Motivational Quotes on Social Media: A Rhetorical Appraisal

The world we live in has become an ocean filled with undulating waves of motivational messages. People ply the earth with vain looks; every unfortunate encounter seems to be welcomed with lots of bitterness. What can be done to remedy this situation? This is where motivational speakers come to the stage. When people face various life challenges, they often resort to a motivational quote for a bit of inspiration. This study sets out to look at the rhetoric in some motivational quotes in a bid to elicit those elements that make them more resonant to the extent that some have become celebrated parts of society's lexicon. Using the rhetorical theory by (Selzer 2003), we discovered from the 100 quotes analyzed from Facebook that a subtle combination of good words mitting, motivational psychology and rhetorical appeals inspire people. Well-structured messages that use figures of speech and appeal to our inspirational nature can be meaningful and powerful in shaping our thoughts hence aiding us to appreciate some valuable things in our lives that have been underestimated.

Semiotics Analysis in The Betawi Traditional Wedding "Palang Pintu": The Study of Semiotics Roland Barthes

The Palang Pintu tradition is a tradition that is part of the Betawi wedding ceremony. In this study, the semiotic analysis of Roland Barthes was used. This study uses extra-qualitative research methods with an interpretive approach as a complement. This linguistic research is classified as interpretive research because it relies on interpreting texts that can be related to the context in it, such as ideological, moral, cultural, and spiritual values. In this study, the researcher aimed to analyze the meaning of the Palang Pintu procession in terms of semiotics. From the results of the study, it can be concluded that in Palang Pintu, there are 1) meanings of denotation in the procession of the Palang Pintu, processions are starting from the dustur prayer, greetings, rhyme contests, fighting, and reciting the holy verses of the Koran or chanting sike. In the denotative meaning of this Palang Pintu process, apart from explaining the literal meaning and describing the process. It also describes the stages of testing for the groom to marry his bride; 2) the connotation meaning in the Palang Pintu procession describes the practice of the teachings and laws of Islam and love for the Prophet Muhammad SAW and family ties; and 3) the myth in the Palang Pintu procession is that there are Betawi solid community principles, namely recitation, prayer, and silat. In addition, the dominance of solid Islamic teachings is evidenced by the existence of relevant verses of the Koran and hadith and the content of Betawi cultures, such as rhyming, where rhymes are used to advise on traditional art ceremonies.

Constraints in English Language Teaching and Learning in Senior Secondary Schools: Strategies for Implementation

The study entitled 'Constraints in English Language Teaching and Learning in Senior Secondary Schools: Strategies for Implementation' seeks to unravel the myriad of problems in teaching and learning the English Language in senior secondary schools and offers strategies that can be implemented to salvage the situation. Learning to teach is more than simply knowing the results of research and theory; it always involves learning the ‘craft’ of classroom exposition, explanation, organization, and guidance. The desired outcome of the language learning process is the ability to communicate competently, not the ability to the ability to use the language exactly as a native speaker does. To guide the study, three research questions were posed. The questions examined the following three variables: (1) the constraints in teaching English; (2) the constraints in learning English; and (3) strategies for implementation in senior secondary schools. The research will be carried out in two senior secondary schools in Kenema City, Eastern Sierra Leone (Government Senior Secondary School and Methodist Senior Secondary School). The study revealed that: the lack of adequate teaching and learning materials, poor pedagogical and academic subject matter competency, and the negative attitude of students towards the English Language, account for the major constraints in the teaching and learning of the subject.

Critical Thinking Formation in the Scope of Connectivism

Critical thinking (CT) formation is a complex and abstract process that hasn’t been studied comprehensively by any existing learning model today. Connectivism, a new learning theory of the information era, provides brand new perspectives to learning, thus has gained considerable attention. The purpose of this study is to examine CT formation in the scope of cognitivism by contrasting this theory to the previous learning theories. This study used the key concepts of chaos, network model, ecology, flow inhibitors, and flow accelerators in connectivism to illuminate some areas of the formation of critical thinking that have not been examined fully. In the scope of connectivism, this study also provides constructive suggestions to teachers to facilitate students’ critical thinking cultivation, i.e., introducing some learning materials that might trigger students’ critical analyzing; evaluating students’ learning procedure from a network perspective; paying more attention to students’ CT disposition development and establishing healthy CT ecology, etc.

Lingual Dominance and Symbolic Power in the Discourse of Using the PeduliLindungi Application as a Digital Payment Tool

This study uses a qualitative method with a 3-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis approach to N. Fairclough's model and Pierre Bourdieu's constructive structural theory to dismantle linguistic domination and symbolic power. The object of the research developed; the researcher took an object published in the online media portal owned by Tempo.co with the title "The Reason Luhut Wants to Care for Protect as a Digital Payment Instrument. The researcher aims to dismantle the concept of symbolic power in the discourse of using the PeduliLindungi application as a digital payment instrument, to explain the language process as an instrument of power in the discourse of using the PeduliLindungi application as a digital payment instrument, and to explain the influence of language dominance on a person. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that language is not only a means of communication but in language, there is an ideology and power, from the discourse on the use of the PeduliLindungi application as a means of digital payment using symbolic power and language as an instrument of power. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan uses language styles such as paralogistic sentences, repetition figureheads, and metaphors to convince and persuade the interlocutor in his language dominance strategy. The social irregularity in the text is the manipulation of information; his argument is in the form of hegemony which gives the impression that the ability to build premium products and the progress of the Indonesian nation is due to digital payments. From text analysis, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan inserts ideology during the opening ceremony of the peak of Indonesian Creative Works on September 23, 2021. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan uses his position as Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investments to give his symbolic power.

The Distribution Patterns of Valency-changing Verbs: An Approach of Quantitative Linguistics

The present study attempts to explore the distribution patterns of the valency-changing verbs from the perspective of quantitative linguistics. We took authentic spoken language data as the research materials. The corpus used in this paper is a self-built spoken English corpus containing about 21,000 words. We half-manually annotated the corpus with the help of SpaCy, a natural language processing tool. According to the annotation results and statistical data, we obtained a total of 217 valency-changing English verbs and 248 sentence components governed by them. After analysis, the current study came to the following conclusions: First, bivalent verbs are most frequent among the three types of valency-changing verbs; second, after fitting all the language data to different probability distributions, we found that the rank-frequency distributions of all the valency-changing English verbs with different numbers of obligatory arguments obey the power law, and the frequencies of bivalent valency-changing verbs obey other kinds of distributions such as the mixed Poisson distribution.

Epistemological Challenges Against Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is a linguistics science that seeks to express the values of life that are revealed in language. Sociolinguistics is stuck in the study of language, which is purely empirical. This assessment can be observed when sociolinguistics only comes to the study of language, which reveals the linguistic system. It is essential to point out the other side of sociolinguistics that has not been explored, namely the aspect of language meaning. In this case, epistemology tries to challenge the existence of sociology concerning the role and function of sociolinguistics itself. Through literature study, Hermeneutics and heuristics are consistently and consistently used as the basis for the research method in this case. It can be concluded that sociolinguistics must begin to view language as a form of culture that becomes a social system and acts as a tool for human development.

CARP Affix Ordering: Problematic in Lubukusu

Hyman and Mchombo (1992), Babye (1985), (Myers 1987), (Rice 2000), and Hyman (2002 & 2003) have shown that there is affix ordering in Proto-Bantu languages that obeys the 'CARP' (Causative-Applicative-Reciprocal-Passive template). Drawing data from Lubukusu, a Bantu language, the current study analyzes affix ordering of class-changing morphemes, arguing against the templatic morphology that most researchers have shown to be dominant in Bantu languages. The current study uses Bybee’s (1985) principle of iconicity (principle of relevance), where it is proposed that affixes closer to the verb stem are more 'relevant' to the verb than to the rest of the sentence and those affixes further away are less relevant. Based on Baybee’s relevance principle, the study argues that there are various affix ordering orders in Lubukusu, which are semantically motivated. The data that are used in the analyses are self-generated and verified by three native Lubukusu speakers who are competent in the language. Findings show that as much as Lubukusu obeys the templatic morphology, the same is violated in various morpho-semantic contexts. The study recommends more studies on affix ordering in the Lubukusu language based on other existing frameworks that have been tested on languages rather than those from the proto Bantu family.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi’s Speech at UN in 2021: A Sociopolitical Perspective

This paper is based on the Critical Discourse Analysis approach to explore Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s speech at the UN in 2021 in a sociopolitical context. The researchers, by applying Fairclough’s 3D model, investigate Arab Israel community reflection through textual or stylistic strategies in speech and explore the level of Islamic ideology reflected in Shah Mehmood Qureshi speech through linguistic choices. The study further explores the representation of stylistic features in a speech that depicts the political and socio-cultural relationship between Palestine and the Israeli community. Findings of the study suggest that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi used different devices like textual and stylistic to give his ideology more explicatively. The sophisticated manners of ideology are propagated through the speech with all its prerequisites. It was syntactically well organized and produces a thematic message that was based on religious sociocultural and political discrimination and biased as well as inequality in cohesion. The expressive speaker values and relational indications were ordered according to the situation.

Vietnamese Language in Westernization: Integration or Disguise?

Through proud historical development, the Vietnamese language has overcome all obstacles to become a rich and beautiful language, with a unique identity and full of potential. In the international arena, in all fields of activities, Vietnamese has equal status with all other languages. The process of integration and development will inevitably entail contact and mutual influence between cultures, including languages. On the positive side, it has contributed to enriching the lexicology of the national language, especially new terminologies in the fields of science and technology, make more diverse forms of communication, and in some ways, it shortens the gaps to more developed cultures and civilizations. However, in terms of culture, it can also cause negative effects, that is, chaos, tension in Vietnamese disguise. This paper reports the current status of the Vietnamese language in the midst of Western trends in Vietnam. Data were collected from historical documents and daily news from popular sites of Vietnamese mass media.