The Translator as a Communicator: Bracketed Insertions Eliciting Mutual Cooperation with Receptors

The present study aims at observing how bracketed insertions in translation elicit mutual cooperation with receptors. As a survey-based study applying to an officially approved English interpretation of the Quran, it seeks to examine whether any insertions in brackets hinder the SL message from being well-conveyed and for what reasons they may be left out of it. Methodically, a multifaceted, self-administered questionnaire including two text-types of the Quran with an identical set of questions per each was completed by 73 potential English-speaking readers. Found to be generally cooperative, the subject insertions were agreed to be true (78.8%) and informative (74.7%) in favor of the Madani text but not to be relevant (72.6%) nor perspicuous (76.9%) in favor of the Makki one. They were helping to those having any knowledge of Arabic, translating and the Quran yet hindering to those having no knowledge of Arabic, translating or the Quran. The technical insertions depending on the translator’s view of an appropriate relationship between the author’s text and the TL version were the most frequent ones to be left out in favor of the Madani text for ‘saying irrelevant, unimportant things’. Eventually, an improved interpretation is recommended as many TAiPs could be included, adapted, modified or excluded.INTRODUCTION

Teaching Communicatively in a Classroom with Mobile-sourced Materials

Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is now common in extra-curricular language learning, but, more recently, teachers have increasingly sought ways to utilise MALL as a communicative classroom tool. Research into the extent that MALL can transform a whole communicative language course, and learners’ impressions of such courses, is scarce. This study, therefore, sought the opinions of five undergraduate learners on a short communicative English language course based on communicative principles, with materials entirely sourced from learner’s own devices. Learner reflections elicited in interviews suggested that MALL had aided the facilitation of an environment that was interactive, motivating, differentiated, authentic and autonomous, at times potentially more so than on a course using traditional material sources. The novel aspect of allowing freedom in choosing materials caused some complications, though none were considered insurmountable with minor adjustments to the course plan. In summary, student reactions implied that a communicative course could be taught exclusively through mobile-sourced materials, but further research is required to identify exactly how this would best be achieved. Nevertheless, findings here give reasons for practitioners to explore methods of classroom teaching inclusive of MALL that encourage self-directed learning, the creation of a platform for interaction, personalization, differentiation, a shared experience for learners and elements of game-play.

The First Field Experience: Perceptions of ESOL Pre-Service Teachers

Researchers have recognized pre-service teachers’ field experiences as a pivotal element for enhancing teaching practices. Research indicates pre-service teachers usually are optimistic about teaching. However, when pre-service teachers encounter complexities in classrooms, their optimism fades. There is little research about ESOL pre-service teachers’ perceptions of field experiences. In this inquiry, we focused on pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their first field experience with ESOL students in a southeastern United States public school. We selected a multiple case study to conduct this qualitative research. We collected the data through student interviews, field experience reports, and the participants’ journals before and after the field experience. Our discoveries through constant comparative analysis centered on ESOL pre-service teachers’ perceptions of field experience, teaching strategies and pedagogical competence, and development stages of teachers. The findings of the present study indicated that field experience serves as a catalyst to facilitate the learning process for ESOL pre-service teachers. Teacher educators can adopt field experiences to challenge preservice teachers. Field experiences can be helpful tools in the developmental stages of teachers. These experiences can help preservice teachers gain insight into the culturally sensitive strategies required for ESOL courses. The findings of this study proved Khoshnevisan’s (2017) developmental stages of teachers.

Experiences of Graduate Students in Turkish Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic Process

The aim of this study is to reveal the experiences of graduate students in the field of Turkish education during the pandemic process. Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The sample of the research consists of graduate and doctoral students studying at different universities. Easily accessible case sampling was used to determine the study group. The data of the study were collected with the interview guide prepared by the researchers and given the final shape after the expert opinion was taken. The study group was reached by using internet tools (Zoom) and data were collected. The content analysis of data was made. As a result of the research, it was seen that during the pandemic process graduate students experienced advantages such as increased technological opportunities, accessing to online materials easily, time saving and efficient studying opportunities. However, disadvantages such as inefficient lessons, lack of interaction, inability to focus on lessons, data collection problems, and inability to benefit from libraries were also revealed as problems experienced by graduate students. Students expect technological opportunities to continue, but to ensure normalization in some issues that cannot be resolved with these opportunities. They think that face-to-face education is more qualified, communication is better, and research can be done more effectively.

Arabic Lexical Phrases

The Arabic traditional grammar as well as Chomsky’s mainstream theory may not be able to provide a good analysis of some fixed Arabic phrases. The challenge of such data directly stems from the fact that the general syntactic rules assumed by the two opposing theories cannot explain the syntactic and the semantic aspects of the fixed Arabic data. I argue that the Construction Grammar provides an adequate account that does not rely on syntactic structure alone, as assumed by the mainstream theory or the Arabic traditional grammar, but rather it links phonological, syntactic, and semantic information together in one basic construction by means of some correspondence rules. The Arabic data proves that there is a strong need for a linguistic theory that takes into consideration all data of different range of productivity.

Titters at Black-and-White Moral Absolutism: Portrayal of Characters in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan

This paper examines Oscar Wilde’s portrayal of characters in his famous comedy Lady Windermere’s Fan in an attempt to unravel the mystery behind the seemingly contradictory acts of behavior which are at odds with their inclinations and the attitudes they often express in their dialogues with one another. Since critics have been holding controversial views about Wilde’s craftsmanship in character delineation, the paper endeavors to prove that he meant to avoid black-and-white moral absolutism to prove that a human being is essentially unpredictable, and has a multi-facetted self which is far more sophisticated than being drawn as either good or bad. I argue that Wilde’s craftsmanship should not be under question, for his portrayal of characters is correlated to the focal point of the play which maintains that human behavior cannot be measured by a yardstick. At the beginning, I include an analysis of characters’ sayings and acts of behavior, and thereafter I briefly elucidate how Wilde utilizes them to communicate his message. The upshot of this paper contests that a human being is a potentiality that keeps unfolding. The more a person experiences life, the better he\ she tolerates difference and shows more understanding of people’s nature and motives. This seems to be the crux of Wilde’s play and the interpretation of his seemingly contradictory delineation of characters.

Chinese Ethnic Minorities and their Oral Poetry: A Perspective from Ethnopoetics

Ethnopoetics involves in the conducting of translation experiments on oral poems of native ethnic groups, converting its relevant oral texts into written forms. The theory of ethnographic poetry begins in the 1970s and was translated and introduced to China in the early 21st century. However, most ethnic minorities in China do not have textual writings. Their oral creations from primitive society to modern society such as epics, long poems, narrative poems, ballads, and folk songs are mostly in form of oral poetry. The collection and translation of oral poems of ethnic minorities in China began in the late 1950s, that demarcated the beginning of ethnopoetics in China. In this article, the reasons behind the collection and translation of Chinese ethnic minority oral poems will be analysed. The restoration process of ethnopoetics and the connections between the collections and the translations, and the issues on whether translation is consistent to Chinese ethnic minority oral poems will also be further elaborated. The history of Chinese ethnic minorities oral poetry traces back to a long history and consists of a variety of themes and contents. Therefore, the restoration process of ethnopoetic research on the relationship between oral culture and written culture not only have gained the attention from the Chinese academic community, but also shown strong interests by the Western academic research community and worldwide.

Electronic Complaints: An Empirical Study of Negative Reviews from Amazon.com Users

Unprecedented advances have been seen in E-commerce with the spread of digital commerce and customer relations on commercial websites, such as Amazon. As a result, investigation of this type of communication has opened up new horizons for discourse analysts. This study aims to identify the complaint strategies used by customers and the reasons behind them. With this in mind, the researchers formed a corpus of the most helpful negative reviews posted on Amazon. Similar to previous studies on complaints in spoken communication, the present analysis investigated the different complaint strategies speakers used to formulate their complaints. Additionally, politeness strategies and face concerns were examined in these complaints. The results indicated that customers used eight different complaint strategies, the most frequent being showing their disappointment, anger and annoyance while making their complaints. The reasons for their complaints were delivery problems and unhelpful customer services behaviours.

There Was a Young Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: Understanding the Juxtaposition of Love, Hate, And Patriarchal ConfinementIn Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy”

In the opening of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” one glimpses a troubled young woman struggling to break free from patriarchal confinement. In a stark play on imagery, she equates her tomb of darkness to a “black shoe” where she has submissively “lived like a foot//Barely daring to breathe or Achoo” for her entire life (Plath 2-3,5). Plath opens the poem with an oppressive tone of confinement. Her tone is that of a victim unable to break free from the powerful pressing of her father. The daughter is acknowledging her life-long imprisonment through the image of conformity and obedience. Her testimony, “You do not do, you do not do/Anymore.” is an awakening, an ethereal understanding, she is no longer satisfied with being under her father’s foot (Plath 1-2). She mocks her submissiveness and fear by “Barely daring to breathe.” or express her autonomy outside of the domineering treatment designated by her father (Plath 5). “Daddy” juxtaposes the extremely childish and infantile dependency on the image of father versus the inherent desire to break free from the entrapment of masculine dominance. As Maher Mahdi points out in the article “From a Victim of the Feminine Mystique,” Plath is using “aspects of objectification” to create a breakdown of the typical family dynamic between father and daughter (98). The struggle is real, vigorous, and traumatic to the daughter speaking blatantly throughout the lines of “Daddy.” The battle rages as father and daughter fight metaphorically within the confines of the speaker’s mind. Plath offers the war-torn country as a backdrop to ease the reader into a sense of disquiet and upheaval. There is something obscenely immature in her attachment to the deceased father. She loves and hates him, desires her independence yet craves the security of her dependency, and she longs for him and yet strives to exorcise his demon from within her own soul. This emotional upheaval allows the reader to assess the speaker’s mental anguish and analyze “Daddy” on a more complex level. This study will explore 1) The juxtaposition of victim versus villain in the familial relationship of father and daughter; 2) The daughter’s search for autonomy and her unhealthy Oedipus complex; 3) Establishing identity beyond infantile attachment, or as Maher Mahdi points out, breaking free from immaturity requires a certain amount of viciousness in order for the daughter’s true liberation (Mahdi 100); 4) The exposure of the Jekyll and Hyde persona, which is noted by Isabelle Travis as the “blurred line” between recognizing the issues and finding one’s own part in the familial downfall (Travis 279).

Distanced Language Education during the Pandemic from the Perspectives of Foreign Language Instructors

This study aims to examine the opinions of foreign language instructors who teach at preparatory classes through distance education during the pandemic. Based on this objective, five instructors working at a School of Foreign Languages at a state university in Turkey were interviewed and their opinions regarding the positive and negative aspects of distance language teaching were revealed. Moreover, the problems they faced, materials they used, and their willingness to teach through distance education after the pandemic were questioned. Qualitative research method was used in the study. The interviews were decoded and themes were determined. The themes and codes were organized and interpreted using the ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis programme. The findings revealed four main categories: learning, student, teaching, and assessment and evaluation. Giving education without time and space restrictions, encouraging individual learning, fostering digital learning, and being economical were some of the positive aspects. As for negative aspects, it could be stressed that the instructors were not able to interact with the students adequately and, particularly, they were unable to teach and support the students’ speaking and writing skills at the desired level. From the findings, the use of distance education partially after the pandemic can be suggested as it offers various advantages of time, place, and economy to learners and teachers in education.