International Journal Online of Humanities (IJOHMN)
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The Subaltern Would Speak: Palimpsestic Identities in Nuruddin Farah’s ‘Blood in the Sun’ Trilogy
Get PDFNuruddin Farah’s ‘Blood in the Sun’ trilogy is a socio-political voyage into the Somali life and consciousness. It is a serious attempt to explore the changes that befell the Somali society and converted into a poor, failure and famine struck state in the present though it was a powerful and rich state in the past. The trilogy is a documentation of the history of Somalia from a philosophical standpoint; it delves into clan and ethnic traditions and, at the same time, expounds the adverse consequences of colonisation that have been invoked by the first wave of the ‘Rush to Africa’ in the nineteenth century. The article is an endeavour to underline the complex status of subalternity of the Somalis whose palimpsestic historical and political situation forced a palimpsestic identity. Farah’s ‘Blood in the Sun’ trilogy enfolds three novels; i.e. Maps (1986), Gifts (1993), and Secrets (1998) which are reflective of the current failure social and political situation which negatively influences the identity of the natives. The article hopes to be the kernel of further studies handling the complex postcolonial identity of the Somalis from a historical-political perspective
Phoneme Distribution and the Sonority Nature of Consonant Clusters in Afaan Oromo
Get PDFThis paper examines an outline of two main phonological elements in the Oromo language. Firstly, it indicates the permissible sequences and types of the language’s consonant clusters given the member sound’s sonority. Secondly, it enlightens the distribution of Oromo phonemes in different word positions (initial, medial, and final). In this aspect, the study is a descriptive work and attention has been given mainly to recounting the simple distribution rather than theorizing the phonotactic processes. For the study, data was collected from five native speakers of the Western dialect and was phonemically transcribed using an IPA symbol. The speech of these participants has three hours of duration with an average speech length of 36 minutes for each participant. The study also attempts to list out the number of the language’s native and loan phonemes employed in the speech of adult Oromo users comparing the data with the earlier studies. With the study, it was observed that Oromo has Sonorant-Obstruent, Obstruent-Obstruent, Obstruent- Sonorant and Sonorant – Sonorant clusters based on the status of sonorants in its phonological system. Of the two-member clusters in clustering, sonorants are the dominant first member sounds in the language
Experiences of the Marginalized Women in America: Re-reading Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings(1970)
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to discover unnoted experiences of African-American women by taking Angelou’s novel in focus. Experiences of marginalized women in African American haven’t got sufficient attention. Their literature hasn’t accorded the level it deserves. Specifically, autobiographies of black women have been ignored more severely than those of Americans. Maya Angelou, who won Pulitzer Prize for her first volume of autobiography-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is one of the significant authors who wrote in addressing American subalterns’life. This article applies text based analysis and Black feminist literary theory. As a theoretical framework, it enables one to interrogate the relationships between self and selves of black women in America. Hence, race, gender and class issues were the general brands of black women’s oppression. Racial prejudices against black women and the response to the injustices have been discussed based on the nature of resistance from helpless anger to outright protest. In addition, sexual abuse and segregation followed by ignorance and maternity have been analyzed as interlocked oppressions of black feminism. Although different kinds of oppression such as race, gender and class are discussed, the article argues that Angelou’s feminist portrayals are optimist. Thoughtful and kind as depictions show that the triple form of oppression of racism, sexism and classism can be resisted
Students’ Attitudes towards Vocabulary Learning and Their Learning Strategies
Get PDFThis study aims at investigating (a) students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning and (b) vocabulary studying strategies they use. The study was directed to First Year Students who were specialized in English Language(2019-2020), in Nahda College; Sudan. Twenty six male and female students were involved in the study. A questionnaire consisted of vocabulary learning awareness and vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) was distributed to the participants. A modified Likert Scale (agree, neutral, disagree) was used to collect data. The tables containing figures and percentages were utilized to describe results. The results findings are: Students had noticeable attitudes towards vocabulary importance. The learners used all five (VLS) categories; cognitive, determination, memory, metacognitive, and social strategies frequently, but unequally. The most strategy used is the “Cognitive Strategy” and the least one is the “Social Strategy”
Evaluating ELF Students’ Speaking Skill at Tertiary Level
Get PDFThis study was conducted at a Sudanese university in 2021 at the end of the semester to find out the areas caused problems of speech production. The research paper seeks to answer the question: What area/s of speaking is problematic to students? Fortysix undergraduate students in first year, who were majored in the English programme involved in the test. The total population was hundred students. Analytic rubrics were used for collecting data. Tuan (2014, p. 2) states that analytic rubric“… accesses the examinee’s specific strengths and weaknesses and identifies the particular components of speaking discourse that an examinee needs to develop”. Five explicit criteria were used to test participants; i.e.: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, cohesion and fluency. The test was conducted by two instructors who gave appropriate marks under each of five rubrics (Table 1 below). The test contents comprised some pictures and topics to speak about. Bar charts were utilized to compare and measure marks obtained by students in analytic rubrics, where each rubric was measured individually. The results revealed that students were weak in all five areas (grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, cohesion and fluency).The highest marks were gained in pronunciation, count 25%, while the lowest marks were obtained in vocabulary, 15% from the total mark allocated for this item. The results conveyed that, this group of participants was weak in all aspects that needed for speech production compared with their level (2nd year undergraduates)
The Plague by Albert Camus Plague Epidemic and Corona Pandemic: A Study
Get PDFOn 31 December, 2019 China’s Wuhan district recorded the first novel Corona virus disease (COVID-19) case. Its origin was from a wet market though it has been held by the scientific communities in many countries that it evolved at and leaked out of the research laboratory of The Wuhan Institute of Virology. Zoonotic diseases have ever been increasing in numbers due to indiscriminate use of animals for food. But so far no evidence has been established that Corona virus as it has affected the humans has any direct link with any animal. It created havoc throughout the world killing millions and devastating the social life, economy, relationship among humans and countries. Its effect has been unprecedented in human history
Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Omani EFL Foundation Programme: Constraints and Possibilities
Get PDFEducational institutions across the globe unanimously acknowledge the importance of incorporating critical thinking skills in their curricula, yet this objective has not always been met adequately or consistently across the board. In EFL settings, the obstacles to teaching critical thinking are not only genuine but also multifaceted, ranging from teachers’ and students’ training and attitudes, cultural influence and degree of support from the various stakeholders, which often results in a general perception that it is difficult to teach efficaciously. This article will report on the procedures and satisfactory outcomes of an action research that I have conducted with intermediate EFL foundation programme students at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, using a mixed method approach. The scope of the study is to investigate the constraints to teaching critical thinking skills in this context (quite similar to other non-western ones, e.g. Asian cultures) and ultimately pilot a flexible middle-way approach that enables teachers to work around these restrictions to foster critical thinking skills in their students, without detracting from course content or sacrificing test scores. The trialled approach consists of adapting and extending activities from assigned English language course books/materials to build in more critical thinking awareness and practice, all within a learner-centred social constructivist environment, without the need for extra time or supplementary materials. In their post-course evaluation, most of the students have reported tangible improvement in information literacy, critical thinking abilities and even language proficiency. The article will close by providing practical guidelines on materials and methodology for teaching critical thinking skills in EFL contexts
Lexical Semantic Richness in Poe’s Essays and Short Stories: Comparing Corpora with Word Smith Tools and Range
Get PDFEdgar Allan Poe’s Essays and Short Stories have been widely analyzed throughout the decades. Previous research confirms an ample use of varied vocabulary in his short stories. Nevertheless, little emphasis has been put on some of his not-so-famous works: his essays. Thus, the main aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we aim at comparing the lexical semantic richness in Poe’s essays and in his short stories; on the other hand, we intend to test the effectiveness of two different analytical tools to check this semantic variation, i.e. WordSmith Tools and Range. In order to achieve these aims, three short stories and two essays by Poe were selected and combined to create two main corpora: one of short stories and one of essays. After separating the corpora intro fragments of 2000 tokens, lexical semantic richness was assessed using the two aforementioned tools. Results show that i) lexical semantic richness is higher in short stories than it is in essays, and ii) both tools have proven to be effective. These results are further discussed and pedagogical applications for language teaching are put forward. 
The Effect of Grammar Teaching Methods on Students’ Writing Skill
Get PDFThis study investigates the effect of grammar teaching methods on students’ writing skill in secondary level. The study was based on action research, carried out in the academic year 2017 in one of Sudanese secondary schools. The participants were in second year. They studied English for the same number of years (6 years).The study followed two different methods of grammar teaching: 1) grammar in \u27context\u27 and 2) in \u27isolation\u27 to assess which method is more beneficial for English learners to write grammatical error-free composition. Students were divided into two groups: control and experimental groups.For the purpose of high measurement, participants in the two groups sat for apre English test on writing. The results showed that P-value of T-test (0.567) was greater than significant level (0.05) which means there was no statistical difference between experimental and control groups in the pre-test. Then the experiment was run; teaching the two groups using different methods.The control group was taught grammarin isolation method; where experimental group was taught grammar in context.Instructions lasted for two months and the two groups had the same writing test. The results indicated that P-value of T-test (0.000) was less than significant level (0.05) which means there was statistical difference between experimental and control in post-test. Finding showed that: teaching grammar ‘in context’ helps students to produce better writing than teaching grammar ‘in isolation’
Mending The Broken Bridges: An Analysis of Familyhood in Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying (1995)
Get PDFThis paper examines South African literature’s paradigm shift through Zakes Mda’s disruption of the dominant trope of apartheid by his focusing on black ordinary lives in Ways of Dying. The novel foregrounds the broken bridges of love and unity that used to link families before colonisation. Mda demonstrates how the rise of the city engendered the demise of the village where blacks lived as a unified community before migrating to the city whence they sink into individualism. The discussion focuses on family units during the period of death and dying to reveal broken links that happen to have a bearing to black familyhood. The focus of the argument is on how Mda depicts and mends the lost spirit of oneness among the blacks during the final stages of the anti-apartheid struggle and the transition to a democratic South Africa. The discussion highlights a new traditional African community built on forgiveness, care and unity