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Polarised Facebook Discourse on Anglophone Nationalism in Cameroon
Get PDFTechnological advances have decentralised public communication through networked digital communication. The present paper seeks to critically analyze Facebook contradictory discourses and conversations on the future of the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. In November 2016, the Anglophone population engaged in civil disobedience against the Government of Cameroon over nonchalant attitude towards its predicament or refusal to address its grievances. Focus is on trolls and polarized conversations and discourses made by Anglophone activists on Facebook regarding the socio-political crisis troubling Cameroon since the end of the year 2016. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodological and theoretical approach, this study shows that there are two opposing views on Facebook: the separatists’ and the pro-unionists’ positions. On the one hand, the separatist activists through their Facebook posts discourse repudiate the pan-Cameroonian identity which they associate with francophonisation and cultural assimilation, and promote a separate Anglophone nationalism. On the other hand, the pro-unity Anglophone activists defend national unity and reject the secessionist discourse, thereby reproducing and expressing their adherence to the Pan-Cameroonian identity. This study will try to go beyond linguistic elements analysis to include a systematic construction of the historical and political, sociological and/or psychological dimension in the analysis and interpretation of specific texts/discourse
Making Sense of Texts: A Meta-Analysis of College Students and Adults’ Reading Strategies in a Hypermedia Environment
Get PDFWith the information influx from the hypermedia environment, queries have been made on the reading landscape, markedly related to college and adult readers, as they are perceived to have limited experience with the hypermedia environment. This environment calls on new literacies for a reader to cope with reading tasks inherent to its features. In this context, new challenges have been posed regarding online reading strategies of college and adult readers. With the dearth of literature about how college and adult readers navigate their way in their reading tasks in the hypermedia environment, this paper described their strategies in reading. The information gathered from the studies conducted before can contribute to the present plight of our readers who need to navigate their way through reading in a hypermedia environment. Eight studies that met the criteria on the variables of the study were included. The studies revealed the following reading strategies of college and adult readers: global, problem-solving, local, cognitive and metacognitive, and navigation strategies. This evidenced that print-based reading strategies are basics on which reading strategies in the hypermedia environment are built for strategic readers to be successful in their online reading tasks.
The Role of NGOs Activities with forest conservation for sustainable development: Experiences from Bangladesh
Get PDFThe study assessed the capability of NGOs ongoing programs towards species richness and biodiversity conservation in a sustainable way of rural households in Chattogram and Moulavibazar during 2014 to 2019. Data were collected from 330 IGA participating forest-dependent farmers, who were the member of different NGOs. The assessment was done using multistage random sampling. A total of 131 plant species were identified adjacent twenty villages of evergreen and semi-evergreen forest, Sal forest and Mangrove forest areas of which 43 species were fruit-producing, 41 timber species, 29 fuel wood and ornamental species, 18 medicinal and species of spices. Most of the farmers (33%) preferred to plant fruit tree species for future plantation followed by timber species (31%). Diversity and abundance of fruit species were found higher in all homesteads. Seven livestock, seven poultry, and two pet animal species were recorded. A total of 46 species of cultured fish species were recorded. Besides, analysis of existing management period indicates that farmers lack scientific information, almost every household presently follows traditional management systems. Finally, a homestead forest management plan, conservation of homestead species diversity through scientific management and obtaining training and support from government and NGOs, was found highly demandable by this study
Influence of internal and macro factors on profitability of Indian commercial banks: empirical study
Get PDFThis review aims to study the influence of financial performance in commercial banks in India. The article used descriptive analysis, correlation matrix, and regression analysis. The results showed that firm size, capital adequacy, deposit, and inflation rate have a strongly significant influence on financial performance, while gross domestic product (GDP) has no significant impact on return on assets. The outcomes also indicated that firm size (LOGAS), capital adequacy (CA), and deposit (DP) have a negative influence on financial performance, whereas macroeconomic features as GDP and rate of inflation have a positive effect on return on assets of the current investigation. This article bridges the existing gap in the financial performance and profitability of Indian banks during the period of the study. This study also very important for users, analyses, investors, academicians, and research scholars
Freight Transport Service on International Trade with Its Implication for Global Competitiveness
Get PDFFreight transportation is the process of conveying different types of goods from one point to another using a variety of transport modes. The main objective of this study was to assess the fright transport service on international trade with its implications for global competitiveness. A descriptive followed by a longitudinal research design was used. Secondary data were collected from international organizations policy, standards documents, and annual reports for the year 2007-2018 by using the two indexing systems. Moreover, a quantitative research approach had been used. The data were entered, manipulated, organized, and analyzed using Excel and SPSS. Both descriptive and inferential analyses were used to examine the extent of fright transport service and its implications on global competitiveness and the interrelationship between international trade and freight transport service with its implication on global competitiveness. According to the result, European countries highly dominated the top 10 world rank logistic performance. Therefore, these countries were devoted to providing maximum efficiency and commitments on the Six Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and 12 pillars of GCI pillars than the others. Besides both, LPI and GCI were linearly associated with each other except for the 2016 fiscal year. This improved that tread and logistic services had an association
Grammaticalization of some Postpositional Enclitics in Kanuri written Texts
Get PDFThis paper examines strategies and concepts of postpositional clitics in Kanuri. clitics in Kanuri within the broad framework of descriptive linguistics. The study adopts the works of Zwicky and Pullum (1983), Anderson (2005) and Spencer and Luis (2012) as its analytic models. The primary sources of data collection are Kanuri written texts: Sǝmonǝm wuro sarugǝsǝne by Norbert Cyffer and Nyariwa Kanuribe by Shettima Bukar Abba and John Hutchison. These two texts are collection of stories written in the yerwa dialect of Kanuri. All the various places where the postpositional particles –ro, -lan,-ma and -ga occurred are identified and extracted for presentation and analysis. The outcome of the study reveals that these particles can be encliticized to lexical words in Kanuri to express different functions. These particles –ro, lan, ga and ma virtually attach to every grammatical categories of words in Kanuri i.e. nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs to express different functions while the Emphatic =ma can be used as focus marker in Kanuri
Drafting the Discourse Structures of the Graduate School Academic Colloquium
Get PDFUsing the data transcriptions from the communicative events obtained from four participating universities, 33 graduate students, and 26 panel of experts, this paper examines several colloquium events in the Philippines to identify any existing “global” structure of discourse categorized into semantic and schematic superstructures (van Dijk, 1980). Results show that the semantic macrostructure of a colloquium is reflective of its collective goal, and that the participants focus on the improvement of graduate students’ paper. In addition, the discourse of the colloquium has a stable schematic superstructure that is always followed in realizing the collaborative end of the colloquium. Each phase consists of both obligatory and optional features that define/reflect the institution’s identity and practice. Understanding these structures may help candidates of graduate school degrees surpass the challenging task of writing theses and dissertations with an advantage
Gender Imbalances in the Visual Discourse of Moroccan EFL Textbooks: A Critical Image Analysis.
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to investigate the portrayal of women and men in the visual discourse of Moroccan English as a Foreign Language (MEFL, henceforth) textbooks employing a bi-modal analysis comprising qualitative content analysis alongside Giaschi (2000), Kress and Van leeuwen (2006), and Newfield’s (2011) newly developed concept of critical image analysis. This bi-modal approach attempts to address a number of themes recurrent in the visual contents of the selected textbooks. Relying on this combination, pictorial images featuring both women and men indoors (in domestic settings) and outdoors either in the job market or undertaking some outdoor activities are interrogated. The results of this inquiry prove very convincingly that the visual discourse of MEFL textbooks is fraught with an array of cultural misconceptions in discrimination of women. The paper ends up with a conclusion along with some recommendations
A Stylistic Analysis of Some Linguistic Devices in Newspaper Headlines: Nigerian Newspapers as A Case Study
Get PDFMedia houses have played significant roles in national development. They, among other roles, serve as the intermediary between the government and the masses. The choice they make in their reportage begins from the headlines which may or may not outrightly show the direction of the news. The study examines the linguistic features of the news headlines on fuel subsidy removal and electricity tariff hike in Nigeria. Register analysis is the theory adopted to carry out the study. This is to enable us consider the functions of the chosen linguistic items within the social setting; find out the similarities and differences that exist among the headlines in terms of how they are structured and point out the implied meaning in them. This study, among other findings, reveals that most of the newspaper headlines on fuel subsidy removal and electricity tariff hike relied heavily on positive adjectives to palatably present government policies, actions and steps to the masses. This paper suggests that researchers could adopt Speech Act Theory to analyse the newspaper headlines on fuel subsidy removal and electricity tariff hike so as to find out what journalists are doing with words
Helping EFL Students Avoid Socio-pragmatic Failure: Focus on Nonverbal Intercultural Competence
Get PDFThis article examined the vital importance of conjoining between such notions as ‘formal culture’ and ‘deep culture’ as two inextricable aspects of EFL teaching and learning. There is a tacit assumption here that if Moroccan learners of EFL are not assisted through recognizing some aspects pertaining to English ‘deep culture’, many intercultural difficulties and misunderstandings may result. The two aspects of English language learning and teaching should in no way be looked at as being mutually exclusive. Rather, they are two intertwined facets of the same coin. The examination of many instances of intercultural misunderstanding demonstrates that a holistic vision of deep culture (nonverbal behaviour along with some extra-linguistic features of the target language) ought to be incorporated as a basic course supplementing the existing teaching materials geared to foster Moroccan university students’ intercultural nonverbal competence. This paper ends up discussing the implications for the implementation of some strategies to foster foreign language students’ nonverbal communication skills as an integral part of a broader concept of ‘intercultural nonverbal competence’