partner Program to be postponed. As a result, Japanese language lecturers in a public university have come out with an online program to be utilized by students who are learning Japanese and also Japanese students who will be participating in the practical training in teaching Japanese. A study using a quantitative approach was conducted once the program ended. 465 students who participated in the program responded to the survey. The survey questions which consisted of two parts were answered by the respondents. Part A questions related to the background of the respondents while part B has five components which includes (i) respondent reaction during the program, (ii) respondent reaction before the program,(iii) respondent reaction during the program, (iv) respondent reaction after the program, (v) comments and suggestions for improvement. In components i-iv, respondents have to choose five likert scales, while component (v) requires respondents to provide comments and suggestions in written form. The questions of the survey are to answer (1) respondents’ perceptions of this program, (2) strengths and weaknesses of this program, (3) improvements that can be made for the future program. The results of the study found that most of the students agreed that the online NP Program (1) is positive and can be utilized for learning Japanese, (2) improves speaking skills with the correct pronunciation and intonation, increases confidence to speak in Japanese either with Japanese people or classmates, providing an opportunity for respondents to use Japanese language. However, (3) some respondents expressed a fear of making mistakes with the presence of native speakers. From the survey a total of 19 suggestions and improvements were given by the respondents.

Metaphor, Religion, and Gender: A Case Study of Metaphor Analysis in Islamic Motivational Speech Corpus

Metaphor plays a vital role in human communication and its presence is evident in various discourses across genres. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity in the study of metaphors used among different genders especially in religious discourse. Thus, the current study aims to examine metaphor use in religious motivational speeches between two (male and female) speakers. A corpus-based approach, that involved analysis of keywords, collocation, and concordance, was selected in identifying linguistic metaphors while conceptual mapping (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) was chosen to identify conceptual metaphors in both corpora. The main data consist of four speeches of Yasmin Mogahed (YM Corpus) and four speeches of Nouman Ali Khan’s speeches (NAK Corpus) retrieved from their YouTube Channels. #LancsBox 5.0 was chosen as the tool in analysing the language patterns. From the findings, it can be concluded Yasmin used a higher frequency of metaphors compared to Nouman. This is evident from the results in the collocation analysis in YM corpus that showed seven collocates (‘SWT’, ‘heart’, ‘foundation’, ‘healthy’, ‘fear’, ‘solid’, and ‘fill’) were predetermined to have signals of metaphorical expressions as compared to NAK corpus that only has four collocates (‘evil’, ‘syirik’, ‘religion’, and ‘faith’) with signals of metaphorical expressions. It is also apparent that the variety of metaphors used by Yasmin is more diverse (BUILDING, HUMAN/LIVING ORGANISM, TREE, and CONTAINER metaphors) as compared to Nouman that only uses COMPUTER FILE and CONTAINER metaphors. Yasmin’s choice of metaphors seems to be heavily influenced with the common metaphors used in the Qur’an, while Nouman’s lack choice of metaphors indicate his preference in explaining religious concepts through literal explanation instead of metaphorical one. Future studies are recommended to have a bigger sample to better differentiate the metaphor usage between genders. It is also imperative for future research to further examine the implications of different choice of metaphors on the construction of meaning in the Islamic motivational religious corpus between different genders.

Nativised English Lexemes and Semantic Shift in Malaysian English

In Malaysia, Malaysian English is a variety that is very much known by the speech community and commonly used for colloquial communication. Although many studies have been conducted in exploring the development of ME within various aspects, little research have focused on the development of English lexemes of semantic shift in ME. Thus, as empirical literatures in the field have shown that lexis and semantics are constantly evolving from time to time, it is imperative that more research studies should also be conducted to investigate on the identification of frequently used indigenized English lexemes as well as validating its meanings in the Malaysian context so that linguists and researchers will have a better understanding on the current lexical trends in Malaysia and so that more research can further explore other aspects of these current trending lexicals among different social groups in the Malaysian speech community. Based on a descriptive cross-sectional survey approach through the distribution of questionnaires, findings shows that frequently used English lexemes of semantic shift in ME are found to be under the category of informalization in ME and that most of the meanings of the words in the study were agreed by respondents. However, comments from the respondents also shows that several words could also have wider and deeper meanings in ME which is why this study suggests that further research studies can be conducted to investigate this phenomenon.

Categorized and Mapping the Lexical Meaning that Describing Sexual Harassment (Obscenity/Lewd) Crimes in Malay Tabloid Press

The categorization of meanings against lexical items that have multiple meanings or that undergo an expansion of meaning often poses problems to language users. This is because language users are often confused and unsure of the true meaning of a lexical item based on the context of its use. Studies on lexical semantics have been extensively conducted but most of the studies conducted focus on the meaning of adjectives, idioms and verbs only. Studies linking word meaning to sexual crime using newspaper data are still considered new and still lacking in number. This study, which uses Prototype Theory, will utilize digital newspaper data, namely Harian Metro, which is expected to fill the existing gaps. This prototype theory is proven to help unravel the cognitive processes involved as the reader tries to understand the true meaning of the word meaning that describes this obscene sexual crime. This study also proves that the use of cognitive semantics by utilizing prototype theory as well as the concept of lexical mapping has helped the process of utterance comprehension take place. All these cognitive processes are used in helping the reader understand the true meaning of a word. This study proves that the lexical used to describe the obscene crime is easily understood by the reader but there are other features that can be used by the author to describe the obscene sexual crime. This aims to further facilitate the reader's understanding of obscene sexual crimes. Overall, the results of this study found that the lexical used is appropriate to the concept of the crime of obscenity.

Expressions of Criticality in Expert and Student Writing: A Corpus Contrastive Analysis of Literature Reviews

Literature review in academic writing plays an integral role in demonstrating writers’ knowledge about a field of study as well as in informing the writers of influential researchers and research groups in the field. More importantly, writers are expected to critically analyze previous studies related to their topic. Despite its importance to the academic text, student writers find it challenging to establish a critical stance and to provide evaluative judgment when reviewing the literature. This paper presents a contrastive analysis of student and expert writers’ expressions of criticality in literature review sections of 8 applied linguistics master theses from UiTM (a Malaysian public university) and 62 literature reviews of research journal articles from a similar field (i.e., Language and Communication, English for Academic Purposes and Applied Linguistics). Corpus techniques are used to identify the most common expressions of criticality used by these two groups of writers. The corpus was analyzed using detailed consistency analysis and concordance software from WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2012). Findings revealed that student writers prefer to use hedges and boosters to express criticality and the evaluations they make tend to sound more reporting rather than analyzing and synthesizing the resources critically. Results from this study are beneficial for constructing pedagogical instructions and guidelines for student writers in their critical analysis of the literature review.

Analysing Morphological Errors in ESL Graduating Students’ Writing based on Surface Structure Taxonomy

Empirical studies have examined errors committed by ESL learners at different levels of study in terms of its inconsistency with the standard form of English grammar rules in general. This study, on the other hand, looked into the errors in the English morphological system of a language that deals with the minimal units of linguistic form and meaning. By understanding the errors from the morphological perspective, instructors may also be able to figure out the specific causal factors that can help devise their methods and approach to teaching. As the English language performance of the graduates in this country has been publicly lamented by employers, this study focused on the writing products of graduating students to see the common errors made and to understand the interfering factors so that any intervention initiatives to improve their English language proficiency can be objectively proposed. The data were procured from a mock writing exit test of 60 graduating students from a public university. The Theory Taxonomy of Dulay or Surface Structure Taxonomy framework was used for data analysis. The data were treated quantitatively in terms of frequency counts of errors occurred in each category. The findings indicate that the errors were prevalent in the Omission category, followed by Addition, Misformation and Misordering. This has significant pedagogical implications on developing intervention or remedial programmes for graduating students.

Effectiveness of ‘Pocket Mandarin’ for Online Learning among Mandarin as a Foreign Language Basic Learners

In the face of difficulties of teaching and learning due to the impact of Covid-19, online lessons have become vital. This has also affected the teaching of Mandarin as a foreign language at universities. Since Mandarin is considered as a difficult language to learn especially to non-native learners, teaching online has posted an even greater challenge to Mandarin language instructors. This study thus examines the use of a combination of platforms and applications online, customised to create an online learning system called ‘Pocket Mandarin’ to facilitate online Mandarin learning at the beginner level. The purpose is primarily to enable learning to take place in a fun and interactive manner by means of online flashcards, pronunciation, games and quizzes placed in an LMS platform called Padlet. To better understand how ‘Pocket Mandarin’ can effectively facilitate online teaching and learning among EFL basic learners at the tertiary level, a survey method was applied and it consisted of 5 parts which are students’ motivation, students’ attitude, cognitive development, design and interface as well as expectations. The results show that ‘Pocket Mandarin’ was positively accepted by the students who found the lessons motivating, upbuilding, cognitively applicable, with exceptional design and interface and was better than their initial expectations. Thus, there is great potential for the ‘Pocket Mandarin’ to be widely used at a greater scale.