International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation
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Reading Comprehension Difficulties Faced by Sudanese School Learners: A Case Stud
Full text linkThe study intends to investigate the reading problems encountered by Sudanese EFL secondary school learners in reading texts and comprehension. The researchers prepared a questionnaire for EFL teachers and a test for EFL students as tools for data collection. The sample includes 20 teachers and 20 students randomly selected from El Hasahisa secondary schools in Gezira State, Sudan. The researchers used an analytical-descriptive method to collect data, which were further calculated and analyzed with SPSS Program. The findings indicate that Sudanese secondary school students face problems in reading and answering reading comprehension questions. Students’ lack of vocabulary, motivation, students’ inadequate understanding of the relationship and functions of words within sentences, idioms and figurative meanings, insufficient study material, lack of teacher’s training, traditional teaching methods contribute to the main barriers of reading and comprehending texts. The paper concludes with some concrete and constructive suggestions that would indubitably lessen these problems to get the desired performance
To Probe Employed Consecutive Interpreting Strategies of One Equivalent Terms among Iranian Translation Learners
Full text linkIn the third millennium, the role of interpretation seems vital for several purposes like education, politics, commerce, healthcare, and so on. So, the performance of interpreters would definitely influence on further success in above mentioned objectives. In the present study, the researchers tried to investigate employed strategies in Persian to English consecutive interpreting of medical and healthcare terms with only one equivalent word by interpreting learners across gender. To this end, twenty four male and female interpreting learners were selected based on the obtained scores in a proficiency test and an interpreting exam. Then, they were asked to listen and interpret consecutively a Persian medical audio file. All interpreters were free to take notes or any kind of techniques they deemed necessary. While they were involved in the process of interpreting consecutively, their voices were recorded for further analysis. Next, the collected data were analyzed thoroughly to identify the employed strategies by consecutive interpreters as they were encountered with terms with only one word equivalent in English. As the results indicated, among six common employed strategies, both male and female interpreting learners employed approximation/ attenuation as the most frequent strategy and transcodage/ calque as the least one. Also, further statistical analysis showed no difference between male and female interpreting learners in strategy employment. The results of the present study could be helpful for novice interpreters, interpreting training courses, interpreting syllabus design, and workshops
A Lacanian Reading of Hamlet and Caligula: Death Drive
Full text linkThe following research rereads the concept of death drive in the chosen literary characters of Caligula and Hamlet, who possess differing positions to the crown yet share the tragic death forced by the outer environment. The chosen plays provide a well ground for practice of this subject since both plays are closed by the death of the heroes in which neither of them possess any part of direct actions. In Hamlet the mourning prince enters a shock by the supernatural visit he receives which leaves him in the search of the vengeance he stands responsible for. During the play Hamlet’s behavior and mental status leads him to eventual due to his inability to perform any act which may be a cause of distribution to his associates which creates a well formed psychological pattern for study. On the other hand, in Caligula no element of supernatural appears yet the young emperor is in great shock due to the loss of his sister, in a sadistic manner the king both seeks destruction and yet is unable to harm himself, so the bizarre and extreme behavior is reflected as a result of his current situation. This study aims to unveil the hidden links between the two plays focusing on the concepts of Jouissance, Trauma, and the Death drive
Reading Difficulties Faced by ESL Undergraduate Learners: The Case of King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia
Full text linkReading is one of the important language learning skills in English. The purpose of this research is to find out the difficulties in reading skill among undergraduate Arab undergraduate students of. Widely, English is the preferred language for communication and job sector so it is important to accomplish the difficulties in learning the language. Reading is one of the important skills when learning the language. There are some factors and strategies to achieve success in reading. This paper tried to find out those problems and strategies to overcome the difficulties. For the data, a survey was conducted among 77 undergraduate English department students of level-3 from King Khalid University, Almajardha campus. The results from the survey help to find out the difficulties and strategies to overcome the problem
Critical Reading Ability: A Study of the Role of Proficiency, Gender and Topic Knowledge
Full text linkThe aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between learner factors and critical reading ability. The participants of the study were fifty Iranian EFL learners. They answered to a questionnaire on critical thinking ability and took a critical reading test. Their scores were compared and contrasted with regard to the three variables under investigation, namely, proficiency level, gender, and topic knowledge. The results of the study revealed that while proficiency level has a positive effect on the enhancement of critical reading ability of the learners, gender and topic knowledge do not have a significant contribution to the development of this skill. The findings suggested important implications for EFL teachers and materials developers
Investigating the Performance of Saudi EFL Learners while Translating Circumstantial Case
Full text linkArabic is the most widely spoken Semitic language and has seen phases of change from the Quranic form to the more popular Modern Standard Arabic that is used for communication today. It shares some of its features with other languages in the family, and the use of the Cognate Accusative is one such characteristic. For this reason, Arabic is known as a Cognate Language like other languages of this family. However, English is of the Indo-European family and naturally has a different set of rules and preferences. Training learners in language forms that differ in style and value discourse elements differently can be a daunting task as what sounds natural in one can be frowned at in the other. With students inclined to literally translate between such languages as in the case of KSA, the change of form can be quite difficult to understand. Where no equivalence exists between two languages, the translator’s need to establish it for obvious reasons is one of the most problematic and challenging endeavours in translation theory. Teachers of language and translation in KSA are concerned with learning problems that arise due to lexical and grammatical non-equivalence between Arabic and English which often leads to confusion and incorrect output during translation process. The current study aimed at investigating one of the Arabic grammatical structures which has no equivalent in English (Circumstanial Case). Circumstanial Case or using the same verb root twice in a construction is valued in Arabic discourse as it serves usually one or more of three purposes: Adding emphasis, explaining the type, and explaining the number. However, this is absent in English as the construction is seen as unnatural and hence, incorrect. Following analytical methods, the study targeted two objectives: One, testing the learners’ ability to translate the Cognate Accusative; and two, to gather an understanding of the strategies they adopted in the process. The study is likely to be of great value in a foreign language learning environment as is the case in the KSA. We used written tests to collect the data, followed by detailed interviews to elicit information on the translation strategies used. Participants were female undergraduate students (N=35) at Hurimilla College of Science and Humanities, Shaqra University, KSA, of which fifteen were randomly interviewed consequently. The data collected was analyzed using SPSSR. The findings showed that this structure is indeed confusing for students with 37% of them using literal translation, and 12.29% producing incorrect versions or sometimes avoiding translating them. Personal interviews revealed that the reason of these results can be directly attributed to the absence of these categories in English, and non-equivalence between Arabic and English
A Speech Act Analysis of Bedouin Proverbs in Jordan
Full text linkThe main aim of this study is to investigate Bedouin proverbs in Jordan in accordance with Speech Act Theory. More specifically, it attempts to determine the illocutionary acts as well as the illocutionary forces in the selected contextualized proverbs. More importantly, it targets to test the applicability of specifying the perlocutionary acts of Bedouin proverbs as it tries to explore the possible perlocutionary acts that Bedouin proverbs can accomplish in their real contexts. The study revealed that the illocutionary acts performed by using Bedouin proverbs are representatives, commissives expressives and directives, while the illocutionary acts are scolding, threating, advising, criticizing, requesting and asking. It also proved that it is applicable to determine the perlocutionary acts of Bedouin proverbs. It showed that the perlocutionary acts are categorized into two levels: the psychological consequence (insulting, scaring, convincing, angering, motivating and persuading) and getting the hearer to do something
A Cross-Linguistic Study of Some Space Prepositions in English and Their Counterparts in Armenian
Full text linkThe article offers a cross-linguistic study of the English space prepositions in, on and at and their counterparts in Armenian. The choice of these prepositions for analysis is predetermined, firstly, by the fact that they are often used arbitrarily in English, when the priority of one over another in a particular prepositional phrase appears rather obscure and not motivated. Secondly, English space prepositions are rendered into Armenian by means of both postpositions and case inflections, with the latter functioning as morphological synonyms to the former. The analysis is carried out in the framework of cognitive semantics as well as the theory of oppositions which help distinguish all the subtle differences in the usage of these linguistic units triggered in most cases by extralinguistic factors. The study reveals that the oppositions made up with the space prepositions in, on and at in English outnumber those in Armenian and that their functional scope in English is rather extensive and diversified in comparison with those in Armenian
Interlinear Transliteration and Reconstruction of Plate 538 in 3 Fragments of Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever Dead Sea Scrolls
Full text linkInterlinear Transliteration of Plate 538 in 3 Fragments of Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (Dead Sea Scrolls) based on the original text in 1st or 2nd Century Greek (Roman Period). The original manuscript is written on parchment in Uncial Greek Script is a translation of the Zechariah from Hebrew and was discovered in the “Cave of Horror”. Plate 538 is of special significance for translators and Bible scholars in that while being a translation written in Greek, the text preserves the Tetragrammaton in its Paleo-Hebrew (Pre-Babylonian Exile) script. The preservation of the Tetragrammaton within the Greek text gives archeological and linguistic proof that the Tetragrammaton was not only known but also in use among the early Christians and in the early Christian congregation. This paper is designed to provide a reconstructed text as a template for Biblical translations with a greater level of accuracy and has been cross referenced with existing Greek and Hebrew manuscripts in order to establish an authentic reading