Language Policy as a Barrier between Practitioners and Patients: A Study on Spoken Communication in Saudi Hospitals

This paper sheds light on the language policy in Saudi hospitals and how it creates barriers between medical practitioners and patients. Based on the researcher’s observation and what other researchers found, language barriers hinder communication and result in less meaningful linguistic interaction. Thus, there is a need to explore the language policy in Saudi hospitals. Consequently, the research attempts to reveal the impact of language barriers on spoken communication between medical practitioners and patients. It also examines the influence of gender, age, and education as variables that affect this linguistic interaction. The number of participants in the study includes 30 medical practitioners and 30 Saudi patients. A mixed-method design is applied using a web-based questionnaire and audio-recorded interviews.

Animal Proverbs in Jordanian Popular Culture: A Thematic and Translational Analysis

The present paper deals with a corpus of 70 animal proverbs in Jordanian/Arab popular culture. It shows that these proverbs have touched on a wide variety of motifs in most walks of life, a fact which is attributed to the key role animals have played in Arab nomadic lifestyle from medieval ages up to present time. That is why utterances involving reference to animals have soon acquired proverbial status and a wide metaphorical application. In terms of translation, animal proverbs seem to be able to travel into English supported by annotation and/or relevant contexts in different text types, In particular, the process of intercultural transfer is largely enhanced by accessing familiar proverbial templates in the target language.

Pragmatic Study of Photo Captions on the Amotekun Security outfit of South West Nigeria

Communication is central to human existence and this is made possible by employing not only verbal language but also visual images as both are mediums of information dissemination. This study investigates the pragmatic elements in photo captions on the Amotekun security outfit of Southwest, Nigeria in tandem with the pragmatic act theory of Mey (2001) and complemented with Hoye’s and Kaiser’s visual act theory (2007). Data for the study were judgementally selected from the social media platform, Twitter, in January 2020. Fifteen photos were originally sampled but only eight met the objective of this study. Data was subjected to a qualitative interpretation and the result of findings revealed that five (05) of the sampled data were assertive allopracts, two (02) expressive allopracts and one (01) a directive allopract. The paper concluded on the note that the Amotekun is a welcome development in the region as the result of findings revealed but cautioned that the major objective for the creation of the outfit should not be for personal gratification or to achieve political goals by Governors of the region rather it should be for the protection of lives and properties of people in the six states that make up the region.

A Needs Analysis Questionnaire: Designing and Evaluation

This paper explores the reasons for the existence of a needs analysis questionnaire and attempts to define the needs of the learners in a specific teaching context. The aim is to clearly state the theory lying behind the particular field, explain the design of the questionnaire and demonstrate the findings. Needs analysis is a matter of great importance as it can greatly assist both teachers and learners, as well. The former could better apprehend their students needs and requirements and therefore provide them with the best standards of education. The latter could significantly benefit from the adjusted lessons targeted to their particular needs and consequently, acquire knowledge through a pleasant and less stressful procedure.

Mediation Analysis in Linguistics: Essentials for Good Practice

This review article attempts to provide a comprehensive view of mediation analysis with an emphasis on its use in linguistic research. It presents an overview of the basic statistical techniques and tools necessary for the study of the mechanisms underlying the relationships between a predictor, an outcome, and an intermediate variable(s). Traditional methods of inference (e.g., the four-step approach of Baron & Kenny, the Sobel test, and the Structural Equation Modelling) and bootstrapping are described. Direct, indirect, and total effects are defined and the difference between them is clearly shown through examples. This paper, also, tries to focus on some of the most important criterion that should be considered when conducting mediation analysis in order to avoid some critical mistakes that may bias the results of the analysis (e.g., the timing criterion, confounding, sample size) and provides a short review showing the lack of mediation-based research in the field of Linguistics.

Evil is the Root of All Money: Performing Usury and Homosocial Credit in Elizabethan/Jacobean England

Performing Usury and Homosocial Credit in Elizabethan/Jacobean England. Elizabethan and Jacobean usury plays bear witness to an evolving sensibility regarding usury, money and social relations surrounding the turn of the 16th Century. A survey of plays reveals a tendency to vilify the usurer in an increasingly comic way until he becomes a trope or stock character-type void of any deep critical characterization. However, framing the cycle of plays are The Merchant of Venice circa 1597 and A New Way to Pay Old Debts in 1625. These two plays present a higher level of tension or anxiety in the characterization and plight of the usurer in less comic terms than many of the plays with which they were contemporary. The monetary commerce of the usurer is polarized against a network of homosocial credit which the usurer is barred from entering in a binary opposition. There seems to be an anxiety that monetary increase poses a threat to the aristocratic birthright. It only makes sense then, that the all-male playing companies would portray any threat to the necessary social trade-trust in a negative light. Of particular interest is the larger number of asides in the so called usury plays, both marked and apparent, which are clearly aimed at the audience and act to gain complicity with a largely plebian audience for an aristocratic homosocial sensibility that requires all levels of society to participate in order to defend itself. If the exchange of money and social credit are closely followed in The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and A New Way to Pay Old Debts, homosocial credit is aligned with virtue while monetary credit is depicted as a rising threat worthy of risibility or punishment.

The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Dozens of papers and books have been written on the subject of the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. Calling into question the probability or even the possibility of the man named Shakespeare being the true author, ‘anti-stratfordians’ have made the case for such authorship candidates as Christopher Marlowe, Sir Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford. The body of evidence supporting Shakespeare’s authorship is convincing but not conclusive and the question continues to produce passionate responses from both pro- and anti-Shakespearean supporters. The doubter’s motives within the ongoing debate have only been explored incidentally as a function of discrediting the argument against Shakespeare. If the answer to the question is unprovable, why has it continued to be asked? The Shakespeare Authorship Question has been motivated by elitist sensibilities, personal ambition, academic insecurity, and a form of worship called bardolatry.

Afterthoughts on Semantics of Compounds

This paper is primarily devoted to outlining the word-formation trends in English, specifically to compounding. Firstly, we trace a variety of attempts seeking to expose various approaches connected with word derivation, secondly, the paper reports research findings from semantic classification of compounds. Compounding has been the subject of great many linguistic discussions. However, we have shown in the article that further insights into this subject-matter can exposome unexpected trends. Somehow the research touches upon the semantics of compounds ,i.e. semantic relationships reigning between its constituents. Specifically, an attempt is made to clear up the matter concerning the definition of compounds; as we can’t find a straightforward answer to this question we try to seek areas of agreement among this great diversity of opinions.

Toleration as a Subject for World Education? Past and Present Perspectives for Students the World Over Based on Literary-Historical Material

This study reexamines the meaning of education in global terms as the foundation of all open and democratic societies both in the past and the present. Literary studies create useful mirrors taking the learner into the past where parallel cases of human problems and conflicts existed. The learning experience then allows the individual to carry the new insights back to the own presence and to apply them to current situations. This process can and must be applied particularly to the principle of tolerance, one of the highest ideals in all of education. In order to illustrate this concept, this study examines Boccaccio’s Decameron and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise as model cases for global education leading to a more peaceful and mutually respectful world.

Introduction to the Study of “Kitab al-Hikayat al-‘Ajiba wa-l- Akhbar al-Ghariba”

The Kitab al-Ḥikāyāt al-‘Ajība wa-l-Akhbār al-Gharība (Book of Amazing Stories and Rare News) is an anonymous work written in Arabic that collects forty-two stories which are similar to those found included in compendia of popular Arab literature of the Middle Ages, such as The Thousand and One Nights. This article is an introduction to its study, and it includes the editions and the translations made on this interesting book as well as its narrative structure and content, according to the manuscript Istanbul Ayasofya Müzesi no.3397, edited by Hans Wehr and Alexander von Bulmerincq in 1956.