A Pragmatic Study of Speech Acts Pertaining to Health Advice in Covid-19 Pandemic

People use the language to make propositional statements, entities, objects, state of affairs, and so on and fulfil functions such as apologising, introducing, requesting and denying, etc. Speech act can be described as the action performed in uttering something, and the directives are functions to direct people's behaviour. Advice is a directive speech act. Different linguists classified the advice into direct, indirect, and conventionally indirect. The use of advice has been applied in communication and the written form of humankind for a long time. The speaker intended to give benefit to the hearer when he /she gives advice. The present study intended to shed light on the notion of the pragmatics of communication of health advice in covid -19. The data of this study were fifteen public health advice related to covid-19 collected from the official website of the World Health Organisation (WHO). They have been analysed pragmatically based on their type, strategies, and advisories. The study also aims to find out the consciousness of EFL learners with the health advice of covid-19 and what degree of conciseness comes and literal comprehension. The results of the pragmatic analysis have shown that the frequent type of advice is directive, the frequent strategy is imperative, and the frequent advisories is advising. At the same time, the results of the conducted interview have shown full consciousness, partial consciousness, and non-consciousness of the health advice of covid-19.

Cultural Implications in Basic Color Terms “Black” and “White” in Chinese and English

Color is a kind of human perception towards the objective world. In intercultural communications, the English people and the Chinese people are different in many aspects, and their perceptions of various color symbols are not the same. Color words in English and Chinese languages have rich connotations and play a very important role in both cultural manifestations and ethnic customs. This article discusses the Chinese and English symbolic meanings of the two color words, “black” and “white” in Chinese and English cultures. By comparing and contrasting these two words’ differences in the two cultures, we can deepen understanding of the two cultures, overcoming the conflicts and promoting Chinese and English cross-culture exchanges and communications.

Evaluation: and Grading of Students' Writing: Holistic and Analytic Scoring Rubrics

The paper tries to investigate the most preferable writing scoring rubrics when assessing students' writing assignments and to find the dimensions that teachers who teach English as a foreign language (EFL) emphasize when scoring EFL writing summaries. Thirty male and female Jordanian EFL teachers who teach English in both basic and secondary schools were participated to collect the necessary data. To conduct the study, a questionnaire consisting of twenty-seven items was prepared and disturbed by the researchers to suit the purpose of the study. In order to analyze the participants' respondents in the questionnaire, the researchers calculate Percentages, Means, Standard Deviations. The results revealed that there is a high interest in using analytic scoring rubrics to correct their students’ writing. The total mean reached 3.27 with standard deviation (0.65) by high agreement degree. Moreover, the results also highlight the importance of using scoring rubrics as precise and effective methods to assess the learners’ writing performance.

Teaching Buddhist Vocabulary to the Undergraduates of the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka

Learning Buddhist terms in English is one of the main challenges that the English medium undergraduates of the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka face. As the majority of the undergraduates start English medium education for the first time in the university they struggle a lot to learn the Buddhist terms necessary for their studies in English medium. Moreover, the students need a wide range of productive vocabulary in preaching the Buddha’s Dhamma worldwide which is one of the prime objectives of the university. Traditionally, vocabulary teaching has been paid less attention and the most common way is giving vocabulary lists for students to memorize. However, the current study as one of its objectives proves that this traditional approach to vocabulary teaching is less effective as well as less interesting. As the second objective, the study introduces a task-based integrated approach to teach Buddhist terminology. Being mixed research the study has employed instruments like vocabulary tests, questionnaires and interviews with the students as well as the lecturers in addition to classroom observation. The study finds that an integrated approach through tasks as material followed by an eclectic teaching method based on the post method is more effective than teaching through vocabulary lists.

The Socio-phonetics and Morphosyntax of Language Variation in Jordan

This study investigates the linguistic choices made by the participants at the level of phonetics and morphosyntax in Irbid city. The study examines the way speakers reconstruct their new identity, as belonging to an upper social class rather than to their real middle class. The researcher assumed that he would find a lot of variation among the speakers in this city that is worth examining socio-linguistically, especially that Irbid is rich in linguistic variation and social contact. The data were extracted from the videos of ten field interviews. The researcher found that gender, age and education influence the way people speak. That is to say, the young people (both males and females) were more triggered to make linguistic changes than their aged counterparts. Besides, the females produced more vernacular variants than the males. This research attempts to investigate social class as an attraction, to which the speaker tries to reach, pushing him/her to make linguistic changes, rather than as a social factor affecting the speaker’s choices since this study assumes that the speaker makes linguistic changes as he/she reconstructs his/her identity in the new social class (the attraction or target). The study concludes that social class, in particular, serves as a motivation factor that pushes speakers to reformulate their identity.

The Emoji Linguistic Functions on Facebook Interactions among Undergraduate Students at Jadara University in Jordan

This study has made use of a mixed mode design where two instruments are employed namely a corpus based tool and a questionnaire. For three months, the researchers have observed Raseef Jadara Facebook website in order to explore the use of emoji in posts and comments. The results showed that five functions were emerged from the data collected, emotive, conative, phatic, poetic, referential and metalingual. Descriptive statistics were used in conducting a questionnaire in order to show the differences between male and female students in using emoji. The results showed that females prefer using emoji in their chatting or messaging. The researchers suggest further studies to be carried out on the language functions of emoji in other social media platforms Furthermore. It is recommended for other studies to be directed into investigating all language functions.

Multimodal- Stylistic Representation of Comparison in Airtel Nigeria 4G Visual Commercials

In semiotics, a code of communication which is a set of conventions used for meaning making can be spoken language, written language or an image. Modes of communication are used to accomplish a desired effect in daily social interaction. This social interaction can be found in the communication between the advertiser and the consumer, and the writer and the reader. This study analyses some of these modes used in the Airtel Nigeria 4G visual commercials and examines how the advertisers make use of the concept of the composition of elements in a multimodal text which bases on the idea that the advertisers and the viewers are abreast with what information is mutually known and understood. This view is explicitly shown in the composition of elements, words and images, combine aesthetics and persuasion through meaningful elements that form a coherent text of code-specific structures that produce meaning. The study follows the survey research design and the data is analysed following four steps of assigning incidents to frames, elaborating frames, relating themes to frames and interpreting the data as a coherent structure. The study concludes that the advertisers of Airtel Nigeria 4G visual commercials make ample use of metaphors associating 3G with negative frames and 4G with positive frames, drawing inspiration from gargets used daily by their audience. They vividly and successfully create a demarcation between 3G and 4G, persuading consumers to go for the Airtel Nigeria 4G products.

Persuasive Political Power Employed by Premier Imran Khan to Deform Identity: A Political Discourse Analysis

The researchers investigate Pakistani Premier Imran Khan’s (IK) speech in which he called Bilawal Bhutto Zardari – Sahiba. Similarly, the leaders strongly need to convince their supporters when they deliver speeches on public platforms. However, utilizing the persuasive political power, the Premier (IK) propagated identity to promote the specific ideology to gain political benefits. The present research employs Political Discourse Analysis (PDA), to understand the social and political persuasive style employed by the premiere. The researchers have analyzed the data employing a qualitative approach. There are reliable findings to suggest that IK has successfully used stable vocabulary (taboo) to persuade the specific supporters, convincing them to deform the identity of Bilawal Bhutto. Later, the Premier faced considerable criticism from the opposition. However, for the time being, he successfully dominated through sociological and persuasive power sourcing the meaning-making structures of power. Hence, the politicians often convince their supporters/followers to utilize political-strategic tools and to remain in their political procession against their opponents.

Compulsory English Language Teaching in Taibah University at Undergraduate Level: Problems and Challenges

Believe it or not, attitude can be an obstacle.To learn any language, positive attitude is prerequisite, and a learner needs to go for it. Learning English as a foreign language is certainly not an easy task. Particularly if you are learning English in a non-English-speaking country. English language teaching and learning always attracts the attention of young minds and young generations across the globe for many pedagogical, sociolinguistic, and economic reasons. The present study focuses on teaching English to the students of Arabic and Islamic studies as their compulsory paper at Taibah University. The research paper is based on action research carried out at Al Ula campus, Taibah University. Compulsory English course specification caters to a mixed and mostly large group of students who belong to different social, cultural, economic, and regional background. It is because of this reason; the primary focus of this study is to find out the problems and challenges among learners and teachers. More precisely, the impact and interference of mother tongue (Arabic), lack of opportunity to use English in day to day activities, approach concerning learning English, and inefficacy of EFL learning and teaching.

Exploring Types of Graffiti at Jadara University in Jordan

This study aims to explore types of graffiti at Jadara University in Jordan. The study sample consists of (130) graffiti works from Jadara University, Jordan. The sample is randomly selected from the university public places. To achieve the purpose of the study, critical discourse analysis is used. The study revealed that the most common types of graffiti are: personal and emotional, social, national, religious, sport, and academic ones. In light of the results, the study recommends studying graffiti works from a psychological point of view to more understand the hidden messages in graffiti works found. Future research examining the differences in graffiti types and functions between different groups of students (e.g. in public vs. private university) is needed. Studying graffiti works from a psychological point of view to more understand the hidden messages in graffiti works found is also needed.