International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), 2025
This study explores the influence of gender and social status on advice-giving strategies in Alge... more This study explores the influence of gender and social status on advice-giving strategies in Algerian Arabic. The study involved 50 native Algerian Arabic speakers (25 males and 25 females) who completed a Discourse Completion Task. This task, designed to measure the gender and social status variables, presented three types of advice-giving situations: high-to-low, low-to-high, and equal social power. Hinkel's (1997) taxonomy was used to categorize advice-giving strategies as direct, hedged, or indirect. The study's key finding was that male and female Algerians tend to give direct advice, particularly imperatives, regardless of the advisee's social status. This suggests that Algerians perceive advice-giving as a cooperative and supportive act that does not require mitigation or implication. Importantly, these findings have practical implications. They can help individuals and organizations avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings with Algerians. In cultures where advice-giving may be perceived as threatening one's freedom of action, logical thinking ability, and world knowledge, Algerians may be misunderstood as impolite and overly assertive despite their well-intentioned advice.
Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 2024
This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It a... more This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It also explores how gender influences the use of these strategies. The data were collected from 100 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic using a DCT. The mixed method analysis revealed that the participants employed bald on record, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness, off record, and not doing the face-threating act (FTA) strategies for expressing reprimand in SJA. It was found that the participants exhibited a preference for bald on record expressions to make reprimands. The results also showed that female participants employed various strategies when reprimanding in different situations compared to males who reprimanded directly irrespective of the domain of language use. In spite of the apparent inclination to go on record when reprimanding, the participants were found to be aware of the importance of employing positive and negative politeness strategies when performing this speech act.
Comprehension of conversational implicature, a crucial component of pragmatics, is vital for effe... more Comprehension of conversational implicature, a crucial component of pragmatics, is vital for effective communication, specifically in translation between languages with distinct linguistic and cultural structures. This dimension of pragmatic competence, which involves understanding the implied meaning, has been largely ignored in education settings, particularly for Arabic-speaking EFL learners. This study analyzes the implicature translation of 30 senior students majoring in English Language and Literature at a university in the United Arab Emirates. The participants were asked to complete an online test administered by the researchers to translate into Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) contextualized conversational implicatures created by the characters of the American sitcom Seinfeld. The results indicated that the participants used different translation strategies: wordfor-word translation, literal translation, idiomatic translation, faithful translation, and free translation. The translation strategy used solely depended on the participants' comprehension of implicature, which could be attributed to their level of proficiency in the language. It was particularly interesting that a positive relationship existed between the understanding of implicatures as a reflection of pragmatic competence and the quality of their translations. This suggests that identification and interpretation of conversational implicatures should be part of the training of Arabic-speaking EFL learners. Better pragmatic competence, therefore, could enhance the students' translation accuracy. Implications of such findings indicate requisite instructional approaches that incorporate pragmatic awareness in translation training programs among Arab EFL learners.
This study explores the important role of ideology in the translation process, highlighting the p... more This study explores the important role of ideology in the translation process, highlighting the perspective of culture that translation studies have embraced in recent years to unveil how ideology interplays and influences the decisions of the translator. This paper focuses on the Arabic translation of Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn', using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an assisting analytical model. The main focus of the study was on the lexical choices used in the translation, highlighting how meanings are manipulated. A qualitative methodology was used in view of the depth of insight into the translation practices employed. The underlying ideology was revealed using a quantitative analysis of 60 instances. Scrutiny of Mahir's translation revealed that ideological influences could pretty much change the text meaning. In a few cases, the translation was adapted to comply with the cultural expectations of the target language addressee. The outcomes imply that the translator manipulated the Arabic version of the novel by introducing distortion, over-lexicalization, under-lexicalization, euphemisms, addition, and ideologically charged language. In other words, this is the translation that Nassim is giving to sound with the preferential, tasteful, valuable, and belief-based elements of the Arab readership.
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2024
The speeches delivered by Former U.S. President Donald Trump during his last presidential campaig... more The speeches delivered by Former U.S. President Donald Trump during his last presidential campaign (2015–2016) included hateful remarks against Muslims and immigrants. This study explored strategies of hate speech used in Trump’s political discourse against out-groups. The data consisted of a corpus of Trump’s speeches and interviews. Our analysis was based on Whillock’s [48] criteria of hate speech and Erjavec and Kovačič’s [13] strategies of hate speech. The results revealed that Trump employed re-articulation of meaning and renaming by attributing any problem to immigrants and Muslims to express hatred against them, using direct hatred words. His overt use of hate speech strategies stemmed from his legitimate power and social authority as a successful businessman in his field.
This study explored the compliment response (CR) strategies used by Emirati Arabic speakers. In a... more This study explored the compliment response (CR) strategies used by Emirati Arabic speakers. In addition, the study analysed the role of gender and the degree of formality in the use of CR strategies in this Arabic dialect. To this end, the study recruited 56 (28 males and 28 females) undergraduate students from the University of Sharjah (UAE). A written discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of 10 (five formal and five informal) scenarios was used to elicit CRs from the participants. The results showed that the Emiratis’ most frequently used major strategy is the Acceptance strategy, with Returning the Compliment and Expressing Gratitude being the most used sub-strategies and Agreeing and Encouraging being the least frequently used. The study shows that variations in the construction and realisation of speech acts exist due to gender and degree of formality. In particular, although both genders made use of the same major strategy, they showed differences in the use of the sub-strategies according to the (in)formality of the situation.
This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection ... more This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection “al-‘Abarāt” by Al-Manfaluti from Arabic to English. More specifically, it looks into how the translator handled the complexity that arises from the highly intertextual and dialogical nature of Al-Manfaluti’s work. Drawing on Leppihalme’s (1997) categorization of allusions and Venuti’s (2009) approach to the translation of intertextuality, this research maps the translation strategies that the translator employed and their effectiveness in the course of reconstituting source text intertextuality in the target language. The results showed that, by and large, the translator very often employed a literal translation strategy by focusing on semantic correspondence. Such an approach produced a translation that failed to capture the rich intertextual relations in Al-Manfaluti’s original, leading to much cultural and thematic loss. The article concludes that a hermeneutic rather than an instrumental approach would be more effective at preserving the intertextual richness of source texts.
The speech act of political self-praise has received scant attention in East Asian contexts, unli... more The speech act of political self-praise has received scant attention in East Asian contexts, unlike other speech acts. This study aims to explore the strategies of self-praise used by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The 2016 US presidential debates were analysed quantitatively to examine if there are any differences in using self-praise strategies. This was followed by a qualitative analysis to explore how these strategies are linguistically realised. Three main self-praise strategies were used: unmodified explicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise and indirect self-praise. Within the third category, the data revealed a new self-praise strategy, which we called "criticism-based self-praise". Moreover, the findings highlighted differences in using self-praise strategies in American political discourse. While Trump employed unmodified explicit self-praise more than his opponent, Clinton used modified explicit self-praise strategies far more than Trump. Trump, however, adopted implicit self-praise strategies more than Clinton. Differences could be attributed to gender stereotypes as well as the candidates' experience and personality. The study may help East Asian people better understand American political discourse, presidential debates in particular.
Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures , 2024
This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It a... more This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It also explores how gender influences the use of these strategies. The data were collected from 100 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic using a DCT. The mixed method analysis revealed that the participants employed bald on record, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness, off record, and not doing the face-threating act (FTA (strategies for expressing reprimand in SJA. It was found that the participants exhibited a preference for bald on record expressions to make reprimands. The results also showed that female participants employed various strategies when reprimanding in different situations compared to males who reprimanded directly irrespective of the domain of language use. In spite of the apparent inclination to go on record when reprimanding, the participants were found to be aware of the importance of employing positive and negative politeness strategies when performing this speech act.
Journal of applied learning and teaching, Mar 14, 2024
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jun 30, 2022
This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian a... more This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian and Algerian Arabic. It also investigates the effect of social status on the choice of disagreement strategies adopting Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. To achieve these objectives, 40 participants (20 Jordanians and 20 Algerians) were randomly recruited to respond to a discourse completion task (DCT). The participants were requested to read six situations and to react to them by making disagreements with people of higher, equal and lower statuses. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse the data. The results showed that the participants in the two study groups share similar preferences in the use of two main disagreement strategies that scored the highest in High to Low, Low to High, and in Equal statuses. The findings are discussed in the light of (im)politeness and provide implications for socio-pragmatic research in Arabic linguistics.
Journal of intercultural communication, Jun 10, 2024
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
This study examines verbal humor in the Jordanian stand-up comedy show N2O. It identifies and ana... more This study examines verbal humor in the Jordanian stand-up comedy show N2O. It identifies and analyzes how conversational maxims are flouted to create humor. To achieve this aim, 60 seven-minute episodes were taken from the channel of the show. The study showed that comedians flouted the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance and manner to create humor, aiming to make the audience look for implicature. It was also found that the maxims of quantity and quality were the most flouted. The comedians flouted the maxim of quantity by being regularly either less or more informative than required. They also flouted the maxim of quality by telling obvious lies and exaggeration. The study also revealed that the Jordanian comedians in N2O create the audience's laughter by using satire, pun, exaggeration and mocking to flout Grice maxims of conversation while addressing different social practices or phenomena, such as the high increase in prices, addiction to the internet and Jordanians' ignorance of some social issues.
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign la... more This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined which metadiscourse markersinteractive or interactional-were used more frequently and how they were employed in an EFL context. It explored two interactive metadiscourse resources (code glosses and evidentials) and two interactional metadiscourse resources (attitude and engagement markers). The study utilized a mixed-method approach, using Hyland's (2004) two-componential taxonomy, to analyze a corpus of 303,148 words from 35 online lectures (90 minutes each) delivered by three university instructors in the UAE. The Mann-Whitney U test was employed to determine any significant differences in the use of these resources and their subcategories. The results revealed that the three instructors used more interactional than interactive resources. The qualitative analysis showed that code glosses and evidentials were primarily used to manage the flow of information, provide elaboration on propositional content, and provide evidence to support arguments. They were also employed to achieve cohesion and logical coherence in online classrooms. In contrast, attitude and engagement markers were used to engage students and signal the instructors' attitudes toward their material and audience. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for EFL instructors, students, and syllabus designers to foster social justice and fairness in the online learning environment, ensuring all students feel valued and empowered in their educational journey.
This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian a... more This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian and Algerian Arabic. It also investigates the effect of social status on the choice of disagreement strategies adopting Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. To achieve these objectives, 40 participants (20 Jordanians and 20 Algerians) were randomly recruited to respond to a discourse completion task (DCT). The participants were requested to read six situations and to react to them by making disagreements with people of higher, equal and lower statuses. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse the data. The results showed that the participants in the two study groups share similar preferences in the use of two main disagreement strategies that scored the highest in High to Low, Low to High, and in Equal statuses. The findings are discussed in the light of (im)politeness and provide implications for socio-pragmatic research in Arabic linguistics.
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
International Journal of Intercultural Communication , 2024
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
International journal of Arabic-English studies, Jun 20, 2023
This study investigates the role of gender on EFL Learners' output of discourse functions obtaine... more This study investigates the role of gender on EFL Learners' output of discourse functions obtained from computer-mediated communications (CMC) via Skype. The study seeks to answer the question: Are there any statistically significant differences among the total means of discourse functions generated by gender groups (same-gender (male-male (MM), and female-female (FF)) and mixed-gender (female-male (FM), and male-female (MF)))? Sixty-four undergraduates (32 females and 32 males) participated in the study. They were assigned into two gender main groups: same-gender (MM: 16 males who chatted in pair groups with each other; FF: 16 females who chatted in pairs with each other) and mixed-gender groups (32 participants (16 females chatting with 16 males in pairs, MF (males' output) and FM (females' output)). Participants were asked to chat in pairs for an hour. Results revealed that FF group produced significantly more discourse functions than all the other gender groups, by having the highest total mean.
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), 2025
This study explores the influence of gender and social status on advice-giving strategies in Alge... more This study explores the influence of gender and social status on advice-giving strategies in Algerian Arabic. The study involved 50 native Algerian Arabic speakers (25 males and 25 females) who completed a Discourse Completion Task. This task, designed to measure the gender and social status variables, presented three types of advice-giving situations: high-to-low, low-to-high, and equal social power. Hinkel's (1997) taxonomy was used to categorize advice-giving strategies as direct, hedged, or indirect. The study's key finding was that male and female Algerians tend to give direct advice, particularly imperatives, regardless of the advisee's social status. This suggests that Algerians perceive advice-giving as a cooperative and supportive act that does not require mitigation or implication. Importantly, these findings have practical implications. They can help individuals and organizations avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings with Algerians. In cultures where advice-giving may be perceived as threatening one's freedom of action, logical thinking ability, and world knowledge, Algerians may be misunderstood as impolite and overly assertive despite their well-intentioned advice.
Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 2024
This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It a... more This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It also explores how gender influences the use of these strategies. The data were collected from 100 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic using a DCT. The mixed method analysis revealed that the participants employed bald on record, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness, off record, and not doing the face-threating act (FTA) strategies for expressing reprimand in SJA. It was found that the participants exhibited a preference for bald on record expressions to make reprimands. The results also showed that female participants employed various strategies when reprimanding in different situations compared to males who reprimanded directly irrespective of the domain of language use. In spite of the apparent inclination to go on record when reprimanding, the participants were found to be aware of the importance of employing positive and negative politeness strategies when performing this speech act.
Comprehension of conversational implicature, a crucial component of pragmatics, is vital for effe... more Comprehension of conversational implicature, a crucial component of pragmatics, is vital for effective communication, specifically in translation between languages with distinct linguistic and cultural structures. This dimension of pragmatic competence, which involves understanding the implied meaning, has been largely ignored in education settings, particularly for Arabic-speaking EFL learners. This study analyzes the implicature translation of 30 senior students majoring in English Language and Literature at a university in the United Arab Emirates. The participants were asked to complete an online test administered by the researchers to translate into Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) contextualized conversational implicatures created by the characters of the American sitcom Seinfeld. The results indicated that the participants used different translation strategies: wordfor-word translation, literal translation, idiomatic translation, faithful translation, and free translation. The translation strategy used solely depended on the participants' comprehension of implicature, which could be attributed to their level of proficiency in the language. It was particularly interesting that a positive relationship existed between the understanding of implicatures as a reflection of pragmatic competence and the quality of their translations. This suggests that identification and interpretation of conversational implicatures should be part of the training of Arabic-speaking EFL learners. Better pragmatic competence, therefore, could enhance the students' translation accuracy. Implications of such findings indicate requisite instructional approaches that incorporate pragmatic awareness in translation training programs among Arab EFL learners.
This study explores the important role of ideology in the translation process, highlighting the p... more This study explores the important role of ideology in the translation process, highlighting the perspective of culture that translation studies have embraced in recent years to unveil how ideology interplays and influences the decisions of the translator. This paper focuses on the Arabic translation of Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn', using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an assisting analytical model. The main focus of the study was on the lexical choices used in the translation, highlighting how meanings are manipulated. A qualitative methodology was used in view of the depth of insight into the translation practices employed. The underlying ideology was revealed using a quantitative analysis of 60 instances. Scrutiny of Mahir's translation revealed that ideological influences could pretty much change the text meaning. In a few cases, the translation was adapted to comply with the cultural expectations of the target language addressee. The outcomes imply that the translator manipulated the Arabic version of the novel by introducing distortion, over-lexicalization, under-lexicalization, euphemisms, addition, and ideologically charged language. In other words, this is the translation that Nassim is giving to sound with the preferential, tasteful, valuable, and belief-based elements of the Arab readership.
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2024
The speeches delivered by Former U.S. President Donald Trump during his last presidential campaig... more The speeches delivered by Former U.S. President Donald Trump during his last presidential campaign (2015–2016) included hateful remarks against Muslims and immigrants. This study explored strategies of hate speech used in Trump’s political discourse against out-groups. The data consisted of a corpus of Trump’s speeches and interviews. Our analysis was based on Whillock’s [48] criteria of hate speech and Erjavec and Kovačič’s [13] strategies of hate speech. The results revealed that Trump employed re-articulation of meaning and renaming by attributing any problem to immigrants and Muslims to express hatred against them, using direct hatred words. His overt use of hate speech strategies stemmed from his legitimate power and social authority as a successful businessman in his field.
This study explored the compliment response (CR) strategies used by Emirati Arabic speakers. In a... more This study explored the compliment response (CR) strategies used by Emirati Arabic speakers. In addition, the study analysed the role of gender and the degree of formality in the use of CR strategies in this Arabic dialect. To this end, the study recruited 56 (28 males and 28 females) undergraduate students from the University of Sharjah (UAE). A written discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of 10 (five formal and five informal) scenarios was used to elicit CRs from the participants. The results showed that the Emiratis’ most frequently used major strategy is the Acceptance strategy, with Returning the Compliment and Expressing Gratitude being the most used sub-strategies and Agreeing and Encouraging being the least frequently used. The study shows that variations in the construction and realisation of speech acts exist due to gender and degree of formality. In particular, although both genders made use of the same major strategy, they showed differences in the use of the sub-strategies according to the (in)formality of the situation.
This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection ... more This article analyzes the translation of Key-Phrase (KP) allusions in the short story collection “al-‘Abarāt” by Al-Manfaluti from Arabic to English. More specifically, it looks into how the translator handled the complexity that arises from the highly intertextual and dialogical nature of Al-Manfaluti’s work. Drawing on Leppihalme’s (1997) categorization of allusions and Venuti’s (2009) approach to the translation of intertextuality, this research maps the translation strategies that the translator employed and their effectiveness in the course of reconstituting source text intertextuality in the target language. The results showed that, by and large, the translator very often employed a literal translation strategy by focusing on semantic correspondence. Such an approach produced a translation that failed to capture the rich intertextual relations in Al-Manfaluti’s original, leading to much cultural and thematic loss. The article concludes that a hermeneutic rather than an instrumental approach would be more effective at preserving the intertextual richness of source texts.
The speech act of political self-praise has received scant attention in East Asian contexts, unli... more The speech act of political self-praise has received scant attention in East Asian contexts, unlike other speech acts. This study aims to explore the strategies of self-praise used by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The 2016 US presidential debates were analysed quantitatively to examine if there are any differences in using self-praise strategies. This was followed by a qualitative analysis to explore how these strategies are linguistically realised. Three main self-praise strategies were used: unmodified explicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise and indirect self-praise. Within the third category, the data revealed a new self-praise strategy, which we called "criticism-based self-praise". Moreover, the findings highlighted differences in using self-praise strategies in American political discourse. While Trump employed unmodified explicit self-praise more than his opponent, Clinton used modified explicit self-praise strategies far more than Trump. Trump, however, adopted implicit self-praise strategies more than Clinton. Differences could be attributed to gender stereotypes as well as the candidates' experience and personality. The study may help East Asian people better understand American political discourse, presidential debates in particular.
Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures , 2024
This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It a... more This study presents an exploration of reprimand strategies in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). It also explores how gender influences the use of these strategies. The data were collected from 100 Jordanian native speakers of Arabic using a DCT. The mixed method analysis revealed that the participants employed bald on record, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness, off record, and not doing the face-threating act (FTA (strategies for expressing reprimand in SJA. It was found that the participants exhibited a preference for bald on record expressions to make reprimands. The results also showed that female participants employed various strategies when reprimanding in different situations compared to males who reprimanded directly irrespective of the domain of language use. In spite of the apparent inclination to go on record when reprimanding, the participants were found to be aware of the importance of employing positive and negative politeness strategies when performing this speech act.
Journal of applied learning and teaching, Mar 14, 2024
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jun 30, 2022
This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian a... more This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian and Algerian Arabic. It also investigates the effect of social status on the choice of disagreement strategies adopting Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. To achieve these objectives, 40 participants (20 Jordanians and 20 Algerians) were randomly recruited to respond to a discourse completion task (DCT). The participants were requested to read six situations and to react to them by making disagreements with people of higher, equal and lower statuses. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse the data. The results showed that the participants in the two study groups share similar preferences in the use of two main disagreement strategies that scored the highest in High to Low, Low to High, and in Equal statuses. The findings are discussed in the light of (im)politeness and provide implications for socio-pragmatic research in Arabic linguistics.
Journal of intercultural communication, Jun 10, 2024
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
This study examines verbal humor in the Jordanian stand-up comedy show N2O. It identifies and ana... more This study examines verbal humor in the Jordanian stand-up comedy show N2O. It identifies and analyzes how conversational maxims are flouted to create humor. To achieve this aim, 60 seven-minute episodes were taken from the channel of the show. The study showed that comedians flouted the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance and manner to create humor, aiming to make the audience look for implicature. It was also found that the maxims of quantity and quality were the most flouted. The comedians flouted the maxim of quantity by being regularly either less or more informative than required. They also flouted the maxim of quality by telling obvious lies and exaggeration. The study also revealed that the Jordanian comedians in N2O create the audience's laughter by using satire, pun, exaggeration and mocking to flout Grice maxims of conversation while addressing different social practices or phenomena, such as the high increase in prices, addiction to the internet and Jordanians' ignorance of some social issues.
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign la... more This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined which metadiscourse markersinteractive or interactional-were used more frequently and how they were employed in an EFL context. It explored two interactive metadiscourse resources (code glosses and evidentials) and two interactional metadiscourse resources (attitude and engagement markers). The study utilized a mixed-method approach, using Hyland's (2004) two-componential taxonomy, to analyze a corpus of 303,148 words from 35 online lectures (90 minutes each) delivered by three university instructors in the UAE. The Mann-Whitney U test was employed to determine any significant differences in the use of these resources and their subcategories. The results revealed that the three instructors used more interactional than interactive resources. The qualitative analysis showed that code glosses and evidentials were primarily used to manage the flow of information, provide elaboration on propositional content, and provide evidence to support arguments. They were also employed to achieve cohesion and logical coherence in online classrooms. In contrast, attitude and engagement markers were used to engage students and signal the instructors' attitudes toward their material and audience. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for EFL instructors, students, and syllabus designers to foster social justice and fairness in the online learning environment, ensuring all students feel valued and empowered in their educational journey.
This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian a... more This study aims to explore the use of disagreement strategies in two Arabic dialects: Jordanian and Algerian Arabic. It also investigates the effect of social status on the choice of disagreement strategies adopting Muntigl and Turnbull's (1998) taxonomy. To achieve these objectives, 40 participants (20 Jordanians and 20 Algerians) were randomly recruited to respond to a discourse completion task (DCT). The participants were requested to read six situations and to react to them by making disagreements with people of higher, equal and lower statuses. A mixed-method approach was used to analyse the data. The results showed that the participants in the two study groups share similar preferences in the use of two main disagreement strategies that scored the highest in High to Low, Low to High, and in Equal statuses. The findings are discussed in the light of (im)politeness and provide implications for socio-pragmatic research in Arabic linguistics.
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
International Journal of Intercultural Communication , 2024
This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market p... more This study examines the employment of persuasive strategies in informational emails that market products and/or services, illustrating how these strategies influence target customers and persuade them to make purchases. A corpus of 850 emails, encompassing over a million words, was compiled and analyzed using a mixed-method approach that integrated both quantitative and qualitative measures. The emails were collected between 2020 and 2021. The categorization of persuasive strategies was directed by predefined operational definitions and criteria, informed by Aristotle's model of persuasion. The analysis identified 11 persuasive strategies utilized within the email corpus. Notably, the findings revealed that the offering appeal and the appeal to authority are the most commonly used strategies, whereas the contrasting appeal and romantic expressions are the least employed. These results underscore the importance of persuasive strategies in business communication, especially within informational emails. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for businesses in crafting compelling marketing messages. Furthermore, the findings contribute to English for Business Purposes courses, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, by offering guidance on constructing persuasive business emails.
International journal of Arabic-English studies, Jun 20, 2023
This study investigates the role of gender on EFL Learners' output of discourse functions obtaine... more This study investigates the role of gender on EFL Learners' output of discourse functions obtained from computer-mediated communications (CMC) via Skype. The study seeks to answer the question: Are there any statistically significant differences among the total means of discourse functions generated by gender groups (same-gender (male-male (MM), and female-female (FF)) and mixed-gender (female-male (FM), and male-female (MF)))? Sixty-four undergraduates (32 females and 32 males) participated in the study. They were assigned into two gender main groups: same-gender (MM: 16 males who chatted in pair groups with each other; FF: 16 females who chatted in pairs with each other) and mixed-gender groups (32 participants (16 females chatting with 16 males in pairs, MF (males' output) and FM (females' output)). Participants were asked to chat in pairs for an hour. Results revealed that FF group produced significantly more discourse functions than all the other gender groups, by having the highest total mean.
The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changin... more The debate on online and traditional classroom methods has gained traction in the rapidly changing world of education. This is especially true when discussing elements that are critical to the learning process, such as student motivation and self-confidence. Our research examined these components in great detail in the context of a speaking course to learn German as a foreign language. Thirty-three students made up the sample. They were divided into two groups: one that took part in traditional classroom discussions (which served as the control group) and another that experimented with discussions in the Gather.town online community. The first of our study's two goals was to determine whether the students' self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation had changed significantly after six weeks of discussion. Secondly, we were interested in determining which medium-face-to-face or online-had a stronger influence on fostering these essential educational traits. We used surveys that were distributed at the start and end of the six-week study window to gather our findings. The findings of our study were compelling. Compared to their peers in the traditional classroom environment, students who used Gather.town as their discussion platform displayed a more pronounced increase in both motivation and self-efficacy. This highlights the burgeoning potential of online learning environments like Gather.town in the modern educational landscape and suggests the benefits of incorporating such cutting-edge tools to increase student motivation and confidence.
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Papers by Ghaleb Rababah